Blizzard’s StarCraft series of RTS games is no doubt pretty popular, especially in the competitive gaming scene where live television events have been broadcasted in countries such as South Korea where the video game is apparently taken very seriously. Like we said earlier, it is one heck of a popular game, but just how popular? Well according to the sales figures, it looks like Blizzard has managed to sell an impressive 1.1 million copies of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm in 48 hours. To put things in perspective, Wing of Liberty managed to sell 1.5 million units in 48 hours, and while this might seem like a decline, those numbers could pick up later on.
For those unfamiliar with the StarCraft franchise, Heart of the Swarm is the successor to Wings of Liberty which was released a couple of years ago. The game, unlike the first StarCraft which saw all campaigns playable, is split up into 3 – one game for every race. Personally it feels like a way for Blizzard to make more money, but on the other hand having played through Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm, it really does feel more like a complete game rather than an expensive expansion set. So, were you one of the 1.1 million that bought Heart of the Swarm? Or did you, like many professional gamers, retire after Wings of Liberty?
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StarCraft has long been a favorite among RTS players, so it wasn’t surprising that StarCraft 2 launched with great success. If you’ve already completed the first installment of StarCraft 2, then you might be interested to learn that its successor, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, has gone live! Yesterday we mentioned that there were different times that the servers would go live, depending on your region, but we guess based on this official announcement by Blizzard, the game has gone live for pretty much everyone. StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is available for purchase via Blizzard’s 
With the success that Starcraft 2 has had, we’re sure many gamers are looking forward to the expansion, Heart of the Swarm. Now the good news is that if you are one of those eager gamers and have pre-purchased the game digitally via Battle.net before the 20th of December, don’t be surprised if you find an email in your inbox one day informing you that you have been granted beta access to the expansion. Yup, Blizzard is expanding the Heart of the Swarm beta and is now flagging gamers who have pre-purchased the game on or before the 20th of December (originally only for those who bought before or on the 18th of December). This does not mean that if you buy the game today that you won’t get access – Blizzard has revealed that players who pre-purchase the game after the deadline will be able to gain beta access, but they will be added in waves on a weekly basis. Sounds like good news for those who can’t wait to play the game – any of our readers out there who have gotten access to the Heart of the Swarm beta? Let us know in the comments on how you are finding it!
If you are a huge fan of Starcraft 2, then you will be pleased to hear that Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm’s beta patch 2.02 has just been made available to the curious masses to give it a go. This beta patch will enable you to try out the numerous new Groups feature for the first time, not to mention having it accompany along with a swath of balance changes, UI alterations, and Editor updates among others.
If you are looking forward to StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, then here is a wee bit of good news for you – Blizzard has announced it to be ready for play when March 12, 2013 rolls around. This game has been talked about for quite some time already, and it seems that the beta has started just a couple of months ago, and it is nice to see the good folks over at Blizzard finally come to a consensus, knowing just when they are going to release the game for the masses. The European Blizzard store has listed the game as “available for play” starting from March 12, 2013 onwards, and this particular expansion to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will arrive in a couple of flavors – standard and digital deluxe, burning the price of a full retail game in your respective pockets or digital bank accounts.
While a game might have awesome gameplay, having a clunky user interface can ruin the experience to a certain extent. That being said, Blizzard has unveiled and detailed several user interface changes that will be made in the upcoming Starcraft 2 expansion, Heart of the Swarm. Some of these changes have been introduced in patch 1.5, but as for the rest, Blizzard felt that they needed more time to work on them. The good news is that the rest of the changes is expected to be introduced with the next major Heart of the Swarm beta patch, so if you’d like to see what are the changes that Blizzard will be making to the user interface for the upcoming expansion, head on over to the Starcraft 2 blog in the source link below for the details. Do you like what you see so far?
I’ve never really fancied the free-to-play model as it usually leads gamers to spend more than they would have if they had bought the game outright. However it seems that the F2P model is catching on and it seems that Blizzard might be interested in it as well. If you thought that this might have something to do with their MMORPG, World of Warcraft, you’d be mistaken as apparently Blizzard is currently looking at perhaps turning the Starcraft 2 multiplayer experience into a F2P one. This was revealed (via 
A while back we mentioned that Blizzard would be launching the Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm beta 
Back in the day when internet speeds were not as fast as they are today, many gamers relied on LAN connections to play multiplayer games together. Blizzard’s games in the past used LAN, such as StarCraft and Warcraft, but as StarCraft 2 gamers are probably familiar, the LAN feature is currently missing. For those who don’t mind playing online, it’s not a big deal but for those who like to go to friend’s houses to play multiplayer games, having many friends hog the internet is usually a recipe for a slowed down connection. Now if you were hoping that Blizzard will introduce the LAN feature come Heart of the Swarm expansion, you’d be out of luck.