BattleNET 2.0!

I just finished spending a few games with the updated Battle.net for StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm. Let me tell you, I was blown away.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting. But it certainly wasn’t a complete redesign. The first thing you’ll notice when you play HotS now, is Kerrigan. She’s front and center of the screen, tits bulging out of her ghost uniform, looking sexy and she knows it with all the special effects and zergy dreadlocks.

If anything I was ever so slightly disappointed by this, as I was tempted to click on the woman, and clicking her does nothing. Until I clicked on one of the buttons -- then she did some kind of animation before the screen changed. I can’t emphasise this enough, but everything looks awesome! The buttons, the eye candy, it was all top notch.

Personal to me is the addition of the unranked ladder. I was happy to see that they did away with the checkbox for ranked games that was in the older version, and now we have a whole other button to push.

Right after hitting the button to play my first game, I noticed my first bug. There I was, playing my first match, a qualifier to determine my league. I play as random, had selected random, but when the loading screen came up, it drew a Protoss icon next to my name. I haven’t played protoss for months. So this might have thrown off my opponent or not -- he didn’t seem to notice. But take note Blizzard, that icon should have been the random one. In subsequent games, the icon displayed correctly.

Once in the game, the eye candy didn’t stop. As I’m sure you’ve seen in other youtube videos, the in game death animations have all been updated. Blowing your opponent away has never been more fun!

If anything, here is where the first actual adjustment takes place. In a game of mine, after some probe kills, I mistook one of piles of dead probes for a living probe. Not a big problem, not much of anything really. But definately worth mentioning that the new frag gibs will take a bit of getting used to.

Also, shortly after when I typed gg, I realized I had no idea where the surrender button is. Turns out my usual F10 didn’t seem to work, and the menu button is no longer in the upper left. It’s now in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Good to know.

Let me make one thing clear. The value of buying HotS, IMHO, is in this update alone. I only play SC2 for the multiplayer and as far as I’m concerned, they made me very happy. I’m looking forward to playing more in the future. Thanks Blizzard!