The coolest update comes in the form of the recently revealed Brutalisk, a towering Zerg abomination slated to appear in Wings of Liberty, the Terran single player campaign. This unit has “custom map boss” written all over it!

(Released via Tweeter. Click for Big)

If you have been following the Blizzard rumor mill, you might have stumbled upon the short-lived newsflash that BlizzCon 2010 is scheduled for the 30th of July, 2010, in the Las Vegas Convetion Center. Good thing you haven’t paid anyone for a ticket yet, though – Bashiok, Blizzard’s official Diablo forum poster, switfly debunked the aforementioned rumor.

StarCraft fan art came in several different flavors this week, from cute miniature plush toys to an uber-detailed, 3D models of a Protoss.

Check out the full 3D model collection in this Korean Blog post.

And here’s the stripped down body of this magnificent creature.

(via StarCraft2.net.pl. You can download the full image collection here)

On the other hand, if you favor Zerg and/or plushies, here’s a dose of cuteness by mz-kitty:

What art form will StarCraft manifest itself in next? Only time will tell.

For this event, Blizzard has effectively produced a Blizzcon parallel in Russia. StarCraft 2 was playable for two whole days and fans got a chance to talk with Blizzard’s representatives, who were also present. No new information was revealed, but Chris Sigaty, StarCraft 2’s Lead Producer, has unequivocally confirmed that the StarCraft 2 beta will be released in 2010, and not during November of this year as previously promised.

To the same effect, Blizzard’s President, Mike Morhaim, gave a talk to BlizzaVision’s investors, stating that the game is set to be released towards the end of the second quarter of 2010. This is in line with the statements regarding the length of the beta – 4-6 months – and lends more credit to Sigaty’s statement. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the dates won’t be pushed back yet again, even though Morhaime said that the bulk of the work on the game has been completed, with the project still progressing according to the established timeline.

Last Saturday’s Blizzcast dealt with a few open issues from August’s event, and, most importantly (or relevantly) for the StarCraft 2 audience, produced two new screenshots:

Blizzard has reinstalled the Vespene Laughs competition, allowing artists to submit StarCraft-themed comics and win some much coveted beta keys. The competition was likely scheduled to end close to the original planned date of the beta, but is now being extended in conjunction with the recent delays.

Lastly, Cydra has been kind enough to answer a series of Sensor Tower related questions on the official StarCraft 2 General Discussion Forum.

1. Is the proper name Radar Tower or Sensor Tower?

Sensor Tower

2. What model is being used: Radar Tower, Sensor Tower, or a completely new one?

Sensor Tower has a passive Radar ability which expose enemy movements within its radar capacity.

3. What are the stats? (mineral cost, gas cost, build time, HP, armor)

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. Do cloaked and burrowed units appear as blips within the radar’s range?

No. Cloaked and burrowed units don’t appear.

7. Does the Tower have any other special abilities besides its radar function?

No.

8. Is the Tower salvageable?

Yes. you can salvage it for 100% fund.

StarCraft 2’s version of the Lost Temple has the following distinctive terrain features:

• Very narrow main base choke points
• Unlike the classic version, the top player’s natural expansion is placed to the left, at 11:00, instead of 01:00
• Two Xel’Naga watch towers are placed at key center locations
• Destructible Rocks block high yield mineral mining spots
• High ground locations have been “standardized” to eliminate the original Lost Temple’s slight imbalances

The match itself is as fast and brutal as all StarCraft 2 games we’ve witnessed to this point. However, it was different in some key aspects, many dependent on the nature of the map, which has most of the minerals in the surrounding areas and a large open space in the middle.

It was very apparent that the Terran player, David Kim, prepared for a long game. He invested in an Orbital Command to call down Mules and gain an economic advantage very early on – just after constructing his first Barracks, in fact. Later, only 5 minutes into the game, he builds two command centers concurrently, floating one to his natural and another to the island. The Protoss player, Yeon-Ho Lee, had his natural expansion up at that point as well. The Terran also carefully blocked the entrance to his main base using the crucial “Gateway” Supply Depots, denying the Protoss important information about his base and making any early attack virtually impossible.

The battles between the two opponents went back and forth with their large standing armies, but also took place in their naked home fronts. Both players successfully harassed each other’s mineral lines many times, scoring important hits and damaging the enemy economy.

In a devastating move, the Protoss player easily sent an undisturbed Phase Prism over to the Terran’s island expansion, knocking it out without even needing to load it up with troops first – just by acting as a power generator and warping in four Zealots from four Warpgates. The Terran player was the clear master of harassment, though, using the superfast Hellions to sneak past defensive lines, dropping units all over the enemy mineral lines and hidden cliffs, using stimmed reapers for hit and run attacks, and finishing with some extraordinary terrible, terrible damage…

The two players were able to set up impressive economies, and the battle remained undecided very late into the match. The Protoss player made impressive use of the new Psi-Storm, making short work of the Terran player’s tier 1 army, and did a great job constantly being on the attack.

