Isaiah's Tech

After years and years of nerds all around the world waiting for it, it's now available! StarCraft II is now available and I've already got mine pre-ordered. Your PC should be able to handle the game and WSJ reported two weeks ago that it may have cost Blizzard around 100 million to make this game. All that doesn't really matter, but you should know that one of the real-time strategy games of all time is back on the shelf and will be for the next couple of years to come! I'm so excited (if you couldn't already figure that out)!!

Picture Source: Kotaku

The beta for StarCraft II has already started and it recently hit the Mac. Thankfully, I just got my beta so I'll be playing it for a good few months. Anyways, Blizzard has just announced that they are going to be releasing StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in late July (the 27th) - this Summer. It's been a long time coming and I hope that it doesn't get delayed anymore. Don't forget to save your money over the years because this is the first StarCraft II game out of the trilogy. Check out exactly which places will get it below via Kotaku.

That's when the game will start hitting retail stores around the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

[Kotaku]

We already know that Blizzard pushed the release of Starcraft II until mid-way through 2010 with the beta starting in Q1. Well, now we're hearing that expansions for Starcraft II are going to be released in the "next few years" which really doesn't tell us much. Also in the "next few years" category is the Diablo III release date so Blizzard is definitely taking their sweet time - perfecting the games of course. Hopefully, "next few years" means 2011.

[Kotaku]

It looks like the wait will never end... yes, another delay for StarCraft II. Blizzard has just announced that the beta for StarCraft II (which was supposed to start Summer 2009, then was later delayed to November 2009) has been pushed to early 2010 - possibly Q1. They've also gone on to "confirm" that the release date will be sometime in Q2 2010, which might not stick since they're looking at the beta lasting around 6 months.

[vg 247]

By now, you know that StarCraft II is delayed until Q1 2010 and Blizzard will be launching Battle.net 2.0. The new Battle.net will feature "Real ID" which will prevent spam accounts and will "ensure better matchmaking." This means no more facing noobs to increase your record online - it's a sad day for those people. Starcraft II will have a feature called "Marketplace", but it won't be available at launch. When it does launch, players will be able to give away their maps for free or sell their maps for a small price. If you want to see a gallery of new Starcraft II photos, check out the links below.


Pardo believes that the new matchmaking system is more powerful than Microsoft's TrueSkill and when paired with Real ID, it should help players of all skill levels get into games that they have a chance to win. On this point, the ladder system has been improved to take player skill into account. After a player completes around 10 games, they will be placed into a skill tier. Within each skill tier, the player is matched up with 99 other players in 100 player divisions. The focus of the season is on competing with these 99 other players with tournaments taking place at the end of each season between division leaders.

[G4 TV, Kotaku]

No surprise here, but Blizzard has just announced that StarCraft II has been delayed until 2010. Blizzard is citing that it is because they are upgrading Battle.net for the future Starcraft and Diablo games. The bad news is that Activision is now expecting a lot less money this year, since Starcraft II won't get released and because of the state of the economy.

However, there is good news. Apparently, the StarCraft II delay will not impact Blizzard's launch schedule. This means that they will be launching two games next year. As of right now, it's not known what game it will be, but I'm hoping that it's Diablo III.

[STARFEEDER, Kotaku, 1 UP, Mac World, WoW, G4 TV, Joystiq]

Two weeks ago, I reported that SteelSeries would be selling their StarCraft II mouse pads. Well, here's an even sweeter deal. You can get them for free if you head over to their Facebook page and tell them what you're looking forward to most in StarCraft II. What makes this deal even sweeter is that it will be autographed by Wei Wang who's famous for being the artist to render Arthas and Frostmourne in World of Warcraft - more specifically the box cover of Wrath of the Lich King. Go to their Facebook page now!

[WoW]

Blizzard released a lot of news about StarCraft II today. First, Blizzard's vice president, Rob Pardo, mentioned that StarCraft II has been delayed for so long because they had to work on another game, World of Warcraft. Next up is the lead designer on StarCraft II, Dustin Browder, who mentioned that the StarCraft II beta is expected to run somewhere between "four to six months." They still haven't mentioned when the beta will start, but I hope that it's soon because I want to have StarCraft II in my possession by the end of this year. Going back to Rob Pardo, he also mentioned that they don't have any plans to support LAN at this point, which will certainly leave a few fans upset. And just in case you didn't already know, Blizzard also mentioned that StarCraft II will not be making its way to any consoles - a "zero percent" chance. For more information about StarCraft II, you can click on one of the links below. If you want, you can also check out some hands-on review, courtesy of 1 UP and Kotaku.

[Euro Gamer, Kotaku, Joystiq, Tech Spot]

According to Blizzard's Mike Morhaime, Starcraft II will be out by the end of this year. The beta is starting this Summer and the actual game will be released by the end of this year, as long as it meets their "standards and the expectations of our [Blizzard's] players." I simply cannot wait for this to get released, I'll definitely be camping out in front of Best Buy for this game. I can't wait to get my hands-on this, I think I'll live tweet that event. By the way, this was mentioned at E3 so this is definitely a good great start.

