What happened to the innovation?

[pure.Wasted]

What the hell? I already gave you examples in a previous post. CoH has bridges. SC1 has ramps and high/low ground. If you what you really mean is "RTS game that has all of these things at once", then no such game exists.

...actually scratch that. I'm wrong.

Wait a minute, actually one does exist. It's called Starcraft 2.

I'm going to make this as explicit as I possibly can, OK?

Player-created ramps. Player-destructible ramps. Player-created bridges. Player-destructible bridges. Player-created line of sight blockers. Player-destructible line of sight blockers. Player-created high ground. Player-destructible high ground.

Get the picture yet? Are you starting to understand just now how crazy that would be? Yeah. Pretty much as crazy as three completely unique races was in 1998. Why is it that the only people that happen to be passionately against innovation in SC2 are the same ones that can't read worth a damn? How was "in-game map-redesign" 20 posts ago not clear enough?

[Moradon]

I'm going to make this as explicit as I possibly can, OK?

Player-created ramps. Player-destructible ramps. Player-created bridges. Player-destructible bridges. Player-created line of sight blockers. Player-destructible line of sight blockers. Player-created high ground. Player-destructible high ground.

Get the picture yet? Are you starting to understand just now how crazy that would be? Yeah. Pretty much as crazy as three completely unique races was in 1998. Why is it that the only people that happen to be passionately against innovation in SC2 are the same ones that can't read worth a damn?

We can all read your posts clearly enough. It's just that you're trying to define innovation as something that applies to things you agree with. You yourself demanded us to provide examples of games with bridges/ramps/LoS blockers and what not, and we gave you them. Now you're basically just backtracking and turning it into "it's not innovative because it's not as innovative as I want it to be".

Sorry, but it's not going to work like that. We ALL have our own little requests and desires for SC2, but not all of them are going to happen. If I want Blizzard to add something, then I'll simply suggest it, but I'm not going to pretend that my definition of innovation is somehow more important than anyone else's and act like a game has no innovation just because it doesn't fit into my specific standards.

You want player-created terrain changes? You got them in the form of things like creep tumor. You want more than that? Then keep your fingers crossed, but stop this innovation crap. It's unnecessary and pointless to argue about because innovation is subjective as hell.

[Shadow Archon]

@pure.Wasted, How would your idea be implemented? Would it be a button called "Terrain buildings" right by advanced buildings on the Workers control pad? Would it still have the limitations of pylon power and creep? How much would they cost? How much Health and armor would they have? Would this also include walls for fortification?(That is what I think Player created High Ground would be mostly used for.) If units were on these player created terrain while it was destroyed, would it instantly destroy the units?

Mainly, I'm asking this, because your idea sounds fucking awesome.

[Gifted]

He wasn't giving a position I could argue with. An analogy would be like if we were to argue whether Pope benedict was good or bad, when he holds the belief that all people governing the church are chosen by god, and thus, must be good.

If he holds that innovation, regardless of reason, is an intrinsic good, how can I say that innovation isn't good in starcraft?

I understand that you answered the "opinion" angle.. but the question was why did you feel the need to have an argumentative tone to your posts?

[pure.Wasted]

We can all read your posts clearly enough. It's just that you're trying to define innovation as something that applies to things you agree with. You yourself demanded us to provide examples of games with bridges/ramps/LoS blockers and what not, and we gave you them. Now you're basically just backtracking and turning it into "it's not innovative because it's not as innovative as I want it to be".

It is widely accepted by the majority of gamers and the majority of critics in the industry that StarCraft pioneered the idea of different races with different units. Were they the first? No. Dune 2 beat them to the punch. No one cares. SC still gets its credit because what it did was take a TINY idea and rework it in a MAJOR way. Forget credit. SC genuinely benefitted from the change.

I'm taking a TINY idea (destructible bridges in single player campaign) and reworking it in a MAJOR way (many here have admitted that this would "change core SC gameplay." I don't think anyone honestly believes that destructible rocks changed core SC gameplay, and they are pretty much the exact same thing as WC3's destructible bridges).

Sorry, but it's not going to work like that. We ALL have our own little requests and desires for SC2, but not all of them are going to happen. If I want Blizzard to add something, then I'll simply suggest it, but I'm not going to pretend that my definition of innovation is somehow more important than anyone else's and act like a game has no innovation just because it doesn't fit into my specific standards.

