Karune on animations, Nighthawk and Colossus

Posted by Tom Phoenix on January 28th, 2009 filed in StarCraft News

After some time, Karune has reappeared on the Battle.net forums made another streak of replies. As usual, these cover various topics.

Karune revealed that saving in StarCraft 2 will work just like in the original StarCraft. Also, they are looking into making the colour of the ping the same as the colour of the person.

theprogramer said...
1.When you save let it be more like StarCraft than WarCraft III saving so that when you try to save the previous saved game is alread written so you can either add to the title of the save or remove it all togtherer. WarCraft III had it where when you saved the title was blank so to add to the title of a previously saved game you had to click on it or type it all over again.

2.Make ping the color of the person who sent it.

3.NO FREAKING CREEPS! StarCraft's tradition is non-attacking critters. Please follow this.

4.NO FREAKING HERO LEVELS! This is StarCraft II not WarCraft IV

1) Done
2) Looking into it
3) Done
4) Done

All subject to change of course.

Source: Battle.net

Karune also revealed that Blizzard has been working on art updates, particularly death animations.

Many of the newest art updates have actually been made in the animations, weapon particles, and in special effects, which are much harder to show in screenshots. For instance, Hellions now burn Marines to a crisp when they are destroyed by the flames. Dark Templars also end up eviscerating Marauders in a ruthless fashion. In our next batch we'll see if we can emphasize on some of these new additions made.

Source: Battle.net

The community manager also joined a discussion about the Nighthawk. He revealed that due to balance reasons, the Nighthawks abilities now cost resources rather then energy.

On the balance side, in the latest round of changes, the Nighthawk builds mini defenses such as the auto turret based on resources now, instead of energy. This effectively forces players to think more in how they plan to use the Nighthawk's support functions based on their resources. Additionally, these 'almost instant' drops on the battlefield could easily change the tide of a battle or even wreck havoc on an unsuspecting enemy economy.

Source: Battle.net

Lastly, Karune also talked about the Colossus. He revealed that like other units, the Colossus will only be able to cross shallow water. He also adressed the fan complaints regarding his attack power. He revealed that the damage it does has been increased at the slight cost of it`s attack speed.

The Colossi, like other ground units, will be able to move through shallow waters only. In this screenshot, it shows experimentation of having Colossi move through slightly deeper waters, but there are no plans at the moment to make the Colossi traverse all water terrains.

Source: Battle.net

The Colossus in the latest round of balance has had it's damage increased, with its attack speed decreased a bit, giving it some more burst. With a couple of these on the field, it is quite effective at decimating armies of light armor units.

Source: Battle.net