Battles like the one at the end were probably just for the sake of showing off. I doubt they'd make those seemingly endless reinforcements possible in a standard game.
It's already very obvious that this game won't come close to the original Starcraft.
I'm still a firm believer that it's 100% impossible for a 3D RTS to match Starcraft or Warcraft 2.
The problem with RTS is it's a genre that was built for a 2D platform, and the gaming market can't sell anything 2D anymore.
So it's become this classic example of books being judged by the cover. But at least with books, the cover didn't actually effect the words on the pages underneath.
If you want to build an RTS with a pretty cover, you have to tie up and ruin the gameplay at the same time.
From the gameplay trailers and stuff it looks like they're doing a good job, though. If it has to be 3D.
The game still won't be 1/8th as good as it would be if they rendered it in 2D though.
It's really hard to stay interested in RTS games. Every single one of them since BW has been absolute garbage.
It's the 3D that ruins it. I guess the world's just going to stop making good RTS games forever because there's no game developers willing to make a 2D game anymore?
Another reason a successful mainstream 2D RTS will never happen again is everybody is convinced that 3D graphics are automatically superior to 2D graphics, and nobody really gives any thought to it.
Why wouldn't they? That's 50% more D
I see it more as a difference in style.
I think there's a ton of untapped potential in 2D graphics that most people aren't even aware of simply for the fact that they haven't made a modern game in 2D that's fully utilized all of the recent advances in graphic technology.
You could have an RTS with all the perfected and timeless gameplay of Starcraft, at a really high resolution with heavy anti-aliasing and tons of flashy lighting and shadowing effects, all in 2D and I think it'd look absolutely amazing.
Obviously 2D can look good. I remember when Starcraft first came out and people would actually argue over whether the game was 2D or 3D. There were tons of people that looked at the Goliath walking around and were convinced by 1998's standards that those were 3D graphics.
The same can be done today.
The underlying game inside the coding of a good RTS is expressed over a two dimensional plane. I can see from the gameplay trailers that the same is true with Starcraft 2. So why are we rendering the graphics in 3D?
I guess it's so we can spin the camera around pointlessly?
Yeah the last absufucking great game they made was Brood War....
After that the games were just mediocre for just the average gaming nerd... God I wish James Phinney (yeah bliz spell the name right!) was on the dev-team..
I don't agree that there is anything about 3D that will make Starcraft 2 by default unable to compete with Starcraft. If it isn't as good it will have little if anything to do with 3D. There were plenty of 2D RTS games that were shit or average.
Only thing about 3D which is a problem or "was" is that for example in Warcraft 3 technically they couldn't get a lot of units on screen at once without hardware limitations thus the small army model. As far as I can tell in this movie there seem to be no such problems.
Give some examples of what they can do in 2D they can't emulate in 3D.
They can't emulate Starcraft's fast-paced twitch micromanagement in 3D. I can't really say why for certain, but they can't. I can already see from the gameplay trailers how clunky the control is. It's the same kind of clunky control I see in every other 3D RTS.
They could still have all the other great aspects of Starcraft gameplay if they did it right I guess, but the micromanagement invariably suffers for some reason. That's my biggest issue with 3D, and probably the only thing that I would say 3D can't emulate right now is that split-second razor's edge micro.
Another issue I have with 3D is that having a lot of units on screen will probably require almost everybody to scale the detail levels down so far that the game will look worse than top-notch 2D would anyway.
If you want it to look pretty, it's not going to run well. If you want it to run well, it's not going to look pretty.
3D forces an inverse relationship between detail and performance. It can give you one or it can give you the other. But 2D can give you both at the same time.
The above is especially true for the RTS genre, since we're dealing with so many units on screen at once. The system resources required to get a good level of detail in an FPS for example is no where near the amount of system resources required to get the same level of detail into an RTS.
Another issue that we don't see in 2D is perspective. We can get a perfect top-down view in a 2D RTS where we're looking at an X by Y grid in our game area. But in 3D the camera needs to be pitched at an angle, which is undesirable because all the maps are X by Y but our game area is looking at a trapezoid-shaped plane. It's just unnecessary and feels awkward and wrong.
But then again, I'm not worried about sales and magazine screenshots and NVIDIA and ATI sponsorships. I can definitely understand why a profit-seeking entity would go 3D and never look back.
This is just the stuff that I think matters to a competitive game and a spectator sport. For casual gamers though (which is all I am anyway now that poker has stolen my soul) all the minute details I'm nitpicking are kind of irrelevant, and I'm sure Starcraft 2 will be great as long as you're not expecting it to be as good of a format for competitive gaming as the original was.
16 Comments:
Battles like the one at the end were probably just for the sake of showing off. I doubt they'd make those seemingly endless reinforcements possible in a standard game.
NTT said he'll game with me as long as i dont suck :D
Can I get some games with you too tiller? We'll all get gosu quick!
Very nice, can't wait.
this is amazing!!!
do we have a release date yet?
there is no balance...
the human army is better then your army! its unbelievable! you can be sure as hell the human army will win the fight
:-)))
Guess I am the only one who thinks it doesn't look THAT good...
