If you haven’t heard yet, Rob Pardo, Senior VP of Game Design at Blizzard, has confirmed that Starcraft II will not support LAN play. Yeah, you heard that right. Even though LAN play has been the pillar upon which Starcraft stood for years, it won’t be included in the sequel.

In an interview with Inc Gamers, Pardo said, “we don’t have any plans to support LAN.” When asked directly for clarification, he said, “We will not support it.” Furthermore, in a follow up with Blizzard, they were told that the exclusion of LAN play, “is because of the planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net,” a topic they will reveal more about at a later date.

As you can well imagine, the Starcraft community isn’t happy. Starcraft II has already received its share of attention, once it was revealed that it would be released in three parts. Blizzard has assured gamers that each parts of the release will be a full-fledged game, and the furor has died down. Unfortunately, Blizzard is now in the center of a storm again, and this time it’s LAN gamers stirring things up.

UPDATE: A new statement from Blizzard appears after the break.

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Without question, one of the most anticipated games of 2009 is Starcraft 2. Blizzard’s popular RTS series caused quite a stir late last year when it was announced that the game would be released in three installments, one for each of the three player factions.

Whether you found that news annoying, exciting, or neither, you have to admit that you are stoked about the chance to play Starcraft 2. Well, now you may get a chance to earlier than you think.

Blizzard has opened up beta testing signups for Starcraft 2. If you’re interested in joining in, you’ll need to head over to Battle.net’s beta profile page and get your sign up on. You know you want to.

I would like to remind everyone of the point of a beta test. It’s to find bugs, report them to the developer, and help make the retail release a better product. It’s not simply a chance to demo the game early. So please, don’t look at this as a demo. Look at it as your chance to improve a game that millions of people will be playing.

Regardless, this isn’t an opportunity to pass up. Go sign up today!

If you need a little refresher, you can find a couple of trailers right after the break.

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Blizzard has sent us an update for StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War. Want the patch details? Well, look no further because here they are:

StarCraft Patch 1.16

Feature Changes: In-game chat is now saved in replays. Note: whispers are not saved. Hitting the Escape key while in the chat room will clear your typed text. “/reply” (or just “/r”) will send a whisper to person who most recently whispered you.

Bug Fixes: Fixed localization issues with “from” and “to” in whispers. Starcraft now only uses as much CPU as it needs to run smoothly.

Exploits

• Fixed an exploit which allowed Zerg players to gain minerals through mutations.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed Zerg players to recycle an upgrading building.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed Zerg players to extend their creep with a drone.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed Zerg players to move Drones over impassable terrain.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed Terran players to drop a nuke anywhere on the map.
• Fixed an exploit which allowed players to pause the game while in the pre-game lobby.

StarCraft: Brood War Patch 1.16 notes are exactly the same. Hit whichever badge that you need to update your game.

Gamers were outraged when they heard that StarCraft 2 would be coming in three different parts. Blizzard had claimed it wouldn’t let the merger between Activision and Blizzard parent company Vivendi impact the way it did business. But the move reeked of the type of thingthat would fit right in with Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s recent comments that the company want their games to be exploitable. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Blizzard COO Paul Sams vehemently denies that StarCraft 2 is being milked.

Speaking with VideoGamer.com today before a midnight launch of Wrath of the Lich King in London today, he said:

The fact of the matter is, it’s absolutely, positively untrue about us trying to stretch it out and milk it. People think that it was a monetary driven decision. I can absolutely, positively tell you, with 100 per cent certainty, that that was not part of the conversation. I guarantee it. I give my word. There was never, ever a conversation where we said, ‘let’s do this because we’re going to make more money’. I guarantee it. As a matter of fact the sole reason we did it was because we thought it was going to be a better experience. Anybody that says otherwise is not correct. It is absolutely not what we did it for.

Sims’ denial is more passionate than the usual corporate line we get, so maybe it’ll be enough to convince fans that Blizzard truly is doing this to deliver the best game is possible.

But we doubt it.

Considering it was announced long before Diablo III, you’d think Starcraft II would be the next new game releasing from Blizzard, right? Not so, according to the latest rumor. An anonymous source apparently tipped off BattleForums, saying that the development of the Starcraft sequel has been postponed for the most part until Diablo III is ready for launch. They’ve even shifted around the teams as such:

[Starcraft 2] is still being worked on, but only by a minuscule amount of people compared to what [Blizzard] put on the Diablo 3 team.

Personally, I’ll be happy with either game, though I do wonder if this means we’ll have to wait even longer for a new Blizzard title. It’s also kind of strange that Blizzard would do this now, since everything I’ve seen of Starcraft II lately makes it look like it could be finished any day now. We’ll have to see how this all plays out.

