It’s always a good day when I get to talk to Andrew “mOOnGlaDe” Pender, Australia’s and Queensland’s most recognised professional gamer around the world. He was in good spirits the morning after the Heart of the Swarm launch, albeit a very tired spirit: Pender only slept a few hours that night, having gotten up early for a live cross to ABC News 24 that morning.

Blizzard had kindly stocked the conference room with drinks and jelly beans, so everything was ripe for a nice little chat. And considering you don’t see gamers on national television a great deal, I decided to ask what it was like dealing with the media these days.

GON: You did the interview with the ABC; basically almost as long as I’ve been around, you’ve been representing Australia playing WarCraft and so on. How’s it like, how’s the media relationship changed especially when StarCraft has been such a big part of it?

Andrew Pender: It’s definitely getting a whole lot more professional. There is just so many more people interested in it, so many more companies interested in covering it. I’ve been on TV twice in the last two days! It’s taken off a lot more since WarCraft 3 days at the very least.

GON: Technologically it’s grown a lot. Back in the day it wasn’t quite as easy to play in international competitions, and one of the interesting things is when you were sort of on the rise the big competition was something like the World Cyber Games. I remember you going over to Germany and playing in things like that and WCG was the main interest for media here locally, but now as a competition it’s faded away. How do you feel about that; that was a big thing for you, always representing Australia?

Andrew Pender: Yeah it’s disappointing that its faded away so much but I guess the tournament stuff is a bit outdated, the format and all that sort of stuff it really never changed. It’s a shame, it was like the centrepiece, the tournament you would want to go to and win because it was just like The Olympics, but there’s just so many other tournaments which have taken its place now. There’s constantly international tournaments for different brands and there is no real main one I guess except for maybe the Blizzard run one. But it’s a shame that WCG has fallen off.

GON: Do you find it a bit draining that there is so much to play in these days?

Andrew Pender: Yeah absolutely. I guess it’s a good and a bad thing it’s good to constantly be working towards something, travelling and getting exposure and all that but, yeah, there is just so many tournaments to attend that you gotta really pick them. I think these days you can’t go to all of them.

GON: And it’s not just being able to play in the ones overseas; the number locally has actually grown quite substantially. Do you plan ahead, like you have a calendar and you work out “this is the hours I am going to practice, I have this tournament coming up” ?

Andrew Pender: I always definitely base the level of practice on when a tournament is, what it is and I kind of definitely chose my tournaments so they’re not too close together. It’s probably the worst thing having like a tournament back to back or a week apart; you don’t really get practice for the other one and you get tired and you obviously just play bad in the second one. I think it’s very important these days to plan ahead, because it does take a lot of planning coming into these tournaments for both the players and just practice in general.

GON: Do you have to change your sleeping schedule a lot to accommodate playing in tournaments for different timezones?

Andrew Pender: Yeah, especially if you’re travelling to like Europe or something, it’s very brutal from Australia.

GON: Especially the Poland trip. (Pender played in IEM Katowice earlier this year.)

Andrew Pender: Yeah believe me, I suffer greatly from jet-lag. I’m probably one of the worst sleepers out there when it comes to [professional gamers]. It’s something that I really need to get better at, either by finding some awesome sleeping tablets or something. It’s a big factor for everyone who pretty much travels.

GON: Have you spoken to a lot of the other up-and-coming Australian players like MaFia and PiG and Tgun and given them advice on how to deal with travelling overseas and playing at big events? Have they come and asked you for advice?

Andrew Pender: They very rarely go to international events to be honest. Not that they can’t go but I don’t know sometimes they just choose not to. They never really ask much advice about it but I am always happy to like tell them what I think, or what they should do, or like how they should practice, or what to expect. But they kind of keep to themselves and have their own kind of ideals about it, as most of us do: we are all very solo players.

GON: Do you think that’s a bit of a mistake that they don’t travel internationally as much as they could?

Andrew Pender: Its gotta align with their goals. It depends what their plan is, if they really want to be international players, if they want to take it to the next level, if they don’t think they can, if they don’t have enough confidence. I’m not sure but I definitely think they should try to go as to as many tournaments as possible, and we don’t get that many opportunities in Australia especially if we don’t have a sponsor that can pay for it, so I think it’s important. I think they should be trying a lot harder.

GON: Do you think it would be better in their position to go to an international tournament and risk a really bad result as opposed to just staying home and just picking one out and just betting everything on that?

Andrew Pender: I think experience is very helpful in an international tournament. It’s something that I have a great deal of, coming from WarCraft 3 and being travelled a lot. I came into StarCraft II very prepared for international tournaments or tournaments in general: I don’t get nervous, I understand what I have to do, I understand when it comes to travelling what it’s going to be like, and I know how to network and all this kind of stuff that’s very, very helpful.

I think going to as many [events] as you can, even if you are going to bomb out … if you are practicing very hard there is a good chance you won’t bomb out, so it’s all about preparation too I guess, but they should be going to every single one.

GON: You mention networking. How important is that for a professional gamer these days? Because the scene is so much wider than it used to be five years ago.

Andrew Pender: I think it’s incredibly important. There is so many people you can talk to when you go to like a MLG or something, there is so many sponsors that just wanna have a beer and chat. If you are chatting to them and they like you, you have a contact, you have a Skype contact, you have a business card, you can talk to them down the track if you want to get your team sponsored or if you just wanna know something. It’s incredibly easy to do: you’ve just got to talk to them. None of these guys are really bad people and they’re very open to chatting to players, especially players that have travelled from somewhere far away.

I think it’s essential to be honest especially for Australians because we’re coming from not much. We have a very small scene here, though its growing. We have a small amount of sponsors here but that’s growing too and I think it’s really important to try and get your name out there, whichever way you can.

GON: The scene is quite big but the environment has changed too now, especially with Heart of the Swarm. How do you feel about the changes and the new toys?

Andrew Pender: It makes the game very more dynamic, a lot more interesting. It really gets the Wings of Liberty, kind of, staleness away cause some match-ups were just getting a bit bland and they weren’t really changing anymore. But the new units kind of directly fix those problems; they were kind of introduced as these counters to certain strategies that made the game like really stale.

GON: There’s always been that sort of dichotomy too between match-ups. You have Protoss versus Zerg which is almost more a WarCraft 3 style kind of match up in that the focus is more centralised on one big singular battle. Where as you have Terran versus Zerg where there’s much more adrenaline, there is more focus everywhere. There is multi-prong attacks, there’s drops and there is kind of that constant battle for control. So which one do you prefer and how sort of has it changed in a way from a Zerg perspective? Is it something you know you’re more comfortable with now, looking at the changes in Heart of the Swarm, or is it more something you know that is going to be more of a challenge?

Andrew Pender: I think Zerg vs Terran is pretty similar to Wings of Liberty and, and that is kind my preferred game play style where it’s like very fast paced, very demanding but fun. Zerg vs Protoss in Wings was just yeah as you said, was just fighting a death ball or like trying to stop the death ball being formed in general. I think it’s kind of changed a little bit in Heart of the Swarm though it is a bit early [to tell].

Vipers, for instance, are good great at picking, picking apart death balls and Swarm Hosts are good at pushing before death balls form. It’s still kind of the same deal with Protoss though; they still gotta make a death ball or they don’t really have much other option and they do have the units to make a good death ball  in Heart of the Swarm, like Void Rays being incredibly strong these days. I think we will just have to wait and see what happens if it’s going to get more dynamic than that — I really hope it does.

GON: As a Zerg player, does the recall mechanic kind of bother you? That has the potential to really sort of change the focus of fights.

