Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, has been active on the forums lately, posting bits and pieces of new information about StarCraft 2.

First, Karune posted concept art pictures from two, now-cut units from StarCraft 2, and one picture of the evolution of one of those.

* Click for big

This is the original art concept for the Firebat, which is operating a small mechanized armor. The Marauder has slipped into the Firebat’s old shell, keeping most of its armor, but replacing the flame weapons with grenade launchers.

Next up: can you guess which cut unit this concept art picture belongs to?

This is the Purifier, the old name for the now-defunct Soul Hunter. Perhaps if the Soul Hunter had been this magnificent in-game it would not have been cut.

Next, another old concept art picture:

The Ultralisk originally had spiny tentacles, as Karune mentions, and as this picture illustrates so well. The spines, which apparently flailed around randomly, skewering marines in their path, were eventually cut due to the random nature of their damage output, which doesn’t fit StarCraft’s professional, competitive nature.

Karune further promises that during Blizzard’s upcoming mega-event, BlizzCon 2008, new artwork changes will be shown. Specifically, he mentions a “planned community event around the Dark Templar in which we hope to get much feedback about the models in-game of these units“.

Finally, an interesting change to the Warp Ray has been described by Karune:

Yes, the Warp Ray can fire while moving. Once it begins firing at a target, the Warp Ray will follow the target if it begins to move, keeping at a close proximity since the Warp Ray’s range is currently quite short.

The Warp Ray, whose beam increases in intensity and damage output the longer it is being focused on a target, currently has a relatively short range for its devastating attack. To compensate for the cut in weapons range, which used to be quite long, and to make it harder for units to break away and eliminate the Warp Ray’s deadly lock, the Warp Ray will be able to keep firing at its target while it’s moving - even if it means it has to follow it itself.

This means that the only way to avoid the Warp Ray’s damage barrage is to destroy the Warp Ray itself. This eliminates an aspect of micromanagement, in which the player would constantly move his units out of the Warp Ray’s range to avoid its attack, just as it’s gaining focus. Fast units would probably still be able to outrun the Warp Ray, but these are not the units that should fear the Warp Ray’s attack - its juicer targets, units and buildings which possess many hit points, generally move very slowly.

Cavez, StarCraft 2’s lead game designer, and Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, have each posted comments to threads in Battle.net, revealing some interesting information about the current build.

Cavez talks about the role of the Evolution Chamber in StarCraft 2, which, according to the latest information about the Zerg, is now almost useless:

Zerg evolution, or upgrades, only affect one unit. For example, the Zergling has 3 levels of evolution: Level one grants it more speed, level two provides +2 to damage and +1 to armor, and level three +1 to damage and +2 to armor. No word has been given about the favorite crack upgrade, which transformed Zerglings into insane machines of destruction in late games of StarCraft 1. The upgrades are researched at the unit’s building - in the Zergling’s case, the Spawning Pool.

Cavez tells us about the new change:

We cut the Zerg upgrade per-unit idea. It didn’t really work. You had significantly fewer choices by upgrading them individually. It made the game feel a little more predictable (in a bad way). The Evo Chamber is doing what you remember it doing from SC1.

The Evolution Chamber now provides global upgrades again, like in StarCraft 1. Three upgrades are available - Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, and Carapace [armor rating] - and three levels for each.

The StarCraft 2 Evolution Chamber also provides the following benefits and upgrades:

• Burrow - allows ground units to burrow
• Generate Creep - allows Overlords to use the Excrete Creep ability and increases the rate of creep expansion
• Enables Creep Tumors to evolve into Shriekers
• Slime - allows Overlords to use the Slime ability

Moving on, Karune clarifies the effect of the Ghost’s Snipe ability:

Snipe does a lot of damage to ‘light armor’ units that are biological. To an Ultralisk, it will do nearly nothing.

Snipe will mainly be useful against high profile targets, such as the Protoss High Templar and the Zerg Infestor, which it will be able to take down in one shot. Other, larger targets, like the Ultralisk, will shrug off a Snipe shot easily. It’s worth noting that the new, and apparently quite potent, Nullifer will not be affected by Snipe at all, as it is robotic in nature.

Snipe has obviously been designed to complement the Ghost’s passive radar ability, which allows it to detect spell-casters. These key units are usually small and fragile - perfect for the Ghost, who can cloak, move in for a fast kill, and get out - crippling the enemy force which accompanied the caster.

StarCraft 2 updates are scarce, but Karune has released quite a bit of Information last week on Battle.net’s official StarCraft 2 Forum. Karune’s comments, once compiled, provide decent amount of insight into the current build, being informative and on-topic even more than some of the Q&As.

The first group of answers deals with the Terran Infantry, specifically its new additions - the Marauder, Reaper, Ghost’s Sniper ability, and the Medic’s replacement, the Medivac.

…is it ever useful for them to just hang out with marines or are they exclusively harassers, and if so does any other race get something harass with?

Reapers can be used with your army of Marines and/or Marauders as well, as they do extra damage to light. The biggest challenge will be keeping them protected, as they don’t have many hit points. If the player is able to do that, the Reapers tear through most light units including Zealots and Zerglings.

…And most importantly, workers. Reapers truly emerge as the ultimate worker line raiders - this infantry’s arsenal includes Jet-packs, mines and ability to deliver heavy damage to light units.  The full list of known information regarding the Reaper’s mines has can be found in this post.

