First Hands-On: Zerg Media Event (3/11/08)
Thomas "T-Dawg" Wagner
We are the Swarm.
Or at least we were on Tuesday as Blizzard Entertainment invited all the major media outlets in the gaming world as well as a select number of dedicated fan sites including, yours truly. The Zerg are back after, a lore-wise, four year hiatus which they have spent evolving; turning into a creepier, nastier, and more infectious entity than they were in the original.
Samwise Didier, Lead Art Director at Blizzard, commented that the idea behind the Zerg was to advance the gruesome and insect-like features of the Zerg with the graphics modern computers can offer. More dripping, spitting, and oozing was the theme of the day. Samwise and Blizzard haven’t failed to deliver. Even the mighty Ultralisk, which many fans of critiqued, was awe-inspiring in its sheer size (easily ten times the size it was in the original), fluid motion, chitinous appearance and the fact it could rip a marine in half (literally with the new death effects)!
While not all units could make a return appearance, some have remained the same, others changed, and still cool new units have emerged – allowing the Zerg the old feel while updating it with new mechanics and features. Like what, though? Before I begin, remember, everything is subject to change at a moment’s notice. What AJ and I got to play reflected the game as of last Thursday when the build went on lockdown. By the time we got to play the game on Tuesday the game could have already been completely changed!
THE BANELING. The baneling was the first new unit of the Zerg I ever saw on screenshots so I will explain it first. The Baneling is a tier one unit that is evolved from Zerglings just as a Lurker would be evolved from a Hydralisk. The Baneling is a rolling green pod of death that suicides for massive amounts of damage to ground based units. It is likened to a ground-based scourge (a unit that did not make the cut). This unit tears up Zealots who have to be close ranged to do their damage – making it a very effective counter.
THE QUEEN. This may be the hardest unit in the Zerg arsenal to explain for it is the most unique addition to the Swarm. First off, this is the only unit that the player doesn’t build from a Larva, instead, it is birthed straight from a Hatchery, Lair, or Hive (it requires a Spawning Pool though). It is a slow moving unit that builds the Zerg defenses. That’s right – no more sunken or spore colonies. It is replaced by a Swarm Clutch that is a pod that fires ranged spores at land or air units. The Queen can also build Shriekers that are buildings that have tremendous vision and extend the distance of the Swarm Clutches. For 50 mana, the Queen can also heal player controlled units. Pretty awesome for one unit, eh? Here’s the catch: you can only have one Queen at a time. Seems kinda lame for a tier one unit now but time for the second catch: it can evolve too! The Queen can evolve into a Large Queen once the player evolves a Lair. This allows the Queen to burrow under the ground and pop up next to any of the player’s controlled buildings via the ability Deep Tunnel. It gets better: once the player evolves a Hive the Large Queen can become a Huge Queen. Damage and Hit Points increase, like the last evolution, but now the Queen has a few more abilities like Toxic Creep that really begin to help with offense and defense. All-in-all the queen is invaluable to the Swarm’s defenses and is a really cool addition to the Zerg.
THE ROACH. This unit is the bane of my existence as a toss player. The Roach is a low hit point unit that has a short-ranged ground-only attack that is rather weak. Why did it plague me so one might wonder? Because it’s hit point regeneration is so fast you need 2-3 Zealots to kill it. A line of Roaches against a line of Zealots and the line of Roaches will always win. The Roaches just don’t die (pun intended)! It is very easy to pull a dragoon-esque dance with them because of their regeneration and evolving Burrow also allows a player to burrow Roaches right before they die and pop them up a second or two later after their regeneration brings them back to full health. Roaches and Zerglings make a very potent assault, especially at choke points. Marines, because of their ranged rifles, have less trouble with the Roaches.
THE OVERLORD. What changed about the Overlord one might be curious. First, it no longer has detect. This was to give cloaked units a chance against a Zerg player; which makes sense from a balance perspective. To compensate for the lack of detect two things happened. First, the Overlord can evolve into an Overseer that moves at normal speed (instead of slow) and has detect. Second, the Overlord now has 2 new abilities: Generate Creep and Slime. Generate Creep is simple enough – it is a mobile creep colony. Slime allows an Overlord to slime a detector preventing it from doing its job. Both of these abilites must be evolved.
That rounds up the tier one units. A quick note is that the only way for the Zerg to get early antiair is through the use of Swarm Clutches, because everyone’s favorite unit is now a tier two. Yes, the Zerg tech tree is now highly different, but from what was being talked about none of the Zerg Pro’s that got to play test in Korea had any issue with the new Zerg tech.
