Starcraft-Esp

Segun pasa el tiempo se van calentando motores, y muchas revistas de videojuegos con version online, van probando el juego, y cuelgan sus previews con las impresiones iniciales del juego. Asi que hoy os hacemos llegar los enlaces, y proximamente la traduccion de estos articulos

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What were you doing in 1998? Chances are if you owned a PC you were playing StarCraft, a breakneck RTS from the creators of World of Warcraft.

On its release, StarCraft blew through the RTS genre like a cyclone, generating a fanatical fan base that still thrives to this very day, especially in South Korea.

The game's allure stemmed from the diversity of its three factions, each of which required a radically different approach to annihilate the enemy. Now, a decade on, these three warring races - the technologically advanced, cybernetically enhanced Protoss; the determined, conventional Terrans (humans); and the insectoid warrior Zerg - are set to clash once again in a battle for supremacy.

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Journey with me now to a room rammed with networked machines and games journos at Blizzard's LA offices.Next to me sits a representative from a German StarCraft fan site, who sobs gently as he strokes the hairy hide of a 3D Ultralisk (a massive Zerg unit), a decade-long wet dream a reality.

For the next two days we've been given unrestricted access to the latest multiplayer build of StarCraft II. With Blizzard having already revealed the revamped Terran and Protoss races, we've been invited here for a world-exclusive reveal of the game's final race, the Zerg.

"StarCraft II is the best strategy game we've ever made," proclaims lead designer Dustin Browder as we twitch expectantly, waiting to be unleashed on the first multiplayer session of the day. "It's the most fun. It encourages you to think creatively, to try and be clever. We want to build on the philosophies of the original, to provide ease of use for new players and a big enough challenge for hardcore players. StarCraft has its own style, which is fast-paced RTS. StarCraft II is meant to bring that niche to the current generation."

As my German companion dives into a six-player free-for-all, buck teeth gnashing excitably, I rise from my seat to corner lead producer Chris Sigaty in an attempt to understand why we've waited a decade for the resurrection of this revered game.
"It was really a case of right place, right time," he explains.

"Once the Warcraft III products were finished, we talked about what to do next. Technology was in the right place for us to be able to put loads of units on screen, which is what we wanted if we ever made another StarCraft game. Timing was a factor though. We've had a lot of big titles in development that have required lots of resources, and it's been impossible to start working on another huge project until now."

Curiosity satisfied it's time for me to join the killing fields. Opting for the newly revealed and revamped Zerg, I enter the fray. Familiarity smacks me across the chops like a berserk, bucking fish. Drones are sent to collect Vespene gas and minerals (the game's resources), buildings are constructed and units assembled. Every click is key as I rush to build a force capable of striking at the enemy before they can threaten my holdings.

This is StarCraft just how I remember it: attack biased, packed with early rushes as each player seeks an early advantage. I lose myself in a mass of clicks and orders, never pausing, acting on instinct alone, ignoring the ingrained RTS urge to build defences as I force myself to concentrate solely on amassing a force built for the single purpose of destruction.

Minutes later I've churned out an army from countless Hatcheries (the Zerg's main construction building) - dozens, scores, myriads of units. I march them across the map in search of my enemies, only to wade headlong into an opponent's equally sizeable attack force. Unabated slaughter ensues, the screen a mass of scrapping aliens. But as the carnage unfolds, a second enemy storms my unguarded base and suddenly it's game over. Eight minutes, 17 seconds. That's StarCraft II multiplayer in a nutshell.

HIVE MIND
Keen to discover more about the Zerg's evolution since the original, I corner Browder and spit out a torrent of questions.

"The Zerg are a hyper-evolved organic race," he explains as I fire up a new game. "They're entirely biological and use their own bodies to attack enemies. They can burrow and hide, then ambush their foes. They're also fast builders and can rapidly move across the battlefield."

