Starcraft 2 - Blizzard's most disappointing effort?

Starcraft 2 just launched the beta phase of its development. This is an incredibly exciting time for any SC fan, but those of us without beta keys (myself included) have been left feeling blue-balled by the whole experience. To occupy our time, we lurk on the sc2 beta forums (at which we can look, but not touch), watch the countless videos coming out from a plethora of beta testers, and continue to play the original Starcraft with renewed vigor.

Amidst all of these serene, semi-real moments of observing a game I often doubted would ever exist, I’ve taken a few steps backed and wondered to myself: “When I finally do get my hands on SC2 and start playing, what’s it going to be like?” My conclusion was sort of a let down – it will be exactly what I expected it to be. That is to say, the gameplay will be flawless, the matchmaking system will be fluid, and I’ll play match after match for years on end… just like I did with SC1.

Why do I have a problem with this? Isn’t it a good thing that Blizzard hasn’t messed with their tried and true formula? After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and the fact that SC is more popular now than it ever has been (what with the Korean pro-league beginning to seep into other countries and iccup constantly inundated with a very active and competitive ladder) should be an indication that SC needs no fixing. In fact, many diehard Starcraft fans hate the very notion that Starcraft 2 should have tried to change or alter its core mechanics, mechanics that made Starcraft so tremendously popular.

Here’s my question, though – what if Blizzard had taken that attitude at any other point during their company’s history? When Warcraft 2 was released, it, too, was tremendously successful. Blizzard had essentially perfected the standard RTS formula at that point, making a very fast-paced, vibrant game where two races that tightly mirrored each other (with a few exceptions) fought time and again for dominance. Warcraft 2 had a huge following of loyal fans that loved everything it offered them: if you told them “that’s great, but we’re going to try something different”, they surely would have been dismayed.

Yet, this is how the original Starcraft was conceived. Blizzard took traditional RTS notions and turned them on their head, by making three races that were radically different from each other. Not just different in their unit compositions, although the difference between their units was tremendous, but also different as far as mechanics and gameplay. Zergs didn’t use the standard RTS method of producing units from a specific “barracks”, but instead pumped them out of the same place where workers stored resources. “Farms” for the protoss weren’t just to sustain a larger army, but also provided power to all of their other buildings. In a genre where every army was essentially a mirror, Blizzard had the audacity to make three armies that were all fundamentally different from each other, and the tenacity to balance these three such that the game worked in whatever combination you experienced them.

This move was what brought us, arguably, the greatest RTS of all time – our beloved, time-honored, venerated Starcraft. Other popular video games usually attract spiteful hatred in direct proportion to their popularity. Anybody that doesn’t play WoW despises it, and in the FPS community, you either live by Halo, or wish it had never been created. Starcraft, in direct comparison, never receives such grand doses of vitriol. While not everyone loves it, those that don’t acknowledge how ambitious of an RTS it was, and what it’s done for the genre.

In the end, I just find myself wishing that Blizzard had dared to take this chance again. It’s not as if they haven’t radically altered a successful franchise before – look at Warcraft, as a series. It went from a very popular RTS in Warcraft 2, to a very popular RTS with very different mechanics in Warcraft 3. Did people love the change? Some did – I was one of the biggest fanboys of heroes, and personally feel it was a huge advancement for the genre. Some hated it, though, and overall Warcraft 3 wasn’t nearly as explosive as Starcraft. This didn’t stop Blizzard, though: rather than reverting to Warcraft 2’s mechanics, or making ‘Warcraft 4’ a Starcraft clone, they shook up the Warcraft series again by developing WoW, which has become the biggest MMO in history, single-handedly changing Blizzard from a successful developer to the titanic figure it’s become today. Perhaps that’s why Blizzard didn’t take a chance on Starcraft 2. They may consider themselves, at this point, too big to fail.

Am I upset by this? Not at all. I completely understand every facet of their decision. Between the starcraft loyalists who would hate them for changing the game, to the guys over at Activision who would probably have a heart attack if they heard of a sequel not being notably similar to its predecessor, it probably would’ve been way too risky to try to dramatically change the RTS genre, again, with Starcraft II. And listen, I’m not at all trying to complain – I’m still chomping at the bit waiting for my beloved beta key to come to me, and until that happens I’ll keep pouring over SC2 vids from Crota, Diggity, Heggemon et al. I just can’t shake the notion that if Blizzard still had those big, golden brass balls that they were rocking back in 1999, we’d have been in for a surreal experience when SC2 was launched. As is, it’s going to be phenomenal, but it’s going to be everything we expect it to be.