The month of February began with a reinvigorated, hopeful, and well justified beta rumor frenzy. Blizzard has been contacting gamers, websites and certain individuals about their StarCraft 2 beta access, and all eyes will be focused on Blizzavision’s public conference call, only 3 days away. Blizzard is setting up the pieces for the most massive RTS game beta test in history – a beta that will test not only StarCraft 2’s mechanics and balance, but also the revolutionary gaming platform Blizzard has been working on for a long while.

Blizzard’s Korean community representative commented on the topic and summarized Blizzard’s intentions in the following response:

(Credit for translation goes to our friends at IncGamers)

We know that all of you are very curious about the development of the Beta with the release of many Starcraft 2 Beta Testing related news across various news portals.

Unfortunately, the specifics of beta testing have not been finalized yet and I cannot give you a definite answer through this thread.

But we are trying our best to make the necessary preparations ready and introduce Starcraft 2 as fast as we can. I can definitely say that the Beta test will not just involve industry experts and other VIPs but rather will involve all fans of the franchise.

We understand how long and excruciating the wait was, and we also understand what you want the most right now as well.

We will tell you about any specifics that become finalized as soon as we can.

In the meantime, Blizzard has made some standard updates in the form of new features on the official site and new bits of information from the blues, Blizzard’s official RTS community managers.

The StarCraft 2 website has been updated with new fan art, all very inspiring StarCraft works.

Zhydaris took the time to post about the updated Zerg Baneling mechanics on the Battle.net forums in response to a 5-question inquiry by a fan.

1 - The Banelings cannot detonate while burrowed, they have to unburrow first and then explode. I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, probably exploding while burrowed would be a better warfare tactic”. You must understand that exploding in the name of the Zerg is indeed a great satisfaction for a Baneling, thus they prefer to unburrow in order to showcase their enthusiasm for their role by exploding with a smirk on their face. If you zoom close enough you will see a little smile on their little glowing face of theirs. Ah, gotta love the Banelings.

2 – They’ll wait for your command. If you don’t tell them to explode, they’ll just wait while staying burrowed. That’s nice for setting up ambushes.

3 - They always wait for your command.

4 – They’ll not behave like Infested Terrans. The attack-move command is not going to be interpreted as “Go and explode at this location”, but rather as “Move to this location and attack any enemy unit. If you can’t spot an enemy unit, just sit there”.

5 – It’s comparable to a D8 Charge, yes, the explosion covers pretty much the same area.

The above answers clear the air (if not to most Zerg players’ satisfaction) about the Baneling’s most dangerous, coolest and problematic property – the ability to act as a powerful underground mine. Some players will undoubtedly be disappointed that Blizzard took the safer (balance-wise) path of forcing the suicidal Zerg unit to unborrow prior to exploding. Of course, this won’t prevent them from still being very dangerous in this role.

Zerg units were not alone in getting blue attention, as both Terran Reapers and Protoss Nullifiers were mentioned by Blizzard’s community teams. Most importantly, the Nullifier, the superstar of the freakishly awesome 3rd battle report, has been renamed to Sentry and has received an updated unit model.

Kapeselus took the time to clarify how the Reapers’ D-8 charges act once deployed. The D8s have a 2 second delay before exploding, providing some panic dodging time, and are indestructible, at least in the current build.

In the current build you cannot destroy D-8 Charges. By that I mean that you can select them, but they are indestructible (they don’t have HP like other units do, just like units caught by Arbiter’s Stasis Field in SC:BW for example). If you are playing against Reapers though, you can still dodge the charges, as it takes them around 2 seconds to blow up.

He also answers some follow-up questions about the dangerous use of the charges against buildings:

D-8 charges don’t stick to buildings. You can only throw them directly to the ground and if you target a building they will just appear next to it. They also only damage ground units, so they won’t do any damage to your buildings if you manage to lift them off before the charges blow up.
You cannot damage burrowed zerg units if they are not affected by any means of detection. For example if you raid your opponent’s mineral line and he burrows his drones you won’t be able to damage them without a detector, like for example a Scanner Sweep.

D-8 Reaper raids are going to be a major issue for enemies of the Terran to take into account when constructing their bases. Clumped up Supply Depot farms, undefended worker lines, or expensive, high-tier buildings – all will be easy pickings for quick and painful Reaper raids.