Zerg units mutate from larvae spawned at a Hatchery. Every 20 seconds a new larva is born. However, with no limit imposed on the number of Hatcheries you can construct, the Zerg can churn out a frightening number of units in seconds. "This mechanic makes the Zerg play uniquely," continues Browder. "They're much less predictable and more adaptable than the other two races."

While the Zerg's lightning-fast unit generation makes them a formidable fighting force, it's the faction's infestation units that truly set them apart from the Terrans and Protoss. The Corruptor is a squid-like air-to-air unit that turns enemy craft against their masters, while the Infestor brings your opponent's buildings under your control for a limited period of time.

Acting on Browder's advice, I spawn a legion of Corruptors and Infestors, then storm a nearby Terran base. What begins as an equally matched slugfest soon degenerates into a massacre as my Corruptors turn the fleet to my whims, while the infested barracks spew out marines loyal to my cause. Within seconds, a once well-defended stronghold is nothing more than a pile of rubble. Mwahaha!

With victory mine, Browder tells me that resources and observation posts (relics scattered throughout each map that push back the fog of war when captured) can also be infested with a unit called the Overlord. "The Overlord has two abilities," he begins. "One is an infestation ability that targets observation towers and crystals so that enemies can't use them until the infestations are destroyed. The other ability allows the Overlord to generate Creep, a terraforming ability that prevents your opponents from building on or using infested areas of the map."

WHO'S QUEEN?
Perhaps the most notable change in how the Zerg play is the revised role played by the Queen, a giant, scuttling killer that looks like a distant cousin to the mother from Aliens.

"We've evolved the Queen into the ultimate base defender," explains Dustin. "As your base technology evolves, you can evolve your Queen. She gets bigger and more powerful, and can even bring your buildings to life to defend your base. She can also heal a building instantly for several hundred hit points and quickly tunnel around areas infested with Creep."

The Queen has now become one of the game's most impressive units, a truly formidable warrior capable of tearing through enemy ranks as though they're made of wet toilet paper. She can also lay eggs throughout your base, which then hatch into kamikaze base defenders whenever a foe approaches.

If the Zerg had one weakness in the original game it was their lack of a tough, scrapper unit, a shortfall that Blizzard is keen to rectify here with a ground-attack arachnid warrior called the Roach. Sporting some seriously rapid regeneration abilities that make the Hulk look like a slow healer, a massed pack of high-level Roaches can cut through a sizeable enemy force and come out virtually unscathed.

As well as the newcomers, the Zerg also welcome back a number of familiar units, including the Lurker, Hydralisk, Mutalisk and pesky Zerglings that remain the perfect weapon for quick strike attacks on undefended enemy bases.

Also making a return are the towering mammoth-like Ultralisks, which inflict devastating amounts of area damage with their massive tusks. They also have the ability to burrow, enabling them to pop up from below the ground and launch surprise attacks against passing packs of enemies.

With Browder called away to answer questions at another table and my German companion now hooked up to an oxygen tank to help control his excitement at the new wing configuration of a Terran aerial unit, I dive into a succession of multiplayer games, each as unrelenting as the next. But with each game ending in either a dominant win or a crushing defeat, a gnawing doubt begins to scrape its molars down the back of my brain.

If the original StarCraft's multiplayer games had one shortfall, it was the sense that there was a set formula for victory; an optimum order in which to construct buildings and units that simply couldn't be countered if built quickly enough. With StarCraft II's multiplayer games seeming to head down a similar route, I asked Sigaty about this design choice.

"StarCraft II is a fast game, a mean game, it's all about attack," he explained. "We tried to add in tougher base defences, but it stopped people rushing. They just hid behind their base and no one attacked for a very long time. Whenever the game defences get too strong the game suffers.

"If you're not as good as someone else you're going to lose, just like in any other sport. If you try to hit a baseball thrown by a professional pitcher, you won't have a good time and in the same way if you play a professional StarCraft player you will get trounced."

