[Dox]

This has been around for several days already so I'm surprised there isn't already a thread on it. Unfortunately it's extremely difficult to download the client at the moment if you're running a Wings of Liberty enSG edition. Here's the patch notes, followed by some pretty screenshots stolen from around the interwebs. This is essentially the first public glimpse into the HotS build.

+ [Patch Notes] +

New Battle.net UI
The Arcade has arrived! To make way for this new feature, significant changes have been made to the StarCraft II user interface. Two new buttons have been added: the Arcade button, which will act as a portal to a brand new custom games experience that features dramatic improvements in finding, rating and playing custom games, and the StarCraft II button, which will provide access to classic single player and multiplayer experiences, including the StarCraft II campaign, multiplayer ladder, melee maps and more.
The Battle.net user interface has been completely refreshed with a new look and feel.

Arcade Button
A new Arcade button has been added to the main Battle.net navigation panel at the top-left of the user interface. Custom games once found in the Custom Games interface will now be found here with an improved interface and tools. Players now have more flexibility to find, play, and review custom games, more quickly and easily than ever before.

The Spotlight page displays new or up-and-coming games. Players can visit the Spotlight to browse featured games, new games on the rise, and top-rated games as reviewed by the community.
Players can search for games based on genre, popularity, star ratings, newness, and recent spikes in popularity.
Each custom game in the Arcade is represented by a game icon. The game icon contains a large game image (provided by the creator), and includes the game’s name and star rating. Hovering over the icon displays the game description.
Clicking on a game icon brings players into the Game Info page, the main portal for each game in the Arcade. This page contains summarized information about a custom game, including a description, screenshots, play instructions, reviews, and other information.


The Game Info page consists of several sections:

• Overview: This contains the game description and a set of screenshots that show off the action.
• How to Play: This is where players will find instructions (basic and advanced) and how to win. There is also space for additional images to supplement the game instructions.
• Patch Notes: This is where the game creator can list updates that have been made to the game, so that players can see how the game is growing and improving.
• Review: After playing, players can give a game a star rating and enter a text review. Once enough ratings have been submitted, the game receives an Average Star Rating that displays on the game icon. Players can also mark other players’ reviews as “Helpful” which will ensure that the best reviews rise to the top.
• Tutorial: Game creators can now publish tutorials for their creations. If a tutorial exists for a game, a “Play Tutorial” button will appear on the Game Info Page, which can be clicked to immediately launch the tutorial.

There is now a “Join Chat” button on the Game Info Page that allows players to join a channel named after that Arcade game.
The new Open Games List displays games that have players, but aren’t full and ready to start yet. This should help players identify active games and find partners or opponents more easily.


StarCraft Button
The StarCraft II multiplayer ladder, melee games and other classic gameplay options have been moved to a separate StarCraft II button. The StarCraft button has been reorganized to consolidate all single player and multiplayer StarCraft II play types in one easy-to-navigate screen. Players can now access the following from a single unified StarCraft screen:

• Multiplayer: Quick Match, Coop vs. A.I., Team Games, and Melee Custom Games
• Single Player: Campaign, Challenges, and Versus A.I.

New Streaming Launcher
A new StarCraft II Launcher will allow game data to stream during play. This should reduce download, install, and patching times. We look forward to your feedback on the new launcher!


User Interface

• Maximum selection size has been increased to 500, up from 255.
• Items can now be instantly sold by pressing Control + Right-Click.
• Instant items can now be used while in targeting mode without canceling targeting in custom games.
• Items can now display range indicators and AoE targeting cursors when in target mode in custom games.
• Inventory commands (Use, Move, and Pawn) are now available as custom hotkeys in custom games.
• Alliance colors have been updated to propagate to the entire UI.
• A new in-game pathing display has been added that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap.

Battle.net

• The News and Community and Help Buttons have been removed from the main navigation panel to simplify the display. These can now be accessed from the Home Screen.
• The Player Profile Screen has been reorganized to streamline the overall display of profile information. From this screen, players can access their Profile Summary, Career Summary, Match History, Arcade Reviews, and Rewards.
• New statistics have been added to the Player Profile: Games Played This Season, Most Played Mode, and Total Career games.
• Certain statistics that were previously shown on the Player Profile Screen have now been consolidated into the Career Summary Screen.
• Career Summary has been moved from the Leagues and Ladders Screen into the Player Profile Screen.
• A new Join Chat button has been added.
• The Help Screen is now accessible from the Home Screen instead of the navigation panel.
• Tutorials are now more appropriately accessible from the StarCraft menu.
• A new Quick Nav tab has been added to the bottom-left corner of the Battle.net user interface. This is a customizable dashboard that allows players to bind up to five Battle.net screens to the F1-F5 keyboard shortcuts for speedier navigation.

