Blizzcon is the gaming event of the year, attracting Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft 2 fans by the thousands. Compared to last year, Blizzard was sufficiently prepared to deal with the surge of fans competing for tickets on their servers. An additional 5 000 tickets were released in comparison to the 15 000 allotted for last year’s event, and a queue was set up to prevent the servers from crashing. The tickets were sold out in less than a minute, reaffirming the enormous popularity of Blizzcon within the gaming community.

True to form, Blizzard’s gaming presentations and the array of interesting costumes worn by fans made for an exciting weekend. Interviews with Blizzard staff stimulated some interesting points of discussion amongst Starcraft 2 fans, especially the comments that addressed Blizzard’s controversial decision not to include offline local area network play in the sequel.

Blizzard’s decision not to include LAN in Starcraft 2 has been the cause of mutinous outcry and numerous petitions within the gaming community. Executive Vice President of game design Rob Pardo addressed questions concerning the lack of LAN. Pardo insists it’s not a big deal, stating that he believes people won’t really notice that the LAN feature is missing when the game comes out.

Battle.net is being presented as the answer to multiplayer concerns. The Blizzard staff members have said that this will prevent piracy and give gamers a better quality multiplayer experience. At Blizzcon, Pardo brushed off the uncertainties of some who claim they won’t have access to the internet, saying that these cases are very rare. He also made mention of the fact that a few legitimate cases for LAN were being considered, like location-based tournaments.

We still believe that the decision to not include LAN in Starcraft 2 is a bad one. It would’ve been great if Blizzard could have found another way to address piracy concerns. Hopefully Battle.net will include features that are able to replicate or emulate the LAN-option.

One great piece of Starcraft 2 news to come out of Blizzcon is the fact that it will let modders create and sell their custom maps. Rob Pardo said that mod-makers will be given the opportunity to sell their maps via an official marketplace which is under active development at Blizzard. This has come after the measurable impact that mods like Defense of the Ancients have had on the game industry.

As yet, there is no indication of when the paid marketplace will come into being. The release date of Starcraft 2 has recently been pushed back again to sometime in 2010, but Pardo said that Blizzard wants to give prospective designers a heads-up so that they can prepare to create some awesome maps.

In addition to the comments made concerning LAN and the prospects for modders, some cool new screenshots were revealed. Blizzcon also saw the Blizzard CEO provide confirmation that the beta will happen sometime this year, giving us some hands on time to look forward to – if we are lucky.

During this nerve-racking no release date, no news time, I’ve developed a little ritual to help myself through it all. This consists of a morning e-mail check, a quick check of my Battlenet account, and a search for the term “Starcraft 2 Release Date”.

Well, guess what this has brought? It has been full of so-called news, that Starcraft 2 is going to be delayed, and not too much else. Gee, who would have guessed? As far as I can tell the source is an unnamed analyst, quoted by the Wall Street Journal, and that was when he was speaking about another game.

So, maybe the guy in the back using the 1980s model Apple didn’t guess, but the rest of us pretty much knew this was coming. After all, it is almost the middle of July, and Blizzcon is due in August. Blizzcon is an opportunity for Blizzard to generate media attention, hype their new products and generally stimulate sales and interest in their games. You think they will begin the beta BEFORE such a huge media op? Not in my opinion.

Knowing just how good Blizzard is at hyping their products, a delay in the release of the beta is almost inevitable. With the beta delayed, it follows that the release date of Starcraft 2 will also be delayed. A beta period of 4 to 6 months is not unreasonable for beta testing. We have always said here on SC2M that an end of the year release would be optimistic at best.

So I don’t think I’m being too unrealistic by saying a delay in the Starcraft 2 release date is a no brainer.

Now given that deduction, and our experience with Blizzard’s love of media attention, you can see where I am heading with this. I would love to be proved wrong and look back at this post while playing the Starcraft 2 beta, and think how silly I was to ever believe Blizzard would delay a game release date.

I ended another long day of surfing the net for any news of when the Starcraft 2 release date will be feeling a little discouraged. I supposed I was not any different from any avid gamer who is anxiously awaiting the release of Starcraft 2 or at least a date, or maybe even a Starcraft 2 beta key. So I decided instead to while away the time checking out who else is suffering from the pre-release-beta-isn’t-here-yet fidgets.

While searching for any hint, any rumor, any message relayed on someone’s fillings, or tinfoil hat, about the upcoming Starcraft 2 release date, I come across such gems as “Blizzard filed for the trademark rights on the name Cataclysm“. Right, so what does this have to do with the release date? Nothing at all, but it came up in my search results.

