Starcraft Junkie

In this weeks’ Q&A Karune discusses some of the issues brought up since our last gameplay experience at WWI. We’ve all been brimming with questions, so he picked out some of the most pertinent topics including the Zerg static defense buildings and the highly debated new vespene gas mechanic. Enjoy!

Chat with Devs: Since the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, the topic of the new Vespene Gas mechanic has come up a lot across many different fansites and message boards. Thus far, this is one of the biggest changes which will affect the macro management of bases in StarCraft II. To shed some more light on this new mechanic, I have gotten a chance to talk to Dustin Browder, our Lead Designer for StarCraft II, about the progress thus far of the new mechanic, as well as the objectives this new mechanic is designed to achieve.

To start, the new Vespene Gas mechanic is to further distinguish the play style in which players gather minerals versus gathering gas. In the original StarCraft, the gathering of gas was very linear in the rate in which gas is gathered. Often, players would put 3-4 workers on the gas, and the players would forget about it until the geyser was depleted. Minerals on the other hand, were much more exponential in the rate of growth and were also often played differently amongst different races. Zerg would likely expand rapidly with less drones in each expansion and Protoss/Terran could sustain a sizeable force with higher numbers of workers on a smaller number of expansions.

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Related Articles at Starcraft II Galaxy:

• Starcraft 2 Q&A Batch 5
• Starcraft 2 Q&A #19
• Karune Starcraft II Q&A Batch 33

The guys over at TeamLiquid have made a compilation of all Starcraft 2 information released at the recent WWI in Paris. It contains a lot of good information, Q&As, a few gameplay vids, some in fairly good quality, and much more, including links to ourselves here at StarCraftWire.net. TeamLiquid WWI SC2 Compilation

More than a year after its introduction, the Mothership persists in posing a challenge for Blizzard’s developers. As Dustin Browder mentioned in a recent interview, the Mothership is still a unit with no distinct role on the battlefield. Neither overpowered nor blatantly weak in its current form, the Motership’s flaws are not that obvious. Unfortunately, Blizzard’s designers simply don’t receive enough feedback from testers to ameliorate them.

… once in a while it happens and then we’ll get some data but it just makes it a lot more complicated.

While the majority of the community isn’t able to provide feedback regarding the current build, additional pointers from StarCraft fans just might save the Motership from ending up as a glorified arbiter. Up until now, gameplay reports by fans haven’t been positive either, and it appears that even a month of discussion wasn’t enough.

Concerning the Mothership, it’s pretty much useless. It comes with all its abilities fully upgraded, but since you build it from the Nexus, you’d have to go all the way across the map to get into your enemy base.

The SC2Blog will be conducting a poll, designed to let the community voice its opinion on what it considers to be the role best suited for a MOTHERSHIP - one that’s positioned at the top of the Protoss tech tree.

Here are the options. Choose wisely.

1. Straightforward Capital Ship. Massive shields and armor, high-damage output and a few combat abilities. A supreme offensive tool.
2. Disruption and Damage. An offensive support tool, with significant AoE damage and punishing abilities like the Black Hole and the Planet Cracker.
3. Mega-Battery. The ultimate mobile support unit, feeding mana and shield energy to the army. Can absorb a lot of damage, regenerates quickly.
4. Air Domination Station. A flying AA fortress of damage and disruption. Anti-air AoE damage, Force Field and Lockdown type of spells, a disease-like aura that causes AA damage.
5. Support Fortress. A flying castle with an array of battle control and support spells that can protect/recharge/hide friendly units. Also possesses abilities to disable/slow/lock down enemy units.
6. Super Troop Carrier. Highly armored and with multiple defensive abilities and teleportation. Able to transport entire fleets and armies across the battlefield.
7. Flying Factory. The Mothership can build ANY Protoss unit and warp it to the location it’s at. “Production” costs 110%.
8. Base Breaker. Focused on abilities which cause significant damage to buildings, locking down production, disabling defenses and paving the way for attackers.
9. Annihilator. The Mothership has a 5 minute “recharge” timer. Acting as a superweapon, the Mothership is equivalent to a Nuke in terms of damage output. Once charged and removed from its dock, the Motership’s “Unleash” ability becomes available.  An “unleashed” Mothership delivers massive damage to air and land units around it for 15 seconds.
10. Power Plant. The Mothership has a wide radius aura, which: powers buildings, accelerates production by 15%, adds 40 energy points to all shields, doubles regeneration rate, and stops all enemy regeneration and healing abilities.  