With much balancing still ahead, and with the implementation of a collection of player aides that could help level the playing field for newcomers (check out the Learn Don't Burn boxout for more) it's more than possible that my niggling concerns will become moot by the time the game ships. Here's hoping.

While the reveal of the Zerg may be the main focus of this event, I haven't travelled all this way to ignore the game's other two races either, by the way.

The Terrans are the game's most instantly recognisable faction, sporting a collection of marines, tanks, buggies and cruisers that are spewed forth from barracks and weapons factories. Perhaps the least modified of the three races, the Terrans also possess some of the game's most visually impressive units, including the lumbering Thor attack walker and nuclear strikes that can be called in by covert ops units.

Better still, Terran buildings can be flown to new locations, though they are highly vulnerable while trundling to their new destination. A well-balanced faction with the game's best defence capabilities, the Terrans are shaping up to be the ideal entry point for any StarCraft beginner.

Conversely, the Protoss have undergone some major changes - most notably their ability to warp in new units anywhere where there's a power pylon (including within enemy bases if you manage to construct one there) and their array of powerful aerial units.

The Protoss also possess the game's only super unit, the Mothership. Vulnerable if sent into battle alone, but devastating when backed up by a fleet, this humongous cruiser can suck enemy units into a vortex of destruction and wipe out an entire army with a single attack.

Other Protoss highlights include powerful cloaked killers called Templars,
a shielded three-legged walker with a powerful death ray called the Colossus and a massive battleship that sends out myriad fighters to pepper enemy units.

GUNNING FOR GLORY
As the two-day playtest comes to an end, I reflect on just how rare it is to be given so much hands-on time with a game at this stage of its development. It's testament to Blizzard's confidence in its product that we've been given such unfettered access to it. Still at pre-alpha stage, StarCraft II not only has the makings of another classic Blizzard RTS, it's already more stable than many finished games, with bugs virtually nonexistent.

With an open-ended single-player game also in the offing (head to the Choose Your Own Conquest panel for more info), and with the already sublime collection of factions being built upon with impressive imagination, StarCraft could be about to mount a triumphant return a decade after it first took the RTS genre by storm.

Perhaps you've never played the original, but if Blizzard continues along its current development path, then I'm willing to wager you'll be playing the sequel when it finally hits the shelves.

As for when that will be. Well, when it's done of course. After all, this is Blizzard we're talking about...

The Setting

Blizzard's worldwide headquarters in Irvine, CA. Less than a week after Blizzard opened the doors to an international group of writers from across the globe, we were invited down a closed, head-to-head play session of StarCraft II -- just the two of us, playing the Terran, Protoss, and newly-revamped Zerg as we saw fit. And play we did over six long, brutal (for Jeff, anyway) hours of real-time strategizing.

The Players

James Mielke
The newly ensconced editor-in-chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly isn't exactly a hardcore PC gamer, but he is a hardcore Blizzard fanatic, and anything StarCraft or Diablo-related falls under his personal jurisdiction. More specifically, he's a StarCraft freak, having spent the better part of four years after the release of StarCraft: Brood War playing the game and testing his custom maps until 6 a.m. every morning. That made him the perfect person to sic on 1UP.com's PC Games editor-in-chief...

Jeff Green
Outmatched, outmaneuvered, and outnumbered (yet never outclassed) for the better part of six hours, Les Grenfant Terrible took his knocks like a champ, despite never having more than a snowball's chance in hell during summer at halting the terrible swarm of Milky's forces wherever he went, which, once it began, poured on like the thick, wet cement of death. This feature documents the most fun Jeff ever had losing at a game for six hours straight. Have you ever enjoyed losing at something so horribly for such a sustained period of time? If so, then your name must be 'Jeff Green.'

