The second part of the StarCraft II Creative Development Q&A is up, this time answering a few questions about Kerrigan.
Question: Why did Jim Raynor turn his back on everything that happened in the original StarCraft and Brood War, in that instead of killing Kerrigan (he watched her do some BAD stuff), he fell in love with her?
Answer: The first thing to consider is how Jim perceived Kerrigan. Certainly Horner, Tychus, and the Hyperion crew all viewed her as an evil being who should pay for her crimes. They didn't see a distinction between Kerrigan and the Queen of Blades, and for a long time Jim probably didn't either. But the moment Valerian uttered those words about saving Sarah, a door opened in Jim's mind. Could there truly be the "old" Sarah — cold-eyed assassin, but not a mass murderer — somewhere inside the ruthless alien queen? Was it possible? Jim didn’t know the answer to that for sure. He'd seen the Queen of Blades deceive everyone before, and he wouldn’t put all his trust in Valerian's judgment. So for Jim, it came down to his gut, as it always does. Jim had a choice: hold on to his hatred for Mengsk and the Queen of Blades, or grasp the hope that perhaps he could fix this. And his gut told him to take that chance.
Jim has lost so much in his life — more than most people — and that made the idea of redeeming Kerrigan all the more powerful in his mind. He'd lost family, friends, worlds, ideals...and he thought he'd lost Kerrigan, too. Then he learned there was hope of redeeming her. This was the first time he'd had a chance to regain something he'd thought lost, his only opportunity to make things better rather than stop them from getting worse.
Question: How do units like the mutalisk and banshee fly in space if there is no air?
Answer:Another great question that has been the subject of internal debate, hair pulling, and furniture throwing. Basically, mutas produce a gas that pushes against their own mass as it’s excreted. Even in a vacuum, this causes propulsion, because the gas is pushing against the muta as it’s expelled. Maneuvering is difficult for a muta, but it can release the gas in a range of directions.
When mutas are in an atmosphere, they simply use their wings. The gas is reserved for space travel. And if anyone's wondering why they flap their wings in space? Instinct. Just like a dog pumping its hind leg when you scratch its belly.
For any terran or protoss unit, the answer is even simpler: it’s outfitted with standard propulsion equipment only for use when traveling in space.
Two more questions (and their answers) can be found on the full Q&A, available here.
Blizzard has posted a short Q&A, answered by Brian Kindregan, co-lead writer for StarCraft II, which answers some of the questions collected by Blizzard over the months. This Q&A only has two questions answered, both of which can be read below.
Question: How did the Terrans enjoy such rapid population growth and colonization of the Koprulu sector when all they had to work with were four broken-down ships? According to the lore, four ships containing 40,000 humans crash-landed and established three colonies in 2259.The events of StarCraft 1 occur in ~2500.Yet it seems like the Confederacy/Dominion are full empires with many worlds and billions of residents. For instance, Tarsonis had at least two billion. No matter how I figure survival and reproduction rates, I just can't see how it makes sense.
Answer:This is an excellent question, and one that has been discussed internally for several years. I've always said that these were four crashed colony ships. So while much of their technology was lost, there were certainly means to ensure a foothold on a new, hostile planet – frozen embryos, frozen fertilized eggs, certainly extensive cloning. There were also methods of boosting food production to support explosive population growth. Mmm, tasty nutrient paste! One tablespoon does you for the whole day!
Because this tech was harnessed by survivors who only had a fraction of their intended equipment, it was lost 50 or so years after planetfall. But that was enough to swell the starting figures quite a bit. Let's suppose those starting figures get us up to 400,000 within 30 years of crashing. (Ambitious, I know, but a civilization that can build massive interstellar ships could certainly create such tech.) We should assume that for the first five or six generations, there was enormous social pressure (if not legal) on all fertile adults to spawn as many offspring as possible. Families of ten or more children. By the third or so generation, infant mortality rates might have risen a bit as the old tech broke down, but they would have dropped again as the colonists rebuilt their technological infrastructure. Now the numbers start to make sense.
Question: In StarCraft, the Queen of Blades told Mengsk that she isn't interested in revenge. Why is killing him suddenly her life's purpose, according to the most recent trailer?
Answer:The Queen of Blades and Sarah Kerrigan are not quite the same person. The Queen of Blades is essentially Sarah Kerrigan under the influence of some devastating forces: incredible power, a dominating level of psi energy, and the presence of Zerg mutagen from the cellular level up.
To be clear, the Queen of Blades is not a separate entity that possessed Kerrigan. Kerrigan is (certainly in her mind) responsible for the terrible things she's done. She has immense guilt for those actions, but she was not completely in her "right mind" in Brood War.
All of that is a roundabout way of saying the Queen of Blades felt no need to kill Mengsk. She did not see him as a threat. Sarah Kerrigan, on the other hand, knows that Mengsk wants her dead, and she very much holds a grudge for his abandoning her on Tarsonis.