Unfortunately, his late game unit use showed that he’s not an expert Protoss player, choosing to use Colossi and Stalkers against the armored Thors and against Marauders, which have a bonus against armored units. As well, and as Dustin comments, he fails to use the High Templar’s new Phase Shift ability, which would have taken out individual Thors out of battles, leaving the reduced Terran army crippled. A smart use of Immortals, which are resistant to the highly damaging attacks of the Thors, coupled with Phase Shift, might have made all the difference in this one.

However, what really sealed the deal was David Kim’s expert use of a single Ghost riding in a single Medivac Dropship. This successful team managed to drop 5 Nukes in succession, utterly devastating the Protoss Player’s economy, Warpgate farm, expansions, and will to fight. No screengrabs for these, since it will not do the effect justice! This paved the way for the Terran forces to walk all over the leftovers, prompting a “gg” from Yeon-Ho Lee.

Indeed, Nukes are no longer the “coup de grace” weapon of StarCraft 1, but an amazing tactical weapon to be used in normal games, with the potential to turn the tide of battle if used correctly.

A very interesting and intense game, once again dominated by David Kim. When will he be dethroned? Perhaps in the upcoming beta…

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.

It’s worth noting that there never was a 4:1 Zergling:Zealot ratio to begin with, as positioning was the name of the game in StarCraft 1 as well.

2. In World of Warcraft pvp they found an issue over time that it was “very unsatisfying” to the player when they lost control of their character as it limited their ability to do their job or role. There is a noticeable increase in stuns and immobilization in Starcraft 2, which was barely present in Starcraft 1. From your experience in testing, do you feel abilities, which limit unit control, provide more dynamic game play so far or are you noticing more concern?


First of all, there were actually some abilities in the original StarCraft that could cause players to lose control of units. These abilities include the ghost’s lockdown, the corsair’s disruption web, and the dark archon’s mind control. It may be premature to suggest at this point that there’s a “noticeable increase” in stuns and immobilization in StarCraft II.
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.

Stunned and disabled units are simply a non issue, and it’s correct of Blizzard to brush the concern off. Unlike WarCraft 3, and even more so, unlike WoW, StarCraft is a macro oriented RTS, with no distinct heroes, main characters or units that are absolutely required to proceed with normal multiplayer gameplay.

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?

Currently the mothership has a passive cloaking field for nearby units and buildings, wormhole transit, temporal rift, and vortex as its abilities. We are happy with the state of the mothership at this time, and would like to hear feedback from the players once beta starts.

A year ago, we’ve run a long and much debated poll about the Mothership’s role on the StarCraft 2 battlefields. Many have felt that the unit has huge potential and can bring additional  depth to the Protoss’ late game tactical arsenal without being an uber-unit.

Sadly, its current role appears to be virtually similar to StarCraft’s original Protoss Arbiter.

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?

It is intended to play more of the disruption/harassment role. They are meant to burrow and move up ahead of the swarm to soften up their opponent’s forces.

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?

It’s possible to dodge EMP, but it is difficult to do. Your options include anticipating your opponent will be casting an EMP by seeing the ghost or its shimmer and predicting it; being near the edge of the EMP range and moving out quickly; or using the stalker’s blink ability.

6. Map/mod to site communication – Will there be support for map/mod makers to bridge a connection between their map/mod to their site? For example, if a person wanted their map/mod to submit scores/results to the site, and vice-versa the map/mod could pull the highest scores from the site and display it in the game.


It is possible for players to make their own custom score screens but there are no specific plans to bridge map data to web sites via Battle.net.

It is unclear whether the above answer means that no game and player data API will be provided to developers when Battle.net 2.0 is launched. In the current day and age when virtually all modern social platforms provide developers with great API tools to enhance and expand their products and user base, Blizzard should seriously consider giving developers (especially ones eyeing the premium content marketplace) tools to extract specific game map and player data.

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).

There are no plans to allow maps and mods to have their own launcher. However, making a loading screen or launch screen is still possible.

In other news, StarCraft has now been proven once and for all to be a dangerous activity and a threat to society as well as to moral human conduct in modern culture.

An 18 year old Starcraft player has been reported as attacking a 15 year old girl. The gamer became angry when his internet connection wouldn’t work and picked up a kitchen knife and headed into the street…

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

The 2v2 StarCraft 2 exhibition matches were prime example of the fast-paced, unforgiving RTS action that gamers are bound to experience when StarCraft 2 is released. The three videos, totaling just under 30 minutes, contain two full 2v2 matches, from the very beginning to the inevitable GGs. While the videos were available on YouTube during the event, Blizzard have only recently uploaded them to their official exhibition match page. Unfortunately, the quality stayed the same – we won’t be seeing these in HD.

