Blizzard's Starcraft was released in 1998. It's sequel, Starcraft II, won't be out until at least 2009. Why the hold-up? Blame World of Warcraft.

Rob Pardo has told Eurogamer that development on Starcraft II began in 2003, and there's been a playable build since 2005. But then along came World of Warcraft.

One of the reasons that StarCraft II had some delays very early on in development is because a fair amount of the design team went onto World of Warcraft for a year to really help finish that game off.

They had a lot of really great experience to bring, with their knowledge of how they approached the map editor problems, how they dealt with balancing - which we could then leverage into class balancing.

So to anyone wondering why Starcraft II looks so "old fashioned" for a 2009 game, there you go.

WOW held up StarCraft II for a year [Eurogamer]

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