My day started as any other day, getting up at 6:00am like I normally do for work. However, this was not a normal day. Today I was not going to work, I was going to Blizzard. I got dressed, grabbed some coffee and a muffin, and set out on the one hundred mile trip to Irvine, California. I believed that by leaving early enough, I'd avoid a lot of the morning traffic, and just relax at a local Starbucks until 9:45. I was wrong. When I pulled onto the legendary 405 freeway, this is what I saw:

It took me two and half hours to get to Irvine, but within 15 minutes at Blizzard, the trip was well worth it. Security cleared me, and I drove past the gates, parked my truck, and was let into the lobby. A large figure of Nova from StarCraft: Ghost stood to the right of the room, and a large statue of a dwarf with a gun was located to the left, toward the theater and the art/trophy area. I waited in the lobby with Aaron (AJ the administrator) while a few more people from other fan-sites showed up. Once the group of 15-20 people from Europe arrived, we were taken upstairs to this amazing room:

Before settling down to test out the latest build, a few of us went to do a few group interviews first. Everyone met Karune, and he accompanied us as we went through the interviews. The first person we interviewed was Chris Sigaty, the Lead Producer for StarCraft II. Chris works as the project manager, organizing the scheduling for the programmers, artists and designers, so that everyone is able to coordinate their work to make as much progress in the game development as possible. One of the biggest issues lately was the recent Zerg release. To create the trailer, every department needed to cooperate in adding the art, cinematics and in-game footage. A large part of this interview revolved around the development. Chris mentioned that they do read through fan comments on various websites and make changes according to certain ideas. For now, he explained, the changes made due to fan comments will decrease later on during development. Another means of fine-tuning the game are professional gamers, whom Blizzard hires to play and address various gameplay issues. When StarCraft II reaches its beta phase, professional gamers will continue to test the game even more, so that development team can make the final adjustments to the game and prepare it for its release.

After our interview with Chris Sigaty was over, we headed over to the next room, to meet Dustin Browder, the Lead Designer for StarCraft II. Dustin told us a lot about the development schedule for StarCraft II. Fridays were reserved to test current builds using various people from throughout the company, and who wouldn't want to spend their Fridays at work playing video games? Those who played the build would leave feedback about any suggestions or changes that should be made. On Monday, the team goes over the feedback, and the next three days are spent making those changes in addition to their project schedule demands as set by Chris Sigaty. Thursday is mainly used as a pre-run-through to ensure that the build is ready for the weekly testing. As for the game itself, Dustin informed us that the single-player is still being worked on, and that the campaigns and storyline have not been completely set as of now. During the interview, the issue of the Colossus' attack was brought up. Recently, its attack changed from a single, powerful laser to a spread of multiple lasers. Dustin explained that this was to prevent wasting damage, that rather than do a ridiculous amount of damage to kill a single Zergling, that the spread attack can hit several Zerglings at once, and not waste nearly as much damage. He does admit that at this point the attack doesn't look that good, and that changes are being made for it look better. Next, Dustin explained the static defenses of the Zerg that are laid by the new Zerg Queen. The Queen can lay down pods called Swarm Clutches. Swarm Clutches deal good damage to ground and air. However, they are weak against enemy attacks, and must rely on a new detection unit, called the Shrieker, in order to target enemies. Shriekers are also laid by the Queen, and any Swarm Clutch within the shrieker's radius can attack enemy units, even if they are on the opposite end. Dustin explained that good strategy would have to be used in order to use Swarm Clutches and Shriekers to their maximum defensive potential. Another change that has been made to the game is that the 200 food cap has returned. Finally, the question I asked was in regards to the cut units appearing in the map editor. Dustin explained that any of the original units that don't make the cut will appear just as they were in StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, so don't open up the map editor and expect Firebats packing Napalm Rockets. As for the new units that have been cut, some of them will make it to the editor, but unfortunately there is no guarantee that all of them will appear. However, to ease the minds of the fans he did explain that the map editor will be very user-friendly and, if a unit didn't make it to the Editor, it will be possible for the player to create their own units or make changes to any existing units on custom maps.

