Posted by Rushster.
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As you may have read already in the news here, gaming site 1UP are running a special StarCraft week and the coverage has continued with numerous articles and further video interviews with the team. The series concludes on Friday (later today) but you can catch-up on everything from earlier in the week via this page.
This seems to be material gathered about the same time I was visiting Blizzard in LA for the Zerg Reveal. It is a 4 minute interview with Chris Sigaty, Producer of starCraft II. As always, he is a nice bloke, and gives good answers.
Chat with Devs: One of the latest changes the Devs are trying for the Nomad is replacing their previous stationary Mine Drone with Spider Mines. The Spider Mines behave the same as Spider Mines from the original StarCraft. It now also does 50 damage plus 50 additional damage towards armored units. Instead of only having 3 Spider Mines, the Nomad will be able to plant Spider Mines with the cost of 15 energy. These Mines will definitely prove quite formidable against mass Tier 1 units such as Zerglings and charging Zealots.
As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if you are enjoying the batches.
1. Can the Ghost snipe casting (energy based) units in the fog of war using its passive sensing ability? (Battle.net) crazy_dave
While the Ghost will not be able to snipe casters in the fog of war, their current range to detect casters(units with energy) is 30, giving you plenty of time to prepare for incoming threats.
2. Could you tell us more details about the Reapers' mines mechanics? Are they visible for the enemy? Can they be defused, or should simply be destroyed? Do they deal damage to friendly units and to each other? If so, does the explosion of one mine cause the detonation of its neighbors, or they just die, without dealing damage? (Battle.net) Elsoron
Yes, the Reapers mines will be visible, though depending on the placement, they can be covered by enemy units moving over them. The mines have very few hit points and can be killed easily. Nonetheless, it is important to note that they are very small, making it more difficult to micromanage those attacks when there are several mines.
Mines damage both enemy and friendly units/buildings, so making sure you dont blow up your own Reapers is quite important Mines will not detonate other mines, have a 30 second cooldown, and they currently do 30 damage plus 30 additional damage to armored units (including buildings). Furthermore, the mine is now an upgradeable ability of the Reaper.
3. In StarCraft II there are destructible obstacles like rocks. Apart from simply killing them the Protoss Nullifier can lift them with his Anti-Gravity spell. Do the other races have any similar options to remove or pass the rocks with spells? (broodwar.de)
Actually, the ability to lift destructible doodads has been classified as a bug and has been fixed in the latest builds. Nullifiers have already proved to be quite strong when used in groups, being able to lift up Siege Tanks and Ultralisks, effectively taking them out of combat until the rest of their reinforcements are dead.
4. Do Anti-Gravitated Banelings keep their suicidal abilities and act as Scourge? (sc2blog.com)
Yes, when Banelings die while being lifted by Anti-Gravity, their explosion will hit air units in its area of effect. This could undoubtedly open up some unique and unexpected strategies in team games.
5. Blizzard made 2 e-sport oriented games after StarCraft: Warcraft 3 and WoW. What are the biggest lessons that you've learned from those 2 games and how will you apply them to StarCraft II? - VIB (teamliquid.net)
One of the main goals for StarCraft II is to keep the game very visually intuitive and readable. As Dustin has mentioned in our recent chat, visually When a unit teleports, it teleports. When it shoots, it looks like it is shooting. It should be easy to follow on a screen and players should be able to quickly understand what is happening in the battles. Futhermore, Blizzards games has followed the premise of easy to learn and hard to master. StarCraft II will follow this philosophy.
6. How does the Marauders slow ability work against the Zealots charge ability. According to present knowledge the concussion grenade shot of a Marauder forces its target to stop moving for a short time; afterwards the targeted unit can go straight forward. So does it stop a charging Zealot and does the speed bonus remain? (starcraft2.4players.de)
When the Marauders concussion grenade hits an enemy target, it will reduce that units speed immediately by a set percentage. The cooldown of the concussion grenade shot is subject to balance. Nonetheless, a charging Zealot slowed by a concussion grenade is still pretty fast. Before the Protoss player upgrades their Zealots with charge, a Marauder can kite a Zealot with relatively little micromanagement.
