Q&A From Irvine and Pictures!!!!!!!(IMAGE HEAVY)

Hey guys. I'm in my hotel room, it's 4:30 am PST (7:30 am EST, I'm dead tired) and my flight leaves in about 7 hours. So I did the natural thing and posted all this news! Anyway, I had a great time!! Here are the questions and answers that you guys asked, and what I could get answers to, I did, if I didn't get a real answer of any use, I didn't post it here . Hopefully I'll be able to answer the rest of your guys' questions in other threads as to how the game works as of now. I've also included pictures after that!! Enjoy!!

Also, as a side note, we had a 2v2 tourny while we were playing... Jon from GameReplays.org and I teamed up and we placed second. Unfortunately TeamLiquid beat the bejesus out of us. But we didn't do too bad (3-1).

**NOTE: IMAGE HEAVY!!!

Hopefully I'll have some video and screenshots up later.

Q&A with Blizzard Devs

*NOTE: Unless included in quotation marks, these are summarized answers from the Blizzard dev team. Enjoy!

Q: There are mixed feelings towards the issue on MBS and rally-mining. What is the current state of MBS as well as rally-mining?

A: MBS and Auto-mining and currently included for all races. There have been huge discussions on the dev team on whether to include MBS and auto-mining. These debates continue but the mechanics are still included as of now. The team is exploring the effects and possible negative consequences of having the system, including the variation in how the mechanics affect the three different races. All of this is being taken into account.

Q: Can you elaborate on how the Protoss and Zerg campaign works?

A: All three campaigns have been laid out although the orders and specifics have not been decided. However, the single player side of the game is being designed for extreme replayability and customization of the storyline.

Q: Will there be times of day?

A: This is not decided, depends on the outcome of beta testing. However, weather effects being utilized on Char was mentioned in discussion.

Q: What will be the minimum and recommended system requirements?

A: This is absolutely unknown at this point. The team expressed extreme interest in relaying this information once it is determined.

Q: Is the learning/skill curve for advancing in SC2 more difficult, easier or comparable to the original?

A: Basic skills are still very tough to acquire, but otherwise the learning curve is very similar to that of SC1.

Q: From the development standpoint, how far into the beta phase is SC2?

A: The game is not currently in beta testing and still has not been distributed company-wide.

Q: Does Blizzard intend to have a dedicated balance team for SC2?

A: Yes.

Q: With the ability of Anti-Gravity in play for the Protoss, will that allow buildings that have units or upgrades in progress to continue to progress in the air or will that cancel unit progress and/or upgrades?

A: Unit production and research queues are paused while being elevated.

Q: Will scratched SC2 units be included in the map editor?

A: Yes.

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Picture Gallery

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic2.jpg[/img]
Coming in the entrance!

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic4.jpg[/img]

[img width=500 height=666]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic5.jpg[/img]
Tychus FTW!

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic6.jpg[/img]
X's and O's with Dustin Browder

[img width=500 height=666]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic7.jpg[/img]
Blizzard Museum

[img width=500 height=666]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic10.jpg[/img]

[img width=500 height=666]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic9.jpg[/img]

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic8.jpg[/img]

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Gameplay!

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic18.jpg[/img]

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic12.jpg[/img]
Karune kicking some ass!

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic13.jpg[/img]
Browder in action! "I don't usually suck this bad, I swear... " Uh-huh. No, but seriously, a very cool guy.

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic11.jpg[/img]
ME!

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After the hard work was done....

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic17.jpg[/img]
Me, the boys from Starcraft.org, Karune, and GameReplays

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic16.jpg[/img]
Steffi(Community Manager) and Me

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic15.jpg[/img]
Karune, SC:L, and Me!

[img width=500 height=375]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/J0neagle/pic14.jpg[/img]
The whole gang... uhh.. I think.

 

Cool! That must've been great, and you did really well to place second! Did you get to play Zerg?

heh, honestly I forgot what MBS is but the answer is the usual "we're working on it"

Cool, replayability, I like the sound of it I don't think I will have much time for online play, so more campaign is great news

Again, they're doing "something" about it, but interesting about the wether effects. Imo it'd be better without night/day, since it wouldn't even work on all maps (platforms), but wether... we shall see

I had hoped that they would have some estimates by now, but at least good to hear that they're willing to release it early.

I imagine it will be tough, especially for Zerg with the new Queen even pros will probably take a while to grasp it.

So no beta keys yet? Then we'll have to wait till June (or was it July?) for some beta info

Good to hear they take it seriously, all the new mechanics will need alot of balancing to perfect it and we expect no less from Starcraft2

Score for Nullifier, though I don't think how it could drop marines from the air, but even research progress stops, even if for a while it's always some help

I think we knew that already, but thanks for confirming that. I imagine some racing games with soul hunter ;D
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Glad to hear you had great time there! I'll be waiting for shots and vids. I DO hope you have Swarm Guardian shots there

 

Great images! I'm so jealous right now.

