StarCraft 2 Gameplay
Vice president of the game design Rob Pardo explains that the original Starcraft arose from the team’s desire to create a fast-paced real-time strategy game like Warcraft II, but in a different universe, then describes how Blizzard’s subsequent RTS project, 2002’s Warcraft III, took a very different approach by offering slower-paced gameplay with smaller armies, hero units, and many units with activatable abilities to appeal to “the average gamer.”
Pardo suggests that the units in both the original Starcraft, and in the sequel, will instead act as “movers and shooters”, mostly autonomous forces that generally lack special abilties, but will instead be used in large control groups to “do their own thing” in battle, rather than requiring the micromanagement of high-level Warcraft III play.
Pardo continues to contrast Warcraft III against Starcraft II, explaining that Warcraft III had less of an emphasis on economic buildup to allow more focus on battles. The 2002 game also, suggests the VP, was much less about early-game victories. While that game did introduce “creeps”, neutral creatures that could be fought to gain experience points for your hero units, early armies in Warcraft III were generally capable of only harrassing your enemies, not defeating them outright.
Pardo suggests that “with Starcraft II, really going back to its roots to make a true sequel to Starcraft”, a sequel where resource management will be much more central to gameplay, with less micromanagement of different units with special abilities, and in which full-on early-game “rushing” (making an all-out assault at or near the beginning of a new game session) will be much more viable.