Blizzard Explains Tough Decisions Behind StarCraft II Trilogy

[JeanLuc761]

-snip-

No, graphics are more intricate than they've ever been before. You listed nothing that has anything to do with game design and everything to do with graphical design. The two are not related at all. Basically the relationship between the two is architecture and feng shui (read: completely meaningless yet extremely overpriced service designed mostly to sell 400% markup fountains and windchimes to stupid people).

If they had told me twenty years ago that, eventually, fewer and fewer games would come out each year because each game would need hundreds of thousands of man-hours worth of graphical work, I'd say, "whats wrong with the way games are now?" But since no one asked me, I'm saying "whats wrong with the way games were?" Who the fuck cares about the volume of fog or how speculative the lighting is? None of this shit matters!

Fair enough, I was only referring to the visuals in my argument. Despite that, I still find that valid. As technology improves, the visuals improve with it.

From your argument, it seems as though you'd be perfectly okay if we were still stuck with 16-bit visuals at 800x600 and while I won't fault you for that, it's a bit arrogant to assume that the progression of graphical technology has been for the worse of the industry. We can tell stories and create art that would never have been possible even five years ago, and it's all due to the the effort put in by the artists.

Beyond that though, game engines have become far more complex as well, as has game design. Doom was one of the first FPS games, but would everyone have been happy if we were still stuck with the lack of Z-Axis gameplay and the limited visuals? Not a chance! The progression of graphics, game design and game engines (and the required increase in personnel) has advanced gaming to far more than what it ever could have been when the original StarCraft came out.

 

[Tom Goldman]

30 missions campaign in one game is not a half assed work to me, I look forward to future instalments.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

Fair enough, I was only referring to the visuals in my argument. Despite that, I still find that valid. As technology improves, the visuals improve with it.

From your argument, it seems as though you'd be perfectly okay if we were still stuck with 16-bit visuals at 800x600 and while I won't fault you for that, it's a bit arrogant to assume that the progression of graphical technology has been for the worse of the industry. We can tell stories and create art that would never have been possible even five years ago, and it's all due to the the effort put in by the artists.

Beyond that though, game engines have become far more complex as well, as has game design. Doom was one of the first FPS games, but would everyone have been happy if we were still stuck with the lack of Z-Axis gameplay and the limited visuals? Not a chance! The progression of graphics, game design and game engines (and the required increase in personnel) has advanced gaming to far more than what it ever could have been when the original StarCraft came out.

Grrr...

Our ability to 'tell stories' has not improved. All thats happened is people have to read and visualize less. In fact, video gaming's ability to tell stories has lessened over the years, as pretty much everything in a video game's story needs to be render-able. Thus, no convex but concave architecture. No objects beyond the human mind to fully grasp. No creatures who's mere presence assault's your ability to think clearly. Mountains may be able to float, but all the graphical capability in the world can't make a plum defy (an anthropomorphic plum is no longer a plum).

Its also very, very easy to argue that despite the "z-axis" isssue, doom was actually more complex than most modern first person shooters. Ignoring all other concerns, modern first person shooters are all cover based with regenerating health. Two systems designed from the ground up to reduce the amount you have to play. The AI does a little more than walk towards you and produce bullets, but you, the player, couldn't simply rely on automatic health regeneration and chest high walls to sail your ass cleanly through the game.

Finally, no it is not, in any way, shape, or form, arrogant to argue that through the graphical arm's race, publishers have gained near complete control over the video game industry and thus have corrupted it's purpose from "making awesome stuff," to "making money." When the focus is how much you could polish a turd, rather than making something that isn't a turd, shit is fucked, yo. (not to imply sc2 is a turd, dawg)

 

[ImprovizoR]

Hell, if 2k can develop a game (mafia 2) for 6 years and come up with an 8 hour campaign and nothing else and then sell you the cut content as DLC I guess Blizzard can make 3 games if they put enough content into each one. I was wrong about Starcraft 2. I said I wont buy it but a friend talked me into buying it. And I wasn't disappointed. The campaign is awesome, the MP is awesome. Totally worth the money. I can't wait for more Starcraft 2. I already played through the campaign 3 times. I'm on my 4th play-through on Brutal. And I'm telling you, it is brutal indeed.

