March 21, 2008 7:00 AMEurogamer has posted a new preview of StarCraft II gameplay. Based on information gleaned during a recent visit to Blizzard Entertainment, the preview offers a glimpse of some of the frenetic multiplayer action players can expect from the game as well as commentary from some of StarCraft II's designers.Firstly, the single-player campaign, of which there was a tantalising glimpse at BlizzCon last year, but which is still shrouded in mystery. An elaborate and gorgeous front-end was demonstrated, showing Terran characters aboard their flagship, and we were promised a non-linear storyline, dialogue trees, and flexible tech development. It seemed a fascinating introduction of elements from the likes of Bioware RPGs and even point-and-click adventures to this otherwise straight-down-the-line action RTS, but there's no word on how the non-linear storytelling will work, or how the Protoss and Zerg races will factor into it. Sigaty is tight-lipped, but says it's intended to satisfy those who are disappointed by the lack of change in the game's core mechanics. "It's definitely a departure and it was a conscious decision to make single-player very different from what we'd done before. Really the main reason is, because of what we're deciding to do with the core multiplayer game, let's innovate and be different in the single-player campaign." Yet more significant, and more secret, are the plans for the revamped Battle.net multiplayer portal that will launch alongside StarCraft II. Blizzard has been hinting from the start that it has big plans for this, centred on a push to bring the game's tremendous pro-gaming success in Korea to a wider, worldwide audience. "We're not really prepared to talk about the specifics of Battle.net right now," stonewalls Sigaty - but then he relents a little. "Three things - the core multiplayer game and Battle.net ultimately being the glue of that, combined with our interest in the multiplayer community and general, and then eSports - those are the things that we'll be focusing on in Battle.net. In a few months you'll have specific information on what that means, but certainly you can start to draw conclusions about how we're going to bring eSports to people that aren't even aware that it exists." He specifically mentions "the new level of gamer" - the Guitar Hero-loving, semi-casual player.The full article is available at the link below.Eurogamer: StarCraft II First ImpressionsBlizzard EntertainmentStarCraft II

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