starcraft-2-beta posts

It looks like Blizzard will be monitoring user-made maps that are uploaded via Battle.net for the sci-fi RTS sequel StarCraft II and making the decision to delete some of them if they feel they have "inappropriate content." In a message board post on the official StarCraft II forums where a player complained about his user-made map being deleted, the Blizzard community manager "Lylirra" states," While players are encouraged to share the maps they create through Battle.net, published maps are subject to review to ensure that they promote a fun and safe environment for all players." She added, "If a map is found to contain inappropriate content, it will be removed from Battle.net and the map maker will be contacted via email."

When asked by a player in the same thread why Blizzard was reviewing user-made maps for StarCraft II when they didn't do so for the original game, community manager "Bashiok" stated, "Because we can. Literally. We have a support department now of size and ability to enforce these types of things. It simply wasn't possible when our in-game support used to consist of approximately 20 technical support agents." In yet another post he stated, "We're working on improving our processes to ensure the map maker has more information on why their map was removed, right now it is a bit vague and has obviously led to this misunderstanding."

Blizzard's policies on inappropriate content in StarCraft II can be found on this support web page. In summary, it states, "Any content found to be offensive in nature has no place on Battle.net. Such content can be changed or removed, and the publisher warned or suspended."

Yesterday Blizzard announced proudly that over 1.5 million copies of the long awaited sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II had been sold in just the first 48 hours after the game went on sale last week. We emailed Blizzard's PR rep to get more info about those sales figures and got a little more info on the numbers.

The PR rep confirmed that the sales numbers reported on Tuesday included both boxed retail copies and digital download versions of the game. The PR rep would not comment on how many boxed copies were sold vs digital download versions "for competitive reasons." The rep would also not confirm how many copies of the game were sold here in the US and in other regions of the world for similar reasons.

The PR did tell us that in South Korea and in Taiwan StarCraft II is available but only in a free open beta version. It's likely that sales numbers for the game will jump when StarCraft II come out of the open beta period in those nations, particularly in South Korea where the original StarCraft is a hugely popular professional sport.

With one full week under its belt, you can bet that Blizzard has been collecting info about how StarCraft II has been doing on the many, many PCs the sci-fi RTS sequel has been installed in for the past seven days. The game's official message boards has updated the known list of bugs and known issues that have been found in the game.

Some of the new bugs are related to sound issues in the game while others deal with the game's graphics. One odd bug that has been detected is for the Mac version of StarCraft II. Apparently players that use a USB-based headset while playing the game on a Mac will see "drastically lower in game FPS." Blizzard will likely try to fix these bugs in upcoming patches.

While Blizzard has yet to announced official sales numbers for StarCraft II, we have some evidence that Blizzard's long awaited sci-fi RTS game sequel did extremely well in its debut week. MCV reports that the game debuted in the number one spot in the UK game sales list this week. The list includes games released on both PC and console and having a PC exclusive title on top is a rare thing indeed.

Another MCV report states that StarCraft II has now sold more copies in its first five days of release in the UK that the original StarCraft did in its entire 12 year history in that country. Specific sales numbers were not revealed but the numbers are for physical retail copies only and don't include sales from digital downloads.

[Via Blue's News]

After over 12 years of waiting, US gamers are finally buying StarCraft II and installing Blizzard's sci-fi RTS game on their PC hard drives. Blizzard activated the Battle.net servers just after midnight for the east coast. This allowed US gamers to play the full version of StarCraft II online like their Asian, Australian and European brethren had been doing for several hours (Latin American gamers should also be playing the game now.

I went to my local Taylors SC GameStop retail store last night to see if anyone showed up for the midnight launch of StarCraft II. In the end over 20 people came to the store at midnight to purchase either the standard or collector's edition of the title. Many spend extra for the regular or collector's edition strategy guide. All in all it seemed like a lot of people for the launch of a PC exclusive game. Remember if you chose to purchase the digitial download version of the game you won't be able to complete the download and purchase the game before 1 pm Eastern time today.

Now for the fun part - playing StarCraft II.

Update: You can check out reports and pictures from Blizzard's official StarCraft II launch event at Fountain Valley CA at the game's official web site.

We are now nine days away from the launch of StarCraft II but people who have been selected for the two phases of the game's multiplayer beta test have been playing part of Blizzard's sci-fi RTS title. Now there are just a few hours of play time on the beta servers as Blizzard plans to shut them down by Monday.

As expected, Blizzard states that all character info and stats on the beta servers will be reset before the game's launch on July 27. Blizzard also states that forum posts and comments for the StarCraft II web site will not be available until the game's launch.

Last week's biggest news story was Blizzard's sudden announcement that the developer planned to transition using its Real ID system, where players of their games like StarCraft II can choose to display their real first and last names, as a requirement to post on the company's forums. The massive outcry against such a move by the company's fans caused Blizzard to quickly back track on these plans just a few days later.

So exactly why were members of Blizzard's community upset about the prospect of having their real names displayed in the forums, especially since real names are used in hugely popular social networking sites such as Facebook? Gamasutra chatted with Edward Castronova, an associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University. He believes that posting on Blizzard's forums are something of a sub-game for the company's fans. He states, "It's like a community that's somewhat tied to your in-game play; it's a place that's been part of the gameplay." Having real names displayed on the forums could have destroyed that roleplaying experience for many of Blizzard's community members.

Blizzard has now officially started the second and final phase of multiplayer beta testing for StarCraft II. As we reported yesterday Blizzard released a new patch for the beta build to testers that included a number of features not seen in previous beta builds. Late on Wednesday night Blizzard reactivated the beta on its Battle.net service.

As expected Blizzard has reset all of the beta tester's data from the first beta phase giving everyone in the second phase a clean slate. The second phase of the beta is currently scheduled to end just 11 days from now on July 19. StarCraft II's official release date is still scheduled for July 27.

While the second and final phase of beta testing for StarCraft II has not officially started yet, Blizzard has gone ahead and issued a new automatic patch for beta testers to download. The patch has quite a number of new features that were not in the first beta phase for Blizzard's upcoming sci-fi RTS game.

The beta 16 patch notes show that all of the game's Quick Match multiplayer modes (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and Free For All) will be available as is co-op matchmaking against AI opponants. All AI settings are now available in the multiplayer beta. In addition new achievements and rewards have been added as are the promised social networking features between players of StarCraft II and World of Warcraft. A few unit balance changes have also been put in. The second beta phase should start any time and will likely continue until StarCraft II officially ships on July 27.

Gallery: StarCraft 2 Screenshots

Yes, it's hard to believe but we are less than one month away from the release of StarCraft II. The sequel to the hugely successful sci-fi RTS game from Blizzard is due for release worldwide on July 27 and it's going to be one of the biggest game releases of the year, period. Yet Blizzard still has plans to add features to the game post- release.

IGN reports that Blizzard plans to add 3D support in a future patch that will support Nvidia's 3D Vision technology. It's not all good, however as StarCraft II won't have anti-aliasing support out of the box. Blizzard might put support for it in a future patch.