Okay, onward and upward says I. I will not be daunted because maybe someone got a telepathic message from Karune and somewhere on the net it is lying like a buried treasure chest covered by tons of verbal manure. After all with a billion words out here on the interweb surely something will point to what I, and others want to know.

Oh wait, here is an interview with Chris Sigaty on Starcraft 2, and it’s recent so maybe….just maybe. I read the article with blinding speed, and came away with the feeling that Chris Sigaty is a brilliant person who right along with Karune has managed to master the art of using many words to say nothing, but making it interesting anyway.

Fortunately he was not in reach when I read the ending words to this article “We’re targeting the end of 2009 for the release of StarCraft II, but as with all Blizzard games, we won’t release a game until we feel it meets our high standards and the expectations of our players.”

Where have we heard that before?

I surfed a few other places where people were arguing the merits of changes in tech trees, balancing races, and even the effect of mobile units they have not even seen come into play yet. Oh, I just can’t wait for the release, when all the hypothetical arguments turn into practical ones. Now that will be truly heated. Yes, indeed these guys are fidgeting too.

Then by some odd turn I ended up reading about a new unit, The Crucio. Maybe it is just me but doesn’t that unit bear an unsettling resemblance to a spider while in action?

Of course I inevitably end at the infamous YouTube video claiming that getting a Starcraft 2 beta key is just as easy as downloading an application from their site and filling in your information. Oh please, not that again!

Okay, if you are going to do that why not just sit down and write an email giving your Blizzard account to “mr. nameless scammer dude?” That will save you the annoyance of downloading an application designed to do nothing but get your battlenet information so it can report it back to the scammer, who then takes possession of your account and whatever personal information he can get while he is in there.

All of that information on the net, so many searches done and so many words used, and not a single whisper on the release date or beta start.

Oh, and I found a new icon on my Battlenet account home page. A tiny little SC II logo right next to my beta profile link. What does it mean? I don’t know. Why is it there? I have no clue. It’s indicative of my state of mind though, that I would even notice or worry about it.

I sure hope the beta begins soon so we can quit with the Starcraft 2 fidgets and get on with the game.

Blizzard has announced that LAN support will not be available in the release of their long awaited game, Starcraft 2. Not being a highly excitable sort, even though I am a casual gamer who prefers to suffer defeat in private, I did not give this much thought.

However, it seems that some people are much more upset about this prospect. These guys decided to start a petition to save the LAN, that’s LAN not land, and they also have garnered more than a few supporters.

Luckily the people who wrote this “Save the LAN” petition are not Blizzard building burning, pitchfork waving, foaming at the mouth hardcore gamers. No, these are quiet reasoning people who compliment Blizzard first, posit clear reasons for their position, and end it politely. Apparently a lot of people feel strongly about their LANs or at least the ability to use that in the new Starcraft, because this petition has thus far gained the support of 35,866 people. Who knew that LAN was that popular?

I admit it doesn’t thrill me to consider Blizz watching my rather slow learning curve while I attempt to control those pesky Zerg and fail, and fail, and fail. Though I doubt my attempts will draw much notice either, it’s always the winners that attract watchful eyes.

However, when Starcraft 2 is released everyone will have to go through Battlenet even for single player mode. Can you say Big Brother is watching you? You won’t be developing any super secret tactics using weaknesses in the game structure to unleash on the unsuspecting since it’s all on the Battlenet, and any suspected imbalances will likely be corrected even as the tactics to use them are being developed.

It makes for balance in the game, but whoever said world domination was balanced?

In any case “Save The Lan” petitioners, we wish you all the best, but speaking from experience if the rabid, foaming at the mouth, epitaph slinging lynch mobs have failed to sway Blizzard in the past, I would not take odds on your polite approach working.

Starcraft 2 has announced that the game will be released with 2 expansion packs planned and they are calling it a Trilogy. The first will be Terrans: Wings of Liberty, the second is Zerg: Heart of the Swarm and the final one is to be Protoss: Legacy of the Void.

This announcement caused an uproar in the community, with questions being thrown around like – why divide it up? What is the value of the proposed expansions? All with the usual moans and wails of course.

As a gamer, I would like to take what may be an unpopular stance. This is strictly my opinion based on a long history of gaming with Blizzard and their many games.

I have been a Blizzard customer from back in the good old days when Diablo was new and we had to walk uphill 2 miles through fire and lava both ways to get to the hostiles…or something like that.