God I miss the old days.
Ah well,I still prefer Kali over bnet any day, though I am the only user ever :P
awesome
It's already very obvious that this game won't come close to the original Starcraft.
I'm still a firm believer that it's 100% impossible for a 3D RTS to match Starcraft or Warcraft 2.
The problem with RTS is it's a genre that was built for a 2D platform, and the gaming market can't sell anything 2D anymore.
So it's become this classic example of books being judged by the cover. But at least with books, the cover didn't actually effect the words on the pages underneath.
If you want to build an RTS with a pretty cover, you have to tie up and ruin the gameplay at the same time.
From the gameplay trailers and stuff it looks like they're doing a good job, though. If it has to be 3D.
The game still won't be 1/8th as good as it would be if they rendered it in 2D though.
It's really hard to stay interested in RTS games. Every single one of them since BW has been absolute garbage.
It's the 3D that ruins it. I guess the world's just going to stop making good RTS games forever because there's no game developers willing to make a 2D game anymore?
to anonymous at 12:54 PM and 1:20 PM.
SHUT THE **** UP !
we are talking about blizzard, you guys have no idea what you are talking about!
sc2 will rock.
Another reason a successful mainstream 2D RTS will never happen again is everybody is convinced that 3D graphics are automatically superior to 2D graphics, and nobody really gives any thought to it.
Why wouldn't they? That's 50% more D
I see it more as a difference in style.
I think there's a ton of untapped potential in 2D graphics that most people aren't even aware of simply for the fact that they haven't made a modern game in 2D that's fully utilized all of the recent advances in graphic technology.
You could have an RTS with all the perfected and timeless gameplay of Starcraft, at a really high resolution with heavy anti-aliasing and tons of flashy lighting and shadowing effects, all in 2D and I think it'd look absolutely amazing.
Obviously 2D can look good. I remember when Starcraft first came out and people would actually argue over whether the game was 2D or 3D. There were tons of people that looked at the Goliath walking around and were convinced by 1998's standards that those were 3D graphics.
The same can be done today.
The underlying game inside the coding of a good RTS is expressed over a two dimensional plane. I can see from the gameplay trailers that the same is true with Starcraft 2. So why are we rendering the graphics in 3D?
I guess it's so we can spin the camera around pointlessly?
Yeah the last absufucking great game they made was Brood War....
After that the games were just mediocre for just the average gaming nerd... God I wish James Phinney (yeah bliz spell the name right!) was on the dev-team..
I was hoping for a Tiller response about the 2d vs 3d argument.
You've got to have something interesting to say about that, right Tiller?
I don't agree that there is anything about 3D that will make Starcraft 2 by default unable to compete with Starcraft. If it isn't as good it will have little if anything to do with 3D. There were plenty of 2D RTS games that were shit or average.
Only thing about 3D which is a problem or "was" is that for example in Warcraft 3 technically they couldn't get a lot of units on screen at once without hardware limitations thus the small army model. As far as I can tell in this movie there seem to be no such problems.
Give some examples of what they can do in 2D they can't emulate in 3D.
They can't emulate Starcraft's fast-paced twitch micromanagement in 3D. I can't really say why for certain, but they can't. I can already see from the gameplay trailers how clunky the control is. It's the same kind of clunky control I see in every other 3D RTS.
They could still have all the other great aspects of Starcraft gameplay if they did it right I guess, but the micromanagement invariably suffers for some reason. That's my biggest issue with 3D, and probably the only thing that I would say 3D can't emulate right now is that split-second razor's edge micro.
Another issue I have with 3D is that having a lot of units on screen will probably require almost everybody to scale the detail levels down so far that the game will look worse than top-notch 2D would anyway.
If you want it to look pretty, it's not going to run well. If you want it to run well, it's not going to look pretty.
3D forces an inverse relationship between detail and performance. It can give you one or it can give you the other. But 2D can give you both at the same time.
The above is especially true for the RTS genre, since we're dealing with so many units on screen at once. The system resources required to get a good level of detail in an FPS for example is no where near the amount of system resources required to get the same level of detail into an RTS.
Another issue that we don't see in 2D is perspective. We can get a perfect top-down view in a 2D RTS where we're looking at an X by Y grid in our game area. But in 3D the camera needs to be pitched at an angle, which is undesirable because all the maps are X by Y but our game area is looking at a trapezoid-shaped plane. It's just unnecessary and feels awkward and wrong.
But then again, I'm not worried about sales and magazine screenshots and NVIDIA and ATI sponsorships. I can definitely understand why a profit-seeking entity would go 3D and never look back.
This is just the stuff that I think matters to a competitive game and a spectator sport. For casual gamers though (which is all I am anyway now that poker has stolen my soul) all the minute details I'm nitpicking are kind of irrelevant, and I'm sure Starcraft 2 will be great as long as you're not expecting it to be as good of a format for competitive gaming as the original was.
Post a Comment
<< Home