Key quote of the match: “Nerf David Kim“.

Blizzard has also recently sanctioned the release of a five part interview with Dustin Browder, Lead Designer of StarCraft 2. The interview covers little, if any, unknown ground now that BlizzCon is behind us, as it mostly deals with issues which were revealed and analyzed during or immediately after the convention.

Here’s the first video of the 5:

In case you have no intentions of going through this hour-long 5 video interview, check out the following exhaustive summary, courtesy of TeamLiquid:

For BlizzCon 2007’s story-mode build, most players would just click through Raynor’s dialog lines, ignoring them. Blizzard wanted the player to choose how they want to play the game based on the missions they chose, not based on something they said in a bar, because that doesn’t feel appropriate for a game about commanding armies and smashing empires. Choices that gave more meaning were; “Where do I send my army next?” and “How do I upgrade my technology?” The choices you were given when speaking to other characters looked like they were important and meaningful, though they really weren’t, that’s why Blizzard removed it from the game. Some people would probably have enjoyed this part of the game, but that’s not most people. Blizzard cut content because they want to keep the best stuff, and overall this makes it a better game.

Blizzard does have interest in exporting replays to a video format, but will probably not get around to it soon due to time constraints. Dustin Browder claims “We’re hugely interested in supporting e-sports and this is one of those things we want to do. I don’t know what the status on this is, but we will have patches after ship and expansions yet to come.”

The map editor will be released on beta, but not on day 1. Probably somewhere mid beta. Blizzard wants to beta test the editor itself first and see how it interacts with Battle.net. Also Blizzard wants to let modders try it, so when release comes we will see some cool mods pretty early.

Some RPG-style quests in StarCraft II take hours to create, others could take weeks or months, depending on how difficult it was to put together. Blizzard wants some of the quests to have multiple solutions. They did not want an RPG system that implies that there will be hundreds of quests. They want it to be more about the starmap and tech purchase.

StarCraft II has a lot of unit models that are no longer in the multiplayer, and some who were made specifically for single player. Dustin didn’t have a number, but claimed we will probably have to wait until the expansions to reach the same amount of models that were in WarCraft III.

The BlizzCon demo takes place at the middle of the beginning part of the campaign, there are three missions previous to the mission branch playable at BlizzCon. The Zerg are making their move into Terran space, but Jim Raynor at the time is leader of a relatively small and helpless faction.

Blizzard has put equal emphasis on the importance of single-player and multiplayer. Many fans of the series that are still active in the community are focused mostly on multiplayer, but much of StarCraft’s popularity is based on its campaign modes.

Dustin’s biggest hope for the game is racial balance and living up to StarCraft’s expectations and legacy.

The campaign has a full tutorial system, with videos and interactive missions. Skirmish mode also includes starting tutorials for the non campaign races. The campaign also includes multiplayer oriented challenge modes that help practice skills and tactics used for multi-player battles.

Internally, Blizzard feels the Zerg are vastly underpowered, namely in tier 2. Beta will be the period where they direct the game’s balance.

Racial identities and playstyles are being treated as self-emerging through development. Terrans have developed into a much more mobile race, but this is not the final decision for their overall playstyle feel.

Unit upgrades and unique ability upgrades are not segregated in order to make the building choices more varied and interesting.

Macro mechanics are still being reworked, overall they are happy with spawn larvae and MULE calldown, while Proton Charge is still being looked at for big changes.

Dustin feels that Zerg and Terran are close to equal difficulty, with Protoss being the easiest to use.

The Raven is close to how they want it designed, with some changes possibly needed for the point-defense turret to make its role more clearly understood.

Infestor’s spells are currently being re-worked.

Burrowed Banelings contain Terrans until they acquire mobile detection (Ravens).

Some Protoss missions are playable in WoL for storytelling purposes.

The campaign currently has approximately 15 tilesets.

Multiple tilesets can be used in single maps.

The basic idea for the Protoss campaign is the ultimate shattering and re-unification of the Protoss factions. The basic gameplay idea is to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of different Protoss factions to create your own new Protoss unification.

The Protoss campaign will be more focused on the Star Map and planet exploration than the Terran campaign.

The DLC plan includes additional challenges more geared to the evolution on the current meta game. Other DLC plans are still not decided.

Map editor features not necessary for StarCraft II (such as an inventory and hero system for DOTA clones) are included.

Models and graphics from the campaign can be used in custom maps, animations can not.

The Zerg have more “iconic” units that they feel could not be removed (Zergling, Hydralisk, Mutalisk), so it is more difficult to make the Zerg fresh and interesting.

