Blizzcast Episode 6 has been released on the EU version of the Blizzard site so I decided to go ahead and bring it to our members before Blizzard posts it on the US site.  I have removed the portions involving non-Starcraft 2 questions/answers (Press Read More to see the complete text):

Karune: Welcome Dustin, Sammy, we have Dustin Browder our lead designer for Starcraft 2 here and also Samwise our art director for Starcraft 2.  We’re going to be talking a little bit about how units are created from the concept to final creation of the unit actually in the game.  Welcome guys.

Sam Didier: Hail!

Dustin Browder: Hey.

Karune: So for units, I mean how do these units actually start up.  I mean I don’t think a lot of people wonder, you know, does it start from a gamplay element like you guys have a specific unit in mind for a certain gameplay mechanic or does it actually start from the art side, you know this unit looks really rad?

Dustin Browder: It’s a pretty organic concept. I think it sort of depends, right Sammy, on which way we go.  Sometimes we start with the art first, sometimes we move from the design first and sometimes we have different, you know, we have a piece of art we have a piece of design and we try to marry them together.

Sam Didier: Yeah a lot of the times the artists will just have a cool idea we’ll show it around and everyone will go “Yeah we got to get that in the game.”  And then sometimes the designers will have an idea or two “Hey we need something that will ‘this’ and ‘this’ and then the art team will start concepting things up and from there we just let it roll and iterate, iterate, and iterate and at the end of the day we have a finished unit that we will redo three or four times.

Dustin Browder: (laughs) Right and be balanced a thousand times before it’s finally done.

Karune: So what are some of the examples for a gameplay unit?

Dustin Browder: So some of the gameplay units we’ve had like, I think the Colossus is kind of a good example.  There’s a unit that we had an idea for a cliffwalker we wanted to do for the Protoss, we wanted something very large that could do some area affect types of damage and It obviously kind of suggested, maybe, a kind of art for it but then the artists really took that core mechanic and ran off and did some really cool stuff with it.

Cydra answered a quick question on the official forums yesterday involving autocasting.  The question and Cydra's response are listed below:

so, now the the ghosts have a psishot that does extra damage to psi units, can the psishot ability be put on autocast, like frost arrows in WC3? if so, what other abilities currently can be autocasted? 

In the current development stage, SCV's Repair, Medivac's Heal and Carrier's Interceptor training can be autocasted.

Make sure you notice the red EDIT in the Q&A below, Karune added that sentence this afternoon.

Karune has posted a new Q&A batch featuring information on the Planetary Fortress, friendly fire, idle unit animations, Protoss anti-air capabilities, and the Spell type of damage.  He has also included a "Weekly Blue Roundup" that sums up all of the questions directed at the devs from the week (we have already covered these topics as they occurred in real-time but I will post them again for anyone who missed them). Please use the new DiscussBot feature at the bottom of this post to directly discuss the Q&A batch on our forums.

Chat with Devs:  StarCraft II is definitely evolving to be even more intense than the original StarCraft, with the increased mobility of units with cliff traversing abilities, as well as new transport abilities. In response, the development team has buffed up the Terran Planetary Fortress to have splash damage as well, which has proven to hold off decently against raids now, especially with your SCVs fixing the command center at a very high rate.

As always, shoot the devs and I a w00t! if you are enjoying this Q&A batch!

1. Archons' splash damage (Pondpond, USWest)

How useful Archon have in SC2?
i've heard they lost their splash damage and they lost Feedback ability for longtime ago
even the Archon have thier splash damage but what improvement Archon have from SC1 ?
against Terran , Archon easily defeated by ghost
against Zerg , Does Archon still have splash damage ?
now the protoss have Immortal with High HP equip with Harden Shield and have longer attack range
i think Archon need buff :/

Archons still have their splash damage and are still quite the beasts they were in the original StarCraft. There is no better feeling than watching a group of Archons instantly pop a stacked group of Mutalisks.

1. Zerg production hotkeys (Shaytan, USEast)

I read this interview about mbs.
They said let's say you have 3 baracks in one group
you have to press m three times to get 3 marines.
Now, let's say I have 3 hatcheries in one group,
do i have to press z 3 times for lings,
or do i have to press z for each larva=9times?

If you have three Hatcheries in one group, press your group number and hit 's' key, you will select all your Larva of three Hatcheries.
And you can hit 'z' as many as you want them to morph to Zerglings.
If you have nine Larvas, you need to hit 'z' nine times to morph all of them to Zerglings. 

On top of Karune's three posts this afternoon, Cydra answered an interesting question about the Changeling:

I was wondering what version of the Marine, Zealot and Zergling forms will the Changeling take, if your enemy has upgraded his base unit? Ex. Marine Combat Riot shields.

Will it stay as normal shieldless Marine form? Or will it adapt to shielded Marine form?

This question is interesting to me as well and I tested this out.

If you spawn a Changeling to Terran's base before Terran researches the Combat Shield upgrade, Changeling will be spawned as a Marine without a shield and even after the Combat Shield upgrade is done, your Changeling still remain without a shield but every other Terran's Marines will have the shields. However, you spawn a Changeling again after the Combat Shield upgrade is done, your Changeling will be spawned as a Marine with a shield.

For Protoss case, even though you spawn a Changeling after the Zealot's Charge upgrade is done, your Changeling will be spawned as a Zealot with the normal speed.

So, Changeling will be spawned as the same visual with the latest upgrade status of the opponent, but it will not have the upgraded ability. 

Click HERE to dicuss this topic on our new forums.