We report on more game play updates from StarCraft II.
StarCraft II Game play panel hosted by:
Rob Pardo, Senior VP of Design
Andy Chambers, Creative Director
Dustin Browder, Lead Designer
Dustin Browder was talking to us today about the Terrans. Rapidly deploy SCVs when landing Command Center.
Nuclear reactor, add-on to Barracks, doubles the capability of production.
Bunkers still very key to base defenses.
Sensor tower which can be upgraded to a radar tower, detect enemy advancement and move units as need be.
BattleCruisers has plasma torpedoes for effective air to ground attacks.
Viking - a very good against heavy air units and can morph into a ground form and assault on the ground is very vulnerable to counter-attack by siege tanks and other heavy infantry type of units.
Banshee, new Terran gunship fires a volley of rockets for air to ground assaults, no air-to-air capabilities. Cloaking ability and rocket volley is very AoE depending and very successful. Reminds of the valkyrie.
Reapers have a timed mine, a special explosive charge that they can throw near the ground and takes some time to detonate, and very effective against buildings.
Command Center has their own self defense cannons on the top of the base that looked very good. Requires an upgrade.
Thor, created outside the factory and very very large. Can lower supply depots into the ground to let your bigger units out, supply depots very solid choke point defense. Thor vulnerable to Cobra, and their attacks.
Ghost returns in StarCraft II. Much more powerful in SC2, can use a sniper rifle to attack enemy biological targets (fairly long range). Drop pods allow for units to be dropped down on the field very effectively. Allows for quick counter attack.
Work on Zerg begins this week. There will be many expansions to Battle.net features and such. Pardo compared the difference as big as the difference between SC and WC3, so expect new stuff. Nothing guaranteed though. Will support co-operative missions better over Battle.net.
“We’re not trying to reinvent StarCraft, we reimagine it.” - Rob Pardo.
Keeping camera the way it is (very similar to WC3). No major zoom out like in Supreme Commander.
Will support Direct X 10, but not require it.
Levelable heroes and moddable campaigns covered by the editor, ala DotA.
When putting a new unit in the game they are having to remove old ones (which is why the Firebat & Arbiter are not in StarCraft II), to keep down the amount of units. Some of these removed units will be usable in the campaign editor for modders to utilise.
System Requirements not finalized, only info is that it requires pixel shader 2.0 gfx cards. Not aiming for bleeding edge, Blizzard says they are going for mass ability to play the game.
