StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Will Contain Protoss "Mini-Campaign"

[Greg Tito]

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Will Contain Protoss "Mini-Campaign"

An official blue poster on the Battle.net forums has revealed that the first StarCraft II [http://www.amazon.com/Starcraft-II-Wings-Liberty-Pc/dp/B000ZKA0J6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278964580&sr=1-1] chapter will contain a mini-campaign using Protoss units.

Starcraft II will be released in three iterations, with each focusing on one of the three races: Terran, Zerg and Protoss. The first will be Wings of Liberty, which follows the Terran and is expected in Q1 or Q2 2010. The subsequent chapters are called Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void which will focus on the Zerg and Protoss races respectively. Xordiah, an official Blizzard moderator on the Battle.net forums, said that while StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the Terran chapter, there will also be a Protoss section. The "mini-campaign" will be much shorter than the Terran missions, but will give the player a taste of the different units and playstyles that the race provides.

Xordiah said [http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=22048397260&postId=220474735026&sid=3000#2], "I can confirm that there will be a Protoss mini-campaign that lets you control Protoss units. This part of the campaign mode is of course way shorter than the Terran part, but it is very fun to have a very different playstyle to add even more variety to the game. I am sure every Protoss fan will love this part of the Campaign!"

The minicampaign is not a preparation for jumping into multiplayer as a Protoss, Xordiah stressed:

You won't be using all units or getting to know buildings and upgrades. In general, even for Terran, it is not the objective of the singleplayer to show how to play the game effectively, it is to tell a story and do a lot of fun things, that would not be possible in multiplayer. The Challenges, mini-missions, that ask you to complete a very specific task, are more suited to give players the opportunity to learn how to use the units and how to play the game.

I imagine that the Protoss mini-campaign might act like the Orc prologue in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos wherein the player controlled Thrall and learned the basics of how to control the game and the user interface.

Source: VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2010/01/04/starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty-to-contain-protoss-mini-campaign/]

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[Sevre]

Rather than ***** about how it's in 3 split packs, I'm quite happy they're letting me play Protoss.

 

[The DSM]

Wow.

This is the first time theres been something I have no idea about on the News Room.

Yey?

 

[Warrior Irme]

Now all they need to do is release it to us and I will be complete.

 

[Aunel]

what's Protoss?
no seriously what are they?

 

[Jared]

Now all they need to do is release it to us and I will be complete.

lol, seriously. Would be nice

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

want them to bring Red Alert 3 units to Starcraft in a cross promotional gimmmick. But that ain't happening since EA has RA3 and Activision has Blizzard, thus having Starcraft.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I would likewise be happy about that, but the bit where they made us wait over 10 years for a sequel and then decided to split it into 3 pieces has pretty much killed any remaining interest I have for anything Blizzard does these days. You had your chance Blizzard! My RTS needs are ably met by Relic's awesome Dawn of War games now, and I'm never going back!

If I buy Starcraft II at all it will be when it hits bargain-bin price levels.

 

[Sonicron]

Very nice, but I don't feel this is anything special. Maybe we'll get a bit of Protoss prologue this way, but weren't there already missions in the original StarCraft where you had control over two factions at once?

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Wings of Liberty?

...

I thought 'Orbital Drop Shock Trooper' was a ridiculous subtitle >.>

 

[John Funk]

I would likewise be happy about that, but the bit where they made us wait over 10 years for a sequel and then decided to split it into 3 pieces has pretty much killed any remaining interest I have for anything Blizzard does these days. You had your chance Blizzard! My RTS needs are ably met by Relic's awesome Dawn of War games now, and I'm never going back!

If I buy Starcraft II at all it will be when it hits bargain-bin price levels.

Your loss, mate.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dawn of War 2 - I really, really did. Relic is a very talented developer, and they do RTSes well.

And then I played StarCraft II at BlizzCon, and it really knocked my socks off. By far the most fun I've had with an RTS since, well... the original StarCraft, I guess. Besides, the whole "three pieces" argument has really lost a bit of its impact, I feel - it's the same as if the original SC had two expansion packs instead of just one.

 

[SharedProphet]

Starcraft II will be released in three iterations, with each focusing on one of the three races: Terran, Zerg and Protoss. The first will be Wings of Liberty, which follows the Terran and is expected in Q1 or Q2 2010.

Expected by whom? I expect it in Q4 or QQ... heheh.

 

[Kollega]

These news are old. Like, half a year old, if not more. I heard about this "mini-campaign" very long ago.

And i don't give a shit anyway.

what's Protoss?
no seriously what are they?

Space elves. Somewhat like Eldar, maybe a bit less grimdark.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I would likewise be happy about that, but the bit where they made us wait over 10 years for a sequel and then decided to split it into 3 pieces has pretty much killed any remaining interest I have for anything Blizzard does these days. You had your chance Blizzard! My RTS needs are ably met by Relic's awesome Dawn of War games now, and I'm never going back!

If I buy Starcraft II at all it will be when it hits bargain-bin price levels.

Your loss, mate.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dawn of War 2 - I really, really did. Relic is a very talented developer, and they do RTSes well.

And then I played StarCraft II at BlizzCon, and it really knocked my socks off. By far the most fun I've had with an RTS since, well... the original StarCraft, I guess. Besides, the whole "three pieces" argument has really lost a bit of its impact, I feel - it's the same as if the original SC had two expansion packs instead of just one.

