RUMOR: Starcraft 2 announced next month

Starcraft 2 is a game I am both really excited and very apprehensive about. I adore Starcraft and still get a game in online with my friends every now and then. A game that old, with that much support, is going to have some crazy fans. Not Fallout No-Mutants-Allowed crazy, but pretty crazy nonetheless.

MMORTS or burn.

I’m guessing two years from now is when it will launch, as it has already been started a while ago and is in development now.

Oh, definitely.

Keep in mind that when Warcraft 3 came out, there were plenty of Starcraft players going batshit insane over the fact that the priest’s “heal” spell was autocast. I’m dead fucking serious. There were pages and pages of frothing diatribes about how making a few spells autocast was completely ruining the game.

Of course, after Blizzard told them all to go fuck themselves, they went back to touching themselves while watching cutscenes of Zerg-Kerrigan or something. I don’t know. But they will be back if Starcraft 2 is real. Oh Lord, they will be back.

As long as they include a way to turn off autocast then everybody should be happy. ;)

Please, please, please for Starcraft 2!

I still don’t see why everybody is convinced that World of Starcraft is inevitable. I just don’t get the overwhelming logic of spending another $200m just to compete with yourself in a genre that you’re already dominating.

Are you kidding? I figure they probably think they can get half of them to have dual subs and bring in a whole bunch of new people, considering the subject matter. Once again, if there’s anyone that can push the market to new heights that literally no one else can push, it’s them. Anything they can do would be gold, and I honestly don’t think they’d be drawing too much away from WoW. Heck they’d probably have an expansion come out 6 months before.

— Alan

I have to agree with Allen. These games take several years to develop and if they started now they might be able to catch the tail end success of WoW as no MMO’s popularity lasts forever. Then they could have dual subs or take people tired of WoW and switch them over to the SC MMO. Those that will play WoW till their dying days (much like those still playing UO and Everquest) will be unaffected. I think it’s more an issue of timing if anything and considering how Blizzard refuses to release games that aren’t incredibly polished and ready to go (Starcraft: Ghost and Warcraft Adventures anyone?), the development could take a while. But really, it’s all just speculation as an RTS sequel is more likely at this point.

I also agree that WoSC is probably going to come out, and that it will be handled almost like a sequel to WoW rather than a concurrent game. Not that Blizzard will actually present it to gamers as a sequel, but they will attempt to time it such that it becomes the next big thing as WoW’s light is fading, which probably means WoSC will ship in 2010-2012 or so.

Now that we’re rolling around to 2010, it is kind of like the switch to 2000 where dates sound super futuristic even though they aren’t that far away… hopefully that sort of feeling will go away for me once 2020 is rolling around.

Not to me… Starcraft is the only Blizzard game prior to WoW that I actually liked.

Diablo 2 and WoW are the only Blizzard games I like.

You know, this kind of close mindedness pisses me off.

You mean the kind of closed mindedness where you state your opinion of what you consider the best game of a certain kind? God forbid we have any of that around here.

Btw, StarCraft 4 lyf, yo

He’s mostly right, though. The competitive multiplayer communities of the 'Craft games still kick the snot out of every other RTS community that’s ever cropped up.

Why, because there are more players? More players doesn’t automagically make the game better or any more or less competitive.

There are real-time strategy fans and then there are Starcraft fans. I’m not a big fan of the attitude of the latter.

It’s fine to have a favorite game, but putting down Company of Heroes, Command & Conquer 3 and Supreme Commander in the process is typical of Starcraft fans… because they likely never bothered to play them to find out if they’d enjoy them or not.

Starcraft fans are the flight-sim-like rivet counters of the RTS genre.

But I’ve said enough… I like Starcraft myself, but the RTS genre has progressed so far beyond that game and there are a lot of other great competitive RTS games to play that have come along since 1998.

The strategy game (RTS and Turn Based) genre has progressed itself into a niche that not that many are interested in relative to the overall market of game players, which is why my favorite strategy games of the past 10 years are still StarCraft and Advance Wars. (FWIW, PC FPS games are also in danger of progressing themselves into a niche these days with constant refinement of the BF formula).

Here’s hoping StarCraft 2 is more like StarCraft than your favorite recent RTS games.

That’s bullshit, and makes my case for me.

Command & Conquer 3 is as vanilla as RTS can get. It’s less of a niche game than even Starcraft is.

Same goes for the Age of Empires games and Age of Mythology, all of which have come along since. I could go on and on but there’s no need because your post is typical of people who played Starcraft and never bothered to try anything else. It’s completely uninformed.

I hope StarCraft 2 is more like Company of Heroes in terms of mechanics, but more like StarCraft in terms of cut scenes and sales.

Yeah, I agree, C&C3 is a piece of crap.