What happened to the innovation?

[DemolitionSquid]

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

I call them APM sinks because they are.

Sure, SC2 is impressive, but taking an FPS and throwing a jetpack on it doesn't suddenly make it a good game. It needs more.

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.

Certainly all that is innovative, and in an expected direction. I love the new battle.net. And I'm sure the singleplayer will be awesome.

My issue is solely with the in-game multiplayer.

[Gifted]

I call them APM sinks because they are.

Sure, SC2 is impressive, but taking an FPS and throwing a jetpack on it doesn't suddenly make it a good game. It needs more.

*chuckles* interesting that you say that, cause Tribes 2 was considered innovative for that being one of two reasons. *chuckles*

But yes, It's still a valid point to consider.

[TunaFish]

taking an FPS and throwing a jetpack on it

I don't know, that sounds pretty awesome.

[Pandonetho]

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.

While I don't disagree at the moment with the majority of your original post (I'm really looking forward to singleplayer and custom games moreso than multiplayer right now) I'm curious as to where this argument even comes from? At the expense of everyone else?
That's silly. I've seen this exact same argument come from the Dawn of War 2 fanboys, bashing Blizzard about innovation or lack thereof constantly and without fail.

See, they make the same argument as you "people want innovation not rehashed mechanics and sc 1.5" etc. Well I really have to wonder, where do these statistics come from? Did they suddenly show up at the front door saying that the majority of the world wanted innovation? A prime example, ironically, is dawn of war 2, hailed as a great game by many review sites yet, I hardly even hear anything about the game anymore. Do people even still play it? I've seen countless dawn of war 1 fans complain about how it changes the game too much.

This innovation argument is just plain silly, especially when used in conjunction with the pulled out of thin air statistic of being at the expense of "everyone else."

[DemolitionSquid]

I don't know, that sounds pretty awesome.

Its a poke at Dark Void and Halo: Reach.

A prime example, ironically, is dawn of war 2, hailed as a great game by many review sites yet, I hardly even hear anything about the game anymore. Do people even still play it? I've seen countless dawn of war 1 fans complain about how it changes the game too much.

I just don't play it anymore cause the multiplayer balance is a joke. Hopefully the campaign for Chaos Rising will be fun.

[SCpollo]

"Let's have the player click a button every 25 seconds!"
QFT
SC2 lacks some innovation but im semi-satisfied by the way it turned out, however take a look:
Protoss: blizzard had the most time to work on them with no-one looking over there shoulder and look how they turned out, the protoss are by far the most changed race of sc2

Terran: a good amount of changes but not a whole lot more gamechanging units and abilities, people had more time to nitpick

zerg: a mess of SOME new units and abilities but are like their older counterpart in many other ways, there could of been some real intense innovation with the zerg "they have been evolving for 4 years" but most of their concepts and units remain the same, with the zerg they could have pushed the limits on how to produce units and what the units do.

I say Blizzard should of just unveiled the finished product and been like here: take it or leave it, im sure we would of seen much better innovation a no silly and uncreative macro mechanics. I think, honestly... the fans might be holding this game back. "bring back the carrier!"
were all guilty

[Shadow Archon]

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.

I'm sure that once the game is out, more maps will feature things such as Redstone's lava mechanic, the Night\Day Zombie fest, and other such things. Personally, I would love the idea of having a map where nukes randomly fall at certain intervals, or where the terrain changes such as Space Platforms moving. I'm sure someone out there can make a map like that.

[Gradius]

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.

Most of the "innovative" ideas I've seen by users are actually ridiculous to put into a game like StarCraft. Everyone wants innovative ideas, but nobody wants to think about what effects it will have on balance. Even Warp-in seems imbalanced right now. And if Blizzard can't balance a simple ability like Black Hole, how are they supposed to fit in some of the more outlandish suggestions I've seen? Change for the sake of change is absurd.

The only new thing Blizzard did is give each race an APM sink.

This whole business of labeling things as "APM sinks" is completely arbitrary. There are lots of things that you have to do to win which nobody complains about.

Building units is an APM sink. Proper micro is an APM sink. etc. etc.

I've never seen anyone call the controls in Tetris an APM sink because sometimes the pieces come down too fast.

Let's have the player click a button every 25 seconds!

Chrono Boost I do use often in the first couple minutes of the game for Probes, but even then sometimes I use it for other things, such as researching the Warp Gate upgrade, or building units faster to defend from a rush.

Spawn Larva, yeah there's some repetition involved, and this mechanic could use work. But if you're short of Larva, why is using this ability any worse than making more hatcheries like in the original? Nobody ever complained about that.

[Hamshank]

I think the multiplayer is great and will be perfected and expanded over the beta and next two expansions.

I think that the game is so fast paced that there's little room to experiment while actually in a match. You need to play an insane amount of games to even start to experiment, stepping away from the obvious strategies and small refinements.

However, I do believe this is why the Dev team decided to add in all those tutorials. Hopefully they'll allow players to have more freedom.

Is this going to be sufficient enough in innovation? Probably not, but the player made maps have no constraints and will be crazy as hell in variation and creativity.

I'm personally hoping Blizzard will do something exciting by the 2nd expansion.
-I doubt they will but it'd be a disappointment because they've been doing this same formula since Reign of Chaos released in 2003. They were working on that since 1998. That would give them over 14 years of experience in this formula by the time the 2nd expansion comes out. Are you telling me they can't try something new besides cheese like cliff climbing that just melds so quickly into the old gameplay?

(Remember the SC2 team is composed of the same members as the WC3 team)

[DemolitionSquid]

@ Gradius

Since you're obviously not aware, for a mechanic to be an APM sink it needs to be repeated at set intervals. Building units and microing are not APM sinks because they have a high degree of variability due to builds/counters/matchups.