Starcraft 2 to be three seperate games

Do you like the original Starcraft? Are you looking forward to the sequal? If so, would you still be interested in the game if Blizzard said they would make each races' campaign into a seperate game? That seems to be what Blizzard has planned for the sequal. The Terran campaign will be released first, followed by Zerg and then Protoss.

I have no idea what this means for multiplayer. The article says the current plans are unchanged, but that some units will be exclusive to the campaign mode. Given how new this development is, I'm not sure what to say about it, other than I think it's really retarded and an obvious cash grab.

Snarboo said:

I think it's really retarded and an obvious cash grab.

...coz you know, with WOW and everything, Blizzard must be "so" broke just at the moment, and "not at all" rolling in money.






...Yeah. Total cash grab.

Funny (sad?) thing is... I will still probably play at least one of them. Probably Terran.

Kyka said:

Yeah. Total cash grab.

Why else would you seperate a game into three parts. :p And WOW is probably the reason this is happening. Blizzard realized people will buy anything they put out, so why not make more money from one of the most popular RTS games in history?

Or maybe they are making them large enough to actually merit being released as their own games?

Bloodshedder said:

Or maybe they are making them large enough to actually merit being released as their own games?

Intuition says: "Doubtful"

Hmmm not sure what to make of this. The size of the campaigns will probably decide whether the cost of owning more than 1 is worth it; and that's if most of the players want to pay extra for single player. The exclusive-in-campaign units don't really make a difference (they're probably like an elaboration of unique 'heroes' that SC1 had), but I think it's best that the multiplayer stays unchanged as stated since the MP player base isn't split to favor expansions.
Glad to hear the Terran campaign is first, I'd probably play them as a primary race online.

Imperium Galactica II managed to fit 3 campaign CD's into the one game - this is a cash grab.

I'd say release a game with a later expansion in the year like Supcom did, but 3 separate games? That's a bit silly. At least it'll help the balance in the multiplayer perhaps.

Oh great, gamers are seen as living money to them. This is blind and annoying.

I guess gamers could fight back by not giving money to Blizzard.


Yeah, that'll happen.

You know, if they all cost 20 bucks or so, I won't mind that much.

alexz721 said:

You know, if they all cost 20 bucks or so, I won't mind that much.

Just to be pessimistic, Im going to guess that they are all full price...

An article at Gamespot that gives a little bit more detail than the op's

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6199172.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Apparently each of these games is going to come with its own 26-30 mission branching campaign, though all the routes will lead to the same ending.

Bloodshedder said:

Or maybe they are making them large enough to actually merit being released as their own games?

God forbid someone makes sense in this thread.

Zaldron said:

God forbid someone makes sense in this thread.

Gamers making sense? What's that?

Anyway, I think that this will be a good idea if each campaign is going to be pretty lengthy. Blizzard hasn't said how long we would have to wait for each one. As far as we know, there could be a 4-8 month wait in between each release.

Bloodshedder said:

Or maybe they are making them large enough to actually merit being released as their own games?

The article says yes.

Still, this really does seem like some sort of cash grab. I, for one, am not going to buy it until it comes out in one package unless the games sell for cheaper than normal. The only reason I want to play them is for the story. I don't really care for RTSs. I just cheated my way through Starcraft to see the whole plotline. :P

I play RTS's for the variety, not just the single player campaign. So, it looks like I won't be upgrading for SCII now. That, or downloadan.

Releasing them like this is a bit insulting, because I'll see the Enemy AI in various races, but not be able to play as them myself, unless I pay more, and more again.

It's worse than Wacraft 3's policy of having to play the races in sequence.

I actually just checked the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st.

It could also be that three separate versions could be sold cheaper, thus lowering the threshold between downloading the game and buying it. If it just costs 10 bucks, then sure, I'd buy it. I'll say the same to myself when #2 comes out. And #3. It's really a quite brilliant way to avoid piracy without tedious (and ultimately futile) anti-piracy methods.

If starcraft 2 turns out to look as cool to me as starcraft 1 when I first saw it, I'll get the zerg edition.

Vermil said:

An article at Gamespot that gives a little bit more detail than the op's

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6199172.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Apparently each of these games is going to come with its own 26-30 mission branching campaign, though all the routes will lead to the same ending.

That's not so bad. After all, the original Starcraft and Broodwar had about 30 missions each. Still, I don't know if I could spend 50 dollars three times. Maybe 50 the first time and 20 the other two times. This same ending deal isn't what I got from that article. It just looks like the campaign is variable with a set ending, but looks like it'll still pick up from where the previous game left off.

JohnnyRancid said:

If starcraft 2 turns out to look as cool to me as starcraft 1 when I first saw it, I'll get the zerg edition.

I'm pretty sure it will pick stuff up from Warcraft 3, just like how Warcraft 3 took from Starcraft. IMO, Warcraft and Starcraft are two different IPs and I find it annoying that they tend to copy technology from each other (more specifically I'm referring to Warcraft 3 taking behaviour from Starcraft; don't ask me to list them, because they're subtle and many).

I know Blizzard will come through and make their releases worthy of everyone's money. That being said, I hate playing through an episode and be screwed up the ass by some cliffhanger that leaves me wanting more. Fuck that.

With Blizzard's breaking up of SC2 in mind, I'm just going to put off this game until ALL THREE episodes come out, then play it as one super-epic adventure. Same thing for HL2's episode 1-3.

... Maybe by then they'll have all three in a Battle Chest for cheap.

It's pretty simple, really. I doubt it has anything to do with money.

1. Blizzard wants to try something new with their SP campaigns.
2. They come up with unlinear progression through the otherwise linear story. So we've got mission threading.
3. This leads to a requirement of more than the usual 10 missions in order to tell the story and get most out of the new concept.
4. The Terran campaign now spans over ~30 missions. The size of Star Craft 1.
5. Oops. This pushes Star Craft 2 back to a 2010 release at the very earliest. More likely a 2011 release.
6. This leaves them with three options. A: Cut back to 10 missions per race and lose some of the potential of their new progression concept. B: Release the three campaigns as "standalone" games. C: Wait until 2011 to release SC2.

They chose option B. We don't know the price yet, but they have stated that each chapter will be as long as Star Craft 1 (as in around 30 missions).