blizzard Pre-Purchase StarCraft: Remastered

[Stan 5,240]

Prepare to redisover a classic. StarCraft® Remastered can now be pre-purchased for 14.99$ and will release by the end of August 2017.

Pre-purchase Unlocks: the new Korhal Command Center, Char Hive, and Aiur Nexus. The official video published on Starcraft's YouTube channel has a release date of August 14.

Here's the official announcement taken from Blizzard's website.

Blizzard (Source)

 StarCraft: Remastered upgrades Blizzard Entertainment’s original sci-fi real-time strategy game and its acclaimed expansion, StarCraft: Brood War, from beginning to end. Experience the intergalactic battle between the terran, protoss, and zerg with improved graphics and audio…and the same classic gameplay that made StarCraft a global phenomenon.

Return to the Koprulu Sector

Discover the story that started it all as three races (the mechanized terrans, psi-powered protoss, and insectoid zerg) encounter each other for the first time. Engage in a legendary conflict that spans worlds over the course of more than 50 campaign missions.

Real-time Strategy Restored

Once you’ve completed the campaign, go head-to-head or team up with other players online. Command your faction and vie for control of eight unique environments. Build your base, conscript your army, and lead one of StarCraft’s three radically different races to victory.

Upgrade Complete

Pre-purchase Unlocks: Korhal Command Center, Aiur Nexus, and Char Hive.

[Yridaa 490]

45 minutes ago, Stan said:

Once you’ve completed the campaign, go head-to-head or team up with other players online.

Just for clarification to other people; You are not actually required to complete - or even start - the campaign to play the game multiplayer. So for the good ol' SC:BW players out there; you can comfortably jump straight into multiplayer action.

[InfernoRFU 125]

I like that they're selling things in terms of wow tokens, makes my life much easier. 

[BlakeArmentrout 29]

Why do they think people should pay 15 bucks for a 10+ year old game when they changed nothing except made the colors brighter and sharpened up the fuzzy Atari level edges and graphics?  No thanks I'll stick with Mass Recall, it is a free mod for Star-craft 2 that uses the creation kit to beautifully and masterfully recreate the original game and Brood wars using the SC2 engine and characters with the added bonus of having all the original cut scenes thrown in as well as fully animated fan created scenes during the parts that they just talked and nothing happened in the original, which IMO makes the game way more immersive, they even had the forethought to create a options menu and interface to further customize the game and experience to your preference.  Trust me guys just get Mass Recall and don't waste your time with this blatant money grab and wait for them to remaster Diablo 2 maybe.

Edited June 30, 2017 by BlakeArmentrout

[Thorosofbeer 3]

2 hours ago, BlakeArmentrout said:

Why do they think people should pay 15 bucks for a 10+ year old game when they changed nothing except made the colors brighter and sharpened up the fuzzy Atari level edges and graphics?  No thanks I'll stick with Mass Recall, it is a free mod for Star-craft 2 that uses the creation kit to beautifully and masterfully recreate the original game and Brood wars using the SC2 engine and characters with the added bonus of having all the original cut scenes thrown in as well as fully animated fan created scenes during the parts that they just talked and nothing happened in the original, which IMO makes the game way more immersive, they even had the forethought to create a options menu and interface to further customize the game and experience to your preference.  Trust me guys just get Mass Recall and don't waste your time with this blatant money grab and wait for them to remaster Diablo 2 maybe.

They don't. You don't have to buy it. You can play with the original graphics for free. Everyone can. This is an optional purchase for a visually improved version of the game. Blizzard is trying to get people into playing a bit of SC1 again and you are vastly underestimating the amount of effort that has been put into this development. 

 

Also your SC2 mod for SC1 will never work as the mechanics are very different. There are numerous glitches/quirks/strange happenings that players of SC1 incorporated into their toolkits and strategies that could never be replicated in SC2 because they weren't even intentional in SC1, and Blizzard made it clear that they wanted to make sure these things were included in the remaster.

