With StarCraft II on the near horizon, many gamers around the world are wondering what the pricing will be like for their particular market. In answer, Blizzard has released a few details that pertain to “emerging markets”, a quaint way of saying “Mexico, Argentina, Chile and places of that sort”.  Here’s the deal:

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that its highly anticipated real-time strategy game, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, will be fully localized into Latin American Spanish and will be available in Mexico, Argentina, and Chile for a suggested retail price of $299 MXN / $119 ARS / $13,900 CLP. With this purchase, players will have six months of access to the StarCraft II single-player campaign and multiplayer play through the new version of Battle.net, the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard Entertainment gamers. Continued StarCraft II play beyond the time included with the initial purchase will be available via 30-day and 60-day subscription options. Pricing for these options will be announced at a later date.

Players who prefer to make a one-time payment for unlimited access to the StarCraft II single-player campaign and multiplayer play on Battle.net will have the option to purchase and download an unlimited-access version of the game directly from Blizzard Entertainment at pricing similar to the US price of $59.99USD.

“One of our design goals for StarCraft II was to make it accessible to a wide range of players, from beginners to veterans,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “The same is true with regard to our pricing options — we want to make sure players have the flexibility to experience the game according to their own preferences and play style.”

Despite what Microsoft or Blizzard may lead to you believe, real life achievements existed long before the video game ones.

The most specific example that comes to mind is Boy Scouts.  Where else, besides the military, will you get the chance to show off every challenge you have conquered, such as a rank advancement or a sports achievement, with a fancy addition to your clothing for everyone to see?  It’s an even better way of saying, “Hey, look at me!  I have more achievements than that guy!”

So really, we can see that Xbox Live and World of Warcraft just copied merit badges.  Digital merit badges.  It makes sense.

Need proof?  The Cub Scouts (the younger version of the Boy Scouts) have just introduced a video games belt loop and pin for all aspiring scouts.  These are the requirements for the belt loop:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.

2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.

3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

For comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at some comparable Xbox 360 achievements – say, from Modern Warfare 2:

Look Ma Two Hands

- Kill 10 enemies in a row using akimbo weapons in Single Player or Special Ops.

Colonel Sanderson

- Kill 7 chickens in under 10 seconds in “The Hornet’s Nest.”

Back in the Saddle

- Help train the local militia.

As we can see, Microsoft and Blizzard blatantly ripped off the Boy Scouts and no one bothered to call them out on it.  Killing seven chickens might as well be the cooking merit badge in video game form.  And training your local militia?  Hell, that’s a good deed for the day.  Even better than helping an old lady cross the street.

Now, I just have one question:  Where was this wonderful achievement when I was in the organization?  Back in my day, the oh-so-long-ago early ’90s, we had to earn belt loops based on archaic physical activities such as archery, soccer and physical fitness – things modern day kids only experience in their most recent round of Wii Sports Resort.

If my NES-obsessed brain had been given the chance to earn a video games belt loop back then, I would have not only worn it on the front of my belt, but I would have ordered a second one and proudly glued it over the Cub Scouts logo on my hat.

Too little, too late I suppose.  But at least this current generation of kids will have something more digital entertainment-based to help them connect Cub Scouts with their lives.  Hopefully the Boy Scouts follow suit and offer a video games merit badge soon.

You can check out the full information for both achievements on the Official Boy Scouts of America website.

Countless people lose control of their World of Warcraft accounts on a daily basis, whether through good old-fashioned hacking, falling for phishing scams, clicking on bogus email links, etc. In answer this ever-growing problems, Blizzard released the World of Warcraft Authenticator at an extra charge, offering participating players a solid layer of security between their passwords and WoW account. Up till recently, the WoW Authenticator proved robust and secure, but has since been the target of a successful hacking attempt.

Blizzard suspects a keylogger may be involved. A Keylogger is a nefarious bit of code that sits on your computer and reports all keyboard interaction, ultimately ratting out your passwords so a hacker.

MMOCrunch article:

So the Authenticator is not a fail safe way to keep accounts safe but it is still a very good investment. If you want to check to see if you have the virus just search for the file “emcor.dll” on your computer. If you have it then your account most likely has already been hacked.

Tools like the Authenticator can only do so much. It is really unfortunate that people are getting hacked even with this security measure but it all comes down to the user. Safe browsing habits, a good anti-virus, common sense (against phishers) and things like an Authenticator can make your account virtually hack proof.

Blizzard is rolling out a new patch for the StarCraft II beta and, like most Blizzard patches, it takes a jackhammer to various skills, in some cases removing entire entire skills from units considered overpowered. Changelog below:

Balance Changes:Terran:

• Viking:
  • The armor value for this unit in Fighter Mode has decreased from 1 to 0.
  • The damage done by this unit in Fighter Mode has changed from 6 (+8 armored) to 10 (+4 armored).
• Reaper:
  • The damage done from D-8 Charges has decreased from 40 to 30.
  • The delay between attacks for D-8 Charges has decreased from 2.5 to 1.8.
• Orbital Command:
  • The build time for this upgrade has decreased from 50 to 35.

Protoss:

• Observer:
  • Gravitic Boosters: The cost of this research has decreased from 150 Minerals and 150 Vespene Gas to 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.
• High Templar:
  • Phase Shift: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Feedback: New Ability. Drains all energy from the target unit and causes damage equal to the amount of energy drained.
• Colossus:
  • The building pathing radius for this unit has decreased from .75 to .5625.
• Mothership:
  • Vortex: The energy cost of this ability has increased from 75 to 100.
  • Vortex: The target radius of this ability has decreased from 3.0 to 2.5.
  • Temporal Rift: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Wormhole Transit: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Mass Recall: New Ability. Teleports all of the player’s units in the target area to the Mothership.
• Gateway:
  • The build time of this building has increased from 50 to 65.

Zerg:

• Infestor:
  • Fungal Growth: The damage done by this ability has decreased from 48 to 36.
  • Fungal Growth: This ability now prevents affected units from burrowing.
  • Neural Parasite: Functionality changed. The Infestor now channels this spell, which lasts 10 seconds or until the Infestor is destroyed. You can now target all units with this ability.
  • Terran Infestation: The ability’s energy cost has reduced from 50 to 25 and Infested Terrans now spawn 1 at a time.

Bug Fixes:

• Addressed an issue causing people to receive an “Internal Battle.net Error” message with their game client.
• Muting your microphone will no longer cause your microphone to be turned off in the operating system once the program has exited.
  • Please note that the voice chat functionality has only partially been implemented. There are many known issues with voice chat that we expect to address in a future patch.
• The “Medium” graphical settings were reconfigured to work better on appropriate machines. The video settings “auto-detect” functionality has been reset as a result.
• Added a frame rate limiter to the game menus to prevent some graphics cards from running at higher frame rates than necessary.
• Added GRB rating tags to the login menu for the Korean version of the Beta client.