I had a chance to speak with RTS Community Manger Kevin Yu (Karune) recently and he assured me that there will be plenty of chances for players who weren't at BlizzCon '08 to get involved in the upcoming beta test.

When will this beta test be exactly? Well in a recent post I alluded to March being the month we've all been waiting for. However, some on the interwebs have tried to debunk the Captcha rumor as being a fake photoshopped image and aren't sure if March is the month or not. While it may be fake, there was never any doubt that it was exactly that, a rumor. So the answer is, no one knows and Blizzard isn't leaking anything...yet.

 "The number of these (beta) keys has not been determined yet...there will be a Beta opt in process, similar to what we have done in the past for Blizzard titles," said Yu.

"There will be several activities for beta participants to get involved in, mostly competitive in nature.

"Furthermore, there will be more opportunities arising too in the form of contests for players to win beta access to StarCraft II as well, including the Vespene Laughs StarCraft II Comic Contest."

RTS Community Manger Karune is back with Q&A 48 and provides us with updates on artwork, animations and gameplay improvements. As always, "improvements" is up for debate, but it's nice to hear that the development is progressing as planned and it seems that we'll have a beta soon enough.

On the beta note: Check back tomorrow for some more GREAT news on getting involved with the beta that builds off of what I previously reported on two days ago.

For today, enjoy Q&A 48!

Chat with Devs: The new year is well on its way and with it, the devs have been making much progress in both the artistic polish of the game, as well as continued development of multiplayer game mechanics. The art team has been adding several new death animations for units including the Drone’s disintegration into ashes when torched by Hellions, or the explosion of the Overlord sacs by Marine Gauss Rifle fire, and even Marauders being sliced into various pieces by Dark Templars.

All of it is quite a sight to see and it is the hope of the art team that these additional animations will really give players a grand experience of immersion into an epic StarCraft battle. On the multiplayer side, the designers are testing out various macro-management encouraging mechanics that will be implemented to each race, but still be payed out differently per race.

These macro elements will be aimed to allow players with greater macro-management skills to compete with the advantage of gathering more resources than a player who does not emphasize as much on resourcing. More details about the mechanics that are being implemented will be covered in the next Q&A batch and is also planned to be showcased in the next StarCraft II Battle Report.

 

The group of mod makers that created Legacy of the Confederation for StarCraft Brood War many years ago, has already begun porting it to StarCraft II.

LoTC will have 34 maps from StarCraft II that will span over three episodes with many of the maps being used more than once. The original LoTC consisted of two episodes, Past Purposes and Dawn of Darkness, but for StarCraft II the modders have created a third episode, Galaxy of Fire.

The modders will also release 4 pre-rendered cinematics with it using StarCraft II's 3d engine, along with close to 13 hours of pre-recorded dialog that will run through all of the missions.

The first two missions are slated to be released 3 or 4 months after the release of StarCraft II. After that, one mission will be released each week until the first episode is complete. Episodes 2 and 3 are expected to follow a similar pattern.

Best of all -- it's entirely free to the public!

Check out what PC gamer magazine had to say about LoTC many years ago and watch a 6 minute prerendered teaser trailer of the project after the jump.

We will witness many changes in 2009. Obama is now in office; who knows what will happen with the war, the economy and life. RTS gaming is following that same pattern of "change," it has multiple epic titles that could become timeless classics.

Some of the more hardcore RTS gamers may be quick to say that the next iteration of Sins of a Solar Empire will wear the crown at years end. But truth be told, most casual gamers, and the majority of gamers have their eyes fixed on two titles: Dawn of War II and StarCraft II.

Both titles will make a legitimate run at RTS game of the year in 2009, but which do you think has the better chance at claiming the glory?

In a few weeks DoW II's beta test will begin, and I will certainly be a part of it. I've never played the original DoW and after hearing how similar it is to Company of Heros, I'm tempted to go out and buy it (or atleast purchase it on Steam). In any case, after having hours of hands-on time with the StarCraft II alpha build at Blizzcon '08, I'll be extremely interested to see how DoW II and StarCraft II compare.

