After playing StarCraft 2 at WWI, I confess, again:
- StarCraft 2 is amazingly fun.
We told you that there were not so many changes. It's both true and not true. The game panel that Rob Pardo organized earlier today wasn't very exiting. It's probably because he did what he believed was a recap for the European fans on the development on StarCraft 2. He went through each unit, one by one, showing some short clips. He didn't announce any major updates, in fact hardly any, nor anything new and exciting.
But that doesn't mean the game hasn't developed since BlizzCon.
It has, and it has a lot. All the fan sites grouped together earlier today and spoke about an hour with Karune. We had a long Q&A session about different ingame stuff.
I didn't transcribe exactly what was said and it is hard to follow unless you're a hardcore fan of the SC2 development so far, in either case. We spoke about different units, which ones are out and which are new. Which abilities have changed and which ones are imbalanced.
Karune told us that after Zerg was announced earlier this spring, the work on balancing started. And that threw the development team into a new phase were some things required a completely new approach because it didn't work. That meant introducing new game mechanics and structure, forcing the balancing process to restart.
Therefore, the development so far is going a lot back and forth. Karune said that even internally, Blizzard can't say how far the game has progressed. At one point, they'd be at a certain percentage level of completion, only to jump 10% back because of the above mentioned process taking place.
Having that said, I find it interesting with which units are coming in and going out. If only it had been final.
But it isn't.
And it probably won't be for a long time. Take the Merc Haven, for example, it has been changed back and forth a lot. "It's a cool building", Pardo said earlier in the game panel, "but we haven't really found a place for it yet. It will probably keep moving around until we find something we love". Karune mentioned that there were plans for a Dark Pylon at one point but it got removed, the mothership has been nerfed and a lot of changes. At some points, some of the representatives from the fan sites informed Karune that, "actually, in the current build, it isn't like that anymore", when speaking of certain abilities or units.
So, as you see, it changes a lot.
But that's no problem, really. Let it change until it's completed. Let is change until SC2 is the best game for eSports that lasts not only 10 years but 20 or more.
"What's really unique with StarCraft 2 is that multiplayer is actually being finished before singleplayer. We never did that before", Karune said. "We're really focusing on the eSports development for the game. We'll also include some neat features that helps you guys to organize and share the replays a lot easier, following matches easier and such things. "
We look forward to it. And all the other new features of Battle.net.
But primarily, I have to confess that I love the gameplay. I withstand my previous opinion: SC2 can't be explained in screenshots. I don't know why they keep releasing them. The game play is awesome. Trust me, all you who are skeptical about the game. It's awesome. I love it. Don't trust the screenshots. You have to try it.
The game is so intuitive. The new polished design is nice. The laser effects are nice and balanced after all the changes. The game is really imbalanced, still, but that doesn't matter, it will be fixed. It's fast, it's competitive - and there are really cool things you can do.
The depth of the game is enormous at this point. I don't know how many years it will take until all the tricks and unit combinations are known. And with the huge map editor, I guess that new maps will keep changing the game and the strategies in a never ending loop.
StarCraft 2 is awesome and amazingly fun. Don't tell me anything else until you've tried it.
