There’s new media to soak in, including a close look at the stars of StarCraft II’s single-player campaign, Tychus Findlay, Zeratul and Jim Raynor, plus ample background info on each. Blizzard has also added new details on the Zerg’s Changeling, some updates on multiplayer map-making and the requisite much, much more.

It’s all detailed at the StarCraft II community shout out below.

StarCraft II Content Drop [StarCraft.com]

Well, as those of you who may have read the spoiler-laden version of our StarCraft II single-player preview may already know, the Brutalisk doesn’t do much more than intimidate… and die. It’s one of a handful of non-playable unit types that StarCraft II brings to the table, a powerful, well armoured beast that is best avoided while hunting fresh vespene geysers.

This “surprise custom unit”, as Blizzard calls it, shouldn’t be a multiplayer balance concern. But maybe someday we’ll see more of it in one of those StarCraft II expansions coming… way, way in the future.

Pardo was in good spirits when we spoke to him yesterday afternoon when I touched on the controversial subject, which has spawned a wave of forum rage and countless petitions calling for the reinstatement of feature. “You’re the first person who asked me about that this weekend,” he joked. When I asked if the company was still receiving flack over the decision, his good humour continued. “Only from you guys. Only from the press. Everyone else has accepted it.”

Once I finished giggling, Rob got down to brass tacks.

“Everyone is going to give us flack until it’s out. None of us is going to know how big a deal it is until it’s out. We believe that it’s really not that big of a deal – that most people are not really going to notice that it’s missing. There’s a lot of people out there I think that are just afraid that they’re suddenly not going to be able to connect to the internet tonight and they won’t be able to play. I actually think that case is extremely rare, and I think we’re going to be okay.”

And what of the rare cases where no direct-connection option wouldn’t be okay?

“There’s a few legitimate cases that we’re going to try and address over time. Location-based tournaments, or let’s say I’m in a dorm with a firewall or something like that, hopefully there’s a way to determine that and maybe start a peer-to-peer game.”

So it really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but as Pardo said, we won’t really know until the game comes out.

Rows of computers and lines—that about sums it up. There are some statues as well, some of which we’ve seen before, and a lot of blackness. Just tons and tons of blackness. There’s a nice long wall for people to write their names, which was nice until it became illegible and a space for people to decorate their blank nOObz Space Marines, which is a fine thing. There are always plenty of places to spend your money, which is perfect for those of you allergic to not being poor, like me.

And no, I wasn’t stalking the Queen of the Blades statue.

Day one of BlizzCon actually started with day zero, when we got a peek inside this year’s swag bag, revealing its full Space Marine, hand sanitiser glory. Between that and our look at the special merchandise Blizzard is selling at the convention, we were pretty much swagged out in time for the opening ceremonies.

The opening ceremonies were chuck full of news, from the new Monk class for Diablo III to the biggest news of the convention—World of Warcraft: Cataclysm—the new expansion for the popular massively-multiplayer game that introduces two new races, a revamp of the existing world, and tons of new features that are sure to keep the game exciting for at least a couple of months after the expansion’s release sometime next year.

We took a closer look at the Monk, the Street Fighter character of Diablo III, with low survivability but quick and devastating attacks leaving enemies reeling from the feeling. We also look at the integration planned for Battle.net and StarCraft II in words and pictures, discovering that Blizzard plans to allow map creators to sell premium content in the StarCraft marketplace.

And let’s not forget our massive gallery of custom-painted nOObz Space Marine toys!

The day soon came to an end, but there’s still plenty more to tell you folks about, so stay tuned throughout today and well into Monday for more from BlizzCon 2009!

Rob Pardo came on stage to talk about Battle.net. Launched in 1996 with Diablo, it was the first matchmaking service integrated completely into games. It’s evolved with StarCraft, Diablo 2, and Warcraft III. The service now has more players on it than World of Warcraft—12 million to WoW’s 11.5 million. “Just imagine how big that number will be once StarCraft II comes out.”

Rob explained that Warcraft III taught them many important lessons about Battle.net. There was great matchmaking. It made it easy to play with your friends. Random teams were highly successful. On the other hand, chat was disorganised, the single-player experience was disconnected, new players got their asses handed to them and the ladder system only catered to the very best players. On top of that, custom games outside of defence of the Ancients were nigh impossible to find.

StarCraft II’s Battle.net is split into three sections.

First, there’s “The Always Connected Experience”. StarCraft II and Battle.net are woven into one experience. With the Battle.net system, your characters and accounts are tied to your email, so you never lose your settings. And much like Steam, you’ll always be connected to your friends.

Pardo shows off some screens of the new service in action. In StarCraft II, you log into the game much like World of Warcraft. There’s a launch screen, with news, single player and multiplayer options. Once you enter the game, you’ll always have access to your friends list, even in the single player game. He also showed off the profile page, and StarCraft II achievements.
By earning achievements in the game, you’ll unlock avatars and decals you can use in the game, with your custom decals showing up on your units in game.

It’s an always-connected experience, he said, one integrated experience, with your friends and your game always close at hand.

The next concept is to make Battle.net a competitive arena for everyone. This means an improved matchmaking system, which makes it easy for players to find their friends and organise games.

Ladder play is a major focus, making sure that the competitive experience isn’t just for the most hardcore players.

How does the new matchmaking service work? After playing for a while, players will compete within coloured leagues…think gold, silver, etc. Within each league, players compete against 100 other players of their own skill level.

For casual players, there is a practice league, which slows down the gameplay with anti-rush maps to let them get used to the game.

Parties work much like World of Warcraft, with friends joining to enter into games together. Pretty straightforward.

So there are many different game types to play, it’s easy to play and stay with friends and the ladder is now designed for everyone.

