 |
|
 Blizzard Quote: |
||
| Developer Panel. StarCraft II November 19 2009 On November 6 at Igromir, Lead Producer Chris Sigaty talked about the development of the hotly anticipated game, StarCraft II. He described some features that look set to make the sequel even better than the original and at the same time keep all the things that made StarCraft an RTS classic. Chris explained that four basic principles have been taken into account during the development of StarCraft II. The first is to improve all the features of the original StarCraft; the second to implement an absolutely new approach to singleplayer in an RTS game. The third and the fourth principles are the complete incorporation of the game into the Battle.net platform, and the creation of a unique game editor. The game’s engine has been built from scratch. The graphics follows the style of the first game but look modern and up-to-date. The three races will be different not only visually but also in how they play. Many units familiar from the original StarCraft have been changed, and many new units have been added. However, StarCraft fans will recognize many units they already know very well. The maps are rich, filled with lots of new objects, and the user interface has been greatly improved. The singleplayer campaign will be absolutely unique. The story of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty takes place four years after the conclusion of StarCraft: Brood War. Players take the role of Jim Raynor. The singleplayer mode will be brought to life with a so-called history mode where players will be able to interact with the environment; for instance, you can talk to NPCs and discover the latest news from all over the in-game world. Players will be able to buy upgrades, hire mercenaries and conduct laboratory research. For example, if a player prefers to use marines, he or she can concentrate all their efforts on upgrading this unit. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty’s singleplayer campaign will consist of 28 non-linear missions. The sequence of events will differ depending on the actions of the player. The new version of Blizzard’s online gaming platform, Battle.net, will be one of the most important parts of StarCraft II. It will allow users to always be online: now players will not need to log into Battle.net to find a match. Moreover, each player will be able to find an opponent of the same experience and skills. Each player will have their own profile which will contain all the up-to-date information about them including achievements. Achievements will be something new to the StarCraft series. They will make the gameplay more exciting and challenging. Also some of them will have unique rewards like decals. Players will be able to participate in multiplayer with the implementation of leagues. Each player will have to take part in 10 qualifying matches to be included in a league uniting players of the same experience and skills. Ladders will be compiled within those leagues. Battle.net will also unite players of all Blizzard games. One of the features which will help in this is cross-game chat for all Blizzard games. Thus, a StarCraft II player will be able to talk to his or her friend who is currently playing World of Warcraft. The StarCraft II editor will allow users to create various maps and mods for the game with very few restrictions. Also planned is a special map market which will ultimately allow players to trade maps with each other for money. |
||
Can koreans be beaten in StarCraft? In the latest WCG qualifying rounds Stork defends his country´s reputation against Malaysia and Mexico. First match is against JohnRambo from Malaysia.
Second match is against GOSl which represent Mexico.
And now to some epic fight between Bisu vs Jeadong, an PvZ match that will entertain you.
Thats all for today. Take care and have a nice weekend.
Today, with the new updated Starcraft2.com, we also got a batch of all-new screenshots! Four to be precise, enjoy them!
Something Awful has contributed a comedy piece purporting to answer that very question. They’ve got (fake) emails from various imaginary Blizzard employees on the issue, which you may find amusing to read. Here are a couple of their “quotes” from the Diablo team:
“We were actually ready to send the gold master out last month, but it turns out somewhere along the line spellcheck turned every instance of ‘Diablo’ into ‘Dublin’. Right now we’re regrouping figuring out whether we want to start the whole thing from scratch or just roll with it and rework the graphics/story to go all-out Gaelic with what we’ve got.”
Eric Hiccupcure
Diablo III Speedboat Physics Consultant“A few weeks ago one of our testers told us, ‘You guys do realize that there’s no such thing as magic in real life, right?’ and we’ve been scrambling to rework the majority of the skills ever since.”
Skeet Faultline
Diablo III Test Animal Wrangler
"Thought Bubble is a four day annual event which celebrates sequential art in all its forms, including everything from superheroes to independent small press. We are a non profit making organisation dedicated to promoting comics and graphic novels as an important cultural art form. Taking place at a variety of venues across the city, our aim is to cater to both long-time comic book fans and those who have never picked up a graphic novel before! Thought Bubble will take place 19th - 22nd November 2009 with a centre-piece one day convention on Saturday 21st
Thought Bubble will include art and writing based workshops for young people and adults, panels and talks lead by industry professionals and a programme of sequential art related film screenings. The special one day convention includes an incredible line up of leading artists and writers, and over 150 tables selling comics and merchandise. The day will also feature portfolio viewings and competitions. This promises to be one of the best events of its kind in the UK, where you’ll be able to meet some of your favourite comic book creators and browse the huge selection of memorabilia on sale - brought to you by the biggest and best exhibitors and dealers from across the country"
The Starcraft II Q&A Batch 55 is now available. There were only two relevant details in this Q&A in my opinion that weren’t known before. During the World of Warcraft installation, you don’t have to stare at the installation progress bar for 20 minutes. You get to read the background story from previous games and expansions.
Karune just revealed that during the installation of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty you will be able to read the background story of Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War—this for the many players new to the game who never played the original games. Pretty nice.
The second one is Window mode works exactly like in World of Warcraft where you can set the window mode to full size or disable resize—very good option for those who like to check out their email while waiting on a queue. Map makers won’t have a map converter to get original Starcraft maps converted to Starcraft II maps—kinda like ... duh?
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| 1. Not all potential players of StarCraft II have played the original StarCraft before, thus they might encounter problems with the understanding of the story. Is it possible to play the campaign of StarCraft II without knowing anything? Will you come up with some things that happened in the original StarCraft and Brood War again – just so that people not familiar to the story get more information?
We plan on having story elements that will bring players up to speed on the most recent plot developments and prepare them for the StarCraft II storyline. We also plan on having a plot summary of what transpired in the original StarCraft and Brood War during the installation process. However we feel that regardless of your familiarity with the original story, all players will be able to enjoy the story developments in StarCraft II. 2. You have already announced that you are going to record various stats when playing StarCraft II with the new Battle.net 2.0 – but how detailed will those statistics be? Will one be able to see how many units of a certain kind (for example Marines) one have build or even killed so far? We will be recording a large amount of stats for StarCraft II, but we are still in discussion as to which stats will ultimately be tracked. We will determine how detailed the stat-tracking will be based on what information we think will benefit our players the most to help improve their game. 3. You have already stated that you will support DirectX 10, but what about DirectX 11? We currently do not have any plans on supporting DirectX11-specific features, but the game will be compatible with DirectX11. 4. How many stats will a Hero unit be able to take? Three like in Warcraft 3 or is there even a limit? If you create a user-map with heroes, you can outfit them with a large number of stats. However, currently only three stats will be able to be displayed on the UI due to limited space. 5. In lore Protoss warp in their units and buildings from some far planet. Will there be any mechanic that reflects this such as a “warp out” that could act as a refund? We do not have any plans to include a “warp out” game mechanic. We have discussed the possibility of this in the past, but it felt too similar to the Terran mechanics of being able to salvage the structures. 6. Will there be a converter to convert our favorite original StarCraft maps to StarCraft II maps? I don’t want to lose all of my favorite maps from the original StarCraft when I get StarCraft II. There will not be a map converter for StarCraft II. Map-makers will have to manually rebuild any of their maps using the new StarCraft II map editor. 7. I’m just going to assume that you will have some sort of window mode in StarCraft II. But I was wondering if you’re going to implement a windowed mode like the one that World of Warcraft has? You know where you can maximize the window, removing the borders and enabling fullscreen mode yet providing easy access to the desktop. You will be able to select both windowed and full-screen windowed modes from the options menu. |
||
Tokyopop provided a copy of Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 4 for review. I have been awaiting this volume for months with a lot of enthusiasm because Chris Metzen is the writer of one of the stories. It’s titled HOMECOMING. Basically it is a backstory tie-in with Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. We were invited to play the Single Player back on July 17, and fans could play the single player demo at Blizzcon 2009. Those who were able to may have experienced and interacted with Jim Raynor at the Joey Ray’s Bar in Mar Sara the first three missions.
The story in this manga starts with Jim Raynor crossing the streets of Mar Sara on his Vulture hovercraft unit and arrives to a ruined house. On the ground there’s a secret vault that opens up after he enters the password. It contained within a box that held his Marshall badge, a photo of the Heaven’s Devils with Tychus Findaly in it, the Heaven’s Devils insignia, and more importantly ... his wedding ring. You can see all of this in our recent preview scans.
The story is very nicely told shifting from the present to the past, back and forth. We get to see flashes of Jim Raynor’s past with his pregnant wife, then back to the present as Raynor browses through his box of memories. The artwork is great, except for some inconsistencies between young Raynor and old Raynor. And a bit of a puzzle ... why is Jim Raynor getting letters from the Confederates, instead of email or a video transmission? If Jim Raynor is a Marshall in the story, why is he not bald-shaved following military protocol like we met him in Starcraft. Oddities in continuity. Constructive criticism aside, let’s move on to the juicy highlights of this story.
SPOILER ALERT
There is a fast-forward scene with his child playing, and a conversation with his wife about their future together. The Confederates sent a letter to Jim Raynor to inform him that his child’s tests revealed some potential psi-abilities and want to train him off-world.
Jim Raynor opposed that decision, but his wife wanted the child to serve their people and sorta have a brighter future than his dad ... did that stung his pride as a backwater Marshall. Shortly after the Confederates took the child off-world, Raynor was informed that his child tragically died in an accident. Year, right. Those dirty backstabbing treacherous lying @#$%. Overall, I enjoyed the short story ... I see some interesting potential twists in the mind of a man of ideas: Chris Metzen. Did Jim Raynor’s child truly died? Did the Confederates secretly trained the child into a Ghost? If so, after the Arcturus built the Terran Dominion and took over the Ghost Program ... what could have been of him?
I’m not sure if I am reading the signals correctly, but here is my take on this:
A. An unknown brand-new character
B. Agent Devon Starke (Ghost # 25876)
C. Is he among the Starcraft Ghost: Academy cadets?
C. Drools .... protoss/human hybrid: Gestalt Zero (former human)
I see some drama coming our way throughout the three episodes of StarCraft II. The manga story by Chris Metzen wraps up at the Joey Ray’s Bar where we see how the Mar Sara Marshall badge ends up strapped to the wall in-game, and a report by Kate Lockwell plays in the background. Here we see Raynor taking his first glass of alcohol, and we learn why he stubbornly persists on his fight against Arcturus and his Terran Dominion.
The story was too short, and could have explored other aspects of Jim Raynor’s past, such as a more in-depth view of the Heaven’s Devils team, and those outlaw stuff Raynor did in his young years prior to marrying. At least just a mention. I guess we will have to find out on April 6, 2010 when Pocket Books launches Starcraft: Heaven’s Devils by William C. Dietz.
A little backstory or mention of the Zerg invasion, the destruction of the infested Command Center that got him arrested by the Confederates, his liberation by Arcturus Mengsk and other stuff could have served to stretch the story a bit longer than what we got, but I am optimistic that Chris Metzen’s story had two specific goals: to see what the ghosts tormenting Jim Raynor are, and my personal interpretation of a possible plot hanging in the air ... did the Confederates say the truth about Raynor’s son? Did he truly die? Will his son play an important role in the game, and later climax revealing out of nowhere X character is his son?
This manga doesn’t really answer any of those questions. As far as I read, Jim Raynor did never see a corpse. He simply read a letter saying so. He took it for granted to be true. Will this plot find out its way into any of the three episodes of Starcraft II? Or in a Starcraft II novel maybe? Hmm .. that’s worth a thought. More on the next Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 4 stories as I read them. For now, get your hands on this final volume of the Starcraft: Frontline series, and if you can, collect the other four volumes. They have very nice plots that tie-in with the single player—as you can hear straight from Chris Metzen in our video interview.
Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the G-Star 2009 enlisted this year Blizzard Entertainment which would participate in the event for the first time with the largest size.
November 13, 2009
Held at BEXCO in Busan, Korea on November 26 ~ 29, the G-Star 2009 announced the confirmed game publishers participating in the largest Korean game festival. This year, Blizzard Entertainment and MGame are participating in the festival for the first time, while other participants include major Korean game publishers such as NHN, Nexon, NCsoft, Neowiz Games, CJ Internet and WeMade Entertainment.
As they did last year, NCsoft, Neowiz Games and Nexon plan to minimize events or shows and create their booths to display new games this year, likely filling the festival with a plenty of eye-catchers.
