Chat with Devs: Since the Terran Cobra took over the Protoss Stasis Orbs slowing attack, the Protoss Orb got a few new abilities including the Force Field ability. This will be very interesting for early team games, as you can use a force field on a choke point to keep an opponent’s teammate from arriving to help their allies. The Devs are testing out various abilities on different units as you can see, and even the Templar has received its classic Hallucination ability back.

—StarCraft II Q&A - Batch 19—

1. Will the Protoss be getting any mechanism for healing their units or repairing their buildings?

There are no plans to give the Protoss any healing abilities, especially since their shield regeneration rate when out of combat, is more than twice the rate of the original StarCraft.

2. With the new physics engine, can explosions affect surroundings? (like hurt or push units, destroy doodads, etc ) (sc2blog.com)

Explosions will not be able to push units, but they can destroy doodads. In fact, destroying certain doodads will be vital on certain maps, to get access to expansions or other strategic locations. Furthermore, explosions will not be able to push units because it would affect gameplay and balance negatively, in having units be knocked off cliffs, be stuck in unplanned locations, or ultimately have units disoriented where the player cannot control them.

3. How long does a unit typically take to make from concept to playable unit?

With a finished concept piece, it could take from a few days to a few months, to create it for the game. Much of this time depends on the priority of the unit amongst other development goals, as well as the iterations necessary to perfect the unit. The Zerg Baneling is an example of a unit that took only a few days to complete after the concept, whereas the Protoss Stalker has gone through several iterations, and has taken 4-5 months.

4. Are the units on the official site finalized, or is everything still up for grabs at this point? (gamereplays.org)

We are still heavily in the development phase of StarCraft II, thus none of the units on the website are 100% final. We are also still testing out several new units, abilities, and mechanics, to create the most fluid StarCraft II experience.

5. What do the Protoss eat? (where do they get energy and mass?) (starcraftcz.com)

Protoss gain nutrition from sunlight, or at a pinch, moonlight (which is just reflected sunlight anyway) by absorbing through their skins. They can go for extended periods without absorbing sunlight. What little moisture they need is also absorbed through their skin.

Related posts:

1. StarCraft II Q&A Batch 12
2. StarCraft II Q&A Batch 11
3. Starcraft 2 Q&A Batch 25 and Blizzard Podcast Episode 1
4. StarCraft II Q&A Batch 14
5. Starcraft 2 QA Batch 23

With the dawn of graphics hogging video cards, most gamers who are not fortunate enough to be rich (*cough *me *cough* we’re left drooling in front of their monitor and staring at screenshots of Unreal Tournament 3 or Crysis. Holding on to the faint hope that a parent or a close relative (or even Santa?) getting us an expensive video card for Christmas would seem lowly or childish, but hey let’s face it, spending over $400 for anything can bring the stingy side out of anyone who would work hard just to squeeze that extra dollar out from their work.

Luckily for us, the Christmas spirit did it’s work a little bit earlier for this year. Nvidia decided to play Santa by lifting the NDA on their latest product, the XFX Geforce 8800 GT. NO they are not giving it away for free silly, but it’s gonna be priced $250 lesser than the 8800 GTX or $30 cheaper BUT beefier than the 8800 GTS.

You can just imagine what you can do with that extra $250. Invest more in other computer parts, another stick of RAM or a Nintendo DS or PSP. Getting an 8800 GTS would seem illogical when this baby hits the market. Why buy an inferior and more expensive card when you can get better GPU that costs $30 less?

Geforce 8800 GT ($249.00)
Stream Processors : 112
Core clock : 600 Mhz
Shader clock : 1.5 Ghz
Memory clock : 900 Mhz
Memory : 512 MB GDDR3 (256 MB for $199 or less)
Memory Interface : 256-bit


Geforce 8800 GTS ($279.00)
Stream Processors : 96
Core clock : 500 Mhz
Shader clock : 1.2 Ghz
Memory clock : 800Mhz
Memory : 320 MB GDDR3 (640MB for $375)
Memory Interface : 320-bit

Geforce 8800 GTX ($499.00)
Stream Processors : 128
Core clock : 575 Mhz
Shader clock : 1.35 Ghz
Memory clock : 900 Mhz
Memory : 768 MB GDDR3
Memory Interface : 384-bit

Several Graphics card manufacturers are also planning on selling 256MB variants that would sell for less than$199.

“Nvidia was able to lower the price and increase performance by redesigning the chip and shrinking the manufacturing process from 90nm down to 65nm. The older 90nm GPUs required card manufacturers to add a separate display chip onto each card, but that functionality is now integrated into the GeForce 8800 GT. The GPU also includes an upgraded PureVideo processing engine.” - Gamespot

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4. Farcry 2 Immersion Trailer (and release date)
5. Hellgate London Demo Direct Download Links