No doubt, both games play completely different despite both being RTS titles. Check back after DoW II's beta starts to read my thoughts.

For now you can check out IGN's video feature comparing the two titles after the jump.

A questionable source spoke with Blizzard's European RTS community manager and says that Blizzard has a beta date scheduled but isn't ready to inform the public of it just yet.

When will we finally get to sink our teeth into this juicy game? Well if you believe in ghosts, zombies, vampires or this rumor than I'd say March.

 


This was found on battle.net's StarCraft 2 forum and is
what you have to type in at the end of your post to verify you
aren't a bot spamming the boards.

 

The letters and numbers kind of spell out "beta in March." Is Blizzard sending its fans a hint?

Read on to see what else this German SCII fan learned from the Blizzard rep. while attending the ESL in Vienna recently.

 

Do you think you have what it takes to be the best gamer in the United States? Well, these contestants do.

Starting in March on the Sci-Fi channel, World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer will pit a bunch of scraggly looking gaming nerds head to head in some of the best games out there.

Not only will they compete in the virtual world, but they'll be competing in real-life simulations of some of the top games on the planet. You'll see in the video after the jump how the contestants play against each other in Halo 3, and then take to the paintball arena in a Halo 3 simulation of sorts.

Who will stay? Who will go home? Who will be the Ultimate Gamer? And does anyone really care?

All these questions and more will be answered in March. I'm just waiting on the edge of my seat, can't you tell?

Many American gamers acknowledge that the original StarCraft fundamentally changed the RTS genre. We have fond memories of pulling all-nighters on Battle.net in the late 90's. 10 years later this game is still widely played and as popular as ever, not many games can brag about that. But what many American gamers fail to understand is how StarCraft was the foundation for an entire online sport.

Sure, American gamers acknowledge that e-Sports spawned from the balanced competitive play of StarCraft, it would be hard to browse GamePro, GameSpot or IGN and not come across at least one article on e-Sports. But, American gamers don't truly understand e-Sports.

I'm not an e-Sports buff, I'm a fairly casual gamer, but I saw a video today of a professional match that really made me say "wow, that's crazy." And, it also made me ask myself if the second coming of StarCraft could be what it takes for the e-Sports craze to catch on in the U.S.?

Check out the video after the jump and help answer my question...

StarCraft 2 was playable at the ESL Finals 2009 in Austria over the weekend and a memeber of www.sclegacy.com got a chance to play it. They took some low-res camera footage of it but if you need your daily fix of StarCraft 2 it's worth checking out.

Since the Dark Templar model was given an overhaul many months back (it was given a scythe among other things) there has been dozen of epic discussions on the battle.net boards and plenty of fan back lash. Clearly the developers are at odds among themselves over which model they prefer and thus they have turned to the fans to break this stalemate.

Choose between either the model with one sci-blade that represents the Lenassa tribe, the model with a scythe that represents the Zer'atai tribe, or both. Don't think that voting for both is a cop-out, Blizzard is prepared to put both models in the game and have them randomly deploy when you train them. This would add some variety to your army but also may add some confusion for the player.

The choice is yours. Hit the jump to see videos of each Dark Templar, check out 4 brand new screenshots, and oh, yeah vote!

About an hour ago lead game designer Dustin Browder responded to a fan's comment about the first Battle Report. While he didn't confirm or deny a beta date, his comment does suggest that Blizzard has no plans to launch the beta test in January.

Browder's response was triggered by a fan's radical, and frankly idiotic suggestion to cut out the commentary from any up coming Battle Reports.

"When it's just a couple of guys (haha sorry Dustin) giving play-by-play, or worse, 'teaching,' its off-putting, and kind of makes me want to turn the sound off," said the fan.

Browder's response was polite and in some ways, if you read between the lines a little informative.