Campaign Creations

Kerrigan's new voice actor comfirmed. Blizzard announced her replacement today. Tricia Helfer, who played Number Six on Battlestar Galactica, will be taking over the role for the Queen of Blades.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017259p1.html

Editor screenshots and video:

[imgwh 640x399]http://static.blizzconlive.com/files/1115_normal.png[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x399]http://static.blizzconlive.com/files/1113_normal.png[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x399]http://static.blizzconlive.com/files/1102_normal.png[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x399]http://static.blizzconlive.com/files/1105_normal.png[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x399]http://static.blizzconlive.com/files/1109_normal.png[/imgwh]

Also a video, linked from TeamLiquid:


Anyone with even a small interest in making maps should check it out. It's very impressive and it all seems to be extremely smooth.

Edit: meh, youtube tags not working, access video from here: StarCraft II Custom Map Preview

My opinions: underground zones are fantastic, since I've planned a lot of "indoors" stuff for SC2 (inside buildings, caves, facilities and such). The FPS scenario is also impressive due to its smoothness, and did you notice that the entire player interface is gone?

Also, the ship scenario is awesome (meh, I actually had such an idea for SC2 but looks they've beaten me ). All the ship movements, AI and the different mothership attacks bode well for boss battles.

So ... my comments :

-> The ultralisk part

I believe those tentacles are standalone units and similar to some SC1's core data (ex : goliath turret's shooting and goliath legs parts moving), units with their own attacks would be "attached" to other units. If so, that can be more than interesting since it will make things easier for added attacks of any sort. I can already see attaching lots of modeless custom "guns" (with specific attack types and damage amounts to boot) on battlecruisers in quite a few future maps.

While there was already confirmation that it will be possible to modify the terrain, now we pretty much have proof since the mini-mountains rising is pretty much a triggered custom ability.

-> FPS part

The ghost seems to be Nova based on the suit color and blonde hair. While I don't expect Blizzard to make detailed scenarios with Nova, it can be still interesting for those that would like the Nova model for wanna-be stories regarding Starcraft : Ghost (since if they already made the Nova model, might as well include it in SC2's data).

Seems Blizzard will implant their "Mouse Look" to look around and even aim. If they couple it with responsive and extended key strokes for multiplayer (unlike in War3 where you are limited with the 4 arrow keys at a very delayed response in multiplayer), those who want to turn SC2 into a true FPS will have their dream come true.

While it's interesting that you can change the interface rather than just model changes on the interface like in WC3, the video don't seem to show much more. For example, you can disappear specific interface's aspects and relocate others ... but can you re-locate them in mid-game? Can the interface be interactive (as in actually having custom buttons that start triggers and such)?

The only hope might be that "Close" button is actually a triggerable button and not just a built-in button for closing the multiboard (which shows the Health and Energy in that very small rectangle in that video). They also mention the interface to be scriptable in their engine but that can be so vague and misleading.

The terrain is likely to be less limited since in WC3, you often had to pick only the terrain toolset tied to the base terrain you pick when first creating a map while the video does imply you can more easily pick different terrain (between a "installation terrain" and whatever "grass terrain" in this case).

-> Gladius-like map

While that base gameplay was already done in WC3, if the keystrokes are more responsive, that could be quite interesting for multiplayer.

Back to the Interface aspect, you might see a boss' health bar but that is ultimately fakeable with the multiboard with lots of | characters to make the lines (as in |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| but much closer). It's also already possible in WC3 and doesn't tell much of their new interface aspects. Heck, the top-right "button" before the boss seems pretty much the "closed" button of their multiboard more than anything else.

omega20 wrote: Kerrigan's new voice actor comfirmed. Blizzard announced her replacement today. Tricia Helfer, who played Number Six on Battlestar Galactica, will be taking over the role for the Queen of Blades.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017259p1.html

How about Number Six Kerrigan seducing Raynor?

The editor made me crap my pants. Not much else. Oh, except for a little blood.

Q: Has StarCraft 2 has been pushed back because of battle.net?
A: Well, it wasn’t just battle.net. We knew we wanted to work on the game longer. As developers we want you guys to play this game ASAP, but we saw a bunch of things in the campaign that we wanted to make better. So really, the delay started with battle.net, but we saw lots of things we could do better to make this game meet your expectations. The delay has been a blessing for us.

All right.  I can accept that.


What is everyone's opinion on Kerrigan's voice replacement?

I think it will be a good fit, any hardcore fans won't like just because its not the original VA.

Hunter_Killers wrote: I think it will be a good fit, any hardcore fans won't like just because its not the original VA.

I agree. Even if it's not the original, it doesn't mean she can't do it good. After all, she has a long and recognised career as actress and model ). I heard she'll also voice Veronica (AKA Dare) in Halo 3.

I expect the multiplayer response times to still be craptastic, ensuring that any attempt at a multiplayer shooter will not turn out well.  But that looks very nice for single player maps...

And Ricky, the interface part actually looks like it's a LOT better than WC3's already.  The fact that you can just do away with the standard interface, as Meta pointed out, is a HUGE plus.  I'm just wondering how much you can customize the other buttons, and displays, and things.  I'm wondering if it would be possible to have, like, a complete System Shock 2/Deus Ex style interface, or if it's just going to be limited to putting buttons in different places.  I mean, it would be a big undertaking to make all of that, but it would be great if it were possible.

It looks very promising...

Oh, and about the ultralisk terrain deformation being triggered, they actually said that it was just using the data editor.  I don't think that anything was triggered in there.  I could be wrong, though.

Mr. wrote:Oh, and about the ultralisk terrain deformation being triggered, they actually said that it was just using the data editor.  I don't think that anything was triggered in there.  I could be wrong, though.

Correct, they stated that everything you saw there was done via the data editor. So the terrain deformation was an effect cause directly by the unit, and not hooked via triggers.

I wonder if you can set that terrain deformation to have collision. In wc3, you could have a big pit but shit would just go in and out of it like it wasn't there.

That is already possible afaik in WC3 using triggers. Most likely it will be left like that in terms of general gameplay. If some dude has a thing that makes a big ass pit, for example, no reason why you can't drop an invisible black hole thing that doesn't do damage. Or does. I dunno, this just some high shit. I do like how the editor is shaping up, hardpoints and a customizable interface are amazing on their own, but I'm not gonna hope and assume blizzard is going to do something just because they can, remember KISS is the first rule of coding. Keep it simple, stupid.

Yeah, I know you can do it with triggers, but the Uberlist was apparently done exclusively with the data editor. I'd like to avoid triggers as much as possible; triggers complicate modwork quite a bit.

AA7Dragoon wrote:

Q: Has StarCraft 2 has been pushed back because of battle.net?
A: Well, it wasn’t just battle.net. We knew we wanted to work on the game longer. As developers we want you guys to play this game ASAP, but we saw a bunch of things in the campaign that we wanted to make better. So really, the delay started with battle.net, but we saw lots of things we could do better to make this game meet your expectations. The delay has been a blessing for us.

All right.  I can accept that.


What is everyone's opinion on Kerrigan's voice replacement?

[imgwh 600x794]http://i26.tinypic.com/9qg08k.jpg[/imgwh]

I slowly feel an opinion forming on the subject.

Wow, that's her? I don't even need to hear her voice. Me likes.

/approved