Via BattleForums

Blizzard announced a few minutes ago that they are offering up some of their gaming soundtracks via iTunes.

This follows in the footsteps of the Diablo III Overture, which was recently released as a Discovery Download and is free until Tuesday, September 9. At least in the U.S. - visitors to this site have reported that it was not free in other countries, but hopefully Apple has fixed that by now.

Much of this music was originally available only in collector’s editions of the games, or at special events such as the company’s BlizzCon. Each set will cost the usual in your area.

Here is what is currently being offered up in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan:

• StarCraft Original Soundtrack
• Diablo II Original Soundtrack
• Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Original Soundtrack
• World of Warcraft Original Soundtrack
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Original Soundtrack
• World of Warcraft: Taverns of Azeroth Original Soundtrack

The albums have been placed on a new Blizzard Entertainment hub page within the iTunes store. This page also hosts content such as the BlizzCast podcast and trailers and gameplay footage from upcoming games, with more material to be added in the months ahead.

via: Press Release

Over at the Official World of Warcraft website, Blizzard has posted a reminder that the finals for both World of Warcraft and Warcraft III tournaments are scheduled for this weekend September 6-7. Attendees will be given the opportunity to demo WoW: Wrath of the Lich King and Starcraft 2.

If you’re near the the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston, Massachusetts in the US or the Circulo Bellas artes, Salon de columnas in Madrid, Spain admission is free. Check out the latest World of Warcraft news for the fine print on the tournaments.

The WoW PvP tournaments for Taiwan and Korea are over. There was no mention in the news of gamers being invited to demo the Wrath of the Lich King or Starcraft 2. Of course I can imagine the chaos that would have created in Korea. Starcraft is huge there. As it is, I can envision many gamers who don’t care about WoW or Warcraft III showing up this weekend for an opportunity to get their hands on a Starcraft 2 demo.

Gamers who were saddened over tickets for BlizzCon 2008 selling out so quickly due to both the overwhelming response and technical difficulties encountered when trying to order them can rejoice. Blizzard is now offering another 3,000 tickets up for fans wanting to attend the event at the Anaheim Convention Center from October 10-11.

In the wake of all the gamers left out in the cold, company boss Mike Morhaime has issued a public apology over on the official BlizzCon site where he states that Blizzard has reevaluated the space within the convention hall and feels confident that another 3,000 rabid fans can be packed into it.

“Due to these circumstances, we’ve reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend.”

These extra tickets will be sold via a lottery which is only open to those who created a Blizzard account before 9:00 p.m. PDT on August 12, which is when the “Sold Out” notice crushed the hopes and dreams of many.

While it is obvious that and extra 3,000 tickets will not help curb the demand for such a popular event, it is comforting to know that the folks at Blizzard are doing all they can to try make everyone happy. Don’t you wish that all gaming companies were this thoughtful and appreciative of their fans?

For the past few years, achievements have been all the rage on Xbox 360. The recent PS3 v2.4 firmware update added in support for trophies, Sony’s answer to achievements, and PlayStation Home has promised to make trophies a big deal.

So imagine the possibility of achievements in World of Warcraft; a scenario we learned would become reality with the game’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. As it turns out, there’s more to Blizzard’s plans for achievements than just tacking on some goals to their insanely popular MMO — Diablo III and Starcraft II will be getting in on the achievement love, too.

“Eventually, our plans are for the Achievement system to become an account-based system,” WoW lead designer Jeff Kaplan told MTV Multiplayer.

With these new Blizzard Accounts, you’ll be able to earn points to add to your “Blizzard Level,” which Kaplan admitted is “basically a gamerscore” when the subject of Xbox Live’s system came up.

“For now the points are just a WoW character score. As we graduate to that Blizzard Account system, which is right on the horizon, it will switch over to a Blizzard Level.”

He added, “Your WoW score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW.’ That sort of thing.”

Sounds great, but wouldn’t it be better if this were plugged into Live where you could track achievements and points across a larger spectrum than just the latest Blizzard titles?

Gamers can now find Sacred Gold on Valve’s Steam service. As the preparations for the coming of Sacred 2 accelerate, some gamers may want to take a shot at the first game to get to know the setting or revisit an old favorite. The Sacred Gold digital download contains the original award winning game as well as Sacred Plus and Sacred Underworld.

It seems that gamers are waiting breathlessly on several games based on old favorites these days. Between Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Fallout 3 and Sacred 2, players seem happy to over look the absence of new titles out there. I know that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it; but that will only please the masses for so long.

via Steam