This is Cloaken,

the Community Manager for StarCraft II,

and I want to introduce an exciting new feature called “Spawning.”

Have you ever wanted to simply play StarCraft with a friend

but they didn’t have the full game?

Or, maybe you’re a Starter Edition user

and simply want to find out how you can get more out of the game

while playing with your friends.

Well, Spawning is perfect for you.

Those who don’t own StarCraft II will want to try out Starter Edition.

It’s a free way to play the game,

and is available to anyone who has a Battle.net account.

If you want take advantage of Spawning

or you want to try the game out,

simply download and install StarCraft II

from your Battle.net account management page.

If you’d like more details about Starter Edition

feel free to check out this video

before continuing on with the one you’re watching now.

So, let’s talk Spawning.

In short, Spawning is an easy way to allow someone with a full copy of StarCraft II

to share their game with a friend for free.

Some of you old-time,

Blizzard RTS players may remember that

back in the hay-days of Warcraft II and StarCraft

we actually did something similar.

Back then, as long as you had a copy of the retail game disc

you could bring others in to play with you

who had never purchased the game.

It was an awesome way to introduce friends to these games

and play alongside them.

Well. . . we’re excited because today we add to this tradition

by bringing this functionality to StarCraft II

only without the need for all the disc drives..

If you currently own a copy of Heart of the Swarm

you can now “spawn” up any player who is either playing from Starter Edition

or Wings of Liberty

and give them access to the newest expansion.

Pretty sweet.

Essentially, the experience is a lot like that of a normal Starter Edition user

but with multiplayer modes and options added in.

Here’s a quick summary of these additions:

All vs. AI modes are unlocked, including team games.

Spawned players have access to the Unranked

and Ranked ladder play for team games.

You also have complete access to all Custom Game maps.

And finally, they have complete access to the Arcade.

So how exactly does Spawning work?

Well, that’s actually one of the best parts.

All of this content is available for free simply by

partying up with a friend who owns a full version of the game.

Let’s take a look:

Here you can see the screen of my friend Spyrian

who, for the sake of this demonstration,

will be playing the part of our Starter Edition user.

So, at this point

Spyrian has downloaded Starter Edition from his Battle.net account

and we are now logged in on StarCraft II at the same time.

As you can see, Spyrian and I are connected as friends over Battle.net.

You can easily do this by using the “Add Friend” feature

in your friends list here.

I’m going to go ahead

and invite Spyrian to party up with me in game.

Here in the party window you can now see

that the UI shows his account level as being raised to

that of my Heart of the Swarm account.

At this point, Spyrian and I can move through the various modes

and game options to play in whatever way we like.

We can even hop on to the Unranked or Ranked ladders

to use the matchmaker

and play against other people on Battle.net.

As long as Spyrian remains in the party with me,

he will be able to play with me at my access level.

Then, whenever he decides it is time to leave the party,

he will simply return to his Starter Edition access level naturally.

There are a few features unavailable to Spawned players

that are probably helpful to point out.

These features include access to the single-player campaign,

the full experience of social features like clans and groups,

as well as the ability to choose which race you want to play.

Just like Starter Edition users,

Spawned players will only have access

to the currently active Starter Edition race,

which, at the time this video was recorded, is set to Terran.

If you’re a Spawned player and want the full game,

you can use the upgrade button found here.

There is no need to download any additional version of the game.

Just upgrade your account

using Battle.net Account Management on the web

and then log back into StarCraft II.

That’s pretty much Spawning in a nutshell:

simple,

easy to use,

and innately social.

Here are a couple of other things to keep in mind about this feature:

Spawning will also work for people

who own Wings of Liberty versions of StarCraft II.

If you would like to share StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty with a friend,

you can spawn them up in the same way we’ve mentioned in this walkthrough,

only keep in mind that the content and balance

will reference the Wings of Liberty version of StarCraft II.

You can Spawn multiple friends!

Currently, party size is capped at 15 players

which means you can spawn up to 14 other people at one time

from your individual purchased copy of the game.

Lastly, for Heart of the Swarm players,

Spawning is a perfect way to take advantage of the recent 25% experience bonus

we’ve added for playing with friends in the expansion.

Any time you play games with a friend

that you are connected to via Real ID or Battle Tag,

you will receive a 25% increase in experience gained during that game.

There is no cap to the amount of experience you can gain this way,

so definitely take advantage of it!

As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited about Spawning in StarCraft II.

It is an ideal way to bring your friends along for the ride

and show them how fun StarCraft II is.

Definitely hop in game,

try it out and let us know what you think.

If you want to go ahead and pick up Starter Edition

you can find that easily by clicking the link below.

Thanks for watching and spread the word about Spawning!

My name is Cloaken

and from all of us here at Blizzard Entertainment

We’ll talk to you soon.