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What's New With StarCraft II

New Heart of the Swarm multiplayer stuff, a KeSPA invasion at MLG, and StarCraft fandom in... the Sony booth?

If it had been any other game, I would have politely declined and gotten on an airplane to go home. But if you know me, you know that StarCraft II alone would have the power to snare me for an extra day in southern California directly after a grueling week of E3, so Drew and I made the quick jaunt over to Anaheim last Friday to check out the latest multiplayer build of Heart of the Swarm, being shown at the Major League Gaming event going on over the weekend there.

Honestly, not a lot has changed dramatically with HOTS multiplayer since Brian Leahy gave us an exhaustive look at all the new units from BlizzCon late last year. If you just want the quick info dump on where things currently stand, watch this!

If you remember the BlizzCon report, you'll notice the Terran shredder and Protoss replicant are both gone, the latter because, according to Dustin Browder, it was actually causing opposing players to avoid making units they didn't want turned against them. That's counter to the goal with HOTS of increasing the level of complexity and range of options available to all players of the game, not removing them. In lieu of the shredder, Terrans will still get some area-denial and passive defense capability with the widow mine, which itself sounds heavily subject to change. And although I don't care much about playing Terran myself, I'm happy for the inclusion of the warhound's auto-casting missiles that auto-target other mechanical units such as, oh, I don't know, siege tanks? Blizzard is confident that this one ability will help to break up a lot of the viking-tank stalemates you see in pro play, and I hope they're right; I think TvT is by far the least interesting matchup to watch at the moment.

The least-significant-sounding but probably scariest change in the current version is a late-game hydralisk upgrade to movement speed, which Browder said is actually the single tweak having the most profound effect on the metagame in Blizzard's tests. That one change seems like it might restore the ubiquity of the hydra that you saw in Brood War, though I'm not looking forward to dealing with a big mobile ball of pure DPS flying up and down the creep highway all the time. The swarm host and viper don't seem all that different from a few months ago, but since zerg is such a mechanically complex race I'm not even going to speculate about what broad effects these things will have.

Actually, as a Protoss player who's basically never touched the other races, I can only speak with any sort of authority at all about the changes on the Toss side, and I'm extremely excited about what's going on there. Right now it's very difficult not to make a robotics bay in every single matchup--just for the observer's scouting and detection, if nothing else--so Blizzard is making an obvious push to legitimize the stargate as a viable tech path in its own right, primarily with the oracle. In addition to that thing's unchanged ability to entomb an entire mineral line with a single 75-energy cast--which I can tell you from my brief experience is amazing--the oracle's preordain ability, which gives you a long period of vision on a target building, will now also add detection to that vision. Of course, that will make it about a million times safer to go stargate now, without having to worry as much about cloaked banshee or dark templar rushes. Neither of those would have a very easy time hitting the oracle.

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In exchange for the replicant we now get the mothership core, which you can build quickly and cheaply straight out of your nexus in the early game (and then upgrade into a full mothership with a fleet beacon as usual). This thing has amazing potential to change how aggressive you can be early on, since it has the same mass recall as the bigger version. So you can try an initial push and then get the hell out of there if things are going badly, or get your army back to base for defense if necessary. The core can also briefly act as an overly powerful photon cannon, which should make you feel a little more secure about taking a quick expansion. The core can warp between bases for very little energy and seems like an invaluable addition to early-game defense. I'm really bad at using group hotkeys above 5 (that's where my nexus goes) but the mothership core will most certainly occupy a current home on 6 when I play.

Lastly there's the tempest, which is a capital ship that back at BlizzCon was meant as an air-to-air AOE monster suited for dealing with tons of mutalisks. The tempest has now changed roles to some kind of bizarre long-range aerial siege weapon that by default can fire about as far as a siege tank, which has a range of 13. But with the fleet beacon range upgrade, the tempest has a whopping range of 22. Yes, TWENTY-TWO. On the downside, the DPS is pretty low, so you'll need a lot of tempests to do much actual damage, and of course you'll need a spotter for them to fire that far, since their upgraded range far exceeds their sight range. I'm not sure exactly how the tempest will fit into the final game, since it's extremely expensive for the amount of damage it can do, and Browder seemed doubtful the range upgrade will remain in there as-is. It's also worth noting that Blizzard has mostly reversed course on its plan to cut existing units from the game, with the current exception of the carrier. But Browder said the team is having fights every day about the fate of the carrier, so who knows if even that most-disused unit will ultimately exit the roster. I imagine every pro game where a carrier is used effectively moves the minute hand on the carrier doomsday clock back just a little bit.

