14 DAY TRIAL // In a rather stealthy move, Blizzard has deployed a new patch for its StarCraft II real time strategy title, in form of update 1.4.0, which brings a wide variety of changes, some new features, and an array of bug fixes that solve many issues reported by players.
Blizzard is working on quite a few projects recently, with Diablo III taking the spotlight, as the company just kicked off the closed beta stage for the role-playing dungeon crawler earlier this week.
The popular developer isn't slowing down, however, and has just deployed a big patch for its StarCraft 2 RTS title, taking it to version 1.4.0 and solving a variety of problems, while addressing many issues encountered by players.
For a list of general changes, which include new Career pages, as well as a host of stability upgrades, check out the list from Blizzard below.
General
-A new Career page displaying placement in past seasons has been added to the League & Ladders section of the Profile. -A new "View Ladder" button has been added to the league display at the bottom of the Quick Match screen. Clicking this button will take you directly to your ladder page. -The post-game score screen for ranked ladder games will now show icons next to each player's name indicating his or her league. -The upload timeout period for publishing custom maps has been increased significantly. -SLI performance has been improved. -When file corruption is detected in un-repairable files (replays, saved games, or downloaded maps), a prompt to run the Repair Tool will no longer occur.
Game Options
-Added three privacy settings to the Options menu under the Battle.net section. -Only allow friends to send me invites. -Only allow friends to send me chat messages. -Set status to Busy when playing a game. -Added the FPS Toggle hotkey to the hotkey dialog. -Added Display Game Tooltips setting to the Options under Gameplay that can be turned off to prevent tooltips from appearing when playing a game. -Added a new setting to the Options under Controls which allows a player to enable or disable the ability to adjust in-game mouse sensitivity.
UI and Display
-A Launch PTR button will now appear on the login screen when the PTR is available. Clicking this button will close the retail client and launch the PTR client. -Improved error messages when a unit is required but none is targeted to provide required target information. -UI Frame used in .SC2Layout files has more anchoring flexibility. -Loading an old saved game will now give an option to restart the mission in the new version of -StarCraft II instead of loading it in the old version without access to achievements. -Player names in the Name Panel in observer or replay mode will now be based off the player's locations on the minimap. For example the player closer to the left side of the minimap will appear on the left side of the name panel. -When a building is canceled or salvaged the minerals returned will be displayed at the building location for the owner, for enemy players a floating text will be displayed. -Toggle Team Colors in 1v1 and Free-for-All when observing and during a replay will not change player colors.
Sound
-An error notification sound is now played if a placement location cannot be found when unit training completes. -Most existing alert sounds are now reduced in volume when a new alert sound plays. -Transmissions without a valid sound file will now display a subtitle during cinematics even if the player has turned off subtitles. -Added a new Alert Fade option to control how much existing alert sounds fade when new alert sounds are played. You can download the StarCraft II patch 1.4.0 for the PC right now from Softpedia.