Hey guys, I’m excited to tell you I got into the Patch 1.5.0 testing. They sent me a key and I’m going to download the client soon and use it to update my maps. For those who do not know, 1.5.0 is going to be aimed mostly at the map making community and custom games. The Arcade system Blizzard has been talking about is the forefront of that, making custom games more accessible for new players

If you have any questions about anything just ask. Here is the info from an email I received on what you have to look forward to:

Major changes are coming to StarCraft II with patch 1.5.0. The menu screen will be split into two distinct areas, and each will be focused on a distinct experience. The StarCraft II section will be where players go for head to head ladder competition, as well as custom games focused on traditional StarCraft II gameplay, such as melee maps and micro trainers. Meanwhile, the new Arcade section will the place where the community can find and play the vast array of custom games that explore the many possibilities of the StarCraft II editor. From tower defense to RPGs and beyond, the Arcade will bring your creations to players around the world.

We want the Arcade to offer the best experience possible, so we’re making changes to improve everything from the interface to the editor itself. Your input can help us refine it even further. Here are some of the improvements we already have planned:

Global Changes

Added StarCraft II & Arcade as game Types

- Creators define which basic type best fits the game that they have created. Each game will only appear in either StarCraft II or the Arcade.

Game Genres

- We’ve used community feedback and the existing game list to create a comprehensive menu of genres for creators to choose from. Now players will have tools to more easily find the games they are looking for, which in turn gives creators an easy way to find their audience.

Arcade

Game Presentation

Browsing

- Browsing for games is a totally new experience. Players can search for games based on genre, over all popularity, star rating, newness, and recent spikes in popularity.

Game Icons

- The game icon contains a large game image (provided by the creator), the game’s name, and star rating. Hovering over the icon displays the game description.

Game Info page

- Clicking on a game icon brings players into the Game Info page, a section devoted entirely to showing off what a game is all about, providing play instructions, and revealing other important information about the game.

- All the content in Game Info is under control of the game creator, except for reviews.

- Joining public matches and creating private games is done from the Game Info page. This will be the portal players return to again and again to play the game.

Game Info contains these sections:

- Overview: This will contain the game description, as well as screenshots that show off the action.

- How to Play: This is where players will find the Basic Instructions, How to Win, and Advanced Instructions sections. This is also useful space for additional images to help players understand how to enjoy your creation.

- Patch Notes: You’re able to update patch notes as often as you like, so players can see how the game is growing and improving.

- Reviews: After playing, players can give your game a star rating and enter a text review. Once enough ratings are provided, your game gets an Average Star Rating. Players can also mark each other’s reviews as “Helpful” which will ensure that the best reviews rise to the top.

Tutorial support

- Creators can now publish tutorials. This is a powerful way to introduce new players and give them a place to learn the ropes before they dive in.

- A “Play Tutorial” button appears on the Game Info page if a tutorial exists. Clicking the Play Tutorial button launches players directly into the tutorial game.

Game exclusive chat channels

- There is now a “Join Chat” button on the Game Info page that allows players to join a channel named after your game, which makes connecting with other players and creating a community around your game easier than ever before.

StarCraft II Platform

StarCraft II is now a streaming game.

- It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast.

Editor

- Added UI XML Editor for adding and modifying SC2Layout files

- Editor updated to use Visual Styles in Editor

- Added high resolution minimap support

- Font Style editing added to Text Editor

- Added Data Editor horizontal auto-layout to better utilize available screen space

- User-defined data system, accessed through the new User type in the Data module as well as the corresponding functions in the trigger library.

Cinematic Editor

- New editor module with powerful tools for creating in-game cinematic sequences.

AI Editor

- New editor module for user friendly management of AI wave timing and composition.

Galaxy

- Trigger Debug Window support for breakpoints, stepping through functions, and variable inspection

- Galaxy script code memory limit increased; 4x -10x more memory can be utilized depending on how scripts are being used.

- Added support for passing structure, array, and function references as function parameters

- Improved Galaxy error message output

Actor

- Camera Actor added for controlling camera through actor events

- Scene Actor added for controlling global actor settings (Halo settings, Power visual hiding)

- Light Actor added for creating lights in the world

- Terrain Actor added for physics impact FX support

- Creep Actor added for higher performance creep effects including creep engulfment

- Ragdoll deaths and support for combat driven physics impulses

- Added support for water ripples and physics collision based water splashes

- Terrain squib support for tileset specific dust or snow clouds FX

- Line and Arc targeting cursor support

- Added ActorInfoDisplay cheat for live actor debugging

Game Engine

- Max selection size increased from 255 to 500.

- Added trigger event for Behavior apply/remove

- New Stunned flag for Behaviors that allows queuing commands

Graphics Engine

- Added support to define lighting regions in the game world

- Lighting can now be set per player

- Added unit specific Halo support for pre-targeting

- Anti-aliasing support

User Interface

- Custom unit status bar support added

- Added new in-game pathing display that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap

- Added self-cast hotkey support

- Added Font Glow support

- Added powerful control over frames, portraits, status bars, text, trigger dialogs and more. Full details, tips, and tutorials are being created to help creators take full advantage of these tools.