- BEXCO of Busan to Host G-Star 2009
This year, the G-Star is held in BEXCO of a harbor city, Busan, far away from Seoul instead of KINTEX in Ilsan where all the other G-Star events took place. BEXCO is a specialized exhibition center located in Centum-city, Busan’s largest multi-functional city combining IT, media, entertainment and shopping. It is considered the optimal showroom space for visitors, companies and buyers thanks to multiple five-star hotels and recreational & shopping facilities within its vicinity.
The G-Star 2009 will build facilities such as the contents sector PR hall, next-generation game PR hall, job fair center and online game genre showroom. In addition, the online game genre showroom with four themes (MMORPG, FPS, action and casual zones) will be available for small and medium game publishers that can hardly participate in the festival with their exclusive booths.
The G-Star 2009 will be carried out along with diverse auxiliary events, including the ICON 2009 (an international contents developer conference), GNGWC 2009 (game contest), music concerts, family game contest and board game contest.
- NCsoft , NHNand Blizzard Entertainment
Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the G-Star 2009 enlisted this year Blizzard Entertainment which would participate in the event for the first time with the largest size.
The War Pigs launch their suicidal assault on Tamsen Cauley’s mobile base of operations. Even if they’re lucky, no one gets out alive! But this isn’t the end. Unknown to the War Pigs, uber-Ghost Nova is shadowing them. But are her intentions merely a prelude to a fate far worse than death?Keith R.A. DeCandido is the author of more than 40 novels, most of them in the media universes of Star Trek, Farscape, Supernatural, StarCraft, World of Warcraft, CSI: NY, Resident Evil, and a ton more. This year, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers.
New friday, new batte. We start things with a match between Stork vs Nada an pretty intresting terran vs protoss match.
Next up we have a great match, Jedong vs Mind. a terran vs zerg battle. Jedong is one of the best zerg players out there which makes this a “must see”
Next up we have battle report 4 but just like last time with a twist. It is the same person who does this sarcastic commentary but it is quite entertaining.
Thats it for now. Take care and have a nice weekend.
We have direct contact with Blizzard Entertainment’s Community Managers, Public Relations and some developers. So we get the scoop pretty fast on things whether we contacting them or they sending us flash news.
We want to alert all of our visitors to halt any flight or hotel arrangements provoked by the rumor that BlizzCon would take place at Las Vegas. It has been confirmed to be a rumor.
Blizzard Entertainment has not provided any details on the next BlizzCon, so you should leave all your planning for the moment Blizzard makes an official announcement either at the Blizzard.com or BlizzCon.com websites.
It would be very saddening to see thousands of players spending in arrangements for something that hasn’t been confirmed or announced officially. This year over 20,000 Blizzcon tickets were sold in less than 30 seconds.
“If you didn’t make it into the queue in those 30 seconds, you didn’t get a ticket.”—said Mike Morhaime a few months ago. For that matter, rumors like this could be devastating pushing thousands of people to arrange flight and hotel right away or to cancel, ever seen how much you get charged for cancelling? ouch.
It’s unclear if there was an approach; if the Las Vegas convention administrators accidentally leaked too early—you know dates can change at any time specially rushed this early; or if it was a publicity stunt. Whatever happened here, just ignore it. Blizzard might have other plans for location or date, and it would be too risky to make reservations this early under those nebulous terms. Blizzard always gives fans a four months window in advance to make arrangements after they make the official announcement.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| “We haven’t announced any details regarding our next BlizzCon, so please refrain from making any travel plans at this time.”—said a Blizzard representative to all fansites last night. | ||
Update (1:28pm): The nail on the coffin for the Las Vegas rumor ... Nethaera (WoW Community Manager) has reached all fansites via email to inform us the following:
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| Nethaera: We haven’t announced any details regarding our next BlizzCon—though we can confirm that it will not be held in Las Vegas—so we recommend everyone refrain from making any BlizzCon-related travel plans at this time. | ||
Update (4:30pm EST): WoWInsider got a statement from the Las Vegas Convention Center apologizing for their human error listing BlizzCon on their website.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| We're actually preparing some website updates for you at the moment to give you some cool new content to help with the wait for beta. Until we get that out, why don't you post some cool artworks you know - official or fanart. There is some pretty cool artworks out there already. A cool fanart I found recently: http://oxoxoxo.deviantart.com/art/Terran-Marine-StarCraft-II-80010854 You all should actually follow twitter! http://twitter.com/starcraft  |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
He was talking about beta in general and not specifically about a Russian beta.  About Mike Morhaime contradicting that. Where did you read it? Don't remember him saying anything other that the development team is working hard towards beta - which they in fact are. This does not contradict Chris' statement though. --- I think everyone here in the forums is aware of why it is taking so long even if you are impatient with us because of it. I'll give you a hint: It has something to do with our second core value. Majincilos: Well you refer to quality by saying this. I think everyone's under the belief that Battle Net 2.0 is holding up Beta. While having Battle Net running perfectly is great, I don't see how this is required to begin playtesting. But hey, I'm not making the game (though I wish I was). Well, it is a matter of quality. We do not want to show you guys stuff that does not meet our quality expectations. We don't want even the beta testers to be anything other than excited and amazed by the gaming experience. Battle.net is as much part of that gaming experience as the core game is. Our development teams are working hard on getting it out, but you will have to wait until we are ready and we are happy with it before we get it out there. D34dagain: The fact is it's your lack of communication that's caused these forums to become this sess pool of intolerance. Just give us some updates, anything. I'm honestly, sincerely happy you've finally come out and confirmed this, but the sooner you become consistent, the sooner these forums clear up. For all our sakes, be consistent. It is hard to give updates, when all updates that you have to give are small and insignificant ones compared to the update you really want to know about - beta and release. Any update we gave got shouted down by a wave of: "Who cares, give us beta". She also comments on how to get a blue response: It won't always be possible, but respectful and clear postings with a good title will always have a better chance of getting answers. Which is not to say they have a 100% chance of getting one. |
||
Yes….as you expected, it is the…..Brutalisk!
We’ve heard about this fearless, brutal Zerg unit long time ago from one of media invitations by Blizzard to their headquarter, but we’ve never seen the real deal but the descriptions from our reporter. Today, Blizzard posts this picture on their twitter page.
Thanks overlordwat for the tip!
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| We've shared a few stuff in our Launcher from StarCraft 2's Launchers since they're pretty similar and we're moving towards Battle.net. Unfortunately some error message slips through. If you replace StarCraft 2 with World of Warcraft, you'd get the proper error message. | ||
I think it will be early 2010 atleast, there was just a launcher patch for World of Warcraft, a socalled "tools" update.
Some users have gotten Starcraft 2 related error messages, and i decided to take a look myself, and i found a lot of Starcraft 2 related strings(With translations, which i won't post):
Strings:
SC2Title - Starcraft II
OptionsTitleSC2 - When patch data for StarCraft II is available:
DownloadWhileRunningDetailSC2 - Starts the Blizzard Downloader in background mode when you launch StarCraft II. The Downloader will continue running until you exit the game or until download is complete.
DownloadWhilePlayingSC2 - Download while playing StarCraft II
ownloadUntilCompletionDetailSC2 - Starts the Blizzard Downloader in background mode when you launch StarCraft II. Download will continue until complete, even if you exit the game.
AfterRunningDetailSC2 - Starts the Blizzard Downloader in background mode when you exit World of Warcraft. The Downloader will continue running until you launch the game again or until download is complete.
DownloadAfterExitingSC2 - Download after exiting StarCraft II
ChooseRetailFolderSC2 - Select the place to create the StarCraft II folder.
AutoPatchFailureSC2 - Cannot apply new patch to StarCraft II.
Product - SC2B
Support for Expansions/Mods, new archive format, or atleast new extension:
Mods/Core.SC2Mod/Base.SC2Data
Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod/Base.SC2Data
Mods/Swarm.SC2Mod/Base.SC2Data
Mods/Void.SC2Mod/Base.SC2Data
Patches:
%s/patch.SC2Archive
Probably an internal developement URL to some SC2 specific stuff:
MainURLSC2 http://bl-backpack/Launcher/SC2/
So it looks like they'll be using the WoW Launcher, probably making it a generic "Battle.net launcher" of sorts, and for some reason they decided to push it as a patch now, unless people just never expected to find it in there
The russian gaming event IgroMir 2009 served as platform for Blizzard’s announcement during a Q&A where Chris Sigaty revealed Starcraft II beta is planned to start some time through 2010 and when they feel it is ready. Considering Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is expected to ship by the first half of 2010, that seems to be anywhere between January - March. That if there aren’t further delays pushing it after the summer.
Goha.ru has some screenshots and details here. (russian).
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| When does StarCraft 2 beta start? Sigaty: Tomorrow (laughter in the hall). Certainly no. Usually at Blizzard, we do not say release dates. Thus far we plan our beta test to start next year. As soon as we will feel the game is ready, we will announce it immediately. (a rough translation) |
||
Update: SCLegacy has coverage screenshots of the IgroMir 2009 show
What exactly is Cole Hickson’s connection to Jim Raynor? Unless the threads of the past can finally be unraveled, the future is looking distinctly truncated. Trapped and surrounded by hostile Zerg insectoids, not to mention a vengeful C.O. and his crack Cerberus unit, the War Pigs might be making their last stand as the Protoss prepare to incinerate the Zerg-infested world the War Pigs are stranded on!
Written by Simon Furman
Art by Federico Dallocchio & Brian Denham
Cover by Federico Dallocchio
On sale October 28 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| Friday, November 6 11:30 – 12:00 – WoW Panel 14:30 – 15:00 – SC II: Hotstreak 15:00 – 15:30 – WoW: Cataclysm leveling contest 16:00 – 16:30 - SC II Panel 17:00 – 17:30 – SC II: Hotstreak 17:30 – 18:00 – WoW: Cataclysm leveling contest |
||
A few days ago, Blizzard Entertainment announced that all World of Warcraft Accounts must be merged with a Battle.net Account effective November 11th. Whoever decides not to do so won’t be able to login into the game. We speculated this was the first phase to enable and integrate the Battle.net friend list—which in turn means ... Starcraft II beta is about to be announced.
The speculation might have some weight after all. SpikeTV Host Geoff Keighley has posted on his tweeter the following:
“Blizzard is targeting “first half of 2010” for Starcraft II according to Activision earnings call.”
According to him, this was said at the Activision Blizzard Third Quarter Calendar 2009 Results Conference Call.
For those who are still jaw-dropped an unable to catch up, Starcraft II is slated to hit store shelves anywhere between January - June 2010 (which fall into the 2010’s first-half range). We know it won’t be January or February, but we do know how long beta test lasts. Considering that range of time—we do know beta is starting very soon. What’s the milestone? November 11th is when World of Warcraft accounts must be merged imminently into a Battle.net account.
Thus, any day, week or month after this milestone is the day you have been awaiting and craving folks. Let’s imagine that the ideal beta test period of time lasted 6 months, beta would have to start minimum on January or earlier.
It is a bit silent now in the StarCraft community but on battle.net it seems that some blue posts made it. Cydra responds to some questions.
Will holding the Alt button show unit/building hit points overhead as they did in Warcraft 3?
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| Yes. And you can change the option on the menu for this. Normal: Only show when holding Alt Selected: Selected units only Always: Show all unit status bars |
||
And now to some radar/sensor tower questions.
1. Is the proper name Radar Tower or Sensor Tower?
2. What model is being used: Radar Tower, Sensor Tower, or a completely new one?
3. What are the stats? (mineral cost, gas cost, build time, HP, armor)
4. What is the range of the radar?
5. Do cloaked and burrowed units appear as blips within the radar’s range?
6. If yes for #5, will a unit be able to see cloaked and burrowed units that are within its visual range as well as the radar’s range?
7. Does the Tower have any other special abilities besides its radar function?
8. Is the Tower salvageable?
9. Is there anything else you can tell us about the Tower that I’ve missed?
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| 1. Sensor Tower 2. Sensor Tower has a passive Radar ability which expose enemy movements within its radar capacity. 3. It costs 125 mineral and 100 geyser gas and it takes 25 build time. Sensor Tower has 200 hp and 0 default armor. You can upgrade the armor of buildings by 2 at Engineering Bay. 5. No. Cloaked and burrowed units don’t appear. 7. No. 8. Yes. you can salvage it for 100% fund. |
||
Very good explonation about the radar and it´s current form. Salvaging the tower is also nice but it remains to be seen how that will effect the balance in the long run.
A new episode of the IncGamers Podcast is online ready for listening.