Cast your vote in the poll to the right, and leave any additional feedback down in the comments, especially if you voted for the “Other” option.

It’s been more than a month since the last official Q&A batch. This does not come as a surprise, of course, since the entire Blizzard crew was busy dealing with the WorldWide Invitational event in Paris.

This Q&A batch is composed of a long, comprehensive “Chat with Devs” introduction, dealing with the new Vespene Gas mechanics, and six new answers to fan-submitted questions.

Chat with Devs: Since the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, the topic of the new Vespene Gas mechanic has come up a lot across many different fansites and message boards. Thus far, this is one of the biggest changes which will affect the macro management of bases in StarCraft II. To shed some more light on this new mechanic, I have gotten a chance to talk to Dustin Browder, our Lead Designer for StarCraft II, about the progress thus far of the new mechanic, as well as the objectives this new mechanic is designed to achieve.

  

To start, the new Vespene Gas mechanic is to further distinguish the play style in which players gather minerals versus gathering gas. In the original StarCraft, the gathering of gas was very linear in the rate in which gas is gathered. Often, players would put 3-4 workers on the gas, and the players would forget about it until the geyser was depleted. Minerals on the other hand, were much more exponential in the rate of growth and were also often played differently amongst different races. Zerg would likely expand rapidly with less drones in each expansion and Protoss/Terran could sustain a sizeable force with higher numbers of workers on a smaller number of expansions.

 

How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Works
For StarCraft II, with the new Vespene Gas mechanic, players will have 2 gas geysers at their starting position. These geysers will start with X amount of gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and at any time players can purchase additional gas in their geysers for X minerals (currently 100 and subject to balance). With each purchase of additional gas for your geyser, the geyser increases with X gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and the geyser shuts down for 45 seconds. When a geyser is depleted, workers will still be able to gather gas at a low rate of 2 per round (subject to balance).

 

How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Plays
With this new gas mechanic, players have a wider variety of strategies in developing and maintaining their refineries, as well as additional attention needed to make sure they are collecting gas at the most efficient rate. On the production side, players now also have to decide between sticking to Tier 1 units longer, or to play it balanced with one geyser, or even max out on gas to invest heavily on teching and higher tech units. Additional, the relationship between minerals and gas have an added layer of depth since investing in additional gas will actually cost the player minerals as well. How often a player invests in gas will also not necessarily be consistent through the game too and will depend upon what units that player is currently choosing to mass. Scouting too has an added layer of depth as well, as a players gas collecting play style may determine if the player is teching to a higher tier mineral heavy unit (like a Dark Templar) or a higher tech gas heavy unit (like a High Templar).

 

Overall, players will have to build the appropriate buildings as well as gather resources in a particular method in order to execute a certain strategy at a professional level. It is the hope of the development team that this new mechanic will not only make gas collecting more interesting, but also increase the amount of macro management skill needed to compete in StarCraft II at the top levels while at the same time making the game playable for mid level players without using some of these more advanced techniques.

Aside from an adjustment to the numbers involved, the system described is the same as the one revealed during the WWI event, which we have already covered:

All these major changes have been implemented to StarCraft 2 for one purpose: complicate the “macro” portion of the game, which has been downsized severely with the introduction of new and improved user interface aspects, and mainly, Multiple Building Selection (MBS) - which allows players to select all their similar unit producing buildings together and deliver a single command to construct units out of all of them.

These changes will steal some of the added focus to the micromanagement portion of StarCraft 2, which pro-gamers, who’ve had a chance to play the game extensively, have reported about, and divert it back to base and economy management. Other such changes, meant to give players more macromanagement decisions to play with without dumbing down the UI, are being considered by Blizzard.

Check out our post about the subject here.

Moving on, the Q&A portion has interesting new tidbits and clarifications:

1. How exactly does the Corruptors attack work? Is it a stacking debuff that takes effect after a certain number of stacks? And if so can the debuff time out? Would you be able to hit and run kill for example Battlecruisers with a few Corruptors over a couple of minutes?

 

The attack is technically a debuff, but does not do damage over time. Every time the Corruptor attacks a unit, it’ll leave a debuff on it for a couple seconds. If the unit dies within those couple seconds, the unit will be corrupted.

