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StarCraft II Arcade now free to play
Good news for Blizzard fans looking for more games to play -- the StarCraft II Arcade is now completely free. StarCraft II is not only well known for the game and tournament play, but also for its creative community. The game comes with a map editor that allows you to customize and craft your own creations, using Blizzard art assets and maps to put together whatever game your creative mind happens to dream up. These creations are all available as part of the StarCraft II Arcade, a massive index of player-created games. So what's in the Arcade? Everything from custom maps and missions to StarCraft-themed versions of popular games like Bejeweled and Pictionary. Full access to all games in the Arcade was previously limited only to those who purchased StarCraft II. With the launch of patch 2.1, all games in the Arcade have now been made available to anyone with a Battle.net account -- even games that previously required the Heart of the Swarm. To access the Arcade, simply download and install the free trial version of StarCraft II, no purchase necessary.
Blizzard offers deep discounts on World of Warcraft, StarCraft II
There's no need to wait until Black Friday if you were hoping to get a good deal on World of Warcraft or StarCraft II; Blizzard is currently offering both titles and their expansions at a deep discount. New players to WoW can grab the base game, with all expansions up until Mists of Pandaria, for only $4.99. To add MoP to the mix, plunk down another $9.99 for the standard edition or $29.99 for the digital deluxe edition (a savings of $30.00 on each). StarCraft II fans can save twenty bucks and scoop up Wings of Liberty for $19.99 and/or Heart of the Swarm for $19.99 or $39.99 (standard and deluxe editions, respectively). For those who already have the games but want to get friends involved, there is also an option to gift the purchase. However, to take advantage of the deals you might want to act fast -- there's no guarantee that the sale will last.
Blizzard drops StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty to $20 until March 12
Blizzard is selling the first part of its three-pronged assault of a sequel, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, for half-off until March 12. You can get the game through Battle.net right now for $20.Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terran faction (see: future humans) on the single-player campaign, saddled on the back of the series' popular multiplayer component. The second wave of the three-part RTS sequel is due on March 12, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. A recent multiplayer beta for Heart of the Swarm concluded on March 1, allowing those who pre-ordered and opted in a taste of the new multiplayer changes.
StarCraft 2 for $30 this weekend from Blizzard Store
Imagine, if you will: Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, more gravy and a mountain of dead Zerg. This could be your Thanksgiving weekend if you pick up StarCraft 2, which is on sale for $30 until Monday at the Blizzard Store. Don't forget the gravy (or the Goliaths).
'StarCraft 2: Starter Edition' replaces Wings of Liberty demo
The StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty demo has been replaced by StarCraft 2: Starter Edition. The new version allows players to play four levels of the campaign, the first two challenges, access the terran race in custom games and single-player vs. AI, and play four of the custom maps. All campaign progress and achievements are saved to the player's Battle.net account, so they can pick up from right where they left off, if they decide to buy the full game. Already have a Battle.net account? You'll find the StarCraft 2: Starter Edition in Account Management under "Your Game Accounts." Who says drug dealers don't do house calls and make it easy to get hooked up anymore?
StarCraft 2 patch 1.1 balances Zerg, Protoss, Terran and southpaws
Just one month after releasing its blockbuster RTS, Blizzard has announced a major upcoming patch for StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. The update will open up left-hander-friendly hotkey options for all regions, will add some new mod and map editor functionality, will incorporate support for NVIDIA 3D Vision, and will make a whole slew of balance changes so mind-shatteringly esoteric that we wouldn't know how to begin describing them. Check out a partial list of changes over on Battle.net, and think about the impact which the Ultralisk's five-point damage reduction against armored targets is going to make in the grand scope your life.
StarCraft 2 as a third-person zombie shooter
With StarCraft 2 out in homes, mixing it up on over a million motherboards, the modding community's efforts are finally bearing fruit with the Galaxy Map Editor. This latest mod, which turns the real-time strategy game into a third-person shooter, comes courtesy of Denmark's own Mads. Rush past the break and check it out.
StarCraft 2 phishing scams looking to harvest Battle.net info
Completely unsurprising news now, as your usual thieves and unsavory types have crawled out from the woodwork to capitalize on the launch of the biggest PC title perhaps ever, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. These "people" are sending out phishing emails in the hopes of getting folks' Battle.net account info, all under the guise of helping you get an activation key. It comes with the territory: Battle.net and Blizzard's games are by no means impervious to these scams, nor have they been in the past, but Siliconera's example of one phishing email presents a pretty convincing ruse. Hopefully, in some small way, we can all help fewer people fall prey to this particular trick.
