StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[Meta]

Their air weapons and ground weapons function independantly. In the big fight, you see the BC's shooting at air units when they get close enough, and at ground units. Both weapons are working at once. On top of that, Yamato seems to have a really short cooldown (Maybe just for the demo).

Do you even read the thread, meta?

No.

What did you guys think of the voices? I personally didn't think they were too hot.

Loved the Nydus Worms noises though, as well as most of the sound effects.

[IskatuMesk]

The SFX were okay.

I really hope they get new voice actors. This better not be as bad as WoW was...

[Hercanic]

• Spell: Something that costs energy to use
  Ability: Uses a button to activate, but at no cost
  Special: A special ability that requires no input from the player

Zealot
60sp, 100hp
Weapon: 1
Armor: Ground
Special: Charge (quickly closes gap between them and their target)


Immortal
100sp, 240hp
Weapon: 1
Armor: Ground
Special: Hardened Shield (actives only when hit by a high-damage attack, absorbing most of the damage)


Phase Prism
40sp, 100hp
Weapon: 0
Armor: Air
Ability: Unload (Replaces Shuttle, converts units to energy to transport)
Ability:

• Phasing Mode (E)
  Psi: 2
  ??: 2
  "Deploys a Phase Prism into Phasing Mode and generates power radius similar to that of a Pylon."

Stalker
60sp, 120hp
Weapons: 2
Armor: Ground
Ability: Blink (teleports a short distance)


Colossus
325sp, 400hp
Weapon: 1 (Beam attack deals a continuous stream of damage)
Armor: Ground
Special: Can step over cliffs


Phoenix
60sp, 120hp
Weapons: 2
Armor: Air
Ability: Overload (fires weapon at all nearby targets, but renders the unit temporarily inoperable afterwards)


Warp Ray
75sp, 120hp
Weapon: 1
Armor: Air
Special: Attack deals more damage the longer it fires on a single target. Seems to have 3 stages, signified by one, two, and three streams of energy from the base structure merging into the main stream.


Mothership
250sp, 850hp
Energy: 300
Weapon: 1 (fires a volley of 8-12 projectiles, able to engage multiple targets simultaneously)
Unit Limit: 1
Spell: Time Bomb
Spell: Planet Cracker
Spell: Black Hole


Additional Observations: Plasma Shields seem to have a delay after ceasing to take damage before they’ll begin to recharge.

Unit health bars are displayed above units now instead of at their feet.

Deaths leave holes in your selection queue, rather than rearrange as per normal SC or even WarIII.

Speaking of the queue, next to it is a box with a 1 in it. My best guess is it shows your hotgroups.

Special upgrades are noted in the upper left corner of a unit's wireframe, such as the Zealot leg enhancement icon and the two shield icons for the Immortal.

[Xenon]

They said each race has the same number of units it had in SC... so...

SC                              SC2

Zealot                        Zealot
Dragoon                      Immortal
Dark Templar              Stalker
High Templar              High Templar? (you can see it in the Zergling portion of the artwork video)
Archon                        ?
Dark Archon                ?
Shuttle                      Phase Prism
Reaver                        Colossus
Observer                    ?
Scout                          Phoenix
Corsair                        Warp Ray
Carrier                        ?
Arbiter                        Mothership

That leaves 4 units unaccounted for. Carriers Carriers Carriers Carriers? 

Blizzard was silent on whether using Battle.net for StarCraft 2 would require a charge or subscription fee. The service will certainly have new features, Blizzard assured the press in the audience, but they weren't willing to get into pricing specifics.

Anyone else horrified by the possibility of a subscription fee for Battle.net? Personally I'd rather pay $100-$150 for the game up front than pay a monthly fee, but such a system would just encourage bootlegging and cd-key generators... 

[Anonymous]

That would backfire so badly. I for one won't be buying any online services. I'll just use battle.lan.

Also, they'd better have carriers.

Plus I'm sure the Phoenix replaces the corsair, and the warp ray replaces the scout. Phoenixes get owned by BC's hardcore. They fit the role of the corsair (Aoe vs small air) much better.

[Maglok]

I am more thinking they probably have archons stashed somewhere. I mean come on! Archons!

[Xenon]

Plus I'm sure the Phoenix replaces the corsair, and the warp ray replaces the scout. Phoenixes get owned by BC's hardcore. They fit the role of the corsair (Aoe vs small air) much better.

Well, that was just an approximation to show how many units are left. The unit replacements don't fill the exact same role as any previous unit (e.g. Scouts suck against buildings while Warp Rays own them).

[Taeradun]

Yeah, if they were going to make SC2 units as direct equivalents to SC1 units they might as well just make SC1 in 3D

And yeah, sif pay for b.net
Hamachi ftw, it's not as if they could take away support for LAN games...

[Hercanic]

Stalkers are the Dark Templar's version of Dragoons. Not a replacement for the Dark Templar themselves.

The Colossus deals damage best to small swarming units as demonstrated by the video against Zerglings. I don't think it replaces the Reaver in a siege capacity.

The Phoenix is definately more of a Corsair replacement than Scout. Warp Ray, on the other hand, is your capital-killer like the Scout, but more versatile now with the ability to vaporize buildings. I like how they're designing counters in a more intuitive fashion based on the workings of the units themselves, and not just some lame, complicated, and easier-to-design hard counters with armor and damage types (Warcraft III). Hardened Shields, the Warp Ray's accelerating damage, etc.

