Blizzard, developer of the Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft game franchises World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, gave players a peek at the changes coming with Starcraft II's third expansion pack, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void, which is set for a Nov. 10 release.
Last Oct. 2, Blizzard uploaded a video where the UI revamp was discussed. Improvements to the chat system, Arcade and campaign selection screen, which brings the past back to life, were highlighted.
The new UI basically splits the screen in two. The left side is dedicated to the navigation menus while the right is designated for the chat window, which prevents overlaps and provides a cleaner UI.
Chat System
Aimed at bringing a better social experience, the new chat interface will consolidate all active chat channels into a single persistent chat window, which will remain open and ensure constant interaction between players "regardless of what they're doing in StarCraft II." The cap on the number of players in a chat channel was doubled from 100 to 200. Furthermore, inactive players will be kicked from the public chat channels and those who sign in will automatically appear in a general chat.
While the multiple windows created the hassle of frequently minimizing them, Blizzard recognized that it is also essential for keeping track of individual conversations and new messages. To keep these benefits while having a single window, the new chat system will allow users to switch between conversations either by "pressing CTRL + TAB or CTRL + SHIFT + TAB," or by using the dropdown menu located at the top-left corner of the chat window. A notification for new messages that aren't on the active conversation will be displayed beside the dropdown.
The chat window can also be pinned so it never closes even when the user goes idle on chat. It can also be extended. Conversation time stamps and a new text color scheme will be implemented. The slash command "/join," which lets users join a chat channel or create a new one, was added along with a new set of keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys.
Arcade
Along with the chat system, the Arcade layout was also revamped and divided into two categories, Join and Browse. In Join, which has a constantly updated list of custom games with open lobbies, the selected game's details will no longer be displayed on the map info panel, but will be readily displayed, which is reminiscent of the simplistic but effective Warcraft UI.
In Browse, players can choose from the top played games. Blizzard also made changes to the criteria of picking out the games that will be displayed in order for more games to have opportunities of appearing on the list. Furthermore, players will be able to link the lobbies through chat by typing [Lobby], which makes it easier for creators to invite and others to join.
UI Overhaul and the Campaign Selection Screen
To make sure that the new chat system works in coherence with the new UI, every game screen was redesigned with a new format, spacing and content. The navigation headers were moved from the lower half to the top. The sub-navigation menu will fall below the corresponding header.
However, the most exciting bits of the new UI are perhaps the 3D scenes for each page.
"When considering a redesign of the interface, we wanted to make a strong visual impact with the inclusion of 3D artwork across all the main navigation pages," disclosed Blizzard.
The coming Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void campaign selection screen resembles that of Starcraft: Broodwar. Not everyone will get to appreciate it but for those who have burned countless hours studying build orders and watching fpvods and Korean pro-games, climbing the ladder and playing, arguably, the best and most balanced real-time strategy game ever made, this is for us.
Boxer in a spacesuit, Yellow the second placer, Android, fOru, Julyzerg, iloveoov, NaDa, Nal_rA's runny nose, the Man Toss, the Maestro, Bisu, the Dong and God, when the Terminator Flash was virtually unstoppable, and the Korean casters doing commentaries — these are names and events in time that came to mind when campaign selection screen was presented.
Yes, Starcraft II is not Broodwar. Yes, Flash is still in a TvT slump. And yes, the changes are not revolutionary but the nostalgia can at least, momentarily, make the mind wander off somewhere other than the soap opera that the SCII lore is at the moment. Think of it as that vintage to wash the palate after a heavy meal. All that's really needed is Broodwar's main menu theme to seal the deal on Nov. 10.
The video shown has an awesome voiceover that explains everything with some visual reference.
