
StarCraft: Remastered to be released Summer 2017 - spery
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/520461-starcraft-remastered-to-be-released-summer-2017
======
TheAceOfHearts
Oh man, I'm super ready for this. A few weeks back I put together a new gaming
PC, and now I can't contain my excitement for 4K StarCraft goodness.

For a few years I followed SC2's e-sports scene, but my interest slowly died
out. With this new release, just imagining all the possibilities is getting me
really hyped. I'm gonna call it now and say that it's a given that we'll get a
few tournaments with all the big StarCraft names.

And it'll be a blast to re-play a bunch of those older UMS (Use Map Settings)
games. I remember spending countless hours playing custom games. It was my
first introduction to tower defense games, stacking hundreds of cannons and
hoping you'd make it past one more level. And the countless challenge survival
maps which required you to pull off exploits and glitches to reach the next
part. Probably a bit silly, but one of the maps I remember best is Dragon Ball
Z RPG. Even if they don't quite stand the test of time, getting to replay them
just for nostalgia will be fun.

~~~
edgineer
I'm glad you brought up UMS maps. They were my favorite part of SC and BW
also, and I hope to see a lot of other people playing them in SC Remastered.

I've uploaded my old custom map folder left dormant for years, that includes
all the maps you mention. Tower defense, glitch maps (I hope the old glitches
will still work!), and dragon ball Z maps. Here:
[https://mega.nz/#!yE9jTZYS!EegEFOhl0uycGxChVwwlJS-
zrAXcAGBmC...](https://mega.nz/#!yE9jTZYS!EegEFOhl0uycGxChVwwlJS-
zrAXcAGBmC9lgkeVg1_U)

~~~
avar
When I played a lot of these custom maps couldn't be opened in the map editor
even though they were playable, the authors would corrupt the file somehow.
Was that problem ever solved?

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kawsper
Interesting, I am not sure if I agree with the 4K decision or not, since
lately I have been playing a lot of C&C RedAlert through
[http://www.openra.net/](http://www.openra.net/), and I kind of like the
pixelated graphics, but I understand it is not for everyone.

OpenRA is an open source re-implementation with newer controls, so for an
example you can use middle-click for dragging the camera, they also introduced
a widescreen mode, and support for modern screen resolutions.

I then tried to play the original, and it felt really rough, almost
unplayable.

~~~
nol13
there's open source ra clone with active online servers!? well my day is bout
wasted now

~~~
timonovici
There's a clone of StarCraft as well, but as far as I know it doesn't have
feature parity with the original game;
[http://stargus.stratagus.com/](http://stargus.stratagus.com/)

~~~
nol13
Nice! Had recently been playing a few skirmishes in 0 a.d. as well, (AOE
clone).

~~~
timonovici
hehe, 0 A.D. is a really polished game by comparison. This stuff barely works.

------
kregasaurusrex
I'm hoping this attracts more attention to building Starcraft AIs to solve
games.
([http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Main_Page](http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Main_Page)
as a springboard) It's a unique problem with respect to not having a fixed
number of unique game states; which grow exponentially over time. From
anecdotal experience in watching technologies evolve in my lifetime, some of
the greatest leaps in computing research (hw+sw) have been covariated with
solving algorithmic problems, with the latest being the use of neural nets to
beat the very best humans at Go. Excited to see if an official API would be
written to allow greater programmatic control for hobbyists!

~~~
nurettin
I dabbled with SC bots back in late 90's and early 2000's. The game isn't very
open-ended. The "board", so-to-speak, is constrained by trade-offs such as
resource gathering, "unit tiers", "unit counters", "current meta" and map
designs that reduce the number of things you can do at any given minute.

So much so that I think the 300-400 APM we see consistently being pumped out
by the top players isn't the human limit, it's the actual game limit. In which
case I would consider the game solved.

~~~
Aardwolf
If it's that simple, give me a challenging AI that can surprise me with an
unexpected strategy

~~~
nurettin
Not sure how to optimize for "surprise Aardwolf". Do you?

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tgb
My first question is what will they change with regards to UI and pathfinding?
The original SC is very finicky by today's standards which means it'll be
tough to get anyone interested for reasons other than nostalgia. But the
particulars of strategy and tactics are strongly influenced by things like the
maximum army size selection, the frankly bizarre path finding, etc. So making
any change will alienate long term fans.

