SC2Forums.org Starcraft 2 Press Conference Report

http://www.starcraft2forum.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=60

 

Great article! owerup:
You clarified some things to me about Zerg.

 

Great article Jon, but I already give you a owerup: for the other thread, I owe you one.

 

woah so much information to digest....
phoenix no longer having a ground based attack....
the colossus does seem to be more effective with the new attack.... but i still don't like the way it looks like.....
thor being an anti air unit.... and also faster speed? woah if its the same speed as a normal tank... some air units are gonna have a lot of problems...
jackal seems to be quite effective against infantry... hope the attack doesn't get nerfed....
nomad has a new model? damn just when it was growing on me.... but the turrets seems to be too strong..... almost killing a tank on its own.... i expect it to be quite devastating against infantry units and worker drops....

now onto zerg...
roach seems like a really interesting unit, fast regen and low on the tech tree, will be one hell of a harasser... and once roaches take over a base those last minute units being produced won't be able to do much before they die as the roaches will regen all their health...
ultralisk... no match for an archon? how strong are the archons then....
thanks for clearing up how swarm guardians work....
but woah the most interesting news here is that the infestor can infest PROTOSS buildings.... jeez wonder what kinda units are gonna come out of it.... infested zealots????
and the mystery of the nydus worm is pretty much solved there... just how fast does it move around?
finally the queen. Blizzard seems to be intent on making zerg quite unique... a lot of info about the structures that can be built..... the sunken cluster and the shriekers seems to be a quite an idea..... wonder how strong the sunkens are though....

overall excellent information owerup:

 

Haha, I guess ones dreams can come true!

I just have one small question. Can you possible draw a paint.jpg of the new Nomand? I really wanna see it!

And great article!

 

Nice good article!

After thinking about it I have some things i would like to change:
Roach - dont like that the hydra is tech 3, what AtG will you have?!!? Overall i dont like the unit, its just like it only can be used in the tech difference from 1 - 3 (not useable all game).
Overlord - should be able to transport like dropship + shuttle. Else the transport abbility of the zerg is to low (T and P have cliffjumpers + normal transport).
Sucky flying medic - WTF? No MM, no Boxer?! cant be true...
Colossus - Liked the other attack more (grafic wise), could be to good vs Zerg.
Infestor - Tier 2? Sounds OP, perhaps some of the abbilities are tier 3?

Good things:
- Reaper gone, seemed like it wasnt to usefull (no other rule then clifffjumper).
- Generally Queen, just like she should be.
- The Nydus Worms way of working, great idea!
- Thor, seems like they have found a good role for it!

Some questions:
Q: How does the Pheonix work? Still its abbility or not?

A: The Phoenix still has its overload ability and is very effective against air units

 

Jon! Karune's head!? You were supposed to just get his leg! You were supposed to just get his leg!

Some Questions:

Does the Medivac Dropship heal units while they're being transported? Can it heal them at range like a normal Medic?

A: I'm not sure if it heals while transporting wounded units, but I think it does. And yes it heals units at range.

Can you give us ballpark cost estimates for the new Zerg units?
The Roach costs about the same as a Hydralisk and most units that aren't new cost about the same. The Baneling morph is already known, it's about another 75 minerals. I believe the Ultralisk is 200/200

How were the Queen's abilities managed? How much did her structures cost? Did you pay in energy or resources?

The Queen's abilities were mostly based on cooldown although one was based on mana. The building swarming ability costs 75 mana. The construction of buildings varies between 30 minerals (creep tumor) and 75 minerals (sunken thing) and has a 15 second cooldown. But you can just queue them up and she'll build as many in a row as you want.

Did the Lurker still morph from the Hydralisk? You said the Hydralisk Den was Tier 3... which would make the Lurker, tier 4?

Yes, the lurker morphed from the Hydralisk. The upgrade to be able to do so was a researched upgrade but I did not mention the Zerg's new upgrade system in my article. Each unit has a "level up" system of upgrades. So instead of upgrading all melee or all ranged attacks, now you upgrade individual units. So you can have level 1, 2, or 3 zerglings. At level 1 they get speed, 2 they get attack and armor and increased attack rate, etc... So it has revolutionized the way the Zerg upgrade.

Actually, a general tech tree update would help a lot....

I will try to get to this when I get home.

Can you elaborate on how upgrading the Queen works?

The Queen is upgraded similarly to a Lurker. You just "grow" her to the next level whenever you have the appropriate tech and resources. However, if she is killed you will need to generate a new Queen that will be back at level 1.

