This battle report is a Zerg vs. Protoss. With Yeon-Ho Lee as the blue Zerg in the upper-left part of the map. Then we have David Kim as the Protoss to the mid-right part of the map. This is another awesome display of StarCraft 2.

We get to see brilliant use of Stalkers with there Blink capabilities. Also the Nullifiers use of Force Field is well played blocking many Zerg units on a lot of different occasions. Both of these units are Protoss units. For the Zerg we there is great use of Burrowed Infesters that can move freely underground. The Burrowed Infesters use Neural Parasite to turn enemy units on there own teammates units.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced a few weeks ago at the Activision Blizzard Conference Call during E3 that StarCraft II Beta would start this summer. Today, the Gaming Press Sites awakened fans with the news that Blizzard has contacted all of them by email to alert them to set up their Battle.net account by Friday, June 19th (deadline). Does this mean beta starts this weekend? A week later?

The answer is not that simple. No date was provided to the press, but it is exciting to know it is gonna frag everyone any second after June 19th. It is interesting how the news got leaked today, which marks the last day of school classes throughout United States. Something fans should know is that, around last month, the media was invited to visit Blizzard Headquarters this June 22nd.

Kulas Ravine:
The first battle report is Matt Cooper as red Protoss on the lower right. David Kim is on the top left as blue Terran. This map has narrow choke points at each base so it can be easily defended . There is also an expansion near by that has a high ground advantage for defense. There is also Xel'Naga watch towers which allow you to see what is going on in a large area around them if you capture them. There are also high yield mineral fields which have faster resource gathering. However they are not as easy to defend as other expansion spaces are.

If you would like to sign up all you need to do is log on to your Battle.net account. The requirements are simple all you need to do is have at least one blizzard game on your battle.net account(which requires the cd-key). Once logging in click on "Beta Profile Settings". Then download the beta opt-in application for windows or mac depending on which one you use. Run the program and send it to blizzard and be sure to select StarCraft universe. Here is Blizzards Beta Opt-in Instructions that about sums up how to sign up.

As for when the beta will start there is no official start date. However if you look at the past game release dates four have been released in late June early July. Another four were released in November. Perhaps the beta will begin soon and the game will be out in July? Let's hope so or else November is the next date I could foresee other then July. Just remember this is based on past games and there release dates.

The beta will be done in phases North America will be the first region. Then other regions will follow. So that makes me happy if I get selected(If so that would mean a lot more content for this site). The reasoning behind doing it in phases is that it takes time to set up and configure the testing infrastructure in each area. Once the North American region is up and running the other regions should come quickly after because Blizzard should be able to streamline it.

If you went to BlizzCon 2008 they gave out codes that you can use to gain access to StarCraft 2 Beta. Also if you have an unused beta code from WWI 2008, you will be able to use the code to gain entry to the European phase of the StarCraft II beta. One last thing is that if you made a Battle.net account awhile back and checked a box to indicate you wanted to participate in Blizzard betas. You still need to download the beta opt-in application and run it.

Writeup:

First of all, the development team had been planning for a long time that StarCraft II would include two expansion sets. So from that perspective, the answer is from the beginning, or near to it. From the sense of, “when was it decided that each campaign would focus entirely on a single race and telling one enormously epic story?” then that decision started coming together around the time that the first details of our single-player campaign design were announced at BlizzCon 2007.

Once the dev team started delving into what it would take to create a branching campaign, with meaningful choices in missions, technology upgrades, and all the story elements – the in-game and pre-rendered cutscenes, the interactive sets with dialogue, news reports, and all those aspects, it became clear that it was going to be a ton of stuff to try and cram into one product.

Rather than compromise on the massive vision that was coming together for all three races just to fit a short campaign for each of them into one product, it became clear that the right thing to do from a gameplay, story, and design perspective was to go *big* on all three races. We’re talking about 26-30 missions for –each- chapter of the trilogy, more cutscenes, more interactive elements, and campaign choices that become more meaningful. Each campaign has more room to breathe in this way, and the storywriters can be more creative in how they bring the plot along, and the designers can get really creative in the mission designs and objectives throughout each campaign.

This goes along with the whole "multiplayer is at the heart of Starcraft II thing. Being focused on multiplayer is no excuse to not give us top-tier AI for both movement and in the single-player campaign. Movement and pathing is obvious, of course. Nothing kills an RTS faster than a unit getting lost on the way to a battle. That being said, opponent AI is important too. Plenty of people will be playing StarCraft II for the single-player campaign and the skirmish mode (possibly more than will ever play multiplayer) and they deserve a decent opponent. Remember that "learn from others" tip? Check out what Stardock has been doing with game AI.

Yay! New screenshots! They're all unfortunately fairly low-res, but beggars can't be choosers, aye?

Here they are:

With BlizzCon approaching, the Sons of the Storm art website, made up of Blizzard artists, has added a couple new StarCraft 2 artworks to their website.

