Blizzard, developer of the Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft game franchises World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, gave players a peek at the changes coming with Starcraft II's third expansion pack, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void, which is set for a Nov. 10 release.
Last Oct. 2, Blizzard uploaded a video where the UI revamp was discussed. Improvements to the chat system, Arcade and campaign selection screen, which brings the past back to life, were highlighted.
The new UI basically splits the screen in two. The left side is dedicated to the navigation menus while the right is designated for the chat window, which prevents overlaps and provides a cleaner UI.
Chat System
Aimed at bringing a better social experience, the new chat interface will consolidate all active chat channels into a single persistent chat window, which will remain open and ensure constant interaction between players "regardless of what they're doing in StarCraft II." The cap on the number of players in a chat channel was doubled from 100 to 200. Furthermore, inactive players will be kicked from the public chat channels and those who sign in will automatically appear in a general chat.
While the multiple windows created the hassle of frequently minimizing them, Blizzard recognized that it is also essential for keeping track of individual conversations and new messages. To keep these benefits while having a single window, the new chat system will allow users to switch between conversations either by "pressing CTRL + TAB or CTRL + SHIFT + TAB," or by using the dropdown menu located at the top-left corner of the chat window. A notification for new messages that aren't on the active conversation will be displayed beside the dropdown.
The chat window can also be pinned so it never closes even when the user goes idle on chat. It can also be extended. Conversation time stamps and a new text color scheme will be implemented. The slash command "/join," which lets users join a chat channel or create a new one, was added along with a new set of keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys.
