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StarCraft: The past, present and future

polygon.com

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Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#11

Post by steckerbrett »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #9
steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

If on OS X, you can probably run it inside a virtual machine (Windows 98 images can be downloaded for free from the MS site I think). Performance-wise it shouldn't be an issue on today's hardware.

Running games in a VM is always a totally crappy experience, running it in wine is better but still not completely perfect. With Yosemite there's some graphical glitches which make it effectively unplayable, most of it runs at about 2 FPS.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#12

Post by Fiahil »

steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

I play blizzard games on a MBP, and they're working quite fine; but, I'm not expecting alienware-like performance either.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#13

Post by doppel »

k__ wrote: post #7

Are there any scientific resources about how almost every mainstream success is based on a rather "direct" copy of something that already existed? Like here with WarCraft/StarCraft and Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000.

I would say it's 50/50 between Warhammer 40k and the Alien franchise when it comes to StarCraft. Both StarCraft and WarCraft steals from a ton of other franchises and glues them together, reaffirming the saying "Good artists borrow, great artists steal!"

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#14

Post by tareqak »

terda12 wrote: post #4
steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

IMO, the game works great on Windows. I can't imagine playing games like SC2 or CSGO on OSX. It's just not economical for Blizzard to do an OSX port. The game has been kinda dead for a while now, because it's so unaccessible to the general population. Games like Dota and League of Legends have taken the place of Starcraft 2 because it's pretty accessible to newbies yet offers a very high skill ceiling for those who w…

Blizzard pretty good recent track record with supporting OS X. World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm all run under OS X.

Unfortunately, Blizzard's latest game, Overwatch, will not be coming to OS X. That question happened to be the first one asked by a member of the audience in the first Overwatch panel on Friday, November 6 at the BlizzCon 2015.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#15

Post by padobson »

Interaction design is a craft, and gaming is the subcategory of interaction design that most often ventures into the world of art. But the thing that most constrains the artform is this "little brother" mindset. Instead of waiting for society to understand and comprehend the medium, those who craft video games work to make their medium more like film or novels or music or other "high" artforms.

So I get a little twitchy when a gaming website does a story about a franchise like StarCraft and features the writing as the game changing aspect of it. StarCraft is not great because it's a sci-fi game. Warcraft is not great because it has ogres. Super Mario Brothers is not great because it has a chubby Italian plumber.

Interaction design often requires some metaphor - some analogy to inspire your first interaction with the system. The plumber, the ogre, the Zealot. But once you push that first button, and the system responds, the analogy is no longer the inspiration for delight, for frustration, for joy or pain. The interaction itself becomes the driving factor. And the most perfectly crafted interactions can inspire the full range of emotions without relying on a coherent plot, orchestrated sound, or ten minutes of FMV.

And StarCraft is one of the greatest examples of this. I don't care what a Zealot's motivation is, I only care about how much ground he can cover before the Hydra destroys him. My pulse is rising because the HP of my units is falling and my army is shrinking faster than my opponent's, not because I feel bad that the Zealots didn't procure the glory their race yearns after.

If gaming is ever going to take its proper place in the pantheon of higher artforms, it needs to stop acting like something it's not. Video games aren't movies, and they never will be. I hope the video games industry figures this out someday.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#16

Post by kaoD »

terda12 wrote: post #4
steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

IMO, the game works great on Windows. I can't imagine playing games like SC2 or CSGO on OSX. It's just not economical for Blizzard to do an OSX port. The game has been kinda dead for a while now, because it's so unaccessible to the general population. Games like Dota and League of Legends have taken the place of Starcraft 2 because it's pretty accessible to newbies yet offers a very high skill ceiling for those who w…

CS:GO works on OS X :) http://store.steampowered.com/app/730/ OS: MacOS X 10.6.6 or higher

It'd be interesting to know if it was economical for Valve to do these OS X ports. I guess they wanted to spread Steam usage to other OSes. I'm curious if it worked and if it was worth it.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#17

Post by ucaetano »

doppel wrote: post #13
k__ wrote: post #7

Are there any scientific resources about how almost every mainstream success is based on a rather "direct" copy of something that already existed? Like here with WarCraft/StarCraft and Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000.

I would say it's 50/50 between Warhammer 40k and the Alien franchise when it comes to StarCraft. Both StarCraft and WarCraft steals from a ton of other franchises and glues them together, reaffirming the saying "Good artists borrow, great artists steal!"

Actually, Starcraft is almost 90% Starship Troopers. From the armored exoskeletons (why do you think there's a "Marauder" unit in the game?), to the bug-like Zerg and the skinny-like Protoss.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#18

Post by douche »

terda12 wrote: post #4
steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

IMO, the game works great on Windows. I can't imagine playing games like SC2 or CSGO on OSX. It's just not economical for Blizzard to do an OSX port. The game has been kinda dead for a while now, because it's so unaccessible to the general population. Games like Dota and League of Legends have taken the place of Starcraft 2 because it's pretty accessible to newbies yet offers a very high skill ceiling for those who w…

> bit about LoL and Dota

This sounds like its catering to the deathmatch/Counter-Strike crowd, rather than the people who actually want to play an RTS game. StarCraft 2 is incredibly streamlined compared to some of the pioneering RTSs that people my age and older cut their teeth on. Sweet Jesus, some of those early games didn't even have multiple unit selection...

I'll admit, I'm an oddity, because I have almost never played any games multiplayer - for me, it is all about the single-player experience, which boils down to story, and how fun the actual gameplay is. I don't really care about the meta-game, or how friendly the game is to e-sports, and really, the optimizations that make a game more attractive on those fronts make it less attractive to me.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#19

Post by anon4 »

k__ wrote: post #7

Are there any scientific resources about how almost every mainstream success is based on a rather "direct" copy of something that already existed? Like here with WarCraft/StarCraft and Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000.

WarCraft was going to be a Warhammer game until the licensing deal fell through.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#20

Post by realharo »

steckerbrett wrote: post #2

It's unfortunate how much the original game has rotted, the online servers are up but the program itself is becoming more are more unplayable. The OSX versions have been dead for a long time, on windows it seems to be getting harder and harder to run as well. The recent job posting hopefully indicate they're interested in de-breaking them, couldn't care less for a HD remake, just a version that actually works again.…

I don't know about multiplayer, but for the campaign parts of the original StarCraft, there is a fan-made remake of them on the StarCraft 2 engine, http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-mass-recall/.
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