Hi there, now we’re gonna have long talk. My english isn’t perfect, and i waited 4 years before making a decision to write here the last breath of despair. I know SC:BW for 20 years, and keep loving that game just by finding the compatible companies, because, you know, random players aren’t that people, who bother about improvisation and differency in plays, their struggle to win perspective is just limiting their strategic creativeness.
I don’t clearly know, what in that game make me return here more and more, but i feel like remastered graphics is killing the 2/3 of that interest. I’ve read the blogs and interviews of the art team that I found in the public domain, and I’m definitely sure I respect the work they’ve done, but I will note that a number of mistakes have been made, as if deliberately to mock players, and I guarantee that if Blizzard conducts a survey, then almost everyone will agree with me.
Moreover, I am so jealous of the game because several years before the rumors about Remastered I planned to do it myself, possibly violating copyright, perhaps selling / giving the company most of work done, because it seemed to me that on new operating systems the game would not be at all work and Blizzard will abandon her. I made some mistakes in my IT studying and therefore could not be sure that I would be officially accepted into the development company, I have no experience as an artist, but … BroodWar is that rare example of the game that should exist for ever, because, many will also agree with me, SC2 came out as a completely different game, not only in gameplay, but also in setting. Therefore, it cannot replace the classics, despite the fact that it is more convenient to play it, as in RTS.
I have practically no hope that my letter will reach where I am aiming (the players understand everything perfectly well without me), but I will still write everything I think about Remastered. When I saw the remastered for the first time, I instantly thought “is this a pre-alpha version?” I didn’t really perceive the new graphics at all until I saw what you did with Warcraft3. Don’t you have at least one person in your state who will vouch with heart and soul to ensure that the impression (and not the number of polygons) of the game is in every aspect no worse than the original?
We can forgive the new models of the Ghosts, in any case, now their rifle has become very noticeable, emphasizing that this is a sniper, and not a civilian in a bandana, as it seemed to me for a long time. But needless to say, how unfortunate it was for the zerglings to draw human hands? The blog itself admitted that the pixels in the original were so incomprehensible that it was sometimes necessary to come up with new details, but even a person who had never seen Starcraft before would not have thought of attaching the hands of a creature that is obviously trying to pierce large targets with horns on its wings, instead of in order to gnaw. And now it turns out that with these hands they break objects that can survive a nuclear hit from an arc cannon.
And no, we are not even talking about realism. Zerglings, thanks to their lightened hands and darkened paws, feel bony and obscure, and, as they say in the comments of one of the blogs, are no longer cute. Yes, zerg used to be cute, not shrimp thickets with funny cockroach sounds. Perhaps this is my subjective perception, but I have always perceived the original concept of the zerg as the personification of human phobias, and powerful music emphasized the greatness and dominance over this. In SK2, almost all zerg began to emit the sounds of dastardly insects, and elements of cancerous tumors, blisters and abscesses were added to their style.
I don’t understand what Blizzard’s problem is: it feels like instead of discarding bad takes, they are smoothing out the rough edges and trying to make it look acceptable. I have always wished the best for your company and generally dreamed of one day working with you, because I am ready to sacrifice as much time and effort as necessary. It can be strange how game companies fail good projects simply because of a few mistakes in game development. And no, it’s very possible I have nothing to teach you, your company has its own experience, but at least for commercial purposes, I advise you to do the last work on Remastered.
and a few other people I know were still playing on the original graphics and were willing to pay x10 the price to remove the pillarboxes. If you cared at least about money, not to mention quality, then it would be in your best interest to make the game at least more customizable, for example, the zerg command panel is much worse than the original: icons instead of a black background now contrast poorly, stand out poorly against a light metal background , and the units themselves do not look so recognizable and characteristic even on the order panel. There is no greedy desire to develop to - and order them.
The contrast of the panel has become much brighter, and the protoss has an epileptic hell. I am ready to draw everything as it should in different versions, if they even give me a hint that there is a chance that all this can be redone. Let’s come up with some kind of vote, attract players and you will see how many people would be happy about it. The reward for your work can be considered another leap in interest in the game, as well as more stable online.
Of course, against the background of money received from other games, Remastered was probably not worth it, or it should not be completed, you will never say it officially, I will say it for you. You need people to help you make the right decisions and channel the creative power of the company into the next great round in the evolution of games. From myself I can say that game development is either pure money making, or the religion to which you give yourself entirely. In this, a person needs to lose himself, analyze an unthinkable amount of material in order to prevent other people’s mistakes. The client sets the trend, but the trend can open new tastes for the client, so there is no point in following only what promises benefits. Blizzard were great because shooting at random, but hit to the spot. Perhaps you are not bad now, just like many companies, you have not trained the new staff enough.
If I personally enumerate Remastered’s shortcomings, it will not be clear enough. People deserve the final product, you deserve to release it. Of course, if a company turns to a client for advice, it may look like a blow to prestige, from the outside it often seems that Blizzie likes to work in the style of “not a word more, we will do everything”, in practice, constant balance edits sc2, a complete shoveling feeling from the game every expansion, and ultimately a complete departure from the classics. We play each expansion as a separate game. This looks so unsure.
