Blizzard Release Heart of the Swarm Video Preview Finale

Written by: James Megretton (@JuhTai) | February 22, 2013 11:15 am

11 Comments

Blizzard release the finale of its Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm video series

We’re edging nearer and nearer to March 12th and with it; The Swarm draws ever closer. That’s right folks, Starcraft 2: Heart of the swarm is quite literally right around the corner and with only three weeks remaining until its release, Blizzard thinks it’s fair to tease us even more by providing us more information on some of the upcoming features.

This week in Blizzard’s Heart of The Swarm video finale, we get a detailed look at some of the new replay features aimed primarily at the games competitive and eSports focused features.

Re..Re..Rewind!

First on the list of features introduced is the new Group Replay feature. Certainly one of the more useful features introduced with Heart of The Swarm; the group replay features takes away one of the confusing aspects of coordinating with unparalleled precision the dissection of replays. ”Hey pause now” , “Uh..what time frame are you on?”. No more!.Now you can simply form a party, load it up and watch it together to talk strategies and builds, perfect for friendly analysis or coaching scenarios.

Next up is probably one of the most important and sought after features within eSports. Resume from replay! Too long has the Blizzard Battle.net service been at the heart of tournament disaster. Professional players get themselves into their own mental zones, strategy locked in their head and then boom….”Waiting for server”. “X was dropped from the game”. The only option up until this point has been for a re-host and re-launch of the full game. Uncool, Blizzard, uncool. That is of course until now.

Resume from replay was introduced specifically with eSports in mind. Rather than going through the whole re-hosting and replay scenario, tournament hosts can simply launch the replay of the game back up and allow players to resume exactly where they left off. Its not quite the LAN feature people have been calling out for, but its just enough to make a difference.

Alongside this feature, a less major revelation but a cool one on its own; Fans will be able to take the replay and test out scenario’s themselves. So lets say the game you’re watching the replay of is MKP Vs Stephano. The game is neck and neck, all that is holding each side back is the positioning of units. MKP inevitably wins, but what would happen if his marines weren’t in position? What happens if Stephano’s Broodlords took a different stance, or a critical fungal grabbed a portion of marines? Well now you can find out. You can take the role of any of the player’s, where as your friend can take the role of the remaining player. Sure, your APM might not be as high as MKP’s or Stephano’s, but its a cool way of trying new things out!

For all the details check out the video above!

Also, be sure to check out the other entries in the Heart of the Swarm video series listed below;

Heart of the Swarm – Social Features

Heart of the Swarm – Ways to Play

Don’t forget, the Heart of the Swarm Beta will be coming to a close on March 1st, 2013. Get your fix whilst you can!

Blizzard Release Heart of the Swarm Video Preview Finale

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Comment

http://twitter.com/moosewithaj john nuyen

Well there’s one expansion I won’t be getting. thank you, come again.
- Nick Cattane
  
  zzzz
- http://twitter.com/firesiku Siku
  
  What feature displayed in the video made you decide to not get it? If
  you werent planning on getting the expansion already, then what’s the
  point of this point? That would be like me with no interest in Rift going on a Rift expansion video and going like “That’s it, this expansion sucks and im not getting it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1074039741 Janne Sanis Prokkola

Too bad like half the features in Hots should have been in WoL and this expansion is not even near the price of $39,99… Typical blizzard delaying features so they can rip off players
- http://www.facebook.com/tudor.simu.9 Tudor Simu
  
  Why exactly do you says these features should have or rather yet, could have been in Wings of Liberty to begin with? And what makes you thing the game isn’t worth the price tag? I can only assume you didn’t think through the whole process of making games and cramming things up in one game. Making games, and making good games at that is tedious work. I tested and worked on different titles from B grade to AAA and i can say for a fact, good quality games are rare. Blizzard has always been consistent with their releases, offered highly above average customer support and feedback, listens and takes into account player feedback and so on. It’s currently the only company i don’t bother looking at the price tags. The bang for buck on blizzard games is pretty much the best investment when it comes to games.
  