The campaign will feature a lot of super high powered unit upgrades and abilities that won’t be in multiplayer.

That’s the last of it for this year’s BlizzCon. To celebrate the final ending of the event, here’s a video of a real StarCraft party!

Without further ado:

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.

The success of the StarCraft 2 multiplayer as well as the Battle.net Marketplace greatly depend on the social appeal of  pre-, in- and post-game player interaction, and Blizzard’s efforts in this area have not gone unnoticed. Battle.net’s social features, the improved observer and replay HUDs, and the advanced integration of the interface into the game will make StarCraft 2’s online experience a real treat for both professional and casual gamers.

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.

StarCraft 2’s terrain types have been unveiled in full during BlizzCon 09’s Art Panel, and can be seen in this video:

Environments shown in the video include:

• Bel’Shir – a  rich Protoss world, with nature unbound and forests untouched.
• Valhalla Installation – Terran Thor construction station.
• Castanar Installation – Laboratories for Zerg research.
• Monlyth- a Protoss world with distinct Protoss structures.
• Avernus - doodad rich tech/lab installation.
• Redstone - lava planet with reactionary doodads and changing lava levels.
• Zhakul’Das – a dark ancient world.
• Port Zion – a tech junk world.
• Korhal - a very rich Terran world, with monorails, billboards, skyscrapers and even pedestrians.

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.

This wraps it up for the recent Q&A batch. Make sure you follow the official @StarCraft Twitter feed, as Blizzard’s team has been quite active recently, tweeting fun stuff like the following fan-made Lego Immortal.

We’ll aim at releasing a fresh comic on a bi-weekly or monthly basis, with occasional guest artists and multi-strip adventures. Make sure you subscribe to the Comic RSS and to SC2Blog or follow the TerranoZergus Twitter feed to keep yourself up to date on SC2 Comic happenings.

One of the biggest debates, one which has provoked Karune’s response, started with an elaborate post about the Zerg Queen Spawn Mutant Lavrae ability. After careful analysis, the ability was deemed overpowered while also being too simple, making the 1-hatch Queen the best (and perhaps only viable) opening for any match.

Basically, for 150 minerals, you get more than a hatchery’s worth of extra larvae. That means off one hatchery, for 150 minerals and 2 supply, you can simulate a 2.5 hatchery production. Larvae inject is really easy to use and I had no problems remembering to do it every time. I had two fully saturated bases making hydras, and I only needed 2 hatcheries to keep up. Two hatches + 2 Queens = roughly 5 BW hatches. Yes, that’s scary.

Karune, noticing the sincere concern of the community, posted a rebuttal and pointed out another elaborate post on the counters to this strategy.

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.

As we approach the inevitable public StarCraft 2 beta, such strategy debates and heated balance arguments are destined to emerge, and it’s encouraging to see Blizzard’s community managers paying such close attention to the various fan communities. Of course, it’s good to remember that

you can expect lots of things to still change and be changed throughout beta.

Blizzard is preparing for the launch of StarCraft 2 and the new Battle.net via various pro-gamer and eSport-supporting partnerships, like the one recently signed with GomTV. In August, Blizzard has officially partnered up with Razer, a high-end gaming peripheral maker.

The first Razer StarCraft II tournament level gaming peripherals are poised to revolutionize the RTS category. The new line of professional gaming peripherals are engineered and designed from the ground up with unique exclusive features to cater to the StarCraft II community. Razer will incorporate its expertise in design, ergonomics, technology, and professional gaming peripherals to give StarCraft II gamers the competitive edge.

The press release announces an alliance between Blizzard and Razer, with Razer committing to supplying future StarCraft 2 gamers with pro-tournament level of gaming gear and Blizzard endorsing and promoting these products – such as the Zerg Messenger bag made available during Blizzcon. The rest of the StarCraft 2 product line has not been officially released yet, for obvious reasons. For a taste of things to come, check out this SteelSeries WoW-tailored gaming mouse, complete with a billion customizable buttons for all your macro needs.

Yet another StarCraft 2 pre-beta sub-era has come to an end, with Blizzard announcing the last Vespene Laughs contest winners. This time, only two entries made the grade.

Congratulations to the winners of August’s “Vespene Laughs” Comic Contest! This was the final month of the contest, and we’d like to thank everyone who participated for their effort and enthusiasm over the past six months..

To wrap this post up with some good, old-school awesome, here are a couple of giant hand-made StarCraft plushies (click to see the entire collection!).

Premium Content Marketplace Concerns:

For over a decade, Blizzard has shipped its RTS titles with powerful editors, much to the delight to the highly active and supportive mapping and modding communities.
Ever since WarCraft 2, the community has been pumping out maps, scenarios and campaigns, extending and expanding the game worlds via platforms and tools provided by Blizzard.
StarCraft and WarCraft 3 communities have provided players with thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of maps, custom game scenarios and campaigns; my own WarCraft 3 folder contains over 5000 maps, none of which were developed with monetary compensation in mind.