The most natural way to get a sense of how a lot of this stuff works would be to watch this video with Day[9] and Blizzard's Rob Simpson commentating a sample HOTS match in an instructional sort of way. If you're new to watching StarCraft II, note that this is the general format of what a pro match is like, but you're going to find a lot more energetic and dynamic scenarios taking place in actual pro-level play (much of it commentated by Day[9] himself). It gets way better than this!

Well, if you made it through all of that dry, amateur analysis, odds are you care an awful lot about StarCraft and everything going on with it, so let's talk about MLG a bit. I blew out of town Friday afternoon before the tournaments got started, but spectating through the weekend from my couch, this was the best event these guys have put on so far that I've seen. Full disclosure: my employer has a business deal with MLG, but I've been fairly critical in the past about their failures, which have mostly centered on flimsy production values and basic logistical issues like making sure matches don't lag out, and keeping the video stream running. The production and scheduling this weekend was much more professional by comparison, with quality commentary throughout, multiple matches running almost all the time, and not much downtime in between. Hell, the casters even classed things up a bit by wearing coats and ties. I had some issues with the highest-quality HD feed consistently crapping out on me, but otherwise MLG is inching closer to the point where I can wholeheartedly recommend throwing down the cash for a weekend pass.

The big tentpole aspect of MLG this weekend, and the main reason I even bring the event up, was the absurdly hyped KeSPA invitational tournament that featured the all-time biggest names from current Brood War competition. KeSPA is the governing body that essentially made competitive StarCraft what it is in Korea, but it's been notoriously hard to work with and it initially shunned StarCraft II altogether, since the lack of LAN-only play meant it had to do business with Blizzard in order to run SC2 tournaments. Now that the two organizations are playing nice together, KeSPA's top players are starting to transition over, and this weekend was the first public chance for true legends of the game like Bisu, Jaedong, and Flash to show what they can do.

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Just as a lot of people predicted, they didn't exhibit a lot of especially creative play--the broad strategies were the same sort of thing you'd see in your average match between existing pro players. But the pure mechanical execution from some of these guys was very exciting to watch. Considering they've only been playing SC2 at all for a few weeks, seeing a guy like Flash keep up a staggering rate of production while also being able to split his marines and otherwise micro his units as well as pros who have been playing for two years... well, that makes me really hopeful that there are levels of skilled play in StarCraft II that we haven't even seen yet. I'm excited to see how well these guys are doing after a few more months of practice.

Around the office and in the games press at large, I feel like I've made little headway in getting other people to care about competitive SC2. And maybe I'm not one to talk, since I sort of feel the same way about competitive fighting games (appreciate them academically, glad they're there, little interest in actually watching them) and MOBAs (don't find the game flow interesting to watch at all) that most people do about StarCraft. But here and there, I keep running into likeminded individuals in unlikely places who secretly harbor the same passion. How about the Sony booth at E3? There, I got a chance to meet Shawn McGrath, the lone developer behind Dyad, an indie action game coming to PSN that seems like it is to Tempest what Geometry Wars was to Asteroids (and I mean that in the best possible way). Shawn seems like an all-around swell guy--you'll see an interview about Dyad hitting the site soon--but I also discovered we share a mutual love of two-rax pressure builds and baneling landmines over the weekend while tweeting feverishly about the competition taking place at MLG.

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The idea that pro StarCraft is leading to little stuff like this in the indie scene--the place where the most consistently invigorating game design is happening these days--makes me feel like just a little bit less of a "yeah sure professional video games whatever buddy" pariah. This stuff is great! Just give it a chance! I very earnestly believe there's no purer an expression of complex video game mechanics and the human ability to approach mastery of them than what's going on with pro-level StarCraft these days.

