The Zerg are the last of the three races in StarCraft II and Blizzard has finally put an end to most of the fans drooling all over themselves and has released the Swarm upon the world! The following is a complete preview of the Zerg race in SC2, including everything from their history and lore to specifics about their structures and units. Enjoy, and have a good weekend peeps!
The History:
The Zerg are completely unlike the Protoss or the Terran, they are a race made up of many other species that have been assimilated into the Zerg collective known as the Swarm. The Swarm is not unlike the Borg collective if you are familiar with Star Trek; their strength grows by acquiring new species with diverse abilities that can be used for destruction.
The Zerg do not make use of technological advances in armor or weaponry instead, they are biological race that evolve and adapt through different Zerg strains and mainly use vicious melee attacks and massive numbers to overwhelm and decimate their enemy. Even the Zerg buildings are organic, acting as the organs of the race, every building has to be constructed on the Creep, organic tissue with a purple hue that spreads across the ground like a plague.
Here is a fairly detailed Q&A session with a Blizzard rep answering questions about the Zerg during the Zerg announcement event in Korea yesterday. More to come in a few minutes including gameplay videos and a cinematic trailer.
Q: How far in development is SC2? And how much of it will be included in the final version?
A: Nothing's for certain. It took us such a long time because we were developing other games. Because of our perfectionism we can't say for sure when SC2 will be released.
Q: I heard there were immense changes to Battle.net. What are these changes?
A: Unfortunately we can't give away too much on this right now. I can only tell you it's going along well. Expect great changes!
Q: There's no Kerrigan in the video. Is the Queen Kerrigan? If not, how is Kerrigan represented? Also the Roach looks like a... roach. People called Paladins from WoW Roaches so is that the reason?
A: The Roach has nothing to do with the Paladin. Kerrigan is a unique unit and will only be playable in the single-player campaign.
That was quick! After announcing that he would be taking requests from fans for screenshots in the upcoming Q&A batch, not a day later Karune releases the 32nd update and I'm happy to say that it's everything we could have hoped for.
Karune has managed to fit almost all of the fans requests into 4 quality screenshots. In addition he also gives a quality Q&A session that you can read through after you browse the new shots.
In this batch:
You will see how the developers have toned down the bright team colors a bit as well as the environment. They have also given the Terran units more of a battle worn metal look to them which helps everything on the screen look more realistic.
You will get first looks at the new Terran Jackal and Marauder units as well as the Protoss Nullifier and its anti-grav ability. The Dark Templars also make an appearance in one of the shots, but you have to look hard because those sneaky bastards are hitting the Terrans where they least expect it.
You will also get to see Protoss Immortals taking on Terran siege tanks while stalkers use their blink ability to navigate cliffs to get up close and personal with the tanks.
Like i've noted in the gameplay preview, Blizzard has taken a page out of the C&C book and added high yield minerals to StarCraft 2. These crystals take on a yellow hue and give the player an extra 4 minerals per load bringing the total payout per load to 12. Obviously these fields will be abundant on money maps but may play a strategic role on competition maps.
The terrans have dug in around the valuable high yield crystals
After what seemed like forever for most of the die hard SC2 fans roaming the battle.net forums Blizzard has finally released it's second edition of their podcast series they call BlizzCast.
This podcast is double the length of the first one so make sure you set aside about 50 minutes to listen to the whole thing.
It starts out with the VP of Creative Development, Chris Metzen, talking about the various storylines from SC and WC3 that captivate gamers world wide. You get small teasers to the upcoming stories in Wrath of the Litch King and SC2, and it's nice to hear his point of view.
Then there is a pretty good sized segment devoted to WC3 and the upcoming patch Blizzard is releasing that has WC3 players chomping at the bit. Just fast forward that part if it bores you to tears.
It ends with a good ol' Q&A session regarding SC2 lore and WoW gameplay and design changes.
I would have liked more questions addressed to SC2 gameplay and mechanics but I realize they are trying to appeal to a wide audience.
If all you're looking for is some quality SC2 info, it's worth your 50 minutes.
Check it out at Blizzard's site here
In this recent update Karune talks about his experience with a new Terran unit called the Jackal. The folks at Blizzard have likened this new unit to the Vulture from the original StarCrafts but I tend to think it's just a new name for the Cobra unit that they scrapped a few months back. It is a fast vehicle built from the factory armed with a rail gun that does AoE damage. Before it was scrapped, the Cobra was a fast, agile hover tank built from the factory, armed with a rail gun and could fire on the move. No one has seen screenshots of the Jackal yet, but it seems by Karune's description that it is the Cobra only instead it must stop and fire like the Vulture used to before it begins moving again.
This update also answers a few very good questions about drop pods, bunkers, nukes and being able to "dance" with your units (fire, move, fire, move ect.) like you could with the Vulture. Overall I'd give this update a solid 8.5/10, plenty of great information and a new unit, but like one person said on the forum, where's the screenshot? Would have been nice to see what the Jackal looks like.
Read on for Karune's update...
Everything that is known about the game up until this point is included in the various previews in the news section so, from now on I'll try and keep my news related updates as short winded and to the point as possible.
The Blizzard community manager, Karune as he is known on the boards, frequently updates the StarCraft community with current developments in the games progress. He chats with the games developers, artists, and storyline writers to get us the most up-to-date and accurate info he can. In his latest update batch titled "Map maker series," he has talked with Brett Woods about the direction the developers are going in with the map making tools.
Personally I was never big into making my own maps in the original games, frankly I wasn't very good at it and didn't have the patience, but that doesn't mean I'm not pumped to hear about what SCII's map editor tools are bringing to the table. Having fresh new maps to play online is important and some of the creations from the original games ended up being more balanced and more competitive than any of the official maps Blizzard had to offer.
Read on to see what Karune and Brett Woods had to say in regards to fans questions about the map editing tools for SCII.
This is the most current version of the Terran tech tree. Right click and "save picture as" in order to see the full sized photo.
This is the current build of the Protoss tech tree Right click and "save picture as" in order to see the full sized image.
The original StarCraft has been called one of the most well-balanced RTS games of its time. It brought depth to and created a whole new meaning for the term "strategy" in real time strategy. StarCraft and Brood War became a global gaming phenomenon, and are still games fans will reinstall a decade later to wage cyber war against each other.
With the announcement of StarCraft II, the original games have had an even bigger resurgence, recapturing fans of old and creating new devotees. The Blizzard development team knows that they have a huge challenge ahead of them; they not only have to recapture the magic of the original games but improve upon the quality of the StarCraft franchise. And that is exactly what they intend to do.
And so I present to you an early preview of the core game mechanics and graphics, the meat and potatoes of StarCraft II if you will, that will launch the franchise into the 21st century...
Matt Delman (3)
