StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

[Azalin]

Hearthstone made them $300 million in a year and it probably cost a tenth of what SC2 did to produce. HoTS is similarly cheaper, too. With the token, WoW is half-way there now resembling an EVE type model. Then there's Overwatch which will be guaranteed to have microtransactions despite the initial $40 cost. If that gets even moderately close to what TF2 hauls in I'm sure you can expect them to drop the initial buy-in or reduce it to something trivial like $10 or less.

They're milking another expansion out of D3 but it'll probably be the last. The next 'new' project you can expect from Blizzard will be D4 or D-Infinity or some other similarly named bullshit that will look to ape Path of Exile's model. We can safely say there will never be a Warcraft 4. I'm sure it's possible there might be a SC3 but that's at least five years away and the gaming landscape will have changed a lot by then. Might even be an even bigger push towards pads/mobiles.


Morhaime is probably 5-10 years from retirement.

D3 sold 10-12 millions just on PC and if you add the console sales it is probably over 15mil right now,on the other had SC2 WoL sold 5-6 millions if I remember correctly which isn't that great(SC1 sold around 10mill I think) and of course it can't be ported to consoles,so if they decide to make another AAA game D4 seems more likely,something they can make multiplatform and get enough sales.Otherwise the direction the company has is clear,it's f2p for Blizzard in the near future and milking WoW for as long as they can

 

[Maculo]

Just finished the campaign. The epilogue missions felt weak, but I still enjoyed the main campaign.

A couple of thoughts (spoilers obviously)

Spoiler

The ending slides said nothing about Artanis, which surprised me. I guess it was covered in the main campaign chapter with rebuilt cities.

Also, I enjoyed the twist that Amon was "evil," because being an immortal god sucked and ruined his enjoyment of existence. Destroying the universe was his 'fuck-you' for being turned into a Xel'naga.

 

[Black]

I watched a guy stream the campaign. We both wish we could've forget all about it and agree that WOL > LOTV > HOTS.
Lotv might have the best gaameplay but protoss is a fucking boring race and the story is way, way more in your face than in WOL. And it sucks, hard.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

The Protoss were interesting before they all got turned into super saiyans in the sequel's cutscenes. A race of racist and patriarchal power armoured aryans living in crystal spires is pretty cool.

 

[cvv]

I watched a guy stream the campaign. We both wish we could've forget all about it and agree that WOL > LOTV > HOTS.
Lotv might have the best gaameplay but protoss is a fucking boring race and the story is way, way more in your face than in WOL. And it sucks, hard.

This. Although I enjoyed HotS more than LotV. It had Abatur and dem small upgrade missions and playing directly with Kerry.

 

[Jaedar]

This. Although I enjoyed HotS more than LotV. It had Abatur and dem small upgrade missions and playing directly with Kerry.

I liked hots the least. Kerrigan was a bit too strong(especially later on) and the zerg units were a bit too weak. Out of the three campaigns it also has the smallest unit count.

Lotv is cool, but the global warship abilities are probably a bit too strong so I wound up leaning on them too much (the orbital lasers especially).

wol is probably my favorite then, at least in the metagame aspects. The missions basically only had 2 strategies: spam new unit, or spam medic+marines, which is a real shame though.

I wonder if nova ops will be any good, and how much they'll charge for it.

 

[Maculo]

Speaking of the warship abilities, the Fenix ability was insanely useful to start an assault. He would straight-up murder most armies and structures. It made the Mobeus/Carrier mission easy. I probably should have experimented with the abilities more. I only used Fenix and the warp-in pylon ability alongside the passive gas extraction and robotics heal.

I think WoL kept the power level down relative to HotS and LotV. You were not overpowered with Kerrigan and Spear of Adun. Even the power of individual units seemed to increase over HotS and LotV with special passives and abilities.

I only wish that WoL restricted the amount of reinforcements that you could make during a mission. I believe that such a restriction would have made things even more interesting and would have stopped the marine/medic spam.

