To get the story of Warcraft you need to buy warcraft 1, 2, the expansion in outland, 3, frozon throne, world of warcraft, burning crusade and wrath of the lich king, now cataclysm and 6 or 7 books and some manga (although recons and stuff are weird).
If this was my complaint, I'd be complaining that Starcraft II was a seperate retail product from the original Starcraft. I'm not complaining that they're making a sequel or continuing the story. Personally, I found the story of Starcraft quite interesting, and was looking forward to seeing it continued. My complaint with Starcraft II rests with the fact that Warcraft 2, for example, was a self contained experience. The purchase of the expansion pack was entirely optional in that if I purchased Warcraft II and then Purchased Warcraft III, I'm not missing large chucks. I'm missing back story.
Dragon age and Mass effect were split into three FROM THE START also! They made this annocince ment (edit: wow that was a serious spelling faliure there - announcement) because startcraft 1 has all three and people would expect that again so they said "we are splitting them up" (rather than having 3 bits of each campaign for each one).
Mass Effect, one of my personal favourite Bioware games, was indeed seperated from the beginning. However, unlike Starcraft II, they didn't release Mass Effect II as an expansion pack to Mass Effect, thus requiring the purchase of both. Mass Effect is a trilogy, one I personally am looking forward to playing through. Each entry is a standalone entry from a product point of view. Starcraft II is also a trilogy, however each portion requires the purchase of the previous portions. Now, for anyone who's interested they'll just buy all three. My issue isn't that the game has a seperated story, its with the fact that the story was seperated in such a way as to sell more copies.
Also I could be wrong here but I though that you get all the races with the first game in multiplayer right? And it would make sense if the diffrent releases are stand alone that they are playable with each other.
The second expansion pack will have a dependancy on the first expansion pack as each title is going to 'change the game'. Essentially, this creates three communities within the multiplayer community. Those with the first release, those with the first and second release, and those with the first, second and third releases.
So... people who didn't buy Brood War could participate in the majority of the Starcraft 1 community after it was released? I was there, that wasn't even remotely true. If you didn't have Brood War you weren't playing the newest maps or in any even remotely serious tournament (and most of the casual ones, for that matter). Same thing with Frozen Throne, except it took a while before DotA was converted over. And hell, you know many WoW players without Wrath of the Lich King at this point? It's business as usual.
Wait, I'm confused here, you've just re-wrote my comment. As I said, expansion packs with multiplayer content force the multiplayer community to buy them. Being as Starcraft II's multiplayer portion is going to be the focus in 99% of all purchases, they've ensured that the first and second expansion packs are going to be a requirement for every Starcraft II player, be it a Single Player or Multiplayer player. It's not longer a situation of "the fans" buying the expansion packs, they've created the World of Warcraft model of requiring expansion packs as the community as a whole migrates. I, personally, am not ok with. Its not a matter of hating expansion packs, more of a good game is a good thing. It's a matter of the hows and whys. They didn't create a 'complete' game - a stand alone experience.
What part of the story in The Frozen Throne or Brood War didn't require The Frozen Throne or Brood War to see? Or Lord of Destruction, for that matter?
Actually, the comparison you should've used was 'What part of the story of Warcraft III required the purchase of The Frozen Throne to see'. The answer? Not a whole lot. It provided closure for fans, however if I were to step in World of Warcraft, my understand wouldn't be drastically altered, only
expanded. Hence my point. Warcraft III's story doesn't require the purchase of The Frozen Throne to feel complete. It's a stand alone entry.
Lord of Destruction, however, is a good example of how not to structure your story. In order to see the completion of the Diablo II story line, I had to purchase Lord of Destruction. The only redeeming factor is that Diablo II provided some closure, with Diablo, while setting things up for the conclusion with Baal. I wasn't cheated, and Diablo II can, more or less, stand on its own.
So when you said "pre-plan the seperation of cannon-centric content" and "Any single player gamer still has to buy all three portions in order to see the complete story", you weren't talking about content? Right then, just what are you talking about?
Sorry, I was pretty unclear there in my descriptions, that's my fault. I'm not saying Starcraft II is one third of a retail release in terms of the amount of content. People always refer back to the number of missions as some kind of justification. I'm not saying that Starcraft II is going to have 10 missions and 3 multiplayer maps. I'm saying that Starcraft II's story is one third of the complete, stand alone experience. It was divided into chapters that are not standalone, thus requiring the purchase of all three titles.
It's not like you're getting a third of the game for full price.
And I agree. However, you're paying full price for one third of the stand-alone experience that cannot stand alone. This is like all purchases of 'The Two Towers' requiring the purchase of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' be made before you're
allowed to purchase the second one. Yes, we understand that it's a trilogy. Yes, we understand that's designed to go together. However, that still doesn't make the fact that my purchase decisions are being forced any less of a slap.
It's essentially contradicting itself. If the chapters are considered 'stand alone', then why aren't they stand alone products? If the titles are so absolutely essential to each other, why are they even seperated? It makes sense from a business point of view, not from an end user point of view. That's Activision's entire business model, and hence my original comments.
Its current shortcomings (no chat channels, no cross-realm play) are already on the list to improve. It's new, and it'll grow.
Actually, Battle.net 2.0's regional division is designed into the system - they won't be removing it.