The fifth patch for Heart of the Swarm is out. Read the patch post here and the comments about the changes here.
Terran
Widow Mine
This unit has a new missile ability called Unstable Payload.
Unstable Payload is an auto-cast ability that initiates once the Widow Mine is burrowed. It cannot be turned off unless the unit is unburrowed.
This ability launches a missile at a target within 5 range, then starts to rearm another missile.
Unstable Payload does 160 damage to a single target and 40 splash damage.
The missile auto-acquires cloaked units.
The missile auto-acquires temporary units like Hallucinations, Infested Terrans, and Locusts.
It takes 40 seconds to rearm the missile. The cost is free for now.
The build time of this unit has increased to 40 seconds.
Protoss
Oracle
The Phase Shield ability has been removed
This unit has a new ability called Void Siphon.
The Oracle channels a beam at an enemy structure that deals 3 damage and harvests 3 minerals every second until canceled. (Note: This ability will not cause the opposing player to lose minerals.)
The range is 7.
The damage/harvest effect ticks when you cast the ability and every sequential second following.
Void Siphon costs 50 energy to cast.
Mothership Core
This unit’s Purify ability has changed.
When a player casts Purify on their Nexus, it grants the Nexus the ability to attack, no longer requiring the Core to attach itself.
The Nexus weapon has a range of 13 and a damage of 20.
Purify now lasts for 60 seconds and still costs 100 energy.
The scale of this unit has been lowered to 0.8.
This unit has had its shield/health lowered to 60/130.
Have you ever looked at the new Heart of the Swarm units and thought, "Hey, I wonder what their dance moves are?" Well, the StarCraft II homepage just updated with a video showing all of the new unit dances coming to Heart of the Swarm. You can watch it below.
Blizzard has released the patchnotes for their update #4 on the Heart of the Swarm Beta. You can read David Kim's comments on these changes here and join our discussion on the topic in our forums.
We will be bringing the beta service down this afternoon to make the following balance changes:
Protoss
Mothership Core:
Purify has been changed to the following:
Purify can now only be cast on your Nexus at max 10 range.
Once cast, the mothership core will attach itself to the Nexus, transforming into a weapon with range 10.
While attached to the Nexus, the mothership core will be unable to cast abilities and regenerate energy.
The damage of Purify has been lowered to 20 and can attack both air and ground units.
Purify will last until cancelled.
Recall has been changed to the following:
Recall is now a simple cast-and-click ability on a player’s Nexus.
Once cast, the mothership core and every friendly unit within a 7-range radius to the core will be recalled to the Nexus.
A new ranged weapon called Repulsor Cannon has been added to the mothership core while in its mobile state.
Repulsor Cannon deals 8 damage to ground units with an attack speed of 0.85.
The cost of the mothership core has increased from 50/50 to 100/100.
Movement speed has increased from 0.47 to 1.875.
Oracle
Health has increased from 20/80 to 60/100.
Speed has decreased from 3.75 to 3.375.
The duration of Entomb has increased from 30 to 45.
Terran
Widow Mine
The duration of Activate Mine has been decreased to 2 sec.
Auto-cast can now be turned off in both activated and deactivated modes.
Zerg
Swarm Host
Locust attack range has increased from 2 to 3.
Locust damage has been reduced from 14 to 12.
Bug Fixes
Battle hellions can no longer load into Bunkers.
The splash damage from widow mines will no longer hit friendly activated widow mines.
The Stargate Command Card now properly includes a Set Rally Point button.
Swarm hosts now have proper collision while burrowed.
Blizzard has released Patch #3 for the Heart of the Swarm Beta.
Hello everyone -
We will be bringing the beta service down around 2 PM PDT to make the following balance changes:
Protoss
Mothership Core The cost of Purify is now 100.The duration of Purify has been lowered to 25 seconds.The damage of Purify has been increased from 25 to 45. Oracle Entomb’s duration has increased to 30 seconds.The health of Entombed nodes has increased from 100 to 130.The duration of Revelation has increased from 30 to 45 seconds.We fixed a bug where the oracle was not correctly classified as a Psionic unit.
Terran
Battle Hellion While in Battle mode, the hellion is now classified as a Biological unit. Widow Mine Splash damage has increased from 35 to 60.
Zerg
Viper We fixed a bug where the viper was not correctly classified as a Psionic unit.
The second patch for the Heart of the Swarm beta is out, implementing some radical changes such as adding the Carrier back into the game and removing Warhounds from the game.
Zerg
Swarm Host
The locust’s attack range has decreased from 3 to 2.
Protoss
Oracle
We have removed the oracle’s Preordain ability.We have added a new area of effect ability for the oracle called Phase Shield.