Last but not least, Matt Horner – one of StarCraft 2’s key Terran characters – has been awarded with his very own lore page on the official StarCraft 2 website, being added to the respectable list of heroes: Jim Raynor, Zeratul and Tychus Findlay. Read it here.

“…he was young, smart, idealistic, and bored.”

January hasn’t featured any significant official update from Blizzard (yet),  but a few pieces of information have surfaced through the constantly-growing RTS community team. Here’s a quick run down of the recent updates to the StarCraft 2 Universe.

The role and functionality of the Changeling, a shape-shifting spy unit that can be spawned by Overseers for an energy cost, has been clarified by Avarius.

The changeling’s transformation is permanent. Once it is within range of opposing forces, it will transform to that race’s basic tier 1 unit (marine, zealot, or zergling) and remain so for its duration. In the case of a team game or FFA where there are multiple races, the changeling will transform to the race it encounters first and not change again.

When questioned about the viability of the ability in high-level 1 on 1 matches, Avarius made it clear that he considers the Changeling a worthy addition to the Zerg unit roster.

I definitely think you will see them used effectively, even in high level 1v1 play. Who wouldn’t want an essentially free scout (only costs energy) to use to gather intel on their opponent? With the potential that you opponent might not kill it immediately, it can provide you with a sustained scouting advantage. Even high level players can get caught up in harassment, or base management and may miss this little guy sneaking into their base.

The next blue posts were translated by a SC:L staff member, and come from the Korean side of the Battle.net forums:

When more supply is required, and when I have to quickly build three Supply Depots at the same time, this is usually the method that I use.

1) I select some mining SCVs by drag selection or Ctrl + Left Click. It’s good to select at least three.

2) After pressing ‘B’ (building hotkey) then ‘S’ (Supply Depot hotkey), while holding Shift, consecutively left click at the locations you want to build at before right clicking a mineral patch.

3) Out of the selected SCVs, only three of them go to the selected locations and each build a Supply Depot, and once construction is complete they return to mining minerals.

That’s how automated things have become in StarCraft 2: building multiple supply depots and sending the workers back to harvest minerals is easily achieved by issuing one concentrated and short batch of commands, eliminating many of the repetitive actions otherwise required in the original game.

Another bit of info from Korea details the unit classification system, which has received a major overhaul in StarCraft 2. The new system is much more streamlined and simple, following clear rules that make hard unit counters very apparent.

Light armor, heavy armor, biological, mechanical, giant, psionic, etc. are some attributes that units can have.

For example, the Ultralisk has heavy armor biological giant attributes, whereas the Archon has the psionic attribute. You can probably tell from looking at the Archon, but not all units are divided into [light armor/heavy armor]. Damage calculation is also different from the previous game. Units attacks always do at least 100% of the damage value shown on the screen. And then, depending on the attacks property, additional damage may be dealt when attacking units with specific attributes.

For example the Archons base damage is 25, and deals an additional 10 damage against biological targets. Therefore, Zerg units (which are usually biological) take 35 damage when attacked by Archons. And in the case of the Siege Tank, its Siege Mode deals 60 damage, so it deals 60 damage to all ground units. If the old system of explosive, concussive and small, medium, large was used, then Marines would take reduced damage from a Siege Tank.

On the topic of friendly damage, Zhydaris explains which explosion is ally-friendly and which should be more carefully handled:

… exploding Banelings do not damage allied units: both your units and those of your allies are not affected at all by the acid explosion.

Reaper’s explosive charge does actually damage allies, as well as your own units and buildings, so be careful when playing with those flashing packages.

The official StarCraft 2 website has been updated with a brand new 6-page Mothership story, including a short, action packed clip of a Mothership-backed Protoss force decimating a Zerg army. The Mothership sports a slightly altered design and a new attack animation.

StarCraft 2’s community team has also revealed a new doodad screenshot via Twitter. The art is high-detail and worth a closer look – make sure you click on the image for the full-size screenshot.

The following concrete and un-speculative bit of info is bound to make quite a few people happy, as it serves as real evidence that StarCraft 2 is indeed being tested live on Battle.net or, at least, that it is about to be in the immediate future. The Blizzard official support page now includes lengthy support articles for StarCraft 2!

