JINX has launched a new Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty T-Shirt among its 2010 Spring T-Shirts Line Up. This design shows a fight between Kerrigan the Queen of Blades and Zeratul, and the Starcraft II logo on the bottom-right. The T-shirt has the Blizzard logo stamped in the back, below the neck area.

A pretty cool T-shirt to have in your collection to show off to friends, and a great gift.



Continue reading...

Thanks to everyone who tuned in this past week to my weekly StarCraft II Beta LiveStream yesterday.  In case you missed the stream, I’ve once again added the replays to StarcraftWire’s Replay Database.  You can download the replay pack here:

2010-03-11 DT LiveStream

It includes 12 games featuring all three races.  My personal recommendation is replay 12 as it is the most fun I’ve had in a ZvZ.  Most ZvZ’s end early on with roach battles but this one had plenty of incredibly close battles as my opponenet and I were clearly equal in skill.  If anyone is curious, I’m a top 8 gold league player.  So while I’m no professional, you may learn a few things from watching.

This weeks stream will be on Thursday morning at 11AM EST (-5:00).  So be sure to tune in for more live StarCraft II Beta action.

Continue reading...

There has been another weekend in beta-land and with more players coming in to the beta in Wave #3, there has also been more replays submitted to the StarCraft 2 Replay Database by fans and more people interested in (and able to) watching them as well!

StarCraft 2 can show you previews from any version of the game, fortunately (as opposed to StarCraft 1), and despite Patch 5 coming out, you can still see all twists and turns by beta players.


Swarmed!

After quite a few loses in team games, Klear though this one was going looking pretty good. The next thing he knew, his base was flooded with more Hydralisks than fit into the view.
At least I got to fire some yamatos into them before falling to the might of the swarm.

2010-03-11 Deep.Thought LiveStream

Second batch of Deep.Thought's StarCraft 2 live stream. A pack of the 12 1v1 games he played that day if you missed them. He personally recommend LS12, the last game he played. It's is the longest and most interesting, lots of back and forth.

Powerful Counter

T&Z vs T&P on Lost Temple. Marines and Zealots rush Zerg, who manages to stop them with Roaches and base defenses. A counter-attack is launched against the Protoss players with Roaches, Marines and Thors. The game turns into a 2vTerran battle.

Power of Thors and Brood Lords

T&Z vs T&T on Twilight Fortress. The double Terran team tries the defences of the ZnT combo, and decides to try and bunker them in. A drone sneaks past, and the ZnT team tech up, showing the power of Thors and Brood Lords.

Kulas Ravine Cat n Mouse

Z&T vs T&P on Kulas Ravine. The second half of this replay is a pretty fun cat and mouse game. No silly obsessive flying around with Command Centres either!

Hard Battle at Lost Temple

T&Z vs T&P on Lost Temple. This was a long and hard battle. The Zerg player survives a rush and counter-attacks the Protoss player. A while later, the Zerg player gets crippled by air attacks as he foolishly had not made expansions. Shortly thereafter, the Protoss player is wiped out completely, and it's a 2vTerran game. However, he has a lot of Battlecruisers, made at the expense of all his income. The match does not have an as clear outcome as it looks to be.

For all replay and match video news, check out the Battle Reports & Replays news category (you can see all categories in the right hand side menu). Also, when you upload a game, please do post in the StarCraft 2 Beta forum thread, and tell us more about it, so we don't miss interesting matches!

Continue reading...

Russell Brower was interviewed to discuss his music compositions for all Blizzard games, including Starcraft II. One well-crafted and ill-intentioned question thrown to hit beneath the belt, seemed to have stroke a nerve making Brower laugh. Will he be playing music live at BlizzCon 2010? Now that's a walk-on-the-rope question attempting to sneak out whether there's gonna be a Blizzcon this year.

Blizzard Entertainment has not made any announcements or acknowledged whether there will be a BlizzCon this year.

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	Will you be doing more of that sort of thing in the coming year - perhaps at Blizzcon? Russell: You'll have to ask our friendly PR about that [Laughs]. Blizzard always want to outdo ourselves and bring the very best we can to that show. But if any event deserves that kind of complexity and energy, we'll bring it.

Brower answered a Starcraft II questions too:

	Blizzard Quote:
	Starcraft II is going to be a more 'rockier' affair than the pastoral elements of Warcraft. How would you characterise the score? I wasn't personally involved with the original Starcraft game. But the music for Starcraft II is pretty faithful - again, it's an evolutionary process. The rock-fusion-jazzy mix of soundtrack that works with these space trucking cowboy-types is certainly in there. [Blizzard's] Glenn Stafford, who did the original Starcraft music, has done similar work on Starcraft II.