Two interviews down, one to go. Finally, our group met with Samwise Didier, the Senior Art Director for Blizzard. The first subject of discussion was regarding the recent changes in the appearance of the Terran and Protoss. Everyone present in the group approved of the changes; adding more grit and grime on the Terran units and buildings, and taking a lot of the shine out of the Protoss' golden armor. I had the chance to offer up a question, asking Samwise about the possibility of day/night terrains and weather effects. Currently there is no plan set for day/night effects, but Samwise made mention that this could be an option that may be tested in the future for review. According to Samwise, weather effects are being tested, but at present, the only "weather" effect that exists are various fireballs on the Char/lavaworld maps. He told us a funny story about one player testing the lavaworld map and freaking out because he thought he lost his base, when in reality, it was one of the harmless fireballs appearing in the foreground of the screen, temporarily blocking the view of his base. Another interviewer asked about the style they were going for with the races this time around, and Samwise answered that they were going with the original StarCraft style, that the Terrans are a mix of backwater and military, the Protoss are technologically advanced and rely a lot on robotics, and the Zerg resemble insects with a hivemind whose biology are highly evolved. The style of the Zerg did bring forth another question about how fresh ideas came around for the new Zerg units. Samwise explained to us that everyone felt the Zerg had a feel of being lean, fast and agile. But then he asked the question "Why?", encouraging people to think outside the box. And it was in thinking outside the box that the Infester came to be. Rather than fast and agile, the Infester is stout and relatively slow for a Zerg warrior. For example, why did the Terran Thor, whose original design was a larger tank, have to be just another, bigger tank? The idea was played around with, and soon the Thor design became how we see it today. As with Chris Sigaty, Samwise was also asked about fan comments and their influence on the concept art. He replied that the art team was good about reading developed, well thought-out ideas, and often suggestions they read online have already been considered and sometimes confirm what they should work with next. Finally, Samwise was asked about one of the biggest art concerns currently existing for StarCraft II: the Protoss team colors. The interview group was mixed in their opinions about the team colors. I was skeptical about the team colors, with the different colored crystals and Psi-Blades, upon further testing, I really liked the team colors, with two exceptions. The Pylons seem strange suddenly being different colors, but that is something I would be fine with if left alone. However, I'm strongly against the current coloring for Archons. With the brighter colors, the Archons look like giant balls of light. Yes, it makes it much easier to determine which Archons are yours if they're in a large group, but lore-wise, it's a nightmare, explaining how Archons on a red team look almost exactly like the Dark Archons from StarCraft: Brood War. Regardless, Protoss team color is one of the art team's biggest issues, and I'm confident that they'll surprise us (in a good way).

After the interviews, which lasted until 10:45am, it was time to sit down and do some serious testing. Obviously, the first race I tried was the Zerg. I joined a four player free-for-all, that didn't involve much fighting since we were all busy checking out the details behind the Zerg. One of the biggest changes to the Zerg was for their upgrade system. No longer are the Zerg tied to a general upgrade, such as ground carapace, flier carapace, etc... Each Zerg unit has its own set of upgrades that can be bought at their required building (for example, Zergling - Spawning Pool). Rather than separate attack and armor upgrades (there are still only three levels), each level now includes attack, armor, and - depending on the unit and upgrade level - a stat boost or an additional ability. If this type of upgrade/research were to remain for the Zerg, there would be at least one significant pro and con for traditional Zerg players. Research and upgrading is made easier by summing it together into a single upgrade. However, with only one type of unit being affected by the upgrade, Zerg players are forced to be more careful about which units they focus on upgrading. It is cheaper and faster to fully-upgrade Zerg units, but upgrades will only affect the one type of unit instead of half the Zerg ranks. If I were to choose between upgraded tier one Roaches and basic tier two Hydralisks, I would choose the Roaches, because with their upgrades, they outclass the Hydralisks, even though the Hydralisks are originally more powerful than the Roaches. After getting killed in that four player Zerg free-for-all by someone more interested in killing everyone, I decided the best way to collect my Zerg information was to play a 1v1 with a computer player. I spent the next hour recording as much of the information on the Zerg race as I possibly could.

