There's new media to soak in, including a close look at the stars of StarCraft II's single-player campaign, Tychus Findlay, Zeratul, and Jim Raynor, plus ample background info on each. Blizzard has also added new details on the Zerg's Changeling, some updates on multiplayer mapmaking and the requisite much, much more.

It's all detailed at the StarCraft II community shout out below.

StarCraft II Content Drop [StarCraft.com]

Well, as those of you who may have read the spoiler-laden version of our StarCraft II single-player preview may already know, the Brutalisk doesn't do much more than intimidate... and die. It's one of a handful of non-playable unit types that StarCraft II brings to the table, a powerful, well armored beast that is best avoided while hunting fresh vespene geysers.

This "surprise custom unit," as Blizzard calls it, shouldn't be a multiplayer balance concern. But maybe someday we'll see more of it in one of those StarCraft II expansions coming... way, way in the future.

(Pro tip: Click on the thumbnail above to make it Brutal-sized.)

During a presentation in New York today, Thomas Tippl, Activision Blizzard chief financial officer, raved about the strong business done by Blizzard games. He said the division has a full pipeline of content, which he presented in the slide pictured here.

While the lineup confirms continued World of Warcraft support and a Starcraft II launch in 2010 (with expansions to follow after), Diablo III was marked to be released in 2011 at the soonest.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

So what it like to be working on StarCraft II, which is not a WarCraft game?

"I don't think it has anything to do with anything," StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder tells Gamasutra. "It's just all about scheduling and resources and what happened. World of Warcraft was not something this company expected to be this successful by far. They were hoping for a couple hundred thousand subscribers. That was what had been done in the past — "If we could equal those numbers, we'd be fine."

Browder doesn't believe there was any sort of conscious decision to focus on a particular — it was just a matter of the different teams at Blizzard (Diablo III, for example) getting to a point last year where they could show what they had been working on. Browder goes on to say he and Blizzard wishes they were shipping StarCraft II instead of still working on the title. "So, I think it's just that these games are taking longer to make than we'd like," he adds. The WarCraft team is working from an established toolset, so they are able to release expansion in a timely manner.

"Certainly, we're hoping, as we're developing this new engine [for StarCraft II], that once we get to that point, we'll be able to maintain a higher rate of speed than we have in the past, but I think up until now it's just the way it's worked out.

The Design of StarCraft II [Gamasutra]

You just better have it done by November 11, as Blizzard will be requiring it for WoW players, not to mention future games, like StarCraft II and Diablo III. Better yet, it's easy, free and will net World of Warcraft players a virtual penguin to pal around with in-game. There's even a FAQ!!

Hit up the official site for a brief explanation of why Blizzard considers this switchover a good thing.

World of Warcraft Battle.net Conversion Coming [Blizzard]

That may be because his company is sitting on some of gaming's biggest franchises—Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero—or that Kotick's just a little power hungry. But he tells Barrons, "I view the medium as having the potential to eclipse film and television." And quickly. In five years or so.

Bob may have a point. Much has been made of the decline of television viewership in favor of other distractions, including the internet and video games, both of which can take away valuable screen time from Hollywood's cinematic and televised offerings. Plus, the TV doesn't even have a snazzy plastic peripheral one can play with.

Well, with the exception of the TV remote.

Game-Changing Hero Is Poised to Rule [Barrons]

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The subject of StarCraft: Ghost came up during my interview with StarCraft II art director Didier as a joke at first. I asked him when StarCraft: Ghost was coming out, and he replied, "Didn't you get it? It was out at GC in Germany, running on the PS Slim or whatever they're calling it," he teased. I mentioned reading the StarCraft: Ghost novel, and how it really made me want to play the game that didn't exist. "Oh it exists," he replied.

"We actually looked at a lot of the art assets so we could include them in specific missions in the game, or if there was a specific installation in Ghost that we wanted to include in StarCraft II. We look at all our assets."

He likens it to the situation with the cancelled Warcraft: Lord of the Clans adventure game. "Originally Lord of the Clans was like that. We cancelled Lord of the Clans for a lot of similar reasons, but Thrall ended up as the biggest character in the Horde. I'm not saying that's Nova, but we're definitely not throwing away the lore."

It's good to know that all of that StarCraft: Ghost development didn't go to waste. If you're interested in of the lore behind Ghost and its lovely protagonist Nova, be sure to check out the StaCraft: Ghost Nova novel, recently featured in our 2009 Summer Reading List.

The art director for StarCraft II when he isn't belting out vocals for Blizzard's house band, The Artists Formerly known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, was quite vocal about keeping things fresh across the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg campaigns during our interview at BlizzCon 09. "We definitely have ideas that we haven't include in this one to keep the next games unique. We always joke around that every expansion has to have the snow tileset, so there we go, we've got the snow tileset. We do that just for a goof. "Hey, there's the snow tileset!""

All joking aside, Sam explains that certain ideas have been held back for the two single player expansions, in order to ensure that each has its own unique flair.

"There's a lot of really cool unit ideas that we have that we probably could have squeezed onto one of these, but instead we wanna let them shine more in the next one - let them be a little more unique. This is an expansion, but it's the Zerg campaign or the Protoss campaign. It's not like a one-off sort of thing. It's gonna have all its unique sets.

"We're going to go back to the same planets. My hope is that we can affect those planets somehow, so if you're on Korhol in Wings of Liberty, when you return in the Zerg campaign or the Protoss, I want something radical to have happened to it or changed, whether a change in leadership or some "Cataclysmic" event," he jokes, referring to the newly announced World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion.

"That's the sort of thing that I really dig. I love it in movies when you see a character from the original one except now he has a cool hatchet wound on his face - what happened to him? So basically we'll put hatchet wounds on the planet. The +2 hatchet of doom!"

