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Not many companies can capture an audience quite like Blizzard. Between the Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft franchises its safe to say they have made their mark on the gaming community. This makes it no surprise that at 12:15pm PST, a rambunctious 400,000 viewers eagerly awaited the new StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm trailer. The panel appears, with Blizzard veteran Chris Metzen, and the promise of a Heart of the Swarm trailer, and a constant stream of rabble from the ravenous SCII fans.
The trailer sets the stage for the continuation of the Wings of Liberty story line which seems to follow Kerrigan’s systematic dismissal of her former allies. The trailer raises many possibilities for Sara Kerrigan actions, and her decisions regarding her allegiances. Metzen describes the team’s selection of story elements, and the intricacies of the story, which focus more on an individual character than any StarCraft expansion before.
The video was originally streamed via Twitch.tv, one of the premier streaming sites for gamers. There were some concerns voiced about the sound quality on Twitch, but the above link should have the more acceptable YouTube audio.
The Panel talks about the combination of sciences that creates a game, how each element needs to work in tandem with the others to launch the game, keep it balanced, and ultimately, get past the madness and have a satisfying end product. There was some mention of a more intuitive and helpful system for navigating the tutorials and story mode of StarCraft II, which should help the casual player to get a favorable end-user experience.