 

[Shaoken]

Would of felt like a full game with all race campaigns instead of all 3 released separately. That's why all previous RTS games did it, because it was a much better method. Then they could continue the story or make a completely new story in a expansion. That's why your still full of shit Blizzard.

Bullshit. Dawn of War was considered a great RTS, but the first one only gave you a Marine campaign. If you wanted to play as other factions you had to buy expansion packs. Halo Wars only had a UNSC campaign, Command and Conquer 3 didn't let you play as the Scrin, Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge had no Yuri campaign, etc. etc.

And how is it a much better method? Again, Dawn of War was a great game because of the balance between the races, you didn't need to give ever race it's own campaign to tell a story. Was Lord of the Rings any less of a story because they didn't devote half of it to telling the Orcs story? Was Mass Effect story bad because you didn't get to play as Saren? Of course not, they were still great stories and no less complete for not including other factions as protagonists. Devoting more attention to just one side means you can tell more of a story, whereas the multi-race model condenses everything into a shortened experience. For instance, there are plenty of side-plots in SC2, but only one in SC1 (Duran and his hybrids).

~nolstagic whining~

Seriously, that's all it is. That's all your doing. You're looking back on the past with rosary-tinted glasses. And I hate to break this to you, but the past was not as great as you remember. The only reason you think it's better is because the human mind tends to forget about the negative aspects of the past (which is why old people typically consider the past to be better; because their minds erase the negative feelings attached to it).

 

[Frankfurter4444]

For Blizzard to put out the product of the quality it wanted, more content was necessary, but that would have been setting Blizzard up for "a 10 or 12-year development cycle."

Since the last game came out in 1998...you know.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

(And yes, what I'm just saying is, "maybe if they didn't wait 12 years to start production, they might not have had the issue of some fans complaining. I love StarCraft, especially StarCraft 2, but I did not like waiting 12 years for the resolution to a game left on such a cliffhanger. That kind of action should be punishable)

 

[Cynical skeptic]

-snip-

Oh, so games are actually getting longer and more complex rather than shorter and simpler? Developers are fielding more mature storylines that deal with more important issues and philisohpical questions rather than simplistic bullshit designed only to generate spectacle? Gameplay mechanics are focusing more on abstract thought and lateral thinking rather than hiding behind chest high walls and waiting for blood to fall off your face?

My bad. I must've been getting all my games from bizzaro world for the last twenty years.

Yea, time heals all wounds. Congratulations for having a perfunctory awareness of a basic concept. The reality is the golden age of gaming was defined by experimentation and failure. You may have forgotten all of (or simply weren't around for) the failures, but the failures are what allowed the diamonds of the past to exist.

But there are no diamonds anymore. Everyone is polishing shit and calling it gold. You, the consumer, do nothing but buy every piece up, acting like the shit-polishers are doing you some sort of favor.

Just because things have changed doesn't mean the old ways were worse. While the past's very real possibility of failure bred fear, safety breeds stagnation.

 

[matrix3509]

Holy GODDAMN this thread is full of whiners.

 

[Archemetis]

If you enjoy the damn games where's the actual harm in paying more money for it?

Or has everyone become more or less jaded by the fact that since the escalation in gaming as a popular activity that developers have had to become less about providing the most fun in a single experience and more about making sure they're financially able to carry on providing entertainment at all...?

I mean, hell most of the comments I've read have made it sound like they don't even like Blizzard's games... Fair enough, you don't have to buy them.... But please don't insult a company for wanting to secure a financial future whilst also making sure people don't lose interest in their game half way through.
(I don't know about some people hear, but I don't think I could keep my interest up in a game with a triple-sized campaign.)

In my views, Starcraft 2: Wings of liberty was a fun game, Granted I didn't buy it, my brother did and I won't be buying the Zerg version, but you can bet that when the Protoss copy comes around I'll be shelling out for it, full price or expansion price, doesn't matter.

Why? Well I guess it's because they still make high quality games*...

They can't exactly help that they're a business, which of course needs to make money to survive and keep providing products.
(Which, big news people, all developers are the same.)


[*subject to personal opinion, I don't want to hear about how you think their games are shit, if you don't like them, then why are you reading articles about their games?]

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

If you don't agree that Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty was a complete experience of the HIGHEST quality, then honestly I don't care too much about your opinion, because it's clearly wrong. Wings of Liberty did not disappoint in the least, and I doubt the other games will either. To all the people saying Blizzard is "milking it"... did you play Wings of Liberty? That game had enough content to fill 3 games.

