Visitors to BlizzCon 2008 got a chance to play the latest StarCraft 2 build, and, as expected, this one is not without an abundance of changes, just like the one from last year’s event. As we get closer to the beta and the eventual release, these changes become more and more important, as they are more likely to stick through to the end. Without further ado:

* Banelings no longer require any gas to be produced, after the initial 150 gas investment in a Baneling Nest. Previously, Zerg players had to decide whether to invest in Banelings, which have an early-game crippling potential, or to use the gas to tech up. With this change, using Banelings does not inhibit the Zerg’s player tech advancement.

* The Queen is no longer a unique unit. As such, it is no longer upgradeable by itself, instead relying on global upgrades, and is treated like a normal spell caster. Its abilities now include:

• Mutant Larva: Create three large Larvas that are not attached to the hatchery. Bring them into battle with you to create adaptive reinforcements.
• Razor Swarm: Creates a cloud of Zerg insects, controllable by the player, which damage units caught in it over time.
• Create Creep Tumor: Extends the range of Creep, similar to a Creep Colony.

Dustin Browder, lead game designer, commented that players saw the Queen as too much of a defensive unit and neglected investing time and resources into developing it, instead choosing to focus on the offensive in most games.

* The Mothership currently has the following three abilities:

• Cloaking field: As the StarCraft 1 Arbiter ability, this bestows the cloaking effect to all friendly units in a small radius surrounding the Mothership.
• Vortex: A nerfed Black-Hole, this ability only disables the units it pulls into its event horizon for the period of the spell.
• Timebomb: This ability disables all units, enemy and friendly, who enter it for the duration of the spell.

* The Nighthawk’s (formerly Nomad) abilities are:

• Deploy Auto-Turret: Deploys a permanent Turret on the field.
• Deploy Spider Mine: Deploys a “burrowed” mine on the field, ready to pop out and explode on any passerby.
• Deploy Targeting Drones: Deploys cloaked drones which fly around the targeted unit, lighting it up with a targeting laser. This adds 50% to any damage that unit receives, and provides sight around its location.

* The Vespene Geyser mechanic has changed again. As we suggested, and no doubt partly thanks to feedback from our readers, the “Replenish Gas” process is now Auto-Cast. When the gas in the Vespene Geyser is depleted, it automatically goes through the replenishing process, which takes 60 seconds – during which the workers are unemployed, and can be utilized for something else at the cost of the player’s attention. Unfortunately, this process cannot be turned off.

Dustin Browder has commented that the current gas mechanic isn’t liked by many of the developers and will likely be changed. Perhaps our full suggestion will be implemented – allowing the automatic repleneshing to be turned on and off and the player’s volition – or just scrapped altogether, in place of a system that does not require much action from the player.

In the screenshot above, “Available” refers to the amount of gas left in the Vespene Geyser before it has to go through the replenishing process, while “Remaining” is the total remaining amount of gas in the Geyser.

* The High Templar has gained a new ability: Phase Shift. Affecting single units, this takes them out of the battle by shifting them to another dimension for a short period. Effective for both enemy and friendly units. This ability joins the Templar’s two other abilities, the Infamous Psi-Storm and Archon Warp.

* The Ghost’s Snipe has been replaced with an ability called Psi-Round. This still deals a lot of damage to single units, but also deals an additional 50 points of damage to “Psionic” type units.

* The current unit types are: Light, Massive, Armored, Biological, Psionic and Mechanical. Structures also have the Structure property.

* The Colossus has a new upgrade, Extended Thermal Lances, which increases its attack range from 6 to 9. This is a major upgrade for the Colossus, allowing it to dish out damage from protected locations enemy units can not get to, like heightened terrain spots and fortified positions. Its attack animation has changed yet again: the beam focuses on a single position while intensifying, then sweeps across the field quickly, scorching everything in its path.

* Upgrading Protoss Gateways to Warp Gates now costs 50 minerals and 50 gas. This allows warping units built from it to any powered-up location on the map and reduces some of the build time, but removes the option to queue units.

* The Lurker’s spines and the path of destruction they form are now much wider. As well, it also receives a bonus against armored targets.

* The Battlecrusier can now utilize these three, battle-oriented abilities:

• Yamato Cannon: As in StarCraft 1, the Battlecruiser charges up a large amount of energy, which is then released as a hot ball of death, capable of destroying most units on the ground or in the air in a single hit.
• Missile Barrage: This new ability allows the Battlecrusier to saturate a piece of the sky with missiles, inflicting area of effect damage. Especially deadly against lightly armored fliers.
• Defensive Matrix: The Battlecrusier can now cast this old Science Vessel ability, but only on itself. This is a temporary shield that adds a layer of protection to the already heavily armored Battlecruiser, allowing it to take even more damage.

Each produced Battlecruiser can only choose one of these abilities to utilize throughout its life – it cannot pick another or change its choice.