Anyway. It should go without saying that I'm really eager for Heart of the Swarm to come out, mainly because competitive play in Wings of Liberty has largely settled into a repetition of similar builds and strategies, and because I've also kind of hit a wall in my own game that has me sitting around mid-platinum without much hope of advancement unless I quit my job and play full-time. Heart of the Swarm should give a nice boost to both of those problems. We'll have video interviews with Dustin Browder and designer David Kim later in the week to provide some more depth on the new stuff, and reading between the lines a bit while talking to those guys, I'm hopeful that beta may not actually be all that far away.

Brad Shoemaker on Google+

115 Comments

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Toodles

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Edited By Toodles

Wow, great write up, Brad. Less news, more views (about any game) from the GB crew!

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Ben_H

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Edited By Ben_H

Quite excited for the Mothership Core. It is something Protoss desperately needs. It would finally allow up to pressure early game without having to all-in. They're gonna have to balance recall or it will be straight up broken though but I sincerely hope they don't get rid of that ability because it's so cool and has so much potential and can help Protoss so much if they go for pressure as it will no longer be game-ending if it fails against Zerg or Terran because we can actually retreat.

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UnrealDP

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Edited By UnrealDP

@Otzlowe said:

I always get super bummed when I think about the theoretical potential of things in games and then realize that their usefulness in competitive gaming is ruled out by math-hammering and degrees of conformity. I truly dislike that it often comes down to mathematics deciding the usefulness of something, regardless of the way in which it affects the game experience. (Especially since math-hammering, in many cases, ends up not being as definitive as it gets treated).

So, I'll probably be a carebear forever. =/

You should seriously check out some TF2 Highlander games or other FPS MLGs. There's still obviously a bit of math with weapon loadouts, but you can't just boil it down to mathematically perfect builds and strategies, like in an RTS.

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doe3879

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Edited By doe3879

now zerg is the only one with a base that can't attack

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Rayeth

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Edited By Rayeth

Haters gonna hate! SC2 is a great game to watch as well as play, but I have found myself watching (and playing) a whole lot more Dota 2 than SC2 these days.

Dunno what it is about Dota 2 that makes it more enjoyable, but I can still squeeze in a few SC2 matches and VODs here and there. should check out TobiWanKenobi over at joindota.com to understand why MOBAs can be fun to watch. Tobi is pretty much the Day[9] of the Dota 2 world. Valve has him commentating their next $1million+ International event.

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Elwoodan

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Edited By Elwoodan

Campaigns and custom maps here I come!

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gunharp

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Edited By gunharp

@Brad said:

@Spellbot5000: For someone who clearly cares so little about the game, you really spent a disproportionate amount of your life clicking through to this article and writing a comment on it. Why?

Wow, staff biting back. Certainly rare :)

I have been a fan watching video games getting played professionally and speed run for a long time and have absolutely loved the explosion of easy and accessible streaming. This piece was a surprise and I really liked it, nice work Brad. Also I really want to share my opinion on a statement you made towards the end.

@Brad said:

" I very earnestly believe there's no purer an expression of complex video game mechanics and the human ability to approach mastery of them than what's going on with pro-level StarCraft these days."

This is wonderfully put and my favorite sentence in the whole piece. The passion represented is exactly what any fan would say of their favorite competition to watch.

All I wanted to say is that, just because StarCraft 2 is your favorite and the game you understand the most does not make it the purest. I wouldn't say that about my favorite game that I watch over StarCraft now, DOTA 2. No one can discern which is the most pro. Other games have closely matched and sometimes bettered the StarCraft recipe in terms competitive game play.

Oh and yeah I am hyped for Heart of the Swarm.

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deactivated-5afdd08777389

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The "pull" ability of the Zerg looks really annoying...

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r3dt1d3

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Edited By r3dt1d3

Beta is going to be the wild west all over again.

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NekuCTR

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Edited By NekuCTR

@Gunharp said:

@Brad said:

@Spellbot5000: For someone who clearly cares so little about the game, you really spent a disproportionate amount of your life clicking through to this article and writing a comment on it. Why?

Wow, staff biting back. Certainly rare :)

Not that rare from Brad. He has a tendency to slap mofos back into their places.

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comradecrash

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Edited By comradecrash

I think I might try installing SC2 on my bootcamp mac and see how it runs just in wait for this expansion!