The Maps

Name: Burning Rift
Dimensions: 128x152
Tileset: Char [Volcanic]
Length of Match: 43 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Terran]

Name: Scrap Yard
Dimensions: 160x160
Tileset: Braxis Alpha [Space Platform]
Length of Match: 9 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Zerg]

Name: Kulas Ravine
Dimensions: 160x168
Tileset: Bel'Shir [Jungle]
Length of Match: 1 hour 6 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Zerg]

Name: Quicksand
Dimensions: 160x160
Tileset: MarSara [Wasteland]
Length of Match: 40 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Terran]

Map: Quicksand
Length of Match: 52 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Terran]

Map: Quicksand
Length of Match: 40 minutes
Victory! Milky [Terran]
Defeat! Jeff [Zerg]

Map: Kulas Ravine
Length of Match: 34 minutes
Victory! Milky [Zerg]
Defeat! Jeff [Terran]

The War

James Mielke: So, Jeff, you're not really any good at StarCraft are you? I mean, I know this. I just want to hear you say it.

Jeff Green: I am not very good at StarCraft. At least not now, in 2008. At one time, when I was a younger man and had more brain cells, I was better. I beat Brood War multiple times!

Milky: Yeah, but...really? I'm pretty sure an even fundamental grasp of StarCraft -- and not Age of Empires -- would have resulted in at least temporary defense of some sort in, around, or in front of your base.

Jeff: This is true. But it also depends on your definition of "fundamental grasp." Because while you may have been "playing to win," because you're a bully, I was just kind of casually perusing the tech tree rather than concentrating on, say, a "strategy." Anyway, that's my story.

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Milky: You don't casually peruse the tech tree when I say "OK, let's do this." You casually peruse the tech tree by yourself with the CPU set to 'best friend.'

Jeff: Which is what I did during those matches I played without you. One of which I actually won, by the way.

Milky: OK, so I've established that your idea of defense is -- when you play as the unwieldy, overweight Terrans, which is most of the time -- an unsecured bunker with zero Siege Tank support and no turrets to detect invisible units. And on the basis of this, you expect me to believe you actually played the game back in 1998?

Jeff: I only had no Siege Tank support because you already wiped me out before I had teched up enough to get them. Anyway, I never was much of a turtle. My fundamental philosophy of war is: Defense is for sissies!

Milky: Easy to say that when you never had any. The only thing that redeems you here is the fact that I've seen worse. Like when I went to an interview at IGN back in 2000 and beat them in a 5-on-1 match. My favorite part was in that match against you where I literally covered the map with creep, marching my Queen around like she was the boss of you, spraying her viscous brown placenta over 95 percent of the map. Remember how you wondered why you couldn't even leave your own base? Lurkers, son. Lurkers. Lurkers.

Jeff: Yeah, those Lurkers need nerfing. Yeah, I went there. Anyway, I will claim one more time -- speaking of defense, or defensiveness -- that I was too busy just checking the new stuff out to get into a hardcore strategy mindset. For example, while you were busy amassing your 8 billion Zerg units, I was simply running my marines back and forth just to watch the Supply Depots sink into the ground, because it was so neat!

Milky: Yeah but we played, like, nine matches. You were checking out the tech tree for nine whole matches? I lost faith in there ever being a challenge when Bob the Blizzard PR dude kept saying "Jeff, you need more SCVs." You were trying to build Siege Tanks with 5 SCVs. In order to spend money you need to make money.

Jeff: See, 20 years of living in Berkeley have made me lose my understanding of the fundamentals of capitalism. Anyway, why is this entire article turning into a trial in which I'm being accused of sucking? I've already plead guilty! Anyway, I really loved when Bob the PR dude switched sides and started giving you tips, even as you were soundly beating me. That was like Mohammed Ali giving a boxer tips on beating up a little girl. Not that I'm comparing myself to a little girl. Well maybe I am a little.