The following new slash commands have been added:

• /help – displays available /slash commands
• /close – closes the focused chat window
• /min – minimizes the focused chat window
• /max – maximizes the focused chat window
• /restore – returns the focused chat window to default position and size
• /afk – puts the player into AFK status
• /dnd – puts the players into DND status
• /partyinvite – invites the targeted player to a party
• /partykick – removes the targeted player from party
• /block – blocks the targeted player
• /unblock – unblocks the targeted player
• /addfriend – adds the targeted player as a character friend
• /removefriend – removes the targeted player as a friend
• /profile – opens the profile page for targeted player
• /report – opens the Report Player dialog for targeted player
• /friendnote – opens the Friend Note dialog for targeted player

Battle.net Bug Fixes

• A player who logs out of the game during a match countdown now receives a point loss. The other player now receives a message that the opposing player has canceled the queue and neither receives a point bonus nor penalty.
• Addressed performance issues that could occur over time when navigating between various Battle.net pages.
• StarCraft II players can no longer send party invites to RealID friends playing World of Warcraft.
• The Score Screen for Versus AI and Cooperative matches now displays the correct victory or defeat message after completing a game.
• Friend status icons now update properly when a player joins a single-player game while Away or Busy.
• Achievements will now be properly awarded when logging onto Battle.net from offline mode.
• Players no longer lose progress with streak achievements when other players leave the automated matchmaking queue while being matched.
• The Invite button no longer stays lit after inviting all friends to a conversation chat.
• The Skip button in the Welcome to Multiplayer screen now has a sound effect.
• Pressing Esc on the Starter Edition offer screen no longer prevents subsequent logging-on attempts on accounts with valid SC2 licenses.
• The News and Community pages now process HTML characters properly.
• Fixed an issue where the Battle.net UI would overlap the game world if a replay was launched too quickly.
• The Invite to Party button can no longer be spammed repeatedly.
• Maps can no longer be published if they begin or end with whitespace, contain consecutive whitespace, or contain non-printable characters.
• Custom game lobbies now properly default your race to the last race played.
• Chat no longer scrolls to the bottom of a chat window when a new message is added if a player has previously scrolled up in the chat window.
• Fixed an issue where the “You have voice chat disabled” message would occasionally display in-game despite having voice chat enabled.
• It is no longer possible to select “Block Communication” for RealID friends.
• Fixed an issue where matches would occasionally fail to appear in a player’s match history.
  Fixed an issue where the Current Team State Box would occasionally update to display inaccurate data.
• Fixed an issue where the multiplayer game mode would switch to 2v2 when reaching the Battle.net input limit.
• Fixed an issue in custom games with AI where the score screen would improperly list AI players as zerg regardless of their actual race played.
• Fixed an issue where the Bonus Pool would occasionally display an incorrect value.
• Fixed an issue where players would lose points for wins and gain points for losses on very rare occasions.
• Fixed an issue where the Start/Skip Practice League dialogue could appear blank when spam-clicking the Multiplayer button.
• Fixed an issue where maps with custom dependencies would not appear in the Versus AI screen when playing offline.
• Fixed an issue where certain words could pass through the profanity filter by appending other characters.
• Fixed an issue where players could sometimes temporarily lose license-based achievements.
• Fixed an issue where player race would default to terran when changing a custom game lobby to Co-Op vs. AI.
• Fixed an issue where bookmarks could disappear when navigating between certain screens.
• Fixed an issue where pausing a game and surrendering would occasionally cause the Score Screen to display an error message.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a map that has six or more dependencies.

Protoss Bug Fixes

• The Pylon power radius now displays up cliff levels properly on Low graphic settings.
• Fixed an issue where certain protoss structures would sometimes continue to display a warp-in animation if they became unpowered.

Terran Bug Fixes

• It is no longer possible to stack a large number of units into tight spaces using Medivacs.
• The Medivac_HealLoop sound now plays properly when a player manually heals a unit with a Medivac.
• The Command Center’s Load ability will no longer reserve a cargo slot for nearby SCVs that are busy constructing buildings.
• Fixed an issue where flying terran structures would sometimes use their ground death animations when killed.
• Fixed an issue where the Hellion’s flame attack would only hit burrowed units despite other units also being in its line of fire behind the burrowed unit.
• Fixed an issue where a Bunker could be made to look empty despite being loaded with units by using queued Rally commands.

Zerg Bug Fixes

• Banelings which were given the "auto-cast Unburrow" command were not automatically unburrowing against Colossi, due to the special "air/ground" classification of the unit. This has now been fixed.
• Morphing units no longer become stuck in their cocoon state if they are underneath a Hatchery.
• Active Creep Tumors no longer display as dormant if their Spawn Tumor action was canceled during the spawn animation.
• Brood Lord and Overseer Cocoons now have a Rally command instead of Move, Hold Position, and Patrol commands.

I chopped out a lot of the Map Editor improvements. If you're keen to see the full list of patch notes, see here.

[Stallion]

This actually looks really cool. The -1 point to stopping your search when you found a game is different don't really think its needed.

[Peleus]

Starcraft / arcade and then having to select multiplayer etc makes it a bit clunkier than I would like. Given that multiplayer is the central screen for me in sc2 I wish it was a bit more streamlined.

Otherwise looks not to bad

[QEDFridge]

I am actually not a fan of the new UI.