The guide gets quite specific and even includes a detailed StarCraft 2 Mac Version Video troubleshooting article!

There’s also some hype about the the recently announced Activision-Blizzard public conference call that will be broadcast on the internet, as it might include a clear plan of action for the upcoming months.

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) intends to release its fourth quarter and calendar year 2009 results after the close of the market on Wednesday, February 10, 2010. In conjunction with this release, Activision Blizzard will host a conference call that will be broadcast over the Internet.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
1:30 pm Pacific Time (4:30 pm Eastern Time)

To listen to the call, please log onto:

http://investor.activision.com/events.cfm

With they year 2009 coming to an end, marking two and half years since StarCraft 2’s unveiling in Korea, it’s time to summarize this year of continuous teasing; feature annoucements, previews, battle reports and recurring mentions of the upcoming beta.

The first thing we covered on January 2009 is, ironically, 1UP’s post of the 25 most anticipated games of 2009, topped with the obvious reservation to curb the readers’ enthusiasm..

… both Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 appear in 1Up’s  “25 of the Most Anticipated Video Games of 2009“, Thierry Nguyen (1Up’s writer) seems to have a very realistic view on Blizzard’s schedule, reminding everyone of its famous “when it’s done” mantra.

The first unit to receive a major adjustment in 2009 was the Dark Templar, which now comes in two flavors following the results of a poll Blizzard conducted to decide between two, equally worthy models.

On January 20, a Blizzard official – Xordiah, Blizzard’s European RTS Community Manager, made a bold public statement concerning the StarCraft 2 Beta – Blizzard has set a fixed date for the public StarCraft 2 Beta, but is keeping it a secret.
Xordiah also mentions two things which are later discovered to be key macro mechanics:

• The Dark Pylon
• Terran Mule - the “bigger SCV”

Even February 2009 started with a StarCraft 2 Beta Hoax – a fake captcha image produced by one of Battle.net forum dwellers, as well as a rumor of a leaked StarCraft 2 build. Both turned out to be completely false, with neither beta nor playable build becoming available throughout 2009.

Towards the end of February 2009, Blizzard annouced its annual BlizzCon event and Dustin Browder posted what we’ve considered at the time a clear indication that StarCraft 2 Beta won’t be happening in 2009.

Question: “Why hasn’t Blizzard released the Beta?” or “WTF have they been working on, I played it at Blizzcon last year and I thought it was done!”

Answer: Solo campaign is under heavy construction as is Battlenet. When these things have enough work done that we know when our release date is going to be with strong confidence we will announce the Beta. Unless something crazy happens, the Beta is going to happen this year.

The above statement, coming from a senior member of the development team, should effectively put an end to any speculation that puts the StarCraft 2 beta release date before June 2009. Considering the fact that game development usually has a 60% chance of “something crazy happens”, we might be reading a similar FAQ a year from now.

Despite the gloomy predictions, nobody was under the impression that Blizzard was stalling or getting lazy – the development and art teams shelled out a massive update, drastically changing model graphics and introducing revolutionary macromanagement mechanics for all three races.

In March 2009, Beta Teasing reached new heights with the announcment (and implementation) of Blizzard’s unified Battle.net Platform, enabling StarCraft 2 Beta key owners to register via http://blizzcon.com/beta. Users could also opt-in for being randomly selected to take part in Blizzard’s various beta tests – meaning that even users without StarCraft 2 Beta keys could take part in the beta if they have set up their accounts to receive invitations.

All this teasing and beta talk was quickly taken advantage of by several trolls in order to send the community into a speculation frenzy over multiple fake “beta announcement” emails.

April and May 2009 were the Months of Clarifications.  Featuring multiple massive Q&A sessions, a Battle Report and lengthy Karunology posts, Blizzard’s community and Dev teams went out of their way to inform us about major changes made to StarCraft 2 in a recent overhaul. The development of StarCraft 2 is extremely well documented, and it will be interesting to come and re-visit these posts in a few years when StarCraft 2 matures.