 

[cvv]

wol is probably my favorite then, at least in the metagame aspects. The missions basically only had 2 strategies: spam new unit, or spam medic+marines, which is a real shame though.

LotV suffered from an even worse flaw. It had only one two-step strategy:

1. Build 10+ Void Rays.
2. Win.

And if you don't do that half the missions are a complete clusterfuck on Hard and Brutal.

I absolutely hated that. Void Ray must be by far the stupidest unit in the whole game. HotS despite all weak points didn't have that. You couldn't just spam mutas like in Brood War or ultras, you had to put some microscopic amount of thought into the composition of your army. But yeah, WoL rulez.

 

[Maculo]

I hated Void Rays, but they made several missions a breeze, especially the last mission. One unit combo I tried was Adepts, dark templar Immortals, taldarim Sentries, and a few zealots in the mix. It worked rather well and was entertaining. I could open with fenix on an enemy base and clean up the rest.

 

[Azalin]

Speaking of the warship abilities, the Fenix ability was insanely useful to start an assault. He would straight-up murder most armies and structures.

Yeah Fenix was OP,I used him for base defense too,I took all my army out on a raid and if some other army attacked during that time you could call him and he could desrtoy the attacking army along with a couple of canons.

I agree with most that HotS was the worst of the trilogy both story wise and because of Kerrigan was just too OP,WoL was the best while LotV came a close second(Protoss are still my favourite race)


P.S. BTW I was disappointed we didn't get to meet all the Protoss leaders from the WoL mission In Utter Darkness in the end

 

[MilesBeyond]

LotV suffered from an even worse flaw. It had only one two-step strategy:

1. Build 10+ Void Rays.
2. Win.

And if you don't do that half the missions are a complete clusterfuck on Hard and Brutal.

I absolutely hated that. Void Ray must be by far the stupidest unit in the whole game. HotS despite all weak points didn't have that. You couldn't just spam mutas like in Brood War or ultras, you had to put some microscopic amount of thought into the composition of your army. But yeah, WoL rulez.

Heh, you didn't even have to spam Mutas in BW. I replayed it shortly before LotV came out and there were like two Zerg missions that I didn't win with 36 Hydras. Every time I hear people complain about how the SC2 campaigns are too easy compared to SC1 I never know what the hell they're talking about. I preferred the story of SC1 but SC2 is unquestionably more difficult IMHO (I'd say for two reasons: First, because the objectives themselves often force you to action rather than sitting around, building up your ideal force, and A-moving across the map, which was a totally viable strategy in I think every single SC1 mission; second because the AI seems slightly more intelligent about properly countering your army composition. No more responding to Hydras by massing Wraiths :/).


What are people's thoughts on the new units? I know a lot here prefer to play SP but at the end of the day, the campaign is only a miniscule part of Starcraft. The real meat of the game is in the battles.

Personally I'm a huge fan of the Zerg changes. More AA options, Cracklings are back, and you can now morph your Overlords into transports on an individual basis rather than having to research a tech for all of them, which means drops are now something I'll consider doing outside of niche strategies.

 

[Maculo]

I have not tried the MP yet. So far, I have heard good things for the most part.

Based on this battlenet post, Blizzard must have done something right. Also, no wonder they tried to tone starcraft down with WoL initially.

LotV feels like it's way too high paced to be even an RTS any more. More about unit control, build orders, etc. I mean, I'm all for micro and macro playing key parts in RTS games, but SC2 takes it way too far, that it's not enjoyable to watch nor play right now. And while playing, it feels like a single, slight mistake could be entirely game ending, and is actually significantly stressful. In WoL and HotS there was a "calm before the storm" feeling, it allowed for a slight break between games, while one was building up. You could warm up to a game, and the pace would build up slowly until it was high paced again. Now, you're just getting thrown right into the action. If a game is too high paced, there's no real time for strategy, and more of just reactive instinct/muscle memory. SC2 is the leading RTS only because it is the successor to StarCraft Brood Wars. But if it continues on this path, it'll die off similarly to how C&C 4 did. Blizzard, you need to listen to your fans

 

[Daedalos]

Ok so.. I finished the campaign now.. holy fucking shit

It was worse than I thought. But why whine? I knew what I was getting myself into, but still getting disappointed.