[Starfeeder, Kotaku]

Time to celebrate! So, call of your little nerdy friends because this Summer look like it's going to be amazing. The Starcraft II Beta that has been long overdue will start officially this Summer. This was confirmed earlier today in a Blactivision conference call. The exact date is still unknown, but Summer is only 3 weeks away. It probably won't start as soon as Summer starts, but at least you can mark this on your calendar - somewhat.

[Kotaku]

Blizzard has just confirmed that a Starcraft II Collector's Edition is in the works. This is fairly unsurprising news, I mean it's been 10+ years since the original Starcraft came out, so fans are craving this sequel. I know I'll definitely be in the midnight line-up to get this game, this is going to be my life.

[1 UP News]

Apparently, this poster is confirmation that we will see Starcraft 2 before the end of this year. The poster has no information about Diablo 3 so that means it's coming out next year - or the year after that. Anyways, don't count on this information to be 100% accurate since it is just speculation. But, at this point, any information about Starcraft 2 really interests me.

[Gamezilla]

To stand out just a tiny bit, Dell has shown us a new lineup of desktop Inspiron PCs - well, not exactly. We saw the mini-towers a while back, so the above photo is a shot of the regular / fat casing. I might as well go through the long list of features (since I found out afterwards that I've already talked about this before). The Inspiron 545 and 545s will come in a bunch of colours and is highly upgradeable. They will be available later this Spring and will have a base price of just £279 ($299 USD). These colourful Inspiron's have up to 8GB of RAM, up to 1TB of HDD storage, an optional HDMI and 6 USB ports, and a Blu-ray drive. "You have the choice of Intel Celeron, Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Quad options or AMD Sepron, Athlon X2 and Phenom X4 processor options and an integrated Intel or ATI Radeon graphics card." As you can see the possibilities are just about endless. I'd consider getting myself one, but I'm already satisfied with my own desktop PC for now. I'll probably be looking for a new one around the release of Starcraft 2.

[Tech Radar]

New rumour has it that the Starcraft II beta will be starting on March 31 at 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. Eastern). Apparently, this may be the real thing - 3 days from now!! - since there are "no apparent hints that it would be fake." At BlizzCon 2008 last year, a select few of attendees received Starcraft II beta keys and, apparently, some of them received an e-mail recently from Blizzard. March 31 is the original Starcraft I release date, so that would be one hell of an anniversary. I'm so excited, even though I don't have a beta key. If you want to take a look at the supposed e-mail, view the link below. It could be a fake though. I mean if you wanted to show off an authentic e-mail from Blizzard, press the damn Print Screen button on your keyboard, it's not that hard.

[Inc Gamers]

Blizzard has been hiring for a new game for a while now. First, it was for the next-gen MMO from Blizzard, but this one could be for a new game altogether. It be for the PC or the Xbox 360, probably the PC though. Blizzard is currently looking for a software engineer for an unannounced game. They are currently working on 5 new titles now: Starcraft II, Diablo III, a new WoW expansion, a next-gen MMO, and this new unannounced game. The new WoW expansion is the one that means just about nothing to me. I used too much money on World of Warcraft and it was just time to move on. It's just too boring now, it could be their last expansion though.

[PS3 QJ]

Blizzard finally did it. They have unleashed their new Battle.net service. Battle.net will one day rule everything Blizzard does. Having a Battle.net account will control everything Blizzard using only one username and password. Everything from World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Diablo III, the Blizzard Store, etc. "There's more to come in the future as well, with Blizzard promising to add 'more features, including tools to make it easier for friends to communicate between games and to help bring out community of players closer together.'" It sounds a bit like Blizzard pulled some Steam features, but I could care less. I'm so excited. As of right now, it is not mandatory to combine your WoW accounts to your new Battle.net login credentials, but one day it will be mandatory to continue playing. For Blizzard's older games such as Warcraft III, Diablo II, and Starcraft, they will still use the "old" login credentials utilizing, what Blizzard now calls, Battle.net classic. I am so "hyped up" for the revamped Battle.net service and you will be able to go to Blizzard's Battle.net site below. Make your new accounts now!

[Kotaku, Battle.net]

Blizzard's websites (like the WoW Armory and the official WoW site) are down for maintenance today, but no one really knows why. A couple of people are suggesting that Blizzard is switching to Battle.net accounts. "Portions of the official EU sites are redirecting to this Battle.net login page." This could be in preparation for the upcoming Starcraft II beta that's been rumoured to be available soon. Apparently, the so-called Battle.net accounts are going to hit EU first and then US at a later date. More information about this if Blizzard really decides to finally make the switch. I hope they do because Starcraft II (and Diablo 3) will both be utilizing Battle.net for online purposes. They are both a long time coming and the revamped Battle.net should be ready by now.

[WoW Insider]