General

New game categories have been added to filter Tower Defense and Tug of War custom maps.

Balance

Thor
This unit will now prioritize attacking ground combat units over Medivacs.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a desync that could occur when trying to watch replays that had a dependency on bank files.

All StarCraft II accounts have been granted one free name change. If you’d like to change your character name, log in to Account Management and choose your StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty game license. On your game license screen a “Character Name Change” button at the bottom will initiate the request. After confirming that you’d like to change your character name, simply log in to StarCraft II and you’ll be prompted to select a new one. Please be sure to use this name change wisely.

In other news, Blizzard’s Official StarCraft YouTube channel has been updated with 3 new videos, providing lengthy introductions to each of StarCraft 2′s three playable races.

The Zerg:

The Protoss:

The Terran:

For the Zerg race, the present looks grim (but the future seems bright!) – Blizzard’s numbers show that less than a quarter of all players play as Zerg.

Protoss are played 38.5% of the time.
Terran are played 38.0% of the time.
Zerg are played 23.5% of the time.

These cross-league statistics leave no doubt as to which race drew the shortest popularity stick. Indeed, the Zerg have become increasingly harder to play as the meta-game settled in with both Terran and Protoss openings being “simpler” than the Zerg’s fragile early game.

In reality, however, players that willingly pick Zerg are not the underdogs comapred to their Terran and Protoss opponents. The Diamond numbers are actually quite reassuring, displaying a fairly balanced 3-way relationship, while Platinum is currently favoring Zerg in terms of win percentage.

Win % in Diamond (accounting for player skill)

49.6% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
52.8% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
49.6% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.


Win % in Platinum (accounting for player skill)

56.3% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
47.3% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
44.5% win for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Win % in Gold (accounting for player skill)

61.0% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
61.1% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
49.5% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.


Win % in Silver (accounting for player skill)

63.6% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
50.7% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
51.6% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.


Win % in Bronze (accounting for player skill)

59.0% win rate for Protoss when fighting Terran.
55.1% win rate for Protoss when fighting Zerg.
45.4% win rate for Terran when fighting Zerg.

Interestingly, while the Zerg are not as popular – likely due to being slightly less comfortable to play with, as Chris Sigaty himself had said recently - it is the Protoss vs Terran match-up that appears to be in need of balancing, especially across the lower leagues. We’ve highlighted those numbers in green. Curiously, Diamond-level Terrans enjoy a slight advantage over the Protoss – probably because of much better use of EMP, abundant M&M drops, and efficient Reaper micro at these higher levels.

Dustin also took the time to preview some of the balance changes planned to be included in the next patch:

•    We’re increasing roach range. This will allow roaches to be more effective in large groups, giving the zerg more options in the mid to end game.

The Roach has received many nerfs throughout its life in StarCraft 2, and this change will definitely help settle the score in its favor. By giving extra range to the Roach, large groups of these units become much more viable. Not only can more of them shoot over their brethren on the field, but they’ll also offer nice support when Ultralisks join the battle and clog-up the front lines with their massive size. Busting up walled ramp-chokes will surely become an easier task as well with more Roaches firing.

•    Fungal Growth will now prevent Blink, which will give zerg a way to stop endlessly Blinking stalkers which can be very challenging to deal with in large numbers.

•    The Barracks are going to require a Supply Depot, which will impact a lot of early terran reaper pushes.

•    The reaper speed upgrade will require the Factory, which is meant to weaken a lot of the early terran reaper attacks that dominate so many matches, especially in team games.

Despite being completely ignored by players in the mid and late game, the Reaper is slated to be hit with more early-game nerfs. While on paper, Reapers have the potential to be great economy harassers and tech-deniers, their extreme fragility makes even the puniest defensive measure a prohibitive obstacle – and these can be found anywhere beyond the first few minutes of a game. It’s unclear what Blizzard has in store for the Reaper, but for now, it will definitely see a lot less play.

•    We’re making a number of increases to the health of zerg buildings, which will make the very vulnerable zerg technology structures more resistant to raids.  We don’t expect these hit point changes to have a super significant impact on the game, but the current numbers felt way too low.

