Posts with tag starcraft-2

Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.

	StarCraft II turned into World of StarCraft by enterprising fan World of StarCraft is, by all indications, high on the list of desirable games that have never been announced or even hinted at. It's certainly a universe ripe for development, and it's not as if Blizzard doesn't know anything about running an MMO. But why wait for an official release when you can put the game together yourself?
	The latest RIFT news If upcoming MMO RIFT has caught your attention, the past week had a number of RIFT-related news stories that might strike your fancy. New beta additions? PvP details? New class reveals? Massively has it all.
	First Impressions: Battlestar Galactica Online Last year, developer Bigpoint announced that Battlestar Galactica Online was being developed as a free-to-play browser MMO. Just last week, Massively was able to get its hands on the game and take it for a spin.
	The Guild Counsel: What every leader should know about recruiting Do you like WoW Insider's Officers' Quarters? Then you might like Massively's Guild Counsel. This week, The Guild Counsel tackles the topic of guild recruitment, discussing the right and wrong ways to do it.
	Hello Kitty Online meets Manhattan Hello Kitty Online is near and dear to our hearts here at WoW Insider. We were all excited to hear about the latest HKO update. Hello Kitty Online visits New York City, where the locals have gone missing for mysterious reasons. Find out what happened, and cheer up the victims!
	Week in Review: It's all about souls Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup.

You might have heard that Blizzard and its lawyers have recently started new litigation against three StarCraft 2 hackers in District Court. To a lot of people, this looks like another case of Blizzard going after more hackers for screwing with the online experience. To me, I see Blizzard's lawsuits as positive EULA-builders with huge benefit to the independent game market. It sounds crazy, but less so when you think about the concept of buying precedent.

As BlizzCon 2010 comes to an end, Paul Sams (chief operating officer of Blizzard) started out the ceremonies. A series of intentionally bad gamer jokes followed as he got the crowd ready. He then took it to a serious note and thanked attendees both attending in person and at home.

Blizzard used this opportunity to bring out the tournament winners. Warcraft 3 winner Remind (night elf) from South Korea and StarCraft 2 winner NEXGenius (protoss), also from South Korea, were presented with $25,000 for being grand prize winners. They will also be getting an eSports ring customized to their game that's the size of Superbowl rings. The WoW Arena tournament was still going on at this point (*aAa* vs compLexity.Red), so there was no winner to announce for it yet.

BlizzCon 2010 is finally here and the schedule's pretty packed for opening day. If you lucked out on a BlizzCon ticket (and had the resources to make it out to Anaheim), you might be hard-pressed to choose which panel to attend, given that there are two stages where panels happen simultaneously. On top of that, the world's best StarCraft II and World of Warcraft arena players duke it out on separate areas, as well. After the opening ceremonies, there'll be a showcase of Diablo III gameplay concurrent with a showing of StarCraft II cinematics; these are followed by a World of Warcraft dungeons & raids panel and StarCraft II secrets of the masters; after those, there's a panel on WoW quests & lore, as well as a discussion on SC2 custom maps and editor; finally there's a live raid for WoW and a Q&A on the SC2 storyline. To close the first day, there are the costume, song, and dance contests which I'm fairly certain will be on everyone's itinerary.

One easy way to go about BlizzCon would be to just follow one game, such as World of Warcraft, and attend all the relevant panels. If you're like most folks who play Blizzard games, however, you're probably a big fan of everything they churn out (you're looking at BlizzCon, after all), which means picking the best panel to attend can be a bit of a dilemma. Happy problems aside, if you didn't have to choose which stage to sit in front of -- like those of us who picked up the DirectTV stream -- what part of today seems the most exciting? Personally, I think I'd have to go for WoW quests & lore. Now that we're already at Cataclysm, I can't wait to see what they've got in store for us, story-wise. Is there anything you're really looking forward to today? Or are the cooler events (e.g., the class panel) happening tomorrow? What do you think Blizzard's got up its sleeve?

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BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

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Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW.com staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" (Otherwise known as WRUP!) Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game -- and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too!

I have to admit it: I'm just not into all of the StarCraft 2 hype. It's a bit awkward since practically everyone I know -- and a lot of the WoW.com staff -- seems to be excited about SC2 above all else. So I'm attempting to turn things around, at least for the duration of this post, with this week's WRUP. In addition to asking what everyone's playing this weekend, I've asked for everyone's thoughts on the ongoing Cataclysm beta test. Well, it might have taken their minds off SC2 for a minute, at least ...

Everyone's answers -- and your chance to add your own -- after the break.

• no current plans for an online handle to be used in game with Real ID instead of your name
• feature to disable your name's appearance in Friends of Friends list coming around the time of StarCraft II
• plans for some sort of unique ID on the WoW forums

The full announcement is after the break.

Ever wonder what happens to raid bosses when they get bored? For Thaddius, it seems he has been spending some time moonlighting over in StarCraft II. While he was there, it also seems like he's picked up a few more tricks and upgraded his armor. After all, Naxxramas was only a setback!

IIam4 used Thaddius as an inspiration for his entry into the custom ability contest on SC2Mapster by recreating his Polarity Shift. While he was recreating this ability, he also decided to add a few new features of his own.

