Coverage WWI 2008 >> WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 1 >> Part 2

WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 1

During the stay at WWI, you have probably either seen some of the streamed content that was available, videos from panels or transcripts from interviews, but one thing you probably won’t find on many other places is the exclusive StarCraft 2 discussion we had with Kevin Yu (Karune). Of course, we have had discussions with him before as well, but this week was a lot more informative, as we were more sure on how to ask, and more direct at what we wanted to know.

It is a given fact that Karune is not Dustin Browder, so everything Karune knows could possibly be a day or two old, but as he have more contact with
Browder than most (including Rob Pardo), he is still a very reliable source!

In this first part we will discuss:

• Vespene Gas Changes
  
• Single Player - Graphics & Story
  
• The Mothership’s Uniqueness
  
• Ponderings on the Nullifier
  
• Broadcasted StarCraft
  
• Corruptors
  
• StarCraft 2 Complexity
  
• Spectres - Units from the Novels
  
• Infestors’ Infestations
  
• “Call to Arms” in StarCraft 2
  
• The 6 Starting Probes
  

In the second part of the discussion goes on towards release date, beta, unit changes and artwork, so read on if you are interested in StarCraft II!

The Questions

Why Did you Change the Queen?
Karune answered that the biggest reason for the current changes to the Hive Queen was that the developers thought the game had too little macro involved compared to micro, and if the Queen died, it caused significant problems for the Zerg player. A dead Queen would mean that it would take a lot of resources as well as time before that player would be able to efficiently build stationary defences against his/her opponents again. This made it a bit unbalanced, and not as “fun” to play. The egglaying has been removed, and instead the Queen is “buffed” with range attacks, and over-all higher durability.

Another new skill of the Queen is the making of Larva into Mutant Larva (also known as the Morphalisk), so it’s still a very interesting unit, as it gives more flexibility to your army. If you have a lot of minerals/gas, they can be used to near instantly transform huge armies of Zerg breeds. Read more about the Mutant Larva here.

Vespene Gas Changes
While Freelancer goes into detail with this here, the main things Karune said was that this last change to “only” add 400 Gas for paying 100 Minerals (plus 45 second of aborted gas extraction) came quite recently, and just two weeks ago, it was more of a buff to productivity on a timer (like described here). Over all the gas costs have been adjusted to be higher, and two Vespene geysers have been added, to keep a steady flow of gas in, as long as it isn’t depleted.
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Coverage WWI 2008 >> WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 1 >> Part 2

Single Player - Graphics
While Multiplayer might have to limit itself to a few, balanced units as well as less elaborate death animations to make gameplay more focused, the Single Player game sounds like it will contain a LOT of custom units, or cancelled units. Several “awesome” old units actually exist to be used, such as the Wraith, Firebat or the Reaver, and it seems highly likely we’ll see or even be able to use many of these “special” units when playing the campaign.

Single Player - Story Mode
While Browder dodged my question about Single Player in a handy way, Karune had to answer the question; While Terran‘s Single Player campaign mode has been somewhat thoroughly explained, none have touched the matter of the Protoss or Zerg as of yet. Karune says that it will be very similar, just not a fight to get cash, like in the Terran campaign, but rather goals more directed at each race. One thing that keeps it all together is that they will all share the same beginning and end, so regardless of what you do, you will be able to progress the story with the same basic result.

The Mothership’s Uniqueness
While the current Mothership is possible to duplicate, it’s no longer such a super unit as in the Korean WWI last year in May (or even a few months ago at the
Zerg coverage. It has been transformed into a powerful support unit, but a support unit nonetheless. The main offensive power was the Black Hole ability, which is gone now. It’s slower, and thus more vulnerable to attacks if you don’t have air superiority, and instead they have their very powerful “warp in” ability. The new word for the Mothership is definitely a “support” unit. Over all it’s a matter of see how it plays, and make decisions on what direction it will take.

Seeing as we as fans have come to terms with this “open development” type of feedback, I would say as an editor that we don’t have to worry, the unit will fit in nicely with everything else. If you are not happy with how it looks now, just look back a bit later, and it will probably be more to your liking.

Ponderings on the Nullifier
The Nullifier is now a very handy early spellcaster type unit for the Protoss. It’s a Tier 1.5 to 2 unit that can use the Anti Gravity ability as well as Forcefields. One concern with it is that it might be TOO powerful at that early stage, and whether or not the forcefields are “dispellable” by any other unit, or if there are any counters to it. The answer to that is that most races have ways to be more flexible now, and the fields are only up for a few seconds. The general mobility is improved, and units now have Recall and the Nydus Network (as examples) to use.
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Coverage WWI 2008 >> WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 1 >> Part 2

Broadcasted StarCraft
Many of us fans are really interested if the actual game of StarCraft II will contain more of a way to broadcast or share StarCraft with friends. Karune said that while they have no details at the moment, Battle.net will be a lot more useful (also mention in the Diablo 3 info about Battle.net). “Fans should be able to broadcast, replay, interact and share StarCraft 2”. He said that they have a great focus on creating ways to distribute StarCraft 2 material easily.