Andrew Pender: It’s, a very, it’s a very tricky thing to play against. I think we are gonna see it utilized a great deal more in the future. I mean, it does have its flaws, like they can’t attack or do anything for a few seconds when they warp out and when they warp in, so it’s not as bad as it could be but we will have to wait and see.

GON: In terms of the new units, which ones have you been thinking about the most in terms of strategies? What do you look at and go, “OK, this is something I’m going to build around”.

Andrew Pender: To be honest, both of them are very interesting to me, for my race anyway. From the moment I saw a Viper could cast abduct, I was like, “I want that unit in my army every time.”

GON: (laughing)

Andrew Pender: It’s the kind of unit that I love, it’s got such a cool ability, it looks great, it makes for really exciting games, it’s micro-based, it’s very accurate and fast so it feels like it’s right up my alley.

That’s my favourite kind of unit but the Swarm Host is also like a very cool pushing unit, it can really add something to your army, some free fodder that is pretty much desired for Zerg because it’s when you’re going up against like Colossus or something you really need something in front and if it’s going to be Hydras then it’s terrible. So I think the Swarm Host has its place, though I haven’t really gave it as much nearly as much thought as Vipers, but I definitely plan to use them a lot.

GON: Do you feel you have to take more risks as a player now?

Andrew Pender: More risks you mean with the new units?

GON: Yeah with the new units and just in general, because of the changes that the other races have gotten in terms of power and the timing of when the units come into effect as well.

Andrew Pender: Mmmm.

GON: So for example the Viper and the Swarm Host you don’t get them where as you get the Widow Mine a lot sooner.

Andrew Pender: Yeah, yeah. Well there’s a lot more risks I guess. I guess it’s just more about trying to understand it as fast as possible, like, what is this Widow Mine capable of — is it gonna kill me if it drops right now? You have to understand these situations as a Zerg player and you gotta really be prepared for it as best as you can, though there are still, for instance, the six queen Wings of Liberty strategy opening for Zerg [which is] still effective against everything. You can still do some similar things like that to counteract so there’s not that many risks involved; you can still play pretty safe but it’s kind of understanding where it’s gonna lead.

GON: How do you think the rest of the Australian contingent will do throughout Heart of the Swarm, because we have such a large Zerg army?

Andrew Pender: (laughing) Yeah it’s gonna be interesting because Zerg is not really the flavour of the month anymore, it’s kinda changed with the balance changes in Heart of the Swarm. Hopefully more Terrans pop up, for instance, and hopefully our current Terran players start to flourish a bit more cause it would be nice if the scene had more of a balanced race distribution.

GON: Be nice to see some Protoss.

Andrew Pender (at the same time): I dunno, Protoss.

GON: (laughs)

Andrew Pender: Protoss isn’t very fun, but yeah I really hope that they do flourish. I hope some Zergs at least drop off or decide to change race because it would make, it would make it a lot easier for me [since Zerg vs Zerg] isn’t always the most fun.

GON: That’s an interesting thing too in Australia we essentially have two matchups because we don’t have any high level Protoss players. Is that something from a career perspective that will make your life a lot easier in the next year?

Andrew Pender: I guess it makes it easier for the local tournaments but not so easy for international tournaments: if you’ve got no one to really focus on for that race you [don’t] really have any requirement to prepare for it. Maybe like some tournaments here you only need to prepare for [Zerg vs Zerg] so you’re like, “Great he’s good at [Zerg vs Zerg]”. Then you go to an international tournament and get schooled by like a Korean Terran and its like “well this is pointless”.

I do look to international tournaments beyond local though. I do think it’s really important to win local tournaments but unless it’s something like Blizzcon, for instance, I don’t wanna like rack my head over it compared to like an IEM or something.

GON: Where do you get your inspiration when you are looking for solutions? Do you keep grinding at the ladder and just try little adjustments, or do you look at the big tournaments, watch GSL, copy that and then start working from there?

Andrew Pender: It kinda varies. It really depends on what I see [and] what clicks. It’s either if I’m like grinding out games, I have like my own little quirky style going and this really works against this kinda style [so] I kinda go with that or I see something in GSL and I take that onboard and I kinda make it my own and do whatever adjustments I need to do to it. So it’s kinda inspiration from everywhere I’ve just gotta find it and it kind of just works with me just like that.

I don’t really like sit there and like write a hypothesis and think about it for hours or something, but I feel it’s kind of an epiphany more than anything if I’m coming up against something.

Thanks to Andrew for taking the time to chat with us!

Dustin Browder is an intense man. The iconic director for StarCraft 2 has a sizeable frame and a sharp eye, and when he greeted me for our interview after the Heart of the Swarm launch in Melbourne’s Federation Square he was sporting an NFL-style jersey. It’s not implausible to think he could have led a successful life as a football player in another life.

His aura is never imposing though, with Browder directing his boundless energy towards a love of all things StarCraft and the fans that play it. It’s an infectious passion, which spreads even more rapidly thanks to the man’s genial combination of eloquence and gamer lingo.

It’s made Browder an icon which also dovetails as a magnet for criticism in a way not many other developers see. But rather than shy away and making himself less of a target for some of the more vitriolic barbs, Browder has taken centre stage proudly.

“We’ve got a lot of guys at Blizzard who are very used to this kind of experience,” he explained. “Blizzard taught me the responsibility here, how important it was to be able to maintain a sense of civility and go out there and be able to look through a forum, a Reddit post, something on Teamliquid… and ignore the personal jabs.”

“There’s often very valid feedback to be found within even the most angry post,” Browder added. And there can be a lot of anger sometimes, but it’s understood that StarCraft just isn’t like other games. “People, literally their jobs, are on the line based on the quality of the product that you do. That’s a level of pressure that goes beyond most video games I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on.”

It’s not an unwarranted intensity; Browder reiterated that people’s livelihoods can and do depend on the quality of their product. One imagines sitting in the crowd at IPL listening to chants of “we want LAN”, when technical difficulties prevented Startale’s PartinG from a certain victory against the mercurial MarineKingPrime, would have reinforced that view.

Almost as a defence mechanism, Browder is exceptionally well prepared, explaining Blizzard’s point of view in an accessible but exceedingly thorough way. At the developer Q&A the night before, he detailed how the absolute need for, or lack of, detection necessitated the removal of banelings that could move underground. The new ability either decided the game or became completely irrelevant, and that didn’t fit with how StarCraft was meant to be played. There might be some “sharp” counters — Reavers are supposed to obliterate Zerglings — but scissors-paper-rock does not apply.

I asked about how Blizzard reacts when the community takes issue with a particular strategy rather than a certain unit. At what point does the team decide to sit back and let players figure out their own solution, how do they determine that the best option is beyond their reach?

In passing, I mentioned the Immortal-Sentry all-in which became the dominant factor in the Zerg vs Protoss matchup. PartinG ruthlessly used the strategy to slaughter three top-class Zergs on his way to the the World Championship grand finals in Shanghai last year. The fact that everyone, even the crowd, knew what was coming had little effect.

Browder seized on my example, describing the build’s timing and outlining the most efficient response (forcing fights as far away from your base as possible, wasting sentry energy and buying time). He added that the balance team takes a very mathematical-like approach, outlining all the possible options for a player at a certain time.

The Brood Lord/Infestor combination was one issue, particularly on maps with areas that allowed the Brood Lords to siege tactically important locations beyond the range of most ground units. “There was no unit in play we could really buff to fix the problem,” Browder recalled, noting that the Tempest wasn’t an option at that stage.

But he also praised the community’s efficiency in being able to uncover all the new timings and strategies in Heart of the Swarm. “The benefit for Swarm for us is that we get the learnings of the last two and a half years that we can apply back to the game.”

