We have a lot of awesome players here in SC2 right? And also some that played SC and BW to death as well as SC2 even though not really any good at the game. In my case it’s age so I can’t do the keyboard quick enough. I guess for others the reasons differ.
So we must play the game for the love of it rather than for the win and the glory.
With the main arena at this years Blizzcon being set up for Overwatch and with SC2 sliding further down the main menu options at Blizzard’s website…
What happens next? Looks like a decline is in full swing, we kinda knew this. But what happens next?
Id imagine the Coop commanders are used to gauge what people want more than what people request for potential campaigns/full sequel in the future.
The current market shows absolute lack of interest in RTS games with how little success there are out there.
Also Warcraft 3 Reforged is around the corner, it will likely get the RTS spotlight for a while before any large updates or news comes to Starcraft 2 again.
In reality, I think Starcraft 3 is probably a long way off and I have doubts that it will be an RTS game. After playing through the WoL campaign again recently (and currently going through the HoTS campaign) I still think the story elements of SC2 are what brings me back to it, but a majority of people are playing it for the PvP aspect, which I find limiting and shallow, but with the advent of E-Sports, thats what brings in the crowds.
One of the issues I have with SC2 e-sports is that its all a bit lacklustre. I remember having LAN battles on Age Of Empires 2 years ago and they lasted HOURS! Competitive SC2 seems to be over far too quickly as there is no strategy other than “make more units quicker than your opponant”. Thats why I dont bother with the PvP aspect of SC2. once youve played a few online matches, you realise by pressing the right buttons in the right order at the right time will win, and to me that’s the antithesis of a Strategy game.
The beauty of an RTS game is the way it engages the player in the single player campaign. because of e-sports, no-one is making games for single players any more, and while that trend continues, SC3 and WC4 are a long way off.
There’s a chance that any future SC based games will be a different genre of game, which I think is a disappointment. You never know tho… Diablo 4 seems to be progressing in the right direction (with the posts from David Kim seeming to be very close to the general opinion that D3 isnt very good) and hearing that the devs want to do better with the next iteration of the Diablo series makes me feel optimistic that they will eventually realise the error of their ways and drop the “competitive online” aspect of games and get back to doing what Blizzard do best, which is tell great stories.
or not… if they dont, someone else will!