Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Today on Games I’m Not That Interested In But Kinda Wish I was, it’s Starcraft II. I’m still waiting for the reveal as to quite what it is about the singleplayer that necessitated trifurcating the game, because I’ve never been much of a one for multiplayer RTS. I can’t, however, imagine that Blizzard are unaware of this kind of mindset, especially in light of what their name means to that hefty slice of the WoW crowd who aren’t into the PvP or raid elements. They’re up to something, I don’t doubt – I just don’t know quite what yet. Hopefully it won’t just involve bombarding us with expensively-made cutscenes until we pass out from lore exhaustion. There’s a hint of what they’re up to in a new dev diary here, which includes the magic word ‘decisions’. Ooh! I like making those! Unless they’re about what to eat or whether I should put any clothes on, anyway. Also: new Zerg footage below. It’s SC2’s take on The Spy…

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Yep, even though the beta was going to happen “in a few weeks” back in September, it’s actually not happening in 2009. Eurogamer have the full story, and they remind us that the first chapter of the game, called “Wings of Liberty”, is due to be released in the second quarter of next year, so some time between April and June. It seems vaguely ludicrous to look back at what I wrote about it when I was one of the first people to play it – back at the end of 2007! Wow, I was still young then. But hey, that’s fine: I’ve basically got more games than I can play right now anyway, and everything else is delayed until after Christmas. I mean, this week alone I still need to write about Tropico 3 and the PC Dirt 2 code we got in – and those Darkspawn aren’t going to kill themselves…

“WoW Microtransactions Begin”, says the headline on Bluesnews. I gasp and imagine what the RPS community will make of the idea of selling a mini-lich and a panda with a hat – two in-game pets – for $10 a pop. Buying the panda one actually gives money to charity, too. He’s not evil, you see. My journalistic analysis of this occurrence amounts to me inviting you to imagine Scrooge McDuck’s diving-into-gold sequence, only with squealing Blizzard executives instead of an anthropomorphised fowl.

So Blizzard’s Starcraft: Ghost action game might not have seen the light of day, but it seems you’re going to be able to build your own third-person shooter within Starcraft II anyway. What? Yes, the editor is super-flexible, and is even going to support mouselook. Building a third-person shooter inside the RTS editing suite is going to be a possibility, as Blizzard demonstrated with their proof of concept at BlizzCon. Video of it in action below. The scrolling shooter is also acceptable. Cheers to sub edii for pointing out this link.
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Enormo-trailer ahoy for World Of Warcraft. We’ve got the full thing posted below, along with two fly-through trailers for the zones of Gilneas and The Lost Isles. We get a look at some of the changes to existing zones that have taken place during the cataclysm, as well as some of the new features and classes. Gobbos, and wolf-dudes, obviously, but also some of the new monsters, dungeons, and progression stuff. Oh, and Deathwing the ebil dragon. He’s not happy.
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BlizzCon has revealed the Monk as another class for Diablo III, as well as revealing new environments with the borderlands, an evil-infested desert zone. The Monk, needless to say, has miraculous punching and teleporting abilities, for the slapping of evil. Multiple trailers below, along with the traditional scene-setting cinematic.

There’s some crazy rumours flying around about Diablo III coming out this year, with the original story being that it won’t hit in 2010. Obviously we’ll be keeping an eye on that.
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The new World Of Warcraft expansion has been announced at BlizzCon. It’s called “Cataclysm”, and will raise the level cap to 85. There’s also going to be two new playable races, goblins and worgen, and the obligatory new dungeons and raids. VG247 got the whole thing in detail over here.

The Monk class was announced for Diablo III, too. And there’ll presumably be a video available soon – the main site has been flattened by the internet for now.

More hyperbolic hyperbiff inbound from Blizzard, who are going to be causing fanmen to punch the air and whoop at Blizzcon later this week. It’s time for the Starcraft II trailers, and we have a CGI sequence with Zeratul up to his Protoss-business in some space-ruins – not Blizzard’s best, but okay – and then plenty of in-game footage, showing off storyline, environmental effects, and tiny men shooting each other unto death. Also robo-things with lasers for eyes, which usually go down okay in the Rossignol household.

Other SC2 news includes: No co-op campaign, and some kind of DLC, as well as a “trial”, which will be released after the game hits the shelves/internet.
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Chums of RPS VG247 have (just about) scooped the internet with a huge hands-on previews of Starcraft II, and an interview with Blizzard bossman Rob Pardo. Needless to say, we get to learn quite how Starcraft II causes other games to seem like nothing in comparison, and how the three-game structure that the game has been broken up into will work. Here’s Pardo on those two follow-up expansions: “Right now the plans are to do something along the lines of full single-player campaign and some additional features on the multiplayer side, but obviously using the same engine. That to me is an expansion price point. If we decided to put in three new races, and a bunch of new technology and features, maybe that would be a standalone product. But right now I think we’re looking at being much more like an expansion feature-set.” Anyway, go have a read of the full thing. The internet will be overflowing with more SC2 stuff today, following a big press event.

We’ve done some psychic research and are aware quite how many Diablo II fans there are reading. Loads of you. So there should be some smiles at the news that there’s an unofficial patch to finally let you play it at a decent resolution. If you’re still playing the game, and we know you are, you’ll know the frustration of the limitations. Fret no more! (The small catch is it means you can’t play online.) You can get the patch from ModDB, and then play the game in any resolution your monitor is willing to present.