The expansion gives Blizzard a lot more flexibility to tinker in subtle ways without damaging the balance completely. He explained that while Brood Lords were one of the more perplexing problems, they couldn’t effectively respond without ruining Zerg’s one major, reliable pathway to victory.

Browder took note to emphasise how far things have changed since the release of the original, particularly in the realm of eSports. “ESports had all been a Korean phenomenon, or largely a Korean phenomenon. We saw some certainly for WarCraft 3 in Europe as well but … in the States we hadn’t seen anything like that yet.”

“When we first launched Wings [of Liberty], we were like maybe, maybe we’ll be able to go to a theatre somewhere in the United States and have like fifty guys and watch eSports. That was the win, that was our huge victory we had in our heads … maybe we can get just get a couple of games, get a couple of guys up there and maybe a couple of thousand dollars up there and it’ll be awesome. And then we started seeing MLG happen over and over again.”

It was fascinating to think that Blizzard had such humble aspirations for eSports, considering the game’s rich history and the steady growth of eSports in Call of Duty, the fighting game communities and Defence of the Ancients (pre-Valve and the explosion of League of Legends).

“All of that knowledge has allowed us to go back and apply that information, apply that intelligence we’ve gained from this community to Heart of the Swarm, so I think it’s just a much better product,” Browder said.

One of the reported upgrades has been a reworking of the spectator interface, which wasn’t immediately available on launch. It’s been a difficult learning curve for Blizzard, especially since most of the benchmarks for a quality viewing experience have rapidly evolved in the last couple of years.

“When we first started putting the game out we didn’t have a lot of experience watching StarCraft 2 on streams … this is sort of a new phenomenon for us, watching a lot of StarCraft 2 on YouTube, watching StarCraft 2 on lower-res kind of environments.” That realisation drove concentrated improvements in the early days, like changes to the font and the leaderboards to make it more pleasing on the eye.

The dashboard, for instance, was an inclusion of legacy rather than intent, so the team questioned its existence from a spectator perspective. Most observers pull the overlay down for a major fight anyway, so why not remove it altogether?

Discussions continued, but considering they would be the ones setting the standards, Blizzard figured they may as well let the fans decide. “Why don’t we create a tool to make a really, awesome observer UI and let the community — the actual experts, the people who are on the ground doing this for a living every day — let them design it,” Browder recalled.

The change will allow organisations like the Global StarCraft 2 league, Dreamhack, Major League Gaming and even the Australian Cyber League to jazz up their own production in an easy-to-use way. “We really believe in service, we really believe that will make the best experience for everyone.”

“We’ve got all the code in now, so you can go make your own custom observer UI today, but it’s maybe a little challenging for a lot of people to do because it’s fairly technical. But we’re going to put out an example one that’s a much better experience that we have now … and from there who knows what will happen, fans will take it, casters will take it and hopefully we some really interesting ideas,” Browder added.

All of these changes are fascinating for the hardcore and the excited observers, but it does little to reduce the intimidation experienced by a lot of lower and middle-level players. Browder agreed, saying that the fear of laddering was an issue even with the release of Wings of Liberty.

“StarCraft is famous for how difficult it is … as much as [World of Warcraft] is famous for allowing you to play for a longer period of time,” he joked. Browder explained that one of the biggest problems was that “campaign” players, ones who aren’t familiar with the power of hotkeys, how much infrastructure and workers they need, generally lack the tools required to compete on the ladder.

There’s a series of games against the AI that gradually increase in speed and difficulty, after which point players can graduate to Unranked Play. Unranked matches are effectively the same as normal matchmaking minus the record keeping, which is a great boon for not only new players looking to ease into multiplayer but players who want to try other races without ruining their ladder record.

Browder revealed that Blizzard got great feedback from internal focus groups about the new challenge modes, although the real information would only flow through post-release. Nevertheless, the challenges are no substitute for the richness of the campaign, which teaches the players the mechanics of each individual race.

Or at least, it was supposed to. This concept worked in the original StarCraft since you had a campaign for every race, but StarCraft 2 was deliberately split into three products that each focused almost entirely on a single race. If someone who just enjoyed the single-player decided to, for instance, play Protoss in the multiplayer, would they not be at a substantial disadvantage?

After all, players now have a full suite of missions to learn more about Terran and the Zerg. Browder suggested that the concept that a campaign teaches you how a race is supposed to function wasn’t entirely true though; players would learn what units were and their general roles, but that was a far cry from learning how to function in an actual multiplayer match.

“We had to split [the campaign],” he said, “but at the same time we do have this moment you’re talking about where I haven’t really played a lot of Protoss, but I want to play Protoss, but I don’t really know what a Stalker does, not intuitively. And so I’m hopeful that our tutorial and versus AI will give players that time to go through that.”

Time was running short, so I wanted to know what Browder, someone who has spent the better part of the last two decades defining and setting benchmarks in the real-time strategy genre, was most excited for players to discover.

“We’re really trying to do something with the story that I haven’t had the opportunity to work on before, we’re really trying to make you play as the villain … and hopefully become a believer in the villain,” he gushed.

I remember yelling at the screen as a child when I saw Kerrigan betray Zeratul in the original Brood War campaign over 10 years ago. It would take a lot for me to forgive her treachery, but all I could think about walking around the streets of Melbourne afterwards was how much I wanted to find out.

Check out our massive Heart of the Swarm multiplayer review here, or click here instead for our single-player campaign video review.

Blizzard have very excitedly flooded the internet with zerglings to announce that Heart of the Swarm blitzed through 1.1 million sales in just 48 hours.

Viewer numbers on their livestream events and their coverage of the MLG Winter Championship in Dallas were also similarly excellent, and well deserved for what is generally a thoroughly well-made game with plenty of community-driven tweaks.

You can watch our video review of the single-player campaign here, or read our detailed analsysis of the multiplayer changes as well.

StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm is a huge beast, and that’s why we decided to pair up and take it on from all angles. In this single-player video review, we explore where Heart of the Swarm fits in the overall storyline, what Kerrigan gets up to when left to her own devices, and whether or not there’s enough of a storyline there to justify a full expansion.

If you’re after more information on the multiplayer side of things, read our massive in-depth review by our resident Grandmaster League-player, Alex.

You can download the video below from our file library, or a YouTube mirror is also available if you’d prefer to watch it there.

Good:

• Still the best RTS gameplay in its class, by a long shot
• Typical Blizzard polish and attention to detail
• Huge variety of missions showcases an impressively powerful engine
• Great cinematics
• Being able to mutate and choose between breeds is excellent
• The return of some old Brood War favourites (Hell yeah, Lurkers)

Bad:

• Takes literally 20 missions for the story to begin
• Dialogue is occasionally Red Alert level of cheesey
• Some missions are clearly just padding
• Feels somewhat unnecessary in the overall storyline

Product for this review supplied by Blizzard.

Looking for a review of the single-player campaign? Click here for our video review.

Perhaps the most telling observation one can make about Heart of the Swarm is that, despite it being their expansion, Zerg players are the least happy about the changes.

They’re not despondent; they’re just not cheering from the aisles. It’s particularly noticeable in Australia, whose competitive scene has been characterised with an unhealthy degree of Zerg commanders for the last two years. Most of our tournaments were strictly all-Zerg affairs: Jared “PiG” Krensel, for instance, won the Australian leg of the Blizzard World Championship Series purely thanks to his prowess in the Zerg vs Zerg mirror.

Changing the status quo, obviously, can only be a good thing. But it’s not as if the race is at a distinct disadvantage across the board, as Andrew “mOOnGlaDe” Pender showcased at the HotS launch in Federation Square. It’s just that the collective’s knowledge has effectively been reset.

