Idle Worker Counter

This morning, I’d like to write a short entry about the only real issue I’ve come across in HotS so far. You see, in just about every day, HotS is better than its predecessor. But there is one way in which, sadly, the game has taken a step back.

The idle worker counter.

It used to be a popup of sorts. It used to be that as soon as a worker was idle, this blue square would appear next to the minimap, along with a count of exactly how many workers were idle.

That square has now been incorporated into the UI. Most of the time, the counter is set at zero. When a worker becomes idle, the number changes.

This is bad. Terribad, because your eye no longer reacts to the appearance of said square. It’s bad because your eye specifically does not respond to the much more subtle change in the number of the counter.

In other words, it’s much, much easier to overlooked idle workers in the current build of HotS than in WoL. It’s clear from every other change made in the game that Blizzard is trying to make it more user friendly. They’re trying to make the game easier to play, and this is perhaps the one aspect of the game which has been made more difficult. It’s an easy fix, although there must be countless ways in which to fix it. I expect Blizzard to change it shortly, but you never know.

Post Patch Thoughts

It seems like so long ago when the servers went down. I must admit, I went through the various stages of denial. I thought it might have been my internet connection, or the software. But eventually I had to face the truth. That the HotS Beta servers were down.

It drove me to play a few games of WoL, which, apparently, I suck at now.

But now the beta is back and better than ever.

One of the first things I noticed? That there is a very sexy new way the game handles a win. Fireworks and eye candy. Complete loss of control of the game -- even if you push buttons. Now, when you win a game of StarCraft, there is no mistaking.

It brings me back to one of my first rants on the official SC2 forums. I wanted to know how to add the line "has left the game" to my spam filter. It was an oft used trick, and it got me one day, and I figured I'd solve the problem.

But now, what? two years in? Blizzard has solved the problem for us. No longer will trolls be able to win a small percentage of the games they play for typing a clever sentence. But really, it was about time. I mean, one line output to let the user know he's won? It had to be updated.

The next thing I noticed was that, by default, you cannot select enemy units. It was kind of awkward, to come up on a toss player with a building warping in, but not know if it was a gateway or forge. This slight feature change, seems to serve only one purpose. To get us to look at the settings page and change it. Fine, Blizzard, I'll look at your in game options.

I have to say that the new death animations are awesome! All in all, despite my nit picking, they've breathed fresh and awesome life into my favorite video game.