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::gnashes teeth::

At least

Blizzard President confirms StarCraft II delay won't affect Diablo III

With StarCraft II pushed back to the first half of 2010, you might have naturally assumed this delay would've also pushed back the release of Diablo III. Not so says Blizzard's Mike Morhaime. From Kotaku:

Later in the call, a financial analyst tried to get top Blizzard exec, Mike Morhaime, to clarify whether the delay of StarCraft II to 2010 would push back an anticipated 2010 release for the studio's Diablo III. The analyst recalled an earlier comment by a Blizzard representative that the studio would release a single major game per year.

"The move of StarCraft into next year does not impact the schedule," Morhaime said. "And so it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard for next year. But I would not make any conclusions on what those titles would be."

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=21988

Battle.net Revamp "Similar To Xbox Live"

You can partly blame Battle.net for the delay of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty into 2010, but based on the capabilities that Activision Blizzard execs are promising for the service, it's clear Blizzard has their work cut out for them.

On top of developing StarCraft II, Diablo III and whatever World of Warcraft expansion(s) the developer is cooking, Blizzard is adding "social networking features, cross-game communication, unified account management" and more to the new Battle.net.

Mike Morhaime, president and a co-founder of Blizzard, says that the revamped Battle.net will let players "connect, communicate and share experiences with each other [...] regardless of which Blizzard games they are playing."

Activision boss Bobby Kotick says the cross-game service will be "similar to Xbox Live," wording that may send a chill down the spine of those wary of plans to monetize Battle.net.

Morhaime says the service will be integrated more tightly with StarCraft II than any previous Blizzard game.

   

http://kotaku.com/5331047/battlenet-rev … -xbox-live

Just curious, I'm a bit worried about SC2 and D3, it's not in Blizzard's interest for them to be TOO good or to have too much multiplayer or replay value, as it may cause WoW players to stop playing.

While I am not surprised at the news of the delay, I am disappointed.  As for many, Starcraft was one of my favorite games, and I am really looking forward to continuing the story.

The good information.

New StarCraft II trailers released

With BlizzCon kicking off later this week, the onslaught of new StarCraft II media has already begun.

Today Blizzard launched two new trailers for the game. The first trailer embedded below highlights the game's single-player campaign:

[player]

The second video though is the jaw-dropper. Blizzard's latest StarCraft II cinematic trailer proves that they're by far still the best in this department. Trust me, you'll want to double-click the video so you can watch it in HD. Crank up the speakers and turn down the lights too:

[player]

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=22034

Well, nice guy that I am, I'll just give you a direct link to that one (FS deserves a few page hits, but I can bend a lttle. You can pick your viewing quality option, HD is hazzable).

StarCraft II BlizzCon '09: Old Rivals Cinematic Trailer HD

I don't think Blizz'll be hurting too bad for bidness. Too bad for the consolers this won't be on any of 'em... Warin.

Last edited by Bat (2009-08-19 10:12 pm)

New Battle.Net Details [Aug 21, 2009, 10:24 pm ET]

A new Battle.Net FAQ on the Blizzard Website offers images of the new version of Blizzard's network interface-cum-marketplace. There are details on how this will impact various games, including how WoW players will eventually be forced to migrate, confirmation the service remains free, and word the marketplace will offer (presumably paid) content. Here's a bit:

What will be available to players in the StarCraft II Marketplace?
After the launch of StarCraft II, we aim to add the StarCraft II Marketplace to Battle.net, which will create a vibrant ecosystem of user-generated content, including multiplayer maps, single-player scenarios, challenges, themes, and more.

How will Battle.net affect my multiplayer StarCraft II experience?
We’ll be implementing a new auto-matchmaking system, with advanced skill tracking to allow players to be matched with other players of similar skill level. This will help players consistently face evenly matched competition. We’ll also be implementing various leagues and ladder systems to allow a more competitive StarCraft II landscape.

What is the Real ID feature?
Real ID is at the forefront of online gaming as it will allow you to easily connect, communicate, and play with real-life friends. Connect with old friends and current guildies, and make new friends with the integrated Battle.net social networking tools. Beyond simply seeing your friend’s character names (e.g. “Gorlac” in World of Warcraft or “Snip3r” in StarCraft II), and having to remember which character name goes with which friend, you will be able to see your Real ID friend and chat with him or her across Blizzard games. What’s more, Real ID is totally optional -- the options are there for you to build your Blizzard Entertainment social network however you see fit.

What are some of the communication tools available in the new Battle.net?
Our vision is for the new Battle.net to become the ultimate Blizzard Entertainment social network, in addition to its matchmaking foundation. Simply logging in to Battle.net will make it easy to find and chat with your friends across World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and future Blizzard Entertainment titles, including Diablo III. Keep track of all your buddies in your friends list, view their online status and presence information, voice chat, send out party invites, and broadcast messages to your friends. Detailed character profiles let players keep up to date on friends’ progress and achievements.

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board. … did=101438

StarCraft II LAN Still a Possibility [Aug 23, 2009, 2:12 pm ET]

It's possible StarCraft II will have a workaround to allow play on a Local Area Network following the uproar over previous indications that Blizzard's RTS sequel will not include LAN support. Kotaku brought this up with Rob Pardo, and he seemed amused at the idea that people will still consider this an issue when the game is released, indicating that in cases where no 'net connection is available, there may still be ways to play: "There's a few legitimate cases that we're going to try and address over time. Location-based tournaments, or let's say I'm in a dorm with a firewall or something like that, hopefully there's a way to determine that and maybe start a peer-to-peer game." Likewise, Shacknews raised the possibility in a conversation with Battle.net developer Greg Canessa work on a solution to support low  latency/high bandwidth situations where they asked if such a solution could provide "pseudo-LAN" support with Battle.Net authentication for local games: "Something like that," he told them. "Maintaining a connection with Battle.net, I don't know if it's once or periodically, but then also having a peer-to-peer connection between players to facilitate a very low-ping, high-bandwidth connection.. those are the things that we're working on." They also confirm with Jay Wilson that Diablo III will deal with LANs the same way StarCraft II does, so it should support any such programming created for StarCraft II.

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board. … did=101482

Blizz loves Xbox?

Shack: At the same time, everyone always asks about Blizzard doing a console game. Are you planning for that possibility? Because obviously at that point, you're on the 360 or something like that, and you're on Xbox Live already, so you'd almost have to do something like what EA does, with its account system.

Greg Canessa: Well, I can tell you, we are building, we're building the--I'll put it this way: that's a hard question to answer. The Battle.net service is being built specifically around the PC, and specifically around our games. What we do in the future, I obviously don't have anything to talk about with regard to Blizzard porting consoles or not in the future. I can tell you that philosophically, the company is interested in consoles. Many of us are console gamers. We all have Xbox Live gamertags, and we all play Xbox at home, and so we love Xbox. And we love Sony and other platforms as well. We have a great deal of respect for them.

Philosophically, the company is interested in--you know, we feel like if we would ever want to go into the console, we'd want to know that from the get-go when we're developing a game, and not spend a lot of time retroing games that aren't designed for consoles. So I think it's more of a go-forward thing if we were ever able to do it. And with regards to Battle.net, it is very much built around those awesome integrated gaming scenarios for our specific games, so if we were to ever do anything on the console, we would want to make sure that those scenarios carried across to the console. How that would work, the details, I have no idea. Couldn't tell you today. [pause] I actually do have an idea, but I can't talk about it. [laughs]

http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1187