Shacknews previews Starcraft 2 after their hands-on play at PAX 2008 convention and interviewed Karune to discuss the new changes to be made to Starcraft 2. The build played at PAX was the same played at WWI Paris
2008. However, Karune confirms that fans will play a different build at BlizzCon 2008 in Anaheim. Multiple Building Selection will change some from what was presented at WWI and PAX. Vespene Gas will drastically drains faster in the new BlizzCon build, and will force players to strategically spend more minerals to purchase Vespene Gas.
The design here is to balance Micro vs Macro Management players and spend vespene gas resources more wisely. Once the Vespene Gas geyser is drained, you must move all your Vespene SCVs to the minerals until the geyser is replenished.
Kevin Yu: In the build that you’ll see at BlizzCon it’s more of a compromise. Clicking on each of the barracks—let’s say you have three barracks. It won’t be like you press “M” once and you’ll have three marines pop out. You’re actually going to have to press “M” three times, which is a little more controlled over what comes out. Because let’s say you have a tech lab on one, and on another you have a reactor, so they build different units and such. You can actually have a little more control over that now.
We’ve tried different things like enable tabbing inbetween each building. Like you click a control group of all your barracks, and you have to tab inbetween each time to press “M.” So you have a control group that’s 4 for your barracks; 4, M, Tab, M, Tab, M, Tab, M.
We made it one step easier on that. We used to have more control. Honestly, the game still requires a lot of skill and we’re not too worried about that. We’re really thinking that the game is going to have a lot of things we’re not expecting. There’s going to be a more tactical dynamic to the game, especially with units being able to move a lot faster. All the races are a lot more mobile than they were in StarCraft 1. With Protoss you warp in your army, you don’t have to wait for them to cross the map. You can move your whole entire [Zerg] army with the Nydus Canal. Dropships now are very prevalent in StarCraft 2 for Terrans because they also double up as a medic now. More incentive to have dropships and move your army around.