Do buildings do different things when infested? What do infested Protoss buildings do? Is it reversible?

The Protoss buildings CAN be infested, but right now no Protoss infested units have been completed. So right now Protoss infested buildings produce Infested Terrans. The ability is not reversible.

What abilities are natural and what have to be researched?

Not sure what you mean by this....

Can Zerg buildings be infested? Can Zerg air units be corrupted? (Is it ugly? It's ugly, isn't it?)

Actually, that's a very interesting question, and one I don't have the answer to as I didn't try it.

 

Great job on the report!

Since you've played the game, how do you feel about the units' portraits and voices? I know some of them may not even be there, but some others are already there from what we've seen in the movies.

So how do they look like? Are the portraits of old units similar to what they've been? Are there alot of changes to voices/lines or more things like changing Adun to Tassadar etc?

The Thor sounds like Schwarzenegger, which is REALLY funny... but otherwise a lot of the old unit sounds are still being used as well as portraits. If I remember more I'll try to mention them.

btw. Is Hydralisk really that incomplete? On the main sc2 site it doesn't have animation indicating hitting an air target, was it noticable in the build you've played?

The Hydralisk was fully playable and targeted ground and air units. I'm not a big fan of its animation ATM because it looks like its swimming.

Do other Zerg suffer from it as well?

Not sure what you're referring to.

 

Finally got my comp back (its been broken a while) and the first thing i see is that zerg has been announced and that joneagle got a interview with blizzard, i just like OMFG'D

First of all I'm a little disappointed that blizzard turned the Thor into a new Goliath, its just the same, not very effective against ground and good vs air. The new Zerg defense systems seems intresting and I'm sure pro zerg players will love playing with it and developing intresting tactics.

I like the new colossus attack but they really need to change the animation for it cause it looks really weak.

and finally, WTH, infested protoss?! isn't that supposed to be the hybrids!?

I really like the way starcraft 2 is going and i think its gonna be full of win

and btw owerup: to you joneagle

one more interview and you will have more then 100 powerups

 

Okay guys, I went ahead and edited all the posts with questions to answer them as best I can. However, I need to catch my flight so I don't have much time.

I'll try to elaborate more when more questions are asked and I have more time.

Please read the above posts for my answers to questions.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Nice Jon! what was SC2 like? what was your favourite race so far in SC2?

 

About Hydralisk and other Zerg, if you take a look at the Action shot on Hydralisk page, you'll notice that there's is no sign of BC and vikings receiving damage from hydras. No spike projectile, acid splash, nothing.
I was wondering if this is the case with other zerg units as well

 

Thank you for all the answers!

 

Great stuff.

How do I steal your job?

 

You will have to beat the awesomeness of his Titan-like ability to answer all the questions of life before having a chance on stealing it without somebody missing him oh Forum God.

Anyway, thanks for those edits Jon. But we could have expected that Blizzard wouldn't create any unit portraits for the new units yet. They might still be scrapped, so it would be a waste of time to make them. (although it would suck if they did it because of that, since scrapped ones seem to appear in the editor later on )

 

Oh maaaaaaaan, i shouldn't have read this report- i am SO PSYCHED for SC2! its good to have someone that actually got to go see it all being developed give us some positive feedback and let us know that this game IS in fact going to ROCK and tha tthe naysayers need to just TAKE IT EAZY!

no but for real, the zerg sound very, very cool, as well as everything else you talked about. still can't wait.

 

Wish I could had been there :upset:

*goes back to dreaming that one day beta will come*

 

This is some great information, Jon! It was very informative to the stage of development that SC2 is in right now. I just have one quick question regarding nydus worms: since they are a cloaked unit while moving around I was wondering if they blur the ground that they are passing over liked normal cloaked units, or if the only way to detect them is by some for of detection?

Thanks for making the "arduous" trip to go and find out all this awesome stuff for us!

No, you cannot even tell the Nydus Worm is there unless you have a detector. It's a bit overpowered right now.

 

What abilities are natural and what have to be researched? --What abilities do casters like the Queen and Infestor have when the units are freshly unlocked? As opposed to ones where you have to research the ability to unlock them.

The Queen automatically has the ability to build the Swarm Clusters and Creep Tumors, but you must have the lair and she must be a Large Queen in order to build Shriekers and cast the "Swarm" ability.

The Infestor can cast Dark Swarm right out of the gate, but all its other abilities like Infest must be researched.