Consider Wings of Liberty. A Zerg player hasn’t seen much from his Protoss opponent beyond the usual forge/expansion play, so he wants to play safely. They know that at around 7 minutes and 30 seconds, they need to build a spore crawler. There’s no guarantee that Dark Templars are on the way, but if they build one now, they know they’ll be safe.

This sort of general understanding of how the races and units interact with each other after the last three years — and more importantly, what interactions are possible and at what times — has become so vast that reactions like these are common even among the lower leagues. (There are obviously more exact examples — overlord scout timings, times to scan as a Terran and so on — but this is just for illustrative purposes.)

It’s particularly crucial for Zerg, which is a reactive race by nature. That’s why the professional Zergs I’ve spoken to are so concerned about the next six months. The chasm of the unknown is incredibly unnerving after enjoying two straight years of knowing every possible counter.

Right now, that comprehensive database of timings and responses, despite the lengthy beta test, does not currently exist. Players of all races are now re-feeling their way through the new units and the new maps. Many will be happy to recycle strategies from Wings of Liberty, play it safe for a week or so and see what changes Blizzard decides to implement.

But one thing is certain: one year from now, the state of Heart of the Swarm will be substantially different from the Heart of the Swarm you see today. This is the essence of StarCraft: change.

If you’re not prepared for that, if you can’t accept or are too flustered to cope with the wildly changing circumstances of the various matchups, Heart of the Swarm is not the game for you. In fact, I’d wager that real-time strategy probably isn’t your genre. Stability, in terms of how players approach the game, has never been par for the course.

This is what playing StarCraft is truly about: throwing yourself into the unknown, over and over again.

A finer analysis

On a more practical level, players are going to play safe, which means a lot of very non-greedy, gas-intensive, delayed expansion builds. This obviously isn’t the case for Zerg; but it’s going to take quite some time until you see Terrans happily expanding off a single Barracks in the first few minutes, for instance.

It’s a necessity, really, considering that most of the new units have an immediate effect within the first five minutes. The widow mine’s zoning ability can be rather handy in delaying marine/zergling-based attacks. The Mothership Core is a great defensive unit of its own, making fast expansions much more versatile in the Protoss mirror match.

Probably the change with the most potential is the new recall ability for Protoss, which could transform matches against Zerg from the current WarCraft 3-esque major-battle centric style to something a little more decentralised, similar to the multi-pronged high intensity battles you see whenever good Terrans and Zergs face off.

And yet the old styles of going for a huge deathball, with or without the power of the Tempest/Oracle/Mothership Core, is still completely viable. But it’s also more vulnerable than ever before too. Terran’s range has been substantially upgraded: Siege Tanks are more readily available with the siege mode upgrade no longer a requirement, while Thors no longer get instantly negated by High Templars.

There isn’t a single match-up where a use can’t be found for every unit. Even Ravens have more utility, although it took at least two years before players could find any role for them at all (beyond building one or two for detection).

Stepping into the swarm

You’ll find most of the best changes have been made outside of the game itself, with the interface and menu system receiving a huge overhaul in the last few months.

The ability to resume from replays will be the lifeblood for tournaments plagued by internet connectivity issues. It works relatively smoothly and will in itself become a massive boon for players looking to practice their late-game. Alternatively, you could get a friend and play out certain battles from major tournament matches to practice your mechanics (or perhaps even find a better way to engage).

Global Play will save professional teams a tonne of money, since multiple accounts are no longer required to access different servers. That makes it a little cheaper for professional teams or hardcore players looking to test their mettle in the shark-infested waters of the Korean server.

The opening interface itself is far more functional too. There’s more news, it’s more relevant and more broader in its scope. Patch notes are easily accessible through an in-game link; tournaments now get direct coverage through the opening menu.

Players get far more information through the post-game menu. The build order tab hasn’t changed, although it’s a lot slicker and much cleaner than before. A new tab called Performance gives you an outline of your average performance against the game you just played.

The profile page now has statistics built in for each match-up and race, which is a great boon for newer players looking to analyse their flaws. It’s easy to read and use and is good if you can’t get your head around SC2gears (although the third-party program is still far more comprehensive than Blizzard’s additions).

Still, it’s a step in the right direction for a game as heavily focused on competitive play. There’s even a new Reviews system, akin to something you’d see in DOTA 2 or League of Legends. And the much broader challenge mode, while not as comprehensive as some build-order tutorials you might find on Youtube, provides sufficient instruction for newer players to ease them into ladder matches.

All-rounder of the year

Heart of the Swarm has greatly improved the social facilities as well. Wings of Liberty didn’t even have chat channels or clan support upon launch; those oversights have been rectified. The Arcade section better caters towards the mapmaking community with a better framework for newer maps, instead of the previous system that made it difficult to find anything but the most popular.

It’s a much-needed evolution, given that the strength of the StarCraft and WarCraft 3 communities was their exceptionally deep roster of custom games, the eternally-popular Defence of the Ancients being a shining example.

In just a few seconds, I came across a turn-based card game. Then there’s the Starcraft Universe single-player MMO. There’s even a map that showcases every unit and explosion over the course of a minute, which caches all the assets and improves in-game performance provided you run it once every time you open the game.

SC2’s editor is a powerful, powerful beast, and the capacity for mapmakers to create even more amazing games has just increased exponentially.

Two-thirds of the way there

With Heart of the Swarm’s release, StarCraft 2 is, at least commercially,  two-thirds complete. But what direction does the series go from here?

Further upgrades to the back-end, editor and the interface seem the most likely path. A more comprehensive multiplayer tutorial for each of the three races wouldn’t hurt either; while the challenge mode and the campaigns ease you into the mechanics, something to teach players basic build orders would be a clever addition.

The new units in Heart of the Swarm make sense because they filled roles that the races lacked in Wings of Liberty. Terrans needed a better solution to the Infestor/Brood Lord combo that didn’t break the Zerg/Protoss match-up. Protoss needed a way to safely expand against Zerg that wouldn’t ruin games against Terrans, where fast expansions were already common.

So what holes are currently missing in the overall armory? The only immediate one I can see is perhaps a way for Protoss to become much more mobile than before against Zerg, giving them the tools to completely decentralise the match-up away from the deathball-style that has become so prevalent over the last few years.

The inclusions of the Tempest have made late game a much more interesting proposition for Protoss users, but it doesn’t mean massing a huge army isn’t still a safer and more viable plan than multi-pronged attacks.

Conversely, will huge waves of mine-fields bog down the Terran vs Zerg match-up? The most recent Major League Gaming tournament has shown indications that this kind of zonal play will become more popular in the future, particularly when players get a better handle on the exact positioning of the mines.

It’s a new, strange world. Nobody knows exactly where we’ll end up 12 months from now. But there is one thing I can guarantee: if you buy into Heart of the Swarm, you’ll still have a perfectly functional, complex and fascinating game with a vibrant community in a year.

You can’t say that about very many games in this day and age.

Good:

• Brand new menu UI injects life into Battle.net 2.0
• Blizzard’s attentive eye for balance means the game will remain in a highly playable state for years
• StarCraft 2 editor is probably a great way to break into the gaming industry, and it just got more powerful
• No more “WE WANT LAN” when you can resume from a replay
• Global Play lets one account play on every server
• Clan support!
• Unranked play makes the game less intimidating for lower leagues and lets more advanced players dabble with the other races without ruining their record
• Coverage of community news in-game has been expanded substantially

Bad:

• No in-game browser to watch forums or streams, although this is less a downside than it is a luxury

Product for this review supplied by Blizzard.

I was sitting next to a good friend a few hours into the launch. The developer Q&A had just finished, and I turned to survey the remnants of the crowd.

