Original Starcraft/Brood War Now Free, Patch 1.18 Releases
by JR Cook - 7 years ago show comments
As was recently announced, the original Starcraft and its Brood War expansion are going free-to-play with today’s release of Patch 1.18. While this lays the groundwork for the release of Starcraft: Remastered this summer, there’s also a number of long-awaited QoL improvements being made to the original game.
Highlights of today’s patch include the following:
- Observer mode
- Option for APM display
- Improved compatibility with modern Windows/Mac operating systems
- Autosaving for replays
Remember that this update of SC will have the same underlying engine as SC:R, meaning replays that you create while playing today’s version of SC will still be replayable in SC:R when it releases.
Check out the complete patch notes below, and relive some old-school nostalgia while we all wait for the remastered hotness.
StarCraft: Brood War Patch 1.18 Patch Notes
4 hours ago | Blizzard Entertainment
Note: When patching StarCraft, please use the ‘Run as Admin’ option; it is required during your first client run to migrate saves and avoid issues from Windows system admin changes.
StarCraft: Brood War Patch 1.18 Patch Notes
StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War are now free. Follow the links here to begin installing:
General
- Added windowed fullscreen or windowed mode; use Alt+Enter to switch between.
- Added UTF-8 support.
- Added cursor clamping in-game while windowed; unclamped in menus.
- Added Popular Maps to streamline finding games or game types.
- Added options to display actions per minute.
- Added Observer mode.
- Added opponent information when joining a game lobby.
- Added autosaving for replays.
- Added an option to display the game timer.
- Added UPnP support.
- Updated to a new OpenGL backend.
- Improved gameplay responsiveness during multiplayer by increasing turn rate to match LAN speeds over Battle.net.
- Improved UI layout in Battle.net sections.
- Improved behavior of available lobbies within the ‘Join Game’ section.
- Improved compatibility with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10.
- Improved anticheat capabilities.
- Improved installation and patching performance.
- Mac Beta support now available for 10.11 and up.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed palette issues to correct rainbow water, 80s Kerrigan face in the loading screen, and other graphic glitches.
- Fixed problems with LAN game discovery.
- Fixed IME support and other text artifacts in Battle.net menus.
- LAN and Legacy Battle.net fixes.
Known Issues
- The profile section is currently unavailable.
