blizzpagewatch
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It's Starcraft 2
Yup. Apparently Blizzard makes RTS games now, because they just announced Starcraft 2 in Korea.Prepare to be zerged, protossed, and maybe even terraned, plus who knows what else they'll come up with. More to come. Lots more.Get all your Starcraft 2 info right here.
Authentication system down for an hour tonight: important?
Ok, now maybe we're getting a little paranoid about this, but look: Blizzard is performing a one hour maintenance on the authentication system this evening, according to the login screen. It starts at 11:00 PDT, and thus will go to midnight PDT...... which is exactly when their announcement is supposed to happen! Coincidence?!?!?All right, so maybe it is. But when have they ever done maintenance on a Friday night, huh? Maybe, they're adding a new game (like, oh I don't know, a new MMORPG) to the authentication system, and that's why they have to bring it down. Did you ever think of that?Yes, the speculation is running a little wild, but the announcement in Korea is just hours away. We just can't wait!
Starcraft: Ghost listed on TRU, Best Buy sites
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Best_Buy_and_TRU_list_Starcraft_Ghost_to_be_released_later_this_year'; Listings for Starcraft: Ghost are up on the web sites of mega-retailers Best Buy (thanks, Gazoo) and Toys "R" Us (thanks, Rich) -- do a search on either site for "Starcraft" to see them. As most of you probably know, SC:G was announced as a planned console title in 2002, but "indefinitely postponed" in 2006. It was to be a first-person shooter set in the Starcraft universe, with a Terran Ghost as the main character. Do these listings mean tomorrow's announcement is going to be the long-awaited continuance of Ghost? When I had only seen it on the Best Buy site, I was thinking not: the versions listed are for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube, all last-gen systems. If Blizz was working on a new console game, wouldn't they do it for new consoles? But then I was reminded that if this is in fact SC:G, it has been in development for a very long time, and what are now last-gen consoles would have been current during most of its development history. And then I saw it on a second retailer's site, Toys "R" Us; this is far from proof, but it is more suggestive.The release date according to BB is 6/15/07, while TRU has it as 8/15/08. That's a pretty large discrepancy, but what is more interesting to me is the closeness of the date. Blizz never announces a project that close to shipping. Then again, there's a first for everything, and they've certainly had long enough to make this game. TRU has the game at $49.99, but BB has it at a strange $47.49. Sam said he worked for BB and never saw games priced like that...hm. And Mike says that the listing has been on BB ever since the game was announced, and the odd pricing means that pre-orders are not currently being accepted. Anyway, what do you guys think? And can you find listings for this on any other sites? Has the TRU listing been there a while as well?
Blizzpagewatch: Day 6
As Blizzard's game parade draws to an end, we return to your favorite game and mine, World of Warcraft. I must say this is a pretty boring image for them to have picked, although it does capture what the game world felt like around launch time for me. I didn't know talents from skills, epics from rares, or Ragnaros from my class trainer in Ironforge. But I did know dwarves and night elves, since my first character was a dwarf (hunter) and even back then, night elves were ubiquitous. One more day...
Blizzpagewatch: Day 5
In what is sure to be today's least surprising news, Blizzard.com has been updated again, this time to feature Warcraft III. One more day to go (WoW), and then all this furious pondering can rest for a bit. War3 maintains the dubious distinction of being my least favorite of the major Blizz games. I don't think that's a popular stance, but in my opinion, it took the formula that made War2 so fun and pleasant, and destroyed it through massive overcomplication. I can never manage to get more than halfway into the second campaign before I quit playing, and I've tried several times. This is sad, since I'd really like to finish the game so I'd have more of a lore background, although Know Your Lore is filling in a lot of gaps for me. What do you folks think of Blizzard's most recent RTS?
Upcoming Blizzard announcement to be a new Starcraft?
