StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm trailer details eSports improvements
Blizzard has added a lot of snazzy features to StarCraft 2 in preparation for the expansion Heart of the Swarm, and yesterday dropped a new trailer demonstrating the shiny additions for multiplayer and eSports. Goodbye, epic matches being scrapped after one player crashes, and hello, players being able to step into the child-sized shoes of their heroes by recreating games from replays.
Blizzard has added a lot of snazzy features to StarCraft 2 in preparation for the expansion Heart of the Swarm, and yesterday dropped a new trailer demonstrating the shiny additions for multiplayer and eSports. Goodbye, epic matches being scrapped after one player crashes, and hello, players being able to step into the child-sized shoes of their heroes by recreating games from replays.
Yes, now when a player drops from a game, the game can be recreated from the replay file, which even handily suggests points where something went wrong. This same tech lets players take over the game of any replay they're watching at any point, so you and your chum can become Flash and Jaedong, then see how quickly things go off the rails once you idiots take over their perfect macro.
You can also now view replays together with others, like in the original StarCraft. Spectating is made a little easier too, as the minimap now draws attention to combat, nukes, and Nydus Worms. And SC2 has added stats, stats, stats galore.
These aren't newly-revealed features, of course. Why, you can play with them right now in Wings of Liberty, as they were added earlier this week in patch 2.0.4. If you're waiting for the expansion before you fire up SC2 again, though, here, enjoy Blizzard demonstrating it all for us.
Heart of the Swarm arrives for PC and Mac on March 12.
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Alice O'Connor posted a new article, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm trailer details eSports improvements.
Blizzard has added a lot of snazzy features to StarCraft 2 in preparation for the expansion Heart of the Swarm, and yesterday dropped a new trailer demonstrating the shiny additions for multiplayer and eSports. Goodbye, epic matches being scrapped after one player crashes, and hello, players being able to step into the child-sized shoes of their heroes by recreating games from replays.-
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The only thing it is missing is live spectating like in DOTA 2 or LoL, otherwise the features like resume from replay are so great.
Its going to be useful for practicing against specific edge case scenarios like early cheese or extreme late game. In the latter case there will be no need to hope for a crazy 40 minute game to see how to use a late late game army properly, just load that game and practice it until you're feeling good about it. -
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yay step in the right direction http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7923874068#1
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I'm trying to level up all my races to at least 5 so I get whatever the beta rewards are for that.
I'm using the vs AI matchmaking stuff which I unhelpfully leveled up to Very Hard with Protoss.
I got Terran to level 5 with lots of marine+tank. So far with zerg I might as well just be mushing keys on the keyboard randomly, it would probably yield better results.-
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I don't think you really get more points for laddering; the EXP is based on resource cost of things you build and things you kill (with some bonuses like 'first protoss win of the day' added on)
For every race you get to level 5 you get a race-specifc 'feat of strength' portrait. Not really a big deal, but I figure it's beta, I might as well fuck with stuff I normally don't do.
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Really dumb question here guys but how do I pre-cache / pre-load HoTS?
I have already got it on my Blizzard account - but I can no longer even download SC2 - the download for me lists the following.
http://i.imgur.com/ELgjA8N.jpg
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These are nice features that probably should have been in the game years ago. If I recall correctly, Blizzard delayed the initial launch of Starcraft II by six months so they could improve BattleNet. Then it came out of the box quite featureless.
Also, I really hope Carriers are good in HOTS. Tempests look good, but I don't understand what separates them from Carriers. They are both long range air siege units. -