* The Infestor does no longer actually infest. It has also lost its famous Dark Swarm ability, and can no longer cast Disease. It now has the following abilities:

• Fungal Infestation: Infests a single, non-massive unit, slowly reducing its hit points until it dies – creating an explosions that damages nearby units.
• Neural Parasite: Takes control over a unit for 10 seconds.
• Spawn Infested Marines: This somewhat senseless ability allows the Infestor to hatch five eggs, out of which Infested Marines pop out, regardless of the Zerg’s current enemy on the field.

The Infestor now possesses the ability to use his special abilities while burrowed. Coupled with his natural ability to move while burrowed, this makes the Infestor a very interesting unit for the Zerg.

* The Nydus Worm is no longer a unit. The player must now build the Nydus Network building and then “plant” a Nydus Worm with an Overseer.

* The Overseer has received the Queen’s Heal ability. The Overseer is now a fast, flying detector unit with a large sight radius, capable of “summoning” Nydus Worms and healing Zerg units and buildings.

* The Phoenix now possess the old Nullifer ability, Anti-Grav. It can now lift up units off of the ground, throw them into the air and attack them with its anti-air attack.

* The Nullifer, which lost its Anti-Grav ability to the Phoenix, now has these three abilities:

• Force Field: Creates an impenetrable barrier on the field which lasts for 15 seconds.
• Hallucination: Like the StarCraft 1 High Templar spell, this creates a fake version of the targeted unit, serving as a decoy.
• Molecular Displacer

* Siege Mode for Siege Tanks is now researched at the Armory, pushing this ability further up the tech tree.

* The Hellion (formerly Jackal) has received a boost in stats and efficiency. When microed well, it can now outrun most enemies while still being able to stop and fire off a quick burst of flame.

* The Hydralisk has been reduced in tier, hit points, damage, and overall efficiency. It is now mainly used as the Zerg’s anti-air unit.

* Marines now have 80 hit points with the Shield upgrade. The Stim upgrade has been moved up the tech ladder to the Shadow Ops building, and further help arrives a bit later, from the Starport, in the form of the healing Medivac Dropship. These upgrades keep the Marines very useful for the Terran race throughout the entire match.

StarCraft 2’s latest playable multiplayer build coupled with the surge of details about the campaign, along with the StarCraft 2 beta key, are all clear indications that StarCraft 2 is entering a mature presentable stage, soon to culminate with the much anticipated beta.

Related Posts:

• » Battle Report 3: StarCraft 2 is Freaking Awesome
• » Karunology: EMP Vs Protoss Shields; Q&A 52: MapMaker Series
• » StarCraft 2 Beta Key Contests: 38 Beta Keys to Earn
• » Death Animations, StarCraft 2 Q&A 51 and Fansite Q&A 5

39 Comments to “BlizzCon 2008: Changes to StarCraft 2”

1. Gladiatorza — October 17, 2008 @ 3:53 am
   

   FIRST POST!!!!

2. SikTh — October 17, 2008 @ 6:42 am
   

   Man, what the hell. Infestors can no longer infest stuff? That’s so stupid. Infesting buildings should be in the game, even as one of those unused abilities that you use to humiliate your opponent with.

   I want to see infesed Zealots!

3. QTR — October 17, 2008 @ 7:25 am
   

   hydralisks weakened…thats a goner for zerg..i loved the hydralisks…

4. Joe — October 17, 2008 @ 7:45 am
   

   Eek – So many changes!

   This time, game choices seem to be aiming for safety!

5. Cosmic-girl — October 17, 2008 @ 8:45 am
   

   segundo (?)
   nah.. me encanto lo que hce el hight templar

6. Kane — October 17, 2008 @ 9:19 am
   

   I agree! They’re taking out all the things in the game that are not the normal, vanilla RTS stuff.

   Keep the Infestor infesting!

7. Anonymous — October 17, 2008 @ 9:48 am
   

   I’m not liking these current changes..

8. Nattaboy — October 17, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
   

   I’m liking the terrans more and more, but the other races are getting de-coolified. It’s funny, becos b4 the other races were awesome and the Terrans were a bit… meh. but now positions have reversed.

   Thank god i play terrans…

9. androo — October 17, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
   

   i’m going to miss dark swarm more than infesting. i really doubt we would see zerg players infesting terran buildings that often. it takes focus away from more important tasks.

   my biggest disappointment is siege mode. having the upgrade where it is now works perfectly. with zealots and stalkers out quickly, terran doesn’t seem to stand much of a chance. that coupled with the fact that the healing ability has been moved up the tech tree doesn’t seem very fair. but i have faith in blizzard, so i’m sure they won’t make any rash decisions. they know the game better than most of us.