If they are marauders, can those be put in bunkers or are they classified as mechanical and are too big to be placed in them?

 

  Yup, that is a Marauder, and they are able to enter Bunkers.

 

  

i wonder does the ghost snipe deal damage to units under the dark swarm because it’s an ability or doesn’t it deal damage because it’s a ranged attack?

  

Units under Dark Swarm do not take damage from Snipe in the current build of the game.

 

Medivac Dropships heal much faster than Medics from StarCraft Brood War. Also, players using Marines in the original StarCraft still used Stim Pack often. Now the Marines have more health with the upgrade and is still very effective while stimmed. Combined with Marauders’ slow ability means additional shots with Stim Pack often leading to that unit’s death before it can do damage.

  Despite the fact that the beloved Medic is no longer part of the M&Ms, StarCraft 2’s developers have obviously not forsaken this important aspect of Terran Infantry. Medivac’s role and abilities are tailored to fit the new Terran arsenal, which features considerably tougher marines, the heavy Marauder,  the raid-oriented Reapers and the still unstable incarnation of the Terran Ghost (which recently lost its Drop Pod ability). 

…can u explain the actual role of the thor? Please Karune!!! Does his 10range AOE attack only hit Air? We all wanna know :]

 

The Thor will primarily be an anti-air unit, but will also be able to attack ground units as well. The Thor will not be cost effective against air unless the enemy move in tight groups.

This answer will disappoint quite a few of our readers - many have been expecting the Terran Thor to be the ultimate bomarding heavy-hitter, with ability to both dish and absorb massive amounts of punishment - a new backbone for the Terran offensive. Not a mere Goliath 2.

Up next, two Zerg clarifications, one being quite surprising.

Creep will not do damage to enemy Zerg buildings.

 

 

So I guess Broodlings won´t spawn if you attack buildings=?

They spawn when you attack buildings as well.

You read that right - the long announced but just recently spotted Swarm Guardian, will be able to produce broodlings for the Swarm… out of buildings. While we won’t bet on this ability to make to the Gold version of StarCraft 2, it does create quite problematic scenarios for the Anti-Air heavy expansions and Supply Depot/Pylon clusters.

 Source : Karune’s B.net Forums postings.

Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, has sprinkled a few new bits of information on the Battle.net forums.

First, he is asked about his thoughts regarding StarCraft 2’s unique units:

In the current build, only the Queen is ‘unique’ (only limited to 1 per Zerg player at any given time). The Thor is currently the Terran’s primary ground to air mechanized unit. More than one Mothership can also be built, though they are quite expensive in cost.

Will the Zerg Queen remain the only unique unit? The concept of its uniqueness is drastically different than both the Mothership and the Heroes of WarCraft 3. The Queen’s role is part of the Zerg’s building and unit evolution; It isn’t just a one-unit army or the pinnacle of the Zerg’s tech tree.
Comments made by Battlarmd and an Anonymous reader in our last post raise a few interesting ideas for both races:

As long as the Mothership is in the lower orbit, all units will get stronger shields, and maybe even decreased mana cost for abilities. Keep the Mothership unique, this way every Protoss player will want to build the Mothership asap, but again, it will be a major attack target by most players, but this kind of ‘fear factor’ will be cool. Maybe even have it so when the Mothership is created, a warning message can be sounded like the nuclear launch, something like “A Protoss Mothership has descended into lower orbit.”

The Mothership remains as one of the most powerful support units. The Vortex ability can potentially eat whole armies up, if the enemy players do not react fast enough (especially in difficult to maneuver choke points). Furthermore, the Time Bomb is extremely effective at breaking the enemy’s defensive line in a drawn out escalated battle.

The Void ability, Originally known as the Black Hole, has again been renamed to “Vortex“. It seems that the main drawback of this ability, despite being extremely powerful, is that it can relatively easily be dodged. Spells of this type, which are not instantaneous and require careful planning, also take a lot of skill to use. Of course, since the Mothership is not unique, there’s nothing holding a dedicated Protoss player from casting 2 or 3 of those, completely surrounding an enemy army with black death.

Next up, a few Zerg questions answered:

The visuals for the Zerg’s defense structures have not been finalized.

 

The new defense gameplay mechanisms they are working with on the Zerg are actually introducing many new tactics in terms of how you build your base defense. In order to maximize the efficiency of your defense structures, players will have to place them very strategically. I am sure we will go into this in more detail when we chat with the devs about it in a future batch of Q&As.

One of the reasons the size of the Banelings were increased from the size in the original Protoss Release Video was to make it plausible to defend against it. Before, if you have a group of Banelings attack with Zerglings, it was near impossible to focus fire on the Banelings. In the current build, their size, splash damage distribution, and hit points have been increased. These changes still make them potent, yet still allow the possibility of defense with superior micromanagement.

The final size of the Banelings still may change, but this is the current design they are testing.

One of the most seen offensive strategies internally at Blizzard is using the Queen to build base defenses on enemy creep in Zerg vs Zerg matches. The Queen can also regenerate the health of those defenses as well, making it an excellent Zerg on Zerg rush strategy.

Offensive towering taken to a new extreme. The Zerg Queen is the ultimate tower-rush weapon, capable of constructing the towers, healing them instantly, and providing back up herself. This is quite a risky move, but obviously a very effective one.