You want player-created terrain changes? You got them in the form of things like creep tumor. You want more than that? Then keep your fingers crossed, but stop this innovation crap. It's unnecessary and pointless to argue about because innovation is subjective as hell.

I don't CARE about destructible bridges or player-created terrain changes. That was one of THREE suggestions, all made up on the spot, for things Blizzard COULD have done. Only to show that it's very, very easy to think of these things, which at that point in the thread the "anti-innovators" were saying was not the case, and actually accused me (and others) of failing to provide any examples that would have satisfied our conditions.

What I wanted was something. If that turned out to be player-created terrain changes, fine. If not, fine. We got nothing. And the funny thing? Nicol said the same thing before we got to post #200 with his argument about new Marines. You guys just keep going in circles and then acting surprised when we arrive at this conclusion.

100 pages from now, someone's going to be shocked that we wanted the game to do something differently, even though we don't really care what as long as it's true to StarCraft's competitive nature. Just watch.

[newcomplex]

You might have missed it, but at this point in the thread we're actually all just about in agreement that SC1 innovated completely unique races. Proving, once again, that you do not read the posts in the discussion (posts ~#240-252). I'm sorry, NC, that's just one misunderstanding too many. If you can't do me the simple courtesy of taking the time to read my posts, I'm not going to take the time to respond to yours. There's just nothing in it for me other than frustration.

Yes, I know full well that you had tried to prove SC1 was innovative. Am I NOT allowed to disagree?

And it is because I know your argument, that I can say it is wrong in every way.

Tone Rebellion-Almost completely Different units, four races
War Wind 2-Different units, two races.
Dominion over Storm gift 3-Different units, four races

Do I need to write you a catalogue? Starcraft is a footnote in terms of innovation. The year we had Starcraft release, we had a game released as a strategy game where you can control tanks in first person and purchase upgrades with experience or expand the tech tree with that experience

That game sucked!

Earth 2150 pioneered destructible terrain to the point where you could BUILD TUNNELS, and you can PUT YOUR UNITS IN THE TUNNELS, then you can DIG A TUNNEL INTO YOUR OPPONENTS BASE.

THIS GAME WAS MADE IN 1999.

(the only thing that game missed was buildable LOS blockers. OH NOES)

Warcraft 2 was obsolete in EVERY WAY when WC3 was sleighted to come out. Are you seriously trying to argue if a game with parallel sides and no additional features other then micro would have made it in 03? That is an ABSURD argument. Even if we look competitively, then Red Alert 2 would have trumped it.

Stop talking about a history of gaming that you know nothing about. its just fucking absurd.


And no, that isn't the point of the thread. The point of the thread was.

What happened to the innovation

SC1 innovating was a blatantly wrong assertion used to justify a undefendable point.

No, "in-game terrain modifications including bridges, ramps, line of sight blockers, and artificial high/low/ground" do not exist in StarCraft. No, these things do not exist anywhere else. I just covered this same freaking ground with Moradon for about 20 posts, and he failed to produce a single game that came anywhere NEAR what I'm talking about. If you had read my posts, you would already know that I've asked numerous times to be proven wrong, and have seen nothing. If you'd read my posts, you'd know how irritated I was by these vague "these games exist" statements, and would have started off with specific examples instead of generalities.

I came in this thread accusing you of not reading peoples' posts. All you've done so far is proven me right on numerous occasions. I am genuinely, honestly offended by this preventable waste of my time.

All you've done is proven your very adept at making incredibly broad statements with no factual merit, then claim that people who don't agree with you are incapable of reading.

If we've succeeded, we've created a game that is both true to SC and brings something brand-new for the franchise, and the RTS genre at large. It will go down in history as one of the most influential RTS games of all time for its gameplay.

If we've failed, we have a 'failed' experiment not far from what we got with WarCraft 3 (except take out all the randomness gibberish, and the game actually becomes playable competitively).

Yes, it's a risk. Just like SC1 was a risk. But risks pay off big. SC2 should have been an opportunity to challenge themselves, THE game that Blizzard has been getting itself ready to make for the last 15 years. In some ways, it definitely is. As far as multiplayer gameplay is concerned, however...

First of all, WC3 was not a "failed experiment". It was an extensively tested game, that actually has a larger e-sports following active today then the original starcraft. The only real difference is that the e-sports scene surrounding it is player-oriented, not spectator oriented, its sole failing which needs to be avoided in SC.