If there's one developer in the world that I trust to give me my money's worth in a product, it's Blizzard.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

-A bunch of stuff about Kotick's greedmongering-

Can't remember where I heard/read this, but it applies to pretty much everything: "Party's over when the suits show."

In business, the moment someone outside the field takes the reigns, everything goes to shit for employees and consumers. The only people who benefit are shareholders. Kinda sad when you think about it. Despite the "investor" label, shareholders are typically less invested than the people who live for the company (employees) or the customers who support it.

Incorporation sucks.

And they are usually not *just* investors. They get to have a lot more clout because it's *their* money.

Goes to show if any indie-devs are reading this. DO NOT TAKE OUTSIDE MONEY! It's easy to spend other people's money more than your own hard won cash, and then you get addicted and soon, you won't be making your own games..

It's not that cut and dry, though. There are good investors and there are bad investors. For the most part, I think good investors are passionate about the product. You want a legitimate food guy as your partner in a restaurant venture, You want a film buff as your partner on a motion picture, and you want a fucking gamer to be footing the bill for your latest project.

He/she can be a business man/woman, too. That's fine. But if you're dealing with someone whose sole interest is dollar signs, things suffer. You're no longer trying to cultivate a fantastic work environment that produces great games for your customers. Now you're trying to squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of your now-frightened workforce and hoping to bilk as much money as possible out of a deliberately misinformed consumer base.

Kotick is a non-gamer. That's precisely why he does the things he does and says the things he says. That's also why his PR drones tried to tell us he's a gamer. They were trying to assuage our very justified fears for the direction of this industry - which is, I stress, a hobby industry. This isn't steel or corn or gasoline, and treating it as such IS detrimental to the consumer.

 

[spacepope22]

If the expansions didn't cost $60 each, I would be fine with it, but they will. There is no excuse Blizzard makes that will make me believe that it's not about the money. It's always been about the money. In my opinion, it's because you don't pay for battle.net.

 

[Nouw]

no point in this. There is nothing they can say to make people stop what they think.

personally 30 missions is a full game to me. The first game only had 30. So to expect this one to have 90 is unfair of people. then again I play primarily for single player, I guess people who only play for multi-player may think otherwise.

Considering the eleven years between broodwars and starcraft 2, I'm pretty sure it'd be perfectly reasonable to expect something in the realm of 347 campaign missions in a single game.

I mean, it used to be if something took eleven years to make, there was an actual fucking reason beyond, "couldn't be arsed."

Or maybe they weren't making Starcraft 2 non-stop since 1999? Just a thought.

Good point but instead of wording it "They took" it should be "They had" 11 years. What happened? WoW came into the picture and Blizzard said goodbye to all the loyal RTS fans it had and the very few who were still clinging on the atoms of rocks had their wonderful game. This isn't a thread complaining about WoW so in summary, they had the chance of pleasing some people but instead made something else. (Well that's what I think)

Ahem, I see where people are coming from but it's just like any old RTS Expansion pack! Why are people whining so much?

It'd be smarter and more 'economical' to split it into 3 games.

Analogy Time!

Let's say making a good game is a person and in order to make a good game you have to kill him. Fusing all three games into one would be a nuke (Ghost) that hits most of it but may miss the target.

Making three games is like sniping them off one by one (Ghost again) Sure it may make more money but is that enough of a reason to deny a good game?

 

[Rythe]

I'm glad that the Blizzard haters are still blind in their Blizzard hating. It warms me to know that even on The Escapist, there will always be room for people so willing to stick to their guns that they'll allow themselves to come off as stupid, self-entitled prats.

Saying that this game has been in development since the original Starcraft is pretty obviously wrong. I couldn't find the exact date that they started in the Behind the Scenes movie (coulda swore they let it slip through at one point), but the teams that made this game are basically the ones that did Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne, so actual dev time is less than seven years. I want to say about four, but couldn't find the reference and could be wrong. Saying "We've been waiting for this game for 11 years!" is somewhere between blatantly ignoring, or ignorant of, reality and "Wah, Blizzard isn't being considerate of me! I wanted this game six years ago!"