• Team Liquid Q&A – key mechanics discussed
• StarFeeder Q&A – ZvZ balance, Brood Lord introduced, eSports Team mentioned.
• Karunology – Planetary Fortress details
• SC Legacy Fansite Q&A  and Korean event info
• SC2Armory Q&A and 51st Q&A

Further, the aspects to be included in the beta have gradually been revealed during that time to be

• Multiplayer via Battle.net 2.0
• Replay viewer
• Map Editor
• No Campaign
• Player versus AI

In May 2009, Blizzard focused on revealing even more StarCraft 2 gameplay considerations and started preparing its fans for BlizzCon. In a lengthy 11 Q&A session for SC2Pod, Dustin also revealed what is, at this time, the only hardware- based edge gamers can acquire – a widescreen montior.

1. How will StarCraft II handle widescreen monitors? If the screen isn’t going to be stretched, either widescreen or traditional format will have the advantage of seeing more of the battlefield, have you decided which one?

[Dustin Browder] Widescreen monitors will be able to see slightly more of the battlefield, but the extra visual real estate players will be getting will be quite small. Nonetheless, for competitive gaming, there will be a small visual advantage to having a widescreen.

Blizzard’s solution to previous years’ BlizzCon ticket purchasing troubles was the introduction of a strange ticket purchase queue system, which later proved itself surprisingly justifiable and had actually managed to handle the massive  burst of fans that overwhelmed Blizzard’s virtual ticket booth.

How long do I have to finalize my purchase?


Once you reach the front of the queue, you will have 15 minutes to finalize your purchase. To help speed up the process, we recommend you have a valid Battle.net account (create one now!) with up-to-date payment information ready to go, as this will be required to make a purchase from the Blizzard Store.

Towards the end of May, Blizzard also revealed that it has reversed some of its earlier gameplay decisions – such as making the Thor transportable and returning the Ghost its EMP ability.

June 2009 had one great thing about it. Battle Report 3, made entirely of pure awesome, was released (after being leaked a bit early). If, for any reason, you missed it and want to see a broad array of StarCraft 2 mechanics, weapons and abilities abused to the max, do go forth watch it now.

Still at awe by the delivery of Battle Report 3, early July 2009 we’ve been hit with another blast.  The amount of gameplay information, new videos, images and detailed Tech Trees was so vast and its release so well orchestrated, that we’ve dubbed the update  ”Pre-Beta Press Event: Tech Trees, Screenshots, Impressions“. Check it out: Full of screenshots, gameplay videos, interviews and StarCraft 2 build updates, it was one of the most singificant posts of 2009. Here are just a few items from the massive blob of info:

• StarCraft 2 will include an online Casual Gaming League that will feature “anti-rush” map designs, a normal (slower) game speed and other care-bear perks.
• Blizzard will push for mainstream adoption of E-Sports and public broadcast/televised StarCraft 2 matches.
• Banelings can explode while burrowed.
• Ultralisks are no longer a late-game screw-you unit, but hands down the most powerful and effective physical ground unit in the game.

August 2009 was the first time Blizzard openly stated that StarCraft 2 is planned for 2010. The anticipated released date range, slated for the first half of 2010 – as divulged in Activision-Blizzard’s Financial Results paper -  is highly unrealistic,  as the beta is very unlikely to be over prior to May 2010. Indeed, Dustin and co have stated that the beta will quite likely last between four to six months, if not more.

Just prior to the Battle.net and Galaxy Editor storm that was BlizzCon, Blizzard approved the release of the single player infromation pack, including pretty much everything a person considering the purchase of StarCraft 2 for its campaign value would like to know.

For fans following StarCraft Universe lore and eagerly anticipating the epic single player campaign, it’s a must read, but it also includes a statement we’ve been waiting for Blizzard to make for quite some time: No paid subscription for StarCraft 2.

Battle.net 2.0: “Will it require a subscription?”

We are certainly not doing that for Starcraft 2.

BlizzCon complimented the single player information batch well, covering the other two major aspects of StarCraft 2 : Battle.net 2.0 and the Galaxy Editor. While Battle.net 2.0 met the expectations of being designed to be a massive unified social gaming platform, referring to the tool presented at the convention merely an editor is a gross understatement. The StarCraft 2 Galaxy Editor was revealed to be a full-blown IDE, capable of producing games that look and function nothing like StarCraft 2.

