StarCraft 2

Before you all panic, I do not mean the ability to record replays online, read ahead and I shall explain. It was announced a month or so ago that the release candidate for StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty would not feature a much loved online ability, that was used frequently by the StarCraft community in the years past. That feature was the ability to watch replays online, aka online replays. For those of you who do not know what online replays are, they give players the ability for someone to host an online game with the replay set as the map, this allows eight players to watch the same replay at the same time, all commenting on the play and giving their friends tips on how they could have improved with reference to specific parts of the replay. Right away I'm sure you guys understand why this was such a loved mechanic.

We must then understand the importance of online replays to the Foreign Community (anyone outside Korea). In Korea, the pro-gamers and even the normal players all play SC in groups because StarCraft is socially accepted in Korea. They all gather at their local PC Bang or they gather with their friends and share tips, which can lead to an exponential increase in skill and play. Now when we compare this to the foreign scene, StarCraft is not socially accepted and very few people will gather with other friends who play StarCraft. There are certain cases, but it's less common. This is why Koreans are said to be better. Now, our only attempt at making up this ground with the Koreans is our ability to review each other's games online with the online replay ability.

With it being gone in StarCraft 2, you can understand the disappointment at the removal of this feature. It will set the foreign community back in comparison to those in Korea, who can learn the game in groups. We can of course share our knowledge on the forums, with specific strategies and VoDs and so on. But we do not have the vision that was there with replays.

The question has to be asked, are we losing the greatest feature of StarCraft for these new, high tech abilities such as rewinding, building queues, information on resource gathering, and so on? I would hope not, as much as these features are cool, they lack use if they cannot help someone learn. Of course games can be watched for entertainment value, but who watched replays for entertainment? That's what VoDs are for. Replays are essentially for education and without the ability to view replays with your friends, or clan mates, who may or may not have a greater knowledge of the game than you, do they really benefit?

In my opinion, as I'm sure you can already tell, is that this feature should be included regardless of importance, coding time, money or any other limiting factor. Blizzard has said that it will eventually be added, but how far down the line? In a beta patch? Wings of Liberty Patch? Maybe even an expansion? For me that's too long to wait, especially with a new game and different strategies. It's my hope that Blizzard will change their mind and that we'll see the return of this feature pre-release. Then the question could also be put forward, shall the foreign scene fall behind? Will Korea's skill level be that of the original StarCraft compared to the foreign scene? I've put forward a lot of questions in this blog, but that's because a lack of online replays has such an adverse effect on so many aspects of the game and it's hard to predict any sort of outcome. Let us hope that Blizzard don't have it at the bottom of their priority list.

Have your say on the removal of this feature on our forums. I love to hear everyone's opinions.