Even if the game took closer to six years to make, the blatant ignorance of any modern game's dev cycle is shameful. They made a new engine. They made what's probably one of the craziest editors ever released for said engine. They reskinned the whole game at least once during development. Probably played each mission thousands of times internally and reiterated to the finished product. Just the cinematics took a couple years in all, and that could only be really started once the game concepts and stories were pretty well set. There's a lot of time consuming processes in there, especially if they didn't get it right the first time, which obviously happened a couple times with SC2 if you've followed the game at all. Hearing some of you talk would make people think that Triple A games come out of garages still.

As for the story, I've gotten the impression that people don't realize that SC2's story is split into seven segments, roughly five of which can be progressed through in any given order and even jump between them at any given moment. It was a game design choice they made to allow people greater freedom to play the game as they wanted. However, you could end up with a very schizophrenic and incomplete impression of the story if you took the missions in a certain order and cut to the end of the campaign before finishing all the optional segments. To get the most of the story, you want to finish a single thread at a time and leave the later artifact missions to the end. This is called sequential story telling. Starcraft 2 has it, but doesn't force you to it. You may not like the themes or the cheesy lines, but a proper take of the story left me satisfied and even impressed. It was a complete story, it did have arcs and conclusions and a clear beginning and end (think ride off into the sunset with the girl at your back). SC 2's story actually had a lot more depth and dealt with more issues than many RPGs. Come to think of it, it seems like a lot of people didn't even realize that some threads (Colony, Tosh) had two very different endings based on your final choices. Now watch Extra Credits' take on game storytelling again, because the story is a lot more than just what the characters are saying. One more observation of mine is that many people who didn't like the story weren't even paying attention to begin with given they keep citing things they didn't like and getting it completely wrong.

Bitching about having to pay separately for the three campaigns is so ludicrously self-delusional on so many fronts that I'm not going to touch it more than other people have.

So yes. Grow up, get over yourself, and maybe try to realize that the world isn't going to conform to your self-entitled, child vision no matter how much you whine and complain.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Actually it would be more like making the lord of the rings into 5 movies. It just doesnt make any sense. SC2 was what 30 missions, atleast half of which were pretty much complete filler. They could very easily have done it with only sc2 plus one expansion. Instead they decided to pump it full of pointless missions to bloat the game so they could release more and make more money.

You copied my post...yet without my quote tags. Interesting.
In any case, you repeat what you say here later on, so I'll just address the points there.

Im not saying it was a terrible game I rather enjoyed the 7 or 8 missions that actually had anything to do with the story. It was a very well polished game but well polished filler is still filler. The entire point of it is to drag things on and make more money.

"Well polished filler is still filler."
Nothing personal, but a statement such as that is so vague as to not have any real meaning. (it almost falls under the Slippery Slope fallacy, but I'll assume this is mostly subjective for the sake of the argument)
So. How do we define "Filler"?

1) If the mission doesn't move the central plot forward, is that filler? (movie logic)
2) If the mission is similar to another one filler? If so, how much similarity?
3) If you don't find the mission fun, is it filler?

Point 1: Valid in movies/films, but not necessarily in video games because the content is interactive and non-linear. You can only watch a film in one way while there are many ways to play (nearly all) games.
Suppose that we follow this logic. Example: Why did Super Mario World include optional areas like the Star Road or Special Zone? Does that count as time-wasting filler?
All told, it seems rather silly to complain about a game having enough content to satisfy its cost.

Point 2: I found each mission to be more than sufficiently different from the others with maybe 2-3 missions being repeated directly. Admittedly, part of this is subjective in nature too.

Point 3: Well. It's purely subjective and I don't argue with personal taste.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed 90% or so of the missions in Starcraft 2, so I admit a degree of bias here.
But at the same time, it seems goofy that people are going to keep complaining about how the game was split up to milk the fans when the cost:content ratio is still the same as the original Starcraft (Really. Adjust for inflation and you get nearly identical prices).

 

[VampiresDontSparkle]

Oh for God's sake, people whine so much.

"Oh noes, we're expected to actually pay for the games we want to play? WAAAAA!"

You're not being forced to buy anything. Why do people feel so entitled? Honestly, you don't deserve these games for free; you don't deserve anything for free. If this bothers you so much, don't buy the games. Simple, yet for some reason we still have people whining and moaning about how unbearably difficult their lives are going to be from now on.

 

[Shaoken]

If the expansions didn't cost $60 each, I would be fine with it, but they will.