One of Battle.net 2.0’s most innovative and somewhat controversial features is the introduction of the Premium Content Marketplace – built to provide StarCraft 2 content developers with a platform for selling their goods directly to gamers. This tool, which may later become key to the selection of games you see on Battle.net, has not received the attention it deserves -yet-. Be sure to check out the poll we’ve run on this issue since September.

October’s most interesting news piece is without a doubt the epic Battle Report 4, which featured massive clashes of Thors and Colossi, only to be abruptly aborted by a barrage of five consecutive nukes by David Kim.

No one was suprised when, in November 2009, Chris Sigaty, StarCraft 2’s Lead Producer, stated that StarCraft 2 beta will be released no earlier than 2010.

December came and went without a lot of action as well. The only notable item was a long interview with Dustin Browder, where he revealed his game-making soul to the fans. The interview showed how dedicated Dustin – who had doubts cast on him when development began – really is to making StarCraft 2 the Best Thing Ever.

We are trying to make this game complete – like if nobody buys any other product, this game needs to be awesome. Like if Blizzard gets hit by a meteor tomorrow and we all die, at least StarCraft II was awesome – that’s what it needs to be.

It better be, after topping the respectable Wired 2009 Vaporware list.

This week in StarCraft 2 was marked with multiple blue posts on the official StarCraft 2 forums, topped with a seven question Q&A session for the German fan site starcraft2.4players.de. Most of the answers deal with the finer aspects of StarCraft 2, but there are some interesting new revelations in as well.

1. Are you still developing new units or are you satisfied with the amount of units for each race and, therefore, more concerned about the fine tuning and balancing?


Our philosophy has always been to keep the amount of units for each race to a certain number to keep the gameplay tight, and we are satisfied with what we have right now in terms of that number. Once we head into beta we definitely evaluate the role of each unit and will potentially add or drop units as needed based on feedback.

Throughout the development process, StarCraft 2 has gained and lost quite a few units.

2. Can you explain the movements of big melee units like the Ultralisk in detail? While running through idle units smaller units tend to move away so the Ultralisk can walk in a straight line. Will that happen only in battles or while moving your whole army as well?


The way movement collision works right now is that a unit has to be idle for it to be pushed to a new location by another unit like an Ultralisk. Generally if you are controlling your forces and they are active, you will not see this behavior.


3. In the campaign of StarCraft II, there are many optional objectives to do so that the player can choose how to play through the campaign. But there are players who want to see every cinematic and play every mission. Are there missions where you have to decide, which way you go (e.g. the Terran campaign in StarCraft I, where you decide to choose nuclear weapons or Battlecruisers), or will the player be able to play the whole campaign in a linear progression? Will there be a menu were you can replay already completed missions? If so, can you also unlock new missions in that menu?


As you play through the campaign, there will be a few cases where you must make a distinct choice that could change the outcome of a certain side plot or the fate of a specific character. These choices will be made very obvious to players, and for those who want to see all the possibilities, you’ll have the ability to go back and choose the other path. We will also have a way for you to replay completed missions or cinematic cut scenes via the story mode interface as well.

Blizzard usually provides players with the ability to go back and replay missions; providing gamers with the ability to adjust their decisions is a treat for any must-see-all-paths (/achievement-happy?) fans. Most RPG games, such as the recent Dragon Age: Origins, change plot lines and outcomes significantly according to the choices made. However, Blizzard has stated that the ending of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty will be singular, providing the set up for the rest of the trilogy.

4. In the single player campaign of Warcraft III, even races like the Naga are playable temporarily. Is something like that planned for StarCraft II too?


The single player campaign for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will focus on the Terran campaign, but there will also be a short series of missions where players take the role of Zeratul and other Protoss forces.


5. Is the range of the stalker’s blink ability limited to the distance between him and the target area or are cliffs and trees considered; so a stalker could blink farther when he’s blinking down a cliff than if he’s blinking up the cliff?


The distance you blink is the same regardless of blinking up or down a cliff.


6. Will players be able to send resources to their allies? If so, will there be a limit to the amount of resources they are able to send?