With the countdown continuing on Blizzard's homepage, there's plenty of speculation on what Blizzard is cooking up. Warcraft 4? Starcraft 2? Diablo 3? I'm staying out of the speculation game, myself -- as much as we might guess and hope for a specific product, Blizzard is good at throwing us surprises. However, the Starcraft 2 rumors are growing in volume, fueled by the recent discovery of a Starcraft2.com page owned by Blizzard Entertainment which redirects viewers to Blizzard's main site. Gamespot went live with the story on Tuesday, and since then I've heard it just about everywhere. Reports of it are crowding my inbox. Barrens chat can't stop talking about it. And Blizzard rumors even seem to dominate OOC chat in Lord of the Rings Online. But is this really a sign that we're going to be hearing all about Starcraft 2 this weekend?My magic 8-ball has informed me signs point to no. Or even if Starcraft 2 is what we're going to hear -- this isn't really a sign of it. The domain record from Network Solutions tells us that Blizzard has owned Starcraft2.com since 1999 and the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine shows the page redirecting to Blizzard's main home page since at least 2002. Starcraft2.com is neither new nor has it recently changed. No, Blizzard doesn't own Diablo3.com (it's a Diablo 3 news site), Warcraft4.com (an advertisement site), WorldofStarcraft.com (a German WoW site), or WorldofDiablo.com (a German Diablo site). But does the fact that they've owned Starcraft2.com for eight years now mean anything relevant to the coming announcement? I think not.[Thanks to numerous tipsters]
Blizzpagewatch: Day 4
Blizzard's March of Games continues with Diablo II. Not only is D2 a spiritual predecessor to WoW, it's also probably my favorite Blizz game of all time. Many's the hour I spent on my Amazon wielding Titan's Revenge, laying waste to...well, actually, I can't remember what all I laid waste to, but it sure was fun. The game is also responsible for adding "wug?" to my vocabulary, which I'm not sure goes entirely to its credit. As far as I'm aware, D2 was basically the origin of WoW's talent system; although they were called "Skills," the basic idea was the same -- each class even had three trees of them. Randomized items of differing quality levels, and item sets, were also featured in D2, and the recent WoW addition of socketed items was a D2 favorite as well.While I'd be overjoyed with a Diablo III, I go along with others in feeling unclear that such a game could be sufficiently distinguished from WoW. Still, it was nice to "stay awhile" and reminisce about an incredible game.
Blizzpagewatch: Day 3
Blizzard.com has been updated again, showcasing the third of Blizzard's three main game worlds (days one and two were Warcraft I/II and Diablo). I keep trying to peek ahead by seeing if there's a "day4.jpg" on Blizzard's server, but all I get are pretty 404s. StarCraft is the series that is getting the most attention as far as speculation goes, although theories vary as to whether it'll be an RTS or an MMO. It's been longer since there was a new StarCraft game (nine years since Brood War) than for any other series, and fan demand is very very high for a StarCraft 2. Heck, I don't even really like RTSes and I'd line up for a midnight release of SC2, without a doubt. Four more days until we know what this really is. ("Eliah taps his foot. Hurry up already!")
Blizzard's site updated to Diablo
Well when Blizzard first changed their Blizzard.com splash page, I, like many players, wondered if the game they're planning to announce on May 19th had something to do with the first two Warcraft games. But here's practically proof that that isn't the case-- they've updated their page now to Diablo (released in 1996), with a nice quote from Deckard Cain.So it looks like we're going to get a countdown of Blizzard over the years. The announcement is coming this Saturday, and I count four days in between now and then (and four games left in the countdown), so it seems that by the time we hit WoW, Saturday will be upon us and we'll know what Blizzard is planning to do next. I'm just wondering what cool quote they'll use for WoW-- there's no way they'd do it, but "Mgurrurggugrle" would make me laugh a lot.At any rate, speculation can shift away again from another Warcraft RTS, and back to Starcraft II or Worlds of Starcraft!
Something's coming [UPDATE]
Recently the Blizzard website main page switched over to this new splashpage. It's intriguing. Since we know that something is indeed coming, this only confirms that there will actually be an announcement of some significance on May 19th. Looking at the graphic I noticed a few things. First, The Burning Crusade is not listed separately. This leads me to believe that the announcement isn't simply an expansion, but an entirely new game. Oh, the curiosity burns within me. What will it be? Also, I see that the games Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness are highlighted, but not Warcraft III or World of Warcraft. Perhaps this is a game that is centered around the first two games in the Warcraft canon. Is it World of Starcraft as the leaks have said, or is it Diablo III? Is it something else? Why can't it be the 19th already! [Updated 5/13/2007 7 pm EST] In searching through forum posts about this topic, I came across a fabulous summary by Colrum of Shadowsong who references some interesting tidits on Blizzplanet. They are citing recent events, such as the hiring of RTS guru Dustin Browder in 2004 and the May 2007 release of a new Starcraft novel, as evidence that we may be seeing a new Starcraft RTS rather than an MMO. Take this how you will, but it sounds very plausible to me. Also of note, several people have said that this graphic is a countdown page. This is substantiated by the HTML source code which labels the image as "day1.jpg." Looks like we will have a countdown similar to the Worldwide Invitational website. It only remains to be seen what that question mark reveals on the 19th. [via Adrian]