10. Dill — October 17, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
    

    I wonder if maybe they should change the colossus back to its old form, with a small AoE perhaps (As others had suggested awhile ago.), while keeping the range upgrade. It seems more effective to do things that way than to try and force the colossus into the old reaver role.

11. Joe the Plumber — October 17, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
    

    Wow. It seems like they just went ahead and changed all the stuff that was giving them trouble in earlier builds. I like the Battlecruiser and High Templar changes, but I am a little disappointed in the Queen and Mothership. Also, give us back Snipe!

12. jeremy — October 17, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
    

    Interesting. This means that zerg has a cloaked spellcaster. I agree with the author that the ’spawn infested terran’ spell is a bit nonsensical. I’m guessing that’s just a placeholder until Blizzard decides what they want to do with this unit.

    It’s too bad that infested buildings are clearly being removed from the game. Maybe a more interesting way to do infestation is to set it up such that once a zerg player successfully infests a building, they can create an infested unit of that race from their own hatcheries for the rest of the game. That might make it a bit more worth it.

13. Isaac — October 17, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
    

    “Spawn infested marine” is indeed a ridiculous idea, and needs to go.

14. POOSTER — October 17, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
    

    I’m loving the battlecusier’s ability to defence matrix itself, but to make you choose 1 out of 3 battlecruiser abilities during production makes it difficult to manage them if you decide to give each one a different ability. They should just give them all 3 abilities, some that you have to research on your own, and increase the energy needed to use them so you can only use them 1 at a time. That way, battlecusiers are more flexible and fun to use.

15. kpollo1 — October 17, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
    

    were did the infested marines come from if your fighting vs other zerg or the protoss it should be infested enemy race for what ever race your up against

16. Jason Lee — October 18, 2008 @ 12:13 am
    

    what’s Molecular Displacer?

17. Vice Versa Man — October 18, 2008 @ 1:19 am
    

    It seems to me that this whole “Spawn infested marine” nonsense is a byproduct of their problems with making the Infestor fit in with lore. If they are, as all signs indicate, to be introducing Protoss/Zerg hybrids in the single-player campaign (in whatever form that may take), how would you explain infested Protoss? And if you can’t have infested Protoss, how is the Infestor still a viable unit in Z vs. P scenarios? What about Z vs. Z? It would appear that the Infestor was an interesting concept that had too many logical shortfalls to make it work as originally intended. Instead, we are now getting a unit that works in every scenario but makes no sense whatsoever. I hope that we see a future version of the Infestor that manages to find a happy middle ground for this ability, but I would rather see the Infestor cut or renamed and restyled to better suit this new approach than the stupid, nonsensical idea of “this unit can spawn Infested Terrans.”

    Seriously, Blizzard, if the idea doesn’t work, don’t force it.

18. keyhive — October 18, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
    

    The queen is now a wicked awesome boon for the zerg.

    With respect to the infestor dynamic, I think it should have to burrow directly beneath a biological unit, suck it in whole, then spit it out changed to that player’s control. It would require more coordination, then, to make a sneak attack with them as people would always be wary of infestors.

    Seriously, the queen’s offensive abilities are just amazing. To be able to create a creep tumor MEANS overlord creep drops can be near-permanent in the later siege.

19. keyhive — October 18, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
    

    “how would you explain infested Protoss?”

    Uh, the fall of Aiur, perhaps.

20. keyhive — October 18, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
    

    Suggestion on creep:

    Have the tumors vary in size. I.e. the queen could enlarge a tumor for some energy, raise its hitpoints slowly.. Then one could have a cluster of tumors outside enemy HQ while the army pushes to invade.

21. keyhive — October 18, 2008 @ 9:59 pm
    

    Suggestion on creep:

    Have the tumors vary in size. I.e. the queen could enlarge a tumor for some energy, raise its hitpoints slowly.. Then one could have a cluster of tumors outside enemy HQ while the zerg army pushes to invade.

22. meo123 — October 19, 2008 @ 6:59 am
    

    Well, the Psi-Round ability of the new Ghost sounds ok to me, but it’s better if they give it a different name such as Psi-Bullet…

23. SCV_Operator — October 20, 2008 @ 10:07 am
    

    Once again a really great and detailed review of all the changes. Part of me thinks it makes SC2 sound like a game that still doesn’t have its own identity quite sorted out – like if you can change units around and swap powers so easily, were they really that well considered in the first place.

    Then again, reading back on SC2blog’s review of the old Starcraft, and the changes that game went through gives me hope that Blizzard can get this game together, and make it in such as way that we will think its final state is the way it was always meant to be.

    Great work again, guys for putting all this info together.

24. hey — October 21, 2008 @ 7:15 am
    

    nah!, none of you men say about, ‘Nydus worm, it is not a building, neither a unit’.