Continue reading...

Gamers attending the Emerald City Comic Con 2010 should know Keith R.A. DeCandido -- the convention-hopper -- is there today at booth 502 signing Farscape and Farscape: D'Argo's Lament and D'Argo's Trial.

He recently announced he's gonna be writing some D&D stuff.

Bring your copies of Starcraft: Ghost Nova, Starcraft: Ghost Academy and World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred for signing.

The 8th Annual ECCC is taking place at:

Washington State Convention Center (Map)
800 Convention Place
Seattle, WA 98101

Get Directions
(206) 694-5030

Continue reading...

The Escapist dared to corner Rob Pardo at the GDC 2010 to ask if Blizzard has plans to license Battle.net to third parties.

Rob Pardo responded it's a theme the team has talked about and basically would be a lot of work and a challenge on their end to maintain. It would also represent a somewhat competitive platform for Blizzard giving the example that if Blizzard was to release a game and a third party game was on sale at the same time, there could be some complications or conflict of interests.

Blizzard is testing the Starcraft II Map Marketplace as a prototype experiment to see how well it is received by gamers, and how successful it becomes or how much support it gets from gamers.

Depending on how well that feature goes, and other factors, there might be an internal consensus on whether they are interested or capable to handle a Battle.net license.

There is no definite decision whether they are going to license Battle.net, but the thought is laid on the table. In the distance, a tinkering and smiley Bob Kotick plays in his mind a tune over and over. It sounds like: Ca$$$hin !!!

No, Bobby isn't thinking about a Las Vegas slot machine. That's for noobie entrepeneurs. He's thinking about Blizzard's Battle.net



Continue reading...

The Starcraft II Beta Developer Twitter Chat # 1 revealed several details about beta testing.

• Blizzard plans to release a major content patch mid-April to enable some basic achievements and improved voice chat, 3v3 and 4v4 maps, among other unidentified features.
• A Mac beta client will be available in April, when it's ready.
• The Map Editor will be out before late-April.
• No new races are planned for the three episodes of Starcraft II.
• The roach, Infestor and reaper are currently in their Watch List.
• Critters were not priority for beta, and will eventually be added.
• Plans for Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) and community maps ladder and matchmaking.
• Dustin said more players will be invited to beta in upcoming weeks, and encourages gamers to enable the StarCraft 2 beta opt-in option in the Battle.net Account webpage to qualify.
• Replay hosting and sharing won't be available at ship date.
• Streamed replays for Tournament Finals is planned in future Starcraft II expansions.

Below you can read the 4-pages transcript.

	Blizzard Quote:
	So many people are complaining about this on the forum... is it true that there will be no chat channels? I hope not! We do have plans for chat channels. Specifically, we want to organize chat channels around users' interests so you know what types of conversations you are going to get into when you join a channel. This feature is not something that will be in for beta. Currently we plan to do this feature in a patch after the game launches. Are you guys still working on the Map Editor; and if so, what features are you planning to incorporate into the final piece? Yes. We're still working on the Map Editor and currently working on the publishing system. We intend to release an early version of the editor during the beta so the map-making community can get a head start creating their own maps. This is going to be a stretch for us to pull off, but our hope is to get it out before the end of April. Do you really use beers to balance units? And do you really use that rubber gun to make a decision? I'm drunk now! Seriously the Jace Hall show was fun to do, but we take our jobs pretty seriously when it comes to the actual work. =)

More after the break.

Continue reading...

Blizzard intends to release the Starcraft II Map Editor approximately before the end of April 2010 to allow the Map-making community to play around with it during the beta period. The Starcraft II Team is currently polishing the publishing system. This was just answered in the Starcraft II Beta Developers Chat on Twitter. You can still submit your questions by using the hashtag #BlizzChat

	Blizzard Quote:
	Yes. We're still working on the Map Editor and currently working on the publishing system. We intend to release an early version of the editor during the beta so the map-making community can get a head start creating their own maps. This is going to be a stretch for us to pull off, but our hope is to get it out before the end of April.

Note: This is the map editor image used on the front page.

Continue reading...

The fifth patch of Starcraft II Beta has been deployed: Starcraft II patch 5, build version 0.7.0.14356. It balances the Protoss Cybernetics Core, and some Zerg units and buildings.

PROTOSS

Cybernetics Core

• Warp Gate research time increased from 60 seconds to 140 seconds.