“How many people do you reckon showed up?” I asked. After a short guesstimate, she figured around 600. It seemed reasonable.

And then we were told around three thousand people turned up, despite the searing heat earlier on. Hundreds of people lined up from around 6pm — the launch wasn’t scheduled to start until 8pm — in 36 degree weather just to pre-register and collect their wristbands. Suddenly, 600 people seemed like the understatement of the night.

There was little about the spectacle that wasn’t impressive. After a decade of seeing national tournaments and “gaming” events in danky netcafes and random LAN events, the sight of so many people filling up Federation Square blew my mind.

Not everything ran perfectly. Bizarrely, for anything related to gaming, the event was actually ahead of schedule once the showmatches began even after a slight delay with “taking command” (or resuming a match from a replay, which is what Blizzard originally called the feature).

Even Jared “PiG” Krensel, that wonderful specimen who somehow always finds a way to delay every tournament I’ve ever seen him play in, couldn’t bring the schedule back in line. That threw some of Leigh “Maynarde” Mandalov’s cues off a little, although nobody seemed to mind.

More annoying was the resurgence of what’s jokingly referred to as the “NASL Sound Guy”, the catchphrase for any annoying sound issues. For the first hour the microphones were either too soft or too loud, and the first Baneling Bingo round was accompanied by the most ear-splitting crackle I’ve heard.

But on the whole, these were minor quibbles. Granted, I didn’t have to endure the ignominy of standing in the long, long, long queue to the single registration tent. That oversight fell on EB Games’ shoulders, but everyone was incredibly tolerant considering the conditions. Perhaps they viewed it as part of the experience; it was a special occasion, after all.

And Blizzard did indeed make it very special, even before the proceedings began. I wandered over to a nearby cafe after being told that “some of the guys” were hanging out with Dustin Browder. It turned out that “The Rock”, as he was affectionately termed later in the evening, was just chatting with some of the players. For about an hour and a half.

Even after he was done answering questions there, Browder took it upon himself to go visit the far end of the line — which, at 7pm, nearly covered the full length of the bottom to the top ends of Federation Square — just to cheer up the fans with a few photographs. The man even signed a fan’s rock later on in the evening.

He wasn’t the only force of nature in attendance though. The crowd enjoyed one of the lighter moments of the evening when people from the nearby Future Music festival began flowing through Federation Square towards the city centre.

As is typically the case with music festivals, one or two people were inebriated beyond belief, which culminated in a scuffle in the small area between the crowd and the railings in front of the stage. This continued for a few seconds until one person stood up, screamed something and gave what is possibly the biggest death stare I’ve ever seen in my life.

You know those moments where the events around you become so surreal that time just seems to stop? This was one of those. Amazingly, the stare worked and the offenders moved along of their own accord.

The players put on a good show of their own too, with Andrew “mOOnGlaDe” Pender showing a masterclass in how to handle Protoss. But the exchange of the night went to Daniel “deth” Haynes and Jared “PiG” Krensel: the two enjoyed the longest and closest matches, and the fact that Terran vs Zerg is naturally more frantic helped out.

Errors earlier in the evening were also corrected with thousands of dollars of peripherals. Most was given away after the close of proceedings, with Blizzard staffers scouring through boxes for free stuff and just handing it out at the rope-line. I don’t think I saw a single person who was genuinely unhappy, and everyone involved should be immensely proud of that fact.

But the night’s shining moment belonged to Dustin Browder, who followed through on his trademark passion when he delivered one of the most inspirational lines of the night after being asked how one could break into game design.

“I’ve hired, I think, five or six guys now out of the modmaking community, guys who’ve done amazing work … you can actually go to almost any game company in the world with that mod. Chances are they’ve got a copy of StarCraft on their machine, somewhere in their office, and you can say, ‘Look, I have made game. Check it out.’ And if they’re serious about making games, they will look at that, they will play it and go, ‘You have made game, this is cool.’”

Thousands of people laughed, but they knew he was right: gaming is cool. Things have certainly come a long way in the last ten years.

One of Sean Plott’s earliest memories is of an early 1990s Chessmaster game. From a young age, he was fascinated with tactics, movement, mathematics. He remembers playing by himself, against the computer’s chess AI, and watching patterns emerge – and he soon found that he could predict how the AI was going to respond to his move, every single time. It became far too easy a game to beat.

“There’s only so much you can design for a single-player game before it becomes somewhat rote and unpredictable,” Sean explains. “But when you’re against another person, you don’t even need a particularly sophisticated system for it to get interesting, real fast. When I played my brother, it didn’t take long to see some crazy s**t in every game that we played.”

That pursuit of multiplayer madness has defined Sean as he has grown up. He is best known for his “Life of StarCraft,” as detailed in one of the cornerstone episodes of his StarCraft-centered web series, The Day[9] Daily, which began in 2009. He was already a pro StarCraft player then, qualifying for – and winning – tournaments all over the place. Now he’s a sort of pundit in the world of zerglings and space marines, acting as a caster at events such as MLG and Blizzcon.

But for every person who draws knowledge from Sean’s strategies, there’s another watching to learn how to become more positive, more successful at life in general, a better person – a better gamer.

Area of Effect

Sean’s livestreamed gaming life attracts thousands of viewers each week (iiNet customers can watch it here, quota-free). The general emphasis of the series lies in dissecting strategies employed in individual games of StarCraft 2, but Sean also regularly explores ideas that he feels are important in bettering the competitive scene.

He has a special love for the newbies, and they love him, too. His viewer statistics show that some 30% of his viewers don’t actually play StarCraft. They may be players of other games, whether competitive or not – or they might even just be non-gaming bystanders, initially lured in by Sean’s enthusiasm and eventually sticking around for his relatable personal stories.

Sean embraces the non-player audience. They are, after all, where he believes unerring acceptance of gaming and its culture will ultimately, finally stem from. Sean’s StarCraft-focused existence is a bit of an anomaly currently, but he insists that one day, competitive gaming will be as normal as any other career.

“eSports is going to become a really huge worldwide phenomenon,” he says. “There’ll be high school eSports teams. It’s inevitable; the only thing that’s preventing it now is this imaginary stigma. At first it was, ‘Are video games bad for you?’ and now, basically, nobody thinks video games are bad for you. They’re the leading medium now. They’ve surpassed books, even movies, by a pretty big margin.”

Now 26 years old, Sean’s seen what growing up gaming has done for him. He was lucky to have a brother and mum supportive of his intense hobby – a rarity during the late 90s, but something that’s changing with his generation beginning to have children of their own.

“We’ll put our babies in front of games, knowing full well the benefits of it and how stimulating it is, how it can encourage all this creativity that they’ll carry into schools. And the teachers there will be the people who played games growing up, and they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, I’m willing to support an eSports club,’ and then I imagine in about 15 or 20 years, we’ll start to see a decent amount of high schools supporting kids playing StarCraft in after-school practice rooms, trying to get better – just the way it is with a high school chess club, or a football team or a lacrosse team.”

Life Lessons

Sean is tireless; he works on the Day[9] show five times a week. He describes himself as a ‘tank,’ utterly lost at the thought of what to do with a fortnight-long holiday. What makes him so dedicated to helping out other players, to devoting himself to widening their skills and their perspective?

“You mean, why do I keep f**king showing up?” he chuckles. But he knows exactly what it is that restricts his viewers, whether it’s in StarCraft or other areas of their lives.

The answer, again, is a surprising analysis of the education system.

“Too often, everyone gets an A,” Sean says. “Everyone’s great. But you don’t get that when you step into the real world. People apply for a job and only one person gets it and 10 people don’t. What if you’re one of the don’ts? This might be the first time in your life you’ve experienced what it’s like to get an F. What if there’s a house you wanted to buy, but someone else made a higher bid and now it’s not yours any more? What if you were working with a client, and then their company went bankrupt and now they just can’t pay you?”