[Kurosu 58]

3 hours ago, Thorosofbeer said:

They don't. You don't have to buy it. You can play with the original graphics for free. Everyone can. This is an optional purchase for a visually improved version of the game. Blizzard is trying to get people into playing a bit of SC1 again and you are vastly underestimating the amount of effort that has been put into this development. 

 

Also your SC2 mod for SC1 will never work as the mechanics are very different. There are numerous glitches/quirks/strange happenings that players of SC1 incorporated into their toolkits and strategies that could never be replicated in SC2 because they weren't even intentional in SC1, and Blizzard made it clear that they wanted to make sure these things were included in the remaster.

It seems you are the one exagerating about "the amount of effort that has been put".Its merely a small  visual impovement  ,its actually a mod.Sorry to disturb ,please continue fanboying for blizz

[Ninypoo 4]

I like how a single class for Diablo III is the same price as an entire game.

[BlakeArmentrout 29]

6 hours ago, Thorosofbeer said:

They don't. You don't have to buy it. You can play with the original graphics for free. Everyone can. This is an optional purchase for a visually improved version of the game. Blizzard is trying to get people into playing a bit of SC1 again and you are vastly underestimating the amount of effort that has been put into this development. 

 

Also your SC2 mod for SC1 will never work as the mechanics are very different. There are numerous glitches/quirks/strange happenings that players of SC1 incorporated into their toolkits and strategies that could never be replicated in SC2 because they weren't even intentional in SC1, and Blizzard made it clear that they wanted to make sure these things were included in the remaster.

I never said people HAD to buy it, I was simply voicing my opinion that the remaster should be free considering they literally did nothing to it but brush up the visual appearance, and the mod for SC2 I mentioned does indeed recreate all the things you said plus adds a lot more to the game like I mentioned which again in my opinion makes it a much better experience and something things added should have been in the original to begin with, but probably didn't have the time or budget to add. If you prefer the old dated graphics version, or like paying money for the exact same game you probably already own and beat to death years later when there are clear upgrades and superior versions for free then you are very much welcome to do so, have a nice day :D

[BlakeArmentrout 29]

32 minutes ago, Ninypoo said:

I like how a single class for Diablo III is the same price as an entire game.

To be fair the class wasn't the only thing in the pack, the cosmetic wings and pet would have run you about 15-25 bucks if you were buying it for WoW, and the extra stash tabs and character slots along with the banner, Portrait Frame, and Sigils would have been around 5 bucks at least to buy separately, now while you could argue these things really don't matter and don't justify the price the sentiment is still there that we got more then just a class. Yes it would have been nice to get some actual new content to play the class with and not just the same old game with a new character but give them time and I am sure D4 will be better now that we have had practice using the Necro, and if we are lucky they will add some more classes, I am hoping for the Druid myself.

[Weltenfeind 40]

Has anyone noticed that the blizzard shop says the "Starcraft Anthology" is required to play SC Remastered? Is the Anthology free, or does this actually force people to pay for the classic as well, then?

[Stan 5,240]

9 minutes ago, Weltenfeind said:

Has anyone noticed that the blizzard shop says the "Starcraft Anthology" is required to play SC Remastered? Is the Anthology free, or does this actually force people to pay for the classic as well, then?

It's  free, but says:  

• "Battle.net® Classic registration required for multiplayer"

I have no idea if you have to pay for that.

[Alkasar991 12]

4 hours ago, Stan said:

It's  free, but says:  

• "Battle.net® Classic registration required for multiplayer"

I have no idea if you have to pay for that.

It is completely free.