Even Blizzard’s MMORPG title, World of WarCraft, comes with a powerful and relatively easy to customize User Interface (UI) Application Program Interface (API), which has been taken to its limits by modders around the world. Almost every player in the World of WarCraft uses extensions and macros in order to be a better party member, professional, merchant or PvPer. Unlike RTS players, who enjoy the products of the community solely because of the unlimited growth in gameplay variance, WoW players virtually depend on quality UI enhachment for actual gameplay.

During BlizzCon 2009, Blizzard has finally unveiled what we assume to be the current, well thought-out vision of the new Battle.net.
A Battle.net that follows you everywhere – into your single-player games, into the campaign, you friend lists and interactions, you account settings and data, you system setup (as anyone who has enrolled into the beta can testify), and without a doubt, your payment info.

Now, considering the fact that Battle.net will not be a pay-per-play service (no matter how many false rumors start regarding this issue), all of the aforementioned points are not in any way negative. Blizzard is just leveraging its gaming worlds and infrastructure to create a better social, gaming and competitive experience.

The Marketplace, however, stands out in the Battle.net feature list not because it’s the only one which might cost gamers money, but because it’s the only one that does not, in fact, cater to gamers. As Rob Pardo put it, one of  Blizzard’s primary concerns is to ensure that leading modders and game developers make use of its tools, and the Marketplace will be launched as an incentive for luring them in.

We want to make sure the best amateur game designers out there are making content for StarCraft II, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that.

The marketplace is not aimed at community generated maps and home-grown Tower Defense games, but premium, commercial, moderated and approved maps and game mods.
Blizzard will be the one moderating the maps and approving the marketplace-worthy content, so you are unlikely to be charged for downloading the latest Micro Wars Footman Extra 1.5 because someone added an extra level. Blizzard will be in charge for drawing the invisible line between maps that took months of true amateur effort to create but have to be distributed for free, and maps that were professionally designed and developed over a couple of weeks that will bring in tens of thousands in download dollars.

Blizzard will be the gatekeeper and moderator of content, creating clear segregation between amateur and professionals, and forcing gamers into chain-reaction purchasing in order to play with friends who have acquired these premium-developer maps.
Upon deployment, Battle.net 2.0 will undoubtedly become the biggest and most advanced integrated gaming platform in the world, with hundreds of thousands of concurrent users and millions of page/screen views per minute. If anything, it is Blizzard’s best interest to inject professional, original and exciting content into the system, free of charge for its users, in order to keep people coming back and using the system, monetizing the platform in other, less intrusive ways.

Premium Content Marketplace Advantages:

On the other hand, the new marketplace could provide an impetus to take the StarCraft 2 engine to heights never seen before and never imagined possible with the old editors. When discussing the marketplace, a few important details and statements by the developers have to be considered.

Firstly, lets take a look at the most famous and one of the most invested in custom maps in any Blizzard game to date – Defense of The Ancients. This WarCraft 3 custom map has a larger player- and fan-base than most  popular original titles which use their own game-engines. It is being played on pro-level in tournaments. It has had songs written about it. Last year, Gamasutra declared that DoTA is “likely the most popular and most-discussed free, non-supported game mod in the world“. Surely such a well-developed, extremely popular, and highly praised custom map would achieve premium status?

Not according to Blizzard.

Both Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s president, and Dustin Browder, lead game designer, have stated that maps such as DoTA will NOT make the cut for premium status and will NOT require payment. The reasoning? They only use WarCraft 3 assets, without significantly adding any new content to the game, such as new mechanics and interfaces, sound effects, models, or voice acting.

Evidently, Blizzard will employ strict criteria to decide which maps will be worth your money. Karune has mentioned this recently:

Premium maps will have requirements, but those are still to be determined.

Premium status will be reserved for the cream of the crop of StarCraft 2 mods. This is perhaps a good term to use for differentiating premium and non-premium maps. While DoTA is a custom map, using the original game’s units, map sets, animations and models, a ghost-esque total conversion, such as the concept presented during the Galaxy Editor Blizzcon presentation, would be a true mod and would indeed deserve premium status.

Further, with the promise of monetary reward, StarCraft 2 mods could be taken to the extreme. Development teams would be able to form, supported by publishers (or perhaps Blizzard themselves?), and create entire new games using the Galaxy Editor and based on the StarCraft 2 engine. Indeed, proper support for large developmental efforts is planned:

Q: Any plans for group collaboration on maps?

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A: Yes, there are plans to give modders and artists products and share it with other people. You can import triggers so a person can work on a different part of a map.

