The Legacy of the Void developers were making a bit of a song and dance about patch 3.0 for all versions of StarCraft, and they weren’t kidding — it’s bloody huge.
You can read the patch notes in the Battle.net launcher, but one user has neatly summarised just how many changes there are by breaking it up into an Imgur gallery.
There’s over 6 pages of adjustments, with the biggest two changes being the opening up of the Whispers of Oblivion campaign missions to all players (it was only previously available to those who pre-ordered Legacy of the Void) and a total overhaul of the game’s UI.
Custom games can now be found under the Multiplayer tab, Archon Mode has been made available for Blizzard sanctioned maps, in-game chat now all takes place within a single persistent window, and the Arcade page has been altered to revolve around the “Join” and “Browse” tabs.
It’s easier to parse the changes through images, so here’s a walkthrough video from Blizzard that easily outlines it all.
I do like the little nod to the campaign selection screen from Brood War — although it’s actually appropriate with StarCraft 2 having three separate single-player campaigns (the original and its expansion, Brood War, had campaigns for each of the game’s races, whereas the story for each of the races in StarCraft 2 has been split across the release of the vanilla game and expansions).
Other major non-UI additions with Patch 3.0, which is available now for all versions, include the removal of matchmaking for free-for-all matches, a 64-bit launcher of the game and the inclusion of “alt+number” control groups.
If you’re familiar with the SC2 editor, it’s also worth noting that it now has the ability to merge maps and mods. A tonne of options have been moved or shifted around too, so you should probably study up on that if editing is your thing.
Comments
2 responses to “StarCraft’s Latest Patch Is Massive, Notes Run Over Several Pages”
The changes to arcade seem pretty important. One of the main reasons I bought SC2 was for customs and they were dead in the water until long after I’d given up on the game. Now that Dota 2 has customs to compete with the arcade, Blizzard seems to be stepping up their game.
Who knew? Competition is good.
Changes to the arcade should have been done a long time ago, or better yet done right from the start – fans have been asking for it since the beginning.
WC3’s custom games were extremely successful, if not revolutional. I almost exclusively played custom games in WC3. SC2 took 10 steps backwards with it.
I miss the days of sheep/tree tag, footmen frenzy, tower defenses, dota, hero line wars – there were just so many fun custom games.
Custom games let players take a break from the core game, without actually having to leave the game. I find when I stop playing a particular game for a little bit, whether it’s because I’m bored with it, busy with uni, or trying out a new game, I don’t usually get back into it that quick. I lose that interest/addictiveness that makes me want to play every time i turn my pc on and i might not open up the game for a month or two, maybe even more. I’ll go from playing every day, to not playing for several months until I eventually open it back up again.