What happened to the innovation?

Perhaps it's a bit late for this now, but it's something I just think needs to be addressed.

At what point did the SC community, and more importantly the developers, become so adverse to innovation? Because if you really think about it, there isn't much innovation to be found in the current build of SC2, especially compared to earlier Blizzard games. Updating the interface be more user-friendly or making non-idiotic unit pathing don't really count, that's something you expect from RTS games. And while new units and abilities have changed certain dynamics, the core concepts remain utterly unchanged from over a decade ago. Even then, some of the new items introduced aren't exactly...inspiring. "Hey, let's take a Scourge and remove his wings!" or "Let's have the player click a button every 25 seconds!"

For example, consider terrain. There is nothing stopping Blizzard from using their technology to do some really cool, interesting and engaging things with designing their maps. And yet we see the exact same "cliffs and ramps" scheme for all their multiplayer maps. Barring a few new doodads you could pretty much retain through liberal use of the world editor, there isn't a map yet that you couldn't recreate for the original game.

That wasn't the case when it originally came out. People then were worried about it not being the same as WCII, like the addition of a third race or lack of naval units, and look how things turned out. And it wasn't the case when WCIII came out when it introduced new ideas to its franchise, yet still became a huge success (cue rabid frothing fanboys screaming "no heroes in SCII!!111"). So why should attempts at breathing some new life into StarCraft be met with rebuttals of "No that's too different from the original!"?

Personally, it seems to be a combination of three things. The first obviously is nostalgia, which doesn't really require much explanation. The second is the culture that has permeated parts of the community itself. StarCraft was a great game. StarCraft definitely belongs on any list of great computer games in modern history, at the very least in the top 10. StarCraft was not a perfect game. It was not the be-all, end-all in terms of RTS games. There will come better games, and they will not look like carbon copies of StarCraft, or even close to the original. To quip "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is to surrender your creativity, and that of Blizzard's, to set in stone a system that could be made better if only the thought was put into it. Or an admission that Blizzard simply doesn't have the intelligence to innovate anymore, and should simply stick to what it's done in the past, whether good or ill.

The last I regard as the effect "eSports" and "professionals" has had on the game. These are people who have invested significant time into mastering every little glitch and trick of the original, who have memorized build orders and timed themselves on how quickly they can get them going, who have a vested financial interest in making the transition from SC to SCII as painless as possible so that their well-worn skills will allow them to remain at the top of the game. Hence ideas that could genuinely make SCII a great game are discarded because they could "negatively effect the competitive scene." Even though the "competitive scene" is so infinitesimally small compared to the vast majority of people who will buy the game because they want to have fun, not increase their APM count. It is a case of Blizzard appealing to the minority, based mostly on financial gains from the "eSports" arena, at the expense of everyone else.

Now if you honestly think that StarCraft is God's Gift to Man, that's your pejorative. However, Blizzard isn't going to force you to turn in your original when you buy the sequel. Hell, I'll put money on there being a UMS within six months that pretty much replicates "StarCraft in 3D", even going to far as to gimp things like unit pathing to get the original feel back if they can. Ideally though, the sequel should have been the time when you put on your thinking caps and ponder how to breath freshness into your franchise, what new ideas to incorporate and expand upon. It shouldn't have been a case of deciding which new coat of paint to put on your '98 Corvette so that it looks newish. Which unfortunately is how it looks like it's going to turn out.

You make some very good points, and while I can't comment extensively I'm reminded of a comment made recently by Browder, commenting on the high-speed pace of the game catering to the players of SC/BW, and not having just a little impact from the eSports community and competitive players.

Ultimately, in some ways, I'm disappointed by SC2 because, as you said, innovation seems minimal. I mean yeah, we have some new mechanics, but somehow that isn't enough for me. In essence I see news units, new maps, same game. If I wanted to play the same old thing, I'd stick with BroodWar. If I wanted the updated graphics, I'd get the WarCraft adaptation. I want a real sequel.

I've had this conversation with other developers in other game companies and I've come to one conclusion.

The scope of the project was to be "true enough to the original while introducing something new" and in that term, it limits innovation by design. Now, while some in the industry use the phrase "If you're not innovating, your stagnating" I personally believe that the innovation lies elsewhere.

Now granted, don't get me wrong, this isn't to justify or explain one way or another, but I believe they've worked to innovate the online expirience/competition, map design and later on I bet we'll see it as a new approach to eSports. There will certainly be innovation regarding the singleplayer campaign compared to the previous ones.

Will this be what the public truly wants? Who's to say, this is a situation that many times wins or loses players. What matters is if the game is fun and enjoyable. Again, a subjective question but all of this digresses from the ultimate fact that I don't think there's an overabundant amount of innovation in the multi-player game compared to the original by the demands of this being an eSports anomaly. If you take a real live sport and try to make a 2.0, it typically doesn't work too well on average when you innovate. Take the NFL/XFL situation. They tried to "innovate it" and frankly the lasting effect was short lived. You take other successful games sequels of games in the eSports arena, such as Counterstrike, and typically there are improvements but not major innovations.

