Posts with tag StarCraft-2

Blizzard has bought the technology and other assets related to the IGN Pro League. The future of IPL was up in the air due to IGN layoffs back in February with 1UP, UGO, and Gamespy closing shop. Now we know what the fate of IPL will be. Some members of the team will be moving over to San Francisco to work on "high-quality web and mobile content in support of Blizzard games" but it appears that the actual operations of IPL will be coming to a close. Other members will be joining Blizzard's existing eSports team and possibly assisting them with the recently announced Starcraft 2 World Championship Series.

Personally, I've enjoyed watching the League of Legends and Starcraft 2 tournaments that IPL held. I'm quite sad to see them go as I was impressed by the level of quality in their productions. Best of luck to everyone involved!

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"There must always be a Lich King," Bolvar reminded us, and he really, really meant it. Across all realities, in every Blizzard intellectual property, there must be a Lich King. That's right, take a look at that screenshot up there. Yup, that's the Lich King, buried in a sheet of ice somewhere in the Koprulu Sector. Redditor Aunvilgod laments, "I'm just making a map, and I see this..." I'm not sure it's really any major source of concern, though, considering we have recent confirmation that the Zerg would curbstomp the Scourge in a brawl. Then again, that's only good news if you're Zerg. Terrans and Protoss might have a slightly different perspective.

Unsurprisingly, the thread is immediately flooded with cries for a Warcraft 4. I really don't think WoW is going anywhere anytime soon, folks, though I suppose fans can dream.

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Blizzard revealed the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm opening cinematic late last night. Sure, it isn't Warcraft material, but it's fair to say we all enjoy the work that comes from the team that made the Mists of Pandaria cinematic. And don't lie -- you pet collectors are going to be picking up the Collector's Edition of Heart of the Swarm for its Baneling pet anyway.

The cinematic, which you can view behind the cut below along with its accompanying blue post, depicts a Zerg siege of the Terran Dominion as Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, seeks vengeance against Arcturus Mengsk. We really could have done without the Wilhelm Scream at 1:43 in the cinematic, but to be entirely fair, StarCraft has a long history of using it and other cliché stock sound effects.

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Not the first time we've seen something like this: Nakatoir of the EU community team posted this account security alert after Riot Games' EU branch warned its users that hackers "gained access to certain personal player data contained in certain EU West and EU Nordic & East databases." This information included email addresses and encrypted account passwords, and more than half of the passwords were considered simple and at risk of being cracked.

Blizzard issues its security alert because many players who play various Blizzard games like WoW and Diablo III or StarCraft II also play League of Legends; therefore, if they use the same email address for Battle.net as League of Legends or the same passwords, those Battle.net accounts may also be at risk.

This is not an announcement that Blizzard itself has been hacked, mind you. It's simply a precaution based on the habits of players of many games to use the same passwords and login information for multiple accounts. If you're not a League of Legends player in the affected EU regions, there's no way for this to affect you.

The full announcement is after the break.

The upcoming weekend is a big one for StarCraft fans: The United States Nationals of the StarCraft II World Championship is taking place at the MLG Spring Championship all weekend long. For those of you not interested the e-sports scene, there's another event coinciding with this one: The Heart of the Swarm press event is taking place this weekend, and an early build of the upcoming expansion is playable at demo stations on the MLG floor. Heart of the Swarm isn't officially in the beta phase yet, so this will be the first time players have an opportunity to see the expansion first-hand.

To celebrate both the Nationals and the Heart of the Swarm preview, Blizzard has put StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty on sale for the weekend. Blizzard has taken 33% off of the standard box price of $59.99, bringing the price down to $39.99.

Update: Check Battle.net for further information on this weekend's events as well as a pair of video previews of Heart of the Swarm. You can also find the videos embedded below.

The StarCraft II Arcade feature, a tool intended to help the community highlight quality custom maps and game modes created with the StarCraft modding tools, has recently gone into beta. Coinciding with that beta, Blizzard has launched a contest that requires you to play, rate, and review an Arcade game for a chance to win a Heart of the Swarm beta key.

