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Greetings, citizens of the Koprulu sector! StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is celebrating its one-month anniversary and we’re extremely excited to witness the amazing community that’s come together around the game. To that end, we want you to know we are hard at work on the first feature and balance patch, and expect to have it completed and available by the middle of September. Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, and more. We’d also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.

To begin, we’ve heard a lot of feedback from our global community about standardized hotkey options. We’re happy to announce that in patch 1.1 we are going to make the Standard (US) and Standard for Lefties (US) hotkey options available in all regions.

Balance Changes

We have several balance changes in store. One general change we’re making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let’s break down the additional balance changes we’re implementing.

Maps

We’re going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.

Protoss

We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby “proxy” gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.

Terran

There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.

Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we’re changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.

Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We’re aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.

Zerg

Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.

And Beyond…

We are reading your posts on the forums and creating lists of features and bugs to address in future patches. We have mid- to long-term plans to further evolve the Custom Game experience, and soon, enhance our social features with the addition of chat channels. We will be sharing more specific information in the coming weeks. As with all of our previous games, we will support StarCraft II for many years to come. Your feedback and participation is critical in making this not only the best game it can be, but also the most engaged gaming community in the world. We look forward to the implementation of patch 1.1, as well as sharing our plans for our future gameplay and Battle.net features.

We’ll see you online!

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NCsoft has released an impressive new video showcasing Guild Wars 2. They’re really trying to get a point across that grinding, repetitive quests, and that the current MMORPG style of gaming is not the best way to enjoy the games.

Check it out!

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Today at the gamescom trade fair in Cologne, Germany, Blizzard Entertainment unveiled a brand-new gameplay feature for its highly-anticipated action role-playing game, Diablo® III. Even in single-player mode, the heroes of Sanctuary won’t have to face the hordes of the Burning Hells alone, as a persistent caravan follows them on their perilous quest. The caravan provides access to a group of unique support characters including a blacksmith, a mystic, and a jeweler, each of which offer exclusive gameplay benefits that will aid players in their epic struggle. And these aren’t just static NPCs — each artisan has his or her own story and quest line, and they gradually grow in skill and learn new recipes over the course of the game as players take advantage of their services. The utility provided by these characters adds another layer of customization and depth to the Diablo III gameplay experience.

Check out a full video narrated by Design Director Jay Wilson on our Facebook page here.

As well as screenshots.

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Blizzard Entertainment last week won a default judgment worth tens of millions of dollars against the operator of an unauthorized World of Warcraft server.

A U.S. District Court judge awarded Blizzard $88 million from defendant Alyson Reeves, operator of Scapegaming, according to court documents obtained by Gamasutra. Blizzard originally filed the lawsuit in October last year.

Blizzard accused Reeves of copyright infringement, unfair competition and circumvention of copyright protection systems, among other allegations. The company said Scapegaming was “well aware” that its actions were unauthorized.

The total award includes over $3 million in disgorged profits, $85.4 million in statutory damages and $64,000 in attorney’s fees. Reeves had not responded to the suit, resulting in the default judgment in favor of Blizzard.

Blizzard had accused Reeves, based in the state of Georgia, of marketing and promoting Scapegaming, which allows users to access the copyrighted World of Warcraft without using official Blizzard servers, circumventing subscription fees due to the game’s creators.

Operators of pirate servers can alter gameplay of copyrighted MMOs like World of Warcraft, such as allowing players to level up considerably faster than in the legitimate game. The original complaint said Scapegaming would ask for “donations” from players — but these donations were in exchange for virtual items ranging from $1 to advance characters two levels, to $300 for a pack that included a collection of rare items.

The judge’s order said Blizzard “submitted satisfactory evidence from third-party PayPal Inc. showing that Defendant’s PayPal account received $3,052,339 in gross revenues.”

The order also said that Blizzard submitted satisfactory evidence that showed Reeves’ website (Scapegaming.com, currently down) hosted 32,000 users on a given day in June 2008. That same month, there were over 427,000 members of the Scapegaming community, and Reeves, who goes by a number of aliases including “Peyton,” said that 40,000 people play on Scapegaming’s servers every day.

The court took the size of the community, 427,000, and multiplied that figure by $200 “per act of circumvention” of a copyright security system, and came to the statutory damages amount of over $85 million. It’s unclear if Reeves, who didn’t respond to the suit, would be able to pay the award to fulfillment, or if the defendant would appeal the ruling.

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There you have it folks. If you profit from running an illegal WoW server, Blizzard will own you!

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