Dawn of War 2 V StarCraft 2 again

A little of topic, but I feel like this needs to be said about Doom 3:

I looked this up in a review in a Dutch gaming magazine, and roughly translated it. The point that I am trying to make here, is that innovation guarantees in no way that you made a good game. Doom 3 got excellent scores everywhere, just because it was a remake of an old game with nicer graphics. Why would Starcraft 2 be any different then other remakes? Every big rpg, rts and shooter series does this.

 

It's a sad thing, but innovation usually fails. Why? Probably because it has a propensity for extremes. Innovating is like immunising yourself against poison: done to excess it kills, and so it must be introduced in safe doses.

You also suggest that StarCraft 2 is a ''remake'': I disagree. Is it identical to StarCraft: BroodWar? Certainly it retains the same template, but it also introduces new units, and almost naturally expounds on concepts found in its predecessor. Does that make it a true sequel? I don't subscribe to such a refutable opinion. The word ''variant'' (as it applies to Chess) seems to be the mot juste.

This is also why I'm so keen for Blizzard to give fans the tools to make their own units: like Chess, StarCraft has been studied and played to death, which has led to a great amount of predictability (this mitigates, in a way, the richness and variety of the game). Chess variants address this problem by, among other solutions, introducing new units in order to break up tired formulas and create new possibilities. I opine that the StarCraft community has the talent to create units equal to those of Blizzard. Result: a game perennially rejuvenated by its own community.

But perhaps I rave, like a philosopher, of a thing which is beautiful because it is improbable.

 

There would need to be a way to keep poorly designed units out. Yeah a good number of starcraft players could contribute with new units that would fit perfectly. But everyone.. not a good idea. Maybe for UMS but for melee it would be difficult. Best to wait for the expansion and Starcraft 3

 

Such a system is already in place: it's called survival of the fittest. Do poorly developed UMS maps and mods survive much play? No, therefore, neither would unbalanced units. Additionally, thanks to the various StarCraft forums serious unit makers could unite their efforts (much like serious map makers do) to develop the best units possible. The natural extension of this hypothesis is, therefore: well developed units will be used more, as they contribute to (rather than jeopardise) the delicate gameplay balance.

 

I absolutely love Company of Heros, The Total War Series, and World in Conflict.
They are all great RTS's that do things very differently from traditional RTS games.

But I still love StarCraft and I want to love StarCraft2.
I'm sure I will.
SC1 isn't broken so SC2 doesn't have to fix it.

 

Agreed SC1 is not broken. It's just a horse that has almost been flogged to death. it's time to sell that old horse to the abattoirs as pet food meat and let the new shining thoroughbred steed take it's place and shine.

 

They tried to that with counter-strike 1.6 as well. We all know what happened to cs: course. It all comes down to what the pros chose to play. If they decide sc:bw is the better version, then sc2 multiplayer is pretty much screwed.

 

I think it is easy to say good things about a played game, about what you can know everything, to a game that is not yet out. He knows nothing else that what he heard and can't compare nothing more.
Could he say the same things before DoW2 was on the market? He also could think it was just a patch of DoW.

 

Many people have played the game at Blizzcon. We can definitaly say something about the game. So: why are you flaming him for? He might have played it already. And we already have most of the statistics anyway. No need to play the game for that.

Anyway: welcome to the forum!

 

OK just going back to Doom 3- It was NOT a very good game. Its was dull, tedious and predictable. The fact that it got high review scores is actually irrelevant. I see what they tried to do with Doom 3, but it was just so outdated that it failed miserably in my opinion. The Tech was really pretty, and I'll give id credit for making an exquisite engine, but the gameplay was lacking.

Quake 4 came out within a month of FEAR, and was also a complete waste of time.

 

A little SC2 side topic comparsion to WH40K: Has anyone notice the WH40K Imperial Titans similarities and the Terra-Tron aside from the transformers. (Rats that someone here notice Raynor also. )

 

The problem with quake 4 was that they promised us open levels with tons of new gameplay elements. That was not how it turned out to be in the boxed version. The game had once againg given us confined spaces, not the innovations people wanted to see.

Doom 3 never even tried to do that. It even says so on the box. -sort of- Why do you think they included the first two parts with it? It was a revolution in graphics, but the gameplay was never meant to be new. And tons of people complained about the multiplayer only supporting up to 4 people. It were the fans who asked for that. Id never even wanted to make a multiplayer.