When we get to see the full product, I think this will be the best time to consider where the innovation lies.


(Random note: While I am VERY satisfied with SC2, I still have to agree that the innovation in the multiplayer aspect is not present like other aspects of the product. Consider diablo -> Diablo 2, Warcraft 1 -> Warcraft 2 -> Warcraft 3, you will see significant innovative changes between them. This isn't present in SC2 the multiplayer expirience in quite the same fashion, but the final product will shine it's innnovation in other ways, especially battle.net. That's my prediction...

Did we miss that they totally revamped macro?

I think the one thing that SC2 has going for it in innovation is the map editor. That thing is going to open so many possibilities for modders. I look at StarCraft II as the RTS equivalent to Half-life 2. Half-life 2 didn't really innovate anything, but a few awesome tweaks (like the gravity gun), the polish and storytelling, and the moddability of the game is why it was so well received.

The game isn't meant to innovate much further than that, and I like it that way. I'm just looking for a solid game I'm going to get another 12 years out of.

I'm disappointed with the multiplayer. We could have more exciting map features. We could have really new units with new spells. I understand and agree that SC2 needs certain things to stay true to the franchise and gameplay, but there's simply too much that's the same.

Simply put, we need more stuff the quality of warp-in.

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Originally Posted by ArcherofAiur

Did we miss that they totally revamped macro?

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Updating the UI to conform to industry standards and expectations every other RTS has put in place isn't innovation. The only new thing Blizzard did is give each race an APM sink.

I tend to agree with you, but the problem is that Blizzard decided when they started to develop SC2 that they wanted it to be a popular, competitive game that really takes E-Sports to a whole new level. They saw what Starcraft had become over the years, and wanted to take that into a new age with Starcraft 2.

As Gifted pointed out, there's such an aura of "sacredness" surrounding SC1 that it would have been very difficult for Blizzard to make huge "innovative" changes to the core game design and still successfully pull off that transition. Although the "E-Sports" crowd is by far the minority (though much less so in Korea), Blizzard needs the support of that minority in order to legitimize SC2 as a competitive game.

What we can hope for is that Blizzard will introduce more innovation to the core gameplay with the release of the next two installments (expansion packs) of the game. Once SC2 is firmly established in the competitive scene, it may be easier for them to make bigger changes.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Simply put, we need more stuff the quality of warp-in.

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Yet warp-in, from what I've gathered, is one of the bigger balance issues currently affecting the game. Big, innovative stuff like that is difficult to implement without significantly altering the competitive balance of the game, especially when they're trying to keep most of the rest of the game more or less the same as before. I agree that it would be nice if there were more things of the quality of warp-in incorporated into SC2, but I can understand to a certain extent why Blizzard didn't go that route.

I am definitely concerned about the map design so far, however. There's not a lot of variation between the maps and they haven't incorporated as many new or interesting features as they could have. Adding new elements to map design should in some ways be easier than making large changes to the races themselves because all of the races have to play on the same maps, though new elements might effect each race differently.

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Originally Posted by ArcherofAiur

Did we miss that they totally revamped macro?

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Yes, that's for people who follow it. But think about it this way. If a boy who has never played the original starcraft plays this one, they won't look at it as innovative but rather improved. Innovation isn't about changing specific aspects. For example, WC2 -> WC3 involved the introduction of Heroes, leveling and creeping. While many don't look at this as a good or bad thing, it was innovative. While there are aspects of SC2's multiplayer that is indeed different, the majority of the masses who don't truly understand SC2's design will view it as "Mass units and attack".

Will they get the whole strategical aspects regarding it and how it's delicate counters work together? Probably not... unless the challenge mode is innovative as well, which isn't visible to us yet.

I can tell you multiple people who didn't play SC often came to this game and said "It's like I'm playing an improved SC2". Those are the general masses, the ones who don't know websites like this exist, the ones who don't know that Korean eSports stars have their face plastered on Lay's potato chips over there, those who won't really view this game that much differently than C&C 4.

If you ask the same of a person who played Dawn of War 1 -> 2, you'll realize that they took out base building COMPLETELY. That's innovative.

What's important to remember is that while some view a lack of innovation as a bad thing, in this case, it's can be a good thing, as too much innovation could have destroyed much of the intricate aspects that people love about StarCraft gameplay.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Updating the UI to conform to industry standards and expectations every other RTS has put in place isn't innovation. The only new thing Blizzard did is give each race an APM sink.

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Call them APM sinks if you want. Blizzard took on a problem RTS games have had since the begining with impressive results.

I still want to remind people, the final product is what should be deemed as "innovative" and not merely a small facet of it, such as Multiplayer.

Here's a question, do you consider the division/league system innovative? Do you consider a conversion of an RTS map making system and converting it to a full game engine innovative (Instead of an FPS engine)? Single Player? eSports integration?

Much of these things, unfortunately, we don't know the facts to yet other than Leagues... and my personal opinion is that it's VERY innovative. I don't mind if people disagree with me, but I feel that no other game has attempted leagues in this nature.