The thing I enjoyed about starcraft was the intertwined narratives for each race. With SC2 it'll either be completely seperate stories, or each one will be a huge cliffhanger ending that resolves nothing. Which is basically just a "fuck you" to the customer.
Aside from that I generally DONT enjoy the fact that I'm still waiting for half life episode 3. I'm sure that is a pretty common sentiment. I'm much more tolerant of it in movies than other media, because it takes an hour and a half to watch a movie generally, insead of the 10+ (hopefully) hours of gameplay you need to get through to replay a game. Also gameplay repetition is much more annoying than movie repetition, like if you get stuck at an exceptionally frustrating segment for example. Movies just play continuously untill they're done. You get the entire plot regardless of how good you are at watching films.
Don't pretend that all forms of storytelling are exactly the same, or are experienced in the same way. And just because you are fine with being sold the same story 3 times doesn't mean everyone else is. Even within the genre of video games, I much prefer playing FPS games to RTS, so while I'm willing to play through a FPS two or three times, I'm never going to replay a RTS.
The narratives can be just as intertwined? It wasn't like they did it so you did 2 missions as zerg, then 1 as terran and the next 3 as protoss. The 3 campaigns were separate anyways. Now, they're putting a lot more effort into each campaign so it should be MUCH BETTER than the original Starcraft's narrative that you "liked so much".
Also, you play an RTS once and then... never pick it up again? Even though most RTSes have shoddy story at best and their value is in their replayability? You're a very strange gamer...
They mention that the original has about 30 missions; the next two expansions will have about the same amount. Doesn't that mean that they will charge about the same amount?
That's what they've said. Each campaign is a full price game.
Where did they say that? The FAQ about it I linked did not state anything about prices, it in fact says they haven't decided yet. It also stated them to be expansions, not full new games.
I'm not a strange gamer, I'm just not you. Everyone plays games differently, for different reasons, and has different favorite types of games. Don't presume that yours is the only way to play, or that you're even in the majority. Yes i play RTSes once and then never pick them up again. I play most games once and then never pick them up again. New games come out every week, and I'd rather have new experiences than retread old ones endlessly. I'm sure if you shared some of your gaming habits with me I'd find more than enough reasons to call you strange.
You only "know" they're putting ALOT MUCH MORE effort into each campaign because they told you. They also told you you don't want LAN play. And they told you that you should always use your real name online beacuse that way... no trolls? Don't pass off blizzard marketing as fact, at least not untill the games are actually out. Sure the campaigns could be the greatest fiction ever told, but while the jury is still out don't pretend to talk from experience.
I thought I read a slashdot article last year saying each campaign would be a full priced game, but I can't find it now. They have said each campaign adds to the multiplayer, and changes the way it's played. Just beacuse they call them expansions doesn't mean they're going to be priced accordingly (which I would consider to be £20) I can easily see the next two instalments being £35. They'll pass this off as being less expensive because they've
jacked up the price for no reason anyway.
"Oh hey guys! Sorry about randomly charging 10 quid more for SC2, but the expansions will cost 10 quid less, aren't we awesome?"
Anyway, you allready love the games unconditionally, so knock yourself out. I'm not going to convince you that it's possible to not be foaming-at-the-mouth excited about them, and you aren't going to convince me they're flawless masterpieces, so lets just agree to disagree.