How time files when you are having fun. Ten years ago March 31, 1998 StarCraft was released, and the RTS genre has never been the same.

I can not do this game justice with anything I say about it so I will let Blizzard do it themselves:

On March 31, 1998, Blizzard Entertainment released StarCraft, a revolutionary real-time strategy game pitting three powerful and distinctive races against each other in a war-torn galaxy. In StarCraft, the resourceful terrans, mysterious protoss, and relentless zerg find themselves in a confluence of events that has only one possible outcome: an epic war for conquest and survival.

The year of its release, more than 1.5 million copies of StarCraft were sold around the world, making it the bestselling PC game of 1998. To date, it has sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide. A considerable number of those copies have been sold in South Korea, where the game continues to enjoy unprecedented levels of popularity.

Augmented with the essential Brood War expansion pack, StarCraft remains one of the most popular online games in the world. Its legacy as a cornerstone Blizzard Entertainment franchise as well as a classic of the real-time strategy genre was recently brought back into focus with the announcement of StarCraft II.

Here are some of the notable features of the original StarCraft:

* Three distinctive races, each with unique units, technologies, attributes, and abilities
* A unique single-player campaign that introduces players to the epic characters and gritty sci-fi setting of the StarCraft universe
* Fast-paced multiplayer play over Battle.net, Blizzard’s proprietary online gaming service
* The ability to create custom maps, units, and campaigns with the fully featured Campaign Editor

Multiplayer
StarCraft’s gameplay supports a wide range of player skill, with play at the highest levels characterized by elite multitasking and micromanagement skills, as well as precise tactics and consistent execution. This led to StarCraft’s rise as a competitive multiplayer game and its adoption by professional gaming leagues.

Battle.net, which was introduced alongside Diablo, evolved with StarCraft’s release, and was tremendously important in the game’s multiplayer popularity. Besides the existing matchmaking capabilities, ladder rankings were introduced, along with more detailed user profiles, including wins and losses.

As was the case with Diablo, the combination of compelling gameplay and well-implemented multiplayer support resulted in a dedicated and passionate player base.

Popularity
After its release, StarCraft rapidly grew in popularity around the world. In South Korea, it quickly became the preeminent multiplayer game in the country, and was instrumental in the rise of professional gaming there. The game is still as popular as ever in a country where top StarCraft players are celebrities and their competitive matches are watched by millions on national television networks.

The Brood War expansion, released in 1998, is an essential component of the StarCraft experience. In addition to a new single-player campaign, several new units and abilities were introduced, as were many game-balance changes that represented the new standard in StarCraft competitive play.

StarCraft II
On May 19, 2007, in Seoul, South Korea, Blizzard Entertainment officially announced the development of a sequel, StarCraft II. Continuing the story of the protoss, zerg, and terrans, the sequel intends to take the single-player and multiplayer strengths that were developed in StarCraft and elevate them to new height

So lets all raise our glasses to StarCraft. May it continue to give us enjoyment, and may Blizzard hurry the hell up with StarCraft II.

Source: Blizzard

Tickets for the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational Tickets are now on sale. Gamers from all over the world will be converging on Paris, France June 28-29, 2008 for this special event. Attendees will be treated to Q&A sessions, eSport competitions and a chance to get some hands on experience with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II.

Tickets are priced at €70 / £55 for both days. You can order your tickets on the official Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational website.

Starcraft was probably one of the most popular RTS’s ever made. Even now, almost a decade after its release, people the world over are still playing it (especially in Korea, where it’s pretty much a sport all its own). How could anyone ever top something like that? I don’t know, but Blizzard’s certainly up to the task. In this video, lead producer, Chris Sigaty, explains how the Zerg have evolved in the upcoming sequel. One thing that’s sure to cause screams of anguish from your rivals is that all of the Zerg units can now burrow. Also, the queen has now been changed to a central defensive unit that can essentially add buffs to your units and buildings. It already looks like gamers everywhere are going to have to come up with new strategies for this one.

Honestly, I can’t get enough Starcraft II news. The other day, we posted a trailer for the game that was shown in Korea, but now you can actually see and view the trailer without the “shaky cam view.” In addition to that, there’s another trailer after the break showing more Zerg rushing action that focuses a bit more on the mutalisks. It looks like Blizzard wasn’t kidding around when they said there were going to be many more units on screen. It’s actually hard to even tell what’s going on in some of these battles.

Read the full article »

It’s like some weird monthly ritual to have new information for the upcoming Starcraft II to suddenly spring up out of nowhere. In Korea recently, Blizzard revealed a new intro trailer for the Zerg which was pretty awesome-looking. Unfortunately, it’s shot off a screen, so it’s a little fuzzy and hard to hear. One thing’s for sure though: those Zerg rushes are going to be epic.