12:30 rolled around; I was starting to get hungry, so through sheer force of will I was able to pull myself away from the computer and walk outside the room for some pizza. I had three slices of delicious sausage and mushroom pizza. Later, I found out on the tour that the pizza had been made by their cafeteria staff. But more on the cafeteria later.

Wasting no time, I devoured the pizza and returned to my computer a few minutes later. Now that I had recorded the majority of the Zerg stats, I was ready to have a bit more fun. I found myself a little tired of the Zerg and chose to play as the Terran, which is my favorite race. To my amazement, I noticed that the Medics were no longer built at the Barracks. Later, I found out that the Medics had been replaced by the Medivac Dropship - a combination of the Medic and Dropship. According to Dustin Browder, who showed up later in the day, the Medivac Dropship was still relatively new. At this point in time, the Dropship would hover over infantry and auto-heal any injured units. He explained that they would like to try to make an animation of the healing process, such as a robotic arm descending to the ground unit to visually show that the injured ground units were being healed.

I found my strategy improving with the Terran. I'd go straight to Barracks, building one or two Barracks with Reactors. Then I would be able to build two Marines at once to build up my defense, and then another Barracks with a Tech Lab, so I could buy the Shield Upgrade. In the meantime I'd save up some Minerals, build another Command Center and fly it to a nearby expansion, which was easy without the pitch-black fog-of-war. Once I built a decent defense of bunkered Marines and a few Siege Tanks I'd build two Starports; one with the Reactor to build two Vikings at once and the other with the Tech Lab to build Banshees. If I had the resources available I'd build another Starport with a Tech Lab to build Banshees faster, because Banshees own the ground, especially when they're cloaked. Once I built up a sizable force of Banshees and Vikings I did hit-and-run tactics against the other players. If they countered with ground, I'd use the Banshees, and if they countered with air, I'd bring out the Vikings. Once most of the resistance was gone, I'd transform the Vikings to their ground mode and mow down the remainder of the base. My strategy was good enough to win half the time, but it did lack aggressiveness early in the game.

Around 1:45pm, Karune took everyone attending the press release on a tour of the premises. First we were taken back down to the main lobby, and then went into the art and trophy section. One section of the wall was dedicated to the numerous awards that Blizzard has received for their more successful games. In the entire art section, there wasn't too much in the StarCraft department, other than an amazing marine statue and some art on a rather small section of the wall. However, the overwhelming presence of Warcraft and Diablo art couldn't surpass one picture frame on the wall, that contained a StarCraft CD that had actually been taken into space (but unfortunately wasn't played in space, apparently they don't allow that). Also in the frame was a picture of the space shuttle crew, that I assume was taken while they were out in space. After everyone was done looking around, we were taken over to the second building. At Blizzard, there are three buildings, and we were only allowed to see two of them. The third building is for their top secret stuff. Between the second and third buildings is a large grassy area where a bunch of the Blizzard employees play football at four pm, and a little further down was a volleyball net. After going inside the second building, we were shown the company cafeteria (where that great pizza came from). The cafeteria staff makes three meals a day, and every meal is completely different. One really nice touch to the cafeteria was the artwork on one of the larger walls:

