Announcement just hours away....

[Fearlessone]

If you've been reading the homepage here, an big announcement about a 'New Game' is being unloaded on us by Blizzard. This is supposed to occur on May 19th at some meeting in Korea. That might be around 10pm PST on today the 18th, or a few hours later if you live in eastern U.S.

Is it an entirely new game?
New game in a preexisting series?
Expansion of preexisting game?
New platform for a preexisting game?
WoW, Diablo, or SC movie?

The word is that Blizzard's president has gone on record that they have 2 games in the works. There isnt any info that an announcement will involve 2 games, but it could involve a new game plus movie announcement.

WoW - huge cash flow, W3-->WoW took only a couple of years, and constant add-ons. But this is a NEW game, they say. So probably not, unless a movie.

SC2 - they ARE in Korea, you know. An announcement on this would grip the people of South Korea even more than a news flash that their President had been assassinated. Most people are betting THIS IS THE ONE, last released in 1998. (This is consistent with Elly's 'in-word', that it wont be a MMORPG).

There are heavy suspicions that Bliz will then consider a move to 'World of Starcraft' type game in the future.

Diablo3 - heavy, heavy rumors for 3 or more years now, including production of music track. Announcements several years ago by Blizzard of many openings for Diablo-like game programmers and developers. Word was that it failed to pass muster about a year ago, and went into 'reworking'. Blizzard North in San Mateo CA (which could actually view the very real Mount Diablo volcano) was closed. Rumors that the two different development teams (one of which was the old D3 team) were merged into one for the development of the 'New Game'.

Reworking, or put back on the shelf to collect dust?

If it indeed is D3, then expect the way you gain expertise in a skill will be using that skill, rather than saving skill points. Some other games have variations of this. Also, the 'look' of the game from D1 to D2 was a quantum leap, and the 'look' of D3 is supposed to be a similar advance. (This info I got, second hand from a supposed D3 game developer, is 3 years old, may be obsolete).

Diablo movie? Blizzard has rights to the Diablo name for any movie. A popular movie released several years ago, set in Mexico, was going to use that name and couldn't. Diablo is Spanish for the devil.

Right now, late May, is the most likely time for patches and ladder resets and beta's. D2 and LoD both came out in a late May, patches and resets have occurred in July and August. Summer is a good time to get the kiddies excited.

So, what do you think? How is this going to affect your playing Classic either way....?

[Creon]

I'm thinking Starcraft 2. I have a creeping suspicion it will be a game in a lesser known genre, an MMORTS. This would attract a different crowd than WOW and could be a monthly subscription game. It's easy to predict SC2 as a standard RTS, but I just can't see Blizzard making a Diablo -> Diablo II type of difference to justify the game in that case. It also avoids the battle.net system.

[Hawkreborn]

I also think that it is Starcraft 2 because some of my friends were talking about blizzard going to announce something for starcraft in the next few weeks
I wish it was d 3 though

[eatalot]

Random countdown timer (http://infinity88.com/blizzard.html) assuming earliest time possible, - 2:00PM / 4:00PM Seoul's time.
I'd imagine thousands of people from south korea and asian countries are sitting drooling infront of their computers right now, watching starcraft ii matches on tv to pass the time.

13 minutes left now here…
yep it's not going to be announced for a while.. i guess ill see it in the morning
'night

[Fearlessone]

.....SC2 - they ARE in Korea, you know. An announcement on this would grip the people of South Korea even more than a news flash that their President had been assassinated. Most people are betting THIS IS THE ONE, last released in 1998. (This is consistent with Elly's 'in-word', that it wont be a MMORPG)....

Less than an hour ago, SC2 was announced. There is a nice thread with links over at the Community Forum, if interested. Look for Superdave's post on page 6 or 7 of that thread around 23:01, 3pm Korea time.

[StaMpu]

I think even if Starcraft2 would come out. I can hardly believe it could beat the original Starcraft/BW. A movie on the other hand, would be awesome!

[Hawkreborn]

you have to admit this looks tight
http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=66532 <---- sorry about quality
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?8
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?1

[weep]

ugh, why do they neglect this game so much, even a diablo mmorpg would be pretty cool - really dark and gory, not so cartoony as wow for those of us who prefer xbox to nintendo.

must be a bunch of monkeys calling the shots at blizzard, such a huge following for diablo, a 1-time purchase you'd think they'd be clammoring to release x-pacs for the game. I know that it's got to be more complex than that but I really hate starcraft.

[StaMpu]

That's just because you are not good at it. :p

[Creon]

Weep clearly doesn't understand that Starcraft is the #1 religion in Korea.

[weep]

back when the game was popular an x-pac would have been a license to print money in korea and the states. Anyways looks like there's something related to diablo in the works so it's all good.

[Hawkreborn]

i think there might be a cycle warcraft, starcraft, d2,
once starcraft is out itll prolly be a year until d3 comes out maybe itll happen on 8/8/08 :) <---i know thats a long time away but SC2 has to come out first, unless they release d3 along with it like when XBOX360, PS3, and Wii came out in a few month time span
also i hope blizz does a ladder reset when SC2 comes out

[WarlockCC]

I know hindsight is 20/20 vision, but the announcement was in Korea, which according to the demographic, seems to favor SC out of Blizz's stable of games.

[JudasXPriest]

OMFG!!!!!!!! I watched the gameplay video of the game... and ive never been so excited for a game in my life.... Ive been playing SC since the 3rd grade, when it came out lmao. Its been my favorite game of all time and SC2 is going to OMFG own >< >< ><!!! I wish they hadnt done the whole WC3 cartoony look. But they didnt quite make it as cartoony as WC3, which is good lol. but im going to be counting the days until SC2 comes out O_o

[fledgeling]

the battle looks incredibly slow for me in copmarison to starcraft

[Fearlessone]

i think there might be a cycle warcraft, starcraft, d2,
once starcraft is out itll prolly be a year until d3 comes out maybe itll happen on 8/8/08 :) ....
Yeah. It's time to reevaluate what the Blizzard rep said at the London WoW event a few months back. His comments were heavily reported at the Community Forum here and in several trade magazines. He said something like "now we havent forgotten about Starcraft and Diablo, and before 10 years is up we will have a new game out there" or something like that. His comments were interpreted differently. What he literally said would point to 2017, and this was mocked here at this website. Other ppl said, no he means 10 years between releases. So now it looks like the latter interpretation is in order.

Ok, so lets say that SC2 comes out for Xmas. Previous experience says they will work on this extensively for about one year, with patches and who knows what...expansion? ...or World of Starcraft...?

When is this company going to dedicate the resources to dusting off the shelved Diablo3 and fix whatever was wrong with it...Not up to Blizzard polished game on release standards? Not original enough? Not interesting enough? Not worth endless replay? Not chockfull of enough cheating loopholes for the usual hordes who demand that to buy the game?

Diablo2 came out early summer of 2000, with a beta the month before and wasn't it well over a year before they said it was coming? So will they start really reworking D3 next summer and have the game come out either summer 2009 or Xmas 2009...?

[Orphan]

the battle looks incredibly slow for me in copmarison to starcraft

From what I gather, they were playing the demo's on the slowest speed (probably to make sure the audience didn't miss anything).

Generally (well, especially on battle.net) the players (myself included) always took the speed up to the fastest, and I imagine that this will be possible in the new game as well.