The fan-made MMO World of Starcraft has a new name - Starcraft Universe, and it won't cause friction over trademark issues this time, apparently.

A video of the mod, created with the Starcraft II editing tools, was removed when Activision Blizzard complained to YouTube. The company later said it had no intention of damaging the project and only sought to protect its trademarks.

Creator Ryan Winzen was subsequently invited to the Blizzard Campus to meet the StarCraft II development team. Winzen is now back from that tour and continues where he left off, this time with the more suitable name - according to Blizzard, at least.

Several promises have been made for SCU including: a wide variation of monsters, bosses and character classes; tons of customisable weapons, runes and other equipment; a save system; and multiplayer capabilities of up to 12 players per map.

Whispers of a Starcraft version of World of Warcraft have been floating around for a while now and Blizzard's insistance that Winzen change his mod's name will only bring greater credence to those rumours. Fingers crossed. ®