[Rhoots 0]

14 hours ago, BlakeArmentrout said:

I never said people HAD to buy it, I was simply voicing my opinion that the remaster should be free considering they literally did nothing to it but brush up the visual appearance, and the mod for SC2 I mentioned does indeed recreate all the things you said plus adds a lot more to the game like I mentioned which again in my opinion makes it a much better experience and something things added should have been in the original to begin with, but probably didn't have the time or budget to add. If you prefer the old dated graphics version, or like paying money for the exact same game you probably already own and beat to death years later when there are clear upgrades and superior versions for free then you are very much welcome to do so, have a nice day :D

No, his point was that you're absolutely clueless about what goes into upgrading the game to this level of polish. You speak as if they pull out the old source code, run a feather duster on it and blow it off with a can of air, then release the game. It took hours - hours in which they had to pay programmers, artists, producers, and most likely the cinematic team to re-do the cut-scenes. Before you go spouting off about how effortless it was for Blizzard to make this remaster, why don't you go spend months making your own game then give it away for free?

A first-party remastering of this game is going to be much more stable and playable. It will blow your favorite little upgrade mods out of the water.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Rhoots

[BlakeArmentrout 29]

14 hours ago, Rhoots said:

No, his point was that you're absolutely clueless about what goes into upgrading the game to this level of polish. You speak as if they pull out the old source code, run a feather duster on it and blow it off with a can of air, then release the game. It took hours - hours in which they had to pay programmers, artists, producers, and most likely the cinematic team to re-do the cut-scenes. Before you go spouting off about how effortless it was for Blizzard to make this remaster, why don't you go spend months making your own game then give it away for free?

A first-party remastering of this game is going to be much more stable and playable. It will blow your favorite little upgrade mods out of the water.

There is no need to get hostile, I never said it was easy for them to remaster this, I fully understand it took hours of work to do it, all I was saying was despite all they did to remaster it, it still is only a aesthetic change and not enough to justify buying it when the original is the same game.

As far as you bashing me for praising the mod, I have played thru it and it was very much stable and more enjoyable then the original version, at least to me so if you think it sucks don't use it, but at least it didn't cost me anything and it actually did add a lot of flavor to the game instead of just making it look pretty.

[Seksi 208]

This article explains a bit more about SC:R and what's going on with it:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/06/hands-on-with-starcraft-remastered-ahead-of-its-august-14-launch-for-15/

They actually didn't even have the original code / art assets when work started and much was rebuilt by eye until this recent famous incident:

https://kotaku.com/guy-finds-starcraft-source-code-and-returns-it-to-blizz-1794897125

But this is mostly curiosities about the game. The main discussion here is "why?". Especially as you could "play BW" for a while for free in SC2 with the Mass Recall mod.

The main reason is South Korea. When the original game launched in 1998 South Korea was just getting out of the Asian Financial crisis and fast broadbrand was being installed in mass around the country. PC Bangs (places where you can play PC and all its games for a fee over time) started big time and gamer communities were created, mostly around Starcraft, eventually deemed "Korean Chess" and the first ESPORT in the world.

Star players showed up, who are still known to people who didn't even play the game such as Slayer's Boxer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Yo-hwan

And while Starcraft 2 launch and a few disputes between Blizzard and the Korean eSport Association (KeSPA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_e-Sports_Association put the game's competitive scene at danger, it has slowly but surely made a big comeback.

In fact, the latest big Korean tournament (StarLeague) to finish had almost as many people watching as the ones from the game's prime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBzuhofHH10

This 20y old game has too much history for me to explain. But it is a great story, and this release is worth every cent of my money as it will bring automated matchmaking and a renewed interest / community which were the only things the free version which has been around for a while was missing. Improved graphics? Sure, but what I really want is to be able to easily play epic games that only Brood War's framework allows against similar level opponents, which was extremely hard to do before remastered's matchmaking capabilities. Have fun everyone!

Check out Thorin's vid for a little bit more info on BW becoming a thing again in recent times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzjwaPbB_Ts

 

 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Seksi

[Weltenfeind 40]

On 1/7/2017 at 4:48 PM, Stan said:

It's  free, but says:  

• "Battle.net® Classic registration required for multiplayer"

I have no idea if you have to pay for that.

Ah, didn't know they had made it free.

The battle.net classic registration is free. Just means you have to register using the old battle.net system.