The Future of Starcraft

[Nissa]

Okay, so I was thinking about it, and while we all have forty bajillion ideas on what we would have done with Starcraft, what's done is done. So, let's hear predictions: where is Starcraft going to go from here?

I predict that once LotV is out, Blizz will pretty much ignore Starcraft for another ten or more years. Fan demand, now diminished, will not insist on a sequel. The franchise will only be picked up again if someone in Blizz wants to make a personal project out of it, or if technology makes a sudden leap again that results in new gameplay opportunities.

What startled me about Heroes of the Storm's unit quotes was how many of them sounded self-aware about the flaws of SC2, so if I'm wrong, probably what will happen to Starcraft is something goofy.

[Drake Clawfang]

I suspect any future games for the series will prominently involve the UED's return. Now there's a climactic mission; invade Earth and destroy the UED headquarters.

A character arc I think would be cool for Valerian is if he begins the slide to despot, but is oblivious to it. He honestly and truly thinks he's still a good guy and making good choices for good reasons, but is turning into Arcturus 2.0.

Beyond that, it can't be judged until SC2 ends. For all we know LotV ends with the Zerg and Protoss eradicated.

[TheEconomist]

It's dead to me either way. Each additional scifi book I read weakens the interest I have in it further. That's to say nothing of Blizzard themselves with Whispers of Oblivion.

But, I agree with Nissa, they'll wait a long time to do a sequel. Maybe a future, post-"crash" Blizzard get back to what made the company great and we can get excited about StarCraft III again, but, until then ... RIP

As for the lore, the only thing I can think of that we're not so sure about is an additional race. They should probably start working on introducing a fourth race of StarCraft III so I'm sure there'll be some Purifier or Hybrid stuff starting.

[Gradius]

It's dead to me either way. Each additional scifi book I read weakens the interest I have in it further. That's to say nothing of Blizzard themselves with Whispers of Oblivion.

But, I agree with Nissa, they'll wait a long time to do a sequel. Maybe a future, post-"crash" Blizzard get back to what made the company great and we can get excited about StarCraft III again, but, until then ... RIP

This. I will perhaps pursue mapping with other RTS games, but that's about it.

[Nissa]

Yeah, and Econ graces us with his wisdom. Probably right. I'll probably finish my fanfiction about meeting Aldaris in real life, and use that story to engineer SC to my own views, for my own personal happiness.

Y'know, that was the real gem of SC1 storytelling. It was jumpy because of the talking heads and almost no storytelling apart from whatever they could cram into the mission or briefing. That left so much to player imagination, and our imaginations made it so much of what the story was.

[Turalyon]

So, let's hear predictions: where is Starcraft going to go from here?

Probably more books? Not that I care, not having read any of them before anyways.

I'm just going to be cynical and say that when Sc3 does come, storywise it's either gonna be more, but new, inane stuff happening (oh look, some other threat) or just retreading and aping past things (like UED). People won't notice either immediately because it'll be flashy and distracting at first (like how Sc2 was).

[KaiserStratosTygo]

Okay, so I was thinking about it, and while we all have forty bajillion ideas on what we would have done with Starcraft, what's done is done. So, let's hear predictions: where is Starcraft going to go from here?

I predict that once LotV is out, Blizz will pretty much ignore Starcraft for another ten or more years. Fan demand, now diminished, will not insist on a sequel. The franchise will only be picked up again if someone in Blizz wants to make a personal project out of it, or if technology makes a sudden leap again that results in new gameplay opportunities.

What startled me about Heroes of the Storm's unit quotes was how many of them sounded self-aware about the flaws of SC2, so if I'm wrong, probably what will happen to Starcraft is something goofy.

" where is Starcraft going to go from here?"

The toilet I Imagine :/

[sandwich_bird]

They might make a spin-off.. I'd buy a third/first person SC shooter(rip SC:G)... But, otherwise, I really don't think we'll see much from SC in a while. I wouldn't be surprised if SC3 is some kind of mp only f2p game. I mean, sc2 is already half f2p. I guess they would release stories as episodic DLC's or whatever. One 10$ mission every month.

That's what I suspect anyways. My wishlist(aka ''it will never happen'') for sc3 would include the following:

-Reboot the series with actual good sci-fi writers and write a mature story; not a Saturday morning cartoon.
-Remove the dumb WarCraft art style and return to the gritty style(screw you Samwise).
-FORGET ABOUT THE DUMB PRO-SCENE
-Completely remake the gameplay to be less about APM and more about grand scale strategy(I'm thinking Planetary Annihilation scale.. yes, PA is meh but the scale is amazing)
-Allow the ability to jump in 3rd person mode for some missions(like this game is doing).

[TheEconomist]

FORGET ABOUT THE DUMB PRO-SCENE

We don't take kindly to your sort around here.

[sandwich_bird]

We don't take kindly to your sort around here.

But... I thought this forum was all like "lore > mp"!

Joke's aside; I don't see any way that blizz would ever be able to make starcraft the #1 esport game again. They can mostly thank PC Bangs for the success of BW. There's a reason why DOTA and LoL are at the top and it's because they're accessible. RTS by definition are not accessible and when you try to make them accessible you end up with C&C4. With that said, might as well not focus on trying to make SC3 an esport game.