THE HYDRALISK. The Hydralisk is back and is nastier and spinier than ever which is reflected the moment you build your Hydralisk Den which is now a tier 2 building requiring a Lair. Moving the Hydralisk to a tier 2 unit was a hotly debated topic – and no one is sure if it is going to stay there. There are both pro’s and con’s about its move to being tier 2. The cons were that it takes players until tier 2 to get mobile anti-air and it goes against the original's tech tree. The pro is that it is a hell of a lot nastier now. Personally, I loved it as a tier 2 unit. Its evolved form is still lurking around, mostly unchanged.
THE CORRUPTOR. This nasty flying creature brings the air-versus-air assault. The Spire is required to build this unit and its role is very similar to the old devourer. The Corruptor has a insidious little ability that allows its attacks to infest units switching them, temporarily, to the player’s side. I didn’t get much time with this unit, but it wouldn’t surprise me that just a few could help turn the tide of battle, especially with judicious uses of good micro. I am simply giddy to see what the likes of Savior could do.
THE MUTALISK. Enter the other unit that the Spire is required for. I wouldn’t mention the Mutalisk at all for it is mostly unchanged except to mention that the designers and programmers at Blizzard are faced with an interesting challenge: trying to replicate the move-shoot of the old Mutalisk. It was definitely confirmed that the old “feature” of the move-shoot Mutalisk would definitely be making a comeback but with the new improved pathing and other code trying to recreate the original bug was posing a unique challenge. Never fear, though, I am in full confidence that dancing-mutas will be returning.
THE INFESTOR. This bulbous disgusting menace brings back the Dark Cloud ability that is visually more appealing. It also, true to its namesake, can infest buildings of either Protoss or Terran enemies. The infested building then produces infested units that will attack whatever is around. At the current stage the only unit that is produced is Infested Terran marines which shoot their rifles until their timed life expires. Each infestation automatically produces a certain number of infested marines. Infested Marines are produced even if a Protoss building is infested – but that will be remedied before the final build is released. This ability is particularly effective when targeting Protoss Pylons as while the building is temporarily infested it cannot be used and doesn’t belong to the original player. After a short duration the building returns to the original owner, but not before being surrounded by infested units.
THE NYDUS WORM. This bloated tremor of a creature has been the controversy since it was first leaked. Here is the rundown:
1. Build a Nydus Barrens (Which is also needed for a Hive).
2. Build a Nydus Worm (which burrows ungrounded and is cloaked except to detectors).
3. Load units into the Nydus Barrens.
4. Unburrow in some location, transform to Nydus Canal and unload units from Nydus Barrens.
As you can tell – it is infinitely cooler than the Nydus Canal which relied on your opponent being Zerg and not paying attention. Now you can unburrow in anyone’s mineral patch and wreak havoc. How fun!
Welcome to the tier 2 units. They were fun, but let us not short change the real brawn of the swarm, the tier 3 units:
THE SWARM GUARDIAN. Evolved from the Mutalisk, this serpentine abomination reprises its old role with a new twist. The Swarm Guardian now shoots its acidic globs at the ground inflicting massive damage – but that is not all! Once the globs hit they spawn quick-lived Broodlings to do even more damage. A swarm of these long-ranged anti-ground monstrosities will be even more fearsome than before.
THE ULTRALISK. Last but not least. I feel it necessary to mention this brutal behemoth on its own for its sheer size makes it a worthy adversary that should instill fear across the Koprulu Sector. It must be at least ten times the size it was in the original making it tower even over the Terran Thor. It does a sick amount of damage to any ground unit that gets in its way but it does three times more damage to buildings ripping them to shreds in blinks of an eye.
Those are the new units folks, but that isn’t all that is new with the Swarm. The way the Zerg upgrade now is dramatically different. At the moment, which is always subject to immediate change, all upgrades are unit specific. This means that upgrading Zerglings will give more damage to Zerglings but will leave every other unit unaffected. The pro to this is upgrading the Zerg is cheaper for individual units and go faster. Also: the upgrades are scattered across many different buildings so one could theoretically still upgrade everything at once, if necessary. I found this new upgrading system a lot of fun – because I didn’t have to wait for my upgrades to be done and I could focus my build to the units I wanted to use. One argument against this is that it makes it more difficult for the Zerg to respond since their response wouldn’t be as powerful because the new units wouldn’t have upgrades but I found this an almost nonissue. I think the pros did as well.
All-in-all the Zerg are back: We are the Swarm.
