Starcraft Junkie

This month's PC Powerplay has an article up on Battle.net. While unfortunately not revealing any new information, it's still an interesting read: As I have found a few more sources of Battle.net 2.0 info on my roaming of the net, I'll make a feature article on it in a bit, but it does indeed seem like Battle.net 2.0 will be very very cool. Thanks pR0gR4m3R for the tip. Team Liquid did the transcript from the mag.

A report has been compiled and released on the official starcraft 2 site containing the most important characteristics of the planet "Mar Sara":

• Population: 80,000+ terrans, unknown zerg
• Allegiance: Kel-Morian
• Diameter/Gravity: 9265 km, 1.09 standard
• Axial Tilt/Climate: 13.5 degrees, +/- 34 Centigrade, very low humidity
• Geography/Major Settlements: 18 small dust seas, 28 upland regions (17 volcanic), 12 major settlements (destroyed), 86 mining outposts, 12 refineries
• Moon(s): 2 -- Pyramus, Thisby (gray, medium size, >2000 km dia)
• Dominant Terrain Classification: Wasteland/mountain/desert
• Dominant Life Forms: Human -- Kel-Morian Combine/Terran Dominion Indigenous Life Forms: None/zerg infestation (minor)
• Imports: Mining equipment, personnel, food, water
• Exports: Refined minerals, unrefined ore, vespene gas, terrazine gas, scrap salvage

Background story: Blizzard have also posted a total of 5 new screenshots and 2 new pieces of concept art!

• Screenshots: Shot 1, Shot 2 Shot 3, Shot 4, Shot 5
• Concept Art: Art 1, Art 2

Karune also answered a question regarding the screenshots:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	Nice screenshots, but why does everything look so pale and faded? - willygundersen These screenshots depict more of what single player elements would have rather than multiplayer. In multiplayer, contrast is very important, to easily identify a players units, whereas in single player, realism and immersion will be a higher priority.

Karune has just posted an interesting new change on the Zerg Hydralisk on the Battle.net forums:

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	As an extra bonus, unrelated to this, but also would help is that Hydralisks have been moved back down to tier 1.5. More details about this move will be included in the next Q&A batch.

You can be sure we will keep you all updated as soon as the new Q&A Batch arrives. You can see this change, and more in Troglodyte's huge Collection of Blizzard Comments.

Blizzard’s World Wide Invitational 2008 swag bag included a very promising item - a beta key for an unknown Blizzard game. Blizzard’s fans split into two camps at this point - the hopeless, lifelesss WoW addicts which claimed the beta key to be for World of WarCraft’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and the awesome, intelligent and handsome StarCraft fans who have decreed that the key is a clear sign that the StarCraft 2 beta is near.

 
Today, Blizzard has officially announced that he beta key is for Wrath of the Lich King and not StarCraft 2.

We have some information to share regarding the beta codes received by those who attended the 2008 Worldwide Invitational or the 2007 BlizzCon. These codes are going to be used for the Wrath of the Lich King beta test.

If you do have a beta code from one of these events, we urge you to register it immediately and without delay. Full details on how to register your code can be found at the following page:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/misc/beta-signup.html

Despite the fact that StarCraft 2 is not as close as some might have imagined due to the recently received key, hopefully fans will not have to wait for WWI 09 to get their hands on the beta.

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

My newfound Spanish StarCraft friend pR0gR4m3R of StarCraft-ESP sent me a heads-up that they released a StarCraft WWI Preview a while back. Unfortunately just after I left for my holiday to Sweden. He talks about the impressions they got during the Blizzard WWI in Paris, and has written quite a bit about it. Unfortunately for us, all in Spanish. If you can read Spanish, you can grab it here, and if you cant there is a Google Translation below:

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

TossGirl is one of the most famous female gamers in the world. The Queen of Terran, she plays Professional Starcraft in South Korea.

Blizzard Entertainment didn't show StarCraft 2 at the E3 Expo this year since the company held the World Wide Invitational less than a month ago,...

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.