Basically, I am not asking for much, I am asking on behalf of the old players for just one feat. Take the human hands from the zerglings. Customize troop portraits in the old style instead of copying them from SC2. You could imagine filming a movie, and thousands of stories on custom maps were trying to get the most out of the setting. Does this not demonstrate how much the fans are willing to do for you, and how little you are willing to thank them for it? What should a zergling grab with its little hands? Is this a new branch of postmodern?
Other details have not escaped our eyes either, for example, the gradient blots that remain after the zerg, especially drones, are most striking. In the original, there is a relatively detailed corpse, in different colors. I understand that in vector graphics it is difficult to convey details, but this is just a mockery. A battlecruiser that has lost its faceted brutality because the game of contrast is gone. Even if you turn off the obviously excessive dynamic lighting, the image does not return. Zealots, who, like many infantry, now look very thin, incomprehensible in details and out of combat, their weapons no longer glow. Yes, this is canonical, but you yourself know the general impression if you read the discussion blogs.
We are not a political opposition and we will not criticize you for the sake of selfish interests, and we cannot be mistaken, since we love your product, perhaps more than you love our money. I just want you and us not to be ashamed of Starcraft. In addition to the above, additional work is possible. For example, before the release of Remastered, I translated hundreds of custom story maps into different languages, mainly Russian, but the game turns all the characters into a mess, despite the fact that Russian is now officially present even in the unimproved original, in the chat.
Further, I personally very much disapprove of the match waiting screen, where it shows a Marine / Hydralisk / Zealot in close-up. It looks childish, just like sc2 after some patches. And all the models that flaunt on the company selection screens are also sc2 style, and not the setting for which we come here.
It is not enough for Starcraft to be a balanced multivariate rts; the impression from it should create a picture pleasing to the eye. Of course, many would probably give up, saying that broodwar is too grotesque to improve on it. Very loud and repetitive sounds of death of units, Terran music is suitable to go through the campaign of the original, but does not convey the sensations of the second campaign and the multiplayer itself, and therefore, as a rule, it is the Terrans who keep it off, then the zerg.
However, not much needs to be changed for the game to fall in love with itself again. It is enough to at least return to the original style in which parts, in the opinion of the players, causes the greatest disgust. Have you asked the players’ opinions? You have sold the remastered as you announced it. You are known as a democratic company that can bring together a wide audience of different people, but this time you released a too fresh product.
I do not know what disagreements were in your team of artists, we may not even guess that it was possible that very tired people were finishing the product. I will say it again: everyone respects your work, but there can be no excuse for the armed zergling. Understand this. Why don’t you make the unit have a skin to choose from? Correct the unfortunate, return the impression from them to the state of the original, adding the ability (for money or not) to choose a spriteset for, for example, zealots.
Some of my requests are difficult to fulfill, it is better to ignore them, but play for a few minutes and you will see that the panel at the bottom of the screen needs to be redone and return to a smooth look. I can also complain about the Lurkers, they began to partially merge with the ground and generally do not create the same impression, even the mines became somewhat flatter, as if we were playing Starcraft in a browser on flash graphics.
How do you justify this? Optimized for performance? No one will believe this. Everyone knows that you released a crude product, and the most offensive thing is that such a big work done, perhaps on the initiative of people like me, on the other side … It just became another controversial stain on the company’s reputation. Starcrafters are your audience, not the clients who play wow, not the ones who amuse themselves in the hearthstone. We carry you in our arms, we love you, we talk about you, we bring an audience of people who make games to a cult. The rest are clients, not same as fans.
It sounded insulting, but deep down you yourself understand it. Blizzard - is BroodWar. By the way, the gameplay deserves a separate topic in the discussion, the fact is that the community loves to play maps that poorly reveal the advantages of races, for example BGH. I am the person who redrawn the map cell by cell for different textures without changing the landscape and scenery, I studied enough, and just played on it to conclude that this is not a map, this is a testing ground for the very beginners, where they can comprehend the basics of the team tactics (the importance of controlling the center and not becoming isolated from the team in any way). We could experiment with this, but players are used to not noticing discomfort, deny themselves and endure. After the remaster, there were especially many retrogrades, people seem to lose their taste.
It is not uncommon for people to complain that Blizzard, such a wealthy company, has nothing to do with lag. Is there really nothing you can do about it? Why do we play at extra high latency even with green ping of all players in the lobby? You promised not to change the game, in the end you changed only what was not worth touching, only to improve.
I ask people on the forum to support me if I missed any other flaws in a hurry. Here is a list that I personally see
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darken the bright elements in the command bar to contrast important details again
2.1) Replace the hands of the zerglings with thorns (kinda), and balance the contrast so that they give the same impression as in the classics. I’m willing to work on this for hundreds of hours to draw you a perfect example, you just code and adapt it into the game. Because nobody will be against.