Just like Id software engines, such as the ones used for Doom and the Quake series, have been licensed and used to create many other games due to their technological superiority, the StarCraft 2 editor will allow the StarCraft engine to be taken to new extremes, producing creative content thanks to its flexible nature and ease of use. Blizzard has already confirmed that modders will be able to create entire single player campaigns, attach achievements to them, and even use the ranked match-making system if they create highly competitive games.

All in all, this change will benefit everyone involved: from the developers who invest a lot of time and effort into their creations, to Blizzard, who deserve all the credit for supplying them with this versatile platform, to gamers, who will enjoy the fruits of these endeavors.

* * * *

Knowing where the modding and gaming communities stand on the issue of paying for premium content should be of great concern for Blizzard, even they haven’t initiated an open discussion on the topic. Hopefully, quantifying the community’s views and opinions on the issue can help Blizzard provide both gaming and developer communities with the best experience possible. Be sure to vote in the poll on the sidebar and state what you think of the upcoming Marketplace platform.

For StarCraft 2 fans, this year’s BlizzCon 2009 was all about two things:

• The new Battle.net – Battle.net 2.0
• The StarCraft II Galaxy Map Editor

BlizzCon served as an excellent stage to showcase StarCraft 2’s unprecedentedly powerful editor – the StarCraft 2 Map Editor called Galaxy, the new and much more presentable name replacing Scumedit. Throughout the last two years, Blizzard has released many statements boasting about the editor’s virtually unlimited powers. The editor can do anything, can be scripted to do anything, and can integrate any model, ability and UI into a playable package. Talk is cheap, and Blizzard wouldn’t be the first company to over-hype its own product in order to get the modding community on its side as early as possible.
This is NOT the case.

Watch the presentation:

Video highlights:

• Without the need for script coding, custom units, abilities and scenarios can be created.
• Mouselook will be availiable. Associating aim/view angle with mouse movement in a 3D world gives modders endless possibilies in terms of world exploration and FPS games. Among the crowd, people could be heard mumbling “World of StarCraft…  “.
• Scripting allows custom HUDs, quest interfaces and dialogue. Complete makeovers will be relatively easy to produce.
• Custom units and 3D world models are implementable as well.
• Fully custom controls and AI, as shown in the “Lost Viking” shooter game.
• Notable appearance by Nova of StarCraft: Ghost fame, making very clear the endless possibilities the Galaxy editor offers.

A Q&A session followed the presentation:

Q: Any plans for group collaboration on maps?

A: Yes, there are plans to give modders and artists products and share it with other people. You can import triggers so a person can work on a different part of a map.

It seems the editor is becoming a full-blown IDE, with collaboration and versioning tools. It will be interesting to see how far the higher, professional end of the modding community will push its limits.

Q: Any plans to stop map stealing?

A: We haven’t locked down on what our exact plans are. But we are going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for it to steal from you, the mod maker.

Q: To what extent can the UI be customized?

A: We asked for lots of extra things. We’ve tried to give you as many UI customization tools as you can. One of the things we’ve added is an item system, which we don’t need, but it’s useful for modders so we’ve added it anyway.

Q: How will hero system be more flexible?

A: You can do same things as in WarCraft III? The data editor is extremely powerful.

The above question resurfaces repeatedly since the RTS community wants to make sure that a StarCraft 2 DoTA will indeed be as good and feature-full as the massively popular WarCraft 3 version, which is, itself, based on StarCraft’s Aeon of Strife custom map.

Q: Will it be possible to adjust armor?

A: Yes, we’ve made it possible to be able to reproduce armor systems of past games.

Q: Has StarCraft 2 has been pushed back because of battle.net?

A: Well, it wasn’t just battle.net. We knew we wanted to work on the game longer. As developers we want you guys to play this game ASAP, but we saw a bunch of things in the campaign that we wanted to make better. So really, the delay started with battle.net, but we saw lots of things we could do better to make this game meet your expectations. The delay has been a blessing for us.

Q: Will there be a way to save your characters?

A: We do have support for what we’re calling banks. Basically you can store info on your local system, any kind of info you want to store.

Perhaps, in the future, Blizzard will be kind enough to allocate some server-side storage space for each user, allowing custom maps to use it for securely storing game data and characters. This will let players carry certain characters, achievements and items between games: imagine a DoTA-style long running game where players can resume playing, using their stored character – or even carry it to other, similar game worlds.

Q: Any possibility to record shoutcasting in replays?

A: Not in shipped version of the game, but it’s a great idea for e-sports. There’s alot of technical details to be discussing and we might implement it in patches.

Q: Can you load multiple maps at once?


A: We supported it in WarCraft III as “campaigns” and we are looking to support it for StarCraft II. Don’t know if it will be in ship.

