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BlizzCon 2013 in photographs
BlizzCon might be over, but pictures last forever, or at least until something happens to our data center. Don't get any ideas. Hey, where are you going with that tornado?! Enjoy our view of the con! Massively's on the ground in Anaheim during the weekend of November 8th, bringing you all the best news from BlizzCon 2013. Whether you're anticipating World of Warcraft's and Diablo III's next expansions or reveals from Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, we aim to have it covered!
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Vengeance trailer debuts
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm launches March 12, 2013 -- are you ready for it? If you weren't already hyped for the next installment of the game, Blizzard has just released the new trailer shown above. Heart of the Swarm continues the story where Wings of Liberty left off, and follows the continuing tale of Sarah Kerrigan. Although the Xel'Naga artifact appears to have restored Kerrigan's human form, is humanity where her heart really lies? As usual, the cinematics team have outdone themselves. If there's one thing Blizzard has always excelled at, it's producing some seriously amazing trailers. Check out the trailer in full above, and don't forget to pick up your copy of Heart of the Swarm March 12.
Chris Metzen talks about heroes
Eurogamer.net recently sat down with Blizzard Senior Vice President of Creative Development Chris Metzen. They talked about the story for all three of Blizzard's big franchises and the ins and outs of creating stories and heroes for each one. On Warcraft, Metzen waxed philosophical on creating a meaningful story for 11 million fans who are each carving out their own individual stories on their own characters, and on translating that story culturally as well linguistically between all the different cultures of the people who play WoW. As Metzen observed, a story that goes over well in North America may fall flat in China. He also talked about making lore decisions and balancing the needs and wants of the players and the writers. Sometimes the players want you to go right when you want to go left, and it is a challenge, he says, to decide which way to go.
Hands-on: Starcraft 2 - the single-player experience (finally!)
Don't you just love embargoes? So do we. Expect a ton of StarCraft 2 information today. Forget everything you know about StarCraft 2. Well, forget everything you know about the single-player campaign in StarCraft 2. Which at this point is pretty much ... nothing. We've told you all about the multiplayer and its upcoming changes, but the single-player experience has been one gigantic black hole. Until now. We recently spent a day at Blizzard's campus learning all about StarCraft 2's Wings of Liberty Terran campaign, the first in a series with the Zerg and Protoss expansions coming at a later date. One thing is for sure: this isn't anything like the old StarCraft single-player campaign. Read on to find out what you'll be doing with Jim Raynor throughout the 30 or so missions in StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.%Gallery-69481%
BlizzCon 2008: Starcraft II lore panel
Chris Metzen and Andrew Chambers sat down at BlizzCon to chat about the lore and story behind the universe of Starcraft II. As we saw in the gameplay panel yesterday, Blizzard is aiming to really break a lot of new characters into the foreground using the adventure game-style cutscenes, and Metzen and Chambers seem really excited to bring some new faces into the RTS staple sequel. To start off the panel, they ran through a few of the folks we'll meet in the Terran campaign. Dr. Hanson is a "Dr. Lady with glasses (so she looks really cute)," said Chambers -- originally she was designed to be a male citizen kind of person (someone the player just helps to make their way through the campaign), but they moved on to try and make Jim Raynor (Starcraft's protagionist) a sort of romantic interest. As much of a romantic interest as a hard-bitten mercenary can have, anyway. Lots more from the SC2 lore panel below.
How would a Starcraft MMO work?
Speculation over Blizzard's upcoming MMO continues unabated, even with the lack of anything new to feed upon. The biggest hope, I dare to say, is that it's going to be Starcraft that gets the treatment, even if it's still a long way away from release. Starcraft holds fast in many gamers' hearts, including mine, so it's only natural to want more. But when actually considering the possibility, how would it play out?Our Krystalle has already given this a glance over on WoW Insider, and our recent Ask Massively asked a similar question, but I'd like to take it deeper. Let's take World of Warcraft as a point of comparison and see if we can run down this mythical beast.