A videogame needs to be rated at what it intends to be. Not at what some random reviewer wants it to be. That is just plain stupid. Like saying: Starcraft sucks, it has no option to let your marines go for a ride on a rollercoaste. While playing some Metal on plastic guitars, of course. By the way, the Doom 3 engine was just a big enhancement to the Id Tech 3 engine they already had used for quite some time. They only made the Id Tech 4 -aka Doom 3 engine- because of the light effects they wanted were really complex.

 

I agree on the view that Starcraft 2 is, essentially, a restoration. On those grounds, it will be a fantastic game and a good buy.

Still. People in the medieval age really believed that everything worth inventing had already been invented and that the universe was perfected and static in every way, and they were right, for a while.

I want my renaissance. Shame it won't be blizzard delivering it.

 

Doom 3's lighting effects were absolutely astonishing. My PC could barely handle the game but it looked great on my mates PC.

Back on point, did you honestly enjoy Doom 3? They intended old gameplay, and they wasted a perfect opportunity to make Doom pertinent to modern gaming culture again. Making 3 games that all play exactly the same is pushing a franchise forward in any way shape or form.

If I reviewed Doom 3, I would want to enjoy the game and derive some form of pleasure from it. An hour in, all the fun and excitement is gone and it turns into drivel. Did id intend that? No, but thats what happened when you dont evolve a game for the second time on the trot.

 

Meh, I really enjoyed it. And does a game series always have to innovate to be better, or equal, to its predicessor? Not in my opinion. Yes, it can be good for a for a franchise to innovate, but not just for the sake of just wanting to innovate. It does no good to a franchise if it adds little to the gameplay.

Let me use this to get back on the rts topic. For example: Empire Earth 2. It added 3D, a tactical map with picture-in-picture view, and dozens of new units. Did it do any good to the game? No, it only added unwanted complexity to the game. Most of the functions were never used. Now look at the Warcraft franchise, and compare that to the so-called innovations other games try to make. It goes more gradually, no big steps. This is also what Blizzard is doing to Starcraft 2 now. And that is a good thing in my opinion.

 

Good point, but in line with what I said. Doom, the franchise, never evolved in any meaningful manner over 3 iterations. WarCraft did.

Hell, WarCraft 2 was innovative for having a relatively deep story and lore. That in itself was an achievement. On the topic of Empire Earth, that was a **** series from the word go .

I recall AoE3 tried some silly innovations. I didnt really enjoy the AoE series to begin with so I never explored them. Where they any good?

I think franchises have a 2 game limit where they don't innovate in any way. However, StarCraft is 11 years old and many cool RTS games have come inbetween, so does that proposed 2 game limit still apply?

 

Empire Earth 1 was epic when it was released. One of the best tech trees ever a really good campaign. It owned AoE 2 in every way imo. And the maps were huge. A match could go on for hours without anyone winning. An important asset for an empire game. Especially since it lacked a world map mode. The civilization points were also a great addition. In a way, that game innovated the genre better then Starcraft 2 is going to do now.

 

You have a good point, I still didn't like that game much though. Too finicky, and so many damn resources to mine.

Making a game more complex is not necessarily innovation, but I feel we are going around in circles.

 

Thank God for that. I'll let "innovation" be a gimmick for the lesser developers.

 

In my personal opinion, Starcraft 2 is gonna be a better overall game than Dawn of War 2. That is not to say Dawn of War 2 is bad or not decent game it is actually a pretty good game but Starcraft 2 will beat it in most aspects.

Firstly, you have the campaign, in Dawn of War 2 you can only play as the space marines and there is not much story and a lot of the missions are similar, Starcraft 2 is gonna have much more in depth campaign with a stronger story, characters, and varied missions to undertake.

Next up you have user created content, In Dawn of war 2 it is almost non existent and only has a few options. Starcraft 2 however is gonna release with a full map editor that lets you edit almost every aspect of the game and create your own custom games out of them.

Both games have online multiplayer and competitive compoetent to them, however Blizzards Battle.net system is more stream lined and easy to use than the at times clunky games for windows live system Dawn of War 2 and if players don't have their systems optimized to run Dawn of War 2 it can cause bad lag and drops out etc. In Battle.net you can also play custom created maps with custom content and download it simply by joining the game, this is not the case for Dawn of War 2 at all.

The Only thing Dawn of War 2 has over Starcraft 2 is that it doesn't follow the basic rts formula all the way, it has a cover system, and you don't build in it as well as a hero in both single and mulitplayer. Thats it.