About the bugs though, don't forget Ubisoft does not make all the games from their catalog in its own studios (the same comment goes for pretty much any big company, especially EA). The other licences are done by smaller groups and Ubisoft is just looking over their shoulders, waiting to put their names on it when it's released. It is another debate but I wonder if sometimes it's better to wait a few more years for a bug-free game (AKA the gold edition), or if it's fine as it is as long as the development teams keep fixing bugs over the years.
I realize this, but it's kind of like I said; literally every Ubisoft release I've been played in the past 5 years has been buggy - even the Assassin's Creed titles where the bugs weren't all that bad. There's a point where it would become too much of a co-incidence to chalk it up to one specific developing group. Deadline rushing has also seemingly been prevalent in a lot of these games, most namely so in Heroes of Might & Magic 6 which received two or three massive updated in the months after release that made the game actually playable.
.... I said to expand their universe, as in create new games/side stories that take place in the same universe perhaps in different genres. Hence why I gave wow and starcraft ghost as examples.
Yes, and I said that since the release of WoW in 2004 Blizzard has released StarCraft II and Diablo III, which - as far as I know - are 'new games/side stories that take place in the same universe'. Not to mention the books/comics that have been released since then, which would qualify as 'side stories that take place in the same universe'.
Maybe now you can get to your point, if you have one?
I hear you. Ubisoft only has three big disadvantages:
1) Uplay is like a bugged, sucky version of Steam that's trying to hard.
2) GODDAMN DRM BULLSHIT. All of their games jump in on this bandwagon. I even once bought a Ubisoft title and received so much trouble for my worth (servers down, DRM, downloader issues) that I would've had better service if I had pirated the game, which is downright preposterous.
3) Ubisoft games seem uncannily bugged. It's less worse with the real big-time titles (i.e. Assassin's Creed), but literally every release in the less mainstream universes they maintain (i.e. Heroes of Might & Magic, the Anno series and Settlers) that I've played was littered with so many bugs it was close to unplayable after release.
When you get into the games themselves and actually play them through it's generally amazing how much thought, splendid art, clever dialogue and interesting storyline the team has managed to put in. Additionally, their games seem to really evolve: sequels generally bring all the good things from their prequels with them while only innovating the worse aspects of the game. All of this only makes it more of a shame that those three earlier problems drag the company down so much.
What are you talking about? Since WoW was released they've also released StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3. What more 'expansion' of their universes do you want?
Ask yourself the following question: do you really think that Blizzard would be incapable of adding a fourth race to the game without making it generally worse?
Right, didn't think so. Now ask yourself the following question: what new content is HOTS adding that we will actually experience as new? Right! A (probably damn good) single-player experience and a couple of new units per race in multiplay.
Next and last step: project this answer to the question onto other Strategy games that have expansions. Imagine WarCraft 3 started off with 4 playable races but just the Human campaign included, and that The Frozen Throne had included the new units it has and the Undead campaign. Imagine C&C3: Kane's Wrath adding a NOD campaign and 6 new units. Imagine the Age of Empires II expansion adding just one campaign with a race already in the game and 2 new units per race. Imagine Yuri's revenge adding just a Soviet campaign and 3 new units for both sides. Imagine Brood War adding 1 new campaign instead of 3. I could keep going.
There's literally virtually no comparison. At best HOTS is comparable to the Civilization 5 expansion - it seems meager to every other game I can compare it with, and I've really been trying. Try it, let me know if you have more succes.
Probably because it wouldn't make sense, story-wise... I'm guessing the Xel'Naga is going to be part of the protoss campaign, you can guess that from the storyline in WoL already (especially with the last mission from the shard). I don't see any point in allowing players to control the Xel'Naga as a separate race, they are more or less "heroes" from the past... It wouldn't make sense to train them by dozens from a base, with its own tech tree etc...
Keep in mind that Blizzard is 'story-wise', though. While I agree that a fourth race within the current lore may have felt a tad strange and out of place, they could have easily adapted the lore to allow for it. For example, how's this: in HOTS it is revealed that while Protoss cannot be infested by Zerg, there is in fact a fourth race in the galaxy that was also created by the Xel'naga and shares Protoss DNA, but is more similar to Terrans in terms of physiology - the DNA of this race is revealed to have been the missing piece of the puzzle and explains the creation of the Hybrids. Meanwhile, this race has been severely molested by the Dark Voice and has because of that learned to trust no one and hide when possible, setting it up for a storyline involving the Terrans/Protoss trying to reach out to them.
I made that up in three minutes. Blizzard has had more than a year. I'm not saying they should have definitely added a fourth race or HOTS would be crap, but EW really has a point - they could've done much more in terms of new and even revolutionary mechanics, yet what we're getting is mostly stuff that I could probably recreate in the data editor in a week or two if I worked full-time on it. Don't get me wrong, it'll be a great story I'm sure, but it definitely seems overpriced. It's like they'd be charging 20 bucks for the Insurrection StarCraft campaign.
I guess the point Blizzard has here might be that HOTS isn't really an 'expansion', but rather 'one of the three parts that make up StarCraft 2', i.e. part 2 in a trilogy. That's really a semantics thing though - if they sold it at a similar price to an original game I'd start considering not buying it, tbf.
I am probably the only one that thinks $40 is a rip off for this expansion. A campaign(with fewer levels than WoL) and throw in some new crappy gimmick units for the multiplayer, Meh.
