Fourth Race Theory

umm, won't they have to crazily rebalance everything?

 

I didn't like the teory of Hibridis, the Xel' Naga will return in the story of Starcraft II, Zeratul tell to Raynor: "The Xel' Naga Returns..." and I think the Xel' Naga will be the other Race...

 

I always meant this storyline wise, not gameplay wise.

I so called it.

 

No. I don't see anywhere in the official site that there will be a fourth race. We just see the classic three races.

Do you believe Blizzard will surprise us in giving a fourth race ? I was disappointed not to see any clue of that presence. SC2 will be a future game; normally with a fourth race because WC3 got four races. So SC2 must not keep three races.

I want a fourth race, but I doubt Blizzard will create one. Of course the Xel'Naga, the fourth race, will come back. But will we play with them ? I doubt. They will be special units as the Dark Templar were special units at the last mission of Starcraft.

And the hybrids ? are they the Xel'Naga or are they the fifth race of the game ? They will be just special units in SC2.

Blizzard should explain something about them. But as the Zerg are still not released I doubt Blizzard will give us every informations now. They want to give us suspense, and they want to earn time. ...

 

I don't see anywhere in the official site about Zerg.

pwned.


Anyhoo, I'm talking who will show up and everyone will be all OMFG Zeratul was right.

 

We don't see anything about the ZERG, but we know they will come in SC2. We know there are zerglings, mutalisks, etc ....

But we don't know anything about the presence of a fourth race. I mean, a PLAYABLE RACE.

The Xel'Naga will return. We'll see them. We'll meet them. We know now they exist in SC2.

 

i believe the expansion might include a fourth race, common blizzard

 

Actually, my guess is not a fourth playable race in the expansion, but fragments of such in the existing races. Hybrids with either Zerg or 'toss, Xel'Naga with 'toss.....I dunno about Terran though.

 

ok then maybe in the second expansion we'll finally get a playable fouth race, if there's a second expansion that is. i certainly hope so

 

Oh God no...I hate expanding expansions. WoW's already doing that with WotLK

 

they just want to get more money, but if the game is really good i wouldn't complain

 

We already know some Terran are involved with Duran as he was setup in a Terran Base in the mission Dark Origin with Terran Technology.

 

Yeah.... I would expect that either the Xel'Naga like the Terran mentality and weaponry, or they think they're useful in some way.

I don't think a plot twist of the Xel'Naga allying with the Terran (because they now think they're the "perfect race" or something) would be out of the question. Then they would set about trying to destroy the Zerg and Protoss. And to even things out, the Hybrids would side with the Protoss and Zerg, etc.... Something along these lines.

Furthermore, as I have enumerated countless times, a fourth race will not be present in StarCraft at any time, except for effect in the storyline. It is almost impossible to balance four distinct races. That is why Warcraft III has four races that are basically exactly the same.

 

oh really?? how come you are soooooo sure about the imposibility of balancing 4 races, if you could be so nice as to explain to me why 3 are balanceable but 4 no, and (im not saying that you wrote this) where is stated that 3 is the ultimate number of races on starcraft (any number you like to add), so please dont go speaking as you have the ultimate word, even if you have to ENUMERATE COUNTLESS times, you are just speculating, as everybody else outside blizzard.

 

Actually no, I'm not.

Every time you add a unit, you exponentially increase the number of times which you have to balance every other unit in the game. Supposing (and this is a really low assumption) that you had to redo every new unit only 10 times, and there are 100 units in StarCraft II, you would then have to tweak each unit, resulting in 1,000 calculations and tweaks for one additional unit.

So supposing that you add a new race, with an equivalent (relatively) number of units, which would be about 33 units. Then suppose you have to tweak each of those units that 10 times. Now you're up to 33,000 tweaks made to the other units of the opposing races, not even counting the new units that you've added.

I would expect the actual number of tweaks before a unit is completely balanced to be more like 100. Remember, this is just a hypothetical supposition, it's based nowhere in fact, but it does make sense.

Therefore, a fourth race would take years to add in and balance, and it's simply not worth it. I'm sure they explored the issue, but then they looked at WC3 and said, hey, it's gonna turn out the same. Four races is just plain too hard to balance in a video game like this. Unless, of course, the units are all rather similar.

That's how WC3 works. Footman=Grunt=Undead Guy=Night Elf Base Guy. They're all pretty much the same at every tier of technology. They all get to air units at the same time, the units have generally the same attack, HP, cost, and abilities, with a couple of exceptions that were attempts to make the races more distinct.

