Will SC2 be Ready for Release in 2009?

my uneducated guess or hope is this year.
they need to stop focusing on WoW and get this fricken done

i swear, blizzard better be working on the next 2 campaigns because i am NOT waiting 3 more years for all of starcraft 2

 

Again, stopping work on the other games wouldn't get you StarCraft 2 faster.

Also, you have no choice but to wait a few years for the next campaigns.

 

we'll cod is a PC game as well and a the advertisments by companys like EB games and such would kinda be at war with eachother. you dont want to have EB games on one side with a cod4-2 poster and banner and then say bestbuy across the street with SC2 posters and banner. just be smarter to have all companies on one page for the release date. so the general public takes notices of the one specific game and build the hype behind it. I am a FPS gamer too along with a huge RTS lover so if your like me you may be torn between the two being released same day if you can only afford the one game and not want to spend 150$ on two games in one day. not to mention you can only play 1 game at a time on your pc cant u.

trust me if blizzard doesn't pick a stand alone date for sc2 i'd be really surprised

 

The optimist in me says we don't really have any hard evidence that blizzard wouldn't be able to get the campaign and balancing done in time, but the pessimist in me says that we really have no idea how much more work the campaign needs.

 

But... one's a first person shooter the other is a real time strategy...

 

LOL again if ur a fan of both genras then your going to be torn between which to get first if you only had 80$ to spend. Trust me marketing is everything!

 

Indeed.
But some people have yet to realize that Starcraft 2 > "Another WW2 shooter that's a bit to scripted to be any good for experienced players".

I honestly respect the COD campaign players, but the multiplayer is actually a lot better. -And the Nazi Zombie mode makes me rofl, so good.- Besides, in Starcraft 2 you get 90 missions, with an epic new story. Now compare that to playing the same war story all the time, and in just a few scenarios.

 

Statistically speaking games this different never significantly compete unless they're both highly anticipated sequels with the same fan base or are both big budget games pushed by big corporations. This usually happens on consoles where most sales happen because of the name of the series and the advertising campaigns behind them. These two games will not be competing in such an environment. The PC market is much different than the console environment because of the businesses behind the games, the systems they are on, and the market they are targeting.

For example, Halo and Grand Theft Auto would be directly competing despite the genre and game play differences. However, the Call Of Duty PC fan base is far, far removed from the Blizzard/StarCraft 2 fan base and is much, much smaller so I don't see them competing directly even if Call Of Duty was a PC exclusive or even if you included console sales. Which brings me to my next point, most people buy the console versions of games like Call Of Duty and anyone who is interested in StarCraft 2 enough to buy it soon after release but isn't an avid Blizzard/StarCraft fan (they're pretty much guaranteed to buy 100%) is probably going to buy it for reasons I'll soon be getting to.

A new Call Of Duty comes out like every year so a new release in the series wouldn't be anything great or special except for in the console market (which Blizzard is not in at the moment) because of the things talked about in the above paragrah. A Blizzard sequel, however, comes once every decade to a dozen years on average now and has the ultimate of the ultimate hardcore followings on the PC. So, hype created from advertisements, Blizzard's respect, notoriety, and word-of-mouth from their fan base (because of people being addicted and rehab clinics being dedicated to World Of WarCraft players as well as other such news article and publicity) which they will undoubtedly have already heard a lot about and will be hearing much, much more of sooner to release. Plus, most importantly, the waiting time will also be going in StarCraft 2's favor as far as hype and publicity goes.

Furthermore, no one in their right mind is going to release a game in the same week or, for some types of games, in the same month nor the following months if they think it's so similar that they'll be directly competing. Just look at the past for proof. Developers have rushed or with held their games by months just to go around Blizzard's releases and most of these were before World Of WarCraft took over and gave Blizzard the limelight. They've even damn near based entire games on capturing Blizzard's waiting market. Nox is a perfect example of this as well as Titan Quest, some what.

And, one of the most important things to me and, I'm sure, a lot of people, is that Blizzard's games hold their value far beyond what any other games do especially in this era of gaming where shelf-life is insanely short compared to music and movies. How many games that are almost ten years old do you see still selling for almost full price brand new? How many games do you see a few months old going for budget or half-off prices even in full retail despite getting good reviews and decent spotlight. Of course, rare games go for more, but they're second-hand; not direct. Add to that the fact that you need a CD key to play the game for everything it's worth while Call Of Duty for PC will be easy for the pirates to steal.

