StarCraft 2 will ship 'when it's ready'....in 2008

[zekrahminator]

Everyone who's ever waited for a Blizzard game to be released knows just how long "when it's ready" is. StarCraft2 is no exception to this rule. Unfortunately for anyone waiting for StarCraft2, this game is not going to be "ready" for quite some time. MSNBC scored an interview with Rob Pardo, the VP of game design at Blizzard, which explains when we can see this game.

I can give you the old Blizzard mantra of: 'It'll ship when it's ready,'" said Pardo, "but it's something that historically, we've learned to keep release dates really close to the vest. I think all game developers are extremely optimistic, and we used to give optimistic dates and we'd disappoint our fans when we didn't hit them. So now, I think we've just gotten more gun shy. The only thing I can give you [that's] concrete is it's not going to be this year. Some people were hoping, because of how advanced the game looks, that we'd have it out by Christmas, but that's definitely not happening.

StarCraft2 started development in 2003, and full production started a year later. The team working on this game comprises of 40 people.

StarCraft2 will be available for PC and Mac "when it's done".

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[KennyT772]

Good. No more good games rushed out and f*cked over because of it.

 

[scoutingwraith]

You know that when i heard that StarCraft 2 is coming out i simply removed every game from my waiting list and i only am truly waiting for this game. Oh and yeah i rather wait to get a good game that is polished and not rushed.

 

[tater]

wow sweet...cant wait. Ill definitley buy it

 

[a111087]

they did the right thing by not promising something that they can't do (the release date)

 

[WarEagleAU]

Again, to reiterate, quality takes time. I for one am stoked and look forward to an extremely well polished game.

 

[Kursah]

Well if it can come out and shake up things like Starcraft originally did, with a clean layer of polish and good RTS gameplay, then I'll be happy to wait...it's getting harder now that I know it's coming, but I will just have to get back to Supreme Commander and C&C 3 for now! SC2 is gonna ROCK FTW!

 

[Benpi]

Games don't need to take forever just to be polished and bug-free. Just look at Battlefield 2142!

... oh wait

 

[Judas]

And by the time it comes's out it will be in DX10

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Again, to reiterate, quality takes time. I for one am stoked and look forward to an extremely well polished game.

And for those of us that know blizzard, This means "its not doing very well".

 

[15th Warlock]

Oh, I've waited so many years for this to happen, one more year to wait seems like forever, but I'm sure it will be worth it

 

[CamH773]

I agree that it was smart not giving a release date for people to get their hopes up on. I am definitely going to buy this game when it comes out. The first starcraft was amazing, so this one will be incredible!

 

[FujiwaraTakumi]

And by the time it comes's out it will be in DX10

Here's what Blizzard's said about that:

Will StarCraft II take advantage of DirectX 10? What other graphical goodies are included?

The game will be compatible with DirectX 10, and we're still considering whether there will be exclusive DirectX 10 graphic effects, but the graphics engine will also be very scalable to ensure that a wide range of different systems will be capable of running StarCraft II. The new engine is also capable of rendering very large units, as well as large numbers of units on screen together. Havok physics have been integrated into the engine for added realism as well.

 

[yogurt_21]

well then I guess that gives me a year to move to vista. first good reason I've seen.

 

[Giletus]

I am very happy they are making part 2. I wish more gaming companys would take the time to polish there games before release. I have gotten burned more than once on unfinished games.

 

[HellasVagabond]

The Graphics are Identical to the original Starcraft so WTF is it taking them 4 years to develop ????????

 

[Rol87]

can wait for this baby I still play the first one.

 

[Deleted member 3]

The Graphics are Identical to the original Starcraft so WTF is it taking them 4 years to develop ????????

You clearly haven't ever played Starcraft.

Compare:
this to this

Flame elsewhere.

 

[HellasVagabond]

And the AWESOME difference is where exactly ? The engine sure aint the same and the graphics are better but its not like were talking about a HUGE LEAP that would take Blizzard from 2003 to 2008 to Finish. Its 5 years almost....As for not playing SC and flaming i wont even start a responce. It would only give you credit

 

[Darkrealms]

anyone watch the hour long international interview? was actually rather informative (bit slow).

I'm glad everything they've shown has kept the same consept as SC. I was worried they may do something like Warcraft2 to Warcraft3 change. No offense but I hated the heros, just wanted good battles.

And the AWESOME difference is where exactly ? The engine sure aint the same and the graphics are better but its not like were talking about a HUGE LEAP that would take Blizzard from 2003 to 2008 to Finish. Its 5 years almost....As for not playing SC and flaming i wont even start a responce. It would only give you credit

They are basically rebuilding the game on a new engine, if anything the voices are probably the only things that aren't new.

 

[KennyT772]

The reason for such a long development time is three fold:

They are making a sequal to the best, highest sold, longest living, and hands down favorite rts of all time.

2 They are completly rebuilding the game from bottom up, while still maintaining the balence and stratagies of starcraft, seeing how that is the number one reason the game is what it is today.

3 they are making the game as compatable as possible. Starcraft was released in the late '90s (someone chime in with the year) yet it was playable on even the oldest systems. A 90mhz processor is all that was needed to drive the game, even when we had processors 5 times that speed.

 

[Darkrealms]

KennyT772 starcraft was released in 1998 (click on the date for blizzs timeline).

I still play broodwars sometimes with friends.

 

[Nothgrin]

And the AWESOME difference is where exactly ? The engine sure aint the same and the graphics are better but its not like were talking about a HUGE LEAP that would take Blizzard from 2003 to 2008 to Finish. Its 5 years almost....As for not playing SC and flaming i wont even start a responce. It would only give you credit

1 st off as everyone has stated they are rebuilding the engine. In StarCraft they had a 2D isometric engine. In StarCraft 2 they had to revamp to 3D graphics and calculations. As anyone who knows the mathematical difference there is alot changing from 2D vectors to 3D matrix / quaternion rotations. As a game programmer myself I know that this may be big leap from 2D to 3D but if your not a programmer you will have to do some research on them to REALLY know why its taking so long.

2nd Blizzard likes taking their time. They do it so they can polish their games as much as possible so that there are no bugs and such that people can exploit. So these things have to be taken into during development time.

3rd They might not be held up by the development team but by the Asset Team. As we have seen in the screenshots those are only a few of the units that we have seen from StarCraft. Im sure they have many more units than they had in the first one but they never showed them so its a possibility that they are waiting on the character models and other assets. They kind of alluded to this by saying that the look of the game is not final yet. So the asset team can be working diligently on characters and such.

 

[HellasVagabond]

Im not saying the game wont rock or that they should make it like from Warcraft to Warcraft 3...I like it better this way. But 5 years ????? I think its too much thats all.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

And the AWESOME difference is where exactly ? The engine sure aint the same and the graphics are better but its not like were talking about a HUGE LEAP that would take Blizzard from 2003 to 2008 to Finish. Its 5 years almost....As for not playing SC and flaming i wont even start a responce. It would only give you credit

Old: 2d.
New: 3d.

The pictures won't do it justice.

Animation will.

Im not saying the game wont rock or that they should make it like from Warcraft to Warcraft 3...I like it better this way. But 5 years ????? I think its too much thats all.

You do realize the development cycle most games go through is well into 2 years or more right?

You can't just sit at lunch saying Dang! we should make number 2! and a month later have it done.