This description of the Corruptor is incomplete, as evident by the Zerg reveal video, where a group of Corruptors corrupted a few Terran fliers on their own. The Corruptors likely cause damage themselves, or at least damage that goes towards Corrupting a unit which does not actually lower its physical hitpoints. Aside from this, the Corruptor also leaves a “Corrupting debuff” on the attacked unit, which causes it to become Corrupt should it die while under the effect.

2. What are the current stats and build times for the Queen defensive buildings?

n

To catch us up, Zerg defensive buildings arent built by the queen anymore. Instead, they are built from the drone once again.

 

Spine crawler:
- Only hits ground
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 20 +20 armored
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is 1.5 sec

 

Spore Crawler:
- Only hits air
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 15
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is .8608

The developers have decided that the Zerg deserve means to create defenses that don’t rely on the Queen, which can’t be everywhere at once. The new defensive colonies, aside from being granted mobility, are almost identical to their StarCraft 1 versions. However, the Queen likely still possesses her “Swarm Infestation” ability, allowing her to turn any building into a defensive structure temporarily.

3. The Queen seems to be a very potent unit, although its tasks are more defensive ones, it can be used in crazy rush strategies, according to Karunes experiences. Well, if the Nydus Worm was able to transport even queens, she would get even more potent. You could easily think of crazy rushes using your opponents creep to just overwhelm him with your units AND your defensive structures. So here is the simple question: Can the Nydusworm transport queens among all the other units?

n

Defensive structures will not be able to enter the Nydus tunnel network, but the Queen will be able to. Furthermore, the Queen will no longer be able to build defensive structures. Drones will morph into defensive structures, similar to the original StarCraft.

 

4. When the Zerg Sunken Colony is uprooted and on the move is it more vulnerable to enemy attack?

 

Yes, the Spine and Spore Crawlers will have less hit points while they are uprooted. The actual number of hit points will be determined through balance testing.

 

5. In many cases, the micromanagement of units in StarCraft revolved around gameplay mechanics (Dragoon dance, Mutalisk stacking, Reaver/Shuttle micro, etc.), rather than special abilities with cooldown/charges (Stalker’s Blink, Phoenix’s Overload, etc.).

 

Is the amount of this kind of special abilities in SC2 a concern of Blizzard, and how would this affect the overall gameplay?

 

Players will still have dependence on both gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities. For instance, Stalkers will have the basic dancing mechanic as Dragoons had in the original StarCraft. Marauders are another unit highly dependent on micromanagement to get the most effectiveness out of the unit, making sure you use their attacks slowing effect at opportune times.

 

Though for StarCraft II, we are introducing much more positional micromanagement, which will amplify units damage significantly. A Colossus will fire in a line and lining up that radius with the enemy units will be crucial in battles. Flanking Jackals from multiple angles will surely add to its potency as well.

 

Overall, we definitely want to balance the game with both plenty of gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities that create opportunities for the players to initiate clever strategies as well as innovative maneuvers on the battlefield.

Unlike what many people may think, Blizzard’s developers know what made StarCraft 1 the great game that it is, and are not likely to forget to implement one of the most important and fun aspects of battle in their new game.

6. Terrans currently appear to be at a disadvantage in terms of troop mobility, (as compared to ‘Warp-in’ and ‘Nydus Worm’) are there any plans to bring back the, ‘drop-pod’ or other new transport mechanic?

 

Actually, we consider the Terran side to be quite mobile. Let us first look at the Reapers. This unit is the fastest ground unit in the game which traverses terrain without even having a spotter. In addition, the Medivac Dropships, allow added mobility to all Terran ground units. With the addition of the Dropship being able to heal, it has become even more of a staple in Terran strategies, giving even more increased incentive for players to build Dropships than the original StarCraft. On top of this, Vikings providing both ground and air support at a click of a button, gives that added support of mobility and options when moving a Terran army around.

 

The method in which Terran will be mobile is indeed different than Warp-in and Nydus Worm, though they are not considered less mobile than the other races.

Also worth mentioning is the Terran’s ability to relocate their buildings by lifting them into the air and repositioning them on the ground. Aside from that, the Salvage ability makes it easy for Terrans to create impromptu production bases, knowing that the investment will not be lost.

In accordance with the StarCraft tradition, one race lacks a distinct ability that is available to the other two races, while still managing to function in a balanced way. While the Terran race may lack a point-and-click transportation method which the Protoss and Zerg now have, they will not be at a disadvantage on the whole.