“This is how the real world works. That’s why I think games are an incredible learning tool – to have that experience in a game is far better a learning experience than getting As and Bs in school and turning things in on time. The education system makes you very risk-averse, because you learn that F is ‘bad’ – but it makes you much more willing to take risks if you play a lot of games. Competitive gaming is the greatest educational metaphor for life.”

It’s a big part of the philosophy he advocates on the Day[9] Daily, and he believes that his infectiously positive attitude and popular anecdote-driven “life lessons” are the result of his own struggles with the fear of failure.

“I would do nothing but train,” he recounts. “Gave up everything. Stopped going to friends’ houses because I needed to dedicate more time to training. And then I would show up at the tournament – and choke and fail. Completely, totally, utterly collapse.”

“Everyone knows that story. It sounds terrifying – but I promise you, it’s not that bad. It’s like a cold pool you don’t want to jump into, but when you do you’re like, ‘Oh. No big deal.’ If you jump in enough pools, there is no pool that can intimidate you any more.”

Good Luck, Have Fun

Sean’s been looking forward to the Heart of the Swarm for a long time; again, he feels there’s a lot players are going to learn from the community shake-up that an expansion brings to a game as complex and as established as StarCraft. “You spend years developing this toolset that’s only good for some practices – and then an expansion comes out,” he says. “You take the same skillset and apply it to something totally new, envisioning it like an architect who’s only been able to work with wood – and then, all of a sudden, steel comes out! Wow! I can make buildings that are taller, stronger… but it’s not just that. It’s all built on a long history of knowing how stuff works and proving you can solve problems, and now there’s these new units thrown into the mix. It’s the most exciting thing ever.”

“I certainly think there are going to be some players who’ll fall off the top, who’ll have to work hard to get back on the horse and come up,” Sean adds.

But he doesn’t worry about falling off ladders these days. His priority, now, lies in educating other players through his web series.

“Be a Better Gamer.” That’s the slogan that accompanies every episode of the Day[9] Daily, and it’s what Sean’s entire philosophy is founded on. But the game doesn’t have to be StarCraft, he says. It doesn’t even have to be a video game. Maybe the game his viewers are trying to get better at is life itself.

“You don’t want the end thing to be good,” Sean finishes emphatically. “You want to be good at creating end things. If you’re an artist, you don’t want to have a good painting – you want to be a good painter. With StarCraft, you learn very quickly that you don’t want to try to have ‘a good game.’ You want to develop all these mental tools that help you attack this infinite range of variety that’s going to be thrown at you.”

“You don’t want to be a good gamer. You want to be a good person. I believe firmly in that s**t.”

Take advantage of the fact that our clocks are substantially ahead of our American brethren and get cracking on Heart of the Swarm, which is available to Australians right now. It’s a hefty download but if you’ve kept your client up to date it shouldn’t be too crazy — on the other hand though if you have no StarCraft on your system at all it’ll set you back about 10 GB.

Heart of the Swarm brings a full Zerg-themed campaign which kicks off where Wings of Liberty closed, as well as a new slew of multiplayer units, a new training mode against AI that responds to your skill development and suggests tactics and builds, and more. Here’s everything we’ve written about it so far.

You can pick up a physical copy from places like EB for around $48, or you can buy a Digital Deluxe version direct from Blizzard for $65. There are Collectors Editions at retail as well, but good luck getting one of those if you haven’t pre-ordered already!

How’d you like my groove, Daggoth?

Well done.

The launch of StarCraft II‘s next expansion, Heart of the Swarm, is upon us in just 13 days — and this new launch trailer released today amps up the suspense for the single-player narrative. As somebody who generally enjoyed the story more than the multiplayer side of StarCraft, I’m pretty okay with this. Take a look below and let us know what you think.

Download this trailer in HD from our file library.

Blizzard have announced that Dustin Browder, the man behind StarCraft II as we know it, will be flying in to make a guest appearance at the Federation Square launch event for Heart of the Swarm.

The night will also feature digital speed painting by 3D Artist Luke Mancini, and a developer Q&A as well as live exhibition matches between notable Aussie eSports luminaries such as Andrew “mOOnGLaDe” Pender, Jared “PiG” Krensel, Mark “yang” Richardson and Daniel “deth” Hayne.

If you can’t make it to Melbourne’s Federation Square at 8PM AEDT on March 11, the whole event will be livestreamed (as part of the rolling coverage of all the global launch events at Blizzard’s official livestream site.

As we head into March and the release of Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard have released a video showing how the new replay features will work — features that are available in the current Wings of Liberty patch right now.

The video below highlights new replay features such as the ability to watch replays as a group, the ability to immediately jump into a replay after a match, and of course the ability to resume a game from a replay at any time and play it out differently. The ability to recover matches that have crashed is also discussed, which will be of great use at tournaments.

It’s time to get the clan back together – patch 2.0.4 for Heart of the Swarm is coming, and Blizzard are updating Wings of Liberty to include the clan support detailed last year.

Also included in the upcoming patch are new replay features, the new UI changes, improvements to the Editor, and the new matchmaking options such as unranked play and AI vs. mode.

“The background download for Wings of Liberty patch 2.0.4 was activated on February 9,” read’s Blizzard’s post. “We strongly encourage all players to leave the launcher running for an extended period of time at some point over the next few days to ensure that you’re ready to play when the patch goes live.”

Source: Battle.net

Blizzard have announced that the beta test for StarCraft II‘s Heart of the Swarm expansion will end on March 1st — for members of the general public, anyway.

“It is important to note that we will continue to operate a private beta test until Heart of the Swarm goes live on March 12,” reads Blizzard’s announcement. “We will be working with our eSports partners to ensure that they are able to feature the new expansion in professional StarCraft II matches after March 1.”

If you haven’t tried the beta for yourself yet, anybody who pre-orders the game gets instant access to it — so what are you waiting for? If you’d like to know more about what some of the top professional gamers are thinking about the expansion, check out this weekend’s Sunday eSports preview.

Source: Battle.net

The wonderful advantage of Blizzard’s methodical approach towards their eSports baby, StarCraft 2, is that it never stays the same. Take the Heart of the Swarm beta, for example. To the uninformed the game would look essentially identical, but the quantity and subtlety of some changes have made the expansion to the real-time strategy beast a completely different kettle of fish to the game which first what went live late last year.

Some units have been removed completely; others have been substantially reworked, and some haven’t changed a bit. Old strategies have been dusted off and revamped for a new age, and brand new ones are being invented every day.

To get the best picture of just where things stand before Heart of the Swarm launches next month, I rounded up some people for whom the game matters the most.

Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson

Full-time StarCraft 2 player for Evil Geniuses

“Being able to watch replays with friends/trainees/teammates was a big deal that everyone had hoped would be implemented. We were also excited at the idea of having a function that would allow players to resume from replays, so if a disconnect were to occur that game wouldn’t be lost challenging the legitimacy of whatever competition was going on at that time. Both of these features have been added so you can count me amongst the happy folk on this one.

Protoss is a lot more fun in Heart of the Swarm. There are more options, a better synergy with late game play and a more rewarding experience for the player that can multi-task better or think further down the line. In [Wings of Liberty] we had issues with the infamous Broodlord / Infestor combo. Often times it came down to a vortex or the Zerg making a critical error. In HotS we have new options in dealing with that combo, namely the Tempest and a stronger mid game.

