Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Yes, I’m aware that “power overwhelming” is a Protoss line – not Zerg. But that’s really the only way to adequately describe what’s being depicted in StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm‘s ultra-lavish CG opening. Well, that or “ooky, pukey Overlord Leviathan insides,” but a) those don’t show up for too terribly long and b) I wanted to forget that they showed up at all. So mainly, Blizzard continues in its rich – if all-too-predictable – tradition of titanic armies clashing and beating each other over the head with kitchen sinks the size of Death Stars. Oh, but this time, there’s also A Twist. I wish I could tell you that I mean The Twist – implying that everyone sets aside their differences for a scintillatingly choreographed dance number – but sadly, you’ll just have to settle for a surprise reveal at the end.

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It says much about how different Blizzard’s games are from the norm that Diablo III’s lead designer, Jay Wilson, moving on from the divisive hacker-slasher to another role with the same company can be news. Blizzard’s games are designed to live for a long time, not to be abandoned after a couple of post-release patches and some token DLC. Don’t expect to see Diablo IV for at least another decade, y’know? Instead, D3 remains in a state of continuous development, catering to a large and vocal community, balancing and rebalancing to increasingly anal degrees and, no doubt, trying to become a goliath of real-money transactions. Then there’s the much-rumoured console version of the game potentially still in the wings. So, a going concern, and now in need of new leadership.
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You! Yeah, you! I am enraged in you general direction. Are you manly enough to fight me? Yeah? Crap. I thought you might back down and run away. Erm. Can I interest you – OW! – please stop, and I’ll pay you – NOTTHEFACE – I have money! Take my watch! It’s my birthday and I’ve just wet myself. Just please stop pummeling me… Man, did I just learn a lesson: real-world violence solves nothing, causes bruising and pain, and might even result in soiled underwear. From now on I’ll be doing all my fighting online, and Blizzard will soon make it possible to do so in Diablo III. The next patch will deliver a basic PvP structure to their game. Finally!
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The Big Lizard send word that they’ve opened Heart Of The Swarm’s beta to people who pre-ordered before December 18th. People who pre-order from now on will be placed in a kind of vat and liquidised. No wait, I read that wrong, they will be added to the beta in subsequent waves. That’s right. There’s a download link for the client through the link, but unless you’ve got beta access it won’t work, no way, no how. Unless you’re a magician. Or a magic hacker. Or a time-traveller. Any of those is fine.

The game itself is all set for a March 2013 launch. I’ve posted a trailer below, in case you’ve forgotten what a Starcraft 2 is, for some reason.
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Well, that didn’t take long. Hackers sneaked past Blizzard’s hyper-sophisticated security system – presumably by cinematically lowering themselves from a cyber-ceiling to avoid all the e-lasers – and people weren’t too terribly happy about that. Unsurprisingly, a couple of them decided to sue. Unsurprisingly-er, Blizzard’s replied not by groveling and begging for heartfelt forgiveness, but instead by whipping out its fightin’ words pistols and shooting down the whole thing.

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Oh, that was such a dick move of me, wasn’t it? To do a … and everything to make you read the story? It’s not even because I’m chasing hits. Hits, shmits – it’s just that I’ve got a tiresome headcold and am feeling highly belligerent as a result.

I’ll make up for this awful wasting of your time by definitely not posting the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm release date underneath the ‘Read the rest of this entry’ jump.
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Since the dawn of time, people haven’t been the greatest communicators. Unable to bridge both geographical and interpersonal gaps, we’ve come to despise one another on pretenses that are flimsy at best. But maybe, all this time, we really just needed a universal language – a go-between that made sense of our Picaso collage of quirks and differences. What I’m saying is, maybe we needed non-region-locked StarCraft II servers. And soon – finally, mercifully, gosh, jeez, ugh – we’ll be getting them.

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I suppose it had to happen eventually. Blizzard‘s done a rather miraculous job of keeping hackers at bay for quite some time, but this year saw a few too many blemishes muddy its track record. So naturally, it’s lawsuit time. Specifically, the two plaintiffs target a May admission of an increase in account compromises on Blizzard’s part and August’s rather messy Battle.net breach. Then they take aim at what they believe to be the all-too-achey-breaky heart of the matter: authenticators.

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Today, Blizzard got on a phone and opened its collective mouth, and as so often tends to happen when these factors combine, words came out. Instead of glorious operatic ovations or beat poetry, however, the words somewhat surprisingly took the form of videogame announcements. And the games in question? Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. Madness, right? What a world we live in! What a world. Ride the break down into the frightful depths of uncertainty for the full blow-by-blow.

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Sometimes, I view my mundane day-to-day tasks as a series of experience-endowing quests. Go the grocery store. 300 XP! Obtain vegetables (x10). 400 XP! Defeat the checkout line – which is, in fact, a hideously undulating centipede monster – and escape the store as it collapses into an all-consuming void of infinite nothingness. 7 XP! Is it any wonder that I see things that way, though? I mean, everything has a leveling system these days. Even when they don’t really make a whole lot of sense. Case in point: StarCraft II.

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