All in all, this patch will definitely make the Zerg’s life easier. However, since it doesn’t address any of the complications in Zerg play that we mentioned in our post on the subject, it’s not clear that it will actually increase the amount of Zerg players. That will remain to be seen.

StarCraft 2′s 1.1.1 patch focuses exclusively on bug fixes:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Ultralisk cleave range was being unintentionally extended by larger targets.
• Fixed an issue where the Phoenix’s Graviton Beam was automatically canceled if you used it just after the Phoenix reached 50 energy.
• Fixed an issue where queuing Return Cargo on a worker would cause it to ignore the built-in delay after it finished gathering.
• Fixed an issue where players watching older replays or saved games would experience stuttering.
• Fixed an issue where some Mac users were unable to join games properly.

We now return you to your previously scheduled StarCraft 2 program.

• BlizzCon 2010 Custom Map Contest – Closed 11/09/2010
• BlizzCon 2010 Fan Art Contest – Closing September 27 2010
• BlizzCon 2010 Original Song Contest – Closing September 27 2010
• BlizzCon 2010 Movie Contest - Closing September 27 2010

• BlizzCon 2010 Costume Contest – Sing Ups closing September 27 2010
• BlizzCon 2010 Dance Contest – Sign Ups closing September 27 2010

Blizzard has also announced that Tuesday, September 21st, will be the day of the first major StarCraft 2 Patch – the 1.1. Servers are expected to go down and re-emerge with a new and improved version, one that has been discussed in length in a recent Situation Report.

First of all, Bashiok quickly dispels this myth:

Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn’t.

Next, he clarifies Blizzard’s approach to patching:

Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don’t feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.

We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that’s one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.

Unlike during the beta, Blizzard can’t afford to patch the game every few days or radically alter components of the game for a test run. “Real” patches are indeed coming, but they will be heavily scrutinized first to make sure the introduced balance changes are worthy:

That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of ‘we think this may help’ type fixes. With a live environment we’re not going to throw stuff out there unless we’re pretty sure. We’ve played. We’ve looked at data. We’ve looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn’t to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it’s a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.

There you have it! Balance changes are coming, and they’ll be thought out and tested before we’re exposed to them. Indeed, in mid-September, Blizzard is planning on releasing the first real patch, and they’ve already released a situation report detailing some of the planned changes:

Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, and more. We’d also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.

Balance Changes

We have several balance changes in store. One general change we’re making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let’s break down the additional balance changes we’re implementing.

This changes the way vision works so that units that are killed immediately lose the vision they provided on the field. Previously, killed units would still supply intelligence for a few short seconds, allowing players to jump to the location of the “under attack!” ping and see exactly what had happened.

Maps

We’re going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.

Protoss

We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby “proxy” gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.

While this gives victims of proxy gateway rushes a little more breathing room, it also puts Protoss players in danger of getting Zerglings going past their choke point just slightly before the first bouncer Zealot comes out.

The late-game effect that slightly hinders the Protoss’ ability to mass up Zealots quickly is also no doubt a reaction to the following Siege Tank change:

Terran

There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.

Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we’re changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.

Siege Tanks will now perform more like their StarCraft 1 Predecessors, dealing less damage to light-armored units like the Zealot, Marine, Zergling, and Hydralisk. A huge change for this unit that the Terran race has come to rely on, Tanks in siege mode will now be significantly less deadly to these units. Hydralisks will need 3 shots instead of 2 to be killed; carapace-upgraded Zerlings will survive the first shot, non-stimmed Marines will as well. Zealots, already capable of taking some tank fire while charging in to the battle, will be able to take one extra hit as well and survive 5 direct shots. This is not the first nerf to the Siege Tank, which has already had its damage lowered from 60 to 50 during the beta.

Siege Tanks will now benefit greatly from the +1 damage upgrade, allowing them to one shot Zerglings regardless of upgrades. A +2 attack Siege Tank will two-shot Hydralisks again, even if the Hydralisk is +2 carapace upgraded itself.

Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We’re aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.

Zerg

Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.

The Ultralisk, which was highly underused during the beta, has finally been seeing use since the release of the game thanks to the final patches of the beta that have improved the unit’s damage, speed, and have given it a permanent “frenzy” effect along with the ability to break down Sentry Force-Fields. This is has made it quite devastating in some situation, so the current damage reduction definitely makes sense. On the other hand, Ultralisks will now be better than ever for breaking down tight chokes, as their AoE melee attack will be used against buildings as well.

Interesting changes all around, and these are only some of the promised ones to come in the next patch!

In a hilarious and predictable turn of events, that will perhaps prevent Blizzard from releasing these situation reports prematurely in the future, players who had read the report and have noted that Zealot proxy rushes and Siege Tanks are overpowered are abusing those to the max while they still can. Be warned!

Blizzard has promised to bring chat rooms back within a few patches, and now, gamers not happy with their handles will be offered a name change for free soon as well. Why bother writing “free“? Well, because Blizzard will be charging for Battle.net name changes in the future.

The recent 1.0.3 patch continued the tradition of providing a minor bug fix while leaving gameplay balance intact.

Bug Fixes:

Fixed an issue preventing some players from accessing offline play from the login screen

Our Nvidia-sponsored GeForce GTX 460 StarCraft 2 flipbook contest came to an end this weekend, bringing multiple interesting submissions. As promised, the winner of the contest will be awarded with a EVGA GeForce GTX 460 768MB and the runner up will receive a SteelSeries limited edition professional grade StarCraft 2 mousepad.

The second place, along with the mousepad, goes to Stephen Barnes for submitting this animated battle, called “Death From Above”.

The winner of the contest is Nadya Emmyl from Stary Oskol, Russia, who submitted this excellent animated reenactment of Kerrigan’s last stand on New Gettysburg.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is available for purchase around the globe. Battle.net 2.0 is live, and hundreds of thousands are enjoying war, in all its glory… and all its horror.

SC2Blog staff attended launch parties around the world, celebrating 3 years of following StarCraft 2′s development in the public eye, and picking up their own, pre-ordered copies. Those who have chosen to get Collector’s Editions have received one of the most beautiful gaming artifacts to have ever hit mass production.

The Collector’s Edition comes in a big, beautiful double “sliding door” package, giving it a unique and rugged look that is unlike any other. Due to its size and the distinct pseudo-metallic texture, the box immediately stands out in any store or gamer room.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition is packed with features, both tangible and digital.

• The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a 176-page book featuring artwork from the game
• An exclusive 2GB USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor’s dog tag, which comes preloaded with the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion set
• A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, cinematics with director’s commentary, and more
• The official StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty soundtrack CD, containing 14 epic tracks from the game along with exclusive bonus tracks
• StarCraft comic book issue #0, a prequel to the comic series
• A World of Warcraft mini Thor in-game pet that can be applied to all World of Warcraft characters on a single Battle.net account
• Exclusive Battle.net downloadable content, including special portraits for your Battle.net profile, decals to customize your units in-game, and a visually unique version of the terran Thor unit

Everything inside the box is of the highest quality, including a functional dog tag 2 GB USB drive. Its rough feel is just what you’d expect from its looks, with a push-and-slide USB connector and a fitting neck chain to hang it on.

The most important “show and tell” item is certainly the 176 page StarCraft 2 art book. For those who have followed SC2′s development, the pages will contain many familiar sketches and 3D renders of units and environments that have been introduced, scrapped or changed along the way.

The behind-the-scenes DVD and the full soundtrack CD has great value for true StarCraft fans, shedding light on StarCraft 2′s development – from its very inception to the delicate gameplay decisions made close to the release to the public. Considering the correlation between StarCraft and the professional Poker world, it wouldn’t be surprising to find the StarCraft 2 soundtrack playing on iPods during long tournament grinding sessions.

For those who won’t have many opportunities to brag about their recent purchase in the real world, one of the nicer perks is without a doubt a special set of Battle.net portraits that are available only to owners of the Collector’s Edition.

