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Blizzard: We're Not Milking StarCraft, Just "Reshuffling" Expansion Content
Posted 10/13/08 at 10:43:45 PM | by Nathan Grayson
No one can deny that StarCraft II's recently announced reverse-Voltron has officially renewed Blizzard's license to print money, but they can deny Blizzard's good intentions. Vehemently. Don't worry, though; the StarCraft crafters went out of their way to provide a few argument-dominating quotes on the off-chance you're still feeling a tad miffed about their decision.
"One of the things that [StarCraft II lead producer] Chris Sigaty was saying in interviews this weekend is that we had always planned to do two expansion packs for StarCraft II. This structure just reshuffles how we were going to do things," StarCraft rep Bob Colayco told Edge in response to the titular moo-juice allusion.
"Just to give you some context, typically with Blizzard RTSes, we release a single-player campaign that gives players just a taste of each race. The original StarCraft had 10 missions each or so for Terrans and Protoss. When we released the Brood Wars expansion pack, there was another eight or so missions for each of the missions."
Each race-focused StarCraft II release, then, includes the same number of missions -- and therefore, roughly the same amount of content -- as their unified predecessor. However, instead of a pithy 10 missions per race, the Terrans stand front and center for 30 missions, as do the Zerg and Protoss.
"Well, if you want to say 'one game' is 90 missions long, then yeah, I guess you’re only getting a third of a game each time," Colayco added. "Show me a game where there are 90 missions. We’re giving players a full-fledged single-player campaign experience included in each of the games."
See? That's no cash-grabbing scheme. That's Blizzard's sacrifice. We'd type more, but we're too busy saluting and choking back a single, glistening tear.
Comments Print Email Blizzard has/is hanging itself
Submitted by ghot on Thu, 2008-10-16 10:51
I still play Diablo II and have since D1 beta....in other words I've gotten to know Blizzard...and YES their now pulling a "Stephen King" aka snippets of game/story for the price of a full copy. They even did it back before the Lord of Destruction Expansion, and didnt EVEN have the smarts to hide it....
See for yourself....Install JUST D2 w/o the LoD expansion....enter a game and look in the quest log....even before LoD was even speculated about.....Blizzard had "left space" in the quest log for a "fifth" act, that being LoD. All they are doing now is being even LESS smart about it. The kid gloves are off.....they are BLANTANTLY grabbing for your wallet, and doing it with no apparent shame. I'm just glad they don't write books, or at least any books that I would buy. What would they do sell a chapter at a time for the cost of an entire book?
I've met hookers with more morals.
heres the deal
Submitted by asdfghnbvcxz on Wed, 2008-10-15 01:29
Before I start, heres my premise: "Starcraft is a complete game when 3 races are represented and playable to the same extent in multiplayer AND singleplayer"
SCII therefore is NOT a standalone game. They've used this word " standalone" to trick us in thinking that we're getting a complete game.
Although its milking, but personally thats not why I'm pissed; I don't have problem with $. (I'll explain later why it ABSOLUTELY IS milking later...)
More importantly, if you consider my premise above, I'm pissed because I won't be able to EXPERIENCE STARCRAFT. PERIOD. I'm simply against the idea of waiting for 2nd and 3rd campaign to come out.
They said they've "always" thought of having expansions to SC2. I smell bullshit. I think they just came up with that sentence when preparing for this announcement. 2nd and 3rd so called "expansions" are really pieces of ONE puzzle. Broodwar WAS an expansion. If it was never announced to be released, if it never existed, no one would be complaining because we won't be waiting for something;
Now, however, we WILL be waiting for the 2nd and 3rd part because ONLY THEN will we have experiences STARCRAFT.
Now the milking part: some say "oh its not milking! multiplayer will feature all 3 races!" Actually, they said that 2nd and 3rd releases will have some changes (new units etc) to the multiplayer and people with the first release WON'T be able to play with people with 2nd release. Now....they know that everyone will be like "but but...I dont wanna sit around and play with losers! I wanna play the new multiplayer!!" So therefore, its not just the campaigns, it's the multiplayer aspect that they'll use to get $$.Bottom line: Release everything at once, no matter how long it takes. For me personally, it's not the $$ that bothers me, it's the insult to the fans by suggesting that the first 2nd and 3rd release is "standalone" when its REALLY 1/3, 2/3 and 3/3.
And just for the fun of, and because I'm pissed, I hope those torrent guys get busy when 2nd and 3rd come out. Actually, since I don't play multiplayer, i'll probably be downloading the first too, and encouraging others to do so as well.
Submitted by Spendrik on Mon, 2008-10-13 23:15
It's hard not to be cynical about this. Has WoW set the bar so high that every game that Blizzard makes now need to meet some internal ROI?
The strength of SC has always been multiplayer: having 3 dramatically different but arguably balanced factions to slug it out on the battlefield. Nothing beats the exhilaration of beating *human* opponents on well-crafted maps.
Thirty missions per race just seems excessive for the single-player portion of the game. I hope none of them turn out to be stocking fillers.
Submitted by dracoress on Tue, 2008-10-14 04:39
I don't think that I ever even played the MP of Starcraft except maybe against the computer (don't remember) there for I am happy for the triple play.
Submitted by Velcrow on Tue, 2008-10-14 09:28
I somewhat agree. The majority of my multiplayer experience was 2/3 humans vs 3/4 computers. I can't remember ever opposing another human. However, I did begin to spend a tremendous amount of time on multiplayer minigames that people had made, like sunken colony defense. Those were fun as hell.
Submitted by Velcrow on Mon, 2008-10-13 22:52
I personally have no qualms about the trilogy. Of course, I did read a good post at IGN that reminded me how exciting it was to see the three races confront the war from different viewpoints in quick succession. Not to say this won't happen again, but you become intimate with the characters of each race, and even 6 months between games leaves plenty of time for that to fade. You play the Terran, take part in their struggle, form empathy for Jimmy and friends, then 6 months later you're making them extinct as the Zerg. My question is... will we still care 6 months later? I hope so. It may be the difference between a great game, and an exceptional one.
In those 6 months in between
Submitted by b_boy_69_00 on Tue, 2008-10-14 04:42
In those 6 months in between games I'll have moved on to something else after I have beaten the campain 2 or 3 times. I just don't see myself getting that excited to spend another $50 on a game I've already played. It may be a different race, but its still the same game. I always thought an expansion was adding content to an already completed game, not adding the parts of the game that were failed to be included with the original. They can say they aren't milking it all they want, but they success of the first game was the multiplayer, not the single player, so I don't see the need to put such a huge emphasis on the part of the game that wasn't even it's moneymaker in the first place. The only way I will buy the expansions is if they add massive amounts of multiplayer content because that will be the reason I buy the game.
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