Q: Will you be contacting your map makers because you track their quality?

A: Yes. Battle.net will show us who made the maps and who authored it. We’ll have access to the map-maker’s account. And yes, we’ve been doing this for years.

Q: Will we see this third-person perspective in any of the actual single player missions? Will editor be in beta?

A: I don’t know if we will include the third person thing in the game. It requires lots of teaching. We are trying to get people used to RTS gameplay in the single player, let alone third-person gameplay. We are planning to ship the beta in the editor. It probably won’t be in day one, but it will be there.

Q: Is there going to be any content filtering for uploading maps? Or is it wide open for everything?

A: Not sure yet, but our plan is to have a rating system where players flag the map and our staff comes by to confirm and the person will be warned/banned.

(Q&A transcript courtsey of BlizzLive)

Modders will also have water and lava control, despite the fact that Blizzard has made it clear that it does not wish to make liquid a “playable surface” by default. Of course, with the editor’s virtually endless capabilities and the newly added control schemes, we’ll be seeing naval warfare StarCraft 2 maps soon enough.

Most importantly, Blizzard’s statements clearly indicated that the StarCraft II Galaxy Map Editor will be available to players during the StarCraft II beta, and that during the beta, custom games will be available for play over the new Battle.net.

The StarCraft 2 Galaxy Map Editor, as an editor, is what StarCraft is as an RTS, what World of WarCraft is as an MMORPG, and what Diablo is as a hack’n’slash. It’s an industry standard.

Providing an incentive to really push the Galaxy editor to its limits, Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s design lead, has revealed plans for launching a fully-featured marketplace for StarCraft 2 mods. At launch, the marketplace will provide gamers and modders with a streamlined free distribution channel for the newly created mods, and full commercial features will be added as the game and community mature.

Imagine what could happen if you could hire a small dev team and use StarCraft II almost as an engine. This is an opportunity for [modders] to share in the rewards of our success.

We want to make sure the best amateur game designers out there are making content for StarCraft II, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that.

Blizzard has built an impressive set of development tools for StarCraft 2, but making gamers pay for mods in order to encourage adoption is quite a novelty. The Apple Store model will be used, where a portion of the map’s cost will go to Blizzard, the rest to its actual developers. It’s important to note that payment will be reserved to special mods and total conversions and not the normal custom maps Blizzard RTS players are familiar with. Dustin himself has said that even DoTA would not qualify for payment.

Moving on, some more interesting details have surfaced during the art panel.

Art Panel video 1:

Beautifully rich worlds, with unique doodads and terrain, each with a different look and feel – as if designed for an entirely different game.

Environments shown in the video include:

• Bel’Shir – a  rich Protoss world, with nature unbound and forests untouched.
• Valhalla Installation – Terran Thor construction station.
• Castanar Installation – Laboratories for Zerg research.
• Monlyth- a Protoss world with distinct Protoss structures.
• Avernus - doodad rich tech/lab installation.
• Redstone - lava planet with reactionary doodads and changing lava levels.
• Zhakul’Das – a dark ancient world.
• Port Zion – a tech junk world.
• Korhal - a very rich Terran world, with monorails, billboards, skyscrapers and even pedestrians.

Art Panel Video 2:

Death animations include actual physics, so multiple death animations also produce particles which interact with the world in a random way. Each unit will have 4 or 5 different death animations, each corresponding to different ways of dying. It should be noted the Zerg building death animations are extremely bloody, and it is reasonable to assume that StarCraft 2 will include a toned-down, less bloody mode, in order to not set off too many age restriction alarms in certain countries. Be sure to watch the entire video, as it features the Terra-Tron, Blizzard’s live and kicking (and burning, shooting and cutting) April fool’s joke.

Terrible, Terrible Damage

The unveiling of the features and interface used in Battle.net 2.0 came as no surprise to most StarCraft fans, most of whom already configured their new accounts as a requirement for participation in the StarCraft 2 Beta, and were eagerly anticipating Blizzard to come out swinging with more information about the massive platform.

And by massive, we mean the largest in the world. Rob Pardo has confirmed that Battle.net is currently the world’s largest gaming community, topping World of WarCraft by a mere 500,000 users – 12 million.

***

Battle.net 2.0:

The new Battle.net online gaming system is not, in itself, a new concept or a groundbreaking development. Each and every one of its components has been available in different gaming services or in the current Battle.net version. However, in keeping with Blizzard tradition, Battle.net 2.0 is going to be the most refined and functional of them all, taking the best features available and polishing them to the extreme. This official word from Blizzard sums it up well:

… 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.

Logging on to battle.net, the player also connects to a Battle.net-styled, fully-featured instant messaging client, where he can communicate with his friends (who may be logged on to Battle.net from any of Blizzard’s games), set a status, and make announcements. All of this is achieved with a very elegant tab system, allowing easy access to chat rooms, conversations with friends, and forming games.