My experience with Blizzard has been, well, to put it mildly – love and hate. I love to hate them especially when they make me wait. However, I dutifully purchased each expansion, on every game I owned to feed my addictions.

Recently with World of Warcraft, I purchased not only the games but the expansion packs, in addition to paying a monthly fee to play it. There’s no free ride in Wow and no single player mode either. Each time I purchased an expansion, I grumbled and griped, but was anxious to get to the new content.

So, you ready to hear my opinion? It sucks that we pay to play, but it’s our entertainment. I have yet to purchase a game or an expansion that did not live up to my expectations or Blizzard’s promise.

Unless you are a pro-gamer or even if you are a pro-gamer, things will get old in any game after a while. Blizzard knows this, and unlike their other games where it seemed that expansion packs were often decided on mid-stream, they have taken steps from the first moment to ensure that boredom doesn’t set in.

I would expect these expansions to be released just as the danger of boredom becomes the greatest. I would also expect based on Blizzard’s history, that each will carry with it, not only new artwork but new abilities and exciting new places to see and battle in, and brand new strategies to devise or revise.

No, I am not a Blizzard lackey, and everything they do doesn’t sit well with me. However, when it comes to dividing the release of Starcraft 2 into segments, I see the logic of it, and the long term benefit to us as gamers, and I applaud.

If you buy Starcraft 2, and enjoy it, you will probably go for each of the expansions and pay what is a fair price for some awesome long term entertainment. If you don’t want to purchase them, fine, just quit whining about them.

It seems that some bored game artist or developer, or for all I know, the entire staff, decided that Immortals look lonely.

I suppose an Immortal with a goldfish swimming in his tank is less outrageous than a Terran Marine with a goldfish bowl tucked under his arm as he marches into battle. Would you nuke a dude carrying his pet? Well, consider that next time you take aim at an Immortal, who may or may not be dudes, or something, but certainly do seem to have pets.

However that’s not all they have been up to this year in the way of jokes. These busy beavers have not only been developing and tweaking our favorite game-to-be Starcraft 2, but in the Blizzard tradition, also indulging themselves in practical jokes. All this for a game not even out yet!

If you missed the April Fool’s joke this year (I did) well, they were messing with some heads. When the following video and promotional material was released, some people did not bother to read the large red letters that said APRIL FOOLS. Oh, the uproar was delightful. Seems they borrowed everything from World Of Warcraft to describe this new Terran marine unit and the cow level.

Though I thought I read somewhere that this model might actually be in the game, just not in play, one can only hope not! This cow marine unit is described as being a replacement to the old terran marine unit that was prone to petty violence, vandalism and also cannibalism. Seems that these rogue cows like cheeseburgers too, so that makes them cannibals as well?

This fictional unit is also known as Madcows. Cows with guns are nothing to take lightly. As the Starcraft 2 beta draws closer (we hope), I can only wonder what the boys in the art room with way too much time on their hands have in store for us.

Well, we Americans don’t have televised Starcraft matches, and I wondered what it would be like.

Hey, why not find out? So, off to Youtube I go, to check out Starcraft 2 videos, and how they might translate to television or maybe even a spectator sport. What follows is an older released Starcraft 2 battle report that to me demonstrated the spectator sport factor in Starcraft 2.

Test subject:

Chris. He’s an avid sports fan, and loves his football, rugby, soccer, baseball, “any sport name here”. He has a wife and small child and he doesn’t get to indulge as much as he would like. He seemed to be a perfect subject.

Oh, and he is a very casual gamer sticking to his old PSP games, when he can find a minute alone. He knows nothing of Starcraft, but sports are his passion. Chris is a pretty smart guy, and plays chess and some strategy games.

I figured he could find the sports factor in Starcraft 2, if anyone could. I decided to see how he would react to the video battle I had found. This Starcraft 2 video got me excited and eager to see more of the match being played, and this was only an alpha battle what would it do for, or to, the uninitiated?

I invited Chris over (with his wife’s permission of course). I told him I wanted him to see a fascinating new sport that I felt would be on television soon, I could not let slip it was a game or his wife would have never agreed.

A full two minutes of gameplay passes as Chris watches the Starcraft 2 battle report raptly. He hasn’t said anything though, so I am a little deflated. I mean, he doesn’t know the game rules or even what a Terran or Protoss is. It might be he was the wrong test subject or maybe it would not become popular – at least that was what I was thinking right then.

