The Blizzard dev team has made plenty of changes to the units and gameplay of StarCraft II in the recent months and undoubtedly is making changes as you read this, but perhaps the most interesting to me are those that involve the Terran. I've always been more of a Terran player than anything else and every time I read about the changes in Terran units I think about the effects those changes have on the overall balance of the game. This week I take a look at the new Terran Jackal and weigh its effectiveness against the unit it has replaced, the Vulture.
The original StarCraft saw limited use of the Vulture, it was a quick and agile scout that's best weapon was its spider mines, but you had to upgrade to get them first. Will the new Jackal simply take over the Vulture's place and role? Or will it redefine the role of scout by adding some offensive prowess to an otherwise limited and underused unit?
A few weeks ago when the Zerg were unleashed upon the world, Blizzard also released some minor and mostly overlooked information regarding the fate of the Terran medic, namely that it was being cut. Now maybe this doesn't piss you off because you're not a Terran player like myself, but for anyone else that plays Terran listen up.
Your beloved Medic has been cut from the game!
Blizzard has instead decided to replace the medic with a unit called the medivac dropship. The medivac dropship is basically nothing more than a modified version of the original dropship. Now in addition to being able to transport troops it can also heal infantry. For weeks after the Zerg announcement we had limited details on the medivac, all we knew was that it was now in the game. But last week the devs addressed a question in the 34th Q&A that shed a little more light on this developing situation.
So, this week I would like to have a showdown between the two most non-violent units in the StarCraft universe, the medics! And I promise you, there won't be anyone standing by to heal them.
Karune's Post:
Last month was all about the Zerg. For the first time members of the Community and the press had the privilege to test StarCraft II's third race. You could read a lot about the different units and buildings, see movies and screenshots, hear about the gameplay experiences. This month's discussion topic will be about one of the new Zerg units: The Baneling, the mutation of one of the most popular Zerg units, of the Zergling. The Baneling has undergone quite a few changes in the past couple of weeks and we'd like to hear your feedback!
Information on the new Baneling:
Now
- 190 damage per Baneling (40+150 to building)
- Increased splash range (100% damage taken throughout range)
- Can be well positioned to hit multiple buildings
- Larger & Movement Speed Slower (possible to defend with focus fire)
- Counters Zealots, Zerglings, base Marines (not upgraded) -More Narrow window of use
Before
- Fast and small- Unable to defend against (focus fire)
- Countered virtually all ground units
Since the revelation of new zerg units, it's only fitting to start using them in the Showdown Series. This week, there's going to be a knockdown-drag-out fight between the Zergling - which everyone remembers seeing in mass early-game rushes from a Zerg opponent - and the Baneling, which is the exploding ground unit that the Zergling can now morph into.
The Zergling
Two for one deal
The Zergling is an extremely cheap unit -- 25 minerals and one resource point -- that's available almost immediately to Zerg players. Build the spawning pool and you've got the chance for Zerglings on the battlefield. Analogous to the Protoss Zealot or the Terran Marine, the Zergling is the basic infantry building block of any Zerg player's forces
StarCraft II
Dustin Browder, lead game designer
The first thing I can say about both of these interviews is that the interviewees, Dustin Browder and Samwise Didier, seem far more calm and prepared than the interviewer, Gamespot Editor in Chief, Ricardo Torres, still, that doesn't detract from the information you get out of Browder's and Didier's answers.
Browder starts off the short four minute interview by naming a few of the Zerg units that he thought were especially impressive, the Queen, the Roach, the Corrupter and the Ultralisk.
The Ultralisk is an old unit with some new tricks like burrowing and an AoE claw attack, while the Corrupter Roach and Queen are entirely new creations. Browder did mention that the Queen is basically "the ultimate in Zerg base defense ability" and from what I've seen in the gameplay videos and read all over the internet, he's absolutely correct. The Queen will involve a lot of micromanaging and basically will take the place of a lot the Zerg's old base defense abilities like the Sunken Colony.
Samwise Didier, lead artist
Samwise Didier was the lead artist for StarCraft 1 and reprises his role on Blizzard's team for StarCraft II. Didier gave a great interview with thorough answers to Gamespot Editor in Chief, Ricardo Torres's questions about the pleasures and problems of creating the artwork for SC2.
Didier enjoyed reworking artwork of old as well as creating all new artwork for the Terran and Protoss race but he has particularly enjoyed working with the Zerg. The Zerg are unlike the other two races visually, they are biological creatures that lack the rusty metal and robotic armor of the other races. They are flesh, blood and bones and that is a nice change of pace, said Didier.
When asked about the challenges he has faced with the SC2 artwork, Didier keyed in on the animations aspect of the development. Making the jump from 2D to 3D wasn't difficult, Didier said, it was having to tone back a lot of what they created. Similar to what Lead Game Designer, Dustin Browder touched on in his interview; Didier said the art team constantly has to keep in mind the number of body parts flying and machines blowing up in each death animation.
I found an interesting story on Gamereplays.org about their visit to Blizzard's studio in Irvine, Calif., and I wanted to share it with you guys. I read through the whole thing and found it to be quite interesting. For anyone that cares, it fleshes out the company that makes this game so many are obsessing about and really shows you what a top dog in the industry looks like, inside and out.
Here's to hoping they hire poor but eager writers!
Check it out here
Yesterday Karune, the Blizzard community manager, announced on the Battle.net forums that he will be taking fan's requests for an upcoming batch of screenshots to be included with the next Q&A update. Within one minute and twenty-five seconds of Karune's post the responses started pouring in and OMGStarCraft is going to weigh in on the topic as well. Too many times the Q&A's have been posted without accompanying screenshots leaving fans with only a few brief words to describe brand new units and abilities. We say, no more!
So here are OMG StarCraft's top 5 screenshot scenarios we'd like to see for Q&A batch #32...
Welcome to the second installment of the showdown series. For this entry into the competition between old and new, we're going to pit the Goliath -- staple of anti-air assault and powerhouse against infantry -- against the Viking, the new Terran multi-role transforming fighter. These two mechs will go head-to-head, machine-to-machine, in a battle to the death. Let's see who comes out on top.
The Goliath
"Goliath online"
The Goliath is a fairly cheap mech unit built from the Factory after you build an Armory -- which you can also use to upgrade them. I say fairly cheap because we're talking two resource points, 100 minerals, and 50 vespene for a unit that attacks both air and ground. And does it well.
Pros:
- Attacks both air and ground
- Inexpensive advanced unit to build -- you get more bang for your buck.
- Powerful anti-air missiles.
- Very powerful when paired with Siege Tanks.
Cons:
- Is tied to the ground.
So Blizzard is talking with the StarCraft community about the map editor for SCII. Kudos to them for starting that conversation -- it's important to design an editor that will allow for a lot of creativity. My favorite map from the original game was a user-created behemoth that had the best chokepoints on the planet. But this is supposed to be my suggestions for making things better, so I won't wax lyrical on my favorite maps from SCI.
One of my major complaints about the original editor -- and excuse me if the memory's a little fuzzy -- is that things were too free-form for my liking. I understand you want to give a mapmaker as much freedom as they need, but you can have too much of a good thing as well. Start with a very basic, blank slate of a terrain and you have to add resources, land features, triggers, and random animal life among other things.
Let's face it, having a basic terrain and then having to add literally everything to every corner of the map took a longer time than many people were willing to spend. There was a great idea on the Battle.net forums about being able to input percentage variables and having a realistic map randomly generate. That would be more useful as a base for the aspiring mapmaker to work from.
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