ZERG

Hatchery/Lair/Hive

• Burrow research time increased from 50 seconds to 100 seconds.
  
• Burrow research cost increased from 50 Minerals and 50 Vespene Gas to 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.

Nydus Network

• Nydus Worm build time increased from 10 seconds to 20 seconds.

Hydralisk

• The delay between attacks has been increased from 0.75 seconds to 0.83 seconds.

Infestor

• Neural Parasite has been redesigned:
  
  • The limited duration of 10 seconds has been removed.
    
  • Can no longer target air units.
    
  • Cast range decreased from 9 to 7.
  
  
• Burrowed Infestor move speed decreased from 1.5 to 1.
  
• Infestor life decreased from 120 to 90.
  
• Infestors that are burrowed now have the same threat level as above-ground units for the purposes of automatically acquiring targets.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with High graphics settings that could cause particles not to render.

Continue reading...

It was a while back i posted some friday fun stuff but now the beta is here and i have picked up some favorite matches for your enjoyment. For the latest information about the beta, dont forget to visit our own beta center. Since this is friday lets start with a little dance shall we?

More after the break.

Continue reading...

StarCraft: IncGamers staff member ego has finished the fourth part of the Complete N00b Guide to the StarCraft 2 Beta. In these videos he is biting into early game units, and in part 4 he is having in a look at how Protoss starts. If you somehow missed a previous part, you can find them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.




If you have played StarCraft I extensively, these videos may not be for you. Rather head over to our first and second Battle Reports by the staff team, or Starcraft II Raven Offensive Strategies by Medievaldragon instead.

Don't forget to subscribe to the StarcraftWire Youtube channel and follow the StarcraftWire Twitter page for all the latest StarCraft 2 updates.

If you don't have access yet, make sure to check out the StarCraft 2 Beta Centre for a list of all ways you can get a key.

Continue reading...

Rob Pardo led a panel at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2010) to explain Blizzard's philosophies and core design desicions when developing a game, and the success and failure of some of their concept design.

Pardo said the Starcraft II multiplayer was built first, and they didn't work on the single player until they had the multiplayer pretty much playable, with some decent level of polishing. Two years after the multiplayer reached that level of completeness they wanted, the single player development started to take shape.

Some developers usually start the wrong way, with the single player development first, and then the multiplayer. He explained why this is a mistake from a design point of view.

Pardo used the original Starcraft as an example to one of their failures: the Heroes (such as Jim Raynor, Sarah Kerrigan, and Fenix -- to name a few). The heroes were fragile, and players would keep them sitting at the base to avoid failing the mission.

He mentions their design for the hero system worked as intended in Warcraft III, where the heroes are powerful, and won't die easily. Each of these heroes took the center stage throughout the single player's story and players had to take them out of the base to explore and battle any enemy.

With this Rob Pardo is sending mixed messages. It was said some time ago that Starcraft II's hero system wouldn't be like the one designed for Warcraft III, yet this GDC 2010 panel says the original Starcraft's hero system wasn't used by players as intended, and the Warcraft III's hero system was successful in that regard. This leaves one to ponder what's the Starcraft II Team plan for heroes such as Jim Raynor, Tychus Findlay, and Nova in Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. Not to mention the mini Protoss campaign.

The interrogative lies there somewhere in hindsight. They don't plan Starcraft II players to have the hero sit at the base, right?

	Blizzard Quote:
	Pardo feels that Blizzard failed in this task with the original Starcraft, specifically when it came to hero units. By their nature, heroes should be the character that is the most powerful unit on the field who leads armies and can turn the tide of battle. In Starcraft, though, the hero units were fragile, especially in battles involving 50-plus units, so players ended up sheltering their hero back at their base. He said this problem was fixed in Warcraft III, though, where the hero actually was the most powerful unit, and since battle sizes were smaller and the legendary fighters could resurrect, players used them as intended. -- Gamespot

Continue reading...

With hard work from Rushster, Elly, Medievaldragon, many other StarCraft: IncGamers staff members (and of course myself), we are re-launching the StarCraft 2 Beta Centre!

You may or may not have noticed the new, spangly, menu to your right, where it's always possible to get a shortcut to the 14 utmost essentials:



Beyond that, you can also find the big list of StarCraft 2 content (such as videos, Battle Reports, guides and much more), news categorised for the main topics (such as beta key info, release date, etc) news archives, list of ways to get a beta key, StarCraft 2 Alpha and pre-Alpha coverage and much much more.

If the StarCraft 2 Beta Centre wasn't already on your bookmarks, perhaps now is a good time to add it!

Continue reading...