I don't see the Mothership as an Arbiter replacement. Remember, as SC2, they'll be adding plenty of new units, not just replacing old ones. Think of this as Broodwar on steriods. And crack. ...And acid. ...And ecstacy........

Anywho, yeah, I'm excited to see in what ways they've decided to diverge the three races even further for more unique gameplay for each race.

[Xenon]

Hecks, I should have just listed those in no particular order and said so.

[Taeradun]

yeah some of these guys are a bit slow to catch on

of course the other thing to remember is that while I can't find the exact quote at the moment, Blizzard said there would be "around the same number of units" but doesn't have to be mechanistically fixed at exactly the same for totally arbitrary reasons - again, this is SC2 not SC1:3D - and that the protoss had 3 less buildable units before Brood War (with Blizzard apparently saying they haven't made any real plans for an expansion yet, but I guess they'd probably be silly not to)

edit2:

The units in Starcraft II will evidently consist of a combination of brand-new troops and holdovers from the original games. According to Pardo, the team is taking the approach of evaluating units from the original Starcraft and deciding "which ones are so essential that it wouldn't be Starcraft without them" and keeping those, while axing others in favor of new units, since Starcraft II will not have a significantly larger number of units per faction than Brood War. Returning units are being evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses to see how they fit into the new game; in some cases, they're being upgraded or rebalanced with new abilities.

could allow for SC2 unexpanded to have slightly more units per faction than Brood War had, if Blizzard thought it appropriate for gameplay :thumbup:

edit3:

Think of this as Broodwar on ... ecstacy

OH FUCK YES

[Meta]

Stalkers are the Dark Templar's version of Dragoons. Not a replacement for the Dark Templar themselves.

Exactly. Plot-wise, the Immortals are the "new Dragoons" as they're homes to fallen warriors.

The Colossus deals damage best to small swarming units as demonstrated by the video against Zerglings. I don't think it replaces the Reaver in a siege capacity.

Well, it does seem to melt down buildings really fast, as shown in the gameplay video. And its supporting role, behind the melee units, seems to reinforce the point that it may have a Reaver/like role in the frontlines.

Reaver Drop is something entirely different though. From its huge size, I don't know if we'll be able to load Colossus into a transport.

However, there's Reaver concept art in the SC2 site, as well as in the Artwork trailer, so maybe it's not out of action yet.

The Phoenix is definately more of a Corsair replacement than Scout. Warp Ray, on the other hand, is your capital-killer like the Scout, but more versatile now with the ability to vaporize buildings. I like how they're designing counters in a more intuitive fashion based on the workings of the units themselves, and not just some lame, complicated, and easier-to-design hard counters with armor and damage types (Warcraft III). Hardened Shields, the Warp Ray's accelerating damage, etc.

I hope they don't remove Disruption Web from the game though, it was such a sweet skill.

I don't see the Mothership as an Arbiter replacement. Remember, as SC2, they'll be adding plenty of new units, not just replacing old ones. Think of this as Broodwar on steriods. And crack. ...And acid. ...And ecstacy........

Anywho, yeah, I'm excited to see in what ways they've decided to diverge the three races even further for more unique gameplay for each race.

In fact they're replacing units, not adding them. I recall reading in an interview that SC2 will have the exact same number of units that SC had - no idea if by "SC" they mean "SC:BW" or just vanilla SC.

From Gamespy: One of the most surprising revelations in the team's presentation was that StarCraft II will have the same number of units as the original game. That means that for every new unit added to a sides' army, one had to come out.

This is available here: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/starcraft-2/790195p2.html

Of course, there may be special units available for UMS/Single Player campaign only.

[Taeradun]

Yeah I hope that Blizzard are kind enough to include artwork and game functionality (ie. if carriers are taken out, still have the build/launch interceptor capability) for the old SC1 units that are taken out - obviously they wouldn't be perfectly balanced, but would be useful for mods and stuff.

Westwood did this, including with Tiberian Sun art for vehicles from Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1, and also releasing Red Alert 1 vehicle art for Renegade (though I forget if this was random niceness or releasing leftover relics from an actual cancelled commercial game/expansion)

Exactly. Plot-wise, the Immortals are the "new Dragoons" as they're homes to fallen warriors.

Although as it says on the SC2 site, the sacred shrine where dragoons were created has been lost to the zerg, and so there are no new dragoons/immortals, and something about soon they will all be dead.

Whereas Stalkers are still able to be made by the Dark Templar, though apparently not with "restoring wounded soldiers" as the main goal - though I was thinking that would be an interesting plot for a campaign I could do to have Stalker technology used to "restore" a legendary warrior fallen in battle - not a Dark Templar though, so the abilities would be different - no Blink, but maybe something instead

[Maglok]

"But the archons! What about the archons!?"

[WB]

After reviewing the artwork trailer (the trailer, NOT the artwork on the site's artwork section, they are different!)...

Overlords are still in: You can see them floating in the background of the destroyed protoss city with zerg structures in the BG

Reavers are still in: They can be seen underneath the colossus shortly after the above. Also, i think I see carriers in that same shot! huzzah!

Terrain: shaping terrain in the editor seems to be the exact same as wc3, ramps, cliffs, all look the same.

What looks like Char, looks fucking sexy! Honestly, i think mapping will take on a whole new form, never before seen in an RTS. At least I haven't - and ive done mapping in a lot of games!

@ roughly 1:30, lower right corner you can see a unit not yet announced, and I haven't seen him anywhere else. I'm thinking templar.

@ 1:35...OMG HYRBID!

@ 1:36, you can clearly see a spawning pool, among others