“Oh hell YEAH” is the first thing he says, though it’s more of a shout than a comment. I see him rewind a section and replay it. The section was an amazing escape and scouting mission by a Protoss unit into the Terran base. The rest of the 9:56 second video of the Starcraft 2 battle report was punctuated by an occasional cheer or groan by Chris.

He finished the video and then fired a series of questions at me. “What’s this game? When will it be on television? Can I play? What is a Protoss? How do they win the game?”

To me, Chris’ reaction, and the fact he subsequently insisted on watching EVERY battle report he could find, indicates that it will indeed be a spectator sport when Starcraft 2 is released. I also am guessing that the term ‘Starcraft 2 widow’ may well replace ‘football widow’, at least among my circle of friends.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I of course applied for the impending Starcraft 2 beta. I went through all the little steps and one in particular gave me pause.

I have applied for betas before and usually they ask you your system specs (some people lie) and then they ask you about your gaming habits (many people lie) and then you press fill submit and wait. Not with this one.

You can’t complete the application to the SC2 beta on Battle.net unless you have an account with at least one registered Blizzard game. Cool enough, but you won’t be lying to Blizz about your gaming habits and you will have to establish yourself as a customer.

Your account is right there. How long you have played and for all I know, how many hours or often per week or month or years. Not too big a deal, I have been a dedicated gamer with this company for 5 years and am just as hyped as any other gamer about Starcraft 2 and the beta.

Second step, you have to download a small application to provide Blizzard with needed system information. No one will be telling any lies about their machines this beta! So I look at this tiny screen – that true to their word only provides the minimal information that a developer and company would want to know about who is playing in beta, and – I stop. I am frozen with doubt.

I have a good machine, but what if it’s not good enough? I really want in. Or, even worse, what if it’s too good? So maybe I should switch to my cruddy laptop? Well duh. I won’t get into beta if I don’t press submit but… I kept that uneasy feeling, until talking with a group of friends who also just happen to be avid gamers.

Very casually says I, to this group of fanatic gamers “Well hmm who else applied to the Starcraft 2 open beta?” Every voice in the room chimed out “Me!” except for Stan, whom I secretly believe is still playing pong on a hand me down Atari he keeps in his mom’s basement.

“Well, you know, I removed my nvidia video card because of that port conflict with the wireless card, and now I just have that cruddy onboard video card and I was going to put in another gigabyte of ram but, was waiting on the hardware specifications for Starcraft 2 and I had my screen res changed to play…” I trailed off not wanting to show them just how worried I was.

No one but me was worried about screen res, gigs of ram or how powerful their processor was. Everyone else it seems had super machines. I kept on worrying until I spoke to a good friend of mine, another gamer, and one who is waiting just as eagerly as the rest of us for the Starcraft 2 beta invitations.

He calmed me down nicely with just a few words. It seems that gaming companies don’t just want people who play 40 hours a week. Nor do they want only casual gamers. They don’t want only the most powerful machines or the weakest – but a broad spectrum of types.

“Your best chance of getting in is when the fewest people have the same configuration as yours. It’s only good if they test it on a broad range of types of machines.”

Ok, so I feel a little better but I’m still sitting here thinking maybe I could change my screen resolution. I wonder what the most unusual resolution is and is there a rare processor type I can get?

How about ram, maybe 250 megs will get me into beta instead of 3 gigs… I wonder just how much my machine will hold?

Until I figure out a sure fire way to get into the Starcraft 2 beta though, I will just sit like all of us hardcore Starcraft 2 fans and hope for that Blizzard official email invitation… Unfortunately, Blizzard still didn’t confirm a beta start date but final preparations seem to be underway.

The release of StarCraft 2 will split the online and competitive community in two. On the one hand, you will have those who can’t wait to migrate to Blizzard’s latest masterpiece. On the other hand, you will have those who see no reason to change games, and they are perfectly content with the current game. How do I know this will happen?

StarCraft is one of only two games that has experienced amazing longevity on the competitive scene. Counter-Strike (CS) started out as fan mod based on the Half Life engine, and exploded into popularity online. For those who don’t know, CS is a team-based first person shooter with a heavy emphasis on co-operation to complete the objectives on each map.

CS was eventually bought by Valve, creators of the Half Life series. They steadily improved it until it reached its best version, CS 1.6, in 2004. CS 1.6 was a massive improvement after all the previous versions, and it featured prominently at all the major E-Sports competitions. Not unlike StarCraft, CS 1.6 had a staggering following online. Despite a vicious learning curve, it continued to gain fans at LANS and casual online play, while some of the most highly paid E-Sports players battled it out on the highest level. It was the game for everyone.