*Looks at Starcraft 1 manual*... Sigh.


I may be going out on a limb here... but I am starting to think, that Blizzard raped the starcraft story more than Bethesda did Fallouts...

AND IT'S THEIR OWN FUCKING FRANCHISE ;Z

What in the fuck happened..

 

[Maculo]

Blizzard definitely made mistakes, but I am not sure they went Bethesda tier. Did you not even enjoy it on Brutal?

 

[Daedalos]

Blizzard definitely made mistakes, but I am not sure they went Bethesda tier. Did you not even enjoy it on Brutal?

Not really, no :/

 

[Maculo]

Not really, no :/

That sucks. The campaign was corny, but I at least had some missions I enjoyed. It's funny how much I enjoyed WoL in retrospect. I know a lot of people shat on it (legitimate complaints), but it had its charm.

Now that I think of it, Blizzard slowly backed away from having the player make permanent choices. WoL had chosen units, upgrades, and missions, which changed certain missions. In Hots, Blizzard allowed players to reconfigure Kerrigan's powers if I remember correctly, but still had permanent unit choices. LotV had all the options available all the time.

 

[hello friend]

I may be going out on a limb here... but I am starting to think, that Blizzard raped the starcraft story more than Bethesda did Fallouts...

No limbs required. SC2 is well designed on the gameplay front - though I must say, a lot of non-strategy macro stuff that everyone will be doing anyway like larva injects could, and should, be automated (toggleable ofc). Way it is now is a bit like having to order drones to harvest minerals manually every time like farmville.

But the story. Man, the story. WoL was bad enough, turning the grim cool WH40k ripoff into cowboys in space. But HoTS was awful. Remember the cerebrates? They made sense in the context of the whole zerg hivemind thing. But suddenly everyone and their mother is a sentient zerg written as if it was a human character. Primal zerg what the fuck. From what I recall zerg started out as some interesting larva on Zerus remixed by the xel'naga. Not some morphdog rapidly recombining itself based on it's lunch mere seconds after. You are what you eat, indeed. Specific unit morphs can be handwaved as having that potential built into their genetic blueprint. It's a bit strange when you go killing some random creature every bit as implausibly specialised as the zerg despite no xel'naga shenanigans you send genes into space to be remixed by Abathur (who for some reason talks like a retard) who beams them back down and now you've got lurkers congrats. At the very least, the 'test your new unit variant' thing could have been rolled into the next mission. For comparison, think back to how long Kerrigan was in the chrysalis in the original. Space magic superevolution is fast, but it's not *that* fast. All I could think when I saw zerg on zerus acting like british chavs was "They turned this into a cartoon like Warcraft". Fuck it I could rant forever so I won't. The less said about what happened to the protoss the better. I'll just say that SC1 story was well executed. It had a dark and brooding atmosphere, had a bit more going on in terms of Kel Morian Combine and UED and Tassadar starting a religious reformation and even though it was focused on the characters, these characters were a part of that world, whereas in SC2 the world is just a barely-there backdrop to drama between character interactions.

Make no mistake, they killed the lore.

Game is still good tho.

 

[Jaedar]

1. Build 10+ Void Rays.
2. Win.

You certainly have a point there, but you get void rays... 5 missions before the end?
Compare to marine medics which you get on the 2nd mission of the campaign or something.

Make no mistake, they killed the lore.

I see a lot of complaints about protoss in this thread, and I'm not sure I get it. Are they really that different from sc1?

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

My favourite campaign build in WoL was goliath+science vessel. I mean, sure, it was basically marine+medic only MECH EDITION, but it was still fun as hell to use.

 

[Maculo]

In WoL, I forget my basic set up, but I used spectres to chain stun enemies and take out tanks where feasible.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Why do nearly all of the Protoss characters in Starcraft 2 look like somebody started to design them and then didn't stop? Most of these guys just look silly.