Chat with Devs: Since the Worldwide Invitational in Paris, the topic of the new Vespene Gas mechanic has come up a lot across many different fansites and message boards. Thus far, this is one of the biggest changes which will affect the macro management of bases in StarCraft II. To shed some more light on this new mechanic, I have gotten a chance to talk to Dustin Browder, our Lead Designer for StarCraft II, about the progress thus far of the new mechanic, as well as the objectives this new mechanic is designed to achieve.

To start, the new Vespene Gas mechanic is to further distinguish the play style in which players gather minerals versus gathering gas. In the original StarCraft, the gathering of gas was very linear in the rate in which gas is gathered. Often, players would put 3-4 workers on the gas, and the players would forget about it until the geyser was depleted. Minerals on the other hand, were much more exponential in the rate of growth and were also often played differently amongst different races. Zerg would likely expand rapidly with less drones in each expansion and Protoss/Terran could sustain a sizeable force with higher numbers of workers on a smaller number of expansions.

How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Works
For StarCraft II, with the new Vespene Gas mechanic, players will have 2 gas geysers at their starting position. These geysers will start with X amount of gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and at any time players can purchase additional gas in their geysers for X minerals (currently 100 and subject to balance). With each purchase of additional gas for your geyser, the geyser increases with X gas (currently 600 and subject to balance) and the geyser shuts down for 45 seconds. When a geyser is depleted, workers will still be able to gather gas at a low rate of 2 per round (subject to balance).

How the New Vespene Gas Mechanic Plays
With this new gas mechanic, players have a wider variety of strategies in developing and maintaining their refineries, as well as additional attention needed to make sure they are collecting gas at the most efficient rate. On the production side, players now also have to decide between sticking to Tier 1 units longer, or to play it balanced with one geyser, or even max out on gas to invest heavily on teching and higher tech units. Additional, the relationship between minerals and gas have an added layer of depth since investing in additional gas will actually cost the player minerals as well. How often a player invests in gas will also not necessarily be consistent through the game too and will depend upon what units that player is currently choosing to mass. Scouting too has an added layer of depth as well, as a players gas collecting play style may determine if the player is teching to a higher tier mineral heavy unit (like a Dark Templar) or a higher tech gas heavy unit (like a High Templar).

Overall, players will have to build the appropriate buildings as well as gather resources in a particular method in order to execute a certain strategy at a professional level. It is the hope of the development team that this new mechanic will not only make gas collecting more interesting, but also increase the amount of macro management skill needed to compete in StarCraft II at the top levels while at the same time making the game playable for mid level players without using some of these more advanced techniques.

—StarCraft II Q&A Batch 41—

1. How exactly does the Corruptors attack work? Is it a stacking debuff that takes effect after a certain number of stacks? And if so can the debuff time out? Would you be able to hit and run kill for example Battlecruisers with a few Corruptors over a couple of minutes? (sc2pod.com)

The attack is technically a debuff, but does not do damage over time. Every time the Corruptor attacks a unit, it’ll leave a debuff on it for a couple seconds. If the unit dies within those couple seconds, the unit will be corrupted.

2. What are the current stats and build times for the Queen defensive buildings? (starcraft2forum.org)

To catch us up, Zerg defensive buildings arent built by the queen anymore. Instead, they are built from the drone once again.

Spine Crawler:
- Only hits ground
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 20 +20 armored
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is 1.5 sec

Spore Crawler:
- Only hits air
- Health is 300 (uprooted health 100)
- Movement speed is 2.25 (1 off of creep)
- Damage is 15
- Range is 7
- Attack speed is .8608

3. The Queen seems to be a very potent unit, although its tasks are more defensive ones, it can be used in crazy rush strategies, according to Karune’s experiences. Well, if the Nydus Worm was able to transport even queens, she would get even more potent. You could easily think of crazy rushes using your opponents creep to just overwhelm him with your units AND your defensive structures. So here is the simple question: Can the Nydusworm transport queens among all the other units? (starcraft2.4players.de)

Defensive structures will not be able to enter the Nydus tunnel network, but the Queen will be able to. Furthermore, the Queen will no longer be able to build defensive structures. Drones will morph into defensive structures, similar to the original StarCraft.