 

Great job Jon! That are some great pictures, and the Q&A gives us much better information than the regular batches. I am really happy to see that the scrapped units will still be available in the editor. That is just begging for people to make mods and custom maps. I love it already. I could give my opinion on the rest, but it is all just great. Nothing to add from my side here.


Here's a owerup: for all of your hard work, although that just isn't enough to reward you for what you did. Oh well, I guess you will be fine. :good:

 

He went to Blizzard and played StarCraft2. I think that is a reward.

 

Hi, is the game real widescreen (multiplayer)? Todey most LCD are wide.
Or is SC2 stretch or cut at top and bottom like bioshok?

 

@-|LT|-
It is indeed a nice reward, but giving us the info is even better.

How about a description on how the game is played at this moment? Is it just as smooth as Brood Wars, or isn't really possible to compare them right now since it's still in such an early stage. (when looking at balance and bugs of course, the graphics and stuff like that doesn't really matter here)

 

Read his article on main page, he wrote alot info there

meh you did already

 

hey gj mate...this info is really good =]

one question though: do you know, by any chance how much damage does a collosus do with his new attack?
as you can see we have been discussing the new collosus attack in another thread, and many people hate the attack animation.

I do not have an exact number of the damage that the Colossus inflicts, but it is significant enough that if more than 4 Colossi are grouped, they will annihilate any ground units sent at them. Forget Zerglings and Zealots all together, they just won't do it. Any number of Zerglings can be sent without effect.

another question: does the thor still turn uber slowly??? =P

No, the Thor is much quicker and has about the same speed as the Seige Tank.

 

By the way, the Xs Os pic is great. I've been trying to digest what kind of tactics does it describe and then I read "Insta-Hydra, just add water"
Freakin hilarious ;D

 

Really nice work there Jon! Thanks for asking two of my questions!

 

hey Jon great article. owerup:

i have question and you said we could ask anything



1)what was the cpu-ram-vga-screen resolution in the PCs you where playing, and if you had
many many units on screen in battle did you feel the FPS drop or any glitches at all?

I'm unsure of the exact specifications of the machines, but they were clearly very fast. I would estimate upwards of 3.0 Dual Cores, with probably 8800 equivalent video cards, but we were unable to see the stats of the computers. For the most part they ran very smooth but we had our fair share of technical difficulties.


2)we have seen the latest zerg hd video with the zerg gameplay the last battle demostrates how Blizzard is Balancing Visual effects-explosions etc over Gameplay and practicality and "clear" battlefield, how did that felt to you?

The Battlefield was very easily interpreted to me. I didn't have any problem distinguishing generally what was going on. Yes, there are some glitches, and some things are a bit confusing, but for the most part its a very slick interface.


3)did you photograph the New NOMAD??if yes could you post that new look?

Unfortunately, no, I could not take photographs directly on the screen. However, when I get a chance I will draw out what it looked like. ASAP


4)and last question, why did you leave from there????you should try and camp by force! :upset: :upset: ;D

Haha, I thought about it, trust me. Especially when they showed us where Team 3 is working...

tnx

 

:thumbup: ^_^ ;D

 

@ johnnyxp64 - Dude, you can not power people up yet... You need to have 40 posts to be able to do that.

 

I got a question for ya: Can you corrupt a Colossus?

Yes, the Colossus was corruptible in the build we played.

 

Pardon me but this is BS. They know what systems they run SC2 on and they know how much it stresses the system, and I wouldn't be surprised if they already tested SC2 on somewhat older machines as well. Why can't they just give an estimate? Nobody would take it über strictly and start complaining if the guess was far from what the requirements will be for the final. What have they got to lose by giving an estimate?

Besides that, I thought there'd be more Q&A like noting down other sites' questions and the answers.

Nice pictures though except for the red eyes (you live in the US and have no camera capable of removing red eye? lol)

ps on the last gameplay pic, is that the campaign menu on the screen?

 

damn i was 39 back there

about the pictures i cant say untill now i am pleased if not all, Most of them are Blur and not focused! maybe you had the wrong mode sellected i did that in mine too sometimes

i hope you have some photos from gameplay and the changed units as i said.

also if you could ask my question (blue) we can estimate the system requirement untill the current build.

 

We already did that a while ago. Check this article made by Jonagle_X, it is probably pretty accurate. We could use some more up to date stuff though. Jon sat behind those pc's so he should have been able to see what kind of pc's it were.

@kuvasz
Lol, you are right kuvasz.
Maybe they are aware of the fact that their promise about "older machines will be perfectly capable of running the game" isn't going the way they planned. The game is probably has higher system requirements then Warcraft 3, (good game to compare it with in my opinion)and you need a pretty solid machine to run that in full graphics on a large map.

 

There's a difference between sc2 and wc3. Warcraft doesn't need too good of a machine to run regular game, but weaker computers lag alot on bigger maps. You can play campaign with 256MB RAM, but some of the customs mades load for ages at 512MB RAM and lag alot.

SC2 not only will have higher requirements to just play the game, but regular maps will be closer to the big ones in wc3 since it will use alot more units even in short matches

 

Nice! Good thing I just got my 1G RAM memory! Phew! If I end up having to change my machine, at least a good RAM I will have already! \o/