Posted by on July 19th, 2011 at 7:49 pm

Blizzard released a new patch for StarCraft II today! The biggest change in this version is that the North American and South American servers will now be linked together!

General

  • Players from Latin America and North America will soon be able to play games together, add each other to their in-game friends list, and compete on the same ladder. For more information on region linking, please visit the official community site.
  • Several performance and memory improvements have been made.
  • “Player Left” messages will once again appear in replays.
  • The Hellion’s Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade icon has been updated (now with more blue flames!).

StarCraft II Editor Improvements

  • UI errors will now go into a newly-created Error Display Message window.
  • Cooldowns shorter than ¼ of a second no longer display on the command card.

Posted by on May 10th, 2011 at 7:04 pm

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.3.3

General

  • The default hotkey to toggle in-game music on/off has been reverted to its hotkey prior to Patch 1.3.0. The hotkey to display APM in the observer stat panel has been changed as a result.

Balance

  • PROTOSS
    • Archon
      • Now a Massive unit.
      • Range increased from 2 to 3.
    • Cybernetics Core
      • Research Warp Gate research time increased from 140 to 160.
    • Gateway
      • Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
      • Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.
    • Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.
  • TERRAN
    • Bunker
      • Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.
    • Ghost
      • Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.
    • Thor
      • Thor now has 200 max energy, and starts with 50 energy.
      • 250mm Strike Cannons now cost 150 energy to use (cooldown removed).
  • ZERG
    • Infestor
      • Speed decreased from 2.5 to 2.25.
    • Spore Crawler
      • Root time decreased from 12 to 6.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed players to stack air units when issuing a queued stop command before the units reached the end of their patrol point.
  • Fixed an issue where unplugging your USB headset while another player was talking to you could cause a crash.
  • Fixed an issue where the APM statistic could be artificially increased.
  • Fixed an issue where 3D unit portraits were not animating smoothly at slow game speeds.
  • Fixed an issue where, when viewing a replay, no text message was displayed when a player left a game.
  • The Taiwanese hotkey to display/hide the game UI while in Observer mode now works correctly.

Posted by on April 12th, 2011 at 5:13 pm

New SC2 patch today fixes a few bugs in the game and in the map editor. Full patch notes below:

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.3.2

Bug Fixes

  • General
    • Fixed an issue where maps would not appear in the Single Player vs. AI screen (China only).
    • Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders Friends page would stop displaying information if a player had more than 100 ranked friends.
    • Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when players received an alert in-game while 3D portraits were turned on.
  • StarCraft II Editor
    • Fixed a crash that could occur on Editor startup if players had improperly configured variables.
    • Fixed an issue where the Editor would display incorrect cliff height on ramps facing directly N, S, E or W; this issue prevented proper unit vision in game.
    • Fixed an issue where the pathing visualizer in the Terrain Editor would sometimes display incorrect pathing.

Posted by on April 6th, 2011 at 12:56 am

If you haven’t seen it already, you need to check out Underline Entertainment’s StarCraft 2 parody of Paper Planes! I think it is very well done and if you like it, you can buy the song for $1.29 from their website, http://underlineent.com.

Lyrics: Show ▼

Source: Teamliquid.net

Posted by on April 2nd, 2011 at 2:29 am

Blizzard is making a new StarCraft game for the console that lets you use body motions to control the game! Check out the cool video above to see it in action!

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Posted by on April 1st, 2011 at 12:42 pm

New StarCraft II patch 1.4.11 is coming out soon! This patch has a lot of new features and balance changes. Read the patch notes below:

Ultimate Grandmaster League

A new league has been added! Ultimate Grandmaster represents the top one player in each region. Do you have what it takes?

General

  • Players who do not type “GG” before quitting a game will receive an automatic loss for bad manners.
  • Players who are winning a match and type “GG” on behalf of their opponent will automatically surrender.
  • Players with Battle.net accounts registered with the first and last name David Kim will now receive an automatic 20% reduction to all stats.
  • The Dance Studio has been added to the game! Teach your units new dances by purchasing them with your bonus pool. Show off to opponents, impress your friends!
  • Leagues & Ladders
    • In addition to losses, wins are now also no longer shown. Instead, players will see Jim Raynor giving them a thumbs-up after every match regardless if they win or lose.
    • To balance the issue of Zerg under-representation and Terran over-representation in the upper ladder brackets, the names of these two races have been switched. This should result in higher “Zerg” representation and lower “Terran” representation.
    • To keep queue times low, you can now face off against AI players when playing ladder games!
      • Bronze: Very Easy
      • Silver: Easy
      • Gold: Normal
      • Platinum: Hard
      • Diamond: Very Hard
      • Master/Grandmaster: Insane
      • Ultimate Grandmaster: You
  • Maps
    • Two new maps have been introduced to support macro-play! Both maps include 30 expansions, and it will take approximately 5 minutes for a scouting unit to reach an opponent’s starting base.
    • Due to its extreme popularity, two additional versions of Delta Quadrant have been added to the 1v1 map pool to increase a player’s likelihood to queue for this map.
    • To better support community maps, destructible rocks, line of sight blockers, and high yield minerals will now automatically be added into maps that do not have them.
    • Destructible rocks have been added to all base and expansion locations in all maps, including starting base locations.
    • To help lesser known maps get more exposure, there is now a 1-hour cooldown before you can play the same custom map again.