4. When the Zerg Sunken Colony is uprooted and on the move is it more vulnerable to enemy attack? (www.starcraft2.com.au)

Yes, the Spine and Spore Crawlers will have less hit points while they are uprooted. The actual number of hit points will be determined through balance testing.

5. In many cases, the micromanagement of units in StarCraft revolved around gameplay mechanics (Dragoon dance, Mutalisk stacking, Reaver/Shuttle micro, etc.), rather than special abilities with cooldown/charges (Stalker’s Blink, Phoenix’s Overload, etc.).

Is the amount of this kind of special abilities in SC2 a concern of Blizzard, and how would this affect the overall gameplay? -lepape (teamliquid.net)

Players will still have dependence on both gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities. For instance, Stalkers will have the basic dancing mechanic as Dragoons had in the original StarCraft. Marauders are another unit highly dependent on micromanagement to get the most effectiveness out of the unit, making sure you use their attacks slowing effect at opportune times.

Though for StarCraft II, we are introducing much more positional micromanagement, which will amplify units damage significantly. A Colossus will fire in a line and lining up that radius with the enemy units will be crucial in battles. Flanking Jackals from multiple angles will surely add to its potency as well.

Overall, we definitely want to balance the game with both plenty of gameplay mechanics as well as special abilities that create opportunities for the players to initiate clever strategies as well as innovative maneuvers on the battlefield.

6. Terrans currently appear to be at a disadvantage in terms of troop mobility, (as compared to ‘Warp-in’ and ‘Nydus Worm’) are there any plans to bring back the, ‘drop-pod’ or other new transport mechanic? (sclegacy.com)

Actually, we consider the Terran side to be quite mobile. Let us first look at the Reapers. This unit is the fastest ground unit in the game which traverses terrain without even having a spotter. In addition, the Medivac Dropships, allow added mobility to all Terran ground units. With the addition of the Dropship being able to heal, it has become even more of a staple in Terran strategies, giving even more increased incentive for players to build Dropships than the original StarCraft. On top of this, Vikings providing both ground and air support at a click of a button, gives that added support of mobility and options when moving a Terran army around.

The method in which Terran will be mobile is indeed different than Warp-in and Nydus Worm, though they are not considered less mobile than the other races.

—End of Transmission—

Karune - Starcraft 2 Community Manager
Blizzard Entertainment

A collection of every StarCraft 2 gameplay video released to date! I can't wait to play this game.

Dustin Browder, StarCraft 2’s lead game designer, has given an interview to IncGamers’s brand new StarCraftWire.net. He discusses everything from the map editor to super units in length and provides some insight into the gameplay design process.

Highlights:

So when will the Starcraft II editor become available to modders?

 

I don’t know yet, it’ll certainly be shipped with the game but I don’t know the answer to whether it will be earlier. That would be cool though.

Could the StarCraft 2 map editor be released before the game? Blizzard has not done this before, but some other companies have turned to this move to increase interest in their game before it is released, especially if it has been baking in the development oven for a long while.

Concerning 3D graphics, what’s tools do you need? In StarCraft it was just using paint and opening it and just adding new units. What 3D do you consider for modders? Will you be giving your own editor for the graphics?

 

I think we may ship the art tools but you still have to have a 3D program, there’s no way around that.

 

Well, StarCraft seems very… “conservative” would be a good word I suppose. Were there any other concepts that you discussed at the beginning of the development process that you ended up scrapping because you felt; “no, we want it to be like it was”?

 

Some… By the time I started working on the project three years ago the team really wanted to make a game that was true to the legacy of the original StarCraft. So in terms of “are we being too conservative or not?” We talked about that every day. It was a constant discussion.

It’s obvious that the same debate the fans are always engaged in - is StarCraft 2 enough of a “new game”? - is shared by the developers as well. Currently, it looks like Blizzard has managed to stay true to StarCraft 1 while enhancing it in almost every possible way and while introducing new ideas that further differentiate the races, creating a new experience if not a completely new game.

When asked about the Rock-Paper-Scissor relationship between units, Dustin provides a good explanation for how unit interactions in StarCraft work:

It’s not even just that, of the relationships in StarCraft; lot of them aren’t even Rock Paper Scissors, which is one of the things that makes the game so exciting. One of the standard RTS paradigm is that we use the Rock Paper Scissors but a lot of the relationships, especially in the early tech tree of StarCraft, are positional based. It’s not so much *whether I beat you* its *where do we fight*.