• Shocking Grasp A random target will be paralyzed and take damage over time. If any other unit comes within range of the afflicted unit, Shocking Grasp will jump. This can create a chain reaction.
• Spawn Volatile Spark Two volatile sparks are spawned, serving as summoned adds that should be DPSed down right away.

These abilities combine to create a very interesting and creative boss battle using the StarCraft II editor. The amount of micromanagement required to keep all of your units alive adds a nice level of complexity to the boss encounter. I personally like that Thaddius is a giant Maruader unit. This video is a nice showcase of the tools that were available even in the beta and exactly what could be done with enough motivation.

StarCraft II is set to release on July 27, 2010. While I'm absolutely certain it will be a fantastic game in its own rights, I can't help but wonder if we will see any more player-created World of Warcraft crossovers with the tools that are shipping with SC2. Can you imagine a campaign where the end boss is casting Defile while you try to micromanage all of your units safely around it? How about navigating your troops into position for a Shatter or managing Burning Adrenaline. Maybe a little Doomfire for good measure! This could bring a whole new level of fun to Tower Defense and Mastermind-style game mods!

So, if you could recreate any one boss or ability from WoW in a StarCraft II fight, what boss would it be?

Do you want to talk to your friends even if they're on other servers, or the opposite faction on your server? Well, Blizzard aims to make that possible via Battle.net, and it's coming before Cataclysm.

Zarhym - Re: Cataclysm Friends List Idea

This is exactly what we are working on implementing with Battle.net and real-life friends. You'll be able to add friends at the Battle.net account level and talk to them while in-game whether they're on the opposing faction, a different realm, or another Blizzard game entirely. This is coming prior to Cataclysm.

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Q u o t e:
Please tell me that people will not be able to "friend" me without my consent. I don't care to be tracked across servers and factions except by a couple people I know IRL.

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This is correct. No one outside of your faction on your realm will be able to communicate with you unless you accept their friend request, or they accept yours. You will still have your normal World of Warcraft Friends list, but we'll be adding in the ability to have Battle.net players on your Friends list as well. The characters on your Friends list will allow the same communication functionality which exists today. It's only when you've confirmed someone as a Battle.net friend that you can take advantage of the additional communication features.

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The real surprise for me is that people playing, say, StarCraft II or Diablo III will be able to chat with people playing World of Warcraft via their Battle.net accounts. It's a definite extension of their Real ID program mentioned during the StarCraft II preview, and I'm even more surprised that it's going to be out before Cataclysm ships. I know that even if I don't play Diablo III (which is unlikely, how will I be able to resist the barbarian?), being able to talk to the various friends I have across six servers will be a positive boon for me.

Blizzard appears to be cleaning house in preparation for its StarCraft II release as well as its Battle.net revamp. In a recent announcement on the service's forums, Blizzard rep Bashiok revealed that over 300,000 accounts were punished for violations of the terms of service for Warcraft III and Diablo II for using hacks and illegal third-party tools (which are essentially hacks).

For those of you who have had past experience with Battle.net, these numbers probably don't surprise you. The network has had a long reputation of being fairly easy on people using hacks as Blizzard tends to save up over a long period of time in order to do a massive batch of bans at once. This means that those who are using hacks have a long period of time to abuse the system before anything is done about it. The hacks for some games were rampant enough that other players began using hacks that detect other hacks. Regardless of the reason behind using a hack, it is still against the terms of service and means if you get caught, you're out.

BlizzCon 2010 has been officially announced! The convention will run October 22nd and October 23rd at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. This was as we previously reported back at the beginning of February.

Despite the very sparse information available from Blizzard, we do know at least one thing -- Jay Mohr will be hosting again. Ticketing information is not available yet, and we don't expect it to be for some time. What this says about the release date of Cataclysm is also anyone's guess. We don't have any solid information on that at this time.

BlizzCon 2010 Announced

If you've been holding your breath waiting to find out when and where the next BlizzCon would be held, then... you've probably passed out by now. But if you've just been patiently watching for an announcement, then we've got good news for you: BlizzCon will be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday, October 22 through Saturday, October 23! Just as in years past, BlizzCon 2010 will feature an exciting mix of discussion panels, tournaments, hands-on gameplay, contests, and much more. Check out the announcement press release, and keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com in the months ahead for further details, including ticketing information.

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Many of our readers have already weighed in on what they expect from this upcoming BlizzCon -- expectations are high. Hopefully we'll be getting for information about the event soon. You can bet that WoW.com will be there again this year, and we've already got plans in the works to hold an even bigger meetup than last year!

If you're using an Nvidia graphics card you should check your drivers, as there is a chance the newest drivers could cause your card to overheat during World of Warcraft, the Starcraft II Beta, or even Warcraft III. Blizzplanet reports the issue complete with links to two threads on the Nvidia forums discussing the issue, including one that states that Nvidia will be updating the driver in the near future.

Please check your drivers to make sure you're not using the versions that cause this problem and roll back if you can.

Datth - Low FPS with Nvidia 196.75 drivers

We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones.

Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_196.21_whql.html
Windows XP 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_196.21_whql.html

More information can be found on threads such as these:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161525
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161503

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