Battle.net

  • To make Battle.net friendlier, all players will automatically be placed in the same Voice-Chat channel upon logging in to Battle.net. Voice-Chat is defaulted back to “On” and volume to maximum every time the game is started.

Balance

  • PROTOSS
    • Hallucinated units now deal damage equivalent to the unit they replicate.
    • Due to the effectiveness of Force Field, it is now a High Templar ability which must be researched from the Templar Archives.
    • Sentries now begin play with Psi Storm.
    • Colossi now have 5 legs. They just looked kinda weird with 4.
    • Whenever a Phoenix performs the barrel roll animation, it cannot be damaged by any attacks.
    • Carrier (new unit) is now available from the Stargate.
    • To better match their namesakes, Phoenixes will now always revive 5 seconds after being “destroyed”.
    • Protoss players that are matched against another Protoss player will automatically start the game with 4 Gateways and Warp Gate tech researched.
    • Due to lack of appreciation by players, the Mothership has been surgically altered to be sleeker and more visually appealing, and has been renamed to the Cougarship. The Cougarship will automatically gravitate toward enemy units that have been in play for 18-21 minutes and attempt to bring them back to the nearest friendly base.
  • TERRAN
    • The Thor has been reverted to its original pre-beta size. Ramp widths on all maps have been increased by 5x to accommodate this change.
    • Due to a recent popular all-in strategy, SCV health has been decreased from 45 to 15.
    • Marines and Marauders now attack while moving. We felt this functionality was a lot of fun on the Phoenix and wanted to add it to some of the less popular Terran units.
    • Battlecruiser movement speed increased from 1.875 to Ludicrous Speed.
    • The Ghost can no longer be produced. Once a Ghost’s progress bar is partially complete it will be postponed indefinitely.
    • To better balance Terran defensive structure options we are adding the Drakken Laser Drill from the single player mission “The Dig” to the Terran tech tree. Its stats will remain the same and will cost 400 minerals and 200 Vespene gas with a 45 second build time.
    • Flying buildings now crush any non-massive units and Protoss Force Fields when landing. This effect can destroy friendly units.
    • Bunker
      • No change.
    • To encourage further tournament use, MULEs will now instantly destroy all units in their path when being called down.
  • ZERG
    • Zerg players have begun to spread creep regularly during gameplay. To counter this, the speed of Zerg units has been decreased by 50%.
    • Zerg eggs now reflect the size of the unit that is being produced.
    • Zergling
      • Now hatch in batches of 4 to help create more of a swarmy feeling.
      • Cost reduced to 25 minerals for each batch.
    • Infestor Neural Parasite ability is no longer channeled and has an unlimited duration.
    • To bring the Queen’s Spawn Larvae ability in line with MULEs and Chrono Boost, Spawn Larvae can now be set to auto-cast.
    • The Hatchery/Lair/Hive no longer auto-spawn Larvae. Each Larva must be individually queued and produced from this structure. Each Larva now also has a cost of 2 Supply.
    • Because the Protoss and Terran have mechanics to circumvent cliffs, we felt it was unfair for the zerg. As such, Banelings are now able to roll up and down cliffs. This upgrade is combined with Centrifugal Hooks, and build time on the upgrade has been increased by 10 seconds.
    • Banelings splash now inflicts damage on friendly units.
    • Banelings now automatically detonate when they touch any other unit or building, including friendly banelings.
    • Ultralisk Cavern tech requirement changed from Hive to Hatchery. For obvious balance reasons Ultralisks no longer crush forcefields.
    • Due to lack of use, the Lurker has been removed from the game.

Bug Fixes

  • Gameplay
    • Fixed a bug where Terran players were able to lose a game.
    • Fixed a bug preventing Planetary Fortresses from lifting off.

Source: Battle.net Forums

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Posted by on March 31st, 2011 at 7:15 pm

Blizzard released a new StarCraft 2 patch today that fixes a few bugs. The patch notes are below:

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.3.1

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where, in some situations, players would not be notified they received an achievement.
  • Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders showcase boxes were not updated correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where, under certain circumstances, the “Return to Game” button in the main menu would not function properly.
  • Fixed an issue where the new observer UI features would not function correctly on custom maps.

Posted by on March 22nd, 2011 at 4:08 pm

Patch 1.3.0 has been in the Public Test Region for about 3 weeks so far, and it is finally ready to be unveiled for the normal game servers! Turn on StarCraft 2 for it to automatically download the new patch, and go play! The full patch notes are in the spoiler below.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.3.0Show ▼

Posted by on February 26th, 2011 at 12:16 am

There is now patch 1.3.0 on the StarCraft II Public Test Region! A ton of changes are in this update, including Grandmaster League, improvements to the Custom Games section, changes to the Observer/Replay user interface, and more. Check out the spoiler below for the full patch notes.

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Posted by on February 18th, 2011 at 8:13 pm

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from loading in-mission campaign saves created while patched at version 1.2.0.
    • *Note* As a result of this fix, in-mission campaign saves created while patched at version 1.2.1 will no longer be usable.

Thanks Elliot for submitting the news.