Milky: You're a little girl alright. But StarCraft II really feels right. Not that I could tell against you, since our matches were little more than a big fat case of, "Hey, come on in and test your units out on my face!" But it really feels like Blizzard's on the right track. Before they let us sit down with the Zerg, I'll admit that I wasn't sure if they could pull off a sequel to a game with built-in expectations like this. But now I'm sure they can handle it.

Jeff: I agree, even though you've essentially destroyed my credibility before we've even gotten to any serious analysis, so no one is really gonna care what I have to say now. But, yes, that was the feeling I got throughout our day there: That what we were playing was still "StarCraft" but yet also something new enough and different enough to keep us on our toes, alter our strategies -- well, for those of us who have them -- and really reconsider all three races, without betraying what has always made each one so cool and unique.

Milky: What's good is that -- and this may be obvious -- there's enough of the old stuff for veterans to get right back into the groove. Like, remember how I parlayed some of the basic opening gambits on your ass? The Zerg Rush -- everyone's favorite -- to a jacked-up zealot rush, and the personal high point of the day was when I probe rushed you in one of our practice matches. The fact that I had so many units -- and resources -- that I could afford to waste my gatherers on you en masse is saying something. I found it ironic and hilarious after that Protoss Mothership's over-powered 'Black Hole' move way back. After Blizzard watched you disembowel my entire Protoss fleet when we visited them last year, I guess they took that to heart and nerfed the Big Mama. I'm sorry you couldn't tech up and just fly that ship into my base this time. I truly am.

Jeff: Yeah I bet you are. And thank you for acknowledging that at least once in the not-too-distant past, I did, in fact, do you some serious damage.

Milky: You still lost.

Jeff: Yeah, you didn't have to mention that part. The great thing, as you say, is that when you first start the match, any match, even in your very first game, you feel like you are right at home. And all these new maps, at least the ones we saw, were interesting. I'd actually say they were tougher than the SC1 maps. Or maybe I just feel that way because I was dead before ever getting out of my one corner.

Milky: Well, the maps we played on were tough, because unlike most of the matches you see on Battle.net these days, the resources were limited. Even with the high-yield resource fields, you really do have to stake out your territory quickly in order to gather up those minerals and gas. It's a calculated risk, of course, since an exposed, unprotected base can be a serious resource sink if you lose it. That's what makes the Zerg so awesome. Since you can just send a Drone off to build a Hatchery, I could just drop one by a resource node and forget about it, unless it got attacked, in which case I could still cancel it and save the minerals. Plus, since you never thought to send detector units out with your soldiers, all I needed to do was plant a couple Lurkers -- make that "half a dozen" -- and any ground unit, which is basically all you made, that came within reach was toast. Even better for the Zerg is the new method of manufacturing creep. Using the Queen to lay down the ground and air defense units, instead of having to build individual Sunken Colonies and Spore Colonies like you did in the old games, is vastly more effective at establishing territorial dominance.

Jeff: Yeah, the resources were not only limited, but some of them were literally inaccessible at the start of the matches. Stone barriers blocked off many of the nodes, and other nodes were completely separated out on floating "islands" that took both of us a while to figure out how to access. And, you know, I had ambivalent feelings, when I played the Zerg, about the new method of spreading creep. It felt a lot more micromanagey to me than the old way of letting the colonies doing it for you.

Milky: It's really not that hard. There are a couple ways to do it. Either upgrade the Overlord to an Overseer, which lets you plant an Overlord over unclaimed territory to spew creep -- and also expand his vision the longer you stay still -- or just run your Queen around and plant spores that the creep. I'm not super-solid on all the unit names yet, but it wasn't hard. It was like laying Spider Mines down. But Blizzard might want to take a close look at Lurker drops, though, because a half-dozen of those or a full 12 can level any base within seconds -- and with the new Nydus Worms I'd say that defending players are going to have to make sure they have solid perimeter or in-base defenses set up, or it's going to be trouble. I know what veteran StarCraft players are thinking, "Well, of course, duh!" But it's even more urgent now than ever before. I don't think anyone wants to go through what you did when I finally figured out how to Nydus Worm you.

