Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, will arrive in stores throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau starting on July 27, 2010. Players will also be able to purchase StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty directly from Blizzard Entertainment shortly after the retail launch.

"We've been looking forward to revisiting the StarCraft universe for many years, and we're excited that the time for that is almost here," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Thanks to our beta testers, we're making great progress on the final stages of development, and we'll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net in just a few months."

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's 1998 hit StarCraft, which has been hailed by players and critics worldwide as one of the top real-time strategy games of all time. Sporting a vibrant 3D-graphics engine, StarCraft II will once again center on the clash between the protoss, terrans, and zerg, with each side deploying legions of veteran, upgraded, and new unit types. Unparalleled online play for StarCraft II will be available through a new version of Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment's world-renowned gaming service. Battle.net has been redesigned from the ground up to be the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard gamers, with several enhancements and new features, such as voice communication, cloud file storage, leagues and ladders, achievements, stat-tracking, and more.

The solo campaign for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will continue the epic saga where it left off in StarCraft: Brood War. The story line chronicles the exploits of marshal-turned-rebel-leader Jim Raynor and features both familiar faces and new heroes. Players will be able to tailor the experience, choosing their own mission path and selecting technology and research upgrades to suit their playing style throughout the 29-mission campaign. Several challenge-mode mini-games will also be included, with focused goals designed to ease players into the basics of multiplayer strategies.

First up, the Warp Ray has undergone a name change and is currently known as the Void Ray. I'm guessing it's an extension of its Dark Templar alignment, in keeping with the by-now-familiar re-skin of the unit.

Karune also talked a little on a popular Void Ray strategy in the game's current build. Here's his post in full:

Warp Rays, also known as Void Rays now, are especially good against high hit point units, as well as buildings.

Often, the strategy that sees the most Void Ray use is against Zerg, using these units to do surprise attacks or joint attacks. Many Protoss players who scout Zerg players going mass ground units, will fast tech to Void Rays in hopes to catch them without anti-air capabilities. Void Rays are also great to do an attack on their base while you have a diversionary force distracting them in another place. 2-3 Warp Rays could take out a Hatchery much faster than say that equivalent in resources of Mutalisks.

Original thread here.

He's also talked about the armour system in StarCraft 2, which, as you guys may already know, is different from the original game.

Here's what he said in his two posts:

At the moment, there is 'light' and 'armored' armor classes. Buildings also fall under the 'armored' armor class.

Attacks on the other hand are a bit more varied. There is bonus damage towards, 'light, armored, biological, and massive.' Knowing a unit's damage bonuses will be very important in knowing what to use to counter certain units.

Biological units usually just mean they are not mechanical. Marines, Zerglings, and Zealots are biological. Non-biological units does not however mean they fall under the 'armored' class though and vice-versa.

For instance, Marauders are biological units but are armored. Nullifiers are mechanical units, but have light armor. Ultralisks, would fall under massive, biological, and armored. Though Battlecruisers would be massive, mechanical, and armored. These new categories also allow for many more soft counters in the game as well, giving slight bonuses to units against a certain type, but not have it as an overwhelming hard counter, where one unit wins the game easily.

Check out his posts here.