Evidently Blizzard is having some issues with the SC2 interface. It makes the game too easy to master for competitions. In SC1, one thing that really separated out the good players was their ability to control the game through its slightly primative (but I admit loveable) interface. With so much made easier in the SC2 interface, that element of competitive play is almost nonexistent. Blizzard has tried several things to restore some of the challenge of SC1 and have even considered going back to the old SC1 interface. I think the solution is a simple blend of old and new. Add an extra toggle box for when you are setting up a game and label it "Interface." There you could choose "Normal" for the easier to control SC2 interface for more casual games or for inexperienced players or "Competition" for the SC1 interface that would restore more of the challenge to competitive players and let more experienced players have more difficult games. What does everyone think? Should Blizzard give us a choice of interface style when setting up a game?

The interface is made easier but it has to become updated. On my post, i say that micro and macro is hard to implement in the game but cannot be done extremely (i.e. not changing the starcraft interface). I like the idea of customizing your own interface. For example before you play the campaign u choose the things u want on ur interface.

I like the idea of having the casual and competitive set-ups split. The more choice the better. Online competitions could be limited to tournament style and campaign could have both in the options for those who are familiar with the old or want to experience the new.

i don't like the idea. for one thing, i think the new interface problem has been largely exagerated. and i think the problem can be solved by toning down the new features, but not altogether eliminating them. the idea of having multiple interfaces in multiplayer overcomplicates things. there is a simpler solution, they just need to keep experimenting and find the right balance.

i agree that if you automatize too much, you end having nothing to play and the game is no longer fun or competitive... but i dont think sc2 is even close to that point! the few tools that have been added (multiple building selection, auto-gather resources, etc) dont cause that! maybe if they'd automatize some stuff such as detailing too many "standing stances" (several games did that mistake) or troop formations they might really compromise the game, but so far they didn't!

actually i think it's a great step: competition should not be based on how fast you click a mouse or you know all the shortcuts (although yes that ends up being necessary if you wanna be a top competitor),, but it should be about how good you are in choosing your units, how you combine them, when you choose to attack and when to retreat, which tech tree you wanna develop, etc.

afterall, it's called a strategy game, so it should be about thinking and strategy, not about having fast fingers and a lot of actions-per-minute!!!!

well.. if you have a high APM and have bad thinking + strategy skills... your APM will make up for the lack of strategy.

The faster you command your guys.. the faster you'll realize how flawed your strategy is.. and correct it (faster).

Actually, in for example warcraft, APM has almost replaced strategy as i saw many many strong competitors that haven't thought up any strategy even during one game, just picking up famous strategies and the battle depends on your APM. Although, at higher level this effect will be removed (as amount of APM is limited for sure) but this makes having strong and fast fingers or being completely familiar with all of the shortcuts not any benefit but a requirement for being a good competitor. So although speed of thinking and acting is important, but i do not think shall be that important (as said, like warcraft for example).

The problem is that the interface has the ability to decrease player's freedom. As an instance, when the interface is so simple and just availing basic actions, advanced ones will forced to be done by the player himself mixing those basics, but if the interface do such things it will surely cause problems as blocking some thinking points, like the devs are thinking in place of you instead (standing stances is one of these bad thinking limitations). But anyway, i dont think sc2 interface's new features have this problem, for example selecting multiple buildings is really good feature but still you are completely free to select the buildings one by one (for specialized uses, e.g. for quick researhcing or an emergancy unit production while you dont want to cancel current actions).

I think the problem with interface automation is what to become Auto and what to stay the same.
The thing I like much more SC than other RTS is the Non-Gather Rally point. But what I needed was something to remind of those Idle peons.
Battle Formations can take out the fun of the art of war. But Aggressive/Defensive/evasive Instances are the Great!
SC1 already had "follow", "attack-move", "scout" and "stop". Nothing more is needed.
Special moves CANNOT be Auto. They're Special, not just another ordinary action.
Too much units aren't needed. I like the "chess-like" system, when an enemy brings some units, I can counter with these, or pray to my upgraded basic troops to overwhelm the enemies.
I don't want this game turned into a Empire Earth, where dozens of units aren't needed and several upgrades are useless!
STARCRAFT is the most simple RTS ever! But the most replay-able of all others!
This sets on the easiness of the system.
Then, I vote for the old system (SC1), but with few changes.

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I think that people are forgetting about how well units are going to path in SC2. Selecting only 12 units at a time in SC1 was annoying, definitely. However, a lot of this annoyance came from the fact that units got confused when they had to walk around eachother (or through choke points), especially with clunky units like dragoons.

If the 12 units you select and order away are gone from the clump in only 3 seconds and you can select another 12 without getting duplicates from the first 12, it will still be easy to move large groups of units (at least compared to SC1), even if you can't select huge amounts of units at a time.

I think the extra speed of units being able to path around eachother will satisfy most people who played SC1 (though maybe not new players), and still having limited selection will keep the "higher-ups" happy as well. Maybe they could up it a little bit, to 16 or even 20.

to 16 or even 20.

limited selection will keep the "higher-ups" happy as well.

I do not understand the reason.
Normally, it is good idea to select alot of units by their type. When this is limited number, this will cost you nothing but some more keys for control groups, and as this will change rapidly during battle, actually it is nothing but an annoying feature. I mean when you can control 40 immortals in two groups of 20 by hotkeys, there is no reason to not turn it to a one 40-unit group controlled just by one key, but rather increases the amount of armies you can control at time much better so the average amount of units involved in battles will dramaticly increase (and i think this is one of sc2's purposes)