 

Zerglings will crush Zealots in the open field. They’ll just overrun them completely, and these are both the core units. Whereas the Zealots, at the choke, will just kill hundreds of Zerglings based on the Zerglings getting all trapped up behind. So in addition to where you fight there are also the questions of micro that are really interesting.

 

What we are really worried about are overlapping roles, it’s a constant struggle for us, but if you go there and play it now you can find a couple:

 

Player: “What about these guys”
Dustin: “Yes, I know!! They overlap, oh my god”.

Many RTS games completely rely on unit statistics and their predictable interactions to determine the outcome of battle. It is indeed one of StarCraft’s greatest strengths that so many other factors affect the result of an engagement between units, and produces equal match ups between even the lowliest of units and the most powerful ones.

 

Which particular unit has been the most problematic one when working, balance wise, not only for the Zerg but the other races as well?

 

The Mothership - hands down.

 

What is the problem with it?

 

Well, by its size it doesn’t look like a super unit from other RTS games. The problem here with super units is we want every unit to be a decision. There’s no point in shipping a unit if the player says: “I have to build that, it’s powerful, I should always build that. If I get to this tech level, I build it.”

 

We don’t have that in StarCraft II, the games meatier then that; you have to work for everything. So we don’t like the “super units”… The Mothership visually seems to suggest that, but at the same time we don’t want that to be part of the core gameplay experience so we’re continually balancing the ship, we’re continually looking for a new spell kit for this unit to make sure there are reasons to build it, really solid reasons, and really solid reasons not to build it.

 

Today the really solid reasons not to build it, and it’s been this way for many months, is the Mothership can’t really, cost for cost, defend itself effectively in the air. This means you can’t have air superiority dumped on the Mothership. If you already have your superiority, go for it, the Mothership is a good addition, but like I say; “it’s been a big pain.” It’s not helpful that it’s located at the end of the tech tree against how fast StarCraft games can be and how brutal it can be. There is a great chance that you can die within the first three or four minutes. So even in our play test process we don’t get to see this unit as often as we like:

 

Designer: “Did you get to play with the Mothership”
Tester: “Well, no, we didn’t, we topped out at the Immortals and Stalkers/Colossus”
Designer: “Ok ok ok, play again, play real hard”
Designer: “Did you get to play with the Mothership”
Tester: “No, no, we didn’t really get that high in the tech tree”

 

So once in a while it happens and then we’ll get some data but it just makes it a lot more complicated. We get a lot more data obviously on play testing Stalkers, Zerglings, Marines and all these guys because you see them all the time.

The Mothership is one of the units which has gotten the most attention - both from fans and from the developers - and has changed a lot accordingly. The Monthly Topic initiated for its sake generated a lot of comments and ideas, and Blizzard is still trying to nail down the right formula for making this unit worthy of the StarCraft 2 Protoss.

How did you decide to change the Queen that dramatically? Like, from a flying unit to a ground unit, from a mass unit to one-only unit?

 

It started conceptionally as kind of a story hit, we felt like the Queen was an opportunity to create a creature that owns the base, that lives inside and that she somehow lays eggs maybe, she’s monstrous and evil - like a Queen that you may see in an ant hive or a film.

 

We wanted that Queen, because we felt like the old Queen didn’t really hit that vibe. For example; that Queen could be called any other name and you’d be fine with that. It wasn’t a Queen in the classic sense, so that was the core idea.

 

How could we make this unit into something that feels like the Queen and we tried it a bunch of different ways and for awhile she was laying eggs to create weak organisms, so for example, there’d be different types of Hydralisks running around. That was kind of fun but then it got confusing, like which Hydralisk could attack me in the air, and what do I counter that with, I don’t remember.

 

So it was kind of a problem, so we’ve sort of settled down on this base defender which seems pretty successful, I don’t know if it’s really good enough for StarCraft II [but] that’s what we’re going to find out. It seems pretty fun.

The Zerg Queen is another unit that has gone through many changes, but this one is more set in its role due to story considerations, unlike the numerous incarnations of the Terran Thor and the Protoss Mothership. While the current “base mother” role is not likely to change, there is still plenty of room for flexibility left in terms of implementation.

 

While Diablo 3 is definitely the main highlight of the 2008 WWI, there’s still a lot to write home about when it comes to StarCraft 2. We’ve got new, action heavy screenshots, interviews with Blizzard’s developers, presentations that show off the qualities of StarCraft 2, and reports of new things that have appeared in the game.