Review: StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty
StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty isn't just traditional, it's a tradition.If any other company but Blizzard had simply put new graphics over the same old interface, it would have resulted in an interesting novelty at best. But within moments of putting my hands on StarCraft 2 during the open beta, it was clear this was no mere novelty. It's been more than a decade since I played the original, but the sequel feels both instantly fresh and familiar. It's not a game that will be forgotten in the rush of the coming months' releases. It feels timeless.%Gallery-66757%
Blizzard details StarCraft 2 bugs, workarounds and hardware issues
We can't imagine why you'd be taking a break from StarCraft 2 right about now but, regardless, you've chosen quite the appropriate post to read while resting. Activision-Blizzard has revealed some of the discovered bugs and issues hassling the game, the majority of which seem to be sound related. There are also some problems with the game crashing on Windows 7 (maybe that's why you're taking that break). If you're one of those people trying to download StarCraft 2 through Battle.net, you may want to prime yourself with the thread on hardware configurations below. We know, it's all a lot to digest, but keep in mind this is StarCraft 2 we're talking about -- AKA the most important thing ever. We'd hate for you to finally boot up your game after all these years of waiting only to run into a fatal error.
StarCraft 2 getting 3D support post-launch
While StarCraft 2 may benefit from a "robust new 3D graphics-rendering engine," we didn't know until recently that the game would be receiving a post-launch patch enabling that other kind of 3D (read: the "needs glasses" kind). In an interview with IGN at a South Korean media event -- where, no joke, a StarCraft 2 logo-emblazoned Korean Air plane was unveiled -- production director Chris Sagaty explained, "We will be releasing 3D in the first few months, for those Nvidia cards and screens that support it." For what it's worth, an Nvidia rep also told IGN that it's "optimising for all systems," so that the 3D support would work on as many systems as possible. We might try to get it working ourselves, if it wasn't for our sheer terror at the thought of a Zergling flood coming through the screen.
StarCraft II Collector's Edition to include WoW vanity pet
Blizzard has just recently announced StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty's collector's edition. Normally this isn't something we would talk about here on WoW.com, but the contents make it worth mentioning. Specifically, WoW players will receive a Thor mini-pet, seen to the right. For those of you who don't follow StarCraft at all, the Thor is a new ubermech unit for the Terran faction. It's not only voice acted by Chris Metzen, but the pilot of the unit is based directly off him. One of his old aliases is Thundergod, after all. The Thor is big and it's bad-ass, and that's about all that you need to know. I wonder if it will interact with Grunty and the Zergling? BigDownload has the full scoop on the contents of the collector's edition. There's great value there, even for people who don't play WoW. The collector's edition also includes a 2GB flash drive made to resemble Jimmy Raynor's dog tags, a 172-page art book, a behind the scenes DVD and more.
Blizzard on the Battle.net update
Activision-Blizzard held their second quarter conference call yesterday, and in addition to addressing the Starcraft II delay, both Mike Morhaime and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick shared some insight into what the revamped Battle.net will be like. The brand new system (which is currently up and working, albeit in a very skeleton form so far) will have "social networking features, cross-game communication, [and] unified account management," in addition to features that will let players "share experiences" with each other online (we'd presume that means things like screenshot galleries and leaderboards, but who knows?). Kotick also spoke up, and compared the service to that other popular online community, Xbox Live.Blizzard is still saying the new Battle.net will come in conjunction with the new Starcraft, so we'll have to keep an eye out for them both in the first half of 2010. It'll be interesting to see what other features Blizzard adds in, and exactly what form features like "cross-game communication" take -- do they mean actual in-game messaging across games, or just status updates and messages on a social network? Kotick's comparison to Xbox Live raises some questions, too, as that's a much wider service than you'd think Battle.net would be. But then again, the guy's a CEO, and all CEOs have a tendency to overestimate exactly what their company is doing. Like most of Blizzard's upcoming releases, we'll have to wait and see on Battle.net.
StarCraft II delayed to 2010
In an official press release, Blizzard announced today that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the first installment of the Starcraft II trilogy, previously indicated to be released in the last quarter of this year, is delayed to the first half of 2010.The release cited the massive amount of work necessary to overhaul Blizzard's online matchmaking service, Battle.net, as the main culprit for the delay. Since the new BNet will be part of every new Blizzard game from here on in -- including World of Warcraft, as players with BNet accounts have seen -- it's vital that the service be working properly before the game's release.StarCraft II was never officially dated -- only an on-the-sly indication -- and multiple financial sites have reported the now-official release date as the first half of 2010 following this announcement and Activision-Blizzard's quarterly financial report. What does this mean for the WoW player? Well, it means that if you were expecting the focus of BlizzCon, or one of the focuses of BlizzCon, to be a StarCraft II release date, you'd be incorrect.Gives you pause when you consider what else they could be announcing instead, eh?