Jeff: That was horrendous, yes. In fact, that was the match where I actually felt proud of my front-line defense. In that case, I actually had the bunkers, supply depots, and tanks ready to go. But that backdoor Nydus Worm attack just utterly nailed me.

Milky: That was the one match where you finally got some stuff going, like a Battlecruiser -- I say that in the singular -- some mild defenses, and hell, you even had a Siege Tank up and running. I was so proud of you. So proud that I felt like I couldn't bear to beat your front door down, which is why I popped one of my Nydus Worms right by your Command Center and unloaded -- what was it? -- 56 Hydralisks, a dozen Lurkers, and 48 fully upgraded Zerglings on your SCVs and buildings.

Jeff: Yeah, that was actually pretty hilarious to watch, even though it was happening to me. The Nydus Worm felt to me like one of the most radical units in the whole game, of any race. Well, other than the Queen -- which really changes the fundamental strategy of the Zerg, which I think is not an exaggeration. The ability of that unit to pop back and forth at will between all your bases and provide very strong defense opens up entirely new ways to play. But it also seems like it's going to be hard to master for a while.

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Milky: I hope Blizzard takes my suggestion of having a 'Queen marker' on your mini-map to heart though. It's a real pain in the ass trying to track that bitch down, when your whole screen is a throbbing collection of brown-on-brown -- zerg-on-creep -- puzzle pieces. Like, a nice, fat, red dot would do, thank you very much. Half the time I had no idea where she was, even using the Idle Units button. Your biggest overall problem, though, was base expansion, or a lack thereof. I recall the match where I knew you weren't expanding, simply because I had sleepy Lurkers lurking outside your entrance the whole time. You never even tried to drop-ship an SCV somewhere else. Well, except for that one time when you made my Zerg rush go on for an unnecessary extra couple of minutes because I had to figure out where your additional base was.

Jeff: Yeah, that became my default strategy as the day went on: Send out an SCV or two, in a panic, and build new Command Centers in remote corners where you would temporarily not find me and maybe be fooled into thinking I was dead, while I secretly built up the giant army and then came from behind with the improbable comeback victory. That was the theory anyway. And your Find Queen button is a must. Hear that, Blizzard? In my matches playing as the Zerg, that was an issue every single time. "Where's my Queen?! Where's my Queen?!?!"

Milky: Especially since you spend so much time and money leveling her up. Not like a Warcraft III hero unit, but just tech-tree style, gaining new abilities. Back in the day I would play online and always pick "random" as my race. That's how confident I was in my grasp of each race's tech tree. But this time around, I truly believe that anyone who picks the Terrans has their work cut out for them. Terrans of old at least had a fairly easy-to-manage grid, even though building 50 supply depots was a mess no matter where you put 'em. Now, with the new, highly detailed 3D graphics, organizing a Terran base is a headache. Big buildings, which look totally cool, often don't have any function of their own, but enhance whatever they're attached to. It'll take some getting used to, and no matter how I laid things out, it always still seemed like a mess. But the multiple rally points, depending on race, and the new automated commands, like being able to set SCVs to auto-repair if in the vicinity of damaged units, are life-savers.

Jeff: Yes, auto-repair is cool! One of those small ideas you wonder how you lived without previously. Same with the multiple rally points -- that one I'm surprised hasn't showed up in other RTS games that I know of. Terrans have always had problems of sprawl and unwieldiness, but, hey, at least now the supply depots have some functionality and strategic importance to them rather than just being lumps hogging up valuable map space. And, not that I'm really in the mood to defend you or massage your ego at this point -- or ever again, you meanie! -- I will say that not only is it to be expected that you're not confident in all the races yet, it's also, obviously, a very good thing that you aren't, because it points to just how much Blizzard's changed and added, even for a veteran like yourself.

