In the months leading up to BlizzCon, it was anybody's guess as to what the new Battle.net might look like. During interviews, Blizzard developers mostly mumbled about matchmaking, leagues and other features, but were always quick to note that everything was still up in the air. But following the official unveiling of the Battle.net feature list, Blizzard isn't mumbling anymore. On top of the Real ID system and other Xbox Live-esque features, the new Battle.net will also see Blizzard experimenting in radical areas of online service. A prime example is the post-launch StarCraft II Marketplace, which--in addition to supporting the upload of free maps--will allow users to sell high-quality maps and mods, a monetary incentive largely untested in the industry.

The man behind Blizzard's big online push is Greg Canessa, former head of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade division. During an interview with Shacknews this weekend, Canessa touched on topics such as the marketplace, console potential, LAN play, and whether we might see games other than Blizzard's on Battle.net in the future. ... Read more

Battle.net developer Greg Canessa says that Blizzard is actively working on a LAN-like solution to include for Battle.net play in StarCraft II.

"We are working on solutions with regard to things we can do to maintain connectivity to Battle.net in some way, but also provide a great quality connection between players," said Canessa.

Blizzard recently announced that traditional LAN play would not be included in the game, with offline play only being allowed in the singleplayer campaign.

I asked Canessa whether the solution his team is working on might... Read more

Battlestar Galactica veteran Tricia Helfer will voice Zerg queen Kerrigan in Blizzard's StarCraft II.

The news broke out of BlizzCon's StarCraft II lore panel, which promised a special guest. Helfer appeared on stage with much of the title's voice cast.

Helfer is becoming a videogame voice regular, with credits on the upcoming Halo: ODST and past titles such as Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Command and Conquer 3.

Blizzard has released some crisp official images showing off its work on the upcoming revamp of Battle.net.

The service will launch in early 2010 alongside StarCraft II. For more details, check out our Battle.net writeup from earlier today.

A future StarCraft II Marketplace service was announced today at BlizzCon. The Battle.net store, planned to be added to StarCraft II after the game's launch, will allow map makers to publish both free and "premium" maps.

Premium maps will carry a fee, meaning mod and map makers can sell their content directly on Battle.net.

"We want to make sure that the best amateur game designers out there are making maps for StarCraft 2, and not for Kongregate or Steam or anything like that," said Blizzard's Rob Pardo.

"Think about it like this: something like Defense of the Ancients, I think, would be something like a free map because it doesn't have a lot of original content," he added, while noting that Blizzard made the announcement today in order to give map makers time to start thinking about ideas.

"We totally intend for there to be a lot of free content," he assured the crowd.

Blizzard revealed new details on the upcoming revision of its multiplayer service Battle.net during BlizzCon today.

"Battle.net has actually got more players on it than World of Warcraft," Blizzard's Rob Pardo reminded the crowd at the beginning of his talk. The service has 12 million players to WoW's 11.5 million.

The new Battle.net will feature standard panes for news, profiles/avatars, and achievements. The biggest news was the new "Real ID" system, which allows players to communicate across all of Blizzard's games in Xbox Live fashion.

Real ID also links achievements across all of Blizzard's games and characters, meaning players won't need to re-earn achievements on one character that they earned on another.

Pardo went into detail on custom map support. Map makers can ... Read more

The flood of assets from BlizzCon 2009 continues below with the latest screenshots from anticipated sequel StarCraft II, which developer Blizzard recently pushed into 2010.

There's still a chance you could be playing StarCraft II before the year's end, however, as Blizzard today said that it expects to kick off the multiplayer beta before 2009 is out.

Much to the chagrin of those who were expecting Diablo III to arrive next year, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that just-revealed World of Warcraft expansion Cataclysm and StarCraft II are the two titles the company expects to hit in 2010.

Morhaime made the revelation while talking with BlizzCon Live hosts Geoff Keighley and Kat Hunter, with more details on Blizzard's projects expected as BlizzCon continues.

Though StarCraft II was recently delayed into 2010, Blizzard is still confident that the promised multiplayer beta will indeed kick off before the end of the year. "I'm confident the beta will start this year," Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaim told BlizzCon Live Stream host Geoff Keighley in an interview following today's press conference.

"We don't have a date yet, but that is a focus--we're working on getting the beta ready," Morhaime added. "We don't want to put it out too early."

After a lengthy hands-on session with the StarCraft II campaign, I got a chance to sit down with lead producer Chris Sigaty and rifle a couple dozen questions at him.

We touched on a few obvious subjects, such as beta time frames and release goals, not knowing at the time that the game would be officially delayed only two weeks later. We also delved into some finer points, like the new challenge mode, the editor, the upcoming expansions, and why it's taken so long for StarCraft II to hit shelves.

Shack: There was a pretty strong reaction to the news that there will be no LAN support in StarCraft II. Were you expecting that?

Chris Sigaty: Yeah, I think any time that people hear news like that, they're going to be upset, or some people will be certainly. The really hard thing about is the primary reason we made it--and it's a tough decision--are some of the things we intend to do with Battle.net. And really a sense of being connected all the time, and whether you are a competitive player or a casual player--we're adding things in there that try and enhance that experience by being connected. So that's really the primary driver behind it, but we can't show that driver, so I think people are reacting to that in the way they will, and they don't have any information. Read on..