Yes, players can send and request resources among teammates but only after a few minutes into the game. The reason for this is to minimize imbalances that could be created by one player getting a massive early economic boost from his or her partner dumping resources at the outset of the game. There currently is no limit to how many resources you can share.

We would like to see Blizzard experiment with the resources issue on a race basis. Base the ability to transfer funds on a building, for example, making this decision locked to a certain tech-tree path rather than an arbitrary amount of time.

7. Some replays were not compatible with new patches in StarCraft I. Are you working on making replays compatible with new patches for StarCraft II?


Yes, we’re working on allowing replays from previous versions of StarCraft II be compatible with new patches as they are released.

Moving on, new developments on the Blizzard home front: Karune has introduced two new community team members, neither wasting any time getting their feet wet – both have already been posting StarCraft 2 related info throughout the week.

According the Zhydaris, worker command queues can be set up to be very complex as long as you can afford all the requested resources in advance – even building an entire base in one go.

You can order a worker to build something, then move to a different location, then build something else, and then start to gather resources again. That’s just an example of the queues you could set up with the shift key.

If you order a worker to build 5 gateways, you will have to pay for these gateways immediately.
The won’t build one gateway, then wait for you to collect enough minerals, and then build another one.

Next, Karune discusses the Roach’s role in the game and the fact that it’s here to stay. Currently, it functions primarily as a damage sponge with multiple upgrades, perhaps even one for underground movement.

Most likely the Roach will be in the game – much of the balance work that is done is making sure it fits its role as a damage sponge. Throughout the balance process, the team has been playing around with lots of numbers in regards to how it regenerates, the upgrades the Roach has in terms of speed and health regen, as well as even the ability to have the Roach move while burrowed. None of these variations have deemed to be written in stone, thus we’ll just have to keep you updated as we move closer to beta and actual player testing.

Zhydaris cleared a lot of things up with a few detailed answers concerning “simultaneous casting” and “smart casting”. First of all, here’s a list of abilities that trigger simultaneous, all-unit, one click casting:

• Stalker Blink
• Zerg Burrow
• Battle Cruiser Defensive Matrix
• Baneling Explode
• Viking Mode Switch

Smartcast abilities, on the other, hand include:

• High Templar Psi Storm
• Disruptor Force Field
• All Zerg Mutations

Stalker’s Blink, Zerg’s Burrow, Battle cruiser’s Defensive Matrix, Baneling’s Explode, Viking’s switching from air-mode to ground-mode: you’ll only have to press the key once to trigger the ability for all the selected units at once (be careful with those Banelings!)

High Templar’s Psi Storm, Disruptor’s Force Field, Zerg’s mutations (Zerglings to Banelings, etc.): smart casting will kick in here and you’ll have to press the key for every selected unit.

Zhydaris later gives a detailed and helpful example as to why exactly mutations are now smart-cast:

Here’s one occasion where I think you might need smart casting. Let’s assume you have 20 Zerglings currently selected, you don’t have a lot of vespene gas and you feel the need for 5 or so Banelings. Without smart casting you’ll have to manually select 5 of these little dodgy creatures and then morph them, or else you’ll be mutating all of the 20 Zerglings into Banelings (and deplete your vespene reserves in the meanwhile).
With smart casting on the other hand you’ll be able to mutate 5 of them in a matter of seconds without deselecting them, just by pressing the key 5 times in a row.

Obviously this is just an example, but I feel that smart casting has a role to play here.

Will this change to the control mechanism be accepted? Similar changes to StarCraft’s most basic controls have been hotly contested, and this one will likely not go by smoothly as well.

Avarius, the other new blue, has posted some interesting information about how the Protoss’ Immortal comes into play against Zerg. Since the Immortal is most effective against high-damage dealing units, a concern was raised that it might be ineffective against the Zerg’s swarmy nature.

A good amount of zerg units are affected by the immortal’s Hardened Shield. They are particularly effective against roaches, ultralisks, and spine crawlers. Also, Psionic Storm and Nuclear Strike do not appear to be affected by the Hardened Shield as the immortal I just nuked disintegrated gloriously.

The new Blues have been ramping up their activity on the forums lately. Is this a result of the addition of new reps, anxious to contribute their takes on the game? Perhaps Blizzard is trying to restart the hype machine prior to the announcement of the imminent beta?