First up, highlights from the developer panels:

• A group of Overlords are used to cover the entirety of the viewable map with Creep (or “Mucus” in French), using their Excrete Creep ability
• Nydus Worms are more expensive than other races’ transports, with the advantage being that the transported units aren’t risked in transit. Also, the Worms now need Creep at their exit point - which is not a major problem, considering the Creep-spewing Overlords.
• Crawler Buildings - Spine Crawler and Spore Crawler. These are like the Sunken and Spore colonies in StarCraft 1, only the Crawlers can move around and plant on Creep at will, allowing the Zerg to easily redeploy their defenses.

• A Queen is seen supplementing a Zerg base’s defenses with her various abilities
• Corruptors engage a small Terran air group composed of Battlecruisers and Vikings. It appears that corrupted units, which serve as stationary “turrets” for the Zerg, slowly lose health over time and are eventually destroyed by the corruption.
• Banelings are used as active mines: burrowed in the ground, they wait until a group of Marines moves over their position. The player unburrows them at the right time to inflict maximum damage, right in the middle of the group.
• Smart usage of the Nullifer’s Force Field ability is shown. This is a spectacle to be seen, so make sure you watch at 5:40 into this video. First, a choke point is created, which prevents the incoming Zerging swarm from engulfing the Protoss units, allowing the Zealots to dispatch them at their (relative) leisure. Then, the second wave of Zerg attackers meets a complete Force Field wall. The remaining Protoss Stalkers quickly Blink behind it and engage the Zerglings at range, killing most of them before the are able to cross the barrier.
• In the next bit, a Mothership is used to summon a force back into a Protoss base that comes under attack. The Mothership then comes under attack from a group of Vikings, and quickly immerses itself in a Time Bomb, negating the missile attack.
• The Terran’s theme is “guns, guns, and bigger guns“.

• The Thor currently has two abilities: Anti-Air Flak Cannons, making it a great support unit for a Siege Push (as seen in the video), and Self Repair, whose existence we speculated on in this older video.
• At 5:40, a major battle between Zerg and Protoss forces takes place. We recommend waiting for a higher quality video to be posted before watching this one.

Next, Rob Pardo answers questions from the audience. Here’s a summary of his answers:

• Heroes in single player will not impact gameplay in a serious way, serving to push the plot and dialog further instead.

• Rob says that the campaign will only have one ending and not alternate, race specific or choice-dependent ones, as is customary in Blizzard games, though there will be several different diverging sub-plots.
• The Mothership’s old Black Hole ability is no longer found on it, but Rob is hoping to see it return in some form, perhaps on another unit.
• The Thor is a difficult unit to find a role for - one that is separate from the Siege Tank or Battlecruiser.

***

Next, we have an amazing collection of screenshots (courtesy of StarCraft Source) straight from the most up-to-date build, featuring all the latest art enhancements and newest units and their designs:

Screenshot highlights:

A Lurker’s spiny attack is seen for the first time, while another Lurker is burrowed next to it.

A mobile Spine Crawler.

The Viking has received a slight touch up, and now looks more “mechanical” and square instead of round and fat.

The Nullifier’s attack has been beefed up, and it’s now sporting a more impressive beam weapon, similar to that of the Colossus. The Nullifer shown here is clearly attacking an air unit.

The Warp Rays have also received an updated look, which reflects their different role. No more are they the Protoss’ heaviest air unit, a title which they lost to the Carriers. They are now shorter, with the beam apparatus taking up the bulk of their mass. Their beam’s effect has also been enhanced.

The Swarm Guardians make their first high quality appearance. Their explosive plasma balls can also be seen.

 

Although many units have undergone significant changes, the most drastic adjustments were made to StarCraft 2’s economy and resource system. These changes will be covered tomorrow, once the dust settles. 

The previous story posted was missing a lot of information and even incorrect about some. Included is new information such as the previously unannounced return of some Protoss units not seen in the first gameplay video (High templar, Dark Templar, Observer, Reaver) and the announcement of some new ones (Star Relic, Phase Canon, Tempest, and more)

The first videos of actual gameplay are starting to surface. Game Trailers has put up several different gameplay videos, and Game Videos put up an on-stage demo narrated by Blizzard at the official unveiling. Damn those Koreans are lucky.