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ikaruga

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Edited By ikaruga

I can't wait for HOTS to come out. I've stop playing multi player for a while due to having no time and ladder fear but still follow the pro scene. The addition of un-ranked match making is what I'm looking forward the most to

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bmeason

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Edited By bmeason

@BeachThunder said:

Hmm, how did I know this article was going to be written by Brad...

Only he can tell SCII like it is. Only he...

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Dan_CiTi

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Edited By Dan_CiTi
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Foxillusion

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Edited By Foxillusion

Love that community. Brad's rant reminded me of

http://day9.tv/manifesto/

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Y2Ken

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Edited By Y2Ken

I love watching TvT. I know that's a slightly controversial opinion, but I do. I get why people don't, but I love seeing the armies face off in encounters where a couple of inches of movement too far forwards can cost you everything.

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digitaloctopi

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Edited By digitaloctopi

I heard a while back that there was the potential for another Giant Bomb scrubb league tournament involving SC2. And, that Day9 would possibly cast the tourney. That would make an entire years premium membership worth it. Honestly. Please?

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artofwar420

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Edited By artofwar420

@Wintermute: Isn't there one going on for European Giantbombers?

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leejunfan83

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Edited By leejunfan83

Brad has yet to answer the big red phone

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tescovee

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Edited By tescovee

@brad "after a grueling week of E3" this statement is tongue and cheek, right?

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Grimluck343

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Edited By Grimluck343

Word was Flash played his opening match with a keyboard that didn't work >.>

Edit: And still won in convincing fashion.

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sage2

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Edited By sage2

As a starcraft enthusiast I need to say thank you for the article and Can I have more?

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GaspoweR

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Edited By GaspoweR

It was confirmed during the Live on Three after-hours interview with Flash and a translator that half of his keyboard wasn't functioning in that first match.

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gunslingerNZ

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Edited By gunslingerNZ

@Spellbot5000 said:

Good god, I had a bet going with a friend that Brad was going to bring fucking SC2 up again right after E3. Where are the articles about chess championships or Boggle Tournaments? You know, stupid things like SC2 that no one gives a shit about except their core base of nutter fans.

Woah buddy calm down there, nobody's forcing you to read this in depth and well written article on a highly crafted and supremely balanced game supported by an enthusiastic and friendly fanbase ;). Oh sorry, lolfag teabag! feel more at home?

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impartialgecko

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Edited By impartialgecko

@gunslingerNZ said:

@Spellbot5000 said:

Good god, I had a bet going with a friend that Brad was going to bring fucking SC2 up again right after E3. Where are the articles about chess championships or Boggle Tournaments? You know, stupid things like SC2 that no one gives a shit about except their core base of nutter fans.

Woah buddy calm down there, nobody's forcing you to read this in depth and well written article on a highly crafted and supremely balanced game supported by an enthusiastic and friendly fanbase ;). Oh sorry, lolfag teabag! feel more at home?

with gunslinger. I don't really care about SC2 but I sure as hell can appreciate the enthusiasm of others. Also GB Chess Tournament reports would be fantastic.

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PhilipDuck

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Edited By PhilipDuck

Viper abduct ability is going to just prevent high tier units and will end up Protoss just going mass stalkers, that needs to go or shorten the range. I'm not really impressed by the units added.. :(

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gamefreak9

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Edited By gamefreak9

Great Article Brad! I gotta say the Blizzard balancing process sounds MUCH more hectic than I imagined... 22 range??? really? lol You can just put it above space areas that are only reachable by air and if the guy doesn't have a starport/gate/spire ALREADY you will have like 5-6 min of uninterrupted damage on their base, I doubt the DPS is low enough to make than insignificant

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Tatortots

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Edited By Tatortots

Looking forward to it.

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dudacles

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Edited By dudacles

@Spellbot5000 said:

Good god, I had a bet going with a friend that Brad was going to bring fucking SC2 up again right after E3. Where are the articles about chess championships or Boggle Tournaments? You know, stupid things like SC2 that no one gives a shit about except their core base of nutter fans.

Nobody gives a shit about Starcraft? What? That's one of the most ridiculously clueless things I've ever heard anyone say on this site. I am not a Starcraft fan for a number of reasons, but I still find the phenomenon intriguing. The game is impressive in its depth. There is a reason why there is an enormous crowd of players out there who enjoy the game on both a casual en more fanatic level. That you don't particularly care about the game is absolutely fine, but to throw a hissy fit over it, especially if your only argument for doing so is a blatantly wrong one is just retarded.

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paulunga

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Edited By paulunga

It feels kind of weird seeing an article like this evangelizing Starcraft 2. I don't know if you've heard but Blizzard and their products are pretty popular already.

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MAST

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Edited By MAST

@Dudacles said:

@Spellbot5000 said:

Good god, I had a bet going with a friend that Brad was going to bring fucking SC2 up again right after E3. Where are the articles about chess championships or Boggle Tournaments? You know, stupid things like SC2 that no one gives a shit about except their core base of nutter fans.

Nobody gives a shit about Starcraft? What? That's one of the most ridiculously clueless things I've ever heard anyone say on this site. I am not a Starcraft fan for a number of reasons, but I still find the phenomenon intriguing. The game is impressive in its depth. There is a reason why there is an enormous crowd of players out there who enjoy the game on both a casual en more fanatic level. That you don't particularly care about the game is absolutely fine, but to throw a hissy fit over it, especially if your only argument for doing so is a blatantly wrong one is just retarded.

Dude, don't feed the troll... Obvious troll is obvious...

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zyn

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Edited By zyn

The new units look cool.

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deactivated-5ecb7058c6151

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The protoss are even more amazing this time :DDDD

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masterrain

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Edited By masterrain

Are we going to hear about Brad's lunch for his next blog post?

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Edited By s7

@MasterRain said:

Are we going to hear about Brad's lunch for his next blog post?

fuck off

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shinluis

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Edited By shinluis

Isn't anyone bothered by how most the "new" abilities are just the very same abilities from SC1 they took out at first?

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jimi

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Edited By jimi

Pretty sure the Abduct ability is going to single handedly break the game, zerg looks insanely strong. (I play zerg)

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zaccheus

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Edited By zaccheus

HOTS is a pretty unfortunate acronym.

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koshka

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Edited By koshka

Thank you so much for the post Brad! I really love Giant Bomb and I get crazy excited when I get to read an article about SCII on here.

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NicksCorner

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Edited By NicksCorner

I care only for StarCraft single player. But I do care :)

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obinice

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Edited By obinice

I'd just like to see more of you and Norm playing and commentating in TNT. I don't play SC, but I really enjoyed that!

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Blackmamba85

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Edited By Blackmamba85

@Y2Ken: Mech TvT is my preferred match up to watch, Bio TvT is ok but it's just not as exciting to me.

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Edited By WJist

The thing that kept me from playing more SC2 was the way the league system eventually broke down into me getting creamed every time I played. I realize I am terribad (and can only play Terran with any hopes of winning), but I hoped with HOTS they would either add more leagues or a coaching system for newcomers like in the coming MOBAs. Maybe Starcraft is just becoming impenetrable to me :(

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rmills87

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Edited By rmills87

Awesome article dude!

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mrangryeyes

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Edited By mrangryeyes

I've never played Starcraft 2 but this stuff fascinates me! Fantastic article! I'm wondering if heart of the swarm will bringing new players to SC2. I would love to get into the game with others of no experience!

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Edited By mrsmiley

I watched that entire tournament live via MLG's phenomenal HD stream while texting my two brothers and Moletrap who were actually at the show. Those bastards. Brad I love that you're so into the pro starcraft scene! My brother and I used to commentate Broodwar games on YouTube for a brief period, and it was tons of fun. There are some talented players in the GSL, but I've always felt like their speed and skill paled in comparison to BW players!

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blacklab

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Edited By blacklab

Never played Starcraft, but I find it very interesting. Great article, Brad!

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Edited By jd18b

@Malarkain said:

Woo Brad!

Also, I hate to be that guy...but I wanna see more campaign stuff. I may suck at the actual game but I still managed to get slightly invested in the story.

Totally with you. I am terrible at the multiplayer and when I do play I don't last very long, but I love watching others duke it out. I could use a little more on the campaign as well.

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Shinwei

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Edited By Shinwei

I love this feature, Brad. Keep it up!

Starcraft is the only real competitive multiplayer game I could ever get into. Screw first person shooters and fighting games (and also every other RTS). Starcraft is the only online multiplayer game for me!!

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Paindamnation

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Edited By Paindamnation

This is why brad has been playing so much SC2..