Ever since Blizzard announced that it would be splitting the three StarCraft II campaigns into separate games, fans have been worried the studio will abandon its trend of $30 expansions and charge full price for the new games.

Producer Chris Sigaty responded to those concerns during a recent interview with Shacknews, telling us that the team is viewing the games as traditional Blizzard expansions, and not full sequels.

"We effectively look at it internally as expansions," said Sigaty. "So we'll see what that means for the price--we're not just going to raise it and call it that for the purposes of that. We would need to offer the same content."

Sigaty's guess is that the two expansions--the Zerg-centric... Read more

To go along with the first impressions of the StarCraft 2 singleplayer campaign, we've also got a bunch of SP screenshots and video to share. Check out over four minutes of singleplayer footage below, in addition to some various captures from the missions described in our hands-on preview.

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It's easy to look at a screenshot and think that StarCraft II hasn't changed much from the original game, but in playing recent builds, it's getting further and further away from its progenitor. Case in point, several standard StarCraft units have been axed in favor of a more diverse selection of new, specialized units. The Terran Firebat has been replaced by the Marauder, the Medic by the Medivac Dropship, and the Protoss Dragoon by the Stalker and Immortal units.

But following a play session at Blizzard some weeks ago, I've learned that several of these classic units will still show up in the Wings of Liberty campaign.... Read more

I've probably previewed StarCraft II more than any other game. It seems every few months I get another taste; a shot of hard 'Craft that inevitably makes the wait even more difficult.

Unfortunately, though my second trip to Blizzard last month preceded the official announcement of StarCraft II's delay, it was already pretty clear this game was not going to ship in 2009. Beyond the vagueness surrounding Battle.net, portions of the singleplayer campaign were also somewhat unfinished, with lead designer Dustin Browder admitting that one entire system was being reworked from the ground up.

But I'll get to those gory details later. In more exciting news, I was able to play the first four or five missions of the singleplayer campaign, this being the first time we've gotten our hands on it. I even snuck in some time with the skirmish mode, discovering a few new features in the process. The shorthand: it's all looking pretty great.

As fans are no doubt aware, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty begins with series hero Jim Raynor operating as a mercenary fugitive. The first level has the... Read more

Update: Blizzard says that Diablo 3 is unaffected by the delay.

In the long battle between Blizzard's standards and the calendar year, the calendar again came out the loser today with the announcement that the studio's anticipated RTS sequel StarCraft II has been delayed into the first half of 2010.

Blizzard attributed the delay to needing additional time to produce the new version of Battle.net, its online gaming service. Though few details are available on the new portal, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick likened it to Xbox Live in its combination of gameplay and social networking features.

"Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game," said Blizzard in a statement.

Added the company: "The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service."

The shift of StarCraft II does not come as a huge surprise, as some... Read more

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter now predicts that StarCraft II will sell four million copies in its first few months of release.

Of course, the month of StarCraft II's release is now the real question.

Blizzard intends to launch the beta this summer, and expects the testing to last anywhere from four to six months, a tight window that could see the game... Read more

Fans are never shy of criticizing Blizzard teams. And while it's tough to imagine the intense scrutiny doesn't affect developer sanity to some degree, StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder can say for a fact his game is better for it.

I asked Browder how that feedback factors into Blizzard development during an interview at the company's headquarters last week. Other topics included Battle.net, singleplayer content, new "challenge" missions that act as tutorial levels for casual players, and the decision to keep StarCraft II looking like StarCraft.

Dustin Browder: Everyone always kind of knew that we wanted to make this game feel like you were coming home. Still at its root a really bad-ass, competitive RTS. Not like, "We're bored of RTS, let's redo it completely! Let's get rid of base-building and redo this. We'll have a first-person mode!"

I've been at studios that wanted to do that. First-person mode was going to go into every Command & Conquer since 1999. It was going to be like, "First-person mode!" [laughs] It was like, oh my god you guys, this is a terrible idea. So we really wanted to make it like--we still think RTS games are cool. If you're bored, then that's cool, go buy another game and we're fine with that. But we think RTS games are cool, we think you'll have a lot of fun if we make a really good one--let's just make a good one. Read more..

Following through on word that StarCraft II won't support LAN play due to "planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net," developer Blizzard has provided Joystiq with a further explanation of the controversial decision and the planned technology:

We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and... Read more

Blizzard senior VP Rob Pardo has confirmed that the company's upcoming RTS sequel StarCraft II will not feature LAN multiplayer support.

The feature has been cut due to the "planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net," according to a comment issued to IncGamers.

Blizzard has yet to finalize the feature set for the new Battle.net. A multiplayer StarCraft II beta test is scheduled to begin later this summer.

Continuing today's StarCraft II blowout, we now have some new footage of the anticipated sequel. All three factions are featured across the 7 minute video.

There's still no date on the forthcoming multiplayer beta, though Blizzard has said that the first StarCraft II release, Terrans: Wings of Liberty, is on track for release later this year.

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