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.

22

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.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 21, 2013 2:30 PM

    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.

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 3:07 PM

      wow those features are actually pretty cool. id love to check out some of the idra rage moments and see if they were truly justified

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 6:59 PM

      Blizzard has put a lot of resources behind this expansion to make it an even better game.

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 7:25 PM

      SC2 (unlike D3) is Blizzard at their very best, I'm looking forward to reinstalling and tooling around w/this.

      • reply
        February 21, 2013 10:14 PM

        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.

      • reply
        February 21, 2013 11:56 PM

        It's pretty amazing how stark of a difference there is between the management of the games. Their SC2 team seems to really be on a roll, as of late.

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 10:04 PM

      These features are in WoL now, 2.0 patch just came out. Really really good

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 10:32 PM

      Holy fuck, this looks awesome. :D

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 10:51 PM

      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.

      • reply
        February 21, 2013 10:55 PM

        Don't you get more points for laddering? Also, what are the beta rewards?

        • reply
          February 21, 2013 11:00 PM

          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.

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 11:01 PM

      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

      • reply
        February 21, 2013 11:05 PM

        Fire up the SC2 launcher and HoTS will preload automatically. There is no progress bar but if you click the "info" drop down menu and "connection info" it'll tell you how the download is going. If it says "game is up to date" then it is already preloaded.

        • reply
          February 22, 2013 12:33 AM

          Serious? I mean it is fully updated but you sure I got HoTS in there?

          • reply
            February 22, 2013 2:25 AM

            My SC2 folder was 8GB before, now it is almost 14GB.

            • reply
              February 22, 2013 4:01 AM

              Just checked, mine too - 6gb campaign - hope it's good.

              • reply
                February 22, 2013 4:11 AM

                play MP you fool!!

              • reply
                February 22, 2013 4:15 AM

                "6gb campaign" lol

                • reply
                  February 22, 2013 4:17 AM

                  I didn't mean it as in size = value of quality. I am a bit concerned the addon is smaller though :/

                  • reply
                    February 22, 2013 4:20 AM

                    its got to be sharing a majority of assets with WoL, not surprising here.

                    • reply
                      February 22, 2013 4:49 AM

                      also, sc2 went through two (iirc) "optimizations" which reduced the size of the original install each time.

                      • reply
                        February 22, 2013 5:19 AM

                        I'd expect it to share assets for sure. I wonder if the storytelling skills have improved - my bet is no.

                        • reply
                          February 22, 2013 5:32 AM

                          I wouldn't expect anything better than WoL, but I also thought it was just fine for a modern game story.

                          • reply
                            February 22, 2013 2:17 PM

                            It's more how it was told than the quality. War 3 is superior.

    • reply
      February 21, 2013 11:08 PM

      Unranked ladder is also in WoL now, for people who want to play against MMR matched opponents but don't want to fret over their league ranking or W:L ratio

    • reply
      February 22, 2013 12:17 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        February 22, 2013 3:50 AM

        Could you link to featured tournaments or streams? Something like the promotion lol does in the launcher.

      • reply
        February 22, 2013 5:13 AM

        Bigger emphasis on esports events that are happening?

    • reply
      February 22, 2013 1:15 AM

      Great! We had this in Brood War 8 years ago! Hooray!

      • reply
        February 22, 2013 2:14 AM

        Legacy Of The Void will get us Warcraft 3 features like clan tournaments, woo!

    • reply
      February 22, 2013 2:17 AM

      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.

    • reply
      February 22, 2013 3:24 AM

      I preordered HotS a few weeks back and still no beta entry. I guess it was an Amazon only dealio.

      • reply
        February 22, 2013 3:49 AM

        Doesn't the beta close anytime soon anyway?

      • reply
        February 22, 2013 4:12 AM

        do you have a battle net account, check in there to make sure! They might have flagged it for the beta

        • reply
          February 22, 2013 4:46 AM

          Not seeing anything regarding a beta just that I have the HotS standard edition.

    • reply
      February 22, 2013 4:23 AM

      these are all great additions. now just add dota2-esque spectator modes and its the complete package

Hello, Meet Lola