 

[Daedalos]

No limbs required. SC2 is well designed on the gameplay front - though I must say, a lot of non-strategy macro stuff that everyone will be doing anyway like larva injects could, and should, be automated (toggleable ofc). Way it is now is a bit like having to order drones to harvest minerals manually every time like farmville.

But the story. Man, the story. WoL was bad enough, turning the grim cool WH40k ripoff into cowboys in space. But HoTS was awful. Remember the cerebrates? They made sense in the context of the whole zerg hivemind thing. But suddenly everyone and their mother is a sentient zerg written as if it was a human character. Primal zerg what the fuck. From what I recall zerg started out as some interesting larva on Zerus remixed by the xel'naga. Not some morphdog rapidly recombining itself based on it's lunch mere seconds after. You are what you eat, indeed. Specific unit morphs can be handwaved as having that potential built into their genetic blueprint. It's a bit strange when you go killing some random creature every bit as implausibly specialised as the zerg despite no xel'naga shenanigans you send genes into space to be remixed by Abathur (who for some reason talks like a retard) who beams them back down and now you've got lurkers congrats. At the very least, the 'test your new unit variant' thing could have been rolled into the next mission. For comparison, think back to how long Kerrigan was in the chrysalis in the original. Space magic superevolution is fast, but it's not *that* fast. All I could think when I saw zerg on zerus acting like british chavs was "They turned this into a cartoon like Warcraft". Fuck it I could rant forever so I won't. The less said about what happened to the protoss the better. I'll just say that SC1 story was well executed. It had a dark and brooding atmosphere, had a bit more going on in terms of Kel Morian Combine and UED and Tassadar starting a religious reformation and even though it was focused on the characters, these characters were a part of that world, whereas in SC2 the world is just a barely-there backdrop to drama between character interactions.

Make no mistake, they killed the lore.

Game is still good tho.

Good post bro, have to agree. Ya, the game is good and fun, but the story is just irredeemable fucking shit. Which is totally not what I wanted. I was expecting a sequel to the setting of starcraft and brood war.

Boy was I wrong. Still remember 2010 and the release of WoL. What the fucking fuck.

 

[Maculo]

Not that I expect more starcraft games in the immediate future, but the ending slides did seem to dial things back in a good way. The way I see it, the setting is rid of Kerrigan, Xel'naga, Jim Raynor, and PROPHECIES. No matter what, LotV made sure that the Xel'naga/apocalypse storyline is gone for good. Moreover, we know that the factions are shaken up with the new Dominion, Alarak, and Zagarra in the ending slides. I think those ending slides helped bring back a more SC1-esque faction setting.

In some ways, I wish Blizzard would do the same thing with Warcraft. Specifically, I would like them to end the constant apocalypse storylines and just go back to the factions being pricks.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

just go back to the factions being pricks.

The intricacies of faction politics and human/alien interaction is always something in fiction that's significantly more interesting to read about than THE CHOSEN ONE WILL SAVE THE WORLD FROM ULTIMATE DOOM AS WAS PROPHECISED BY THE ANCIENT PRECURSORS! Maybe I only think that's important because I'm a worldbuildingfag, because I'm sure the latter has been done well at least once.

To me, the best way to show off the quality of worldbuilding in your fictional setting is to show how the people within it actually interact with eachother based upon the circumstances they live in. Don't exposition dump about TIDINGS OF DOOM because chances are it's the least interesting part of your world.

 

[cvv]

Still remember 2010 and the release of WoL.

Still remember 1998 and the release of SC1. Still the best game Blizzard ever made, in terms of writing and innovation. It was such a revelation, suddenly everyone saw how stale and boring all the other RTS were, especially C&C.

In WoL the nuBlizzard weaboo-anime-for-13-year-olds mannerisms were unmistakable but suppressed. In HotS and LotV they exploded in full force. Seems to me the older Metzen is the more juvenille the writing and vibe of his games is, which is doubly weird considering his trademark macho alpha black-leather-jacket image.