Targeted friendly units are shielded from harmful effects for 5 seconds.
Fungal Growth, Corruption, Contaminate, Graviton Beam, Concussive Shells, Abduct, Revelation, Vortex, and 250mm Strike Cannons – Phase Shield removes the effect and prevents units from being affected.
EMP – Phase Shield removes the anti-cloaking effect but not the damage dealt.
Neural Parasite – Phase Shield will not remove this effect but it will prevent units from being affected.
The energy upgrade has been removed.
Entomb’s duration has been reduced to 25 sec, but the health per Entomb has increased to 100.
The cost per unit has changed from 150/200 to 150/150.
Tempest
The attack range has been reduced from 22 to 15.The damage has changed from 30 to 30 + 20 to massive.The ranged upgrade has been removed.
Mothership Core / Mothership
Recall will now cost 100 energy.
The mothership core will now start with 50 energy and when upgraded, energy will be set back to 50.
The range of Purifier Beam has been increased from 7 to 10.
Carrier
This unit has returned to the game.
Terran
Warhound
This unit has been removed from the game.
Reaper
We have added a new passive ability called Combat Awareness. This allows reapers to see up cliffs.
Hellion
Battle hellions can now be built from the Factory. It has an Armory requirement.There is a new upgrade at the Armory that will allow transformation between Battle Mode and Normal Mode.
Widow Mine
We have removed the Armory requirement.
One of the developers came forth to explain the decision to add the Carrier and remove the Warhound:
Warhound has been removed from the game
We received a lot of feedback from both the general community along with many pro gamers that this unit was not working in its current state. We definitely agree. The current plan is to remove it from the beta so that we can focus testing other units.
If we locate a better design for the warhound, it will return to the beta; until then, please play the game and give your feedback without the warhound in mind.
Carrier is back!
We continue to receive a lot of feedback from both our community and professional players suggesting that the tempest is difficult to use. We agree that it’s not an easy-to-use capital ship like the carrier, and feel it could be cool to have two big air units in the protoss fleet. The carrier will be the easy-to-use, multifunctional capital ship, whereas the tempest will be a more strategic and positional unit that can’t just be blindly massed. We know how much the carrier means to everyone and think that this is a great opportunity to give the carrier another chance before making a final decision onthe unit’s future.
Today, the Beta servers will be closed for maintenance as of 4:30 PM PST. The first patch for the StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm Beta will be released during the downtime. The most notable changes, upcoming with the following patch, are that the Warhound and the Swarm Host have been nerfed. These two units have dominated the Heart of the Swarm Beta for these first three days of open beta.
We will be bringing down the beta server today at 4:30 PM PDT in order to perform a few balance changes. We do not expect a lengthy downtime and will report to this thread when the service is live after the maintenance. Below are the changes being implemented:
BALANCE CHANGES
- Warhound Weapon attack delay has increased from 1.3 to 1.7. - Swarm host locust attack damage has decreased from 16 to 14. - Viper Consume can no longer be used on creep tumors. - Oracle Preordain duration has decreased from 2 min to 1 min. - Viper Blinding Cloud now hits everything, but the radius of effect has reduced from 2.5 to 1.5. - Widow mines will no longer damage each other with their splash damage. - The bug affecting the Overlord speed upgrade has been fixed. Upgraded Overlords will now travel at the expected speed of 1.88.
HOTKEY CHANGES
Oracle - Revelation has changed from E to R. - Entomb has changed from R to E.
Mothership Core - Energize has changed from N to E. - Purify has changed from E to F.
Swarm host - Spawn locust has changed from W to C.
Fleet Beacon - Research Gravity Sling has changed from T to G. - Research Bosonic Core has changed from G to A.
Hydralisk Den - Evolve Muscular Augments has changed from C to A.
The time has come. Blizzard has just announced the start of the Heart of the Swarm beta, which will initially be limited to progamers, press, Arcade contest winners, and shoutcasters. There is no NDA however, so prepare for the flood of Heart of the Swarm content coming your way!
The Heart of the Swarm beta test has begun! This multiplayer-only test will initially be limited to a select group of pro-gamers, members of the press, Arcade contest winners, and shoutcasters. Beta test participants are not under NDA, so you’re likely going to see live streams of matches, screenshots, and casts of impromptu Heart of the Swarm throwdowns starting . . . mmm, NOW!
We will soon be inviting other players to participate in the beta, so be sure you’ve opted in by clicking on the "Beta Profile Settings" under the Account Management section of your Battle.net account (or just click here). Signing up from a Battle.net account that’s actively playing StarCraft II will help your chances of being selected. Note that opting in doesn't guarantee beta access.
The Blizzard post also includes an FAQ about the beta, which you can check out here.
We here at StarCraft: Legacy will be dedicated to brining you all the latest news about the beta as it develops. Check back regularly for updates!
