No StarCraft 2 this year

by John Bardinelli { May 31st 2007 at 12:00PM }

In an interview with MSNBC, Bizzard's vice president of game design Rob Pardo reveals some juicy details about the development of StarCraft 2. The first design steps were taken back in 2003, nearly five years after the release of the original game. It wasn't until 2004 that development was in full-swing. The team also considered adding a fourth race to the mix but in the end decided to stick with the tried-and-true trio.

And the question everyone wants to know: when will we get to play StarCraft 2? Pardo initially responded with Blizzard's usual response: "It'll ship when it's ready." A gentle coaxing later, he elaborated with "The only thing I can give you [that's] concrete is it's not going to be this year."

Joystiq am cry.

Tags: blizzard, interview, mac, pc, realtimestrategy, rts, starcraft, starcraft2, strategy, warcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

shivr @ May 31st 2007 12:05PM

hmmm... I'd guess late 2008 or mid 2009 release... if that

Al goldstein @ May 31st 2007 12:56PM

If it doesn't have a 4th race, i'm not buy it. How can you not add a new race. Come on blizzard, stop making Star craft 1.5 and start making Star craft 2.

Dior @ May 31st 2007 12:24PM

I am cry. No zerg rush kekeke ^^

Magarnacle @ May 31st 2007 12:24PM

This is probably good news. If every game that is slated to come out this year is as good as it looks I will probably be divorced, unemployed, and broke if this dropped as well. Take your time StarCraft 2. Let me have my life for at least a little bit longer...

TheGuy @ May 31st 2007 12:25PM

Did you hear that? I think I heard the collective groan of every person in Korea after learning they'll have to wait even longer for StarCraft 2.

MooseMuffin @ May 31st 2007 12:28PM

I guess I shouldn't be surprised seeing as this is Blizzard we're talking about. But look at the gameplay trailer! The game looks practically finished. It seems hard to believe that they have over 6 months of work left to do on this thing.

XGamerX @ May 31st 2007 12:28PM

wow 2009 I dont even want to imagine that happening. Im still hoping for an early 2008 release.

http://gamergeddon.com/

Anam @ May 31st 2007 12:38PM

I thought this was a given.

Daniel @ May 31st 2007 12:44PM

DarkenAngel @ May 31st 2007 12:55PM

Surprise, surprise folks. Seriously, how long was the original StarCraft pushed back? How often has Blizzard *not* pushed back a major release? What's that.. never? Good answer Timmy.

It'll be worth the wait, but "Hell, it's about time.." indeed.

MattGamer @ May 31st 2007 12:57PM

I suspected this much. At least we were given some juicy visuals and movie. I hope they do more game play/commentary movies like earlier this month! It would tidy me over and hype me up so much for the game!

Knightwulf @ May 31st 2007 12:58PM

I will lay odds on an April 1st, 2008 release.

Exactly one decade following the original release date.

Warlord @ May 31st 2007 1:02PM

I CAN'T be the only one dissappointed in this, am I? No new races, minor changes to some units, revamped graphics, and only maybe 50% new units?

I swear, this is just an expansion, not an oh-so-desired sequal. I'd like to see changes similar to what happened from Warcraft 2 to 3.

Matthew @ May 31st 2007 2:02PM

Been a while since I've said this.

DUH!

Walking Contradiction @ May 31st 2007 1:07PM

I want 7 different races with 200 different units for each race plus some hidden.

Blizzard has the time and money to do this! They are fucking lazy. They know it will sell no matter what they do.

Warlord @ May 31st 2007 1:10PM

Oh come on, it's nothing more than an expansion pack with new graphics! Tell me it isn't!

Anam @ May 31st 2007 1:10PM

@Warlord

Come on now, it's only been nearly a decade. They haven't had near enough time to make any major changes.

Sarcasm aside, I personally don't want a new race. I'm too afraid that a new race would be too hard to balance correctly, and that's the #1 best part about StarCraft. Not that I'd be against a new race if it's well done, but I'm perfectly fine with new graphics, new interface, new units and new campaign. That's enough new for me.

Geoff Gibson @ May 31st 2007 1:12PM

This is crap...

We don't want Starcraft 1.5.

We want Starcraft 2 damnit!

Blizzard lost all of their innovation as soon as World of Warcraft became a hit. I don't think they will ever get it back.

MooseMuffin @ May 31st 2007 1:13PM

Apparently I'm in the minority considering all the complaining about lack on innovation/4th race. My ideal starcraft 2 would be a prettier starcraft 1 with some UI improvements, like being able to select more units. The game was pretty perfect already, it just needed to be brought up to date.