Blizzard has done a fairly good job of interacting with the community on developing a game that casual players and professionals can enjoy alike. I think the ability to play unranked matches and practice mode, as well as having a more in-depth experience with the AI, means that as a casual player you have more options to enjoy the game. Playability is a big deal and being able to have a nice single player experience but then also not be intimidated by the multiplayer … is a good thing.”

Jared “PiG” Krensel

Full-time professional gamer in Australia

“I was somewhat hoping that they would increase the supply cap as I feel one of the silliest features of Zerg is that they are meant to swarm. They did this in Brood War, however in SC2 as a Zerg with the new macro mechanics for each race you all shoot up towards 200 supply very quickly. Often as a Zerg you are forced to either go super aggressive or super greedy as middling numbers of units such as roaches aren’t worth their weight later on at max.

As a result you see a race obsessed with static defence to buy time to remax after engagements and battles often won not with a clean or impressive engage, but with a wall of spines buying time for your 2nd or 3rd remax to bowl over your opponent. Increasing this supply cap would mean the entire game would need to be reworked though so it’s not really a realistic wish.

Most importantly I wanted to see more variety of strategies, more interesting gameplay and more micro and positioning being relevant. Things like late game Terran vs Protoss was heavily Protoss favoured and late game Zerg vs Protoss was heavily Zerg favoured. This led to a lot of boring play and repetitive games.

I think the previous problem of getting maxed very quickly and sitting on lots of spines and large banks is still an issue. Other than that I feel Zerg didn’t have too many units that involved heavy micro. I think the Swarm Host MIGHT fix this problem, whilst combo-ing Vipers and Infestors with an army now takes a huge amount of control.

I feel that Zerg vs Terran is extremely hard with Widow Mines massacring ‘Ling-Bane so that you are forced into Roaches, which suck due to 200/200 problem I mentioned before. ZvP has been a lot of fun focusing just on masses of stuff using all types of basic units in a mix is very effective and fun to use. Adding Vipers and Infestors just as support rather than the [Wings of Liberty] Infestor core unit makes it quite exciting. Any issues with it I am confident will be fixed by release.

Giving Widow Mines to Terran is a great idea. Terran is the most mechanically demanding race and giving them a unit that can hold map control and deter an opponent from moving into their territory was just what they needed. Also they are quite micro-intensive so will be one of the many new units that allow the fastest players to show their skills. Likewise swarm hosts and to a lesser extent oracles.

The Viper was the most exciting and is very visually cool and fun to micro. I’m looking forward to Zerg styles adapting that involve waves of aggression to cover steady transitions through the tech tree and some really diverse T3 compositions with 5-6 unit types in them.

I earn my living from [StarCraft] so even though I don’t really have any problems with the interface for my own uses, I did want it to be improved to help accommodate the casual fanbase. Common complaints involved [the] custom game system being … inaccessible, ladder ranking being too prominent and not enough fun features and achievements for casual gamers.

There’s a lot of things that will help [such as] integrating eSports. Those that follow eSports and watch tournaments tend to be more excited to play. [An] interface that is easy and friendly – not too focused on ladder ranking (unless maybe Master level or higher), more achievements [and] most importantly is the interface has to lead very easily to a simple and obvious custom game system.”

Ethan “iaguz” Zugai

Member of pro-gaming team Frenetic Array’s StarCraft 2 roster

“The flaws Terran [had] in Wings of Liberty? Well apart from the fact that the race was balanced by the master race of Korean professionals who stubbornly refuse to do anywhere near as poorly as all the foreigners and thus kept the race as far away from buffs as possible, Terran had a few issues.

Against Protoss they are a very strong race but they only have about five useful units in macro games (Marines, Marauders, Medivacs, Vikings, Ghosts) which limits the breadth of strategies somewhat. Against Zerg they struggle tremendously to balance aggression, defence, economy and handling all their units correctly when attacking, managing drops and marine positioning all working under a clock of ‘if he gets Broodlords before I’ve dealt him some harm, I’m in for some sh*t’.

I think Blizzard are addressing that. They’re trying to force mech units to actually be good in Terran vs Protoss and they’re encouraging more ways to apply aggression in Terran vs Zerg and also making transitions smoother too, and more ways to play a longer game if you want to.

They’ve also done a good job of trimming some of the unit fat, the Hellion is now a more acceptable core unit thanks to the Hellbat switch, the energy bar on the Thor has been done away with so we can make them against Protoss without worrying about feedback (which is extremely helpful because Thors are so good vs Protoss normally, they just get too badly affected by feedback to show it), the Reaper is a much better scout and also much more accessible.

We even get mines to help throw in a little chaos and Medivac speed, a strict upgrade to a unit we use all the time. And they removed the requirement for siege tech and added +2 [to] Battlecruiser damage. There’s a huge amount to play around with.

Terran is a better race now for sure. Everyone’s getting a bunch of new goodies but the Terran stuff looks easily as good, if not better, than what anyone else got. I’m concerned about Hellbats in Terran vs Terran though, it seems a very common move to load up 4 Hellbats into a Medivac, apply speed boost and then murder all the SCVs. Back in 2011 there was a period of time in [the mirror match-up] where you could only play mech and games were decided by whoever managed to slip in blue flames into the other’s SCV line first. It was a horrible time and I’m glad the Blue flame nerf was able to fix it. But this seems like a return to those dark days.

It seems Blizzard are focusing on unit mobility and encouraging players to be more active with their stuff. Like Mutas are faster and regenerate quicker so you can keep harassing with them, Medivacs have this big speed boost, Reapers are faster and so on. And this is good for spectators since it means hopefully a more active game with more situations for a superior player to out-skill his opponent.

I wasn’t really hoping for any particular changes [to the interface] so it’s good they didn’t change any. Except for the idle worker button. A lot of the changes they have implemented are more targeted at really new players but not at the cost of pissing off experienced players, so that’s good.

The game looks like it’ll play out fantastically, it feels like it’ll be a fundamentally different game in a lot of ways. I’m definitely hoping for a much more bearable Terran vs Zerg match-up since that has been my major issue for the last year or so. I also hope it proves to be a shot in the arm for competitive gaming in Australia.”

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm officially launches in Australia on March 12 with a launch party at Melbourne’s Federation Square, starting from 8pm.

As we ramp up to Heart of the Swarm‘s launch next month, Blizzard are detailing the changes being made to not only the game itself but also the supporting modes around it. In this video, you can see the new Training Mode in action, along with an explanation of how to choose the difficulty best for you, as well as an overview of the versus-AI games (which now ask you to play ranked matches against AI so you can be paired with an AI appropriate for you). Unranked play is also examined, with narrator Cloaken explaining that this arrived as a direct result of “a ton of player feedback”. Check it out below:

Blizzard have rolled out a new ARG going by the name of ‘Project Blackstone’. You can hit up the site yourself and learn all about it — assuming you’re able to log in, that is.

If you’re the sort who likes to puzzle these things out on your own, stop reading!

For those of you who don’t care and just want to crack it open and feast on the juicy innards, read on below for all the details.

According to PCGamesN, the hex code in the source can be decoded to reveal the password: Y7_$0>0k_3<$m. Underneath the login you can witness an email exchange between Dr. Helek Branamoor and a researcher named Talen Ayers, angrily discussing his kidnapping and being forced to work on the dissection of zerg corpses. Delightful!

Source: PCGamesN

Blizzard have released details of their global launch events for Heart of the Swarm, and the one of most particular interest to us here at GON is, of course, the Australian event. From 8PM AEDT on March 11, Blizzard will be holding their event (and live-streaming it) at Melbourne’s Federation Square.

The activity is being held in conjunction with EB Games, and will feature a cosplay competition, Q&A sessions with members of the development team, and of course Heart of the Swarm matches featuring top pro-gamers.

