The State of StarCraft II

Today I played the Blizzard-developed StarCraft II mod "StarCraft Master." It is less like a mod and more like "thirty situations you can survive only via excellent micro." And I enjoyed it. It is a well-designed game in itself, while also being an improve-your-micro boot camp. It is also better than nearly half of the games I've played over the last two months. Games which I paid for.

After playing StarCraft II today I remembered that Blizzard is, still, one of the few great major games developers (in that, they know how to design a really effective game). And as much as I hate the fact that World of Warcraft exists, and as much as I hate that Diablo III will (soon?) exist, there is still StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. It may not have a good story, or interesting characters, but it is a great piece of software. I will never support Blizzard's MMO, addictive, money-making side, but I will support its StarCraft II side, providing that its expansions get high enough scores on metacritic.

Mentioning the expansion packs makes me want to discuss the state of StarCraft, which happens to be the title of this post.

The status: its multiplayer scene is becoming like the first StarCraft's, without LAN. What I mean is, it's becoming more of a game only for those who obsessively play it. And I think this is how it will be years after the expansion packs get released. And sadly for me (if I can say that about my relationship with a game) I do not think that I will be playing this multiplayer game much more. Watching its E-Sports matches? Yes. But playing it, no. Why? Because the coming expansion pack will have a separate ladder from the original one, making me think that the third expansion pack will also have its own ladder, all three of which will lead to the following players: those who buy the expansion packs for the okay-story telling and mediocre characters, those who buy them because they want the best version of the multiplayer experience, and those say, "I don't want to play MORE money for a game that has no LAN and gives a merely okay story." Although I hope that they realize that the level design, played on Hard or Brutal difficulties, is actually pretty good.

And in the end: oh well. I want to love StarCraft II multiplayer forever, but, if it's going to take long waits to play balanced matches (due to there being few non-elite players roaming Battlenet), then I don't see the point in trying to stay in love with it.