The final concept is “Connecting the Blizzard Community”. Blizzard wants to use Battle.net as a way to keep players informed about all of the Blizzard titles they are playing. Again, making it easy to find and stay connected with your friends is key. To this end, the chat system now features instant messenger-style chat, making it easier to chat between games.
Blizzard wants to connect the players together, both friends who play together offline, and those who play together online. Players enjoy playing together in groups and Battle.net will help players stay together when new games come out.

They tackle this by exploring other services and their limitations. They looked at Xbox Live, which has a great friends system, but you quickly lose track of who is who. They looked at MySpace, which handled tracking friends well, but made it hard to find new friends. They even looked at Google Talk, which allows people to change their contact’s names.

This all lead to the Battle.net Real ID, which lets you see and communicate with friends based on how you know them. The service will allow you to communicate with your friends across games, servers, and characters, so no matter what game or character you are playing, you still stay in touch.

They are also implementing an achievement system that spans games and characters as well, removing the necessity of re-doing achievements with each new character you create.

Pardo showed a screen of someone in World of Warcraft chatting with someone playing StarCraft II. And then came a screen of World of Warcraft’s friends list, which will incorporate the same functionality.

The Battle.net Real ID is a layer on top of the normal friends list, with parental controls and controls in place to make sure that you choose who your friends are.

Finally, Pardo talked custom games. Custom games eventually took over Warcraft III, as the gameplay types and maps developed by the mod community were of high quality. The StarCraft II map editor will be even more powerful than the Warcraft III editor. They are also introducing map publishing, allowing players to share maps online, making it easier than ever to share your creations with the community.

Looking into the future, past StarCraft II’s launch next year, Blizzard is looking into a StarCraft II marketplace, with maps rated by the community. There will be free maps and premium user-made maps, allowing creators to make money on their maps. The whole point is to foster the best mod community possible, creating a much larger selection of content for players while inspiring creativity through the potential to get paid.

When Blizzard revealed that StarCraft II would be delayed until next year because of Battle.net, many weren’t quite sure why such a delay was necessary. Hopefully the extensive plans Pardo outlined today make things just a bit more clear.

Blizzard wants to foster the best mod community in existence. They’ve unveiled plans to single out premium custom-created maps for sales on a StarCraft II marketplace. Maps will be split into two categories—normal and premium—with the former free and the latter for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the map’s creators. Blizzard hopes this will lead to more choice for StarCraft II players, and more innovative and creative custom maps fuelled by the potential financial rewards.

Said Pardo, “This is really an opportunity for them to share in the rewards of our success.”

The feature won’t be available at the game’s launch, and details are still being ironed out. Blizzard made the announcement today as a way to give modders time to gather teams together and start brainstorming premium content. Mod teams, start your engines!

Well, I will be there representing Kotaku, but judging by my height and girth I am worth any two of them on the human meat aftermarket. Last year I shattered the very world, so what trouble could I possibly get into this year? With news expected on all fronts, from a potential World of Warcraft expansion to new details on StarCraft II and Diablo III, would you even notice me getting into trouble?

Probably not. You’d be too busy watching Ozzy Osbourne.

I understand. Either way, expect reports from BlizzCon to kick off late this evening, with the annual swag-bag breakdown, and we’ll see where things go from there.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty’s campaign mode features units and buildings that players won’t be able to use in multiplayer. That includes Terran forces like the Medic and Firebat, yanked from multiplayer. It also includes brand new tech and structures, like Juggernaut Plating for the Marauder and the Bunker’s mounted gun, the Shrike Turret.

Read on for a list of what we saw at Blizzard, with a little hands-on impressions of these single-player only upgrades.

We only made it through two of the seven columns of upgrades, which also include tweaks for Vehicles, Starships, Mid-tech, Ghost/Spectre and Dominion units. There are two upgrades per unit—with the exception of things like the flamethrowing Perdition Turret—one of the two purchasable items is simply the existence of the defense structure itself.

Here are details on the Infantry and Base upgrades.

Infantry

Firebat
Bearclaw Nozzles – Attack area +40%
Viral Plasma – Damage +2, duration 4 seconds

Marauder
Jackhammer Concussion Grenades – Slow affects area around target
Juggernaut Plating – Armor +2

Marine
Stimpacks – Moves, fights faster
Combat Shield – Health +10

Reaver
Stimpacks – Moves, fights faster
U-238 Rounds – Attack range +2

Hellion
Napalm Fuel Tanks – +1 damage/sec for 3 seconds
Turbo Charged Engines – Movement speed +40%

Base

SCV
Micro-fusion Reactor – Cost -15 minerals
Fusion Welder – Repair cost -25%

Command Center
Building Modular Construction – Building costs -10%
Fire Suppression System – Damaged buildings don’t catch fire

Bunker
Shrike Turret – Mounted gun
Neosteel Frame – Holds +2 units

Missile Turret
Hailstorm Missile Pods – Gain area attack, range 7, damage 4×9
Devastator Missiles – Gains single target attack, damage 50, range 8

Perdition Turret
Distortion Sensors – Detects cloaked/burrowed

We only got a chance to experiment with some of these upgrades. But Blizzard reps were quick to recommend the Micro-fusion Reactor for the mineral-collecting SCVs, which makes the farming units almost one-third cheaper. We opted for the Perdition Turrets and Shrike Turrets, very useful while doing much of the base defense we did during the campaign.

Similarly, having permanently researched Stimpacks and health upgrades for the Marine quickly felt indispensable. But each upgrade felt good when we got it.

We’re looking forward to seeing what else Blizzard has in store for tech upgrades in single-player, but feel like that information will be a long time coming.