With so much awesome in one package, the StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty Collector’s Edition has great sentimental value for those who have been following the StarCraft Universe since it was introduced, over 12 years ago. Even if this is the first StarCraft game you purchase, you will quite likely get to appreciate it as much as we do soon enough.

General

-The Mac StarCraft II Editor is now available!

Bug Fixes

– Burrowed Ultralisks now have the correct 500 hit points while burrowed.
- Fixed an issue where custom maps utilizing custom loading screens could cause players to lag or be dropped from Battle.net.
- Fixed an issue during replays when rewinding could cause the replay to desync.
- Fixed an issue with in-game menus causing performance issues.

An official announcement regarding the beta ending time has been released: it’s due to shut down today, July 19.

We would like to thank everyone who has participated in the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test. You’ve done an admirable job of testing, and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback you provided during this critical phase of development. It’s been a lot of fun; however, all good things must come to an end.

In preparation for the launch of the game on Tuesday, July 27, the beta servers will be brought offline by Monday, July 19. At that time, all beta accounts and character information will be reset and the ability to create forum posts and comments on the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty website will be unavailable until launch. In the meantime, we still encourage everyone to stay tuned to the website for exciting news and updates regarding the upcoming release.

Thank you again for your participation, and we’ll see you soon on Battle.net!

Enjoy the last hours of beta play, and brace for the full release on July 27!

Note that every other prediction from this rumor about the Korean Air-Blizzard event was dead-wrong.

If you’re wondering what the facts are — we will be addressing StarCraft II tournament functionality in a post launch patch to the game, soon after ship. This patch will include features to address the needs of location-based pro tournaments, but we have not discussed any specifics about tournament support beyond that.

Original post:

Even with the StarCraft 2 Beta down until further notice, the eSports arena is heating up. Rumors and teasers mentioning of a massive event scheduled to take place on June 24 have been released, and it appears that the event is not only meant to generate hype.
Big thanks goes to the TL and SCL communities for posting translations of the original material, which was released via PlayXP and sc2.178.com.

June 24 11:00~14:00
Gimpo Airport Korean Air Hangar

This event will run from June 24, from 11:00am until 2:00pm at the Korean Air Hangar, with the attendance of Blizzard HQ executives, national VIPs of the industry, reporters, and community members.

It was asked if the general public could participate, but unfortunately the event is planned to be invitation-only.

It is expected that all the details of StarCraft II’s release will be made public here.

Following Blizzard’s lockdown of the StarCraft franchise, many were expecting a major announcement to come out of Korea regarding the future of major league StarCraft competition, one that is approved by Blizzard. The event is planned to have Blizzard executives in attendance, so this just might be what fans and progamers worldwide have been waiting for.

1. There will be an upcoming “Ongame Net Starcraft 2 League,” or OSL2.
2. The sponsor of the first one will be Korean Air.
3. The first OS2L will have preliminaries all over the world and then the players will be gathered in Seoul for the Ro16.
4. There will be a “Starcraft 2 Professional Edition” that will only be provided to tournament organizers, which will include LAN functionality. Only with a special account + password that gets activated will it work. Blizzard staff will be present at tournaments to assist. Apparently, this news was first told to the organizers of the Stars War tournament after it had ended.

While the actual GomTV/OSL arrangement is not clear or fully confirmed yet, it is reasonable to assume that GomTV has found a way to work with one of the scene’s largest and most established operators. However, the most interesting part of this story is the StarCraft 2 Professional Edition, which is said to include LAN functionality.

LAN support, or the the lack of it, has been a major issue throughout StarCraft 2′s development. The gaming community did not approve of Blizzard’s decision to not support gameplay over local networks, and many fans have vowed to abstain from StarCraft 2 as long as it does not support this type of connection. It will be interesting to see if Blizzard actually does launch this “StarCraft 2 Professional Edition” and if the requirements for acquiring it will be made standard and public.

Update: Note that every other prediction from this rumor about the Korean Air-Blizzard event was dead-wrong.