In a recent podcast from Blizzard (a.k.a. a “Blizzcast”), VP of creative development, Chris Metzen stated that the studio’s upcoming Starcraft sequel “feels like the best work we’ve ever done.” Considering this is the guy who created the storylines for the original Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo franchises, those are probably words that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Metzen went on to say:

“It’s been very, very rewarding to see this thing take shape. Just getting back to that Blizzard of yesteryear where it’s not all about WoW – don’t get me wrong, I love WOW! But we’re so much more than that.”

As someone whose never even touched WoW and still thinks Blizzard is one of the best video game studios around, I’d say he’s spot on in thinking they’re “so much more than that.” And I think I speak for just about everyone in the PC gaming community when I say, “You’re making a sequel to arguably the best RTS to date. It had better be your best work ever.”

At last week’s DICE event, one of the things that perked up many an eyebrow was a presentation by Blizzard execs where, at one point, they listed several games that had been canceled by the famed developer. Aside from the fact that most people had no idea Blizzard had ever worked on these titles, a number of people noticed the curious absence of Starcraft: Ghost on the list. Many people still remember the stealth-based shooter that would have players traveling through the Starcraft universe in the third person, particularly since it looked almost complete the last time it was seen before being put on “indefinite hold.” Well, MTV’s Multiplayer blog decided to go straight to the source and asked Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce whether the game was actually canceled or not. Pearce’s response:

It never was technically canceled. It’s just a focus thing for us right now. We’ve got a finite amount of development resources and a lot of different things that we want to focus on so there’s always the possibility, but right now we’re spending our time on “World of Warcraft” and our expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” and “StarCraft II.”

Translation: “World of Warcraft is so popular that we don’t really have to worry about any new games for awhile.” On the plus side, it looks like there’s still some hope for Starcraft: Ghost. It just might take a decade before it ever sees the light of day again.

Via MTV Multiplayer

At this year’s DICE summit, Blizzard execs, Mike Morhaime (CEO and Co-Founder), Rob Pardo (Senior VP of Game Design), and Frank Pearce (Executive VP of Product Development) spent some time talking about the company’s history in a segment called “From Developer to Worldwide Publisher.” While they naturally covered Blizzard’s history and their commitment to quality, the part that apparently had everyone buzzing was when they listed a number of games that had been outright canceled. The list was meant to illustrate that Blizzard is willing to halt development of a title if it doesn’t seem to be living up to their standards, and included some known titles like Warcraft Adventures (pictured), but also a few others:

• Games People Play
• Crixa
• Shattered Nations
• Pax Imperia
• Denizen
• Warcraft Adventures
• Nomad
• Raiko

Strangely enough, the once highly-anticipated title, Starcraft: Ghost, was missing from the list. No doubt, this is going to cause rumors of a coming revival to circulate throughout the internet for awhile.

Via Kotaku

These rumors of an MMO based on Starcraft keep springing up every so often, and every single time, my heart jumps. This isn’t a gleeful jump, mind you; it’s more the feeling you’d get if you’re car was careening over a cliff, and you realized your life was about to end. Nevertheless, it seems an online game operator in China, Netease.com, is claiming they are looking to enter the foreign market by licensing their services for “Starcraft Online,” which will be developed by Blizzard:

Caijing Magazine reported that the first foreign online game to be operated by Netease, which used to rely on independent R&D, will be Starcraft Online, developed by US-based Blizzard, quoting an industry insider as saying.

Netease CEO Ding Lei didn’t confirm the market saying, adding that the company is observing many online games and has not signed any formal license contract.

So basically, who knows just how reliable this information is? Right now, all we know is Blizzard is working on an MMO and early speculation (plus the fact that they haven’t worked on a new franchise in over a decade) suggests that it has something to do with either Diablo or Starcraft. We’ll just have to wait and see what new diabolical plot the folks at Blizzard devise to steal our lives.

Via Trading Markets [image via Penny Arcade]

If you played through the original Starcraft’s story in the right order, Jim Raynor was one of the first main characters you commanded. He was a marshal on the first Terran world the Zerg invaded and was an integral part of different battles against them, until the Confederacy tried to have him arrested and he turned rogue. After fighting against the Confederacy and gaining the trust of the Protoss, Raynor’s troops have now dwindled as they are constantly on the run from an old rival of his; which is where Starcraft II opens up. From the sounds of things, it seems Raynor is one of several “heroes” which will — I assume — function like the heroes in Warcraft III; providing buffs to units and casting spells and such. Frankly though, the game could be just a re-skinned version of Warcraft III, and I’d still buy it the day it came out.

Via Official Starcraft II Site