There's SCV concept art by Samwise, which you guys should have already seen, but they've also uploaded full high-res artworks for Zeratul as seen on the BlizzCon 2008 poster, as well as the cover for the final book in the Dark Templar trilogy - Twilight.

The poor Zerg player gets his butt handed to him very soundly by the Medium Terran AI.

In addition to the game's downright prettiness even in such a low-res video, we also get a tiny glimpse of the Zerg Changeling unit, which currently uses the Zergling portrait, from the looks of things.

If I recall correctly, the Changeling can assume the form of a tier-1 enemy infantry unit. It's basically just there to scout, as this fellow in the video correctly deduced. Seeing them running alongside all the real marines has got to be the cutest thing I've seen in StarCraft 2 :P.

Watch the whole video here, or click on the picture.

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.

Here's what the had to say:

The Hellion is faster than the Reaper side by side, but the cliff traversing talent often gets the Reaper to the place you want to go faster.

In raiding, it really depends. Hellions will be able to hit several workers at the same time, but Reapers have much more direct damage. Choosing what to use may also depend on what you are up against. Hellions are armored, whereas Reapers are light armor. Both are very useful for raiding and used in conjunction effectively could easily mean GG quite early, bleeding the enemy economy and tech.

Anyway, Karune has confirmed that Broodlings (with a timed life) do indeed spawn from non-defence Zerg structures:

Yup, all Zerg buildings (not including defenses) when destroyed, will produce a handful of broodlings (which have a timed life).

Any player plowing through a Zerg base should always remember to keep moving their units around to take the least amount of damage from these broodlings.

Swarm Guardians still produce broodlings as well, when they strike a unit or building.

In the past, one had to content themselves with clicking Ursadons until they exploded. But no more.

Now, thanks to Spore, you can bring the devastating firepower of the Terrans to bear against freakish four-armed, six-eyed creatures with purple scales and yellow stripes, which are called 'Galoots' if you so desire.

StarCraftWire ran a great little story on this, complete with pictures, so if you have Spore and are a StarCraft fan, I can think of no better way to play the game than with your very own StarCraftian army. :]

Karune broke the news in this battlenet forums thread, where he said that:

The Jackal, now known as the Hellion, only has the flamethrower weapon. In previous versions, there was a railgun hover vehicle, but that will no longer be in multiplayer.

The Hellion is currently one of the best units for "micro" since it is faster than all other units in its tier, and also does splash damage in the form of a line with the flamethrower.

Think Firebat on wheels!

Yellow cockpit thingies looks good on Terrans. They should have kept it for the Viking (I still think the new Viking looks ugly).

In an unrelated and tiny news story (so small that I did not feel it warranted its own news post), StarCraft 2 has been featured on a '13 PC games we can't wait to play in the next 12 months' list on a website called: Den of Geek.

You can read the rest here.

They very cutely also give a shoutout to a rather odd phenomenon in another EA game - Spore:

News originally posted on Kotaku.

Sixty-thousand light-years from Earth, the corrupt Terran Confederacy holds the Koprulu sector tightly in its tyrannical grip, controlling every aspect of its citizens' lives. One man dares to stand up to this faceless empire and vows to bring it to its knees: Arcturus Mengsk -- genius propagandist, tactician, and freedom fighter.

A monstrous act of bloody violence sows the seeds of rebellion in Arcturus, but he is not the first Mengsk to rail against such oppression. Before Arcturus grew to manhood, his father, Angus Mengsk, also defied the Confederacy and sought to end its brutal reign.

The destiny of the Mengsk family has long been tied to that of the Confederacy and the Koprulu sector, but as a new empire rises from the ashes of the past and alien invaders threaten the very existence of humanity, what will the future hold for the next generation...?

Blizzard's latest monthly discussion topic is that of Zerg Creep. Here's what the boys in blue have to say:

Discussion Topic: Zerg Creep

One of the distinct features of the Zerg is their fast movement, quick reactions and their large numbers. With the newest changes to the StarCraft II build these attributes are bound to reinforced once more.

Here are a couple of changes to the Zerg:

Zerg units except Drones can now move 30% faster on creep

Creep Tumors are smaller and burrowed

These changes will have a big impact on Zerg strategy, since covering terrain with Creep will now be very important. We will see Overlord rushes with mass spewing of creep and Zerg fast micro on creep. The burrowed Creep Tumors will force the other races to get quick detection to push back the Zerg Creep and take their fast movement.

Questions for Fans:

What do you think of the speed increase on Creep?

How do you think this change will effect Zerg, Protoss and Terran?

Do you like or dislike the change? Why?

I am of the opinion that creep shouldn't be used in too funky a way. Zerg getting a bonus when on creep is one thing, but Zerg shouldn't need to rely on creep to hold their own against opponents in the open battlefield. I believe that Zerg should, more flavourfully, win through tooth and claw as opposed to tricksy stuff with creep