Enjoy the usual lively banter between the guys as they discuss the week’s news including Modern Warfare 2 leaked video, Amazon pulling MW2 reviews, MW2 third person mode, news on the Splinter Cell Conviction sequel, Molyneux’s picks for most revolutionary games in the past 20 years, Star Wars: The Old Republic and more.
The team also discuss the games they have been playing including Torchlight, RaceOn, Left 4 Dead 2 and Champions Online. Oh! And don’t forget the “Special Needs Post of the Week” and the “Bullshit Story of the Week”. Not to be missed!
Note: If you’re easily offended it’s probably not for you.
Once again a new friday which means more StarCraft fun for you guys. Lets begin with something serious. In this first game we have Tossgirl vs Yellow a tvz game. Tossgirl is not considered to be a player that can threat others but can she defeat one of the stronger zerg player?
Next up we have a game that was recently played and considered to be the match of the year according to the commentators. It is Boxer vs Ncyellow an epic tvz struggle.
Now we get to a old StarCraft II video that we have seen before but this time we will see it with a twist. A shaky cam and a sarcastic commentator. What more could you ask for?
This is it for this time guys, have a nice weekend.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| It’s a lot more than the talking heads now, there’s a whole bunch of cinematics in between, there’s a lot of options for you to explore and really immerse yourself to the world of StarCraft. I think the fan reaction was really big. | ||
Just a quick notification for those near or willing to goto Hamburg to play some Starcraft 2:
We will have SC2 playable at the IFNG event in Hamburg on Friday. That will be the BlizzCon build, both multiplayer and singleplayer available. More info on the ESL site: (link)
The event will be held friday the 29th of oktober.
Galaxy editor which is the same editor that Blizzard are using to create the maps and other things will ship with the beta once it starts. Blizzards twitter page confirmes this.
#DailySC The #StarCraft2 galaxy editor will be available during beta. What are some custom games you are looking forward to?
I remember that during blizzcon 2009 someone from blizzard did hint about that the editor would ship sometimes during the beta but now it is official.
Things are getting pretty nasty for all Starcraft players who have either a low-end computer or an old ATI graphic card sold between 2000-2005 or earlier you are out of luck. ATI has announced they won’t support DirectX 9 graphic cards any more. All these models won’t have support or patch updates under Windows Vista or Windows 7. And if you are acquainted with how Blizzard games work, you need to update to the latest graphic card drivers almost every patch.
Considering to play Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty? It’s a good time to upgrade your computer with a new video card or start planning to get a 2010 computer system to catch up with current technology to make sure your gameplay won’t be affected in upcoming months.
AMD has moved a number of DX9 ATI Radeon™ graphics accelerators products to a legacy driver support structure. This change impacts Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux distributions. AMD has moved to a legacy software support structure for these graphics accelerator products in an effort to better focus development resources on future products.
The following products have been moved to the legacy software support structure (including Mobile and All-in-Wonder Variants):
ATI Radeon 9500 Series
ATI Radeon 9550 Series
ATI Radeon 9600 Series
ATI Radeon 9700 Series
ATI Radeon 9800 Series
ATI Radeon X300 Series
ATI Radeon X550 Series
ATI Radeon X600 Series
ATI Radeon X700 Series
ATI Radeon X800 Series
ATI Radeon X850 Series
ATI Radeon X1050 Series
ATI Radeon X1300 Series
ATI Radeon X1550 Series
ATI Radeon X1600 Series
ATI Radeon X1650 Series
ATI Radeon X1800 Series
ATI Radeon X1900 Series
ATI Radeon Xpress Series
ATI Radeon X1200 Series
ATI Radeon X1250 Series
ATI Radeon X2100 Series
Note: AMD’s DirectX 9 ATI Radeon graphics accelerators are not officially supported under Windows 7. If the user chooses to, they can install the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista graphics driver under Windows 7. Please be aware that none of the new Windows 7 graphics driver (WDDM 1.1) features are supported (as the Windows Vista level graphics driver is limited to WDDM 1.0 level support). Using the ATI Catalyst Windows Vista driver under Windows 7 is not officially supported by AMD, and as such AMD will not provide any form of customer support for users running in this configurationAny customers using a combination of a ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series, or ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series product with any of the legacy products listed above in a single PC system must use the ATI Catalyst 9.3 or earlier driver. All future ATI Catalyst™ releases made available past the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 release will not include support for the legacy products listed above or any of the features associated with those legacy products.
AMD may periodically provide Windows XP and Windows Vista driver updates (for the products listed above) for critical fixes only. No new features will be provided in future driver updates. The Linux ATI Catalyst™ driver will only be supported in Linux distributions prior to February 2009 for the legacy products listed above.
Blizzard have let us know that the official “I love SC” T-shirt is now available in their online store.
Want to let the world know your plans to zerg rush through the lines for the release of StarCraft II? With our new StarCraft II t-shirts, you can literally wear your heart on your sleeve and show your love for this up-coming Blizzard game.
Gamasutra have interviewed Dustin Browder about the design and all the challenges that involves to recreate one of the best RTS of all time. We both learn about his past and his philosophy about gaming design and how to bring back old players as well as new.
On a zerg-infested world, the War Pigs come face-to-face with Jim Raynor, but it's becoming painfully clear that nothing is what it seems, least of all the man who brought them back together for this do-or-die mission – Cole Hickson. Prepare for revelations, shocks and cover-to-cover action! Plus, a peek at Nuura Joss' troubled past! This one has it all!
On Sale October 28, 2009
Wildstorm, 32 pg, $2.99 US
Written by Simon Furman
Art by Federico Dallocchio and Brian Denham
Cover by Federico Dalloc
The official Battle Report 4 page is now online. The 720P high-definition movie is 528mb, same as Battle Report 3. This time the map is remake of well-known, classic Lost Temple (Click on the image to enlarge the map). Also it’s the first time that Terran Nuclear Missile has been used in a battle report.
VS 
Yeon-HoLee (blue team) VS David Kim (red team)
The Battle Report 4 has been “leaked” for couple of days, but if you still haven’t seen it, just click here to download it from the official site or click here if you are a Mac user.
A little heads up for all non-WoW-players: Our sister site WorldofWar.net is running a Murloc Space Marine giveaway at the moment (and has been for the last week), and YOU can be the proud owner of one if you play WoW. These little rascals even fight your friends' zerglings if they have one of those (no workd if it can fight the mini Diablo).Some exciting news; As a thank you to our site supporters, we have five Grunty the Murloc Space Marines to give away. These cute little armour-clad baby murlocs were given to BlizzCon attendees this year, along with people who paid to watch the event on Direct TV or by streaming over the net. Needless to say, they're quite rare and many people are yet to see one in-game.
The War Pigs mourn the death of one of their own, aware that their own days are now meagerly numbered. There’s no way forward and no way back, and an all-out suicidal tilt at Tamsen Cauley seems teh only remaining option. But, behind the scenes, a powerful enemy of Cauley is making his own move. And the War Pigs are a resource “Ghostmaster General” Leonid Celsus could sorely use right now!
On sale January 27, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Written by Simon Furman
Art by Mike Miller
Cover by Carlos D’Anda
Battle Report 4 is out, even if the official page is not showing it yet.
Whether if it’s leaked or not is unknown at this point. Last time we thought it was leaked, it was actually an exclusive blizzard had given to a European gaming site.
The BR has been close to publication for quite some time, and was originally dated for September, but better late than never!
We have currently downloaded the film, and we are uploading it to IncGamers.tv. It will be available here on the StarCraft site, as well as here.
Update: Embed in progress! If you’re having problems seeing the video, try reloading the page with CTRL + F5.
Some notes from BR4:
1. Siege tanks is used for the first time and we see how important the high ground really is in StarCraft II
2. Psi storm in action for the first time.
3. Dropships in action and use of high ground.
4. Nuclear warfare in its full glory.
5. Reapers and stimpacks used in full effect.
5. Hellions are used to full advantage for the first time.
More info coming soon!
Update! Seems like it was not at all a leak, but a Gamer.nl 24 hours exclusive:
The Starcraft 2 Battle Reports show a complete match in the upcoming RTS game show. In the fourth episode, in Netherlands 24 hours long Gamer.nl exclusively at shows, you can battle between the Protoss and Terran behold.
Also thanks StarCraft2.net.pl among other for the tips.
...or at least WoW CM Wryxian at WoW-Europe.com!
Medievaldragon’s awesome Battle.net 2.0 guide was highlighted on the WoW boards. The rest of the posts have little to do with REAL games (meaning StarCraft II, you dimwit), but this is a pretty good opportunity to highlight the great work MD put into the article in the first place.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| Did any of you check out WorldofWar.net’s feature about Battle.net 2.0? Even though it focuses on Battle.net’s integration in SCII, there’s some intriguing screenshots there: http://starcraft.incgamers.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2009-battle.net-2.0-screenshots-preview/ Notably this one: Not a keylogger no, it’s one of our official fansites. |
||
Thanks for several tips on this.
The popular artist Jim Lee (Wildstorm Comics) will be in New York City attending the Big Apple Comic Con this weekend. Do you wish to ask questions about the Starcraft comic book series or the World of Warcraft comic book? You have a shot at a response during his live Q&A on Saturday, October 17th at 2:00pm in Room A.
The Big Apple Comic Con is located at Pier 94— 711 12th Ave and W 55th Street in Manhattan, New York. (map here). Tickets may be found online here. One day tickets range between $25-30. Three-day ticket pass $45.
FRIDAY
1:00pm-2:00pm – Special Signing @ Wizard Booth
SATURDAY
1:00pm-2:00pm – VIP Signing @ Wizard Booth
2:00pm-3:15pm – Jim Lee Q&A @ Room A
The superstar artist and WildStorm founder takes fan questions on everything from his start at Marvel to the formation of Image and his current role at DC Comics drawing Frank Miller’s All Star Batman & Robin!
7:00pm-8:00pm – 100% Cotton Featuring Joe Quesada & Jim Lee @ Room A
Come see Wizard Editor Mike Cotton dish with Joe Q. and Jim Lee! Please be advised that we can pretty much guarantee that this panel will not be suitable for all ages!
Starcraft II Q&A Batch 54 has been released with some gameplay questions concerning zergling vs zealot ratio, immobilization abilities, the mothership status, the infestor’s role, is EMP dodgeable, and a couple questions about Mods/Campaigns.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| [SC2 Forum] 1. Does the Zergling vs. Zealot ratio remain at 4:1 or has it changed in the latest builds? One zealot can usually take out two, and sometimes three zerglings. However, the ratio is mainly based on positioning and micro-controlling. As the number of zealots grows, it will take more zerglings to win the fight since the zealots can clump up and reduce the attacking surface area. Smart use of terrain, such as a choke or backing up against a wall, will also help a protoss player reduce this attack area. Zerglings have to secure a good surround around the zealots to keep the ratio close. [SC Legacy] To address the comparison anyway, in World of Warcraft, you control a single character, unlike RTS games where you manage multiple units and bases. The difference in the World of Warcraft is when you lose control of your character you simply have to wait it out, assuming you don’t have any control breaks. However in StarCraft, when units in your army are being controlled, you can still issue orders to the rest of your army, manage your base, build new units, etc. There are a lot of options and we happy with the diversity it brings to gameplay at this point. 3. What is the current status of the Mothership? What niche does it fill at this time, and if the unit were removed, would there be a reason to fill that niche with a different unit or would protoss still be fine? 4. What is your overall goal for the Infestor? The units have had and removed so many abilities, are you trying to focus into a support role, or disruption and harassment, or just to have a wide variety of spells so it can be a quick response unit? 5. Is EMP dodgeable, or there’s some sort of indication that it’s going to be launched? And does this cause a problem with Immortals? [Vile Gaming] 7. Launcher support – Will maps/mods be able to have their own “launcher” (ala WoW’s launcher), as in shortcut or start icon from the computer outside of StarCraft, and have their own screens, after a Battle.net authenticating screen (ala Twitter’s, or Facebook’s, application authentication). |
||
After much to and fro, Jim Raynor finally got his voice back, and unfortunately, Sarah Kerrigan lost hers, when we really thought it was going the other way around. There has been some rumours on her voice actress, but nothing confirmed.