StarTools

We’re making our internal art tools available to the public.

StarTools is a set of plugins for Discreet®’s 3ds max®, these tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in StarCraft II custom maps.

Updating Your Game for Patch 1.5
All game types
Set up your Type and Genre

- Games published prior to Patch 1.5 will still be available on the service when the patch goes live. All user created games will default to appearing in Arcade, under the “Other” genre.

- Creators will need to re-save their game in the 1.5.0 client version and select the Type and Genre where they want to their game to appear.

Arcade game types

Add a Game Icon Image

- The icon image is the first thing players see. It’s a great opportunity to make a first impression on potential players – check out existing app-stores for inspiration.

Game Icon Images are added through the StarCraft II Editor.

Add Game Info

- Game Info is where players learn about your game and see what cool experiences it has to offer. At a minimum, you’ll want to provide a complete Description, easy to understand How to Play Instructions, and some screenshots that make your game look awesome.

- Going a step further and creating customized images (e.g. a diagram of game controls, or a simple guide map of the play area) for Game Info will really help you stand out. The old saying about “show not tell” should be your motto here!

Game Info is added through the StarCraft II Editor

Set up a default mode

- From the Game Info page, there’s a big “PLAY” button that most players will use to get into your game. This creates or joins a public lobby, of the default mode you define for your game.

- This means you likely want to set the default to what you consider your “core” game experience.

- Alternatively, some games have players set up gameplay parameters after they load into the match. This is fine, but it’s recommended to make the setup process as streamlined and user friendly as possible so new players aren’t scared off right when they start the game.

Build a Tutorial

- Tutorials are a powerful way to introduce new players.

- Ideally you’ll give players a smooth introduction to game mechanics in a fail-safe environment, teaching them everything they need to have fun before they start playing your main game mode.

- Tutorials can also be built and used as a practice mode for players to experiment in a sandbox type environment.

- To use the Tutorial feature, first publish the tutorial map to Battle.net. Then you can configure your main game to point to the tutorial.

Protoss

- Replicant has been removed.
- Tempest is now a long range anti ground and air striker for late game.
- They are thinking about adding Mass Recall to the Nexus commands.

Terran

- Shredder has been removed.
- They may be adding an anti air spider mine like ability to deal damage as a trap to the Thor.
- A long range missile launcher weapon may be added on a factory unit to make TvT less about Sieged Tanks having too much range advantage.

Zerg

- Vipers had their weapon removed, but have new abilities. It has an Area of Effect Blind spell that targets biological units, reducing their range to 1. Vipers can also recover energy points quicker by draining minerals from a mineral field.
- Overseers may be getting new abilities and will be staying in game if this has good results.
- Nydus Networks will be able to release new types of worms. One type can attack ground buildings, while another spreads creep extremely quickly in a large radius.

So far, they have not mentioned anything about gameplay changes for you ladder and melee players.

Blizzard is touting their new Arcade system as one of the features that is setting the groundwork for Heart of The Swarm’s updated Battle.net interface. The Arcade is described as, “improved custom game visibility, ratings, reviews, game instructions, screenshot support, and more.” This seems to focus entirely on custom maps, so as a map maker myself, being able to add more content and reaching more people with my map is good news.

One problem especially with the map popularity system is that unless your map is chosen as a featured map or you have a strong enough community behind it to get the hours stat higher on it, people may disregard your map as a garbage because of the thought that no one is playing it for a reason. Blizzard does not want to completely throw out the popularity system as they do note the fact that some players just want to play those maps, but also is taking suggestions on how to help the problem at hand. The solution they seem to be working on is making it so that you can sort maps based on recently opened lobbies.

A new art system is supposed to be added to the editor as well, allowing map makers to more easily create their own custom models.

For every day players, the chat system seems to be getting a small improvement, allowing players to save the position of their chat windows for the next time they log on and the size of the windows as well. They also have plans on making it easier for players to find each other when they connect through the same IP.

You can find the whole article here.

You can earn achievements on Challenges 8, 9, and 24. You get more achievements for 10, 20, 25, and 30 challenges complete.

When you finish 25 challenges you will unlock a new portrait for your account.

Here’s a link to a little guide with tips and strategies for each challenge from Bnet Forums.

Good luck!

Due to the lack of any new info on the beta or anything related to the progress of the game nearing completion, it’s beginning to look doubtful the Zerg expansion will even be out this year. Hopefully, we’ll have some concrete information soon instead of guesses.

So for our Poll of the month back in November (ouch), we asked which races you’d be interested in seeing most in terms of their new HoTS units. Here’s the results.

Our next poll asks you what do you play StarCraft for the most?