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Milky: It was fun to vary the matches too. Like when you and I were allies, playing against four CPUs. The CPUs are tough little bitches now, too. You like how they send out a scout unit? Every time we started a match, I had a punk-ass little SCV sniffing out my base. If you're playing against the CPU, you'll want to have defenses up quickly or you'll end up with a half-dozen angry Zealots in your face. Playing against you and four enemy CPUs was a challenge. But it was really satisfying holding off the computer long enough to amass an army that would stomp the computer, allowing me to savor your inevitable destruction all on my own. "Leave Jeff alone, jerks! He's mine!"

Jeff: If you would just now post a video on this site of you yelling at the StarCraft A.I. "Leave Jeff alone!" I think my life would be complete. But, yeah, the A.I. is noticeably tougher now -- in my solo games, they were constantly going after my secondary bases, especially the ones I had not yet heavily defended. OK, so that was all of them. Fine.

Milky: Fortunately, the CPU is still as bad as you at sending detector units along with your troops. So, lurkers for the win.

Jeff: Nerf. Lurkers. Now.

Milky: CPU opponents sure like their Siege Tanks, though, which gave my Queen a hard time, especially since the Zerg ground defense buildings are low in HP. Nothing 148 Zerglings can't handle though.

Jeff: And let me just say that these new 3D zerg rushes aren't getting old. The graphics are amazing in this game -- particularly with the Zerg. Blizzard has done an excellent job of really bringing the creepy, slimy, insectoid grossness of this race out this time. I think I fell in love with the Infestors.

Milky: Yeah, you would love the Infestors. Me, I was just hoping Blizzard's merchandise shop was open so I could walk in and buy a Tychus Findlay statue. I mean, the place is this close to being Disneyland for Dorks. I'm guessing 12 million people sending Blizzard a $15 thank-you-note every month helped finance their 30 foot-tall chocolate-filled, diamond-studded, solid-gold Night Elf (on mount) lobby sculpture. Too bad the shop was closed though. I missed out on the Murloc T-shirt last year in Korea.

Jeff: I have two Murloc T-shirts myself, which I suppose is not something I really should be bragging about. Anyway, analyzing and marveling over the new Blizzard campus -- the house that 10 million nerds built -- is a subject for another article. I do want to eat at the on-campus restaurant though and get me one of them Tauren burgers. Mmmm Tauren.

Milky: Maybe next time I'll try two-boxing to give you a fighting chance at taking down whatever I'm not concentrating on. I seem to recall stomping you into the ground while I was busy eating that tasty lasagna that Blizzard rolled out for lunch. C'mon, Jeff!

Jeff: Yeah, that was tasty lasagna. What was that mystery meat inside? Zergling? Speaking of mysteries, the big mystery of StarCraft II, still, which was not answered by our visit, is just what the heck is going on with the single-player campaign, or even what the storyline is in that campaign. When they showed a glimpse of it at BlizzCon, I have to admit I wasn't entirely convinced. I mean, it was early, and we only saw a tiny piece of it, but they were showing things -- like dialog trees -- that just felt bizarre to me. They've been so quiet about it so far that it makes me wonder what's up. These multiplayer matches have been fantastic, but I know I'm not alone in thinking that the StarCraft single-player campaigns were every bit as important as the multiplayer. But tthere's no reason to panic. Underestimating Blizzard is a fool's game. Just ask EverQuest!

Milky: I'm eager to see what happens with our boy, Jim Raynor, and hybrid bug hottie Kerrigan, not to mention new bad boy Tychus Findlay. I liked the story mode in StarCraft and Brood Wars, all those years ago, but the wait has made those characters almost legendary now. I get the same OMG feeling thinking about what the single-player mode is going to be like, much in the same way I was anticipating the new Star Wars movies...until George Lucas f***ed that up, that is. What I'm really curious about are the upgrades Blizzard's making to Battle.net. Like, I seriously want to be able to create my own clan, build reputation, that kind of stuff. I'd name my clan JeffGreenDontComeRoundHereNoMore in honor of you.