Anam @ May 31st 2007 1:13PM

"Oh come on, it's nothing more than an expansion pack with new graphics! Tell me it isn't!"

Would you call WarCraft 2 an expansion pack to WarCraft 1 because it didn't have a new race?

Jonathan Tran @ May 31st 2007 1:14PM

@13 These minimal changes are to ensure that SC2 is a powerhouse international success. SC1 is so loved because of fine , fine, balance and pacing. Throwing in a 4th race could destroy the whole balance. Look at Warcraft 3, with 4 races. Does anyone play that game for a living?

Was ANYONE expecting the game this year? I'm with the bet for April 1, 2008. EN TARO ADUN, TASSADAR

ps: the new units look awesome, and come on some just had to go. Please please PLEASE no Valkyries in SC2

Crono @ May 31st 2007 1:17PM

As long as there is no unit cap, I'll be happy. the number of max units should be determined by how much infrastructure you can build and maintain, not by some arbitrary number.

I think they should also make it so that if some of your infrastructure gets destroyed and you no longer have enough "food" for your massive number of troops, they should start slowly dying off, starting with the oldest and most damaged ones and ending when the infrastructure gets rebuilt or you've lost enough units to no longer be over the "cap".

It would bring a little strategy back to an otherwise "who can click the fastest" game.

Covarr @ May 31st 2007 1:25PM

"It'll ship when it's ready."

They really ought to call it StarCraft Forever if they're gonna have that attitude about it.

Blazur @ May 31st 2007 1:27PM

I honestly didn't expect the game to release in 2007, but remain hopeful for a beta by years end. The lack of a 4th race is disappointing but not enough to discourage me from getting the game. It'll no doubt be amazing.

Really wish they'd reveal more about it by giving us more frequent updates.

Jonathan Tran @ May 31st 2007 1:33PM

@21

Unit caps in these games exist for a good reason. It is to limit slowdown, lag, and discourage constant pumping of forces into a gigantic stalemate.

Also, with no cap, if I knew my computer was better than yours, I could pump zerglings till I had just enough that I was losing framerate, then attack you with all 3000 of them. Yeah you would have about 3 fps and I would win. Fun for you, right?

placebo @ May 31st 2007 1:36PM

Even though it's still far from released, it's still Game of the Year for 2007 as far as I'm concerned.

Walking Contradiction @ May 31st 2007 1:36PM

John Tran

If the resources are limited and distributed between the map perfectly. It would keep players from only spending their money on building 3000 GI's.

Anam @ May 31st 2007 1:45PM

Regarding the unit cap discussion:

Personally, I like the unit cap because it gives someone a chance even if they're behind in resources. With no unit cap, if someone has a decisive resource advantage, the other player would have basically no chance, since he could be outnumbered beyond the ability to function.

With a unit cap, there is a limit to how strong your opponent can be, therefore giving you a chance to make a comeback. Resources are still valuable, and the player with the most resources will still usually win, but I like the idea of at least having a chance.

That said, I don't see the unit cap really coming into play in most games anyway, so whatever.

As a side note, I'd like the unit cap to scale based upon the size/resources of the map. Having the same cap on a small map with two players and a huge map with eight or more players is idiotic.

Jonathan Tran @ May 31st 2007 1:46PM

25: that doesn't make any sense. Is every map going to be designed for 2 players? if you are on a 3 player map, and one guy drops, now one of you could have 2x more minerals than "intended"

Zerglings are cheap. If the map intends you to have enough resources to tech to nukes, you could just spend it all on 5000 marines instead, easily get them within 10 minutes.

I am not saying this is a good strategy, just that unit caps are important to game balance, as well as to making the game playable in multiplayer.

Also, unit caps mean that players that are doing well have a chance at a comeback, since their opponents cannot horde some 10k unit army.

Rallion @ May 31st 2007 2:15PM

Blizzard's last game took over three years to be released from the official announcement. Think about that one.

shazzam @ May 31st 2007 2:29PM

I want 9000 races and 500000 units and I want the game to suck me off every time I start it up. I also want blizzard to pay me directly for every game I play. I also want it yesterday so that I can be rich already. Why can't Blizzard just learn to do this right!

pito189 @ May 31st 2007 1:56PM

I wouldn't mind having the ability to set my population cap to whatever I wanted it to be in a single player game. I don't play online that much and my computer can keep up with whatever the game can throw at it. You can do this in Rise of Nations but you have to hack the game and it gets annoying keeping two versions of the xml file around when you want to battle with your friend in the next room.

Imagine you have a balanced army of 1000 and switching into the 3d mode. How bad ass is this game going to be.