Battle.net’s integrated social platform will follow players into games themselves, as an overlay that can be accessed at any time during the game.

The player statistics screen features recent game history, achievement progress, and just about any relevant piece of statistics about the player’s performance in every aspect of the game.

Match making has received a great focus in Battle.net 2.0. Blizzard is attempting to provide the complete gaming experience for players of all levels, implementing a system that will match players against each other based on their skill levels. This will be made even easier considering Blizzard’s anti-smurfing measures. Another interesting change further complicates the ladder process by dividing it into separate leagues and divisions.

Seven Leagues will be created:

• Pro
• Platinum
• Gold
• Silver
• Bronze
• Copper
• Practice

These leagues will be broken down further into divisions, which will be comprised of similarly-skilled players, 100 in each. Players will be ranked against others in their division, and there will be seasons of play. Tournaments will be held at the end of the season to determine division winners, who will go on to compete for the league championship. This elaborate system ensures that all players can play in a competitive manner even if they aren’t “pros” and enjoy this aspect of StarCraft 2 as well.

The match making system also allows arranged team play, and these teams will maintain their own skill-ranking and be independent of the player’s skill level in his 1v1 endeavors or those achieved with other teammates.

Another improvement comes to creating and hosting games. Players will be able to create a game in private mode, invite their friends, and then open it up to the public. Soon enough, no one will remember the days when a game’s host had to kick people joining his game while frustratingly messaging his friends to join, trying to keep slots open.

The game searching screen has not been neglected, of course, and offers the best tools available to sort through the thousands of concurrent games expected to take place on Battle.net, allowing players to easily focus the search on their game of choice, whether they’re looking for official melee maps or for the most customized mods.

Lastly, Avatars and Decals will be unlocked to players as they win games, similar to WarCraft 3.

Watch it all in the Battle.net 2.0 presentation, where it was also announced that, for the first time in an RTS ever, rewinding is now possible in replays:

Battle.net 2.0 presentation Pt. 2:

In other StarCraft 2 news, the voice actor for Kerrigan, the infamous Queen of Blades, has been replaced. The new Kerrigan will be voiced by Tricia Helfer, better known as Six from the hit show Battlestar Galactica. Tricia has participated in video games before, performing as Kane’s aid in the last Command & Conquer game.

BlizzCon 2009’s playable build also included several unit statistics and role adjustments: Roaches have gained a significant HP boost, but their uber-regeneration is now active only while burrowed, changing the details but keeping the “burrow-dancing” mechanism intact. Colossi had their beam damage increased, and are now capable of wiping out many Tier 1 units, workers included, with a single pass of their laser beam.

The Thor has perhaps finally found its role on the battlefield, as a 300/300 costing beast that deals 60 damage to ground units and 40 damage, with a splash effect, to air units. On top of that, it has regained its fan-favorite barrage ability.

Zerg Brood Lords, StarCraft 2’s Guardian version, will now be mutated to from Corruptors instead of Mutalisks. This will allow Zerg players to quickly switch between air superiority, once achieved with the help of Corruptors, to a devestating air to ground force which will go unopposed. Zerg Lurkers require a lot of tech to produce – first, a Hive is required to upgrade the Hydralisk Den to a Lurker Den, in which the player will further have to research Lurker aspect. This path might be worth going through, though, as Lurkers have also received an upgrade granting them greatly improved attack range.

More on the Protoss front, the High Templar’s Psi Storm now has a cooldown, which will be another limiting factor for its use aside from energy. The purpose of this change is likely to encourage use of the High Templar’s other abilities. The Immortal, the Protoss’ damage tank, has been moved to the Robotic Facility, and will not be able to warp-in anymore.

Finally, what is the main reason the beta has not been announced during Blizzcon? Dustin said:

“At this stage in development, the Zerg is having a lot of issues“

Dustin went on to say that there’s a difficult issue with the Zerg’s iconic units – The Zergling, Hydralisk and Mutalisk - which are very hard to either change or remove from the game. This has made evolving the Zerg to deal with the changes to StarCraft 2 very challenging, which is part of the reason why they are currently not competitive with the Terran and Protoss races. These were indeed changed much more in StarCraft 2: the Terran no longer have Medics, Marines have had their health buffed, and Siege Tanks have been relegated to a more secondary role. The Protoss have lost their mainstay unit, the Dragoon, and the Reaver has been removed as well. The Zerg have their core three units in the same exact role, and the rest of the units have been implemented around them.

It will be interesting to see how Blizzard will deal with this issue, and whether or not they feel brave enough to drastically alter, or even completely remove, one of these basic Zerg units.

All the screenshots released during BlizzCon are available here.