Now, the German dubbing of StarCraft is obviously being planned, and Xordiah has been asking for the opinions of german fans, which voices they liked, and which they liked… less.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| I would like to catch up another topic in this post, based on the first point [of the first post]: The German dubbing of StarCraft II. I would like to hear your opinion about it. Which German voices did you like in StarCraft and StarCraft: Broodwar and which did you like less? If you think of the StarCraft II units already shown, how do you imagine the voices? What’s in your mind if you see the characters? | ||
Now, not to be starting to blow the beta horn again (in fact, I don’t think we’ll see anything before 11 November, regardless if Medievaldragon was right or not), but it’s nice to see preparations for a dubbing. By the time they dub the game, it will already have all the dialogue and little snippets of sound from units done, so it could be fairly close to release. Since we’re all waiting for Battle.net 2.0 at the moment, perhaps the team is just finishing off any lose ends, and polishing, while waiting for the beta to start…
Either way, nice to see some news popping up!
Thanks SeggsyAra for tip and translate
The Protoss are watching us ... (<> ( <> <>) <>)
Blizzard Entertainment has announced that all World of Warcraft accounts must be converted to a Battle.net 2.0 Account effective November 11, 2009. All players who merge their WoW account with a Battle.net account or who have done so already before this alert will receive a penguin pet in-game. This is awesome news for a simple reason.
SPECULATION-MODE ON
Starcraft II Beta was delayed a few months ago due to the Battle.net 2.0 platform not been complete. What does that have to do with World of Warcraft? Blizzard gave us a press kit at BlizzCon 2009 which contained Battle.net interface screenshots. Basically, Starcraft II, Diablo III and World of Warcraft players will be able to communicate with each other through the Battle.net Friend List.
We could see in these screenshots how the World of Warcraft friends list displayed Starcraft II icons to the side of your friend’s name, and vice versa. Thus, my two-cents is that this imminent deadline to convert WoW Accounts to a Battle.net Account is an initial step prior to announcing Starcraft II Beta.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| BREAKING NEWS
October 12, 2009 12:00PM PST In 30 days, on November 11, 2009, all accounts must be converted into a Battle.net account to login to World of Warcraft. Any existing account that upgrades to the Battle.net platform, including ones that were upgraded in the past, will receive a brand new in-game penguin pet starting later this week. Please visit http://www.battle.net to convert your existing account into a Battle.net account or visit the forums for more information. |
||
The Sons of the Storm website has been updated with photos of René Koiter (Twincruiser) posing as Jim Raynor during the costume contest at BlizzCon 2009. There are many photos of the Sons of the Storm members including Chris Metzen, Samwise, Glenn Rane, Peter Lee (Drawgoon), Mark Gibbons (Red Knuckle), and Trevor Jacobs (Thammer).
Rene and Robert Clothworthy (voice of Jim Raynor) posed together for a photo, as well as Tricia Helfer (Galactica) who is voicing Kerrigan—you know, Rene, that could have been Glynnis Talken instead.
Overall, Rene wrote some funny descriptions on each photo and added links to galleries and videos on most of the descriptions. Go check it out. The Rocktober Blast entry shows many World of Warcraft: Cataclysm concept art images of the goblin and worgen races, and a lower caste earth elemental from Deephome.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| It has been well over a month since BlizzCon and if you fiends are interested in our adventures be sure to check out our official BlizzCon ‘09 article. Also, we thought we’d throw you guys a nice art treat on the side…and well before Halloween, HA! Yeah, we bring it like that.
Remember though…our eye-candy doesn’t rot the teeth, it spoils the mind! René of Twincruiser |
||
Simon Furman commenced writing the second arc of the StarCraft comic book published by Wildstorm Comics. Furman teased we will find two of the biggest and baddest characters of the StarCraft universe. Does that sound exciting? Heck yeah. Who do you speculate he may be referring to? Kerrigan? Duran? Ulrezaj? Emperor Mengsk? Can’t wait for the second arc to start.
Do you like the current arc?
Furman: StarCraft-wise, I’m now well into scripting the second story arc, which really ramps up the action and scale, featuring two of the StarCraft Universe’s biggest and baddest characters! And there’s more, of course, but nothing I can talk about right now. Keep watching for updates as and when!
Since beta seems to be still far away and no news in sight then what could be more intresting than going back to the past and look into StarCraft a litle bit, going retro if you like. I wanted to share some StarCraft vods with you guys and why not begin with a match that was recently played between Tossgirl vs Reach. This match is very intresting and the commentators is also doing a fine job of being funny as well.
Next up we have a legendary match between Boxer vs Yojo and according to many people this match is one of the best games boxer have ever played. It just shows why he is the “Emperor” and that he can come back from almost a certain defeat. Watch and enjoy.
I hope you guys enjoyed those vods, i know i have.
When there is little light in the StarCraft II tunnel, Kerrigan_ss found us a torch for us to carry while waiting for winter (and hopefully the beta) to begin.
It’s the Battlecake Band playing at the KuroKiiro festival, and it’s a medley of the Terran theme, possibly the best piece of music in the original StarCraft game. As someone comments on the YouTube page: “The fact that most of the audience members are girls makes this video awesome.”
The band also played other videogame classics like Zelda, Megaman 2 etc, so it’s well worth to check out their YouTube profile.
If you’re still bored, check out the Tournament Forum for updates on the second “season” of the SCW Tournament.
Nethaera invites all Blizzard games’ communities to participate in their Twittler Mania discussions, contests and challenges. You should also become a follower to have daily updates on your Twitter account.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
Follow all of your favorite Blizzard Entertainment news on Twitter. ( http://www.twitter.com/ ) Just head over to @Warcraft, @StarCraft, or @Diablo for all of the news, events, contests, and more. We’re starting off with a bang, so you can enter contests for each of the franchises:
Check back Daily for more information on the latest activities in Twitter. Daily Discussions
Spotlight Discussions
Blizzard Challenges
|
||
If you are interested in gaming in general, you should try out the IncGamers podcast.
This the team looks at the latest events in the gaming industry including the layoffs at Transmission Games, changes to the WoW movie name, Funcom layoffs and their move to Canada, Ireland enticing Scottish Games developers, OnLive, the Japanese Games Industry, Rock Band 2 on Wii and more. Our crew also discuss the games they’ve played this week including Operation flashpoint: Dragon Rising, NHL2K, Tekken Six, All Aspects Warfare and of course, WoW.
Check it out over on IncGamers here.
Blizzard have opened a youtube channel where they put up the cinematics for all their games. Karune explains.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| Check out our huge archive of Blizzard cinematics and videos around our StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo franchises all in one place: http://www.youtube.com/blizzard |
||
Here are two classics.
After 11 years they are still fresh and intresting just like the first time i watched them.
Hope everyone has enjoyed all the BlizzCon news and got a chance at our Twitter beta key giveaway! Everything has settled here in the office after various shows and events we’ve been at, but we are back in the swing of things. If you haven’t been following us on Twitter, don’t forget to do so too, as we will consistently be adding more spotlights, development info, and fun contests on there as we approach beta and throughout the development of StarCraft II.
Check us out here:
http://www.twitter.com/StarCraft
—-StarCraft II Q&A Batch 53—-
1. Computer AI – Does the computer’s online AI vary from its offline counterpart?
No. They are the same.
2. Have you considered allowing a post-game lobby for users to discuss the last game, collectively watch replays, or immediately enter into a rematch?
Yes, we have a plan for a post game lobby. However the details are not finalized yet.
3. Is there any update on additional map features other than the Xel’Naga watch towers, destructible rocks and tall grass?
No. Currently there is no update on additional map features.
4. How many different voice actors are needed for StarCraft II, including the unit sounds and campaign heroes?
There are 58 unique voice actors participating, with some voicing multiple roles, and the number may increase as the game gets closer to release.
5. The terrain types in StarCraft II we have seen so far had names like “Bel’Shir (Jungle)”. Does this mean that “Bel’Shir” is just an alias for jungle and every terrain is just named after a typical planet using it or are there – to stick with this example – other jungle maps with a different terrain set, something like “Aiur (Jungle)”?
We named our terrain sets based on the planets. There are a lot more terrain sets than in the original StarCraft and you will have huge flexibility in modifying the terrain sets (including adjusting textures, doodads, lighting) allowing you to create your own variations of the default maps. There may be other jungle-themed default maps named after other planets.
6. Will there be any chance to have more options on pausing the game? In StarCraft: Brood War every player can pause the game three times, but every other player can unpause it. How about a (user editable) time limit before other players can unpause the game?
We recommend that players communicate with each other in the game to agree on when to pause and unpause during the game. We feel that pausing the game interrupts the game flow and it would be inconvenient for players to be forced to wait for a certain amount of time before being able to unpause. The pausing feature is mainly meant to allow for pausing of the game when all players are in agreement and for which duration.
7. I already knew the map editor would be available to beta testers a while after Beta was released, but this is why I’m asking the bland question, will it also be available to non-participating people?
No, the map editor will only be available during the beta for beta testers.
8. When a unit comes out from a building will there be only 4 exits from the building like in Warcraft 3 or will there be “infinite”
?
It is not infinite, but your units will come out from a building at the closest point on the building to where your rally point is set.
—-End of Transmission—-
Blizzard.com has a new, flash-intensive, modernized look, with everything in collapsible tabs and constantly changing main page images/headlines. (Nothing new has been added to the StarCraft 2 page.) Here’s their news post on the new new:
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
Welcome to the newly redesigned Blizzard.com! Featuring a brand-new design, this website is the focal point for all official Blizzard Entertainment news, press releases, and much, much more.
Explore the new website now. |
||
What do you guys think of the changes? I’m indifferent; the new site looks fine, but it’s kind of soulless and mechanical, to my eye. But then again, I like content, and I’m not a huge fan of new, streamlined, image-intensive, minimal-text, space-age website designs.
An interesting aspect with the site looking more and more like the new Battle.net, is that they might be getting closer to actually releasing the beta?
Paul Benjamin will be at the Rogue’s Gallery Comics store in Texas on October 3 signing copies of World of Cars. If you live nearby, feel free to bring your copy of Starcraft: Frontline # 1-4 for signing. He wrote Weapon of War (Vol. 1), War-Torn (Vol. 3) and Orientation (vol. 4) alongside Dave Shramek.
Rogue’s Gallery Comics (Map)
1601 S Ih 35 # 360, Round Rock, Williamson, Texas
(in Round Rock/Williamson County area, near the Outback Steakhouse)
Phone: (512)279-8888
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Long Beach Comic Con is taking place through October 2-4, 2009 at the Long Beach Convention Center. The 1-Day-Pass is available online for $ 25, or $45 for a 3-day pass.
Bring your copies of the Starcraft and World of Warcraft comic books (Wildstorm) and copies of Starcraft: Frontline and Warcraft Legends (Tokyopop). You will find the following writers and artists at the Long Beach Comic Con:
Long Beach Convention Center (Map)
300 Ocean Boulevard
Long Beach, CA 90802
Box Office & General Info: (562) 436-3661
Business Office: (562)4 36-3636
Fax: (562) 436-9491
Karune confirmed the Starcraft 2 Q&A Batch # 53 is drawing near. It’s currently in localization stage and will be available soon. No ETA is available, but at this point it is a few days away.
With all the info released at Blizzcon, it will be one of the most awaited Q&As to either clear up or add up to the topics mentioned at Blizzcon or either to offer new info. Keep your eyes on our news for any updates.
Karune also revealed the Protoss can cast Proton Charge over the minimap.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
Karune: Yup, you will be able to use the mini-map to cast the ability. While this may make it easier in compared to the other 2 races, warping-in with the highest efficiency is much more difficult than having queued units of Terrans with reactors or Zerg with their many extra larvae and all units being built from hatcheries. They are different yet will be balanced |
||
Starcraft fans can find Keith R.A. DeCandido at two public events in early October. Bring your copy of Starcraft Ghost: Nova to be signed, and say hi to the author.
Tuesday, October 6 at 7:30pm
Barnes & Noble Bookstore - Park Slope (Map)
267 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-832-9066
Sunday, October 11 (all-day-long)
Baltimore Comic Con (Map)
BOOM! Studios booth
One West Pratt Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
Keith R.A. Decandido wrote World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred, and Starcraft Ghost: Nova. On 2010, you will see some of his new work in Starcraft Ghost: Academy Vol 1-2 (Tokyopop) and Starcraft Ghost: Spectres (Pocket Books).
Blizzcon 2009 is behind us but now we get to see all the final matches that were played for StarCraft, Warcraft III and World Of Warcraft. We also get the exclusive exhibition match for StarCraft II as well.
It is a 2vs2 game and for the first time we can see how good teamwork will be like.
A new gameplay movie have reached internet once again. It is from this year´s blizzcon and it is a match between Skyhigh vs Nada and a classical Terran vs Protoss match.
It is a warm sight in my heart to see that tanks still brings death upon its targets.