Jonathan Tran @ May 31st 2007 2:01PM

um, in single player you can do this in starcraft. you can do this with special custom maps. you cannot do it in the campaign, since then the whole game would have to be rebalanced for enemy forces to have different limits.

additionally setting the unit cap to 500 in single player and 200 in multi would anger some people. yeeeesh

anyway SC2 is gonna rock, right?

Chaos @ May 31st 2007 2:04PM

Obviously, they are delaying it because they need more vespene gas.

Anam @ May 31st 2007 2:11PM

"Obviously, they are delaying it because they need more vespene gas."

I know. All the good stuff requires vespene gas...

djricekcn @ May 31st 2007 2:33PM

That means we won't be able to play the Hybrid race? /cry I really want to play as them

l2play @ May 31st 2007 2:37PM

That's great news. The longer the better, in my sense of order. Let the prices of Computer hardware drop because i'm planning to build a new PC to play SC 2(along with Crysis and others) and Quad-Core is a bit expensive at the moment. So give it a year or more and i'll probably say $100 or so on my processor/video card etc. etc.

Otis Whitaker @ May 31st 2007 2:41PM

A barely upgraded sequel.. already 3 years into development... I expect 2009 or so.
Why? Because Blizzard always takes too long. Just like Valve.
If any other developer was handed the same tools, and told to create the same game, they could manage to make the same game in a year or less, I imagine.

Jonathan Tran @ May 31st 2007 2:58PM

@38

True, but would any other developer also ship 9 million copies of this game, and start a cult following and professional gaming league environment spanning multiple countries?

Only Blizzard and Nintendo can get away with these kinds of delays, but when they deliver, they deliver.

Also I resent the vespene comment. I loves me some Zealots.

brink @ May 31st 2007 4:33PM

All the "Starcraft 1.5" people can blow it out their arse, nobody wants to hear your skillful commentary, oh maybe maybe if you're right in 2-3 years when it's released everyone can say it was "Starcraft 1.5" and you can say "YEAH THAT WAS ALL ME BABY" like the retard you are.

@20

There's a valkyrie in the video (it's not a wraith, that's for sure) - I think they were pretty worthless in most of the BW patches no?

Blazur @ May 31st 2007 3:23PM

@40
I don't recall ever seeing a valk in any videos. Are you sure you're not confusing it with the newly modeled dropship?

That unit is useless...I hope they eliminate it. It's too damn expensive.

Crono @ May 31st 2007 3:53PM

On Unit Cap:

I really think that by the time this comes one, PC's will be able to hadle "unlimited" units of the number of poly's they're going to have, if they can't already. With the speed of networks and pc's, there's almost no reason why lag would be an issue either.

And my buddy and I play SC1 frequently. Every game he hits the unit cap (as protoss) because everything costs at least 2 psy, meaning at most he can have 100 units. I rarely hit the unit cap because I play Zerg, and I could have closer to 150 units before capping out. Thats alot of hydras.

If not eliminate the unit cap, then at least raise it significantly. Whatever they do, they better not lower the cap, because WC3 sucks with a 90 food unit cap. I hit that all the time.

And if the other guy is outproducing you on units, thats your fault. I'm pretty sure that if you were in a game of SC1, and struggling against an opponent who just hit the unit cap, you're going to lose anyway.

Anam @ May 31st 2007 4:14PM

@Crono

It's true that it is your fault if you're being outproduced, but I like the idea that you can come back from making mistakes. Anyway, it doesn't matter that much to me either way, but I (slightly) like having it more than not.

WarCraft 3 was a bit punishing, but I love the upkeep idea. I hope they implement that in StarCraft 2. If they do that, unit caps become even more irrelevent.

I think lag is a factor, but a small one. I could easily see a game lagging to death in an 8-12 player match with no unit cap. However, the truth is that anyone going into an 8-12 player match knows that there will be lag. It's kind of a given.

The only time lag should be a major issue is in competitive 2 player games, which realistically should be able to handle near-infinite units (I mean, if you have 1/6th the number of players, the game should be able to handle those two players having 6 times as many units, right?)

brink @ May 31st 2007 4:33PM

@41

not in a gameplay video, but the cinematic with the marine has one, it may not be a valk, but it sure looks like one. That and we haven't seen many terran units at all yet...

ogvor @ May 31st 2007 4:54PM

It's funny that after finding this out, I went to my EB Games to pickup a copy of the orignal (cause it's on sale, and my firends are doing a Starcraft LAN party soon) and after purchasing it I was asked if I wanted to preorder Starcraft II. I said I didn't need it yet becuase it's so far off from release. Then they proceeded to inform me it was coming out in October. I was about to corrected, but it jsut wasn't worth it...