Q: Will Terrazine gas and the Specters make an appearance in SCII? Or will that be saved a Ghost storyline?  
 
A: Ghosts are a very cool idea in their own right. Specters are Ghosts+++ in development. Mengsk didn’t just pick-up where the Confederacy left off with the Ghost program, he and the new Dominion have injected some new ideas into it. The idea of this weird new substance could effect certain psychic abilities and the specters are both ideas that Blizzard is very “keen” on exploring in the future but as to the question of whether or not they’ll make it into SCII is still being discussed but (SPOILER: yeah they might make it in there - Andy).  
 
Q: Why did the UED have the same technology as the banished Terran prisoners?  
 
A: “That’s funny, we were just talking about that the other day, not necessarily because of StarCraft II - well there’s a spoiler for you” Metzen answered that this part of the lore was clumsily handled. The humans on Earth should have had a far more advanced tech tree. The official reason was that the UED stole all this stuff why they got here and left all the “big guns” at home. Now why they did that - Metzen doesn’t know. But Andy and Metzen are going to keep developing and the history of the UED, why it was sent, and why they used local technology instead of the super “uber tachyon lasers” from home.  
 
Q: What about the voice actors?  
 
A: For the units - 50/50 because some of the units’ voices will be coming back - but because they’re coming back and they’ll look quite similar, we don’t want them to sound exactly the same so they’re the exact same unit. So there might be different voices or sounds to give them a fresh personality, but some of the actors will be returning. No final decisions have been made yet. For the characters - Here Metzen says that guy that did Zeratul and Duke’s voices is deceased - Jack Ritschel. Metzen emphasized that it has been almost ten years these roles were originally cast. Blizzard wants to make sure that the voice still fits with the Kerrigan. Metzen did say that Glynnis Talken had been back in the studio and that she sounded great (Glyniss actually confirmed on her blog that she would be reprising her role as Kerrigan). As for Raynor, while Robert Clotworthy (the original voice of Raynor) has said he’d love to do Raynor’s voice again, Metzen loves a new guy that has come in to the studio and read for Raynor. He says from his, a creative, perspective he wants to get the character right and that this new guy is much closer to what he had originally envisioned for the character. But he does realize that we, as fans, have an emotional attachment to the original voice and they haven’t quite decided what to do on that one. Recording the voices for many of the other characters has even started yet and Blizzard is still debating internally what they’d like to see whether it is a new voice or a returning one for an iconic character.  
 
Q: Is there any good left in Kerrigan? Is there anything challenging her for control of the Zerg?  
 
A: Broodwar is the story of Kerrigan becoming the undisputed ruler of the Zerg, so that’s really the starting point for StarCraft II. As for there being any good in her or any humanity left in her - that’s an interesting idea/dynamic that might be explored in the story. What a classic Blizzard non-answer.  
 
Q: What about the characters that you played as in the original and Broodwar (the Cerebrate, Executor, and Magistrate) are they dead, replaced?  
 
A: “Dead. Gone.” In the new Terran campaign you’ll be taking on the roll Jim Raynor, you’ll be controlling his conversations with the characters etc, but at the same time some characters will refer to you as Commander, “so we’re really merging the two ideas…” Metzen feels that while the approach taken in StarCraft was cool, when you took five steps back it didn’t make sense trying to work the characters into the story. There were actually some early drafts of SCII that followed the former games’ approach but it just came off too clunky and it was too difficult to try and change the story to accommodate the new characters you’d be playing as.  
 
Q: Why is Kerrigan called the Queen of Blades?  
 
A: *They had just talked about this issue between themselves recently and at first Metzen couldn’t remember what he and Andy had come up with.* But then he did remember: Kerrigan’s title is an honorific one. Blades is a core unit to ripping apart species and what better title to describe the greatest agent of the race, of the Swarm. She was designed to be this thing - it was what she was built to be, probably a title given to her by the Overmind.  
 
Q: StarCraft Movie?  
 
A: If we were to do a movie - it wouldn’t be about Nova (maybe a TV show?) “I’m just talking!” warns Metzen as he pretends to get a call from Blizzard’s PR “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING?”. There are no current plans for a StarCraft movie but that would be “Sweet”.  
 
Q: What about infested Stukov and Braxis?  
 
A: Metzen: “Oh yeah… why oh why did we think that was cool *hangs his head*” Andy: Infestation was a fascinating subject - Stukov was an experiment for the Zerg in infesting other humans. It may be something we (Blizzard) may want to touch on or do with other characters. The whole concept of the Zerg - there’s a subtle level of alien invasion, what happens when humans get infected by this hyper evolutionary virus and become something else. The story itself was two dimensional and is really a door to the future. Metzen: “That was pretty good - and almost completely pulled out of your ass.”  
 
Q: In Christie Golden’s novel, Firstborn - what is the creature and what is up with the Temples?  
 
A: Metzen: The temples are all different (Shadows of the Xel’Naga, Firstborn, the one on Shakuras) but they are all tied together, all part of a larger theme tied in with the stuff that is starting to happen, the stuff that has been happening for some time. What that connection is - “I don’t want to tell you.”  
 
Q: What about the obvious similarities between Medivh in Warcraft III and Zeratul in StarCraft II, both come with warnings, etc?  
 
A: Metzen: “Yet more evidence I’m a one trick pony.” People are more likely to listen to Zeratul and do what he says; the story will play out quite a bit differently than Warcraft III’s. Andy: The warning that comes too late is a classic storytelling technique that you see time and time again.  
 
Q: What characters are in the Protoss campaign will we play as Zeratul or Artanis?  
 
A: Andy: We haven’t made up our minds up. They both are very compelling characters and would offer some different parts to the story. Andy would rather have a single strong lead in the campaign rather than rotating between characters.  
 
Q: Are there any plans for any female Protoss units or characters?  
 
A: Yes. Silendas (sp?) is the new Executor, which is as explained by Andy: Artanis’ chief of staff or the commander of the armed forces. There are both male and female Protoss forces. But neither Andy nor Metzen have decided how the Protoss reproduce.  
 
Q: Will Fenix return - again? (Asked by SC:L’s very own Zero!)  
 
A: Andy: “Sometimes you kill characters off and people really miss them and you go screw it - let’s bring him back he was cool - and sometimes you don’t".
 
Q: Who or what is actually controlling all the Zerg life forms?  
 
A: Metzen: “…since Brood War there’s only one mind controlling the Zerg (as far as anyone knows). After Brood War she whacked out all the (remaining) cerebrates, so as far as anyone knows she is in sole control of the swarm. But that sure is an interesting theme *wink wink*”
 
Q: “If I go see Rush like you were talking about - will I find out if he gets the girl?”  
 
A: Metzen: “That movie had a brutal ending - so don’t base it off that.”  
 
Q: “World of StarCraft?”  
 
A: Metzen: “One isn't enough?”. "But really", continued Metzen, "we don't have any plans for something like that. WOW was being developed side by side with Warcraft III but there are no plans to do something like that with StarCraft II."