A glimpse at my StarCraft 2 project. (tiny update 3/4/09)

[Maglok]

I doubt the beta will explain much for single player elements.
Also you are already very well known in the community.

[Meta]

I doubt the beta will explain much for single player elements.
Also you are already very well known in the community.

Well, only really old veterans know about Desler, Oracle and others. The massive amount of newcomers that will register when the first SC2 campaigns are out have probably never heard of the oldtimers, which is probably a good thing since it could lead to recognition by the brand new SC2 community, not just the old community of veterans; and many of these newcomers may also be WC3'ers, who are used to the high quality of most popular WC3 UMS maps and campaigns.

Other than that, it's really cool to see Desler and other veterans embarking on mapmaking again after so many years. The site is pretty good and I especially like the bit about quantum physics, as I've been reading a lot about quantum mechanics, relativity and string theory lately, along with other common sci-fi themes.

The fact that it's a series is also very interesting, and makes it easier to halt the project or cancel it if motivation ever drops, hah. It also helps to develop stories with no "filler" material as Desler pointed out.

[Marco]

I didn't know what you were talking about until I realized you meant the filler news text.  I just copied a paragraph from Wikipedia and put it up there real quick cause I was trying to see what a lengthy news post would look like at the time.

'Series' basically like television, episode by episode releases  (like CI) that will stick to a release schedule - with short breaks only between seasons.  I'm thinking about one episode every two weeks, with length of said episode being about 20-40 minutes.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but knowing the mapping process like I do, its actually a lot of work to do every two weeks, especially when you are putting voices into the mix, which pretty much means you are spending twice as long on a single map then a map without voices.

[Meta]

Hmm by "filler" I actually meant unnecessary material, as you said: "add in a bunch of stuff I don't really need".

I assumed that the quantum mechanics thing was actually related to the campaign itself. My bad.

[The Oracle]

I'm glad to see you moving forward with campaign-making for SC2 my friend (got your email and just checked it out).

I have every confidence that you will produce something legendary for the new community.  Good luck in it all.

[Marco]

Yah man, its coming along.  The -only- worry I have for this campaign is securing a stable voice acting staff.  Everything else is under control.  By the way, what happened to the Wrath of Fury site?  I went to check it out but the domain just has ads on it now.

[Lavarinth]

Yah man, its coming along.  The -only- worry I have for this campaign is securing a stable voice acting staff.  Everything else is under control.  By the way, what happened to the Wrath of Fury site?  I went to check it out but the domain just has ads on it now.

Stable staff, you say... *Looks at self*

[AA7Dragoon]

Oh, if you need another voice staff member, Desler, I can assist you in that.  You know I'm stable since I've always been here at CC.

[Marco]

Well, I'll have to audition you guys, and it will be a while before we even get started.  Basically my three criteria are stability, acting ability, and recording clarity.  Feel free to go nuts with any special acting abilities or inflections you might have, though keep in mind I'm extremely selective.  I've sent you a PM with my email address, and if anyone else wants to audition, then can send me a PM.

[The Oracle]

Desler,

Due to SC2 not even being released in 2008, I pulled the site down.  I'll put it back up once Beta hits.

[Aekenon]

I like the site.  Very sleek.

How 'bout you give us some story tidbits now?  C'mon, you know you wanna...

[Marco]

Thanks for the compliments on the site.  You should have seen the first iterations - they were pretty bad.  But my photoshop skills slowly improved and I managed to put it all together.  As far as the story goes, I actually don't want to reveal any part of it - the story couldn't be explained anyways without giving a lot away.  I'm not going to have the standard 'heroes', 'story' sections on the web site because I want the audience to have to pick up every single thing straight from the campaign.  So no fiction, no character summaries, nothing like that.  Everything you need to know is going to be in the campaign. 

I've also welcomed Aekenon on board as a voice actor.  If anyone else cares to audition, feel free to send me an email (you can get my address by PMing me).  Just read my criteria in my other posts above.

[Maglok]

Ah the season release schedule thing. Lavvz and I are probably heading that way as well.

Two weeks is still very ambitious though. if we consider you probably have a season written down, even to a word, in a script. Then you got two weeks to terrain, trigger, potentially missionbriefing/story space, cutscene, music and time wise a hell: voice it. A two week pipeline is thus very ambitious. Though 20-40 min, mabye it's possible.

We were thinking more of a 1 month pipeline ourselves.

As for voicing, sure, but I am in the middle of moving so I'll just PM you later. I still owe Oracle a evil laugh, but I am still painting the new place so stuff is not optimal.

[Aekenon]

As far as the story goes, I actually don't want to reveal any part of it - the story couldn't be explained anyways without giving a lot away.  I'm not going to have the standard 'heroes', 'story' sections on the web site because I want the audience to have to pick up every single thing straight from the campaign.  So no fiction, no character summaries, nothing like that.  Everything you need to know is going to be in the campaign.

Even though I'm still itching to know what you've cooked up, I agree that that's the best way to go about it.  I've thought about this recently, actually.

In the case of most RPG's and such I play these days, I've found that they tend to spoil the first couple hours or so (sometimes even later occurances) of their titles if you try to read up on them on the official webpage or anything like that.  While feeding people early plot developments may excite them and gain interest for your product, it also severely weakens the impact of these developments when you actually play the game, seeing as how you already knew what was coming well before you even acquired it.

So yeah.  I agree.  People are going to download your campaign whether they have a general idea of the plot or not, so... better off keeping silent and wowing them from the start.

[Marco]

Looking forward to it Maglok.  If you want evil laughs, Joel Steudler is the man to see.  No one can match his Nugdraas AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA.  Of course, the right sound editing helps quite a bit as well.  I'm trying to avoid characters who do the evil laugh this time around.  Something about a guy laughing evilly, it just screams evil.  Whereas I want a more subtle approach.

I don't think too much will be lost from not revealing the story.  And besides that, the short character trailers on the front page of the site (once they are actually done) should be enough to get people to give the maps a chance.