If you’ve pre-ordered at EB, you’ll be able to take your receipt along to the event and pick up a copy once it ticks over to midnight. You’ll also be able to get your copy autographed! Good times.

If for some reason you still haven’t seen the fantastic opening cinematic for Heart of the Swarm, make sure you remedy that before you head down.

Hit up the official site for more.

Blizzard have released a video demonstrating the upcoming changes being made to the StarCraft II UI in Heart of the Swarm, due out on March 12. The video focuses on the way the company have streamlined the menus, as well as made it easier to join games with fewer clicks. Also included is a discussion of the ‘Players on my Network’ feature, which allows you see all players on your current network — for example if you’re playing on a university campus, or at a LAN cafe. Take a look!

Although “accessibility” has sort of become a dirty word, there’s still a lot to be said for making something easier for new players to understand — and that is what Blizzard are hoping to do when Heart of the Swarm hits in March.

Game director Dustin Browder said to Polygon that the new training mode against learning AI forms part of their approach to making sure new players don’t get overwhelmed. “We have some time set aside to give new users a better experience,” he said. “We used to say ‘The campaign is the tutorial for the multiplayer’ and it never really was.”

“It was partially true. You’d learn the race, you’d understand what the units did, but you didn’t know how many barracks to build, you didn’t understand that a rush was incoming right now, so get ready! The campaign just doesn’t play that way. The reason a lot of players are strong at ‘turtling’ is because that’s how campaign teaches you to play; a lot of our past campaigns certainly did. We’re doing that less in this game.”

Also coming are a series of UI tweaks related to making harvesting easier to understand, auto rally points, unranked play, and a new XP system to keep you progressing regardless of whether you win or lose.

Source: Polygon

As somebody who is often more excited for the StarCraft II story than the multiplayer side, I’m always keen to gobble up Blizzard’s cinematics like so much gravy at Christmas — and today’s release of the full opening movie to Heart of the Swarm is just what the gobbler ordered. Enjoy it below (or download it from our file mirror in HD), and keep an eye out for the brief Wilhelm scream along the way.

Heart of the Swarm launches on March 12 — part of a very busy month for PC gamers.

Source: Battle.net

Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime has revealed in an interview with PCGamesN that a new training mode will be included in Heart of the Swarm, where an AI that analyses your play and offers you tips will steadily improve you until you’re ready for unranked play.

“There’s a really nice feature we’re adding in Heart of the Swarm which is a training area where you can basically play against the computer and the computer gives you tips on what you should be doing,” said Morhaime. “It gradually gets harder. When you have completed the training program, you get unranked matched against the AI.”

Asked if it was scripted, Morhaime replied “This is a little bit more scripted. It scripts out some basic builds for you so you know, you’re not building, willy nilly. It gives you more of a safe build to start with. It’s there to make people more familiar with the tech tree – because there are differences between the tech tree in campaign and multiplayer.”

Source: PCGamesN

Blizzard continue to roll out balance changes to their Heart of the Swarm multiplayer, which is due to release alongside the Zerg-centric campaign on March 12 next year.

The latest update, Balance Update #8, adds an entirely new ability to Terran Medivac units called Emergency Thrusters, which gives the shuttle an 8-second boost to speed and acceleration to allow them to flee hotspots. Other major changes include the nerfing of Thor mechs, whose 250mm Strike Cannons are now gone, and Ultralisks whose Burrow Charge ability is removed.

Check out the full list of changes below.

Terran

• Medivac
  • New ability: Emergency Thrusters
    • Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown.

• The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab:
  • Health restored per second from 9 to 15.
  • Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy.
  • Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.

• Reaper
  • Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375
  • Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.

• Widow Mine
  • No longer hits cloaked units.
  • New upgrade: Drilling Claws
    • Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second.
    • Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.

• Thor
  • 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed.
  • The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds.
  • When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage.
  • Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.

• Raven
  • Seeker Missile has been redesigned:
    • Can now fire from 10 range.
    • Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage.
    • Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.

• Hellbat
  • Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.

• Armory
  • The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.

Protoss

• Mothership
  • Recall now functions as it does with the Mothership Core.
  • Vortex now kills a single target.
  • Vortex does not affect massive units.

• Mothership Core is no longer massive.
• Oracle
  • Pulsar Beam
    • Now called “Activate Pulsar Beam” and “Deactivate Pulsar Beam”.
    • When activated, the Oracle’s Pulsar Beam is enabled.
    • Weapon deals 15+10 light.
    • Weapon period changed to 0.86, down from 1.
    • Weapon range reduced to 4.
    • Energy drain is now 4 per second.

• Build time increased to 50, up from 35.

• Phoenix
  • Range increased from 4 to 5. Upgrade still grants +2 range.

• Dark Shrine cost is now 100/100, down from 100/250.
• Tempest
  • Now requires Fleet Beacon.
  • Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units.
  • Build time is now 60, down from 75.

• Void Ray
  • Prismatic Beam:
    • No longer charges up.
    • Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5.
    • No longer does passive +massive damage.

• Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.

Zerg

• Hydralisk speed upgrade now requires Lair tech.
• Mutalisk
  • Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.

• Swarm Host health increased from 120 to 160.
• Infestor
  • Fungal Growth:
    • Is now a projectile.
    • Speed of the projectile is 10.
    • Range down to 8.

• Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades.
• Infested Terran egg health down to 70.

• Ultralisk
  • Burrow Charge has been removed.
  • Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.

• Viper health increased from 120 to 150.

Source: Battle.net

The second instalment for StarCraft II has been given an official release date. Heart of the Swarm will be in stores and available online starting March 12, 2013, at an expected retail price of $39.99 USD.

There will also be a Collector’s Edition of the expansion chock full of digital and physical goodies available for the RRP of $79.99 USD, as well as a Digital Deluxe version available from their site for an expected price of $59.99 USD.

In terms of plot, Heart of the Swarm picks up right where Wings of Liberty took off, continuing the story of the Queen of Blades, Sarah Kerrigan and her revenge against Arcturus Mengsk, fearsome dictator of the Koprulu sector. Players will be able to customise Kerrigan with her own new abilities as well as being able to evolve new zerg subspecies to suit their play style.

The expansion adds new multiplayer units, as well as updating some of the older ones with new abilities. Presales for the digital editions are available from the StarCraft II official site. Check out this press release for more details.

Source: Blizzard.com

Blizzard have released an update on clan support in Heart of the Swarm, revealing that clan members will have access to their own clan window where members can engage in private chat, post news for all members to read, and an information tab where clan officers can post announcements. A membership roster will also be available.

Anybody can create or join a clan, and all clans have their own clan tag which will be affixed to the front of player names. Clan leaders can promote or demote clan members as they see fit.

The announcement post on Battle.net also mentions Blizzard are working on ‘groups’, which are similar to clans but much larger and looser. “We expect that Groups might be focused on a specific genre of Arcade game, geographic location, BarCraft, community website, popular personality, or eSports organization. How you use Groups will be completely up to you!”

Clans are coming in this week’s 2.0.1 patch, with Groups on the way in the future.

Source: Battle.net

An upcoming patch to the currently-underway Heart of the Swarm beta for StarCraft II will introduce a new feature: player levelling.

Players will earn experience for each race seperately, with points awarded for building and destroying units, as well as for bonus objectives like “bonus XP for your first win of the day” and “extra XP when you play in a party with a Battletag or Real-ID friend”. Blizzard also considering events like “bonus XP weekends”.

What is XP used for? Well, the only currency of value on battle.net, of course: decals and portraits. Higher and higher levels get better and more epic versions, all the way up to level 20. Blizzard warns that XP resets will happen periodically during beta, so don’t get too attached to your current levels.

Source: Battle.net