Starcraft 2 - worth buying?

[Thecla]

although it's true that most of Blizzard North's personnel had nothing to do with Starcraft's development, it is easily recognizable the change that the company made when they left.

You may well be right that the same changes in policies that led to the closure of Blizzard North also led to changes in the Starcraft franchise. If so, they have a common cause but one did not effect the other. Just sayin'.

Regarding the effect on D3... I'm going to Gamescon next Thursday to play the demo, so I'll share what I see.

Ah, that should be interesting --- too bad it's the old Blizcon '09 demo so no new info, but still nice.

Just to go ot, since --- very sensibly --- there is no D3 forum here yet, I actually don't have any opinion about SC (never having played the original) but I am interested to see what Bliz does with D3. Personally, I don't mind the art-style at all, but some stuff makes me wonder about how much it might be watered down (e.g. automatic stat distribution, non-random surface levels, no weapon switch because it's "too confusing" and "only useful as an exploit",...). Hard to say how other stuff will work out, like greatly reduced potion-dependence or the resource system with barbs depending on "fury" instead of mana etc. On the other hand, I really like some of the comments the lead designer Jay Wilson has made about the game's design philosophy e.g. in making combat simple but interesting and requiring more thought and tactics than was the case in D2.

If they think through the arpg formula well, and adapt in an approriate way what works in other games (even including WoW) they could produce a great game. Or it's possible they'll produce some best-selling pile of dreck. I hope it's the former.