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Another short story has been uploaded, describing a marine's fight against infestation.
The sight stretched to the horizon and farther still. Shane could sense entire planets teeming with the creatures. More sailed through the cosmos, seeking new homes. The scale boggled the mind, soared past what he could imagine, but his consciousness perceived yet even more billions of the creatures, all working in terrible harmony.
This was the zerg. All of the zerg. The Swarm itself. They were letting him see it. They were making him see it.
Read the full story here.
Source:
Battle.net - StarCraft Short Story: “The Education of PFC Shane”
With BlizzCon 2013 just around the corner, Blizzard has announced that sales of BlizzCon tickets will take place on Wednesday, April 24 starting 7pm PDT and Saturday, April 27 starting 10am PDT. The tickets are priced at $175 USD for entry on both days of the convention, which will run from November 8 to November 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Purchase the tickets here.
Source:
BlizzCon - Tickets on Sale April 24 and 27
BUG FIXES
- General
- Fixed an issue that could cause players to become stuck in a patch loop while connecting to a region other than their home region. (Please note: This may still occur while patching to 2.0.7, but will no longer happen for subsequent patches.)
- The Story Mode achievement Kerrigan Power: 70 is now awarded upon re-entering story mode or the Master Archives for players who previously reached Kerrigan level 70. (An additional component to this fix will be applied in a future patch, which will properly grant credit immediately upon fulfilling achievement requirements.)
- Fixed an issue in which preferences for a variety of gameplay settings were not properly saved to Battle.net profiles.
- Fixed a streaming crash that could occur when a game was cancelled at the loading screen.
- Fixed a performance issue that could occur when the in-game menu was accessed with a large number of files saved to the Replays folder.
- Fixed an issue that occasionally caused a blank screen to display when loading into a campaign mission.
- Fixed a UI issue caused by loading and canceling Swarm and Liberty campaign saves.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the Product.SC2Archive file to go missing or become damaged after uninstalling and reinstalling StarCraft II.
- Gameplay
- The Mothership Core is now properly included in the group of units selected by the Select All Army Units hotkey (F2).
- An attack command is now required in order to attack Destructible Rocks, which are no longer automatically attacked by units when right-clicked.
- Corrected Rock placement for melee maps Neo Planet S LE and Whirlwind LE.
- Editor
- Maps can now update Battle.net dependencies even if objects from those dependencies are currently in use.
Source:
Battle.net - StarCraft II Patch 2.0.7 Notes
The month of April has begun, and with it comes the usual slew of April Fools jokes from Blizzard. This time, they have reintroduced Warhounds into StarCraft II, allowing every race to produce Warhounds as their worker unit.
After watching the MLG Winter Championship, we noticed that Life was able to beat Flash a little too easily in the finals. Had Flash been able to build Warhounds, our favorite race (Terran) may have won the tournament. As usual, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision based on this match and immediately set about rebalancing the game.
As evident in the quote above, the majority of the writing is satirical, which makes this event much more humorous.
So after considering every angle, here’s what’s changing:
- The Warhound has been added for Terran because robots are cool and the art is amazing
- The Warhound has been added for Zerg to remain competitive with Terran.
- The Warhound has been added for Protoss to keep Protoss players from whining about them on the forums.
The full article can be viewed here. A Q&A was also posted, featuring the same tongue-in-cheek humor:
Q: This sounds great! Have you considered making every unit the Warhound?
A: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. While I think we all agree that the Warhound needed a comeback, replacing every unit with the Warhound could cause some minor confusion on the StarCraft II Ladder. We’re currently looking into alternative methods to give you the same punch, like perhaps adding a fourth race composed entirely of Warhounds, or perhaps neutral Xel’Naga Warhounds which can be claimed by nearby ground units.
Q: Why aren’t there any female Warhound pilots?
A: There are! They just happen to look and sound exactly like the male ones. You can blame the strict, some might even say draconian, Dominion physical appearance guidelines for this one.
Q: What’s the lore reasoning for all three races having terran pilots in their Warhounds?
A: Good eye! You’ve caught a bug our QA department alerted us to early this morning. We decided to ship the patch anyways, because we simply couldn’t wait any longer! Tomorrow we’ll be patching in lore-appropriate drivers for the Warhounds, including a Baneling, a Dark Templar, and an SCV.
Sources:
Battle.net - Situation Report: April 1, 2013
Battle.net - Blizzard Creative Development Warhound Q&A
A new short story is out, this time centered around the Terran Warhound.
"You're going to make a pitch piece for Axiom's new heavy walker, the Warhound." Eli said this as if he were reciting it from memory.
Warhound, Drenthe thought. It was the first time he had heard the machine named. "How do you know this?"
"I work for Axiom. But also for other people. I hear things. I know things."
Read the full story here.
Source:
Battle.net - New StarCraft Short Story: Command Performance
Blizzard has just announced the total viewer count of the Heart of the Swarm launch broadcast: over 1.1 million people total tuned in to the broadcast at some point, and there was a peak concurrent viewership of more than 125,000 viewers. Also, at the end of the first two days of sales, Heart of the Swarm sold over 1.1 million copies worldwide, including both digital and retail sales. For the MLG Winter Championship, again, over 1.1 million viewers in total watched the broadcast, with a peak concurrent viewership of 157,000 viewers. Heart of the Swarm is off to a great start, and we can't wait to see what the future holds.
Source:
Blizzard - MORE THAN 1 MILLION GAMERS TAKE PART IN GLOBAL ZERG INVASION
About a week ago, when Heart of the Swarm was just being released and launch events were being viewed and attended by millions of gamers, Dustin Browder gave an interview to AusGamers at the Australian launch party. In the interview, he mentions that Legacy of the Void will have a similarity to Seven Samurai, perhaps even drawing influence directly from it.
Then for Legacy of the Void, the only thing I can say at this point, is think of it more as Seven Samurai. This is The Protoss on their last legs, in their final hours, fighting against the darkness that threatens to consume the Universe. And they are the only ones who can stand up to the forces that are arrayed against them.
They are the proud few warriors facing the void, facing oblivion on their own, and slowly being picked off one-by-one. And that’s what we’re going to try and get across in Legacy of the Void, that real sense of doom, and really give you the sense of what it is like to be this race with those long, and amazing, and glorious traditions, slowly being consumed and snuffed out.
The majority of the interview is about eSports and technical details about the game's launch, but it's worth a read. See the full interview here.
Source:
AusGamers - StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Aussie Launch Interview with Dustin Browder
The short story for the Overlord is out, and can be read here.
He stood on the observation deck of the former Tarsonis Ghost Academy, a reclining giant of black reflective marble on the outside and neosteel on the inside. The desiccated grounds of the city square framed the academy and the shattered monument up front. Only two ragged stone feet on a pedestal remained of the tribute to some hero of the now-dead Confederacy.
Source:
Battle.net - New StarCraft Short Story: Just An Overlord
The next short story, which focuses on Reapers, is now available. Check out an excerpt below:
Warden Kejora stood in the very center of the Hub, hands behind his back, looking over the dozens of screens before him. Each one showed new arrivals. He liked the look of none of them. Not a surprise. A small percentage of humanity was resistant to resocialization in some way, but even among that tiny group, his program only received the dregs: pirates, petty crooks, murderers. Maybe a political dissident or two.
Not for the first time he considered having them all shot, but that wasn't his job. Emperor Mengsk wanted reapers, and by god, he'd get reapers.
Check out the full story here.
Source:
Battle.net - New StarCraft Short Story: Icehouse
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