At Blizzcon, we got a chance to talk to Jordan Womack, producer on the StarCraft 2 team, about some of the features in StarCraft 2's upcoming 2.1 patch. Here's a summary of the updates, alongside some comments from Jordan.

New Clan and Group Features

Clans/groups can upload a custom in-game logo: Much like the pro-team logos seen next to the main base in Gameheart maps, or the custom team logos used in Proleague maps, clans will be able to upload a custom icon that will be shown in game. Right now it's planned to be a floating icon in the air, near the main hatchery/command center/nexus/hatchery.

Events calendar + notifications for groups: This will make it easier to create and organize various events for clans and groups.

Possible clan competition/clan rankings coming in the future? While this something Blizzard is interested in, there's no timeline on implementation.

Womack: The community has been talking about that a lot. It's certainly something we're interested in and very excited to do. When specifically, whether it's something we get in between 2.1 and Legacy of the Void, or if it's something that happens at Legacy? We're not quite sure yet. But it's something that's very high up on our list of to do's and we're thinking about."

Of course, we had to ask about the possibility of adding other unlockable cosmetics such as unit skins. While the level cap will be raised and new portraits by Carbot will be added, the addition of additional in-game skins seems to be more problematic.

Womack: We have absolutely heard from the fans that they love the skins that we have now. That's awesome, we're really glad to hear that. So if they love it, they want more of it, and we'll see what more we can do.

We think they're super cool and love doing them, but what we're running in to is a tradeoff between our ability to support a minimum spec – literally in terms of memory – on a computer. When you're talking about a game like StarCraft where there's so many different units, and you think about something like a 4v4 match, you could have all races in the game with every player having a different set of skins applied to their army. To fit that in the memory footprint of our minimum spec machine is a major challenge.

Certainly we're always interested in looking at it and finding ways to eke a little more out of that. But we're not in a place where we're ready to say we're raising the minimum spec and be willing to cut people out if their machine doesn't have more memory. So that's really the tradeoff we're looking at there. It doesn't mean the door is closed, but it's not something where we can run off and add a ton of stuff to the game.

Extension Mods

Jordan explained extension mods through the current Gameheart maps. Right now, for each map you want to use the Gameheart features on, a specific Gameheart version of that map has to be published separately. There might be dozens of Gameheart maps published at once for each competitive map someone wants to use Gameheart on.

Now, Gameheart can be created once as an "extension mod" and published once. A player can then choose any map and choose to "extend" it with Gameheart, granting that map all the features of GameHeart. This will make it much easier and more convenient to use certain custom maps, and also consolidates search queries, popularity rating, etc. to one single mod instead of having it spread around multiple map variants of the same mod.

Some possible uses of extension mods we talked about were:

• Big Game Hunters (increases amount of minerals and gas in each patch) mode. Blizzard said they'd be making the popular Brood War mass-money maps the initial demo for extension mod.
  
• Balance test maps: Blizzard said they were looking into the possibility of using extension mods for this purpose.
  
• Brood War total conversion mod! Jordan was rather excited when we brought this up.
  
• Units with giant heads mode. NBA JAAAAAMMMM

Arcade is Free in the Starter Edition

The custom map Arcade will become free in starter edition. Right now, the starter edition offers a rotation of selected Arcade Maps to play. With 2.1, all custom maps will become free to play with the starter edition of StarCraft 2.

Womack: The people who are making content for arcade are highly productive, they put in a ton of investment into the stuff they do – and you see that with the games and features, there's really amazing stuff on there.

But the audience currently is other people who are playing arcade already, people who have bought StarCraft 2. That's a lot of people that play your game – the creators are doing well, but how much better could they do?

Let's say you make a game and you think it's pretty awesome. And now, with Arcade being free for the starter edition, you can go out on the internet and bring in as many people as you want, as you can talk in to play, check out this stuff for free.

It's huge for creators that way, and for people who are currently in arcade, it means more people to hang out and enjoy games with.

We asked about the possibility of future monetary incentive for map creators, related to the "Marketplace" that had been pitched during SC2's development. For now, it seems to be a no-go.

Womack: We said marketplace back in the day, before we launched Wings of Liberty. At this point we're trying to be very careful and not make promises. It's something we're interested in, people talk about it a lot internally. There's a lot of different ways to tackle it, a lot of technological challenges. Until the point we have a good answer for what's going to happen and how the features are going to be, we're not going to talk about it.

[In terms of providing incentive to map-makers] It's the same incentives people had when they made the original Dota or tower defense games. It's reach, it's having people have a great time. It's that community that you build when you reach out and make something cool, people jive to it, there's this feedback loop. When we do our featured games, we are in contact with the developer of the game, and we're on the forums talking to players. As the players and developers connect, there's a really strong synergy. You see people who have been doing well developing their game starting to get that feedback and positive reinforcement from players, and now they're doing even more. They're spending more time and energy on their games, which are becoming more awesome.

Also, the playable races in the starter edition will be expanded to all three races and not just Terran. This is not F2P multiplayer, as you can still only play custom games and vs. AI games with the starter edition. Using the match-maker with spawning is still possible, as before. All three races will remain playable for an undetermined amount of time, with Blizzard stating they were "trying it out."

However, Blizzard declined to say that it was a possible step toward completely Free-to-Play multiplayer.

Womack: Taking a big step out and completely overhauling our business model for StarCraft 2 would be something bigger than what we're talking about with 2.1. It's not off the table, but it's not in this scope.

I think what we have with Starter Edition is already awesome, and it really gives us the opportunity as Blizzard to reach out and bring more people in. If they're paying attention to WCS, if their friends are playing SC2 and they're curious, here's a great offering. You can get all the races, you can get all the maps, you can spawn up with your friend and get access to almost everything in multiplayer. I think that is the right answer for us right now.

Article: Monk, Waxangel
Graphics: Blizzard, shiroiusagi