Update!
StarCraft Legacy also posted a new video containing single player footage. The video is in polish but i gues the narrator explains the single player aspect of StarCraft II and how different it will be compared to what Blizzard has done in the past.
If you have missed out our own single player preview, don´t forget to read everything about it.
As matchmaking is now done, and the first match already played (woah)
Since the matchmaking have already been made, if there’s a few people out there who feel like they’ve missed this event, we can still allow just a few people in as we’re at this point an uneven number.
So instead of passing this one up, head on over here BUT!! This extra little friendly signup is only open until the first round is done! Which means on monday. So be quick if u’re just sitting there and thinking, and do remember that, you’ll most likely have to play against someone else (duh) so scheduling a time could come hard, but we’ll see that through.
See ya there?
Richard A. Knaak will be signing books at some bookstores in Kansas and Missouri through September 25-27. He wrote the story Thundergod in the pages of Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 1. Those fans of the Warcraft and Diablo pocket books are welcome to bring their copies for signing and to say hi to Richard. Check out the schedule and maps below:
| Friday, September 25 Borders Bookstore (Map) 5201 N Belt Hwy St Joseph, MO 64506 (816) 279-6111 | Saturday, September 26 Barnes & Noble (Map) Oak Park Mall, 11323 W 95th Street, Overland Park, KS (913) 492-8187 | Sunday, September 27 Borders Bookstore (Map) 700 New Hampshire St Lawrence, KS 66044 (785) 331-3226 |
LEGENDS OF THE DRAGONREALM is not only now out, but is already in a 2ND PRINTING! First copies of the second printing were spotted only three days after it was released! Thank you to all those who have told me that they have already picked it up. There are some great offers out there on Amazon, Borders, Books-A-Million, and others and Borders now often has terrific coupons in the stores themselves. The omnibus is also available as an ebook for even less!
If you are interested in personalized copies, yes, we are now selling those! The price for those in the US, including shipping and handling is $21. Either go to http://www.paypal.com and pay the account (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or mail a check made out to me for the amount to: 5508 Lanshire Dr., Rogers, AR 72758
I am also accepting worldwide orders on LEGENDS OF THE DRAGONREALM! Simply email me your country and I will let you know the full charges.
WARCRAFT! STORMRAGE will be released end of February. Check out the manga anthology WARCRAFT LEGENDS, VOL. 5 for a story tied to the novel, plus an excerpt! Pocket Book also has another excerpt. Check out their website for details.
THE WARCRAFT MANGA SERIES IS NOW A NY TIMES BESTSELLER! Building on the success of the Sunwell Trilogy and the first volumes, the series sees continued success!
SIGNINGS! For those in the KC area, I will be at the Borders in St. Joseph, MO this Friday—- the 25th—- at 6 pm. I will be at the B&N in Overland Park, KS on Saturday the 26th at 1 pm and at the Borders in Lawrence, KS at 2 pm on Sunday!
That’s it for now!
Best
Richard A. Knaak
Starcraft # 4 just arrived home, with a couple of surprises. The War Pigs continue their hunt for Jim Raynor throughout zerg-infested worlds. Their informant, Denny Houston, died in issue # 3 before revealing which of these worlds to find him. Extrapolating the worlds visited by their informant in the past three months, they arrive to Turfa Dei’s homeworld ... Planet Agria. Hudderstown Colony. August 13, 2502.
Agria is one of the planets we visited in our Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty single-player hands-on gameplay at Blizzard’s campus back on July 20th. Fans had a shot at the single player at Blizzcon, PAX and GameCon too. The other revelation about Turfa Dei is that he has a high Psi-Index. In this issue, he was able to resist a Ghost sent by the Dominion, and sensed it. That places Turfa Dei—one of the members of the War Pigs, as a free Wrangler.
Starcraft Ghost: Nova by Keith R.A. DeCandido introduced for first time the concept of a wrangler (categorized as a Psi-index 3.5), and the recent story War-Torn by Paul Benjamin and Dave Shramek in Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 3 made good use of another wrangler named Randall (awesome character on the chaotic-evil and cynical-sarcastic level). It will be very useful for the War Pigs to have a wrangler among their own, able to sense nearby Ghosts, or resisting psi-attacks not only from ghosts, but ... from Kerrigan and the Zerg?
It’s pretty good to see the comic book so early introducing planets and plots that tie-in with the Starcraft II single player, echoing Chris Metzen and Micky Neilson’s words of creating a cohesive universe across the licensed products and the game.
I am somewhat wondering why there was no solicitations for December. I might have answer from DC Comics / Wildstorm on that soon. You can subscribe to the Starcraft Comic Book here
The War Pigs are getting closer and closer to hunting down renegade marshal Jim Raynor, but obstacles and internal conflict continue to muddy the mission waters. Far-from-gentle giant Turfa Dei confronts the ghosts of his past while the team faces off against present day ghosts – the Dominion’s elite and deadly.
Written by: Simon Furman
Art by: Federico Dallocchio and Brian Denham
Cover by: Federico Dallocchio
Variant cover by: Shawn Moll and Sandra Hope
StarCraft 2's lead writer gets his turn in the spotlight with this interview from IGN.
Today the signups for the 2nd. StarcraftWire tournament came online.
We’re allowing everyone who wants to sign up, have fun and play with some of the community members.
If you wanna tag along, head on over to the Signup-thread and sign up!
The signup-thread closes next Friday (the 18th), so if you’re unsure if you want to or not, you still have a whole week to make up your mind.
Should you happen to be one of the top 3, you’ll get a nifty little medal like this one attached to your account (shown in the link is the gold medal).
Last seasons winners were Troglodyte, Wergild and Obsid - The final thread can be found here.
Last season saw some interesting matches, including Leord vs Epic_Sheep, and some interesting tactics in the match between Troglodyte and me. If you haven’t seen the cool replays, Moondragon is currently making commentated videos about the highlights, which we will see the fruits of soon (hopefully).
But keep in mind, this is a friendly and casual tournament, we hope for everyone who wants to participate that they’ll have as much fun as ourselves.
Karune answered a few miscellaneous questions, and cleared up some issues fans were having trouble with this afternoon. The first relates to Blizzard’s recent twitter 500 Beta key give away contest. As always, questions are in white, with official Blizzard responses in blue.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
I got selected from the twitter contest just today and i was wondering which battle.net account I’m suppose to write? Battle.net 2.0 account is the one you should send. I will let them know to confirm all beta key winner emails. For reference, the ‘new’ Battle.net will continue to be known as Battle.net, and the forums and ‘old’ Battle.net will be known as classic Battle.net. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
StarCraft II will be available before Diablo 3. |
||
The last two quotes are about a purely visual Dropship ability. In the current build, massive ground units such as, Thors, Ultralisks, and Collosi are visible underneath the Dropship when they are picked up. A fan had a question about this.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
So I got a chance to see the dropship carry the thor around at PAX this weekend, and it was a really cool visual. For those who don’t know, the dropship can carry a thor, but instead of the thor actually going inside the dropship, it just sort of curls up and literally just gets picked up by the dropship. So you can actually see a huge friggin thor on the underside of the medivac as its flying around. Currently this is a temporary animation as well - I think they are looking at ways of making it even cooler looking than it looks now. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
|
When we’ve figured out a way to display the Colossus and Ultralisk visually I will let you know, but in the meantime there isn’t much to say about it - it is a Medivac carrying an Ultralisk… Currently this is a temporary animation as well - I think they are looking at ways of making it even cooler looking than it looks now. |
||
There was an article over at TeamLiquid that unsettled some Terran/Protoss players who wonder how viable it is to counter 1Hatch Queen strategy to rush Terran and Protoss players. Karune has countered this scenario before and confirms he has seen other people using other strategies. Don’t despair, it is possible.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| Archerofaiur: Teamliquid recently release a article that claims that 1 hatch queen is almost impossible to beat do to the economic advantage and denying scouting. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=101195 We were curious how Terran or Protoss should deal with a zerg 1hatch queen build. Karune: There is also an article here which states a few of my thoughts: Additionally, the 1hatch queen build is strong, but relatively easy to stop if you know this is a potential strategy on the field. These are just a few strategies I use and by no means the only strategies I’ve seen used: With Terran, you will naturally want to block your choke point. This in itself will easily stop fast Zerglings, as you can use Marines to fire upon enemies from a cliff (since they don’t have LoS, just make sure you keep those pesky Overlords at bay, which is relatively easy as well). SCVs do an excellent job of repairing much faster than Zerglings can do damage at this early of a stage. Hydralisks on the other hand pose a bit more problems, but can still be handled by a group of Marines behind supply depots or even a bunker if it is needed. Terran choke points are quite difficult to break at the moment and while your enemy expends resources determined to break it, I would hope you would be teching either to Banshees or Reapers for harassment, then putting them into the defensive and taking you into the mid-game, where arguably at the moment Zerg is forced to be at a defensive if they did do the 1hatch queen strategy (key point being the 1 hatch or late expand). With Protoss, the proposed Zerg strategy is a bit more viable and it takes a little more skill to defend against it. For me, I often block my choke point with 2 gateways or 1 gateway/1 cybernetics core (if I am teching), leaving one cell open for an easy single Zealot block. Breaking that choke point for a single Zergling hitting that Zealot at a time, is an easy block, and quite cost effective for the Protoss player. For a determined Zerg player, they would either start attacking the gateways or tech to Banelings to take out the Zealot(s). Timing-wise, you will be able to get your second Zealot out in time well before the Gateway is even at half health, which is usually enough to push off those initial Zerglings. When your Cybernetics Core is up, this opens up Nullifiers, which is a must used unit in my opinion against Zerg. At this time if the Zerg player has converted to Hydralisks (or even straight teched to Hydralisks), you should have at least one Nullifier up, which are excellent at both killing Hydralisks (with even 1 Zealot tanking) or even better, cutting a Zerg force in half while they push up the ramp, easily allowing your Zealot to hold the choke while your ranged units like Nullifiers and Stalkers annihilate half the force with ease, putting the Zerg on the defensive now, and opening up mid-game options. Of course both strategies require micro, which is intentional - with an Overlord scouting and giving LoS, Hydralisks can be very potent. The 1 hatch queen strategy is quite capable, but not overpowering. Hope this was useful - though you can expect lots of things to still change and be changed throughout beta. Zerg’s were mentioned as the ‘weaker’ race in a developer interview not because of their early game, but their mid game. In current builds, it is much more balanced with recent changes to make Zerg a bit more threatening in mid-game, such as Roaches moving while burrowed as one example. |
||
IncGamers has teamed up with Riot Games to give away 500 beta keys for the upcoming MOBA, League of Legends.
What’s a MOBA? It’s a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, which plays very much like DotA (in fact, it’s made by ex-Blizzard people who also worked on DotA Allstars). If you’d like a chance to take part in the beta of League of Legends, send your name and email address to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject field marked “LoL”.
If you are a site Pal on this site, the Diablo or World of WarCraft sites, simply sign up in the relevant thread on the forums to receive a pair of keys, one for you and a friend, guaranteed. See the respective StarCraft, Diablo and WoW threads.
Get your emails in to us by 12 noon British Summer Time on Monday 14 September, and we’ll randomly pick the winners.
Check out IncGamers TV to see a League of Legends walkthrough trailer, and get a better idea of the game.
Blizzplanet and Starcraftwire.net will have a live chat open to all our fans and visitors to talk and interact with the Tokyopop writers involved in Starcraft: Frontline Volume 4.
As you can see in our Starcraft II Single Player Press-Hands-On Coverage, I interviewed Chris Metzen. He elaborated on the tie-in between the novels, the Starcraft: Frontline manga series and the single player. All the stories of the manga were already part of the single player lore rather than the other way around. In short, it is highly recommended to get your hands on these manga stories to get acquainted with the single player plots.
You will have the opportunity to interact with six writers and the editor Hope Donovan. It is not confirmed yet, but we might have the grace to have Chris Metzen along (I will have a definite answer in a few days, so stay tuned). Chris Metzen is one of the writers in Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 4 with the story titled: Homecoming—which tells the story of Jim Raynor’s return to Mar Sara prior to the events of the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty single player.
Watch Starcraft: Frontline Vol. 3 Sneak Preview here and Vol. 4 here.
Order the Starcraft: Frontline series here.
We will talk with the following writers:
Paul Benjamin
David Shramek
Josh Elder
David Gerrold
Chris Metzen (?)
