What happened to the innovation?

[Shadow Archon]

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.

Yeah, I've already thought of one, where the man is submerged in lava for five minutes, and the next five is nothing but Zombie hoards coming from infested buildings. Oh, and while the map is covered in lava, the terrain on your main base moves to different regions on the map, and it is done randomly. Seeing what Blizzard has said about their map maker, it should be possible. Is that creative enough? Maybe I'll be good enough with the editor to make it.

[Hamshank]

I'm sure Blizz's single player maps will inspire a lot of incredible community maps and raise the bar

[TWD]

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.

I reject this notion that somehow innovation negatively affects the pros nor do I believe that blizzard is avoiding changes because of this. Professional players are just as capable as adapting as anyone else. Innovation can only breath more live into competitive gaming by making the game even more interesting to watch. This idea that the pro's can screw up everything by refusing to adapt is just silly. They're going to play what people want to watch, period. If the public decides they enjoy watching StarCraft II more then that's what they'll play.

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 play the game all the time. Dawn of War II is a completely different beast though. Sure they changed a lot, and so maybe you see different people playing it. So what? The sequel has done far better. The only reason we don't hear too much about it is because the balance blows. Every new patch introduces new imbalances that practically break the game. Hence the competitive angle could never really take off. Just this week the new expansion pack was released. It introduces a new bug that allows the Eldar Banshee to become invulnerable for 10 seconds. That's why you don't hear as much about it anymore.
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[electricmole]

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.

I AGREE.

So few innovations after 10 years.

Imagine if there was a new race in sc2.

New and plenty types of base defenses. Please make base defenses viable as well.

A brand new zerg line up (current sc2 zerg = sc1 zerg), broodlord with their silly flying babies is a carbon copy of the guardian at least the guardian have a cooler attack animation. Hydralisk and Mutualisk back? u got to be kidding me. ye good for u all fanboys.


etc.

[DemolitionSquid]

i agree.

So few innovations after 10 years.

Imagine if there was a new race in sc2.

New and plenty types of base defenses. Please make base defenses viable as well.

A brand new zerg line up (current sc2 zerg = sc1 zerg), broodlord with their silly flying babies is a carbon copy of the guardian at least the guardian have a cooler attack animation. Hydralisk and mutualisk back? U got to be kidding me. Ye good for u all fanboys.


Etc.

This. Qft.

[RedPineApple]

I don't know..
You guys are all insane!
I love this game so far!
I have a ton of friends that have been rotating around on my computer with my beta account and are just loving the intensity of the multiplayer.

Maybe I am just a simpleton, but I look at the small things for innovation.

Example: Breaking through the back rocks of blistering sands into a Terran base while his front is choked.

Keeping watch towers manned for observation

Having to be more strategic and psychological in your tech chocies / counters.

I honestly think Blizzard did a great job keeping an equal medium with new units and rehashing older mechanics.

I mean seriously, through out the development process everyone bitched about heroes, game speed, the 3D engine, and unit changes.

I have even heard people say "just release another expansion instead of a sequel."

But then the beta comes out and people are bitching because to many classic mechanics were left in.

Just play the game or move on to something else that suites your innovative needs. SC2 was made to be a true sequel with bells and whistles. Clearly stated on the official SC2 website.

[DemolitionSquid]

I don't know..
You guys are all insane!
I love this game so far!
I have a ton of friends that have been rotating around on my computer with my beta account and are just loving the intensity of the multiplayer.

Maybe I am just a simpleton, but I look at the small things for innovation.

Example: Breaking through the back rocks of blistering sands into a Terran base while his front is choked.

Keeping watch towers manned for observation

Having to be more strategic and psychological in your tech chocies / counters.

I honestly think Blizzard did a great job keeping an equal medium with new units and rehashing older mechanics.

I mean seriously, through out the development process everyone bitched about heroes, game speed, the 3D engine, and unit changes.

I have even heard people say "just release another expansion instead of a sequel."

But then the beta comes out and people are bitching because to many classic mechanics were left in.

Just play the game or move on to something else that suites your innovative needs. SC2 was made to be a true sequel with bells and whistles. Clearly stated on the official SC2 website.

I take it you voted for McCain?

[Shadow Archon]

This. Qft.

Too many changes will give it a death like SupCom2 and CnC 4.

[DemolitionSquid]

Too many changes will give it a death like SupCom2 and CnC 4.

There's a big difference between completely removing half the game (base building for CnC) and simply asking for a few new units and abilities. Our demands are NOT unreasonable.

[SinsWage]

This is a pointless debate. If the "for change" camp got what they wanted all the purists would be crying foul. With a more conservative approach a bunch of you are pissed because it's "BW 2.5".

My feeling is Blizzard makes great games, they aren't going to start their decent into crap with this one. I'm certain there'll be things I don't like but I have faith the completed package will be worthy of ten more years of my gaming time.