Now seriously, who wouldn't want to have their work or school cafeteria wall look like that? Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time for me to "investigate" the cafeteria further, so we moved on. Next on the tour was the company's fitness center. The fitness center was really nice, and had all of the necessary equipment, including televisions on each of the aerobic machines. After we finished looking around, we were taken back to the main building. The group visiting from Europe, who had been here since Monday, went back upstairs. The group that was only visiting today stayed on the first floor to go watch the Zerg trailer in Blizzard's mini theater. Seeing the trailer on a large screen with surround sound while sitting in very comfortable seats offered a far greater cinematic experience than that of YouTube. Once the trailer ended, Karune escorted us back upstairs to the computer room. While the team tournament went on I continued to play several more 2v2 games, sticking with the Terran because they were the only race I ever stood a chance with. Toward the end of the visit, Dustin Browder visited, and we convinced him to play a game with us. We ended up playing a 2v2v2, and I was lucky enough to be paired up with Karune. I played Terran of course, and he played Protoss. Browder's team killed the other two player team relatively quickly, but since I was safe in my corner position I had enough freedom to mass Banshees and Vikings. As Karune began to sweep forward with his Stalkers and Archons, I joined in with my air forces and we mowed them down for a victory. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a screenshot as a remembrance of that glorious battle. As the day grew late, the group from Europe went to their hotel. A few of us remained with Karune talking mostly about the game and the industry. Everyone present that day had been invited to dinner at 7:00pm, so slightly after 6:00pm we left Blizzard and met at Ling & Louie's Asian Bar. Blizzard had reserved half the restaurant for our group with a long table that seated all 30-40 of us. Dinner was amazing, starting with an appetizer plate, continuing with various dishes being passed around, and ending with an incredibly tasty pastry dessert. The majority of the group stayed for a while after dinner, but as 9pm rolled around, I realized that it was time for me to hit the road. I said goodbye to Karune and my online associates, walked to my truck, and drove the two hours home. And that was my day at Blizzard.

Special Thanks To:
Blizzard
Karune
Dustin Browder
Chris Sigaty
Samwise
Blizzard's cafeteria staff (that was good pizza)

Should the Zerg remain similar to the way they are now, dedicated Zerg players will definitely need some time to adjust. The new upgrade system for the Zerg feels alien at first especially since the Terran and Protoss continue to use the same way of upgrading and researching abilities as in the original game. Researching abilities and purchasing statistics boosts separately is no longer necessary since they are now included into the units' individual combined upgrades which does make things easier by the simplicity of this new system. However, the downside to this is that you need to buy the upgrades for every unit you plan on using in the game, which will force the player to think carefully about their strategy to minimize upgrade costs but maximize the deadliness of their units through their upgraded strength, abilities, and numbers.

Another strange move that Blizzard has made with the Zerg is that all ground units, including the ultralisk (which is significantly bigger than its StarCraft: Broodwar predecessor), can burrow. One thing that threw a lot of players off their game when playing with the Zerg is that when their unit burrowed, it was still partially visible, rather than seeing a black hole in the ground. After some testing, a few of us discovered that despite the Zerg player being able to see the top of their burrowed unit sticking out of the ground, it was completely cloaked to any opponent without detection. This is something I really feel is an improvement. For the Zerg player, it will be much easier to keep track of your buried units, because you will know exactly where they are, and if you have a large group of mixed units buried, you know which ones are which. For anyone playing against a Zerg opponent, using a detector to find buried units, they'll have a much easier time determining which units are buried, where, and how many, since the top of the burrowed unit will be exposed. What's strange, and actually quite funny, is when you bury an Ultralisk - since they've doubled in size the amount of space that appears above ground could house several supply depots.

As for the Nydus Worm, it's still too early to have a good opinion of this new unit. The Nydus Worm had two modes: its mobile mode and its load/unload mode. I wasn't able to test as to whether or not the Nydus Worm could be killed while loading or unloading, but for both modes it is completely cloaked from enemy view without detection. The loading/unloading mode is when you see the head protruding vertically out of the ground. While in its mobile mode, the Nydus Worm appears like a large caterpillar, similar in shape to the late Reaver of StarCraft. It's current movement animation looked very nice, as it would move up and down diving and rising through the ground as it crawled to its selected destination. In this build, despite its beauty, the Nydus Worm was obviously not finished - the Nydus Worm could burrow through water and empty space as if there were normal ground there. Also, the Nydus Worm had a twelve unit capacity. It's too early to know if it was intended to be this way, but each individual unit took up one space, whether it was a tiny Zergling or a hulking Ultralisk. Theoretically, if you were playing a game against a Zerg player and were lazy with detectors late in the game, you could have an invisible Nydus Worm crawl into your base and unleash twelve Ultralisks at once, resulting in an obvious gameover.