Grace Randolph
Ren Zatopek
Hope Donovan
Date: September 9th
Time: 1pm PDT (California) ——
EUROPE:
UK London 9:00:00 PM UTC+1 hour BST
Paris timezone is 10:00:00 PM UTC+2 hours CEST
The countdown below is set so that anywhere in the world you are, when the countdown reaches 0:000 that’s when the chat will start.
GameIndustry.biz interviewed Michael Ryder (VP & Exec. Managing Director, International Operations) to discuss the status quo of the company with the successful World of Warcraft nigh reaching its 5-years anniversary, the Cataclysm announcement, and the delay of Starcraft II due the Battle.net 2.0 platform incomplete state. Regardless, investors aren’t uncomfortable, and in fact the share price has increased by 6 per cent since the announcement of the delay and the revelation of further details about Battle.net 2.0 as a social-networking platform.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| The expectation of quality must be tough - and maybe the company’s reputation leads to unrealistic expectations: Starcraft II is, at the end of the day, an RTS game but following the level of success Blizzard’s enjoyed in the past five years are fans expecting more? Michael Ryder: It’s an interesting question. I don’t get the sense when you’re walking around within Blizzard that people have the weight of the world on their shoulders. I think that the atmosphere in the company is a very positive one, I think people are enabled to do what they want to do. We have a lot of great development talent, a lot of people across the board in all the different functions of the company, and everybody is proud to be part of a company where the cultural norm is to try to achieve excellence in all the things that we do. So I think it’s the opposite - I think people are pretty happy working at Blizzard, and there’s a confidence that we all work together and do the things we’ve done in the past, make sure we’re focusing on the right things, and making sure we get it right. Starcraft - it’s a great tradition, there aren’t too many games that shipped ten or eleven years ago that are still on the shelf. So it’s time for Starcraft II, I think we’ll build on the success of the first one. |
||
G4TV talks to StarCraft II art director Sam Didier which gives his take on the artistic feel and style of the game and shares his vision on the matter. We also get some impressions from the single player campaign.
If you are not up to date with the single player campaign then it is a good time to check out our own preview.
Battle.net head Greg Canessa told Gamasutra that his work on Xbox Live only “scratched the surface” of what Blizzard’s online service is planning with achievements, metagame rewards, avatars, and ladders. Greg Canessa was formerly head General Manager of Microsoft’s Xbox Live and self-proclaimed creator of Xbox Live Arcade. He later became VP of Video Game Platforms at PopCap Games.
On May 2009, Greg Canessa joined Blizzard Entertainment to take lead as Head of Battle.net 2.0 when Rob Pardo proposed him the following: “What if you could build an online game service that had that level of sophistication or greater, but you weren’t bound by the constraints of being a platform provider? You could come out of it from a perspective of, ‘What you could you do with those online game services by deeply integrating them into specific games?’’ —read the full interview
Looks like the wait on Starcraft II due to delay behind Battle.net 2.0 will pay off big time and be worthwhile. Check out 15 screenshots StarcraftWire.net acquired from Blizzard’s Press kit CD which shows screenshots of some of the features interface.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| We just scratched the surface with Xbox Live of what you could do with achievements. Wow, you can earn achievements. Great. But what if you customize those achievements really deeply and build really compelling meta-game scenarios around unlockable rewards, or decals and avatars, and ladders and leagues for StarCraft II? Those things would be really hard to do for Xbox Live. Believe me, I was on the other side. We would have loved to do that stuff, but we couldn’t do it because we couldn’t integrate it. Some games, it applies; some games, it doesn’t apply. You can’t do that sort of custom stuff.” |
||
Ghost Academy chronicles the early years of six StarCraft characters all destined for greatness—and tragedy. Five teenaged fourth-class Terrans (Nova, Tosh, Aal, Kath, and Lio) are rough-around-the-edges Ghost cadets in training—and they are forced to deal with everyday teen issues such as crushes, physical and emotional pain, addiction to drugs and their own budding telepathic abilities.
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
ISBN-13: 9781427816122
Format: Paperback: 192pp
Pub. Date: January 05, 2010
Writer: Keith Decandido
Artist: Fernando Heinz Furukawa
Over a decade ago Blizzard Entertainment released a game that had taken them a little over 3 years to develop. It had already gone through such a massive overhaul that it hardly resembled the original iteration. I am sure no one at the time knew the heights to which that game would reach. That game was StarCraft, and it has since captured the hearts of millions.
One mission was the Evacuation of Agria. You start out with some firebats and medics, two classics from the original StarCraft, and must make your way past a small Zerg force to an underdeveloped base, of which you get to assume command.
So you have a choice, let some convoys die if you need more time to complete the bonus objectives (and the bonus objectives will be worth it, such as collect so many of such-and-such, and all of your infantry will receive a permanent +1 to their damage), thus making the level harder at the same time. Or make sure all the convoys get through, ignoring the bonus objectives, and complete the level faster and easier.
The other mission was brought to your attention by Tychus Findlay, the big marine seen being fitted into his armor in the announcement video. He has some contacts with a group called the Mobius Foundation. They collect alien artifacts and are willing to pay those who will “acquire” them for the foundation.
Both James Raynor and Arcturus Mengsk will have their original voice actors returning in StarCraft 2. Raynor is voiced by Robert Clotworthy, while Mengsk is voiced by James Harper. Zeratul’s voice actor has passed on since the original game was made, so a new one had to be found. Zeratul's new voice actor is Fred Tatasciore. Sarah Kerrigan’s original voice actor, Glynnis Talken Campbell, is alive and well. A petition was started when it was earlier found out that the original voice actors for Kerrigan and Raynor might not be returning. While it appears to have helped Raynor get his voice back, Kerrigan had no such luck. Tricia Heifer of Battlestar Galactica will voice Kerrigan in the second instalment. No reason has been given as to why the change in voice actors was made.
Games.On interviewed Dustin Browder about the Starcraft II Matchmaking system. It does reveal some features and mini-sneak peeks of what we should expect. The system will match players of the same rank and skill level. One of the ranks mentioned is the Copper Division (i.e. Copper-72). That’s an interestin way to see things rather than rank 17,892. That number may mean nothing, or make players feel frustrated. This new system is more enthusiastic, encouraging you to work hard to escalate from Copper Division to the next Division, and the next.
The initial division seems aimed to noobies who start to learn the basics of Starcraft II multiplayer strategies. These division has its own set of maps available on melee and UMS channels designed to slow down things in a way that people can build their armies and clash them rather than rushing. It’s slow paced, but fun, and encourages strategies and coordination. These maps are known as Practice League.
Read the full interview over at Games.On
StarCraft IncGamers has so far been on the waiting list to get this implemented, and I have actually had quite a few people ask me about it. Today, it's in, and we're served the new, modernised version Diii.net got recently.
As a member of Starcraft: IncGamers you’ll hopefully realise the value of all that is on offer, from our well-managed forums to extensive news coverage, and our strategies to the encyclopeadic content on the Starcraft Wiki. All this is produced and provided absolutely FREE!
There is more however.
Through our subscription feature you can become a Site Pal and receive VIP benefits and services, (all listed below). Also, you will be helping to keep Starcraft: IncGamers and the Starcraft Wiki up and running and that should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Here’s what you get:
Forum Perks
Other Benefits
We hope this is something you’d like to take up and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Joystiq cornered Samwise Didier right before he opened the show for Ozzy Osbourne with his . The interview is focused mostly on his work on Starcraft II artwork and UI. Samwise reveals at least three new planets I didn’t see during our hands-on gameplay at the Blizzard campus. He also shares his view on what he thinks people feels about releasing the game when it is ready.
[BLUE]Will you go entirely back to the drawing board completely with the next expansion?
Yeah, but the thing that is kind of fun about it is, it is going to let us take a break from the typical Terran grit and grime and chunky heavy metal kind of stuff. We are going to be able to embrace this more fluid, organic, spiky kind of horrific-looking vibe. Now who knows where Kerrigan will be standing watching the news if that is even part of it. But we can go from a TV screen that is all infested over or something that is more organic. It is still kind of open. I am kind of looking forward to jamming on those ideas and seeing what we can come up with. We really don’t have a lot of that done right now.
We have ideas, but it is a lot cooler to just kind of wait until we are ready to start jamming on that than to start working on something and then it either gets put in and everyone is like, “Oh yeah, we have a better idea,” so that was kind of wasted. I want to focus all the guys, what they are working on now, on getting out the Wings of Liberty. If we have three more weeks, then I want three more weeks of art put into the single player missions to make planet Kastenar that much more different than Valhalla and Altheon and stuff like that.
Paul Sams widened everyone’s knowledge on what exactly Battle.net 2.0 is and why it caused the delay of Starcraft II release date. The social aspect of Battle.net is not complete, and there is much more Blizzard hasn’t talked about concerning cool features. Battle.net 2.0 is going to be similar to facebook in some ways, keeping friends together across all Blizzard games. If you missed our 15 screenshots of Battle.net 2.0 features, there are two images of how the chat interface looks like.
Read the full interview at GamesIndustry.biz
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| What do you see as the cross-company and cross-product benefits of the Battle.net platform?
Paul Sams: Well, first of all, from a player perspective, you’re going to be able to communicate with people that are on Battle.net. Right now, if you’re on WoW, and your friend’s playing Starcraft or Diablo or whatever, you’ve got to figure out where they are through different communication means. And so you’re in a situation where you’ve almost got to come out of the game to be able to do that. We’re going to integrate the games so you’re going to know when your friends are on and be able to create all sorts of play dates, so to speak. It’s such a huge element, social networking, I don’t know about you - if you have a favourite social networking site - I’m traditionally not that guy who does that sort of stuff. I like to go old school and pick up the phone and talk to friends. I might text a little bit here or there but, at the end of the day, I like to hear my friends voices. In the last six months I’ve gotten into Facebook, and it was because I wanted to do some research related to social networking because of the stuff we’re doing with Battle.net. And what I found was, all these people that I’d lost touch with found me and I started talking to them and seeing what they were up to. With Battle.net, there will be a lot of these types of elements. Beyond that though it’ll be friends that I’ve lost touch with that are also into the same thing as me, which is games. And into Blizzard games at that. There are a lot of cool features - the developers are much better at describing all the cool interconnectivity between all the games, but I feel like - knowing what that feature set is - it’s going to be an awesome experience. It’s something that I think we’re going to be able to view unlike any other games companies out there. |
||
Thanks, Bluesnews
Karune broke internet silence today and responded to a few questions fans were having about the game. The first question addressed, pertained to the bread and butter Protoss spellcaster, the High Templar. As always, questions are in white, with official Blizzard responses in blue.
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
Just a direct question: Did the HT get back that Phase Shift ability at BlizzCon or does he have now the other ability like a small time bomb? The High Templar currently has the Phase Shift ability in addition to Psi Storm and Archon merge. The Phase Shift ability is a single target banish ability and it looks like the design team is pretty happy with these abilities until beta starts. At that point, I think anything is possible for changes. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
Is B.net 2.0 free of charge? And the only charges is for extra features that is not really necassary… As mentioned before, players will be able to use Battle.net for free when they purchase the full version of StarCraft II. There have been no changes to this. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
More of that careful wording. Can you please clarify? If Blizz doesn’t think you “purchased the full version of StarCraft II” (however you determine that - how you determine it is another question you can consider asked), what happens? Or is there some more complex thing I’m missing? lol- here is one simple scenario: When you buy StarCraft II from the store, you will be able to play on Battle.net for free. This is not a temporary trial of Battle.net. Not purchasing the full version would include any illegal method of attaining software. In that case, you would not be able to get on Battle.net. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
Will there be an ability to add stat tracking for custom maps both free and premium? Such as personalized ladders for maps and their updates perhaps? Will a premium map need to have a specific set of requirements to become a premium map? IE. must have unique models. Do you think it would be possible to make a 2d fighter such as Street fighter with the editor? Stat tracking and personalized ladders for maps will be possible, but may not be at launch of the game. Premium maps will have requirements, but those are still to be determined. Sounds like you are going to make StarCraft Street Fighter…which you could definitely count on me downloading. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
Probes deal 2 damage and I was bit shocked. Probes attack for 5 damage. |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
So in the past I’ve heard Dustin saying that zerg were the weakest in-house. So I wonder, in your opinion, has my favorite race made a comeback in terms of balance? I realize getting a few hours of play at Blizzcon is no way to make accurate balance judgements. Hence, I now ask you. The balance in which the developers are referring to is very relative. 90% of players probably will not feel the game is unbalanced. At the higher levels, we are continuously trying to balance the game further, but most of that will happen during beta when we have a large pool of players to test the game. In short, don’t worry |
||
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
|
There have been recent rumors on another site that the roach is now able to move while burrowed. Confirm/Deny? The development team is currently experimenting with Roaches that can move while burrowed. The Roach will also have a speed upgrade as well, which will make its base speed (close to a Zealot without charge) increase to a speed slightly slower than a Stalker. At the moment, Roaches while burrowed move roughly half the speed as it would above ground. This new mechanic should open up some pretty cool micro strategies in positioning for the Roach, since essentially the best role it currently plays is as a tank, soaking up damage from the enemy. |
||
Karune responds to a fan regarding high templar´s current status.