~~~
mathw
The press release says "gameplay and balance have been precisely preserved".
If that doesn't include the pathfinding algorithms, complete with bugs, I
don't know what would.

~~~
nickpeterson
It would be nice to have a post or two from Blizzard employees to see what
went into this effort. I would assume most of Starcraft was written in C++,
and that performing this kind of an upgrade without impacting other aspects
could be non-trivial.

~~~
jimmaswell
Why wouldn't they be able to pretty much just reuse all of the old engine
code, if this is just a graphical update? Changing the graphics without
changing the rest of the game should be fairly straightforward as long as it
was written reasonably.

~~~
fdej
I don't know. There are empirical reasons to suspect that StarCraft uses code
like this.

    
    
        void DragoonAI()
        {
            // Decide next move by reading main video buffer for random bits
            MoveDirection = Video->buf[1000];
            ...
        }

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kensai
There is a great deal of old classic games that could be remastered. I wonder
sometimes if the companies that developed them, if not defunct or totally
convoluted legally, understand the goldmines they are sitting on.

~~~
tangue
Yep I would pay for Age of Empires and Rise of Rome, evebn not remastered but
never found a way to buy them for a Modern'computer (sth like GOG)

~~~
codemogul
Age of Empires, with all of the expansions, is available through Steam!

~~~
Sir_Substance
Age of empires II is available through steam. AoE:RoR was the original and
expansion, not the sequel.

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amix
As a warmup I strongly suggest following the ASL, where many of the StarCraft
legends are still competing (e.g. Flash, Bisu). There's a team event now:
[http://sc2casts.com/event913-2017-ASL-Team-
Battle-S1](http://sc2casts.com/event913-2017-ASL-Team-Battle-S1)

The remastering will probably give a major rebirth to this epic game. So
excited!

------
jimparkins
Starcraft Remastered - Check

Warcraft III Remastered - ?

~~~
cknight
Given the job descriptions which Blizzard had out for a while before this
release, I think it's Diablo 1 & 2 which are more likely to find themselves
remastered next.

~~~
duiker101
With the Diablo 3 "Retro expansion" I wouldn't really think they are going to
do a remastered version too.

~~~
cknight
Ah, yeah I forgot about that. It doesn't make a Diablo 2 remastering any less
likely though, IMO, as opposed to a Diablo one.

This is what I remember seeing: [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-
looking-to-revive...](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-looking-to-
revive-these-classic-games-upd/1100-6431991/)

------
swiley
Will LAN games still work? That was probably the biggest reason I never bought
SC2.

~~~
JDShu
According to the video, yes, in addition to online play.

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xg15
> _The gameplay balance and idiosyncrasies have been painstakingly preserved
> from the original game. Mutalisk stacking, magic-boxing, unit pathfinding,
> control-group limitations, and more will all remain intact, allowing veteran
> players to enjoy playing and watching high-level competitive matches as
> before._

I get that esports are serious business by now, but are we really at a point
where we have to stay _bug-compatible_ with old releases?

~~~
greenhatman
Some bugs, like animation cancelling, turned out to make the games why more
technical and challenging. It would dumb the game down to take it out. It's
not a bug anymore, it's a feature.