Second of all, your not getting it. Their is something about the concept of "increasing macro mechanics" that isn't going to work unless we add micro mechanics. The game needs to be fast paced, and it needs to be simplistic. Adding destructible terrain AND a equally intuitive micro mechanic to counterbalance bloats the spectator friendly concepts. Simply put, it isn't feasible conceptually, no matter how well its implemented.

WarCraft 2 hadn't been surpassed. There was no need for StarCraft. Blizzard just up and decided that what they had wasn't good enough. That's what they should have up and decided with SC2, as well.

lol. No. Mechanically, it was outdated, and it never got a competitive scene, while Red Alert and Starcraft had one around this time, and their was very little room for a WC2.5 comp scene.

Your entire argument is indefensible. Simple as that. The only way SC2 can innovate towards a better game is also if we change SC into a game that we cannot rightfully put a "2" next to.

Even Nichol agreed that he could not think of anything they could add in SC2, because of the delicate balance between micro and macro and other gameplay dynamics that must be carried on. He argued blizzard should have just sat in their thinking chairs and thought really hard, which I'm sure they did, and failed. Your dumbing this down into an entirely different argument. A 4th race, creatable terrain, common innovations that aren't even innovative in the slightest simply won't work.


@GIfted. This is why I get angry with Pure.wasted. He seems to think that whenever I disagree with him, I'm missing the point.

[Moradon]

It is widely accepted by the majority of gamers and the majority of critics in the industry that StarCraft pioneered the idea of different races with different units. Were they the first? No. Dune 2 beat them to the punch. No one cares. SC still gets its credit because what it did was take a TINY idea and rework it in a MAJOR way. Forget credit. SC genuinely benefitted from the change.

I'm taking a TINY idea (destructible bridges in single player campaign) and reworking it in a MAJOR way (many here have admitted that this would "change core SC gameplay." I don't think anyone honestly believes that destructible rocks changed core SC gameplay, and they are pretty much the exact same thing as WC3's destructible bridges).



I don't CARE about destructible bridges or player-created terrain changes. That was one of THREE suggestions, all made up on the spot, for things Blizzard COULD have done. Only to show that it's very, very easy to think of these things, which at that point in the thread the "anti-innovators" were saying was not the case, and actually accused me (and others) of failing to provide any examples that would have satisfied our conditions.

What I wanted was something. If that turned out to be player-created terrain changes, fine. If not, fine. We got nothing. And the funny thing? Nicol said the same thing before we got to post #200 with his argument about new Marines. You guys just keep going in circles and then acting surprised when we arrive at this conclusion.

100 pages from now, someone's going to be shocked that we wanted the game to do something differently, even though we don't really care what as long as it's true to StarCraft's competitive nature. Just watch.

Except that one of your suggestions WAS added into the game. It's called a creep tumor. You got exactly what you asked for and yet you're complaining about because it's not enough for you. It's becoming increasingly clear that you won't be happy with anything Blizzard does until the core gameplay is overhauled. And what makes it worse is that you don't really have much reason why Blizzard should other than because you feel that their previous games did it.

[newcomplex]

Blizzard should other than because you feel that their previous games did it.

When they provably didn't at all.

[Moradon]

When they provably didn't at all.

Especially since he spends 10% of his posts saying why his suggestions add strategy to the game, and the remaining 90% explaining how it will satisfy his perception of SC2 being innovative.

God what a waste of time this is. I should have never gone into this thread.

[pure.Wasted]

Tone Rebellion-Different units, four races

I was intrigued by your list of examples. Finally, I wondered, was there something to prove me wrong? So off to wikipedia I go for the first game on the list, Tone Rebellion.

What did I see? Published in 1997. Uh oh. (Why uh oh? More on this later.)

War Wind... well, I know this was published in 1997, because we've already talked about it. Uh oh.

Dominion: OSG3... published in June 1998.

Why did you include Dominion: OSG3 in your list? Did you hope that I wouldn't check? Did you just write down every game google returned? Did you not realize that SC was already months out by then?