 

I totally agree with you! it would take YEARS!!!!! mhh maybe 10 years is enough dont you think?, and of course i think your reasoning has a lot of logic but i also think that its not necesarly correct because if you have in mind 4 races, before you start working, you are going to work on a totally diferent way that if you just add one new once you have everything done for the other 3 (and lets remember that starcraft 2 is no where near complete) so if they knew they were going to add a fourth race since the begining they may include or not some options or abilities to the 3 races that we know so they dont have to tweak everything again.

Also, i think blizzard are smart enough so they dont make every race the same, specially since they talk so much about it in every oportunity they can, i really dont get how you are so sure about how adding a fourth race would ruin this game, or say, make it dull for being the same, also, please dont compare starcraft with warcraft i hate quotes but this one just fits perfectly, "this is not warcraft in space", all they have to do is expand their limits create new gameplay factors, its not easy i agree, but definitley possible and in my opinion worth it.

So i say its totally posible that they include a fourth race if not in this game, in the expansion, and that would be something good for me, because i hate tabus, and this one is just one of the biggest ive ever heard from fans, ONLY 3 RACES, well, i hope that changes, bring it on blizzard, i want something new, not just the same old stuff with some minor changes, IM not afraid if you screw up, if you do you are big enough to take it and learn from it, just dont stop evolving please, oh and Joneagle_X nice talking to you pal, see ya! sorry for the block of text but i know you are smart enough to read it without complaining

 

I think blizzard have a secret, something incredible, another race, but... I don't want another race, I prefere stay with the original 3 races, if agree 1 more... Starcraft will not be Starcraft... is my opinion!

 

Blizz has said countless times that there will be no fourth race. No, I'm not gonna waste my time looking it up to convince someone who doesn't follow reasonable logic when it becomes inconvenient to what they want.

Boo to everyone who has said they want something new. The races in SC2 will be new. That's the whole point. Why do you think Blizz doesn't just throw the firebat and reaver back in without any second thought? The races are being re-engineered and will play differently from SC1. If you disagree; don't buy SC2.

Xel'Naga and Hybrids are meant to be powerful creatures story wise. A whole playable race of them would be imbalanced in multiplayer if Blizz were to stay true to their lore. Thats the reason why Blizz cut Burning Legion as a playable race in War3. Hell, there was to be 6 races in War3 until Blizz realized how damn hard it would be to balance. It's hard enough to make a great game with 3 distinctive races. They did fail with trying 4 in War3 for all the reasons Jon had said.
For the record, Blizz has not been working on SC2 for 10 years. They started work on it after War3:FT, that came out in 2003.
Or is Blizz lieing to us to f**k up their own marketing plans? OMG conspiracy! OMG Rob Pardo was the second gunman on the grassy knoll!

Yes the Xel'Naga and hybrids will make appearances in the SC2 campaign. They may even edge out single units incorporated into the 3 playable races.
New race in the expansion? What precedent is there for that ever happening? No WoW does not count, that's a MMO not a RTS. Much easier to balance a few racial traits for single player characters than a whole army/tech tree.

Just for laughs EDIT: Is anyone up for a rousing game of rock, paper, scissors, SHOTGUN?

 

From what we were told by Blizzard, during the first two years of the approximate four spent on SC2 development, they weren't even really busting their asses on anything.  So they only had about two year's time of actual hardcore development on SC2.

It is only logical to believe that they are not going to risk crapping the whole game by trying a fourth race when they didn't even finalize on the existing three.  Blizz started out with more races for War3, trimmed it down to four, and still failed.  They won't do it this time.  But the most important reason is because they flat out told us so.

There could be a fourth race for SC, but it won't be SC2.  Not even as an expansion IMO.  People haven't played SC for 10 years on the hopes that a fourth race might be released with an expansion.  People aren't excited about SC2 because they were told that there would be a fourth race, it's in fact the opposite.  A fourth race is neither necessary nor beneficial at this time.  If the three races feel complete and end up being at least as distinctly different from each other as they were in SC1, it will be good enough.

 

I agree that the logic option is to follow the 3 races only, but i dont recall blizzard being always logical, and even if they were its not like they are prohibited to do a total spin and pull a fast one on us.

I know blizzard said so many times that there will be no fourth race but let me remaind you that about 3 weeks before the WWI they strongly denied the game itself not just once, its all about tactics i supose, what i mean is that a fourth race has its place on starcraft 2 storywise, gamplaywise (for me), but not so much fanwise, and the final word always comes from blizzard, if they add a new race i think i will like it mainly because they have to be the Xel Naga or the Hybrids and those are some serius units id like to see plus the story is aiming that way they have to be there, well they will be there but id like to use them see ya dude