I actually agree with you, though that's assuming the EU price is also 40 euro's - it might be 30-35 euro's, which is what I would expect. When you think of it, all HOTS really is is a really high-end custom campaign that we, here on mapster, literally could've made if we had bothered to get all our storywriters, modelers, coders and mappers together, minus the high-quality CGI videos (and even those we might've been able to replicate). Part of this can be explained away by the fact that this is mostly because the editor is so incredibly advanced, but on the other hand... HOTS isn't a full new game like WoL, and shouldn't be priced in such a similar fashion.
I realize this, but it's kind of like I said; literally every Ubisoft release I've been played in the past 5 years has been buggy - even the Assassin's Creed titles where the bugs weren't all that bad. There's a point where it would become too much of a co-incidence to chalk it up to one specific developing group. Deadline rushing has also seemingly been prevalent in a lot of these games, most namely so in Heroes of Might & Magic 6 which received two or three massive updated in the months after release that made the game actually playable.
Yes, and I said that since the release of WoW in 2004 Blizzard has released StarCraft II and Diablo III, which - as far as I know - are 'new games/side stories that take place in the same universe'. Not to mention the books/comics that have been released since then, which would qualify as 'side stories that take place in the same universe'.
Maybe now you can get to your point, if you have one?
@ZealNaga: Go
I hear you. Ubisoft only has three big disadvantages:
1) Uplay is like a bugged, sucky version of Steam that's trying to hard.
2) GODDAMN DRM BULLSHIT. All of their games jump in on this bandwagon. I even once bought a Ubisoft title and received so much trouble for my worth (servers down, DRM, downloader issues) that I would've had better service if I had pirated the game, which is downright preposterous.
3) Ubisoft games seem uncannily bugged. It's less worse with the real big-time titles (i.e. Assassin's Creed), but literally every release in the less mainstream universes they maintain (i.e. Heroes of Might & Magic, the Anno series and Settlers) that I've played was littered with so many bugs it was close to unplayable after release.
When you get into the games themselves and actually play them through it's generally amazing how much thought, splendid art, clever dialogue and interesting storyline the team has managed to put in. Additionally, their games seem to really evolve: sequels generally bring all the good things from their prequels with them while only innovating the worse aspects of the game. All of this only makes it more of a shame that those three earlier problems drag the company down so much.
@Taintedwisp: Go
What are you talking about? Since WoW was released they've also released StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3. What more 'expansion' of their universes do you want?
You guys are missing the point.
Ask yourself the following question: do you really think that Blizzard would be incapable of adding a fourth race to the game without making it generally worse?
Right, didn't think so. Now ask yourself the following question: what new content is HOTS adding that we will actually experience as new? Right! A (probably damn good) single-player experience and a couple of new units per race in multiplay.
Next and last step: project this answer to the question onto other Strategy games that have expansions. Imagine WarCraft 3 started off with 4 playable races but just the Human campaign included, and that The Frozen Throne had included the new units it has and the Undead campaign. Imagine C&C3: Kane's Wrath adding a NOD campaign and 6 new units. Imagine the Age of Empires II expansion adding just one campaign with a race already in the game and 2 new units per race. Imagine Yuri's revenge adding just a Soviet campaign and 3 new units for both sides. Imagine Brood War adding 1 new campaign instead of 3. I could keep going.
There's literally virtually no comparison. At best HOTS is comparable to the Civilization 5 expansion - it seems meager to every other game I can compare it with, and I've really been trying. Try it, let me know if you have more succes.
Keep in mind that Blizzard is 'story-wise', though. While I agree that a fourth race within the current lore may have felt a tad strange and out of place, they could have easily adapted the lore to allow for it. For example, how's this: in HOTS it is revealed that while Protoss cannot be infested by Zerg, there is in fact a fourth race in the galaxy that was also created by the Xel'naga and shares Protoss DNA, but is more similar to Terrans in terms of physiology - the DNA of this race is revealed to have been the missing piece of the puzzle and explains the creation of the Hybrids. Meanwhile, this race has been severely molested by the Dark Voice and has because of that learned to trust no one and hide when possible, setting it up for a storyline involving the Terrans/Protoss trying to reach out to them.
I made that up in three minutes. Blizzard has had more than a year. I'm not saying they should have definitely added a fourth race or HOTS would be crap, but EW really has a point - they could've done much more in terms of new and even revolutionary mechanics, yet what we're getting is mostly stuff that I could probably recreate in the data editor in a week or two if I worked full-time on it. Don't get me wrong, it'll be a great story I'm sure, but it definitely seems overpriced. It's like they'd be charging 20 bucks for the Insurrection StarCraft campaign.
I guess the point Blizzard has here might be that HOTS isn't really an 'expansion', but rather 'one of the three parts that make up StarCraft 2', i.e. part 2 in a trilogy. That's really a semantics thing though - if they sold it at a similar price to an original game I'd start considering not buying it, tbf.
I actually agree with you, though that's assuming the EU price is also 40 euro's - it might be 30-35 euro's, which is what I would expect. When you think of it, all HOTS really is is a really high-end custom campaign that we, here on mapster, literally could've made if we had bothered to get all our storywriters, modelers, coders and mappers together, minus the high-quality CGI videos (and even those we might've been able to replicate). Part of this can be explained away by the fact that this is mostly because the editor is so incredibly advanced, but on the other hand... HOTS isn't a full new game like WoL, and shouldn't be priced in such a similar fashion.