Jeff: Wow, can I join? I'll totally have your back in any team game. I can promise you at least 5 SCVs and 1 Siege Tank per game.

Milky: Why would I do that when I can just infest your Command Center and blow you up?

Jeff: I don't know -- because you like me? You know, considering we're now at 14-0 and the game hasn't even come out yet, you could be a little nicer to me. You could take me under your wing. I could be Luke to your Yoda here, not that I'm implying you look a nearsighted, old, green Muppet. Well, most days, at least. Teach me the ways of StarCraft mastery, O Great One!

Milky: The best place for a newbie like you to cut his teeth is in the original StarCraft. I agree that the shock value of firing up that relic after playing StarCraft II is pretty jarring, but after a few minutes with the game, you forget about its dated graphics and low resolution. That it plays as well now as it did 10 years ago is testament to its balance and excellent design. I played StarCraft for way longer than I expected to because I couldn't stop messing with its map editor. I made, played on, and tested my maps for years. The guys at Blizzard were saying that if I liked that map editor, and more specifically Warcraft III's editor, then the one they're cooking up for StarCraft II would blow me away. Seeing classic StarCraft maps recreated in hi-res 3D was badass. That said, the StarCraft Battle Chest, which contains both original games and the strategy guides, is like the best $15 you'll ever spend on a damn game.

Jeff: This is one point we can agree on. StarCraft has only dated in terms of graphics. In every other respect, it's as great a strategy game as it ever was -- one of the greatest if not the greatest real-time strategy game of all time. We've joked around here before that even the notion of StarCraft II is not unlike the idea of "Chess II." How do you improve on perfection, and maybe more importantly, why bother? But I think, amazingly, you and I got answers to both those questions that day.

Milky: Yeah, now all we need is for the game to come out. The dev team is in that enviable position that few developers in the world have, and that's the "it's done when it's done" position. Who else can really say something like that? Valve? BioWare? Not even those developers, as amazing as they are, have produced as many productivity-destroying games as Blizzard. I'm not a blind Blizzard fan, though. I didn't really like WarCraft III, the original WarCraft, or World of WarCraft all that much; I'm more of a StarCraft/Diablo fan. So the final game will still have to hold up if we're going to think of it in the same context as the classic original. But from the evidence of our playtime, spread out over the course of a year, and especially with this recent day-long session with the Zerg, I'm confident that they're on the right track. If there are even any skeptics out there sitting on the fence, I'm pretty sure that once they sit down with this game, and figure out the new units -- like when I zapped your 100 Zerglings with my half-dozen Protoss Colossi -- that they're going to enjoy this every bit as much as the original games.

Jeff: My one last piece of advice to those reading: Don't play against Milky. He cheats!

Buenisimo!! algo para leer... despues de tanto tiempo viene interesante ver algunas previews para pasar el tiempo hasta el proximo evento =D

la micromania tb traia un reportaje bastante mono

wua es todo el caxondeo entre milky y jeff... Milky le gana 7 partidas y tienen toa la wasa...

esta entretenido... no estoy deacuerdo con el NERF LURKERS que tanto dicen, pero bueno... sera un bombazo como no...

Uf vaya tocharro,espero la traduccion para poder leer algo,ultimamente no hay nada de informacion nueva.

ufff mucho por leer........ tendre que conformarme con lo que se de ingles por el momento

Joder que pedazo de info........

pr0 y su azañas de noticias, lo malo esque no se mucho ingles y tendre que esperar la traduccion............."y donde está Lon-ami" para este tipo de casos???

Gracias por la info pr0g, se agradece mucho, pero despues de la traduccion .

http://www.google.es/language_tools?hl=es

cutre traductor es mejor que nada XDDDDD

hay alguna cosilla que no se entiende pero la mayoria si se entiende...