Did I mention I love this man? He's like me, only with a fully-working face and hair. He's even at my same skill level in StarCraft. "Everybody is better than me. I get beat by the UI. Not the AI, the UI. Waitaminit, what do I have to build here? What, I have to build a - ah damn."

Some of our readers were a bit put off by the suggestion that the single player portion of StarCraft II would require logging into Battle.net, as evidenced by some of the comments in the post following the Battle.net panel at BlizzCon this weekend. The next day we followed up on the issue with Blizzard vice president of game design Rob Pardo, who clarified the single player situation for us.

"You don't technically have to (login), but you'll want to. You can play in offline mode if you want - I just don't think you're going to want to. You'll be giving up lots and lots of features, and why would you want to be giving up features?"

We covered the features exhaustively in the original post, but perhaps we didn't draw your attention to the button on the above screenshot labeled "Play As Guest." That button kicks off the game without connecting, so those of you without internet who couldn't possibly be reading this post should be happy, unless they try to set up a LAN.

At a panel that took place while I was knee-deep in interviews, Blizzard introduced the new Sarah Kerrigan to the world, smashing previous rumors that voice actress Karen Strassman was taking over the role. Helfer is no stranger to video game work, having appeared in voice form in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows and Halo 3: ODST, as well as a live action appearance in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Is Helfer up on her StarCraft lore?

"It's intimidating to come into a game and do a job that you don't really know the history of it, I'm kind of a video game virgin in terms of playing. Personally I'm not technologically savvy," Helfer said at the outset of her introduction to the crowd. "At the time, I didn't know what Zerg and all these things were. It was fun to find out all these little differences."

Along with Helfer, the panel also revealed that original cast members Robert Clotworthy and James Harper would be returning as Jim Raynor and Arcturus Mengsk respectively, putting to rest earlier reports that Clotworthy wasn't deemed worthy to fill Raynor's space boots.

BlizzCon 09: Kerrigan Gets Cylon'd [IGN UK]

Pardo was in good spirits when we spoke to him yesterday afternoon when I touched on the controversial subject, which has spawned a wave of forum rage and countless petitions calling for the reinstatement of feature. "You're the first person who asked me about that this weekend," he joked. When I asked if the company was still receiving flack over the decision, his good humor continued. "Only from you guys. Only from the press. Everyone else has accepted it."

Once I finished giggling, Rob got down to brass tacks.

"Everyone is going to give us flack until it's out. None of us is going to know how big a deal it is until it's out. We believe that it's really not that big of a deal - that most people are not really going to notice that it's missing. There's a lot of people out there I think that are just afraid that they're suddenly not going to be able to connect to the internet tonight and they won't be able to play. I actually think that case is extremely rare, and I think we're going to be okay."

And what of the rare cases where no direct-connection option wouldn't be okay?

"There's a few legitimate cases that we're going to try and address over time. Location-based tournaments, or let's say I'm in a dorm with a firewall or something like that, hopefully there's a way to determine that and maybe start a peer-to-peer game."

So it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but as Pardo said, we won't really know until the game comes out.

Rows of computers and lines - that about sums it up. There are some statues as well, some of which we've seen before, and a lot of blackness. Just tons and tons of blackness. There's a nice long wall for people to write there names, which was nice until it became illegible, and a space for people to decorate their blank nOObz Space Marines, which is a fine thing. There are always plenty of places to spend your money, which is perfect for those of you allergic to not being poor, like me.

And no, I wasn't stalking the Queen of the Blades statue.

Day one of BlizzCon actually started with day 0, when we got a peek inside this year's swag bag, revealing its full Space Marine, hand sanitizer glory. Between that and our look at the special merchandise Blizzard is selling at the convention, we were pretty much swagged out in time for the opening ceremonies.

The opening ceremonies were chuck full of news, from the new Monk class for Diablo III to the biggest news of the convention - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - the new expansion for the popular massively-multiplayer game that introduces two new races, a revamp of the existing world, and tons of new features that are sure to keep the game exciting for at least a couple of months after the expansion's release sometime next year.

We took a closer look at the Monk, the Street Fighter character of Diablo III, with low survivability but quick and devastating attacks leaving enemies reeling from the feeling. We also looks at the integration planned for Battle.Net and StarCraft 2 in words and pictures, discovering that Blizzard plans to allow map creators to sell premium content in the StarCraft marketplace.

And let's not forget our massive gallery of custom-painted nOObz Space Marine toys!

The day soon came to an end, but there's still plenty more to tell you folks about, so stay tuned throughout today and well into Monday for more from BlizzCon 2009!

Join us (err, me) tomorrow for more from BlizzCon 2009, including highlights from the costume contest, cosplay, some more cosplay, people in costumes, people dressed as other things, and I'm pretty sure some other stuff will crop up. I've got interviews, hands-ons, and if you're really lucky, I will continue to sweat bullets.

Blizzard wants to foster the best mod community in existence, and to that ends they've unveiled plans to single out premium custom-created maps for sales on a StarCraft 2 marketplace. Maps will be split into two categories - normal and premium - with the former free and the latter for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the map's creators. Blizzard hopes this will lead to more choice for StarCraft 2 players, and more innovative and creative custom maps fueled by the potential financial rewards.

Said Pardo, "This is really an opportunity for them to share in the rewards of our success."

The feature won't be available at the game's launch, and details are still being ironed out. Blizzard made the announcement today as a way to give modders time to gather teams together and start brainstorming premium content. Mod teams, start your engines!

I see several things here I want desperately, like the vinyl nOObs StarCraft firgures, and the plush murlocs, and the Diablo Fresh Meat t-shirt. Unfortunately I don't have enough room in my suitcase for the swag I already got, so it's either spend nothing, or ship it all home ahead of me. Hmmmmmm.