After posting the Q&A Karune continued by answering an additional question on spider mines:
Will the spider mines do splash dameage and for the reapers is there a limit for their mines?
Yes, Spider Mines will do splash damage.
Mines for the Reapers will only be limited by their cooldown timer.
Another late-coming Zerg Preview, this time by CVG. It seems a lot of editors have just sat on their materials for the last month or so, and in all honesty, I also have a bit more I could show you. In the meanwhile, it's an interesting read for anyone who missed the big bang back in March:
What were you doing in 1998? Chances are if you owned a PC you were playing StarCraft, a breakneck RTS from the creators of World of Warcraft.
On its release, StarCraft blew through the RTS genre like a cyclone, generating a fanatical fan base that still thrives to this very day, especially in South Korea.
The game's allure stemmed from the diversity of its three factions, each of which required a radically different approach to annihilate the enemy. Now, a decade on, these three warring races - the technologically advanced, cybernetically enhanced Protoss; the determined, conventional Terrans (humans); and the insectoid warrior Zerg - are set to clash once again in a battle for supremacy.
Shortly after I was visiting Blizzard in Irivine and checking out The Zerg, 1UP was also invited, and they have now summarized their experiences in this preview. It isn't so much an in-depth article on what is new and cool with StarCraft II as it is a summary about the matches they played, and the editors' discussion about the game with each other. So sorry, no new revelations from Blizzard...
Blizzard's worldwide headquarters in Irvine, CA. Less than a week after Blizzard opened the doors to an international group of writers from across the globe, we were invited down a closed, head-to-head play session of StarCraft II -- just the two of us, playing the Terran, Protoss, and newly-revamped Zerg as we saw fit. And play we did over six long, brutal (for Jeff, anyway) hours of real-time strategizing.
The Blizzard store seems to be more than just a place to buy games for digital delivery (downloads, duh), there are also other perks associated with being registered on the site, and that is the lottery of Beta keys for future Blizzard games! As we never will be able to promise all our beloved WorldofWar.net members to get a beta key each, it might be a good idea to sign up just for this. They are not requiring anyone to purchase items or even register a credit card to be signed up!
Another great perk of the system is that you can download fresh copies of your old "Legacy" cds, if they are lost, and you still have the CD key:
How can I download and play games with a Blizzard Account?
To download a Blizzard Entertainment game, it must be registered to the Blizzard Account you use and the game must also be currently available for download. To register a game, you can enter either the standard box key that was included with your copy (commonly referred to as a CD key), or the new 26-digit digital key (included with new boxed copies of games and digital downloads purchased from the Blizzard Store). Once it is registered and available to download, you can download and play the game from any computer.
Is there a limit to the number of times I can download a game?
No, there is no limit to how many times you can download a given game.
Noted:
There seems to be some temporary problem with e-mail verification from the site. I have tried to register and change my e-mail several times, and more than one registration. Let's hope it will be back and working soon, I want to register my Legacy games!
A dream coming true for all genuine Blizzard fanboys. Finally a place to get ALL your BlizzNeeds at one and the same place. It's also a comfort that Blizzard probably takes a lot larger chunk out of the prices, regardless if they are outsourcing the actual store or not. We might even see things as non-numbered Frostmournes there as well in the future.
Having a venue to buy StarCraft crisps or sneakers from Korea would also rock. Needless to say, this store has potential, both from the BlizzNerds such as myself and many others, as well as those that just want to buy games, or other "essentials". Go check it out!
We have received a great amount of information from Karune and Xordiah, the US and EU Community Managers for the RTS side of Blizzard, for a long time now, and the amount of Q&A Batches have risen to almost 200 questions answered! This is also excluding all the other information they have given out in other ways such as answering questions themselves or talking to us fansites in Irvine.
