Starcraft 2

If you have signed up for the Starcraft 2 beta, you should be getting an email in the coming days.

I’m still waiting for mine but I’m not desperate yet. Yet, if you can offer me a Starcraft 2 beta key, send me a tell!

While we’re on this note, beware of scammers who are sending fake beta invites and request passwords, bank info, and what not. Remember that Blizzard doesn’t need your password or bank info to send you a beta key. They have your email and that’s ALL they need.

So keep you fingers crossed you get into the beta!

According to Kotaku (and Rob Pardo specifically) you can design your own map and SELL it.

Blizzard wants to foster the best mod community in existence, and to that ends they’ve unveiled plans to single out premium custom-created maps for sales on a StarCraft 2 marketplace. Maps will be split into two categories – normal and premium – with the former free and the latter for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the map’s creators. Blizzard hopes this will lead to more choice for StarCraft 2 players, and more innovative and creative custom maps fueled by the potential financial rewards.

I guess Blizzcon is a bit shy on Starcraft news, Diablo 3 got a new class – the Monk!

Patience is such a stupid virtue! Blizzard have finally announced the Starcraft 2 beta test sign up.

The instructions are very simple:

1. Sign up for a battle.net account
2. If you have a Battle.net account, login here.
3. You’ll see a link “SC2 Beta Profile Settings
4. Download an app that will upload your system specs
5. You’re done

My guess is Starcraft 2 release date could be near too. The word is Activision-Blizzard are under pressure to release a major game in 2009 as their earnings don’t look too rosy. Of course, Blizzard are known for their motto: we release when the game is ready.

There’s been quite a bit of speculation about Starcraft 2 release date – as with all Blizzard games. Blizzard’s motto – it’s out when it’s ready – means that exact dates are now known before about a month before.

So it’s good news that Mike Morhaime said at E3 that Starcraft will be out in 2009. Of course, he put it in a conditional sentence!

Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime has said that Starcraft II will be released this year as long as it “meets our standards and the expectations of our players”.

The latest gameplay video I saw, there have been some new Protoss units, so I guess Blizzard never tire of adding/subtracting units.

Stand back for the mighty Terra-tron. In Starcraft 2, the whole Terran base comes together at the hour of need in order to create the uber unit – Terra-tron.

See Blizzard’s April Fool’s joke for 2008 – Tauren Marine.

Another batch of videos demonstrating Zerg gampleay…

Part I: Zerg vs Protoss

Part II: Zerg vs Protoss

This is from the 2006 quarterfinals – to be honest, I’ve never tried countering a 4 drone rush with drones but since it doesn’t look it works, I’m not terribly disappointed.

In the latest BlizzCast (#6), Bashiok goes through a bag of questions from Starcraft fans. One of the more interesting one concerns the role of the anti-armor units in Starcraft 2.

Bashiok: Cool. The next question comes from gamer-source.com. With the all the anti-armored units like the marauder and the hydralisk – is this meant to counter the end game units? And also what role do you think end game units will play on the battlefield?

Dustin Browder: I’m not really sure what an end game unit is, I guess it would be like a battlecruiser or a carrier or a thor or ultralisk, I guess it’s what we’re talking about here. But the hydralisk has always been anti-armor, even in the original Starcraft had a strong anti-armor role.

The marauder of course gives the Terrans some additional anti-armor capability from the barracks which we felt was very important since we moved the ghost back so far allowing the ghost to fulfill more of a core role on the battlefield for the Terrans. We didn’t think that the ghost made a lot of sense as fundamentally anti-armor with his sniper rifle. If he’s going to be anti biological and sort of taking head shots and taking out individual targets then we really needed the Terrans to have some way to deal with stalkers and immortals and to a lesser extent siege tanks and roaches. So that’s really what the marauder is pointed at, the marauder is pointed more at stalkers and roaches and you’ll see marauders used in that role. They also can tear apart a colossus or thor which is an added advantage for the Terrans from the barracks again.

If you think the billions that Blizzard makes on the back of World of Warcraft have made them less greedy, think again.

They have just announced (at Blizzcon 2008) that Starcraft 2 will not be a single game but in fact a TRILOGY. There will be three separate campaigns: the Terrain will come out first, followed by Zerg and Protoss.

Tell you what – I never cared for single player. I want a game that will allow me to choose a race and fight human opponents. It looks like I’ll have to buy three games – each will probably be around $40, so that’s over $100!

For a long time, Blizzard have stated that the new version of Battle.net will premiere with Starcraft 2.

So when they say the new version will probably be ready by Christmas 2008, you’d think it might be Starcraft 2 release date too. At the same time, there have been definitive statements from Blizzard that Starcraft 2 will not come out in 2008.

So the consensus on forums is that Battle.net 2.0 will come out in December – together with a Starcraft 2 beta. As to the game release – that’ll probably happen in early 2009.

Update: A recent rumor (started by an anonymous Blizzard employee!) added oil to the fire by claiming that Diablo 3 release date has been moved before Starcraft 2. Now, that’s obviously bullshit as Starcraft is clearly the more “finished” game of two. Two races are already playable – and played at Blizzcon.