In the absence of any rumblings from Blizzard (other than that such a long silence probably means an impending patch to accompany the expected Battle.net reset), we have some community announcements you might be interested in. First is an in-depth (and interesting) article from StarCraft.org Where We Stand: A Look Back on the Development of StarCraft 2. The article covers the progress of StarCraft 2 from announcement until the current beta. The difference isn't quite as stark as that between StarCraft (1998) alpha and release, but it's still quite a jump. Just take a look at the Siege Tank or Nomad/Raven! In any case the article is very informative and is a quick review through the visual changes in StarCraft 2 to this point. Good to know where you've come from, right? Read the whole article here. In other news, a new fansite co-founded by Blizzard "friend" Sixen has appeared in the community. And it seems they've discovered a breakthrough! They've created a custom StarCraft 2 Map Editor called the "Milky Way Editor" which is based off examination of the game's API (just like those "rumored" single-player cracks). Apparently with it they have been able to create a rudimentary Tower Defense custom map. While I certainly think that Blizzard's development will provide much more robust content to the community, this is certainly a start! Though certainly beyond the capability of the average user, their site claims to allow Battle.net users to play on new tilesets and custom maps such as the TD map they've already created. Check it out here.
A very nice article. This is just the thing I like to read in times of no official news. Thanks for posting it.
I was just checking out some old alpha footage and comparing to to beta videos. What a coincidence. I'm sure this'll be a great read. Quite a lot has changed. I wish some of the cooler abilities had made it into the game but, oh well, I trust Blizzard and there's always the expansions.
Thanks for the post there Jon. We really needed this in our desperate time of need, this provided great hope for me that one day, we will be able to enjoy the game we all know as StarCraft 2. Great reads by the way, kind of opens up your eyes on how hard Blizzard really has been working on this game. Trying to make it perfect so that it meets their standards and ours, but mostly theirs.
