So the first information is starting to be announced for HotS so I thought it was time to start an official thread. 

The seccond installment of SC2 focuses on the Zerg and sees the return of the RPG mechanics from Warcraft 3 added to the campaign. The player will guide Sarah Kerrigan through the campaign and level her up into an unstopable harbinger of death and destruction, or something like that...

Teaser

Debut Trailer

First previews

Gameinformer

IGN

Eurogamer

just campaign stuff so far, no multiplayer yet

So are you exited for the next installment of Starcraft 2?

I only care about the multiplayer and they have yet to announce anything. The single player format with upgrading Kerrigan and units seems contrived and overhyped, they're spending far too long developing it when really any system would do and the game script is going to ruin it like WoL anyway.

Why no LAN Blizzard?

They would have to introduce some major changes to the game, LAN, for this thing to be worthwhile....

Well I hope that means you won't be playing it vlad. 

As for me, I think the LAN complaint has been blown completely out of proportion, but that doesn't mean it's a Day 1 for me.  I'll almost definitely get it though. 

Well it'smore than that. The campaign is the first one could have easily had 1/2 of it cut out and replace with proper zerg and Protoss campaigns. I get the feeling that something similar will be true here as well.

I'm excited for it, I've always liked Kerrigan as a character so this is going to be interesting.

For the record, I don't care about LAN. I've played many games where we were 4 players sharing the same connection and playing over Battle.net and it was lagless.

I don't like the sound of hero units. The main reason i didn't care for WC3 to much. I prefer my rts's to be rts's not rpg/rts. I will still get it though.  I have yet to find a blizzard ame i did not like.

LAN is an issue because:

- Two people in the same household can't play together without two accounts
- Korea to NA/EU lag is unacceptable for professional play, and I pay $10-$20/month to see that
- When Bnet goes down, which is all the time in the EU region, no one can play multiplayer at all
- When Bnet glitches, tournaments get interrupted
- Cross-region play is not allowed
- When you switch race or play off-race you're forced to play with the same ladder rating even though your skill is different unless you buy 2-3 accounts

To me "LAN" involves fixing all of those issues.

I don't have an issue with normal intra-server latency.

Another problem is that when you have people playing in your house EVERYONE has to have internet connection, and shares it, which can be a huge pain in the ass if you have no wireless network (wireless for online play, phone rings! lawl).

I understand the need for lan from my college days... but really... that's not such a big portion of the userbase who need it. (though it certainly is the most vocal and the most active one).