We all know that folks at SI are major Starcraft buffs, so we keep a close watch on all things Starcraft 2 related.  So here's a roundup on the latest news from the land of Blizzard and our favorite RTS title's sequel, which better be out this year, or so help us Bob, we'll cry like little girls.

(The full skinny after the break!)

We pretty much already blame World of Warcraft for everything from global warming to the swine flu, but apparently it's also to blame for the fact that Starcraft 2 is taking far too long to get into our hot little hands.  It delayed it for an entire year as a matter of fact.  This was revealed to Eurogamer courtesy of Blizzard vice president Rob Pardo who said, "A fair amount of the design team went onto World of Warcraft for a year to really help finish that game off."  I guess in the end it made sense, since they now roll around naked in the cash WoW makes them.

One other huge revelation about Starcraft 2 this week which is a major disappointment to fans all across the globe is that Starcraft 2 will not support LAN gameplay. 

According to Bob Colayco at Blizzard PR:

    We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

    Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

But but Papa Blizzard!  How could you!?  This makes Battle.net the only multiplayer option for Starcraft 2, which makes us hope that it's in fact a lot more stable than it used to be back in the days when it would go down for many many hours at a time when AT&T would crash and burn.  Granted, they've had a multiyear stress test called WoW at this point, so maybe they've worked the kinks out. 

Chris Sigaty, lead producer on Starcraft 2 and rhythm guitarist in Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, talked with Joystiq.com as well about the game.  Blizzard is still hoping to get Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty out the door later this year, with the Terran single-player version of the game with all three races in the multiplayer version that as you just read, will only be on Battle.net.  They started with Starcraft 2 just after the Frozen Throne shipped in 2003, with a decision to make the game 3D and to go back to the Starcraft model of having lots of units on multiple fronts.  He confirmed the original voice actor for Jim Raynor is back for the game as well as quite a few others, including Mengsk.  He also said they're not really talking about consoles for Starcraft, but there's a possibility other things might get some console love. 

Read the full interview with Chris over at Joystiq!

Don't forget, they're talking the SC2 beta this summer, so opt in on Battle.net now!