General

•Battle.net Chat Channels have been added! Players can now join others in both public and private channels.
-Added in-game chat bar command to whisper to other players. Using the "/w" command will open up a list of available friends, party members, chat channels, and other players within your current game.
-Added Battle.net option to auto-join previous private channels.
-Added Battle.net option to prevent chat channel text from appearing in in-game chat display.

•A new Master League has been added! This league now represents the highest tier of players.
•Customizable Hotkey Support has been added.
•Stalemate Detection has been added. This will end the game in a tie for all remaining players if no players have income, production, or destroyed structures for three consecutive minutes. A countdown timer will now appear when the game detects this scenario.
•An Extreme graphics option is now available. Players can now configure screen space ambient occlusion.

Additional Improvements and Changes

•Several help dialogue and tech tree improvements have been made:
-In-game help is now available in Battle.net.
-The help dialog's tech tree has been improved.
-Unit information in the help dialog now displays abilities and upgrades.
•Several Save/Replay File dialogue improvements have been made:
-Added ability to sort replays and saved games by name and date.
-Added ability to right-click and rename a replay or saved game from within the game interface.
-Added a new tab for auto-saved games and unsaved replays.
-Added an option to permanently save all replays. Checking this option will mark all unsaved replays as being saved.
-Added visibility for where replays and saved games are being saved to.
-Added a "Show in Folder" button which will open the location where a replay or saved game is stored on your computer.
•Camera following behavior for observers and replays has been improved.
•The System Alert panel has been moved to the top of the screen and the duration of most system alerts has been reduced.
•Mouse buttons can now be bound to the Push-To-Talk hotkey.
•A hotkey indicator option has been added to show the primary hotkey on top of command buttons.
•When selecting a Vespene geyser, the number of current harvesters will be displayed in the info panel.
•Added an option to disable any error sounds. The Response Sounds checkbox now controls whether unit-specific audio is used for error sounds instead of a generic buzz.
•Added Game UI layout per-map overrides. Map makers can now use custom UI layout files to create new UI or override existing game UI.
•Added a toggle button to the in-game replay panel to Show or Hide the timeline/duration information.
•Added hotkey to Pause/Resume game for both single player and multiplayer (Pause/Break key).

Balance

General
•Players can no longer block off ramps with two 2x2 buildings.

•Protoss
•Hallucination research time decreased from 110 to 80.

•Observer
•Cost decreased from 50/100 to 25/75.
•Phoenix
•Build time decreased from 45 to 35.
•Void Ray
•Now deals 20% more damage to massive targets.
•Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.

•Terran
•SCV
•Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.
•SCV construction movement has been made more consistent.