That's the sort of carelessness that has riddled your posts through and through. Now, for War Wind and Tone Rebellion. This post, to which I've linked you now numerous times, explains succinctly why they fail to dethrone SC1's claim as far as this argument is concerned. Let me quote the relevant passage:

As far as Blizzard was aware, they were doing it first. Their alpha came onto the scene before War Wind was released. Their alpha may have predated War Wind's alpha -- can you be sure that's not the case? In that case, they may have genuinely been undeniably 100% the first to do it.

Having said all that, it doesn't even matter. Let's say they were second. Let's say that War Wind's production was so highly publicized (lol...) that Blizzard was aware of what someone out there was doing with a WC2-like engine. They could not anticipate the (barely) positive reviews War Wind would go on to receive. As far as they were concerned, different races and different units was a risk; it was untested, unproven, and liable to blow up in their faces.

That it may not have been THE first on the scene (you've yet to demonstrate this by matching up the Alpha dates) does not change that Blizzard was treading dangerous waters of their own free will. With SC2 they elected to bypass the challenging route. They won't have been the first, second, or third to do anything remotely progressive with the multiplayer gameplay.

Against my better judgement I continue reading your post:

Earth 2150 pioneered destructible terrain to the point where you could BUILD TUNNELS, and you can PUT YOUR UNITS IN THE TUNNELS, then you can DIG A TUNNEL INTO YOUR OPPONENTS BASE.

THIS GAME WAS MADE IN 1999.

(the only thing that game missed was buildable LOS blockers. OH NOES)

Finally, an example that works! Honestly, I would argue that SC2 could still get away with re-inventing that mechanic, because of 2015's obscurity and the fact that no other RTSes have picked up on it since.

That said, let's say that's not good enough for you. Well, 1) I provided 3 examples, not 1; 2) My examples took 10 minutes to come up with. Blizzard has a team of experienced developers who had 6 years. I'm pretty sure that even if you manage to invalidate all 3 (Lol, good luck on the third), the argument that "Blizz could have done better than I did" holds up pretty well.

At the very least, even according to your own logic (there is nothing left to innovate naturally), they should have looked for opportunities to innovate naturally which we, inexperienced as we are, might have missed... and THEN, having found none, decided to stick with what works because there's nowhere else to go.

They didn't.

"We made a conscious decision not to [reinvent RTS]... One of the things that played into our decision was just how popular the original game still is. Had it been different, had it spiked up and sold well and then disappeared... maybe putting first-person elements might have been something that we'd considered. But we never considered that."

Doing something new with SC2 was never on the table, whether it's possible to do more things with RTSes or SC2 in general, or not.

Warcraft 2 was obsolete in EVERY WAY when WC3 was sleighted to come out. Are you seriously trying to argue if a game with parallel sides and no additional features other then micro would have made it in 03? That is an ABSURD argument. Even if we look competitively, the Red Alert 2 would have trumped it.

And this is why once again I'm going to ask you to stop wasting my time. The very post you're replying to states clearly:

WarCraft 2 hadn't been surpassed. There was no need for StarCraft.

There was no need for StarCraft.

StarCraft

Nowhere in there do I mention WC3. If you'd taken the time to read the post, you would know that I was saying...

Blizzard just up and decided that what they had wasn't good enough. That's what they should have up and decided with SC2, as well.

Because that's exactly what I said. Do you see the problem here, when I'm forced to copy+paste my posts two, three, four times in a row until you see that I'm talking about StarCraft instead of WarCraft? This is what our entire conversation has been about. You not understanding things that are written in plain English, ten times per post.

Except that one of your suggestions WAS added into the game. It's called a creep tumor. You got exactly what you asked for and yet you're complaining about because it's not enough for you.

A creep tumor satisfying "in-game terrain modification" that would "innovate StarCraft" is like saying Dune 2's 2 almost but not quite identical units are the same thing as StarCraft's different races.

It's becoming increasingly clear that you won't be happy with anything Blizzard does until the core gameplay is overhauled. And what makes it worse is that you don't really have much reason why Blizzard should other than because you feel that their previous games did it.

It's becoming INCREASINGLY CLEAR? Wow! And it only took like 150 posts of Nicol saying it and like 150 posts of me saying it for it to become "increasingly" clear! Maybe in another 100 posts, it will be clear beyond the shadow of a doubt? I can't wait for that sort of clarity!

And what makes it worse is that you don't really have much reason why Blizzard should other than because you feel that their previous games did it.

"Other than" implies this isn't good enough. It's good enough for me.