News Archive

Welcome to the StarCraftZone news archive. Here you can browse all archived news that has been published on our website.

NetEase.com licences Blizzard Games!

venturebeat.com - August 14, 2008

NetEase.com, an online multiplayer hosting service, has been licensed to host the entire Blizzard battle.net game series, including older games like Warcraft III and future games like Starcraft 2.  NetEase.com and Blizzard Entertainment will work together to form the Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology, a joint operation by both companies to provide support for online multiplayer games in China. 

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Blizzard Apologizes

blizzcon.com - August 14, 2008

In a recent statement by Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, he apologizes for the server crash that had been caused by the Blizzcon ticket rush.  In his statement, he announces that an additional 3,000 Blizzcon tickets will be offered by Blizzard through a lottery system, the details of which have yet to be announced.

Blizzard Gamers,

On behalf of everyone at Blizzard, I want to apologize for the challenges and frustrations you experienced while trying to purchase BlizzCon tickets on Monday and Tuesday. BlizzCon is about the positive experiences you all have had with Blizzard games. As a result of this week's events, the excitement that many of you felt about the show has turned into dissatisfaction and disappointment.

Due to these circumstances, we've reevaluated our convention hall space and come up with some solutions that will allow us to offer 3,000 more tickets for sale. We know this will not be enough to satisfy the very high level of demand for tickets this year, but we want to ensure that BlizzCon remains a great experience for those of you who are able to attend. To avoid the issues many of you faced this week, we'll be selling these 3,000 via a lottery. We'll post further details once our plans are finalized. Please note that the lottery will only be open to those with an active Blizzard Account as of 9:00 PM PDT on August 12, the time that the “Sold Out” notice was posted.

I, and everyone else at Blizzard, share the frustration and disappointment that many of you have expressed as a result of this process. We'll do what it takes to avoid this type of situation in the future.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

Blizzcon Tickets Sold Out [Update]

Blizzcon.com - August 13, 2008

After one day of server crashes and many delays, Blizzard finally optimized their servers to allow many eager customers to purchase Blizzcon tickets online.  In one day, Blizzard has completely sold out all their tickets for the upcoming Blizzcon 2008 convention.  Have fun lucky ticket holders!

[Update] Blizzcon CEO Mike Morhaime has announced that an additional 3,000 Blizzcon tickets will be given out by lottery.  Details can be found on Blizzcon.com!

Blizzcon Tickets Postponed! [Updated]

blizzcon.com - August 12, 2008

On Monday, Blizzard began selling the tickets to its famous annual Blizzcon 2008 convention.  Unfortunately, the massive amount of eager buyers  swamped the servers, overwhelming it with thousands of website requests at a time.  Since then, Blizzard has shut down its servers to optimize them for the potential load of customers.  So far, nobody has been able to order a Blizzcon ticket, though plenty will once Blizzard reopens its stores.

[Update] Blizzard has announced that the selling of Blizzcon tickets will recommence at 12:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time.

BlizzCast Episode 4 Released

Blizzard - August 11, 2008

Episode 4 of Blizzard's official BlizzCast is finally here! Although much attention was put on the WoW expansion, Wrath of The Lich King, we were still treated with answers from some of the StarCraft 2 development team. Here's a small exerpt from the Community Q&A section of the BlizzCast.

Bornakk: The first question is from D10 at teamliquid.net – What is the reason for the decreased mineral collection by workers? (It goes from 8 to 6 per round.) Is it better worker A.I. or a more economy heavy game maybe?

Mike Heiberg:  The harvest rates for classic and Starcraft II are basically the same -

David Kim:   It feels faster though, the minerals anyway.

Mike Heiberg:  It feels faster at certain points, certainly more so mid to late game but it kind of depends on the race and the expansions and stuff. I think that’s a matter of when you cap out on three per mineral field, just how much income you get versus – like in Starcraft a lot of times you get up to like two per mineral field and you couldn’t quite tell if you were capped out or not because there’s a lot of guys moving around and a lot of times you have an empty mineral field for a few seconds here and there.

Two new screenshots have also been added to our Gallery.