Valve decided to remake CS with its newly created Source engine in 2006, and CS: Source was born. To the casual observer, the only difference between the two versions was the graphics. Source was much prettier than the garish CS 1.6. However, Valve fettled with the two most important aspects of CS – the gun physics and map layouts.

The key to becoming a good CS player was learning how the weapons worked, and knowing the competitive maps like the back of your hand. Once you understood those two aspects of CS, it simply became a matter of reflexes and tactical thinking which separated you from your competition. CS: Source changed those two basics of CS, and many players didn’t like it. Many found it too easy to kill the opponent, and that all the skill was taken out of game. This group stuck with CS 1.6.

On the other hand, players loved the new version of their favorite online shooter and migrated across. This posed two problems: 1.) Popular teams sat on different sides of the fence, reducing the amount of competition at the highest level, and 2.) It split the online and LAN’ing community into two camps, with either side refusing to budge.

The major E-Sports organizers had to choose which version to host, as they couldn’t host both. Naturally, they chose Source and left the CS 1.6 players out completely. I cannot stress how much of problem this was at the time, as it drained the competitive pool of all the competition. CS without competition is a completely pointless endeavor. Consider this, you have played X game for a number of years and you are now forced to play against newbies simply because there is no one of your skill level to compete against. This is what happened with CS and CS: Source.

There were other consequences too, like killing the competition completely in the smaller communities, but that is almost irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that CS: Source, an updated version of a preposterously popular game, created a schism in the community that is still felt three years after its release.

StarCraft finds itself in a similar situation. It is a fiercely competitive game that has stood the test of time through a tight knit community and a healthy E-Sports presence. The graphics are archaic, but the game play is brilliant. StarCraft 2 updates the graphics, but has made enough changes to the game play mechanics to warrant concern from hardcore competitors. StarCraft is heralded as the perfect RTS, so how could StarCraft 2 possibly improve on that?

Blizzard may find themselves in the same situation that Valve has. They are trying to change a game that doesn’t need changing, and they may burn themselves horribly from this.

Let’s not forget that playing StarCraft 2 online will require a better computer and a faster internet line. All those pretty particle physics need to be rendered by something. That’s another reason for players to stick with StarCraft; they cannot afford to play StarCraft 2 online.

There are so many unforeseen factors that could lead to a split in the community. The only way we will know is post- StarCraft 2 release, when the major competitions have to choose which game to host.

Blizzard have a threateningly large fan following. There is no way to sugar-coat that fact. Just a quick Google search and you will find many fan-sites for all of their products (like this one). And let’s not even get onto the topic of forums; there are possibly hundreds just for StarCraft alone. The Battle.net forums, for example, are positively epic. Surely this kind of fanfare will have a negative affect on Blizzard’s products?

StarCraft 2 is one of the most eagerly anticipated PC games of all time. When it was announced at Blizzcon ’07, I’m certain fervent fans simply passed out from all the excitement. As such, the developers are constantly in touch with fans about all the changes to the build of the game. There have been 50 Q&A sessions already, and that’s excluding the Fansite Q&A series that launched recently. Blizzard is in the process of accomplishing the highly admirable act of keeping their rabid fans up-to-date with the development of StarCraft 2. This is something I take issue with.

StarCraft, the game that sent Blizzard straight into the stratosphere of competitive gaming, wasn’t created with the consultation of the fans. It was Blizzard’s vision from beginning to end and the final product reflected the amount of effort and love they poured into the product. This design philosophy is similar to that of an artist or auteur; it is a no compromise process without interference from anyone outside of the core group of people who conceived the product. StarCraft could be considered art in that respect.

Now, millions of fans are getting involved with the design process. I understand that people outside of the process can have many positive affects on the products development, and that the auteur’s vision can get in the way of creating a good product, but this is Blizzard. Blizzard have never let us, the gamer, down in any respect and that was without annoying 16 year olds whining about design choices.

Blizzard knows how important StarCraft 2 is in the causal and competitive gaming spheres, and don’t wish to alienate their audiences with a radically changed structure. This provides an insane catch22 for the developers. Do they design by committee, and accept comments by fans, or do they do what they have been doing since the nineties and create something entirely their own way? To me, I prefer the latter. I have never been let down by Blizzard in any respect since I started playing their games.

Also, fan’s opinions are hardly objective. Personally, I wish the Zerg were all painted bright pink and attacked using only marshmallows so that my marines could cut them down savagely while laughing at them.