Developer Blog with Production Director Chris Sigaty
In our last blog post, we outlined several upcoming online features we’re working on, including clans and groups, global play, resume from replay, multiplayer replay viewing, unranked matchmaking, and language packs. Since then, we've seen some speculation on whether the features would be exclusive to Heart of the Swarm or available to Wings of Liberty players. We want to clarify that all of these features will be available to BOTH Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm owners. You will not be required to purchase Heart of the Swarm to get the benefits of these features.
Our hope of course, is that you'll want to join us in Heart of the Swarm to continue the epic campaign, and use the newest units coming in the expansion. We got lots of great feedback from the multiplayer sneak peek at the Major League Gaming Spring Championship a few weeks ago and look forward to starting the beta test to collect even more of your thoughts.
Over the next couple weeks we will also have updated information on how to run an SC2 tournament. We realize that the process of running a successful tournament is not very intuitive at the moment. We are working on making the information easier to understand, more discoverable, and with better supporting materials and documentation.
Speaking of tournaments, StarCraft II eSports continues to thrive. TeamLiquid StarLeague 4 qualifiers have begun, and Dreamhack Summer 2012 was full of exciting upsets — can you believe there were no Koreans in the semi finals and only one Korean made it to the quarterfinals? Our own World Championship Series is continuing to build momentum as we identify more national champions and move closer to continental events. And of course, the Global StarCraft II League continues to lead the eSports world with another thrilling season well underway.
But there's one personal story I'd like to share from the MLG Spring Championship. Before I go into that, I want to quickly commend Sundance, Lee, and the entire MLG team, including the casters and participants, on an amazing tournament. Everyone really outdid themselves at this event as the quality of the matches, the streams, the KeSPA exhibition matches, and overall production values were stellar. You could feel the electricity across the whole event with a special reverence for the legendary Brood War players' exhibition matches on Saturday night. Amazing stuff!
The particularly cool part of the story for me was that my twin boys, who are currently four and a half years old, started watching StarCraft II at this event. All day Saturday, I carried around my iPad and watched the MLG Red and Blue stream broadcasts, which worked flawlessly. The boys watched intermittently, asking me questions about a player’s name or the race, but mostly only paid a bit of attention. However, on Saturday night we sat together watching the MarineKing vs. Stephano series. The matches were phenomenal with some of the best fungals and surrounds I've ever seen during game two, and a back and forth in game three that had me so tense that the kids could feel it. By this point they were very engaged and interested. They went off to bed asking all sorts of questions.
The best part was the next morning when the boys woke up. They played in the family room, madly clicking their fingers on pretend keyboards and mice proclaiming, “I’m Marine King Prime and I’m totally destroying your units” and, “I’m Stephano.” Despite the fact that they did not really understand the game, they felt the excitement all the same and found new sports heroes — eSports heroes. The whole thing was totally amazing and fascinating to me because it's hard to imagine this scene happening outside of Korea ten years ago, five years ago, or even two years ago. Here I was, witnessing the growth of eSports’ impact and accessibility first-hand.
It also got me thinking that everyone has a story behind how they were first exposed to StarCraft eSports, and their first memorable moment or match. How did you get into StarCraft eSports? Was it at a BarCraft in the last year or so, or was it many years ago with Brood War? Share your story in the comments section below!
See you online!
Comments (15)
in WoL they dont have a roll but now with the viper tempest the protos need a swarm siege unit also what must match againts mass thors tempest ? with there slow weapon speed
let carrier stay he is the only unit who blizzard wil remove i think carrier need to kill thor-viper-oracle-tempest
meby voidrays can kill tempest but im sure tempest have more speed and a ball deals 40 dam (+10 amored) so if a tempest behinde the mineral field with the 22 range ubrage i think you can never kill them
i agree with to nerf carrier but i think if you make him cheaper and set off the auto increptor make the carrier intercraptor magezine to 6 and start with 2 increptors remove gravici catapult (the carrier ubgrade @ fleet beacon) so i think carrier wil be balance and more be using
if you remove carrier i think tempest is realy unbalce vs protoss with 22 range and faster than voidray phoenix cant deal because they are to weak vs machinical
window mine can never be balance of blizzard would that unit back pud it into raven remove auto turret ( auto turret is for harrash but uhh they are to slow) tha you have raven for support
zerg is cool but i think you need an mass anti air unit or brin scoure back with corruptors vs mass coidrays muta dont work al time and hydra uhh if you play smart its bye bye hydra
think about it blizz
I played the campaign and the story was super great for me, I was thinking about it for alot of time, Eventually played some games.
If I remember correctly, that was like 2 years ago just before cataclysm got released. There were quest passes for starcraft II. I used it and it was absolutely incredible experience for me. I required the full game.
Now I have it 1 year. And Im in love with this game.
The MLG was above all expectations: streams was ok, no lags and etc. But, more importantly it was very exiting to watch.
When SC2 came out i couldn't help myself but to buy the game and i have been in love with it since. Even though i don't have time to play much, and i am probably watching streams more than i play. The whole community in general and teamliquid is keeping me followed to every slightest event happening in the SC2 scene.
I want to thank blizzard for making the most lovable game of all time, and i hope HOTS will be just as good and one day EvilEmpire.jr will win GSL :D
I played BroodWar a little back in the days but not really for the multiplayer, I just played for the story so it leaved a big impact on me (all that 3 races, never ending battle etc.). A year after StarCraft 2 came out I bought it and I got into eSports just because of my passion for this game, I wanted to learn so bad new builds and strategies that I could watch streams for hours :D
Thank you Blizzard for bringing us the most engaging game in gaming history! ♥
also dont remove carrier just nerf them
and bring scoure back zerg need the for mass anti air
No Doubt that SC2 is the best RTS so far. I was SUPCOM fan (Chris Taylor). When I played SC2 it really changed my mind. I have couples of suggestions which I would like to share.
Is there are possibilities of adding animated or skin or texture upgrades on the units when they are upgraded? For example, when a Siege tanks has 1 1 Weapon and Armor upgrade then the tanks barrel should be different and the armor/body should look different than a tank without upgrades. There should be a progress in the looks with upgrade. This would make the units look more awesome. For example, a normal siege tank when fully upgraded should look like the mercenaries tank found in the campaign. This should be done to all the units.
Supreme Commander 2 has these features. Believe me, it made the units more adorable and macho too. Great fun to play with.
I have many ideas which I would like to share but now I gonna do some starcrafting :)