One of the delightful custom game modes that has become an Arcade chart-topper is an incestuous mix of all of Blizzard's major franchises: It's the first Diablo game ported into StarCraft II using World of Warcraft art assets for the 3D models. The gameplay doesn't match the original Diablo click-for-click, but the core mechanics and all of the sound files have been carried from one game to the next, including Deckard Cain's signature stay awhile and listen.

StarCraft II shoutcaster Husky recently featured the game mode on his YouTube channel, and you can watch his 18+ minute preview/review embedded above.

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For the past year or so, I've been living a double life. To some, I am a skilled and tenacious night elf priestess, adventuring through Azeroth at the charge of the Holy Light, healing the injured and saving the incompetent. To others, however, I am but a lowly brood mother, commanding a swarming, parasitic army with occasional success against my enemies across the Koprulu sector. Don't follow me? Basically, I've just been playing a lot of StarCraft 2 whenever I'm not raiding.

Still, being heavily invested in WoW and StarCraft has really felt like living two lives at times, especially when you consider how dramatically different they both are. And I'm not talking about the gameplay; obviously one would expect an MMORPG and an RTS to be incomparable. What I mean is that that the culture and community that surrounds these two games are distinctively different, despite the fact that the games share some of their playerbase with one another. You'd think that one game community would be pretty similar to the next, but they're not.

The whole thing has left me with a lot of questions to turn over in my mind. Is it possible that the WoW and StarCraft communities could learn from the other? Seven years in, is it even possible for the WoW community to change in any significant way at this point? And if so, is there something missing in the WoW community? To explore the idea further, I started making a list of all the things I thought the StarCraft community had that the WoW community was lacking.

We'll be live blogging the opening ceremony at BlizzCon 2011. The start times for this liveblog is as follows:

Pacific Time zone: 11:00 a.m.
Mountain Time zone: 12:00 p.m.
Central Time zone: 1:00 p.m.
Eastern Time zone: 2:00 p.m.

We're expecting a lot from this BlizzCon opening ceremony, including the Mists of Pandaria expansion, some StarCraft expansion announcement, and potentially an announcement concerning the Diablo 3 release date.

Stay tuned! We'll start liveblogging soon.

10:42 a.m. - Patch 5.0 will introduce a new talent system.

10:42 a.m. - Initial reports are that the expansion will be playable at BlizzCon today.

The rest of the liveblog after the break!

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

The machinima and streaming communities built around World of Warcraft are filled with some of the most talented and creative people in gaming, from awesome musicians to dedicated streamcasters. The first time I ever got to experience the WoW beta back in 2004, I was watching someone stream footage of their human warlock messing up mobs in (if I remember correctly) Westfall. Streaming is beneficial to gaming, MMOs, and e-sports because of video games' competitive nature and spectator-oriented design.

You've probably heard of Senate bill S.978 already, most likely from many video game blogs and news outlets or YouTube campaigns fighting against the passage of this bill. Bill S.978 aims to institute a "10 strikes" policy, making the unauthorized streaming of content a felony, resulting in potential jail time. The main purpose of the bill is to strengthen the law and punishments available to organizations such as the MPAA and other content conglomerates to stop illegal streaming of millions upon millions of dollars in stolen entertainment. As is the way of things, gamers might be caught in the crossfire.

Some of you fine readers sent me a few messages on Twitter asking me to weigh in on the 10 strikes streaming bill and maybe give a basic analysis of the thing, so I shall oblige. Lawbringer this week is all about the odd future of bill S. 978 and what it could mean for MMOs and WoW.

If you think we've scratched the surface of Battle.net cross-game implementation with Real ID, you are going to be amazed at what is coming next. Do I know any of this for sure? No, of course not. I base my predictions on three simple facts:

1. Blizzard has created an account-based loyalty program that has encapsulated each and every one of its games;
2. Blizzard is chock-full of smart individuals who understand community, as illustrated by the new community website; and
3. Blizzard has made your account mean something into perpetuity.

If you think Battle.net is sharp at 2.0, you can't even imagine 3.0.