So you're allowed to pirate because they make a lot of money? Please. Is it morally right to steal a plasma TV from a rich man on the basis that he could afford the loss? You could probably afford the loss if every time you bought a new coffee table someone stole it, but you'd be damn unhappy about it, and rightly so. For that matter, you could probably afford it if every time you went to work someone stole your pen.

I think you're wrong, anyway, since Blizzard doesn't actually lose anything - simply a potential customer. I'm addressing you on what appears to be your morality in terms of piracy. If you pirate simply because you want to, I don't suppose I could argue with that - just don't attempt to justify it morally by saying that Blizzard could afford the losses. It's facile.

Oh man....The first two pages are possibly the worst example of rant and complaining I've seen this far....Psychoak takes the prize though. But then again he have probably never won a match in an online RTS and can't win no matter how hard he tries.

A bunch of people that are incredibly bitter that a revolutionary RTS (TA) which became their favorite was completely overshadowed by another RTS (StarCraft) that they view as inferior (and ignoring its strong points).

I loved StarCraft for everything it had back then.

• The campaign was a masterpiece and was taken to new heights in Brood War (Had no idea what would happen)
• The graphics was a new generation compared to WarCraft 2 (noticed it in the tutorial with the shroud and FoW)
• Sound and Music were fantastic as always. (The comments each unit had is like a Blizzard thing today ^^)

• And finally, the gameplay. StarCraft is built upon soft counters (hard counters are rock, paper, scissors) where a units statistical counter can beat it given special conditions like chokepoints, terrain, upgrades and support units.
  

A great example is Terran Marines which on paper would lose horribly to Terran Firebats since Firebats do concussive damage which do full damage to small units, 50% to medium sized units and 25% to large units (Units of a certain size all have the same armor class). Firebats also have 10hp more then Marines and 1 armor point. They got 50hp, 16 damage per attack, 2 in range are as slow as Marines. Marines though, have 40hp, 0 amor points and do 6 damage with a range of 4 (I believe) but can be upgraded with stimpacks (which make them fire twice as fast for a short time which costs 10hp) and U-238 shells which increases range 1 or 2 hexes (or cells, or whatever....). End result is, that 1v1 up to 12v12, Firebats wins. But add a choke and position your Marines approprietly and the Firebats lose alot more units. Adding stimpacks on top of that will make the Marines win. Adding U-238 on top of THAT and it's quite possible that the Marines will not lose anything at all!

But you people who hate RTS games where micromanagement makes a difference probably disregard this as "exploits" or "abuse" or something like that....

About the interface discussions that keeping the UI in the dark age will make the game better is such incredible rubbish that I wonder if the people advocating the original StarCrafts UI are sane. (A "progamer" called Tasteless actually said that StarCraft 2 looks far from an E-sport because of features like rallymining and MBS eventhough he also said that the game needs to be spectatorfriendly. Talking against himself).

I consider macromanagement a result of inefficient userinterfaces that should be eliminated so you can focus on the fun stuff. Because I really wonder if anyone believes that all the Korean women spectating StarCraft matches are screaming because of the players ability to build 8 Marines, 2 Medics, 10 Siege Tanks and 5 Vultures in 2 seconds.

And if the tedious tasks in StarCraft which is a result of an outdated, inefficient userinterface that increase the skillcap really is that important to the progamers (which I do not believe for a SECOND!) then why not use the WarCraft 2 interface instead..?    No such noobifying things like controlgroups (a REAL pro can boxselect the troops he needs), rallypoints (you want your units to move without you giving them an order??? WHAT?!?!   If you want your units to move from the structure they were produced at you have to move them yourselves you friggin n00b!), 12 unit selection limit (a real pro can handle a max of 9 like in WarCraft 2!) and autoheal (automatic healing???   THIS WILL REMOVE ALL SKILL FROM THE GAME!!!)

Uhh...most of us are gonna buy SC2 because we have waited for it for...just about ever. Now a game that shouldn't succed and should fail is Diablo 3....that game is a huge disappointment. Right now as it stands there are 3 classes of RTS games now. Tactical (CoH), Massive Armies (SupCom/TA), Space (SINS / Homeworld). Right now ....

Relic OWNS the Tactical area of RTS Games..You simply really can't compete.

When it comes to Massive badass huge armies....Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games owns that with Supcom and for those of you old timers like me total annihilation. Which Supcom is really just a updated TA which i love.

For Space RTS...Relic and IronClad/Stardock Own those areas. Relic owns it with the Homeworld games and Ironclad/Stardock owns it with SINS. Both are awesome RTS Games..but have different play styles that is why I added them both.

What about WiC? I haven't actually played CoH, but I do know that Massive has had three RTT's that were absolute stars.

Even if CoH is better, you can't just say that they can't compete, because it seems WiC is a damn good game.

Umm WiC was a terriable game. Has nothing on CoH....you should go get CoH then you will understand young one. lol

first the posts were just pathetic and only relying on fervor, then there were well reasoned arguments, and now we're back to pathetic?   i want more "educated" debates on star craft 2, is that too much to ask?

SC2 will not be a bad game, that's for sure. But it might just miss out on 10 million copies lol. I'm confident the storyline will be nice and intriguing.

StarCraft only has one thing about it that kept it popular, it's storyline, because all it's other good aspects became common place not too long after, or they became unrealistic in the mind's of gamers

Also, think about its units, spaceships fighting with ground units of roughly the same size, people won't buy into that in the second one

I doubt that StarCraft 2 will even be able to use its storyline to its advantage, Command and Conquer 3 had a great storyline, which was executed perfectly by including well known sci-fi actors

And to all those saying Sins is nothing new, its the first game I've come across that is not only easy to mod, but whose developers give tools to help with modding, also, it has successfully combined real-time and turn-based strategy elements into an enjoyable game

Agreed Rage about SINS but I still wouldn't mind a Homeworld 3....

Homeworld is a good series, but very neglected. A couple of bugfixes, but no real attention by the publishers after its release. Homeworld 2 didn't even get any expansions.

But I think it's a good game, and the only game to come up with a real intuitive system for working in 3D space.

The only thing I ever liked about RTS (Total Annihilation being the one exception) is on it's single-player merit; the story. This wasn't just the case with Starcraft. Everything else (at least regarding Blizz's games) perfectly sums up what is royally fucked up about multiplayer over the internet these days- the 'win at all costs' (gaming the game) mentality of competitive play that battle.net became a spinning image of after Brood War. Counterstrike, Warcraft3, player-killing in MMORPGs- who the hell would spend real money so they play against legions of anonymous, adolescent and undergrad-aged basement dwellers with the sort of attitude previously mentioned? Add clickfests to the mix and you have something I won't be wasting my time & mullah on.

As previously stated by others, it's all a matter of preference, so YMMV. In any case, have fun with the ladder-monkeys and hackers that Blizz will undoubtedly do NOTHING about.

Dont underestimate the fanbois and the hype. C&C?? So what? that game came and went already, SC2 bring a new story (and very anticipated) with a rich background.

Really, Sins is nothing new, its just the first game to be succesfull at all in bringing all those things.

The original Homeworld didn't get an expansion either, they only made one single spin-off "expansion", but Cataclysm is to Homeworld like Battlefield 2142 is to Battlefield2 or CS is to Half-life. a mod to the original game.

Thats called "power gaming". and in the US its the primary form of multiplayer. From FPS and RTS to MMORPGs.

And really, that generalization you made only hurts you. The truth many of the player who owned you didn't even bothered to read your name. Dont take it personally and just move. Unless the other player starts spamming and smacking you after you lose, in which case he just an asshole who needs to be ignored.

Nowdays, people need a thick hide to play online multiplayer games. Sadly they just dont get it. There is no honor nor civility nor manners on the internet, so dont get frustated when you find none of those.

You really believe that millions of Koreans play StarCraft daily because of its storyline? You believe that the massive eSports community around the game exists because of its storyline? I mean, seriously now.

I get that you don't like the game. But you could at least give credit where credit is due. I don't much like CounterStrike, but it is clearly a well-built game that is enjoyed by thousands daily. StarCraft's storyline is about the least important aspect to its longevity.

Oh boy.

I bet 80% of the posts here have never played games in competitive environments before.  Why does Blizzard do so well on its games?  Here’s my top 5

1) Balance - besides the atrocity that is WOW arena, balance in SC, War3 is pretty solid.  While the FotM strategy still exists for War3, SC has pretty much become the pinnacle of gaming balance.  Everyone has their own strategy on what works, and what doesn’t, and there is no FotM build to follow.  It comes down to straight skill. 

2)Support - D2 has been out for almost 10 years, and it recently just got patched.  SC still gets patched when new bugs pop up. 

3) Quality - Game crippling bugs are almost non existant in blizzard games.  The last blizzard game that I played that had game crippling bugs was WoW at launch and BC at launch, but no one, not even blizzard could predict the popularity of the game.  These days, besides the older servers, the game is probably one of the easiest to play.

4) Easy to Play, Hard to Master – Anyone can pick up and play any blizzard game.  Can you point and click? Can you move using WASD? Congratulations, you can play blizzard games.  But beyond that there is deep strategy behind everything. 

5) Visually different – Each blizzard game had its own unique style, and in a world where all the games you play are grey, or shades of brown, a few purple, orange, bright green and beige is welcome. 

Now that that’s been said, please do not compare Total Annihilation to Starcraft.  TA won on graphics, and features.  Firing arcs are cool, as are godly t3 units and defenses, but at the end of the day, it was always playing a mirror match. 

That said, I love SOSE.  It is a beautiful and rich game, that fulfills my Real Time Galactic Civilization needs.  But TBH, these days I just play so I can watch massive fleets of ships slugging it out over a planet.  Its beautiful to watch, but beyond the macro there really isn’t much depth to it. 

sorry about the post color, but I can't seem to edit my post or change the color