This means the script should be all set in stone, and a big step is underway. Still no news on when the Beta that was announced will be coming out (My guess is late February or mid Spring) though.

At any rate, hope you all had a good Holiday season. We’ll get a new poll up soon. Until then, have fun!

Our Poll of September asked about Heart of The Swarm units as well, and came up with some neat results. We had a tie between New, New and Old, and Old was close too. New units are obviously favored since people are looking forward to trying new things with each race.

The Poll of the Month asks about the new units.

General

- “Audio Fade” under Sound Options has been renamed to Game Volume During Alerts. Its tooltips have also been changed for clarification.
- The fade-in for game sound during alerts changed from .5 seconds to 2 seconds.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed a truncation on specific resolution if the current and maximum supplies are 3 digits.
- Fixed an issue which prevented footprint from being edited in the Footprint Editor.
- Fixed an issue that caused the game to have missing icons and images on low end graphics cards.

Balance

PROTOSS

Forge

- The cost of Upgrade Shields Level 1 has been decreased to 150/150, down from 200/200
- The cost of Upgrade Shields Level 2 has been decreased to 225/225, down from 300/300
- The cost of Upgrade Shields Level 3 has been decreased to 300/300, down from 400/400
- The cost of Upgrade Ground Weapons Level 2 has been decreased to 150/150, down from 175/175
- The cost of Upgrade Ground Weapons Level 3 has been decreased to 200/200, down from 250/250
- The cost of Upgrade Ground Armor Level 2 has been decreased to 150/150, down from 175/175
- The cost of Upgrade Ground Armor Level 3 has been decreased to 200/200, down from 250/250

TERRAN

Ghost

- EMP radius has been decreased from 2 to 1.5

They also have released a new trailer for the game showing off a number of awesome cutscenes and showing the new units mentioned in the previous post in action.

You can watch the trailer below.

There’s also a new trailer for the Blizzard Custom Map, Blizzard DoTA below.

Update:

Blizzard announced in early April 2012 that some changes have been made. You can read a brief summary of the newest changes here.

Protoss

- The Nexus is given a new ability called Arc Shield, which grants bonus armor to itself and a Photon Cannon like weapon temporarily. This seems to be primarily to give them a counter against early aggression and cheese.

- The Nexus also gains Mass Recall, which works just like the Mothership’s, allowing the Nexus to instantly warp units in the target area to the Nexus.

- The Carrier and Mothership seem to be removed.

New Units

Tempest

A powerful anti air unit using a splash attack, and with a weak anti ground attack.

Oracle

Ability based harassment unit. It’s Entomb command causes the target Mineral field to not be harvested from temporarily. It’s Preordain ability causes the targeted enemy building to show the units or upgrades it is warping in or researching. And finally, it’s Phase Shift causes a building to temporarily be invulnerable, but cannot operate and will also deny any tech tree paths it grants.

Replicant

Can morph into any non massive unit for any of the races, allowing for quick tactical units to be placed on the field.

Terran

Race Changes

- The Reaper no longer has a second attack to quickly take out enemy buildings, but instead will gain life regeneration.

-  Battlecruisers will be able to gain a new upgrade that gives them a temporary boost in movement speed.

- Hellions are able to transform into a fighter mode that deals cleave like damage which is more effective against upgraded biological units such as Charge-Zealots and Speed-Lings.

- Thors are now changed so that you can only have one at a time. It is however a much more powerful Thor, with plenty more HP and a strong new anti ground attack. It does however lose its anti air weapon.

- Ghost’s Cloak is now changed so that it is no longer able to be turned off and on within a moments notice. It instead can be used for a specified amount of time and if used strategically can help save Energy.

New Units

Shredder

A new unit that will deal Area of Effect damage to all enemies nearby, but disables itself if a friendly unit is in range.

Warhound

A Goliath like unit that has a powerful anti air weapon. It’s anti ground weapon is weak, but is somewhat effective against armored units.

Zerg

Race Changes

- The Corruptor loses its Corruption ability and gains a Siphon, which damages the targeted building dealing damage and gives resources to the Zerg player.

- Ultralisks gain a Burrow Charge like ability, allowing them to close in on enemies from underground easily.

- Hydralisks gain a new upgrade to move faster when not on creep.

- Banelings can now move while burrowed, allowing better ambush attacks on enemies.

- The Overseer is removed from the game.

New Units

Viper

The Viper is a new support unit that has 3 new abilities. Blinding Cloud acts like the Defiler’s Dark Swarm, causes all units in the Cloud’s area to only be able to attack at melee range. Abduct allows the Viper to pull the target unit to the location of the Viper, allowing you to drag enemies into dangerous areas. They also gain a one per Viper ability called Ocular Parasite, which acts like Parasite from the original granting permanent shared vision of the target enemy unit.

Swarm Host

Has no attack when above ground, but when Burrowed releases Locusts, a small new unit that acts as a Broodling to pound on enemies and force them to get detection before being overrun.