25. BLaviOUs — October 22, 2008 @ 8:13 am
    

    Creep giving a boost in speed was pretty sweet, but they raised a good point asking if pylons will give similar buffs to toss

26. bargamer — October 22, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
    

    Do Nydus Worms still need Creep to be planted and deployed? SC2Armory says no. Otherwise, I could see a scenario where you would have a Queen (or Overlord) lay down some Creep, then an Overseer (either the Overlord or a different one) drops the Nydus Worm, plus time delay for actual transport of the reinforcements. Possibly, the Queen’s three Larva would also help defend. That might work, if you were just REALLY sneaky, your opponent sucks at micro, and/or was just overwhelmed.

    Who is faster, the Queen or the Overseer? Would the Overseer be able to heal himself? Obviously, being able to heal the Queen, her Larva/Eggs, and the Nydus Worm would be a benefit. Once the Nydus Worm is up, can you Deep Tunnel several Queens over as well? Not sure, since Huge Queen is removed.

    Finally, since the Phoenix lost it’s Overload ability for the Anti-Grav, which also powers it down, the suggestion is for there to me more than one Phoenix in that group, depending on how long Anti-Grav lasts. Have 1+ Phoenix AG some enemies, beat them up, and let them drop… (Bets that people are gonna refer to that tactic as Force Choke?)

27. bargamer — October 22, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
    

    Took another look at SC2Armory, looks like Deep Tunnel is gone, looks like we’ll have to settle for regular old Nydus Tunnels, lol

28. bargamer — October 23, 2008 @ 11:19 am
    

    http://www.sc2pod.com/trackers/blue/?id=610#1695

    MOAR Nydus Worm info, it looks like your Zerg Army isn’t even limited to a single Worm at a time, it’s like a “network,” in which you make your army come out of whichever one is not being attacked/due to be destroyed. Of course, I can see one weakness of Nydus Worm build times: Nukes. Simply time the nuke to land when you’ve got a respectable number of Zerg still inside the blast radius, and ka-blooey.

29. КОММУНИСТ — November 4, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
    

    Эти все изменения в правилах есть ерунда.
    Мне опять придётся изменять правила, чтобы убрать всю глупость и сделать игру более интересной. А по этим правилам пусть играют глупые Корейцы. Я не из их числа.

30. nfx — November 6, 2008 @ 3:51 am
    

    as an terran fan…i agreed…for the infestor…for us give challenge..cause it can still be detected in a Nighthawk..as well the nydus worm….but it really disappointing that they cant infest the protoss race..?unfair!until now?where is this (Zerg/protoss Hybrid?)thing?clan?or whatever it is…

31. ee — December 11, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
    

    i think that they should make the queen a much more powerful unit.a cool way of doing so is to give her an aura similar to the one of the deathknight from W3..that would be nice…
    the mothership kinda sucks i mean it cost too much,..good hp and damage,..but the vortex ability is kinda stupid considering that they have the High Templar with his phase shift and the nillifier with his Force Field,..planet cracker was a better choise and much more cooler;),..about the infestor…how will the eggs hatch if he’s underground?..question..;;)why dont u blizzguys give the dark swarm ability to the queen?…another cool thing is to give the archon the Overload ability but to damage only the ones which are near him…this would be a good way of damaging units when the archon is surrounded and almost dead

32. ee — December 11, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
    

    or to make the archon overload when he’s killed:>,..like a passive ability ,..:>

33. ee — December 11, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
    

    another idea ,..why don’t the thor get as well the EMP ability?:>

34. Anonymous — January 10, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
    

    I hope they put the dark swarm back in, I realy love that spell!

35. Dekkion — January 14, 2009 @ 1:01 am
    

    So many changes…
    Im afraid if the game will hit a point of “nonsense changes” for the good of balance.

    About the Medivacs: Much troubles, only caused by the Reaper? Simply binging them back for the range of Medics, after a “mission”, isn’t a good way out?

    Name suggestions for the Psi-Rounds: Headshot, Brain Snipe

    Overall, all of these changes don’t ‘me gusta’

36. Dekkion — January 14, 2009 @ 1:07 am
    

    I hope Blizzard really know what they’re doing… =/

    I still think that it’s a matter of putting the units/abilities on its respective role, according to its concept. Balance must be given in the numbers.

    (sorry, english limitations)

37. Kishan — January 25, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
    

    Will map-makers be able to more freely edit spells and abilities? For example, will we be able to adjust how long psionic storm works? Or how rapid the effects of plague(if added) will be?

38. Trib — June 23, 2009 @ 9:34 am
    

    Doesn’t anybody else think that the marines going from 40-80 life is a bit… rigged with that Upgrade?? with just one upgrade you are doubling the hit points making them 2 times harder to kill. 30 (upgraded) marines+medivac=gg…

39. Joe — June 23, 2009 @ 5:02 pm
    

    I think the upgrade now only changes their hp from 45 to 55. It is mentioned in the new battle report on http://www.starcraft2.com