What happened to the innovation?

[Pandonetho]

I'm pretty sure I could find something with 62,000+ man hours behind me.

Really? When you put it like that it seems like a really big number. What are you going to make, dawn of war 3? Can you guarantee it's going to be profitable?

[DemolitionSquid]

I'd make an AvP RTS. It'd have to be kinda DoW2 style.

[Nicol Bolas]

Can you guarantee it's going to be profitable?

If you slap it in a box labeled "StarCraft II", it's guaranteed to be profitable, regardless of the objective quality. Unless you are talking about an established franchise, nothing is guaranteed to be profitable.

[wilebill]

Thanks for the post. I agree, for the most part. The multiplayer as it is in the beta right now is just the same old thing warmed over mostly. I guess they had to do this for the e-sports focus, but if that is all they wanted to do they could have simply freshened up the old game; SC 1.5.

And truth to tell, wish they had because I like the graphics of SC 1 better. Sorry, but I do. Cleaner, easier unit identification. Just plain more cool.

New units cause me to yawn when they do not enrage me. Roaches? Here we have the Mighty Zerg revealed as nothing more than ordinary insect vermin! Nevermind calling in the marines. "God, Mom, get the flit!" How am I supposed to have any respect for an alien race that depends on mere roaches for melee warfare?

The music makes me think I have a shopping cart in hand rather than a mouse. I do not feel a sense of alien mystery while listening to it. And the sound effects do not seem improvements. Farting zerg? I mean, really!

Will I buy SC2? Probably. But it depends on how well they did with the campaign. Maybe that is where Mike Morhaime's greatest RTS of all time is hiding. If so, map making and modding should be a lot of fun.

It is true that Mike Morhaime promised the greatest RTS ever. So perhaps we have not yet seen the true power and glory. At least I hope not! Just offhand, based on what we see at present in the beta, I can think of several RTS that are better.

[Nicol Bolas]

Here we have the Mighty Zerg revealed as nothing more than ordinary insect vermin!

... Isn't that what they've always been? Queens, in both games, come from the insect world. Same goes for Hives. Metamorphosis from larva to some other creature is also insectoid. The fundamental concept of the Zerg is very insect like.

And it's called the Roach because it's tough to kill.

It is true that Mike Morhaime promised the greatest RTS ever.

Who is Mike Morhaime?

[Aldrius]

Who is Mike Morhaime?

Blizzard's CEO.

[Crazy_Jonny]

Its funny how this discussion explodes after, what, 3 years of knowing exactly what we were getting? A highly competitive RTS that doesn't innovate but perfects and expands an already great formula, and offers exciting possibilities in single player and the map editor?

Leave the innovation for a new franchise. I'll leave it at that.

[newcomplex]

Ugh this crap again. Innovation for innovations sake is bad. I don't understand how you could possibly dispute that, unless the intended purpose of the game is not for its players to have fun. (so lolartgames and techdemos would be excluded I guess).

Now that we have that established, lets look at what made SC1s MECHANICAL gameplay fun. At the core, it was a very simplistic RTS, designed in an almost arcadic manner (remember, this was the year games like TA came out).

What it achieved is something that has yet to been reachieved since its conception. A RTS which incorporates micromanagement and macro management elements together in a way where both our important, and inseparable from each other, its metagames depth compounded by distinctive, relatively balanced races that each had units design to both dis-correlate and to parallel the other races, in a entirely cohesive manner, where each component interacts with the whole to form depth through complex system.

SC2 strives to maintain these core philosophies. I sure hope you guys understand ideas don't linearly increase in quality in relation to how many people get payed to think of them. So, the SC2 design team (probably around ~05) was tasked with designing a game that recreates those principals, in practical, scalable manner.

