With the advent of the StarCraft II Beta comes the inevitable slew of discussions with professional StarCraft: BW and Warcraft III players who are beginning the make the jump over to the new ship.
Most of these interviews, such as this one originally found at ygosu.com, focus on the thoughts of the cream-of-the-crop high-level players – the Koreans.
As reports of the Beta start to filter they way around the web, two things are becoming increasingly clear.
1) This game is not like StarCraft.
2) This game is exactly like StarCraft.
But – how can this be? How is this paradox explained? Have things become topsy-turvy? Do pigs fly and dogs speak? Is Starwars: Galaxies suddenly not a steaming heap of crap?
No. The world retains its balance. But it really is possible for both of the above statements to be true. Here’s why.
This new game is not like the original StarCraft, owing to the fancy new 3D graphics engine, streamlined controls, and a great many new units that have been added to the mix. This has led some to conclude that the game is simply a new animal, one that thinks differently from the original, and that can never hope to be its better.
An example of this is the fact that finding a Terran player who is high up in the Battle.net platinum league is nearly impossible. At the moment, Protoss players rule the leaderborads, with the Zerg trailing slimily along behind. There’s some talk that Terrans simply don’t have the ability to stand up to a concerted rush tactic by either of the other races.
Reading the above article, however, and speaking with friends has led us to a different conclusion, neatly divided into two parts.
Part the first comes from the fact that the game is in Beta. Early Beta. Less-than-two-weeks-old Beta. The Protoss are, by all accounts, horrendously overpowered, resulting in more Protoss vs. Protoss smackdowns than you could shake a Zerg at. This will change over time.
Part the second actually neatly ties into our original assertion that StarCraft II is both the same and completely unlike the first game.
In their interview with the Korean gamester, Zenio (who had just broken up with his girlfriend to focus all of his attention on StarCraft II) the problem of Terrans being the red-headed stepchild of the three races was discussed. According to Zenio, the problem isn’t with the Terrans as a race, or even the balancing done so far by Blizzard. It’s the fact that people have forgotten how to play the Terrans, as they’ve been too caught up in the madness that is StarCraft II.
In his opinion, there were Terran strategies from StarCraft, honed over 11 years of waiting for the next big thing, and they worked pretty damn well. As it turns out, according to him, (and he’s an expert!), they still work pretty damn well in StarCraft II.
And that’s just it. The game is different, certainly – flashier units, speedier load times and a seriously revamped ladder system, but the gameplay is the same. Not exactly the same, but close enough that many of the old strategies and ploys still work. Will there be new ones developed as players become more familiar with new units? Of course. But the basic mechanics remain the same. That’s actually the best Blizzard could have hoped for.
This game is a totally different animal on the surface, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Under the mask, though, the game appears to have teeth. Only time will tell.
Oh, and our experience with the Beta? Still experiencing the downloader at the moment. It’s not like we’ve been waiting long to try StarCraft II…
