Flatline wrote on Sep 9, 2012, 00:49:
Mines are fine in and of themselves, but in the above video they killed 2 out of a squad of 5 marines. Unless they are dirt cheap they look useless (maybe they're better at vehicles), especially since it looks like you'll have to dedicate production facility time when you could be building something else.

You're right about the 'toss core, which is cool, but it's still nothing actually new, just shuffled around a little.

And considering it took a year to crank out Brood Wars, units, campaign, and all, I don't see what the extra time is here. The pre-rendered movies are nice, but they aren't what's holding the game up.

What *is* is "polishing" and "balancing", which i put in quotes because within a month they'll have patched the balance they achieved out. 2 years of "balancing" for the same experience that 1 month of general population play will provide. To prove my point, I give you every previous Blizzard title ever released. Getting it 90% close in, say, half the time, and then being fast on the balance/polish patches for the first month or two probably would cut dev time in half, but wouldn't have nearly the hype behind it.

Bhruic wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 17:35:

Flatline wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 16:57:
So I stand corrected. Heart of the Swarm introduces 2.5 new units for 2 sides (mines that don't look particularly effective and a proto-mothership with a few abiliites being the halves), and 2 units for the zerg. Wooo.

Actually, the mines can be quite effective when used properly. And the mothership core gives the Protoss access to some abilities very early on they wouldn't otherwise get until late game.

But the time delay wasn't over adding units, so much as it was over the campaign. Making a good campaign (and the video that goes with it) takes a lot longer than throwing together some units - even if the units need to be balanced exceptionally well (as SC2 is a popular eSport game, hence balance being critical).

Bhruic wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 17:35:
Actually, the mines can be quite effective when used properly. And the mothership core gives the Protoss access to some abilities very early on they wouldn't otherwise get until late game.

Bhruic wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 18:51:
I tend to prefer turtling, which made a lot of the missions quite difficult (especially for ones like the mission where the firestorm was progressing over the planet).

eunichron wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 18:28:
Indeed, if the Zerg campaign is half as good as the Terran campaign was I'll be buying it, as long as they're not charging $60 for it.

Bhruic wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 17:35:

Flatline wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 16:57:
So I stand corrected. Heart of the Swarm introduces 2.5 new units for 2 sides (mines that don't look particularly effective and a proto-mothership with a few abiliites being the halves), and 2 units for the zerg. Wooo.

Actually, the mines can be quite effective when used properly. And the mothership core gives the Protoss access to some abilities very early on they wouldn't otherwise get until late game.

But the time delay wasn't over adding units, so much as it was over the campaign. Making a good campaign (and the video that goes with it) takes a lot longer than throwing together some units - even if the units need to be balanced exceptionally well (as SC2 is a popular eSport game, hence balance being critical).

Flatline wrote on Sep 8, 2012, 16:57:
So I stand corrected. Heart of the Swarm introduces 2.5 new units for 2 sides (mines that don't look particularly effective and a proto-mothership with a few abiliites being the halves), and 2 units for the zerg. Wooo.