~~~
3131s
What's an example of animation cancelling in Starcraft? Thanks for introducing
me to a new concept! Any more bugs / features like this?

~~~
dragontamer
Magic Boxing is one of the more important ones.

Its not so much a "glitch" but an idiosyncracy. There's a special magic box
"size" that you eventually learn in Starcraft. When all the units are "inside"
of the Magic Box, they will move as a group, synchronously.

However, if even just one unit is "outide" of the Magic Box, they will all
move individually.

The technique of "Mutalisk Stacking" involves burrowing a Zergling, and then
making a group of 11 Mutalisks + 1 Zergling as a group. The burrowed Zergling
is always outside of the box, and therefore the Mutalisks will "stack" on top
of each other (moving as if they were individuals). You control them perfectly
synchronized.

Because the Mutalisks are all flying units, they'll "stack" together.

Here's an example video of JaeDong's expert Mutalisk Stacking:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ipBj1sO3M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ipBj1sO3M)
. Notice how the Marines instantly die before the Medics can heal them... but
the intense focus-fire and micro ability of JaeDong allows the Mutalisks to
instantly KO Marines.

\-----------

In contrast, the Protoss player would use the Magic Box to perform Dragoon
Dancing instead. In this case, the Protoss player wants to keep the Dragoons
all together inside of the Magic Box (while the Zerg Example above was the
opposite). You want your Dragoons to stay in formation during a Dragoon dance,
which requires them to be "inside" the magic box.

Because the Dragoons are grounded units, they'll bump into each other as the
AI pathfinding gets confused.

In contrast, look at how Reach uses these Dragoons. They are perfectly
synchronized, because of the "opposite" effect of the Magic Box.

[https://youtu.be/zXZdGqWttic?t=6m21s](https://youtu.be/zXZdGqWttic?t=6m21s)

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partycoder
StarCraft was a great game but what I never liked was the fact that terrans
were incredibly hard to counter.

Terrans had 75 minerals missile turrets, 75 minerals vultures that come with 3
mines, far reaching siege tanks, comsat, flying buildings for vision, medics
that could heal each other, medics could blind detectors, ghosts could take
away energy and protoss shield with EMP, and the science vessel could be very
abusive as well (irradiate ability)...

A lot of those things got balanced for StarCraft II: medics were replaced by
medivacs that cannot heal each other, EMP only takes 100 shield rather than
all and area is smaller, turrets are more expensive. Some tricks got replaced
by new ones, like using seeker missile on friendly units which seems like a
bug to me.

The fact that you cannot lower supply depots will be particularly annoying to
people that got used to StarCraft II supply depots.

~~~
panorama
The game is widely considered to be well-balanced, which is in part why the
game has prospered on a professional level for so long. From what you've
listed, Vultures are the only problematic unit (they're the most cost-
efficient unit in the game and it plays an important role in every matchup).

If you're curious: Turrets struggle against small units due to their attack
type, leaving Terran highly vulnerable against small, mobile Mutalisks in the
mid-game. Siege tanks are gas-intensive and immobile in siege mode. Flying
buildings' advantage is negligible (Zerg have flying supply depots for that
matter). Medics play a very limited role in competitive play: Medic/Marine is
sub-optimal against Protoss and Terran, and lately we've found that it doesn't
scale well late-game against Zerg too (I find it fascinating that the meta
changes dramatically even to this day)! Their blind skill has been used in
professional play maybe twice in 15 years. I assume you mean Science Vessels,
not Ghosts, can EMP - SVs are gas-intensive, slow, and squishy, but
unfortunately are Terran's only effective high-tech unit (Ghosts are expensive
and difficult to use well, Battlecruisers are expensive and slow and only see
limited use in mirror matchups).

On the other hand, SC2 has struggled with balance issues (perhaps still does?
I don't follow it any longer). Anyway the point of this isn't to call you out
on lack of BW knowledge (very few people like me care about these details
anyway), but I wanted to point out potential confirmation bias: SC2 appearing
to nerf or remove these problematic units is not an indication that they are
problems in Brood War. Merely a coincidence, if I had to guess! :)

~~~
greenhatman
>The game is widely considered to be well-balanced

With almost two decades since release, and people are still playing it
competitively, it's probably the most balanced game in history so far.

------
TeMPOraL
<3 yes please. Always preferred SC1 to SC2 in pretty much every regard. It's
also probably the only video game in which I feel remotely competent. It will
be fun to play it again, and I hope the scene will get revived enough that
there are many people to play with.