An additional note about the new Zerg unit, the Infester, is that when it "infests" a building, it is not permanent, nor are the units produced by it. Currently, the infesting process takes a few seconds, and the building will appear infested. As soon as the building is infested, infested Terran start popping out, one right after another, and continue until the building loses it infestation, which lasts for several seconds. Each Infested Terran has a limited lifespan, similar to the late Broodling of StarCraft. Soon after the building loses its infestation status, the first of the Infested Terrans die, and the rest follow. With the current build both Terran and Protoss buildings produced infested Terran. According to Dustin Browder, infested Protoss will appear, but the unit has yet to be made. The development team is looking for a way to balance infestation on the Protoss, so that the Zerg can't take too much advantage of infesting wayward pylons to produce wave after wave of troops free of cost. On Tuesday, I hadn't heard of anyone trying to infest a Zerg structure and I hadn't tried it myself, so at this point, it's unclear if an Infester will be able infest an enemy Zerg building. One thing I do regret is not playing with the Corrupter more, because I have no firsthand knowledge of their attack and its infestation abilities.

Other than the Zerg, there haven't been too many changes to StarCraft II since the BlizzCon version I played last August. Back in August, the zooming ability wasn't very impressive. Currently, however, you can zoom in much further to the point that you can see a lot of detail on the units' faces. This is especially the case with Zerg claws, teeth, and vicious facial structure. The detail on the buildings is really impressive to the point of distracting you from the game if you try to focus on the details too much. Another point of interest is with the resource gatherers. By selecting a rally point, any Probe or SCV will head to the selected resource node and begin gathering automatically. Since both Zerg warriors and Drones are built from the Hatchery, Lair, or Hive, there are two types of rally points. The first, simply called Rally Point, works as a normal rally point for all Zerg with the exception of the Drones. The second is the Worker Rally Point which allows all hatched Drones to go to a separate area or gather depending on the rally point selected.

Due to my testing of the Zerg and my semi-serious play with the Terran, I didn't have any major opportunities to try the Protoss. One thing I did catch was that Archons are no longer Twilight Archons, rather, they are simply just "Archons". Apparently, in the current build, they are slightly overpowered which may have explained how Karune was able to do so much damage on his own with Stalkers and Archons. If they are overpowered, this is a minor fix that will be dealt with in due time.

Regarding the Terrans, the Barracks can now build Marines, Marauders, Ghosts, and Reapers. Reapers require the Merc Haven, Marauders require the Tech Lab, and Ghosts require the Tech Lab as well as Shadow Ops. Marines and Reapers can utilize the Reactor which allows two units to be built at once. In this particular build [Editor's note: there have been three different builds during the Zerg release], Ghosts have EMP but no longer can call down Drop Pods. At the Factory, you can build Jackals, Siege Tanks, and Thors. I wasn't able to experiment too much with the Jackals and Thors, but I was proud with the performance of the improved Siege Tank. Jackals can utilize the Reactor, while the Siege Tank and Thor require the Tech Lab. (Note: There may be an additional requirement for the Thor that I haven't noticed.)The Starport can build Vikings, Medivac Dropships, Nomads, Banshees, and Battlecruisers, with the Vikings and Medivac Dropships able to utilize the Reactor, while the others require the tech lab. I played around with the Nomad a little bit, but I wasn't able to put its auto defenses into a good combat situation to see their true effectiveness in battle. The Battlecruisers are impressive, but the future Terran player be warned, if you mass Battlecruisers, make sure that you specialize them with the Yamato Cannon or Plasma Torpedoes before you go into battle. Also, keep track of which ships are specialized and with which special ability, because if you were to use them in a serious battle, the precious seconds you lose trying to locate a Battlecruiser with the Plasma Torpedoes can turn the tide of a battle, with some expensive losses. Below are the current stats for the Medivac Dropship:

Current Unit Information for the Medivac Dropship:

Type: Flying
HP: 150
Max Energy: ?
Minerals: 100
Vespene: 100
Supply: 2
Requires: Starport with attached Tech Lab
Armor: ?
Abilities:

• Heal (Auto-heal set for default, can be turned off)
  
• Load/Unload

And thus ends my added summary of the March 11th build of StarCraft II. Although there may be aspects of the game that may not appear to fit or balance perfectly into the game yet, we should remain confident in Blizzard for creating another quality product that we can be proud of and spend many, many hours enjoying.

This is Zero, signing off.

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