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StarCraft 214 years agoGosu "GosuGamers" Gamers

Blizzard Press Tour 2010



With five hours before my last exam I get 'the call'. Well it was not as much a call per say, but more of a message left on my Facebook wall. 'Gotta talk to you, and that's now!' Now?! Sounded very important, and it was. I rushed to sign into my messenger account.

'So about the volcano in Iceland, it has stopped most flight travel out of Europe.' Translation: No one can go, except, maybe you. Go where you may ask? A Blizzard Press Tour, a pilgrimage to the holy land, a...I digress. I was filled with excitement and anxiety at the thought, but I knew I had to do it. And so with less than 3 hours to go before my final exam of the year and only 20 hours before I was set to land in L.A., on my way to Irvine, I took up the call.

Here is all that I have found out on my trip to Irvine.

Terran Campaign and Features

terrazine.jpgThree new missions were unveiled at the Blizzard Press Tour. The first two were Terran missions and the last mission was a sneak peak at the Protoss mini-campaign. The first Terran mission was based around collecting Terrazine. This new resource is a valuable commodity to the Terrans while it is considered a sacred life source to the Protoss. In the mission you are forced to not just collect the Terrazine, but also prevent the Protoss forces from sealing seven sources of Terrazine.

The second mission is a baby-sit. A very powerful laser is put under your control as you try to blast through the gates of a Protoss temple to access a relic. Needless to say, the Protoss like to protect their relics. So you are in charge of protecting the laser from waves of Protoss forces until the door of the temple can be taken down. As you progress through the mission you will even be given the ability to target the laser at units such as Protoss Archons.

biglaser.jpgOne new feature that was apart of missions was the ability to accumulate Protoss and Zerg research points. In each of these new missions you have the ability to complete side quests which reward you with research points. These quests usually entail finding relics hidden in each mission map. You can spend these research points in the Laboratory of the Hyperion.




Research in the Laboratory

research.jpgThis new research feature in the campaign adds more depth into how a person wants to tackle the campaign. There is a Protoss and Zerg tree that you can research through. Every five research points that you accumulate in a single tree will give you two new possible research options. The part that may be difficult for some players is being only allowed to choose one of those two options. For example, if I reach level 10 in my Protoss research I can either choose to build supply depots instantly or I can choose to gain 25% increase in mining gas. At level 15 of my Protoss research I can choose between having my refineries mine gas without SCVs or I can enable my Command Centers to make two SCVs at a time. These are all choices which a player can influence their economy.

Protoss Mini-Campaign

The trailer of Jim Raynor's meeting with Zeratul was not fully unveiled until the Press Tour. What we did not see before is that Zeratul hands Jim Raynor a relic. He then warns Jimmy that he must save Kerrigan so that she can save the rest of them. This relic is what starts the Protoss mini campaign. This relic contains the memories of Zeratul's investigation into Xel'Naga relics and his confrontation with Kerrigan. As you play through the missions you are actually Jim Raynor experiencing what Zeratul has been through. Raynor will have no memory of the length of his absence in the Laboratory, (where the relic is stored) and this is apparent when he speaks with Matt Horner after your first mission as Zeratul.



blink.jpgWhen you are given this relic and the in-game cinematic finishes you are taken to the cinematic of Zeratul meeting Kerrigan in the Xel'Naga temple, but there is more this time. After a brief dialogue of fate and impending doom, the two clash. Zeratul envelopes himself in smoke and disappears and reappears amid shards of stones on the ceiling of the cavern. After a short exchange of words again Zeratul lunges at Kerrigan. Kerrigan responds with a haduken-like attack which seemingly causes Zeratul to hover in the air as he pushes back with his own strength. Zeratul throws a quick slash with his right arm and is quickly thrown back by Kerrigan's attack. The Queen of Blades is hit, her left wing falls to the ground. She is unperturbed. As a new wing grows back into place she utters of fate and her willing embrace of it, leaving Zeratul to gather himself and hope that this fate can be stopped. He climbs up through the caverns and this is where the Protoss mini-campaign begins.

In the game, like his brethren the Stalker, Zeratul has mastered the ability of teleportation. He is able to blink across a short distance as well as freeze units in place. The first Protoss mission is an escape mission. You must lead Zeratul back to his ship while finding allies along the way to battle Kerrigan's forces. Here killing Zerg Hatcheries will gain you Zerg research points.

Challenge Missions

Challenge missions were introduced in the latest build that was shown to us at the press tour. Two missions were available out of a possible nine missions. These missions were designed to prepare a player for multiplayer games and provided a very fun way to test your skill level.

The first mission I tried was the called Harbinger of Death. In this mission, buttons are disabled so that you are forced to manage your units using hotkeys. You are given a time limit and must kill as many enemy units as you can. As you rack up kills you get closer to three different achievement levels. They rank from Bronze, Silver, to Gold which is the highest rank you can get. The more you kill the higher the rank you get.

The second mission that was available for play was called Psionic Assault. In this mission you are given six High Templars and eight Sentries. Your mission is to fight of waves of enemies from a platform which is accessible by three different ramps. Similar to the old micro challenge maps in Brood War, except you are only given the units you start off with and must face enemies that come from a possible three directions. This map not only tests your micro abilities to cast storm and forcefields, but also your decision making in knowing when to use hallucinations and where to place forcefields.

All these missions should be relatively easy for any player who has reached Platinum ranking already. These are focused on getting the casual player ready for multiplayer games.

Chat with devs

There was talk of the play styles on the different servers in each region and what kind of feedback they were receiving. Almost at any given time of the day they have access to a top 2% game meaning a top level game being played. The US servers are calling for a Zerg buff while the Asian servers are calling for a Zerg nerf. What they are seeing a lot at the top level right now especially on the Korean servers is a lot of Zerg. What they see in those games is a Zergling/Spine Crawler hold at their bases while they send out Mutalisks, wave after wave of Mutalisks. What this causes is a strong control over the map, especially over Protoss players who have a much more difficult time countering air than the other races. With all this information, they are hoping that they can cross the servers through such media as youtube.

Unit discussion involved a confirmation that the Broodlord was 'insanely overpowered'. However, they are leaning more towards nerfing rather than changing the design of the unit. Statistically the Battlecruiser is the least used unit, but it has some prominence in some Terran vs Terran games, while the Archon is second least used, but being a recycle unit they feel that this is normal. The idea behind the Archon being a recycle for the Dark Templar is that if the enemy has too much detection you have the option of recycling them into an Archon. Although Dustin Browder admits that the fans may prove him wrong, he does not feel the Ultralisk can be played in a lot of viable scenarios.

As for Battle.net 2.0 is has been confirmed for quite sometime that there will be no chat channels at ship. Battle.net 2.0 is very friend focused, so they have created various ways to facilitate adding players that we have had a great time playing with.

There are currently no comment on whether players will be able to access different regional server at ship. However they would like to remind us that StarCraft is a very latency dependent game so it is probably not the best game to play across great distances.

The pro league will be released post-ship and it will be based on an invitational basis. Being in the pro league there will be some privileges and being in the pro league your replays will be automatically uploaded online. The specifics of the pro league are forth coming and they do expect to release an esports focused release.

Enhancing the real i.d. feature overtime is something they would definitely like to do and we could be seeing information such as country of origin be added as well.

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