~~~
halflings
Why did you prefer SC1? Obviously, you're not the only one with this opinion
(judging by the relatively low interest SC2 gathered compared to the Brood War
years), but most of the time people say vague things like "SC1 is more
challenging, requires more strategy" which make me think they haven't played
SC2 competitively or watched pro-players.

~~~
TeMPOraL
My reasons are completely unrelated to multiplayer.

Primary reason - I liked the storyline of SC1 much better than of the sequel.
SC1 story was pretty dark, and full of interplanetary political dramas. SC2
felt much more like fantasy in space, and focused mostly on individuals and
their romantic relationships. I know I might be in minority here, but I
strongly prefer stories about the world to stories about the people [0].

Secondary reason - graphical style. Again, SC1 had these dark and serious
tones. In SC2, everything feels plastic and cartoonish.

\--

[0] - I remember someone accusing many sci-fi writers of producing "flat"
characters that lack depth. My response to that is that if I wanted to read
about people and their interpersonal dramas, I'd pick up romantic novels
instead.

------
overcast
I've been waiting for a proper remaster of Starcraft forever! I didn't want to
jump into the story at SC2. So excited for this.

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ioltas
Long term player here (haven't played in years though), and still having my
original key and CD just one meter away from this laptop. Should we consider
this version as an upgrade or a sole new game?

The protocol remains the same so both SC and SC:R are compatible but it seems
to me that you would need to repurchase a new key to be able to use it.

~~~
jimmaswell
You can get the full expansions for free with a CD key of the original game on
their website, I found out a while ago when I found SC1 at a thrift store.

~~~
zouhair
The original will be updated to the 1.18[0] and given for free.

[0]: [http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-
war/520460-starcraft-v...](http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-
war/520460-starcraft-v118a-patch-notes-preparation-for-scr)

~~~
ioltas
> Mac is not supported this patch, but is in progress

This bit is good to know. As usual Linux support will unlikely happen. You can
guess from that as well that SC:R would lack macos support if they are not
able to address the existing issues until its release.

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erikb
Did they take it from the front page? Why?

~~~
3131s
Weird, it's gone for me as well.

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vlunkr
Few game developers make with as much longevity as blizzard. Wow has been
running for over a decade. And people are still playing this game
competitively. It's not like they remaking for nostalgia, they're remaking for
people who haven't stopped playing! (And nostalgia)

------
tener
Funny to read press release dated for 27th March a full day before that day.

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phasnox
Anyone knows if you are going to be able to select more than 12 units? And if
auto spawn to minerals when workers pop up?

~~~
heyheyhey
Gameplay is exactly like SC1 so no to both those questions.

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AlexAMEEE
I didn't play any games in the past 7-8 years ( besides chess ) but this is
huge, B+ I'm coming.

Is Iccup alive ?

~~~
Altay-
Blizzard has stated that StarCraft Remastered will incluve native support for
FISH -- which is apparently a Korean server with ranked match making.

This presumably means ranked matchmaking is to be expected for Western players
as well. Whether that included iccup or not, I don't know.

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macspoofing
It's about time. I was wondering why it took them this long to give the game a
high-res face-lift.

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jaysoncena
They should release a mobile version as well. I think that will be a hit.

~~~
kissickas
I'm more disappointed that there won't be an official Linux release. The 1998
version works fine with WINE so I can still hope that they don't break
anything with the remake.

~~~
cknight
Since it won't even be using a 3D engine (let alone any modern APIs like DX
12) I would think that any tweaks needed for WINE to run it well should be
pretty minor.

Using that same logic though, I would have thought that making a Linux release
would have also been pretty trivial for Blizzard to do, but given their
history I suspect they have a policy of avoiding this.

~~~
untoreh
Isn't their history with Linux about making their games wine compatible? I
think that was the case for wow

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K0SM0S
I can see this as a way to revive the Starcraft e-sports scene, considering
how SC2 pretty much failed in this regard (not an expert myself, just
reporting what I heard from commentors and pundits very much into competitive
SC such as TotalBiscuit/John Bain).

~~~
arvinsim
I don't think the fault was with Starcraft itself. The RTS genre was pretty
much superseded by the MOBA genre.

~~~
chongli
Yeah. RTS games are simply way too difficult to learn compared to MOBAs. You
have to learn an entire race and at the very least a few basic build orders
while you're developing this massive amount of muscle memory for macroing to
keep your worker count high and your money low.

Something like LoL, on the other hand, makes it pretty easy to pick up and
just learn one champion, one lane, one build order and be an effective team
member. It's like the difference between learning to be an offensive tackle vs
learning to be head coach, offensive coordinator, and defensive coordinator
all in one person.

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benologist
Best new feature will definitely be the always-online DRM!!!

------
nickpeterson
I have a daughter who will be close to 6 when this is released, and I fully
intend to force her to learn to play this because her dad is a nerd.