In order to try and get some sort of organization on all these, we have started to put all these batches of Q&A sessions in a system. As this has been archived since the start, it even has more accurate content than the official thread by Karune on battle.net. More will come, but for now you can easily find ALL information available from these QA sessions here:
While this video preview contains no new information, it's a very nice summary of StarCraft II's development since it was announced in Seoul, Korea on last year's WWI. IGN has made a well edited and narrated preview of all the available information on StarCraft II, even if some of the attacks the units use are now changed.
It's also humorous to see the difference between their edited into Marine, and the actual one from the cinematics.
ScreenCraft: This batch's screenshot is to show the significant size increase of the Baneling since the original Protoss announcement gameplay trailer. The size increase is to allow the possibility of focus firing on incoming Banelings with additional micromanagement.
An army of Banelings invade a developing rival Zerg base.
1. Do Protoss Immortals get killed when a Nuke explodes next to them(seeing as the Hardened Shield blocks all high profile attacks and that a Nuke is definitely a high profile attack)? (Battle.net) Eragon320
In term of units, the only units that will be able to survive a Nuke will be the Protoss Mothership and Immortals upgraded with Hardened Shields. An upgraded Immortal will take 10 damage from a Nuke. To all other units, the Nuke will do 800 damage, thus making it much more powerful than the Nuke in the original StarCraft.
2. How powerful is the Roach's regeneration ability? How much time is needed to regenerate from 1 to full hp? (sc2pod.com)
The Roach currently regenerates 15 hit points per second, allowing it to regenerate to full health in 6 seconds. In countering Roaches, a player must either micromanage the battle to make sure they are focus firing on each Roach one at a time, or they have to bring in high damage units such as Siege Tanks or Archons.
3. Are Overseers any tougher than Overlords? (Battle.net) Mestroyer
When an Overlord evolves into an Overseer, it will gain a speed bonus, passive detection, the ability to generate creep below it, and the ability to corrupt' resources to make it more difficult for opponents to gain access to them. Furthermore, when Overseers sit in the same spot, over time its visual range will increase (but not its detection range).
4. Is it worth it to build a Terran Reactor Add-on since the benefit of doubling your queue list is not that useful, as it is often a bad idea to have your queue full? (gamereplays.org)
Yes! The Terran Reactor doesn't just double the size of your queue list. For a mere 50 minerals and 50 gas cost for the Reactor, that Barracks, Factory, or Starport will have the ability to create two units simultaneously (assuming that unit doesn't require a tech lab add-on). Most of the time, building the Reactor will be worth it, rather than building a second Barracks, Factory, or Starport. Not only will you be able to build from a single building the production of two normal buildings, you will be able to salvage that Reactor if needed to get 100% of the cost back. Being able to salvage allows for quick tech shifts or evacuations.
5. Will there be different building textures resembling the actual terrain? (in Warcraft 2 the buildings were snowy on the winter maps) (starcraft2.hu)
This is something the art team would like to do, though it will ultimately come down to time. There's a lot of art work still left to do, such as their current task, which is putting the finishing touches on the Terran Marauder amongst several other units. On the Marauder, players will be able to see many intricate animations for both the weapons and their power suits.
6. Did the High Templar's Hallucination ability undergo any changes due to the introduction of new tough units, such as Thor or Colossus? (battle.net) Elsoron
The Hallucination ability did not undergo changes because of those new units, but it did get significant buffs since the original StarCraft. First off, hallucinated units still have the same hit points as the original unit, but take double damage. Furthermore, the duration the unit lasts for will be around 2-3 minutes, which will be significantly longer than the original StarCraft. On top of that, to hallucinate a unit only costs 40 energy, which is much cheaper than the original StarCraft's cost of 100 energy.
---End of Transmission---
Not much extra Karune action after the post just a little bit on Baneling movement:
Do the Banelings still roll when they move?
Banelings roll when they are given a move command, but while idle, they 'stand.'
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