While you're busy in the future can you tell us if the last Nolan Batman film is any good?

Seriously, HOTS is nowhere near out yet you somehow "know" how much we'll be charged for it. So either you have a time machine, you have an inside source at blizzard, or you are pulling that knowledge out of nowhere.

Oh, so games are actually getting longer and more complex rather than shorter and simpler?

Okay, here's where you make your first logical fallacy. You are dividing games into "old" and "new," with no other qualifying divisions. So you are comparing pacman and metroid to littlebigplanet and Mass Effect. Hell even in the old school games they were incredibly short and simple; Pac-man was the same thing over and over and over again, same with Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, pong, etc. etc. If you're talking about the first console games instead of arcade....they were still shorter and simple. Fuck, you are honestly comparing Street Fighter and Sonic to games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Halo, Arkham Asylum, Wind Waker, etc.

Developers are fielding more mature storylines that deal with more important issues and philisohpical questions rather than simplistic bullshit designed only to generate spectacle?

Okay, the first game ever to tackle philisohpical questions and important issues and morality was Metal Gear Solid back at the end of 1998. So only 12 years ago or two console generations. Yet to hear you tell it those days were half a lifetime (or in my case a full lifetime). Now let's look at the generation before that; Super Metroid is considered one of the best games of all time, yet there was barely any narrative at all. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening wasn't philispohical in the slightest, Mario was about rescuing a princess, Doom had an excuse plot to shoot demons, Ocarina of Time had great gameplay and characters but I wouldn't call it philisohpical or possing deeper meaning. So pretty much the first half of gaming history lacked those mature storylines you're praising them for.

Gameplay mechanics are focusing more on abstract thought and lateral thinking rather than hiding behind chest high walls and waiting for blood to fall off your face?

Again, you're painting with a very broad brush; it'd be no different then me saying that old school games boiled down to knocking a ball towards the other player's side. Abstract thought and lateral thinking? Portal would like a word with you.

My bad. I must've been getting all my games from bizzaro world for the last twenty years.

No doubt about that old timer.

Yea, time heals all wounds. Congratulations for having a perfunctory awareness of a basic concept. The reality is the golden age of gaming was defined by experimentation and failure. You may have forgotten all of (or simply weren't around for) the failures, but the failures are what allowed the diamonds of the past to exist.[/quote[

Okay let's cut the bullshit here; most of your "golden age" was full of failures. The Atari system pretty much made them by the boat full (and dumped them all in landfill afterwards). It's the same with the golden age of comics and the golden age of film; it's all nolstagic bullshit. No one is looking back at Superman's first outings and finding them to be works of art. King Kong is a enjoyable film, but it's not the be all and end all of films. Likewise Pacman was an arcade sensation and Donkey Kong launched Nintendo's fortunes, but for every Metroid and Final Fantasy there were more ETs and Atari Pacmans.

But there are no diamonds anymore. Everyone is polishing shit and calling it gold. You, the consumer, do nothing but buy every piece up, acting like the shit-polishers are doing you some sort of favor.

Bullshit. Let's go through the list shall we; Portal, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Ocarina of Time, Knights of the Old Republic, Modern Warfare 1, Arkham Asylum, Half-Life 1 and 2, Persona 3, Halo (love it or hate it it's balanced *flameshield*), Timesplitters, Super Smash Brothers, Final Fantasy 7, Mario 64, Silent Hill 2, Civilisation, Dawn of War, Starcraft 1 and 2, Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorny, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Just because things have changed doesn't mean the old ways were worse. While the past's very real possibility of failure bred fear, safety breeds stagnation.

Oh just get over yourself. You're not the be all and end all, and just because modern game developers don't bend over backwards to cater to your every whim doesn't make you right in the slightest.

 

[Littlee300]

Oh please. What a lame excuse. They are money grubbers and nothing more.

Yeah right. Blizzard displayed perfectly how expansion and DLC should be like with Frozen Throne. Activision are the greedy bastards, not blizzard.

 

[stormcrow5]

For the game thats about 90% of the player bace is around the multyplayer and ever new SC2 is only havein minor changes and a new unit or 2 thrown into that, buying that 3 times? yes thats buying 3 full games for same thing unless they make it so the new multy stuff is free while ur just paying for the next part of the story at full price. ether way i still see it as buyin 3 parts to one game at full price each