 

@JacobBlair1:

http://www.starcraftwire.net/blog/comments/starcraft-ii-fan-site-qa-series-part-2/

Told you.

 

I hope Blizzard would take their time with it, i know they are being rushed by their mother-company to spit out games like clockwork. Personally i would like to wait longer and have Blizzard put out a great game.

 

CoD 4 was the last CoD that deserved to have a game made. WaW was so useless.

SC2 > CoD.

 

I Personally have no i dea why it is taking Blizzard so long to release this game. From the BR's the game looks pretty much done. Would anyone disagree with that?

Now what they would need to work on is balancing. But then again in both the BR's you never do see all the units from each race, so maybe those need to be put in.

I'm hoping it somehow releases this summer, wish full thinking I know but that is what I hope for.

Now for when I really think its going to release, id say end very end december of 09 if they really want to get it out then.

Otherwise I could see it being released begining to middle of next year. I mean from Blizzards recent WoW expansions took an extremely long time to come out when they said they would have one every year.

Yea the pessimist in me is pretty bad.

 

They will release it when they want to and as for D3 and SC2 comeing out at the same time that is not going to happen for 2 reasons.

a. D3 is not finished nearly as finished as SC2

b. it would be stupid because you have to let one game make money and let things reset before you want to release the other one.

The reason they are taking so long is to make the game perfect regardless how many twitchy people out there want to play it.

 

In response BTHammer to D3, that game and SC2 have no relation in developing because its two different teams.

D3 can be almost done for all we know but they will not release it till SC2 has been released, I remember reading a blue post confirming that SC2 will be out before D3.

Also what is to stop blizzard from pushing d3 from a 2010 release to a 2011 release. You your self said that they will release it when they want to.

But as far as D3 being not nearly as far along as SC2, SC2 has a truck load more balancing issues than D3 considering it is labeled to be a new e-sport. As well as the online play is completely Player Vrs Player if they do the ladder system how they did in WC3 so any little imbalances in races is going to be found and going to be exploited.

Considering D3 if a class is IMBA compared to another all they have to do is buff other class' or nerf. It isnt nearly on the level of testing as a competitive game such as SC2.

So yea, i really don't know what your trying to say. Your somewhat contradicting your self when you mention d3 and release date, by saying "they will release it when they want." I am just trying to question why it is taking so long.

And regarding how long they are taking their time and not folding to twitchy people has no baring on the time its taking them to make the game. To me it sounds as if i have offended you, I am just trying to sparking up discussion.

Because as I said the game seems done from the BR's, just balancing issues come into play and if this is the case the beta should be out to help solve balance issues.

And the game will be FAR from perfect when it is released no matter how much testing is done. Look as how many patches went into SC to make the game as balanced as it is so the "perfect game" is really no way to explain why they are taking so long.

To your response after point B. A better answer to the why it is taking so long to develop would have been "maybe they are working on the campaign " or "maybe its taking longer to balance the game out and w/out the balance they can't finish the campaign ." Stuff along those lines would have been way more of a reason to why they are taking so long to release the game, is better way to discuss something other than a plain "because they are making the perfect game."

 

I know blizzard has a team for almost anything from patches for D2 to programmer shoe lace inspectors.

Perfect by their standards.

 

I wonder if SC2 will leak out on the internet before the release.

 

I'm sure blizzard, will take very serious precautions to ensure that such a thing will never take place.

Regarding the release date I have a feeling it will be released in mid 2010, I'll be very very surprised if it will be released in 2009.

 

A leak almost always happens a few days before the release because the discs themselves are in stores and it's impossible to keep it unleaked at that point. But, before that, I seriously doubt it. That rarely happens for most companies that doesn't even have nearly as much money, power, or clout as Blizzard.

 

we'll seems to me like 2010 is more likely but i going to stay positive and believe it will be out at least befor x-mas

 

Some people just don't get it, do they? It's not the GAME that's delaying things. It's BNET 2.0!!! When BNET 2.0 is READY, THEN the Beta will launch!