All about Blizzard’s Starcraft 2

How will the map pool for the ladder be handled? Only maps made by Blizzard or will there be opportunities for mapmakers to contribute? If so, how will new maps be selected/balanced and how often are you planning on updating the map pool?

[Dustin Browder] The map pool for competitive play will only be Blizzard maps or Blizzard-approved maps. We are always excited to see new maps from the community and when we see new cool maps we will definitely include them in the pool. I have no idea how often this will happen. It really depends on the map makers and our schedule. We also have some really cool plans for mod support for Battle.net for StarCraft II, which we will be rolling out to the community soon. We have all watched with great enthusiasm the impact that mod makers have had upon our previous games, especially Warcraft III, and we really want to continue to support and encourage this community.

Do Protoss warriors actually die? What is the blue flash when they die?

In the chaos of the battlefield, Protoss warriors fight with tremendous power and grace, but even so, they can be mortally wounded. Then the Protoss’ foes often bear witness to a startling sight: the injured Protoss disappears in a bright flash of light. Such a vision has caused primitive races to quail in superstitious fear, and yet it has no supernatural cause. On the contrary, it is merely the result of teleportation, which is one of the chief strengths of Protoss technology. Protoss warriors typically have teleport mechanisms built into their armor. If the warrior is sufficiently injured, a properly functioning mechanism will automatically teleport the body to the nearest safe haven.

Does the Nomad have all the abilities an SCV has? (Of course it has its own abilities, but it would be interesting to know if you can at least temporarily replace lost SCVs with Nomads in a game.)

No, Nomads will not have the abilities of a SCV. The buildings a Nomad will be able to build, will be unique to the Nomad unit. And you cant gather resources with a Nomad.

How will damage against Protoss Shields be calculated with the new damage bonus system?

Will there be a way for fan sites to parse replays uploaded to their website so they can pull information such as race, player names, map, etc.?

Exact details have not been finalized, but we do plan to create a much more robust way of being able to search and share replays in game.

The Soul Hunter was considered a good counter unit against the Zerg; why did you remove the Soul Hunter from StarCraft II?

Will the Campaign have as many videos as the original Starcraft? (www.starcraft2.hu)

There will be several more in-game cutscenes, which are at a much higher quality than the original StarCraft pre-rendered movies. And while StarCraft II’s single player will likely feature a few less pre-rendered movies, they will be much longer and more epic than anything seen in the original StarCraft.

Is the ghost unit going to be able to use the EMP Shockwave and within short time interval the Nuclear Strike as well? (starcraft2.4players.de)

Will you finally be able to mix and match terrain types instead of being stuck on jungle, twilight, etc?

[Dustin Browder] Yes terrain texture is mixable now. Also tilesets are also mixable. [Brett Wood] Essentially, you can define your own tileset in the editor, something that wasnt really supported even in Warcraft III.

Will the new StarCraft II Map Editor support text coloring, unit coloring, player “12” (i.e. neutral player) units?

Do you have any plan to put the auto-casting ability into StarCraft II units, just like in Warcraft III?

At the moment, Medics are the only units that we have deemed fit to have an auto-cast ability. StarCraft II, compared to Warcraft III, has fewer abilities but are much more potent when executed properly, thus making them manual cast will give players a huge opportunity to demonstrate much skill in the game.

Would you make it possible for players on observing mode to check various information including a mini map, upgrading status, and resource status on a personal window? If not, would you consider developing this function?

Will it be possible to give more fluid and realistic movements to small aircraft with proper banking and turning rather than just abrupt sprite-style direction changes?

We are currently in the process of implementing banking animations for flying units, but playability always comes first. If the animations affect playability negatively, it could get cut.

With the Reavers no longer in the game, will the Protoss have any units capable of performing brutal worker raids? (Starcraftlive.net)

Will the Protoss be getting any mechanism for healing their units or repairing their buildings?

There are no plans to give the Protoss any healing abilities, especially since their shield regeneration rate when out of combat, is more than twice the rate of the original StarCraft.

With the new physics engine, can explosions affect surroundings? (like hurt or push units, destroy doodads, etc ) (sc2blog.com)

Will doodad placement values increase? (ie, more than 25)

[Brett Wood] We expect the doodad placement value will be on the same order as Warcraft III, which I believe was something like 10,000, so definitely way more than 25

Will the number of available locations/triggers increase? The current limit on locations really cramps some ideas.