Just a direct question: Did the HT get back that Phase Shift ability at BlizzCon or does he have now the other ability like a small time bomb?
| Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
||
| The High Templar currently has the Phase Shift ability in addition to Psi Storm and Archon merge. The Phase Shift ability is a single target banish ability and it looks like the design team is pretty happy with these abilities until beta starts. At that point, I think anything is possible for changes. | ||
Very intresting changes to this very important unit. Perhaps the high templar will be more of a use than simply for psi storms.
The excerpt of Starcraft: Heaven’s Devils is now available. We get to see in this book an 18-years old Jim Raynor having fun with his friends Harnack and Kydd at a bar in Mar Sara. Things aren’t simple for these guys as they constantly get in trouble and end up usually in jail for their deeds.
The book will reveal how Jim Raynor and Tychus Findlay met and became best friends, their days in the Heaven’s Devils team.
For the time being, here we have the excerpt.
Those who attended Blizzcon 2009 should check out the back of their badge to get their Grunty the Marine Murloc pet card. It contains a scratch code that you can enter at http://www.blizzcon.com/pet to redeem a World of Warcraft in-game pet. This thing is cute and cool. It has a few sub-routines: The most common is that he will move left to right to search for a target. Sometimes he spins his weapon. There is a semi-rare subroutine where he starts shooting upwards, rising his gun. The rarest is when his weapon makes a charging sound and unloads a grenade barrage that can be seen going outwards pretty far.
The most cool subroutine? If another player has a Zergling pet from the WoW Collector’s Edition, both will duel like the Mountain Dew Battlebot. Either the Zergling kills Grunty the Marine or viceversa. You will have to summon him again for another duel match.
Pocket Books invited me to witness their Blizzcon 2009 book signing event on Saturday at 4pm where Jaime Costas raffled 40 copies of the World of Warcraft: Arthas Collector’s Edition. I brought my video camera and captured most of the event. There were a large amount of fans awaiting to win one of those, but also to get their own merchandise signed by Christie Golden. I could see some World of Warcraft: Arthas (Normal Edition) and Starcraft: The Dark Templar trilogy brought by fans to be signed by the author. The place was crowded with fans that were excited to meet her.
If you recognize a friend in the two videos, let them know the link to this page. It’s available to all attendees as a memento. I was glad to be there. I realized I haven’t taken photos of myself with the authors in all the events I have been attending. This time I had the chance to take a photo with all the publishers and book writers. I have been in contact with all of them quite often. It feels like family already. Watch video # 1 below, and video # 2 here.
So you couldn’t see squat in the DIRECTV’s Blizzcon 2009 stream coverage when the Starcraft II panel revealed the Battle.net 2.0 UI Features? No sweat, Blizzard provided us 15 screenshots of the Battle.net 2.0 UI for you to behold in more detail. Find out how the login page looks like. The Matchmaking, achievements, Social / Friends List, Game Lobby, Create Game, and much more.
The Battle.net 2.0 features and screenshots were officially released at Blizzcon 2009 by the developers. In this revamp, Blizzard aims to integrate all friends across all the Blizzard games into a single monster-sized community where you can keep track of friends playing WoW, Diablo III, Starcraft II and other games; and communicate with them either by text or voice-chat.
Blizzard provided us a Press Kit CD with the official FAQ and fifteen screenshots of each of the features we may find in Battle.net 2.0 platform. I will attempt to describe for you what you may find in each of these screenshots in case you overlook something.
LOGIN SCREEN
In the first screenshot, we can see the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Login Screen. It’s pretty simple and resembles the way World of WarCraft’s Login Screen is set up.
Here you enter your Battle.net Account and password, rather than your old StarCraft screen name, and press the login button. Below the login are two options: Remember Account and Remember Password. Very convenient to save you time if you want to get straight into the action without hassle.
On the right side, there are three buttons: Play As Guest, Manage Account, and Options. In the background, you can see a space view with a Saturn-like planet to the right. A Battlecruiser is slowly crossing your view and will suddenly go into warp-speed and disappear over the planet’s horizon. I saw this at the Blizzard campus back on July 20, 2009.
DASH BOARD
The Dashboard can leave you speechless. Not only is the Terran-themed UI looking awesome in 3D with all those gadgets and cables keeping everything together, the amount of info we can discern at first glance is breathtaking.
On the top-right frame, is your account avatar, screen name (EnoyIs) and your achievement score (9001). There’s another option there that isn’t known to me. Below, is the Battle.net logo and the details of how many users are playing, how many games are played, and how many gamers are on Battle.net. Your last login is displayed here too.
Beneath is the Starcraft II News feed straight from the website showing the latest headlines and the community headlines (Q&As, Patch Notes, Race changes, etc.)
On the bottom strip, to the left we see the menu button, and to the far right we see the local time (8:23 AM), followed by a microphone icon indicating voice chat and a man-icon with the number 12 (which is probably 12 friends online that you can voice chat with by clicking on this icon and browsing their names). Kinda nifty.
Now the content on the top-left of this dash board is interesting. You see two green icons: Single Player and Multi-Player. When hovering over the Single Player button you get a small window displayed below with the following info:
“Campaign. Start the single player campaign for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty” followed by the Start button.
Why is this amusing? Because in contrast with old Battle.net, you no longer need to logout to play the single player. As we commented a month ago during our single-player hands on preview, even if you are playing single player you can still voice chat with your friends in WoW, Diablo III or Starcraft II.
I do not know what all the icons beneath the Single Player and Multi-Player buttons are, but some are user-friendly. The film icon probably means you can access the cinematics there. The ladder, chat channels, the star icon means Achievements, and your character profile.
SINGLE PLAYER SCREEN
In this screenshot you can see the single player campaign screen which gives you a bit of lore about Mission 3: Zero Hour. You can create a new game or load a saved game.
A very interesting feature here is the “continue” button which allows you to pause a game and move back to the Battle.net UI to access other features, before resuming your single player game.
The game tracks your current campaign achievements, and gives you access to special single player features such as Skirmish and Challenge modes. Both offer separate Achievement-tracking, increasing the value of playing the campaigns and maps more than once.
Note that on the upper-left corner you still have access to Battle.net features such as ladder, general chat, achievements and profile. Voice chat may be found on the lower corner where it says 12 friends are online.
FRIENDS LIST
On the bottom-right in this screenshot you can see the Friends List within a Starcraft II game. You can browse up and down, and by the looks of it you might be able to stretch the window’s height. The microphone icon can be seen on the bottom of the Friend List.
REPLAY UI
The Replay UI offers an interesting extra info: you can see in real-time within the Units tab each of the players represented by colors (in this screenshot: yellow, orange, blue, and purple) and the units they have currently and the amount of each unit.
For example, in the screenshot to the side we see that the yellow player has 8 SCVs. Orange has 7 SCVs. Blue has 1 zerg egg, 2 larvas, 8 drones, and 1 overlord. Purple has 8 SCVs.
On the lower-right corner we have two frames. The first one allows you to pause, rewind or fast-forward the replay. To the right the Plus and Minus signs are to decrease or increase the replay speed. You can see the full length of the replay (12:45 minutes) and the minute the replay is currently playing (5:30 / 12:45).
The frame underneath seems to indicate you can change the video settings and audio volume levels of the replay. You can also choose to see everyone in the replay, or specific players only using a drop-down menu.
ACHIEVEMENTS UI
This screenshot is going to blow your mind with all the info it contains about your gaming. There are six tabs on the left edge of this screenshot: Summary, Achievements, Statistics, Match History, Avatars/Decals, and Player Maps. The summary gives you a shortened view of all those at once, but clicking on those tabs will give you a much longer list of statistics.
In this Achievement summary page, you get the Statistics - Multiplayer 1v1 (this seems to indicate this is the match you have most played). Career Wins 132. Most Wins as Zerg, Most wins against Protoss. Most Successful map: Lost Temple, Highest Rank Achieved, Current highest rank achieved.
Under Match History there are two icons. The Trophy (Win) or the Blue skull with crossed bones (Loss). In the screenshot you see 1v1 Defense of the Ancients (trophy) match date 5/25/09. 2v2 Lost Temple (Skull) match date 5/25/09 and so on.
The Achievements list on the right edge gives a comprehensive list of info: Overall progress (390/670); Campaign (51/55); Skirmish (53/72); Challenge (18/95); Multiplayer (72/80); MODS (6/42); and Combat (75/200).
Recent Achievements reveals that each achievement you complete has a specific artwork icon to identify them. This is the achievement list that everyone will be able to see online on the website.
PROFILE ACHIEVEMENTS
The very same icons you saw displayed horizontally at the bottom-right in the previous screenshot can be seen here with more comprehensive info.
- Zerg Temple Grunt: Win Zerg Temple skirmish on easy mode.
- Negotiations Terminated.: Destroy an enemy players base.
- You and What Army?: Build 100 Marines.
- I Hates Ta Read!: Shoot a book many times, especially the letters “A” and “B”.
- Get Lost: Use a poorly constructed compass to get lost and then find your way back before starvation sets in.
Each achievement displays a laurel-wrapped star icon with the amount of achievement points gained (in this case 10 points) and the date the achievement was obtained on.
On the far right, there’s a button to compare your achievements with a friend’s.
IN-GAME ACHIEVEMENT UI
The previous one showed you how the Achievement UI looks like when accessing it through Battle.net, but not how it looks when you want to access it from within a single player game. This screenshot shows you the amount of total achievement points you got at the top (In this case: 3,125).
Whenever you have accomplished a new achievement, you will see it pop in real-time onscreen the very same way that happens in World of Warcraft when you complete one. In Starcraft II it looks pretty cool, and may come accompanied with a loud sound clip to alert you.
AVATARS / DECALS
I might be wrong on this one, but here goes my interpretation: From the Achievement Profile in Battle.net you can access the Avatar / Decal page. It displays hundreds of avatars that you can set as your avatar. All races avatars are displayed here at once.
However, the Decals tabs seem to separate them per race. So you can click on the Terran tab (Sons of Korhal insignia), the Protoss or Zerg Decals tabs to access race-specific avatars.
Now what makes me curious is that when you click on an avatar, you can see in the screenshot a blue-text that reads: “View Achievement”.
What we can extrapolate from this is that all the greyed out avatars after Zeratul need to be unlocked by earning achievement points or completing specific achievements. It’s a way to get ranks and set yourself challenges. If you wish to use a specific avatar, you will have to work hard to earn it, and then set it as your avatar (with bragging rights).
One of them is a Marine with a panda on its visor (Warcraft easter egg). I can see Kate Lockwell (the reporter), the Adjutant, and Dr. Hanson among the avatars.
This screenshot in particular reveals something cool that you don’t get to see in the original Starcraft. There are three tabs: Korey, DreamX and Flywheel. Apparently you can open separate windows for private messages, minimize them, and browse through them.
MATCHMAKING UI
I’m sure everyone wanted to find out how this looked like, eh? Here you can use Battle.net 2.0 Matchmaking to find opponents of a comparable skill level for ranked online matches. No more noobs getting owned by veterans pretending to be noobs (smurfing) and no more Veterans wasting hours fighting noobs. This matchmaking system will be setting you up with players that are at your skill level.
Choose a Game Type: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, or Free For All.
Choose a Race: Terran, Protoss, Zerg or Random.
You can set up your map preferences for this matchmaking: i.e. 2v2 Silver Leagues.
Estimated Wait Time: 02 minutes.
Start Search button.
On the far right there are two boxes. You can choose to play Co-op Skirmish (Play a non-ranked skirmish game with others); or Play Custom Games (User Map Settings.
Something in this screenshot that we haven’t seen before is on the top-right to the right of your avatar. You can see the avatar of your party members and their name. Kinda cool. (i.e. EnoyIs as Zeratul, and Flywheel as Adjuntant in the screenshot)
JOIN CUSTOM GAME UI
ZOMG !!!! Can you see in this screenshot the REFRESH button? Do you know how annoying it is to wait 20 seconds or longer for the list to auto-refresh? Now you can refresh the list yourself in Battle.net 2.0—and that’s not the only cool thing. See the Only Show New Maps checkbox? And the Popularity bar? You can actually see how popular your map is.