This could mean anything from an automatic e-mail function of a replay, to a dedicated replay player or a replay-to-YouTube-converter function such as Spore has. Either way, it’s some very interesting comments on this, and could mean revolutionary changes to how we see gaming. Almost like “videogaming 2.0”. Naturally we’ll see Blizzard in the forefront.

Corruptors
One of the fansite representatives asked why the Corruptor now is available directly from the Lair, instead of through the Spire. Karune told us that it was because of the fact that the Corruptors now are the basic standard air defence of the Zerg, and they could use easier access. He didn’t say this, but the reason for this is probably related to the fact that Hydralisks now are Tier 2, and takes much longer time to make. They are the only effective air- defence unit of the Swarm.

Karune went on to say that the Corruptor originated from a type of really powerful Zerg unit called a “Leech”, that served as a type of “Capital Ship” of the Zerg, similar to the Mothership. Its speciality was that it had a weapon that did damage based on a percentage of the target’s base Hit Points instead of a set amount, but also had short range. This made it very strong against stronger units, and less useful against units like Zerglings or Marines. While this unit will not see the light of Multiplayer, it might appear when playing the campaign. The Corruptor is simply the cool leftovers of the Leech, with a lot less power.

StarCraft 2 Getting Complex
As the tech tree literary “explodes” at Tier 2, there were concerns that it might actually make the game more complex to play. Karune points out that the whole idea of this is to make sure that more units will appear more often in the games, but also that the devs are taking steps to ensure that early game units actually have use in later game as well. An example is using Marines with the HP upgrade together with the Medivac Dropship. It can be used anywhere in the gameplay.

Another example is the the way you can use a few Nullifiers to completely disable Ultralisks for a limited time, which is a very high amount of resources compared to the tiny Nullifiers.

Spectres, Unit from the Novels
Medievaldragon from Blizzplanet asked Karune about if the unit “Spectre” that is mentioned in the novels might come to be revealed, and also if there might be possible for Ghosts to use telekenisis in the game. Karune naswered that there currently are no plans to include that, but that the team always looks at the novels and other media to see if they can include cool abilities of units. [Editors note: Telekenisis is an ability only extraordinary strong Ghosts can use, so from a lore perspective, I don’t think that the SC2 unit will be able to use it.]

Infestors’ Infestations
We were all really interested and curious on how Infestors would work with Protoss units. As Rob Pardo mentioned in the dev panel QA session that it shouldn’t be possible to infest Protoss at all, we got a clarification from Karune; He also mentioned that he probably has a lot more contact with Dustin Browder than Pardo has, and that it’s very possible that he actually have more reliable information over all. Having said that, he continued to say that there will really be Infested Protoss from Infested Protoss Buildings, with unique attributes, separate from Infested Marines. They will do some sort of melee attacks probably, rather than shooting. There are no plans to let Zerg buildings be infested, even if some of us pointed out that it could be logical from a lore point of view.
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Coverage WWI 2008 >> WWI 2008 StarCraft RTS Fansite Event Part 1 >> Part 2

“Call to Arms” in StarCraft 2?
There was a suggestion/question regarding the WarCraft III ability to “Call to Arms”, making Peasants take on a helm and shield to protect the base, and whether or not we might be able to see this in StarCraft II. The difference between WC3 and SC2 is that SC2 uses a lot more workers, and a host of them can actually do some defence of the base, when all other lines have been broken. They are not useless, and they can actually be somewhat useful in numbers. The answer seemed to indicate quite clearly that there are no plans to add such an ability in StarCraft II.

There is also the matter of the Planetary Fortress upgrade, and this actually helps making the base a bit more secure.

Any Thoughts on the 6 Starting Probes?
Karune did not have an answer to why it was specifically 6 starting workers at WWI. Possibly to speed up gameplay on the demo machines, or could be a permanent change. He had not seen it anywhere else, so it’s possible it was made just to increase the time people could actually combat each other at the event.

Community Responses to Changes
One of the fansite representatives asked about Blizzard’s experiences with fan reactions, how people handle when the game changes and evolves. Karune mentioned that Dustin regularly checks the forums, even if he doesn’t respond that often, and that he does take in the feedback that is given. They also make changes in the game, both artistically as well as in terms of game mechanics, based on these responses. The focus is currently heavily on the Single Player game, and that would indicate they have come a long way. Karune thought it might be very original for StarCraft 2 to handle game development like that, with the Multiplayer aspects of a game finished before anything else. [Editor’s note: Browder have said before that Blizzard has htis as a principle, so while it’s original for Blizzard, it isn’t original for StarCraft 2.]

Part 2 just released! Continue to read here.

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