Ah, well that makes me want it even less actually, since the mechanics of the original Starcraft were bloody archaic even at the time of release and I only ever played it for the story. I would certainly hope Blizzard has at least made some concessions to modern RTS design principles in the sequel, but then they didn't do that with Warcraft III either so I have a suspicion my hopes will be dashed on the jagged rocks of reality once again.

As for the expansion pack question, you do realize the original Starcraft already has two expansions, right? In fact it has three: Insurrection, Retribution, and Brood War. Anyways, Brood War was essentially an entire new game's worth of campaign content for all three factions, in addition to the three campaigns present in the main game.

So no, it's not like that at all, it's like they divided the original Starcraft into three pieces and sold the second and third campaigns to us as expansion packs and Brood War was never even developed, let alone the other two. Expansion packs are supposed to be things you get in addition to the core game, but Blizzard already flat out stated that these 'expansions' were just "Starcraft II" until they decided to chop the game up into pieces and sell it to us three times.

And to that, I quite rightly cry foul.

what's Protoss?
no seriously what are they?

Space elves. Somewhat like Eldar, maybe a bit less grimdark.

Only in the sense that both Protoss and the Eldar use psionics, follow a strict system of mental conditioning designed to protect from the dangers of said psionics, and have a darker sub-race that rejects those controls. Otherwise the Protoss don't resemble Space Elves at all, ha ha!

Really though, their physical appearance is about the only thing they didn't swipe from 40K, so they are Space Elves that don't actually look like Space Elves.

 

[Eruanno]

Right. So... when is it being released, for crying out loud? (Oh I know, nobody knows.) I do not care that it is split into three pieces, I will buy it and I will play the crap out of it. And it will be AWESOME.

 

[microhive]

I would likewise be happy about that, but the bit where they made us wait over 10 years for a sequel and then decided to split it into 3 pieces has pretty much killed any remaining interest I have for anything Blizzard does these days. You had your chance Blizzard! My RTS needs are ably met by Relic's awesome Dawn of War games now, and I'm never going back!

If I buy Starcraft II at all it will be when it hits bargain-bin price levels.

Your loss, mate.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dawn of War 2 - I really, really did. Relic is a very talented developer, and they do RTSes well.

And then I played StarCraft II at BlizzCon, and it really knocked my socks off. By far the most fun I've had with an RTS since, well... the original StarCraft, I guess. Besides, the whole "three pieces" argument has really lost a bit of its impact, I feel - it's the same as if the original SC had two expansion packs instead of just one.

Ah, well that makes me want it even less actually, since the mechanics of the original Starcraft were bloody archaic even at the time of release and I only ever played it for the story. I would certainly hope Blizzard has at least made some concessions to modern RTS design principles in the sequel, but then they didn't do that with Warcraft III either so I have a suspicion my hopes will be dashed on the jagged rocks of reality once again.

As for the expansion pack question, you do realize the original Starcraft already has two expansions, right? In fact it has three: Insurrection, Retribution, and Brood War. Anyways, Brood War was essentially an entire new game's worth of campaign content for all three factions, in addition to the three campaigns present in the main game.

So no, it's not like that at all, it's like they divided the original Starcraft into three pieces and sold the second and third campaigns to us as expansion packs and Brood War was never even developed, let alone the other two. Expansion packs are supposed to be things you get in addition to the core game, but Blizzard already flat out stated that these 'expansions' were just "Starcraft II" until they decided to chop the game up into pieces and sell it to us three times.

And to that, I quite rightly cry foul.

The original StarCraft game only had one expansion. If you want to study how much content you actually get for the base game itself you'll be pleasantly surprised to see you're wrong.

But then again it's your choice.

 

[Amnestic]

what's Protoss?
no seriously what are they?

Tassadar of the Templar disapproves of your shenanigans.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

The original StarCraft game only had one expansion. If you want to study how much content you actually get for the base game itself you'll be pleasantly surprised to see you're wrong.

But then again it's your choice.

Incorrectamundo: Scroll down to PC expansions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft]. It had one official Blizzard expansion, but Brood War was proceeded by two authorized 3rd party expansions that nobody remembers because they weren't particularly good.

 

[GothmogII]

what's Protoss?
no seriously what are they?

Tassadar of the Templar disapproves of your shenanigans.

Clearly Tassadar has failed us! He dropped the ball on this one.

 

[Zero Serenity]

"The minicampaign is not a preparation for jumping into multiplayer as a Protoss... In general, even for Terran, it is not the objective of the singleplayer to show how to play the game effectively"

Seriously. Games like this bug me. You play single player to get the idea and learn tactics and whatnot, but when it comes to multiplayer you have get totaly stomped on because nobody bothered to teach you things like turtling doesn't work. To go through a single player campaign and get no idea how to play the game online is not the game I wanna play. At least C&C 3 (RA3 does this too) explains that certian units are good for certian tasks, such as predators being anti-armor weapons while the vertigo is a stealth bomber. It also gives you some idea how to use them, like in the single player campaign there is one mission (GDI) that says there are no air defenses in one part of the map, allowing you to micro in a small airstrike to take out the base's power. This, in a subtle way, teaches the importance of recon and a little microing and tactics, yet starcraft will be devoid of this. Hell, it wasn't untill I got my ass kicked several times in Battle.net starcraft that someone told me the terran marine was actualy worth a damn.

I'm not buying this. I still say that C&C3 (here I go again) was probably one of the best RTS games of this current era, with probably the original or RA the best of all time.