Well, why didn't they create a innovative solution to everything? Well, simple really. Because many perceived similarities are actually quite integral to the way Starcraft functions. Lets start with abilities. SC2 did not drastically raise the bar for ability effects as much as some here would like it. What they are forgetting is that SC1 was popularized by its different approach on abilities then say, Warcraft 2. Abilities were rare, costy things that had to be prepared, and conserved, as well as each being conceptually unique (quite different from spells in WC3) and intrinsic towards basic, universal, and easily identified functions (aoe damage, single target snipe, reveal, immobilize, etc etc. In that regard, the SC2 design team had limited space to work with. The certainly push the boundaries of this, with units like the viking.

Moving onto units, we can observe that many people want "more" new units, or even worse, races. Once again, this is also illogical. We've already established what a core value of SC1 was, balanced, cohesive and paralleled racial dynamics. Creating a new race would be retarded, because the merits of SC1 prevent another race. Cohesion and parallelism means that each race serves an iconic function within the whole of the game. The only way one could fit another race and maintain cohesive and structured racial dynamics would be to alter existing races so much that the play styles would be entirely unrecognizable. Do you want terran playing like night elf? If you do, please, gtfo. Terran needs to play like terran, regardless of the unit changes.

This extends to units naturally. If certain unit designs created the foundation of the racial dynamic, then when replacing them, one needs to observe the overall impact. A cheap ranged basic unit is a integral part of the Terran racial dynamic, in relations to itself AND to the other two races. So, even if one were to replace a marine, one would need another cheap, ranged, basic unit. Why remove such an iconic unit for an utterly identical one? All unit replacements should better the racial dynamic. So queens got scrapped because nobody used them, or vultures got scrapped because they led to what blizzard perceived to be boring tank duels.

Finally, the concluding point is the lack of new mechanics. Well, we've established that the balance between micro and macro need to be maintained, because the balance is what made SC SC. At the same time, we need to take account playability, so extreme mechanical complexity cannot exist or the game simply is no longer fun, nor competitive. (In other words, we can't just keep on tacking in shit without taking stuff out) Within that framework, that severely limits the range of options you can commit to from gameplay design. For instance, trench warfare would either detriment micro, encourage macro, and strategy, which may be cool, but the result would no longer be SC. (and the units would need to be completely reworked). A cover system would operate conversely, causing the game to be too micro centric.

[ArcherofAiur]

What it achieved is something that has yet to been reachieved since its conception. A RTS which incorporates micromanagement and macro management elements together in a way where both our important, and inseparable from each other, its metagames depth compounded by distinctive, relatively balanced races that each had units design to both dis-correlate and to parallel the other races, in a entirely cohesive manner, where each component interacts with the whole to form depth through complex system.

QFT
Name one other RTS that has innovated as much in terms of macro/micro management and balanced depth as well as SC2.

The macro mechanics were NOT necessary. You only thought they were because things like better UI, MBS and auto-mine were included and you thought macro was going to suffer based on no concrete data whatsoever. And now, surprise, you and TL's bitching has created a monster. Good job.

And we are very glad to see that the developers and most of the people playing the game agreed with us. And that they appreciate how this revolutionizes RTS games in a way not seen in years. We will suffer a few naysayers like you

[newcomplex]

Also, in regards to WC3 thinking outside of the box, WC3 copied its hero mechanics from like 20 games including the popular spellforce, but thats not the point.

The point is that WC2 is a micro game with very little macro mechanics. The core of the gameplay of WC2 was very unilateral, make units in accordance to a set build and micro them. Macro existed, but it was far less stressed.

WC3 was very easy to change because their is no balance (between gameplay elements) that needs to be maintained. All that needs to be achieved is the same overarching focus towards micro. You couldn't really make a WC3 with "too little" macro unless you just removed mining and base building, and the key to maintaining micro was simply not adding any more macro in. lol.

In regards to racial additions, Human and Orc were near identical in WC2. WC2 was about making units and out-microing your opponent. WC3 decided to partially abandon that, and go with SC's racial dynamics (not completely), and thus, could do what ever the fuck they wanted, because they got to start on a clean slate. They could design the races from ground up to support two more.

Unless you want blizzard to redefine the roles of your races in SC2, completely and utterly, a 4th race isn't particularly viable.