2.2) Similar work needs to be done with Probe, Zealot, Hydralisk, Overlord, creep texture, lurker, ultralisk, Battlecruiser, Goliath. Especially with Goliath, it did not work out well, he is the main reason why I love the original more, and dozens of people agree with me. The units in this list do not need to be changed directly, but you need to work with the contrast of details so that they do not merge with the new textures of the ground, creep and generally convey the same impression as before. There must be a way.
2.3) Something is wrong with the Marine and Firebat, I don’t understand what. They have lost some kind of simplicity and elegance, although if you zoom in on the camera, they look gorgeous, maybe it looks interesting on huge monitors, but on a typical home monitor, it seems to me, with a standard zoom, you can see too many unnecessary details, as by the way, at the barracks whose new markings constantly create the effect of the Evil Valley. As silly as it sounds. In the perfect world rax like these would not exist… but this is not the perfect world… -
Russian symbols in briefings, like many others, are needed in the original. They are in the chat, why did you remove support for what worked well before? It’s so easy. I don’t know yet who the team consists of, I really want to get rid of misunderstandings and, if not influencing you, then at least understand why you did this.
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Portraits. I know this is the hardest part, and you probably won’t go for it, but for example some Terran units are quite in the original setting, while the zealot is clearly from sc2. The hydralisk is very different, its protrusions (or probes) on the sides of the ridge along the entire tail have become far beyond the accent, the mandibles of the drone have lost their light tone, and the original drone is much easier to look at.
Don’t take people’s silence for acceptance. BroodWar deserves more than it currently has. By the way, I share the opinion of those who decided to leave the original FPS, but for some reason the transitions between frames became noticeably jagged, perhaps it would be possible to smooth these transitions without inserting new frames. It’s hard for me to say something about this, but I will note that I would pay x10 the price for the game, or maybe even x30, if only there was an opportunity to play without pillarboxes on the old graphics, with old portraits.
And something else. Access to ranked play only to those who bought the remaster greatly influenced the liveliness of duel lobbies. They have become rare, and strange people play in them. The main thing is that there are few of them, and in general, according to my feelings, the community of players has changed noticeably in five years. Intuitively, I want to blame the negligent approach to the remaster for everything: as if you set out to improve what you did not understand.
Once again: please forgive me (try) if for someone from your staff the work done is a great pride and result, but I want to say that it would not be difficult for the common good to optimize the appearance. Take a closer look, can’t you see? I was silent because I hoped that I was wrong, that I would get used to it. I hoped that something would change, because the things I described are obvious from the first second. It was painted by people who are not ready to play it themselves. Prove the opposite …
And the balance, in fact, is not quite as intended. You yourself know that Protoss Scouts do not work out their cost, in comparison with Wraiths, they do not even have invisibility, and their only specificity in the form of an extended view opens when it is even more unnecessary. Much of this game works well, but could work even better. Agree, no one will judge you if you make the Scouts a normal unit.
Afraid that the patch will make old replays incompatible? You know better than me how to make the game adapt to the patch replay.
Finally, after discussions about tastes, someone will ask me why I am so obsessed with Starcraft 1. I will answer that even though I strongly dislike all the units introduced in sc2 after WOL, BroodWar has something something that allows each match to be played differently, despite the fact that all the builds are calculated and known. In many ways, psychology is used not only in combat tactics, but also in general strategy. Much depends on who your opponent is, you both synthesize the dance. Many games of different genres cannot afford it. BroodWar has always been for me not just a game, but communication without words. A little deeper, considering how much distracting garbage people sometimes say out loud. Playing helps you express yourself and get inspired for something more. It’s not always about winning, despite the fact that in tournaments where the stakes are high, human ingenuity can present viewers with another non-obvious way to outplay an opponent. And Starcraft is good for that.
BroodWar - because it practically forces you to split the army into stacks and play on a wide front, with ten squads. The specific system of allocating units and pathfinding makes the battle more realistic, and the random spread in the speed of the attack of units eliminates the feeling of “uniform mass”, for which sc2 is so judged. sc2 has its advantages, like the mod on the game, it provides a different set of units, beautiful maps, high-quality music (I fell in love with that music so much that when I was a teenager I wore it on my player, on a trip), but like the gameplay - a completely different style, and for this style I loved the original, forgiving him everything that Carbot made fun of for the whole season. And I could ask the remaster for some flaws, but accidentally seeing the human hands of the zerglings, I realized that I wanted to personally look into the shameless eyes of the person who invented them. Why does he think you can laugh at our love like that? You already have a whole murloc game, even two.
Let us have just only orcs in space.
If you feel that you don’t like me, then so be it, I have no more excuses in store. But since we are here, then we have common goals. Take a look at the next topic about mapmaking, you may be useful.
a lot is not necessarily an achievement.
, OMG, just scrolling this takes much time 
, buddy you didn’t even include: