Posted 11/14/09 at 01:20:47 AM by Nathan Grayson

The elevator up from hell sure is taking its time. We imagine that Mass Effect’s Shepard -- even with his eternal patience for cramped spaces, boring music, and upward mobility -- would be cursing up a storm by now if he were aboard that infernal machine. So just imagine how poor old Diablo must feel – especially now the not-so-loveable lug may have a “few years” left before he finally surfaces.

A recent Blizzard presentation listed Diablo III as arriving in the “next few years,” along with StarCraft II’s expansions and Blizzard’s next massively multiplayer cash cow. In store for “next year,” meanwhile, are StarCraft II and WoW: Cataclysm. The bottom line? No loot-grabbing and Satan-stabbing until – at the earliest – 2011. Unless, of course, Diablo III goes into full-on beta mode next year, but we’re not getting our hopes up.

Honestly Diablo, at this point, we’re thinking you should’ve taken the stairs.

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Posted 11/11/09 at 04:33:54 AM by Nathan Grayson

Initially said to be making a nuclear strike on our free time in 2009, StarCraft II’s beta test has officially shoved off into the murky, fog-of-war shrouded depths of 2010.

StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty made the announcement during a presentation at Russian games expo IgroMir, much to the chagrin of the year 2009, which – after providing chronological sanctuary for a global economic crisis and the tragic deaths of multiple beloved celebrities – needed some sort of positive highlight to keep it from going down in history as the worst year ever. When reached for comment, 2010 had only this to say: “Neener-neener-neener.”

For the time being, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is still set to launch in the Spring of 2010. Could another delay be just around the corner, though? We sure hope not – but even if Blizzard decides to take its sweet time putting the finishing touches on its space-faring sequel, it’s not like early 2010 is hurting for major game releases.

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Posted 08/25/09 at 04:21:09 AM by Nathan Grayson

LAN? You still use that? People gathered together and sat around the old LAN, like, back in the days of vee-see-arrrrs and stuff, right? That’s old news, man. But how about that new thing Blizzard’s got cooking? It lets you play multiplayer games with a blazing connection, as if the Internet isn’t even involved. It’s crazy. What will these developers think of next?

"We are working on solutions with regard to things we can do to maintain connectivity to Battle.net in some way, but also provide a great quality connection between players," said Battle.net developer Greg Canessa.

The plan, it would seem, is for the game to authenticate with Blizzard’s server before switching into LAN mode.

"Something like that," Canessa replied when asked about such a solution. "Maintaining a connection with Battle.net, I don't know if it's once or periodically, but then also having a peer-to-peer connection between players to facilitate a very low-ping, high-bandwidth connection… those are the things that we're working on."

So then, can we never talk about LAN in Blizzard games ever again? With this solution, Blizzard’s happy and you’re happy. Unless, of course, you’re a pirate, in which case, it looks like your luck's finally run out.  

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Posted 08/18/09 at 11:54:47 PM by Nathan Grayson

Ok, first of all, deep breaths. Lead producer Chris Sigaty wasn’t banging the gavel on the StarCraft II vanilla edition’s sentence to development hell. That’s still set to launch next year. Rather, he was talking about the full StarCraft II trilogy, which is a flavorful mix of Terran, Zerg, and Protoss. Still though, “several years.” That’s a lot of time. So, what’s up? Sigaty explained:

"We expect everything to be different when you play through the Zerg story and when you play through the Protoss, so you're not going to be mercenaries, and you're not going to be buying tech in that sense.”

"What we're doing with multiplayer, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of, so all those things, we're just starting to move into discussions about now," he added. "I really don't expect us to get into any action on it until we actually ship the game."

Thus, Sigaty concluded, it’s not unrealistic to expect Blizzard’s no-stone-left-unturned tinkering process to last several years. “That's a fair statement,” he replied when presented with such a possibility.

At least, though, they’re not calling the whole multi-year package “episodic.” There's always that.

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Posted 08/17/09 at 11:02:47 PM by Nathan Grayson

The petition may already be having fond, nostalgic memories of the time it was at 100,000 signatures, but Blizzard’s decision to keep StarCraft II LAN-free remains set in stone. So, one might wonder, is Blizzard an unfeeling, out-of-touch monster? Does it even care what its fans think? Blizzard’s Rob Pardo was taken to task with such a question, and he fired back with this little number:

“Of course we care, but it’s not like we’re surprised that there’s a petition about LAN in Star II. It’s not like we went, ‘D’oh. People care about that?’ Clearly, we knew, it was a very tough decision, and I’d say we’d been talking about it back and forth for well over a year before we finally decided that this is more the direction for the future for us, and actually for the industry.”

“If you look at LAN, that goes back to the War II days, with Cali and stuff like that. I think LAN will be a great footnote in our history, just like DOS was. It’s just something that, with broadband and with the connections and the things that we can do on Battle.net, and having to support LAN in addition to that… It’s the sort of decision we have to make that has to be the lowest common denominator for both. I don’t necessarily think [LAN’s] going to be the way of the future. And that’s going to be the best thing for Star II and our future games.”

So there you have it. Blizzard thinks history is all well and good, but the future’s where it’s at. And we imagine Blizzard knows a thing or two about the future. After all, the company did birth one of the greatest futuristic sci-fi gaming series of all time. And that concludes this week’s installment of Flawless Logic Theater.

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Posted 08/06/09 at 02:42:43 AM by Nathan Grayson

BioShock 2, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Singularity, and now StarCraft II? We’d say all that’s left for 2009 are tumbleweeds, but they’ll probably just delay those too. So, who’s responsible for what will surely go down as one of the darkest days in Korean history? That’d be Blizzard’s own Battle.net service.

"Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game," said Blizzard in a statement.

"The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service."

The game’s now scheduled to launch during the “first half” of 2010, which is basically where mom ‘n’ pop have decided to stash the rest of Christmas as well.

If there is a silver lining to all of this, though, it’s that Diablo III’s still chugging along on schedule. Even better, Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime noted that “it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard next year,” which we’re taking to mean StarCraft II and Diablo III. Guys, 2010 is going to be a fantastic year. Expensive, sure, but fantastic nonetheless.

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Posted 06/15/09 at 11:21:20 PM by Nathan Grayson

Or at least, we’re fairly sure the beta’s nearly jacked up and good to go – if a Blizzard email sent out to a number of press outlets is any indication.

The email prompts members of the press to make sure they’ve signed up for Blizzard’s sparkly new version of Battle.Net and requested a spot in line for StarCraft II’s beta. All pertinent info must be in Blizzard’s hands by June 19.

 Based on this information, we’re thinking beta keys will start gracing the mailboxes of outrageously lucky non-press people soon as well. You will hate these people, and you’ll call them names, give them swirlies, and pick them last for the dodgeball team out of jealousy. Do not be alarmed; this is the way things are meant to be.

So, did you enlist in the beta? If not, you’d better hop to it. Really, this could be your only shot at building up some confidence in your StarCraft II abilities. And trust us -- you’ll need it for the game’s retail release, when players from a certain StarCraft-obsessed nation flock to the game in droves and remind you that your happiness was only a brittle illusion.

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Posted 05/07/09 at 01:27:07 AM by Nathan Grayson

It’s true. If you missed out on Blizzcon ’08 or hawked your beta code because you (wisely) anticipated that Blizzard might pull something like this, now’s your chance to register for StarCraft II’s upcoming beta test.

“The StarCraft II beta-test period is coming in the months ahead! If you’d like a chance to participate, now’s the time to let us know,” reads the World of Warcraft website.
   
Just sign-in over at Battle.net, wow Blizzard with your PC’s bleeding-edge specs (or even middle-of-the-road specs; really – this is Blizzard we’re talking about), and start F5-ing your inbox. Better still, even if Blizzard doesn’t deem you worthy of participating in this beta, the opt-in process still nabs you a spot in line for future Blizzard betas. Opportunity is knocking. Are you just gonna stand it up? Go on now. Go!

One semi-major stipulation, though: You must have at least one game registered under your Battle.net account in order to opt-in for StarCraft II’s beta. But hey, it could be worse. At least you didn’t have to fly out to California for a geek-tastic weekend of game-filled fun like those other suckers. Who in their right mind would want that?

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