The Genre drop-down menu might make you curious. It is set to ALL in this screenshot. If you look at the Genre column—that means: Hero Defense, Tower Defense, Co-op Skirmish, Melee Versus, Other (Racing), Other (Snake), Other (Bomber), Other (Frenzy), Hero Arena, etc.
One of the games listed there is SC Grand Prix and DOTA Allstars .... (Drools!)
CREATE CUSTOM GAME
This screenshot shows you how big the list to choose a custom game is. No longer a tiny window that you need to browse patiently to find your wished map among hundreds of maps.
Additionally, you can filter the maps by Genre or by Type when you are on the Create Game UI.
On the right column, above the Create Game button you have some nice options there.
- Genre: Melee Versus (dropdown)
- Type: 2v2 (dropdown)
- Speed: Normal (dropdown)
- Popularity (LED bar)
- Lobby: Public or Invite Only (checkbox)
GAME LOBBY UI
The Game Lobby got a complete overhaul. First, you can see the button [Open to Public] displayed in this screenshot. The Game Lobby is set to Private. Since you are the one who created the game, this is what you see. You can probably toogle the game to be public or private by clicking that button.
You can see how teams are set up by reading on the right: Team 1, Team 2 and Team 3. In Team 3, the sockets are empty.
See the microphone icon on EnoyIs? He is the one talking. Everyone else: Flywheel and DreamX are listening (Speaker icon). Gawd’s icon probably means he is not using Voice Chat.
It’s a very simple Lobby Room. You see the map image, Host, Genre, Type, Speed. Beneath is the Game Lobby Chat, and where you input text. The Quit and Start button (take in mind this is the UI for the one who is creating the game).
BATTLE.NET 2.0 SOCIAL UI
Remember when the developers said they wanted Battle.net 2.0 to be a social hub for all Blizzard gamers? Well, Holy cow. I bet you weren’t expecting this. In this screenshot there are a lot of nice things going on.
At the bottom-left, Dustin Browder has just come online. You get instant popup alerts letting you know which friends are coming online. You can create multiple channels (minimize and max). You can create separate Private Message windows and as seen on the screenshot you can drag them around the screen (Minimize or max).
The party chat let’s you see your friend’s avatars. The green icon now I noticed means that person is active. The yellow clock icon means that person is idle. A red circle icon probably means that friend is playing a different Blizzard game other than Starcraft II. Someone offline will show up as grayed-out or semi-transparent in your Friend List (as is the case of Avin in the screenshot). The party and private message windows are brown-reddish. The Friend List window is orange-light-brown. Am really loving this UI design.
As seen in the Friends List, there are two interesting communication features. Dustin Browder is asking: “Anyone up for some heroics later in WoW?”—that message oddly shows up as a bubble chat coming out of his avatar. It adds the time-stamp in gray at the bottom of the bubble chat.
What’s so intriguing about it? It didn’t show up in any of the private messages nor in the public chat—it appeared on the Friend List itself. Global Friend List messages without a chat window? Now that’s some serious business Friend List. Finally it’s not just a list, but an interactive UI to communicate globally with all of your friend list at once!
Another thing you can get out of that screenshot is that Greg Canessa is playing World of Warcraft, Dustin Browder is playing a Starcraft II 1v1 Match, Flywheel is probably sitting on a Battle.net chat, and DreamX is probably playing Single Player (In-Game).
WORLD OF WARCRAFT FRIEND LIST
To wrap up the description of each of the 15 Battle.net 2.0 screenshots provided to us by Blizzard Entertainment, here you have a screenshot of how the World of Warcraft Friends List is going to look like once Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty hits the airwaves over Battle.net 2.0.
Dustin Browder (Daedoo) appears as playing a Starcraft II 1v1 Match. Greg Canessa (Silver) appears as playing in WoW - Dalaran. Jack Sterling shows up as playing in WoW: Archimonde - The Barrens.
The World of Warcraft Friends List doesn’t look much different. Makes you wonder if it will get an overhaul later on. I dig the looks of the Chat UI in Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty a lot. Did you like how Battle.net 2.0 is shaping up? Make sure to bring a towel with you before answering, please. (for excess drool)
After being under wraps for quite some time, Blizzard finally unvealed Battle.Net 2.0 during blizzcon 2009 and told us why the service will be the next step in gaming and how it will bring the community together. They have released the official FAQ that explains a lot of questions regarding it´s possibilities and features.
The official battle.net 2.0 FAQ
In order to get the idea what the thing is all about, Rob Pardo demonstrates during Blizzcon show floor how it all will work out.
| Blizzard Quote: |
||
| What is the new Battle.net? We are building the new Battle.net to be the premier online gaming destination. The new Battle.net experience is a full-featured online game service designed specifically around Blizzard Entertainment titles, and will include a complete set of around-the-game features including a state-of-the-art matchmaking system, achievement system, social networking features, structured competitive play options, a marketplace, and much more. Our vision is to create an environment where gamers can compete online, develop an online persona, and stay connected to friends and the rest of the community while enjoying our games. In doing this, the new Battle.net will deliver the ultimate social and competitive experience for Blizzard Entertainment gamers everywhere. What is the history of Battle.net? Battle.net was the world’s first fully integrated matchmaking service, which we launched in 1996 with the release of Diablo. Battle.net evolved over the years to fully incorporate online gameplay for StarCraft, Diablo II, a re-release of Warcraft II, and Warcraft III. The Battle.net system has been in its current form, without major changes, since 2003. How much will Battle.net cost? The new Battle.net will be offered free of charge for players who purchase and register the full version of StarCraft II. What will be available to players in the StarCraft II Marketplace? After the launch of StarCraft II, we aim to add the StarCraft II Marketplace to Battle.net, which will create a vibrant ecosystem of user-generated content, including multiplayer maps, single-player scenarios, challenges, themes, and more. How will Battle.net affect my multiplayer StarCraft II experience? We’ll be implementing a new auto-matchmaking system, with advanced skill tracking to allow players to be matched with other players of similar skill level. This will help players consistently face evenly matched competition. We’ll also be implementing various leagues and ladder systems to allow a more competitive StarCraft II landscape. What is the Real ID feature? Real ID is at the forefront of online gaming as it will allow you to easily connect, communicate, and play with real-life friends. Connect with old friends and current guildies, and make new friends with the integrated Battle.net social networking tools. Beyond simply seeing your friend’s character names (e.g. “Gorlac” in World of Warcraft or “Snip3r” in StarCraft II), and having to remember which character name goes with which friend, you will be able to see your Real ID friend and chat with him or her across Blizzard games. What’s more, Real ID is totally optional—the options are there for you to build your Blizzard Entertainment social network however you see fit. What are some of the communication tools available in the new Battle.net? Our vision is for the new Battle.net to become the ultimate Blizzard Entertainment social network, in addition to its matchmaking foundation. Simply logging in to Battle.net will make it easy to find and chat with your friends across World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and future Blizzard Entertainment titles, including Diablo III. Keep track of all your buddies in your friends list, view their online status and presence information, voice chat, send out party invites, and broadcast messages to your friends. Detailed character profiles let players keep up to date on friends’ progress and achievements. What kind of Battle.net features will be available to allow player-made customizations? Over the years, we’ve learned how incredibly creative the Blizzard Entertainment community is, and that they excel at creating new ways to play our games (such as DotA). This has served as the inspiration for us to create a rich set of content authoring and publishing tools in Battle.net for gamers to create the next big game type in StarCraft II. When will I be able to start utilizing map maker tools? How will Battle.net interact with custom maps? The StarCraft II Galaxy Map Editor will be available to players during the StarCraft II beta. Players will be able to play these maps on the new Battle.net. Will classic Blizzard Entertainment games be supported on the new Battle.net? We do eventually plan to update all classic Battle.net games to take advantage of the new Battle.net accounts and server infrastructure. Beyond this, we do not have anything to announce today regarding legacy Blizzard Entertainment titles and the new Battle.net experience. Will parental controls be improved on Battle.net? We will be revamping the parental controls and time management features for the release of Battle.net. The parental controls will allow parents to regulate how and with whom their children communicate, and they will provide parents with a multitude of other tools to promote responsible gaming for their children. Will a forced migration to Battle.net occur for World of Warcraft players? Yes, sometime in the near future, it will be necessary for all World of Warcraft subscribers to transition their accounts to the new Battle.net system. Those players who have already converted to the new system will be able to take part in the new Battle.net features soon. What will change in World of Warcraft after the forced migration? The core gameplay experience will remain unchanged as a result of the migration. However, you’ll be able to take part in all of the new Battle.net features, such as cross-realm, cross-faction, and cross-game chat. What features will be available for Diablo III on the new Battle.net? We don’t have any specific features to announce at this time, but we will be building directly from the new Battle.net platform delivered with StarCraft II, while tailoring features and options to specifically suit the Diablo III game and community. |
||
Blizzcon 2009 has come and gone, and as we continue to collate our data its clear that the whole StarCraft II project is coming along very well.
Something that I’m sure a lot of you are excited about is the map editor, and though Blizzard has done their best during the Q&A Batches to emphasis on just how “flexible” this important tool is I don’t believe any of us were as prepared for what was shown a few days ago.
Below is the first of the three examples of what I hope is a taste of things to come from the many talented map makers among us (the other two are after the jump)!
The Uberlisk!
Here we have a custom made unit featuring an Ultralisk with several Spine and Spore Crawlers attached to its back. The Spine Crawlers proceed to attack the surrounding ground units while the Spore Crawlers pick off incoming air units (such as the “flying” Banelings at 0:20).
It can also do an earthquake type attack that affects the terrain in front of it and damages units in its wake. Towards the end we can see the Uberlisk’s death that results in a massive explosion.
StarCraft: Ghost v2
This video shows our favorite blond-haired Ghost - Nova - in a third-person remake of the delayed (but not canceled) StarCraft: Ghost. Support is included for both the keyboard and mouse and it’s also mention that the player can enter buildings and underground levels, and also converse with the locals.
The Lost Viking
The aptly named title shows a lone Terran Viking fighting some Protoss airships from a top-down combat view - not dissimilar to Aero Fighters for the SNES. With a little tweaking it might also be possible to turn this into a side-scroller like Gradius. One can hope.
Blizzard Entertainment dropped the bomb upon fans at Blizzcon 2009. Glynnis Talken won’t return as Kerrigan the Queen of Blades. And as hinted by Karune in Leord’s forum thread, Karen Strassman was not necessarily the final choice.
The new Kerrigan Queen of Blades is Tricia Helfer (Battlestar: Galactica).
I am not going to comment much on this, as a silent protest. I am an unconditional Blizzard fanboy, but I don’t take everything up the intake. And this is probably the biggest one I have been against in all the seven years I have been reporting news to the community.
I’m thankful for the return of Robert Clotworthy, even excited. But I do not approve the dismiss of Glynnis Talken. She wanted to reprise her role as Kerrigan. It is not as if she went Diva-mode and doesn’t want to. All my fan-love and support goes to Glynnis.
/Transmission over
The team sat down in the early hours of this morning to put together the IncGamers BlizzCon Podcast Special which covers just about everything from this year’s event including WoW, Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2. Maticus was on hand to discuss WoW along with Jeff Hollis, Flux from diii.net and Tamer Asfahani from IncGamers. Tune in now!
The IncGamers Podcast runs every week on a Friday and you can find previous shows here.
All of us here at IncGamers have been super busy with BlizzCon coverage and racing around the show. If you’re trying to follow all the BlizzCon news and articles for all Blizzard titles, the main IncGamers.com site has a nice index page where everything is linked to for all our sites. This is being updated as we add more BlizzCon content so keep an eye on it.
Blizzcon is in full swing and a lot of media and information is getting released. Over at Gamespot they posted a video where Rob Pardo is showing the new Battle.net 2.0. since StarCraft II will be focused on multiplay, this feature is very important. From Matchmaking to pure design. I am wery impressed by it.
New Battle.net 2.0 presentation
Also, don´t forget our live blog to keep you updated on what is happening from Blizzcon show floor.
StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.
Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.
Features:
- StarCraft Videos |
Network sites: IncGamers.com | World of Warcraft | WoWUI | Guild Wars | Warcraft 3 | Diablo 3I | Diablo Wiki | Hellgate: London | StarCraft 2 |
| Copyright © IncGamers Ltd. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |
