With the passing of the closed beta of Starcraft II and the launch looming, I've started to develop some mixed feelings toward this highly anticipated title.

My main interest in gaming has always been real-time strategy titles due to its intellectual nature as opposed to the more combined requirements of First Person Shooters.

I want to jump straight to the point here. Even though Starcraft II will most likely take over the role of Warcraft III in large competitions and eventually merge the ex-Warcraft players with those still playing Starcraft: Broodwars, I have noticed some small holes in the content of the game that might hinder the longevity of the title in my opinion.

I would like to compare Starcraft II to Warcraft III. Not in the sense of the mechanics of the games, but rather the array of factors that enabled Warcraft III to be a successful competitive title for the last 7 years.



Looking at Warcraft III, we see an abundance of variety. There are 4 heroes for each race and 8 neutral heroes. There are 4 races, which means there are 24 heroes in total to choose from and 12 different heroes when playing a specific race. This factor alone plays a big role in replayability seeing as every different hero build supports a different army and a different counter-strategy opposed to that.

There are different levels of creep camps, with every creep dropping different kinds of items and ranges in the amounts of experience each gives. There are mercenary camps where you can hire some useful units for either a bigger army quicker or some variety in your force. There are mana and health fountains which each has a 50% chance to spawn on some maps, the latter enabling you to do more harassing if it does spawn, ultimately being able to change the whole approach to the match-up.

The fact that there are 4 races requires a bigger variety of strategies in itself. All of these factors played a very large role in the game's lifespan and ensured some very interesting and obscure strategies.

This is basically where my concern lies for Starcraft II. It's variety. I do grasp the concept that the game is new and still needs to develop itself and also be developed by players but in its infancy I am doubting its ability to take over the reigns of Warcraft III as the new leading real-time strategy title.

I have been part of the closed beta for the past few months now, and I've played all three races in abundance, trying almost every strategy I have seen or heard of and even trying ones that I developed myself. At this point though, I feel like I've satisfied my need for Starcraft II to the point where I don't seem to really look forward to the launch anymore.




The game has very limited content to my taste and seems a bit bland in the field of unit abilities and capabilities. This whole beta phase felt like a live demo to me and that does not include the single-player, as I am only a multiplayer gamer.

This has led me to join in on the very popular opinion that Starcraft II will run the course that Starcraft I and Warcraft III did in the sense that they only properly took off once the game's expansions were released. The game offers too little at this stage to excite me as much as it should.

I will though play it as hard as I can but I will be silently anticipating the release of an expansion that's rich with new features and content.

Other factors that hinder this title would probably be the lacking social features in Battle.net 2 in the form of proper lobbies and its lack of a LAN feature(which in my mind really sets it back as a competitive title)

So for now I remain skeptical but patient.

And yes, it's about time for Starcraft II!