I downloaded it Saturday and did my placements and I am really not a fan of how it looks. I feel as if the original 'look and feel' of the UI was perfect, just that the features were lacking.

If they were to go back to the old style but just incorporate all these new features, It would look a lot better.

Just my 2 cents as I really dislike the look and the new buttons and what not.

Quick Comments

Antel0pe:

i agree with you. the new ui looks a bit, none-starcraft :/

[Dox]

Keep in mind that this is only a beta and a lot of the artwork will be cleaned up. Not sure how many of you remembered what the Wings of Liberty beta looked like, hehe... It was pretty fugly.

[TheGentleman]

It looks good, but I wish they kept the dice for random

... of course beta is beta.

Quick Comments

dee:

[mGGDrGooSe]

For me i think the chat improvement are the best. I like that the window no longer goes to the bottom while you are trying to read the top. The most annoying part of the chat really. I think what needs to be added at some point is the ability to have admins with kick powers inside of private chat channels. Unfortunetely, given the way that channels are implemented, and presumably Blizz not wanting to host anything to do with the channel on their servers, I don't think this would be straight forward to implement.

Quick Comments

	TADivinity:	I always think youre mOOnGlaDe or however he capitalises it
	Trinion:	^^^^ same haha

[Pox]

I don't understand the change in graphical style, it's pretty ugly in my opinion. The changes to custom games and chat channels seem good.

[mGGDaedalus]

The artwork itself looks pretty mediocre so far, so I guess it depends how much more work they're planning on putting into it before release. Functionality wise it's nice to see they're finally looking to add more of the things players have been wanting.

[inFeZa]

It's a bit more simple, but in the end it looks like some of these changes are just really some cosmetic things. Not a huge revamp. Quite disappointing that it is focused on the arcade and not the eSports competitive side of things like LoL is going with their things (adding a stream link to the launcher etc.

Still okay, and looks more like a proper game rather than what it did before still always reminded me of SC2 WoL Beta.

Quick Comments

Dox:

give it time ;)

[dee]

This shows Blizzard isn't the cash hungry machine some make them out to be. Its good news they are improving it now instead of delaying it till HOTS and forcing players to buy it for the update.

Quick Comments

Dox:

[x5.Phoenix]

Why would they re-arrange making 4v4s first and 1v1s second last I love how it is now!

The custom game/arcade features as well as the chat channel changes are great improvements though in my opinion.

[TABottles]

Any news on Blizzard bringing back our Win / Loss count.. in particular our loss count. It's weird and kind of lame that i'm only entitled to see my core stats (arguably most important) for league promotion when I reach Masters..

However UI looks nice - i'm expecting Zerg gunk and shit everywhere too

[TCPKiaSu]

i like this! O_o dunno whats the problem with the ui but I think it looks cooler and the arcade thing is badass

[Cute]

The new custom game interface is a tenfold improvement over the current. Being able to see a list of currently open custom game lobbies is so good. So glad to finally see this put in.

[Dingobloo]

It's definitely an improvement for custom games and the editor, and separating the non-starcraft customs from starcraft customs certainly cleans up both considerably but the starcraft aspect seems to suffer because of it.

Quick match is more hidden, Starcraft related custom games are no better off due to the fact that they don't actually benefit from any of the new features, the profile has some small changes presumably in preperation for HotS where all team game ranks are consolidated into one rank (presumably the highest) but neither the 1v1 rank or the team rank links directly to division ladder so it's now not possible to see a friend's division ladder, likely just a small oversight.

Some positives though: The quick nav button is customizable and has hotkeys, so if you're someone who plays a lot and don't really give a shit about custom games, it'll likely be even faster to get around than the current interface once you're familiar with it.

The review system is really nice and you get a much better idea about a game before you play it, I've yet to see one with a tutorial but that seems like it will be good once more games support it. I'm also excited about a potential free rotation on custom maps or a free to play style for the arcade just to lower the barrier to entry for getting my friends into starcraft.

I've spent a good amount of time in the alpha and they've already fixed some of the issues I had with that in the beta by introducing the quick nav button so they're certainly aware of some of the problems. Hopefully they continue to iron it out because they showed an interface very similar to this at blizzcon last year and the silence since then has been deafening.

[AxSGRiM]

good improvements, like the arcade idea but god damn - the match screen

[PulseSPR]

they need to remove that background graphics first. low graphics, the planet looks like a pastel smuggy drawing and still runs my laptop fan like crazy which is really not necessary to have. I think replacing it with slideshow starcraft photos would be so much better as they have much higher quality and uses far less resources/graphical power/cpu in the main menu.

[faithHunter]

Originally Posted by PulseSPR

they need to remove that background graphics first. low graphics, the planet looks like a pastel smuggy drawing and still runs my laptop fan like crazy which is really not necessary to have. I think replacing it with slideshow starcraft photos would be so much better as they have much higher quality and uses far less resources/graphical power/cpu in the main menu.

Agreed. The space that is used for the planet background can also be used for other things. They could have widened the main screen by a fair amount if they use the space that was used for the planet background.