  Note: All that being said, i’m not advocating the games are in any way perfect. All games have mistakes and all devs make them. But at the end of the day if you sit down and think it through you’ll realize, there aren’t many companies out there that can compete with Blizzard’s quality level.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm
    
    The answer is obvious. Janne is just being a dick to seem cool on the internet. These are great new features that will benefit the community greatly. People don’t understand how much time and effort it takes to code these features and do them well. It’s easy to jump on the hate train when you have no knowledge of what you’re talking about.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1074039741 Janne Sanis Prokkola
    
    i guess you have not played diablo 3(still having issues with AH since launch) or wow(tickets taking 1-2 weeks to get any kind of response) example and if you don’t play SP(focusing esports) all you get is like what 7 new units + maps that are pretty easy to do. Those features = clan supports and spectate… so for e-sport/mp player why is hots the same price as WoL?
    - http://www.facebook.com/tudor.simu.9 Tudor Simu
      
      Ok troll post, I’ll bite. Let’s start at the beginning of your post.
      I did and still do play Diablo 3, that doesn’t mean i don’t know of its faults or that there are no ways of improving the experience, which they are actively doing at an impressive rate i might add.
      WoW? More than 6 years and about 15k+ achievement points later, i can safely say i know full well the state of that game. Again you’re picking on one issue which i might add, is created by the players themselves often creating tickets for the most asinine reasons. Other times people post tickets for known issues simply out of lack of knowledge, or.. dare i say it… ignorance?
      I’ve had my fair share of Customer Support work. Talking to 150+ people each day about the same issue that is mentioned in n+1 locations isn’t exactly a productive day in my book. That affects every other person with a REAL problem. Personally i don’t think i had to use the ticket system even 10 times in all these years, and every time response times have been less than 5 days. Special occasions such as holidays are exempt from this case for very OBVIOUS reasons. (hint: 2 reasons are already mentioned above)
      As for HotS… if you really have to involve e-sports in this, you’d know by now its not the number of units that’s important, it’s the balance and attention to detail. Anyone can splash a map in the editor. Been there done that. Doesn’t mean my maps are good for competitive play. Same goes for units… What’s important for e-sports is that game is as balanced as possible, and it’s entertaining (all things considered)
      
      See this is my issue right there, what you seem to be complaining is not the games themselves, but a certain something that ticks you off on a personal level. It’s fine if the game isn’t to your liking though.
      The largest game (as far as I’m aware anyway) currently played, LoL has 32million players worldwide on a monthly basis. In retrospect that’s 2-3% of the entire global population, maybe if generous with numbers that’s 10% of the games player-base *cough*BS*cough*.
      It’s not supposed to entertain everyone. No game ever was or will be supposed to do it. You can ask, and i even dare you to ask this any self-respecting developer out there. The most you’ll get out of them is ” as many people as possible”.
      
      As a closing statement all i can say is:
      “It’s ok to not like things, It’s ok, but don’t be a dick about the things you don’t like.”
http://www.facebook.com/kaj.udanga Kaj Udanga

I kept thinking, “What if Cave Johnson did these videos instead?”
http://www.facebook.com/Therier Mikko Juhani Suomela

Expansion which costs 40 euros and includes only few new units to multiplayer and some features which is core ones to Esport and rts games to nowdays. Example skipping to different parts of replay. Why this wasn’t in WoL? Or spectating. This was in Dota 2 even in beta. Or clan support. It’s so strange why they add these features now and not before. It took even so long to add chat to WoL and when they at last added it, it was very badly made in my opinion.

Then they add new campaign which have 7 less missions than the one in WoL.This expansion price tag is so huge when you compare it to what it offers to you.
Jado Cast

I use to play Broodwar like a crack addict smoke a pipe. But I just didn’t like WoL as much. I was a zerg player and they just made too many changes to the game for me personally and I totally lost interest. When I do jump in and play, I go with Terran now. I will say these features like Take Command are very nice additions. I will probably pick up the expansion down the road.

Blizzard Release Heart of the Swarm Video Preview Finale

Blizzard release the finale of its Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm video series

Re..Re..Rewind!

A Farewell To Arms – Idra and Stephano Retiring From Professional eSports!

“You’re All A Bunch Of F**ks” Says Idra

StarCraft 2 WCS Europe Season 1 Kicks Off TONIGHT!

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