Things I Missed Over the Past Few Days

Starcraft Hopefuls,

I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long. In that time, the Starcraft 2 World has seen a million births and a million deaths. Supernovas and star births. Here’s a quick listing of things that have happened so far

-World of Starcrat Pre-Alpha trailer is shown on Youtube as proof of concept. Looks really neat! Very much a workable MMORPG. Would include a link, unfortunately Activision-Blizzard tells Youtube to bring down the banhammer. Why? Unknown; speculation says it’s the similarity of the name “World of Starcraft” to either “World of Warcraft” or “Starcraft.” Apparently the creator, Ryanwin, has talked with Blizzard but is yet unable to tell us anything.

-GSL Booths not soundproof? Jinro (foreigner superstar) recently stated in an interview that he heard the crowd/commentators through his booth during a game of Jinro vs. Idra Round 2 (in the round of 8 ) and knew something was up. That, ultimately, didn’t affect his style – by then it was too late, especially since his scout did not deviate from its normal path. GSL will correct the problem shortly.

– Jinro and Idra have both been trending topics on Twitter! A good sign for e-sports; Twitter is a pretty good indicator of “hot” topics, so Jinro and Idra are now officially leveled up from geek heros to internet superstars!

– Not related to Starcraft 2, but: Hyunjoon Becomes a Pro-Gamer was a great Korean TV show about a pop singer’s quest to become a pro gamer. It was funny, heartwarming, dramatic, and all that good stuff. Season 2 has come out: Hyungjoon Forms a Game Team! I’m super excited about it; it airs Jan 21 at 5 PM Korean time.

– Once again not related to Starcraft 2, but: this blog originally started as a way for me to practice some of the journalism I was learnng, but I realized that’s boring. My posts (unless I’m rushed for time) will be more lighthearted and editorial; I’ll be sure to try to split the facts from my thoughts clearly though!

– I’m debating keeping a log of my journey from noob to Master (league) on this blog, but I’m not certain my workload for the next few months will permit. We’ll see.

choyafOu Cheats Ladder System, Gets Penalized

Earlier this week, choyafOu was caught in a scandal over beating players on the Battle.net Ladder through a game of rock paper scissors.

ChoyafOu would pause the game immediately as it starts and offer to decide the winner based on a game of rock paper scissors. He had very little to lose – each win would gain him about 20 points, and each loss would only lose about 2 points.

As a result, he has been banned from the GomTV Starcraft 2 Team League. Upon a second offense of this nature, he will be banned from the GomTV Starcraft 2 League.

ChoyafOu has since apologized, claiming he only cheated for fun.

This raises some serious questions. Ladder abuse is more important to note in Starcraft 2, because your rank on the ladder determines your eligibility for tournaments. If the ladder rank is inaccurate, then people who should not be eligible, will be.

Code A Preliminary Registration Begins January 17th

Ladies and doodads,

The registration for the Code A preliminary of the next Global Starcraft 2 League begins Jan 17th. Being at the top of the B.Net ladder automatically places you into Code B, which is the group of players eligible to register for the preliminary. So if you’re at the top of the ladder, you can write “Code B Player in the GSL” in your resume, and no one could argue with you, even if you got there by cheesing your way to the top. You bastard.

As an added plus, if you’re foreign and register for the Code A preliminary, GomTV will provide you with room and board once you arrive in Korea. They don’t have PCs set up in their team house yet, but they are planning on having them in the future.

Because the GSL is no longer open, a player must achieve Code A status before becoming a Code S player. The only way to do that is through the preliminary. After the preliminary, the Code A tournament will start. The top players of this tournament will play the lower players of Code S, and this will determine who stays in Code A and who moves on to Code S.

TL;DR: Top of ladder? Sign up for GSL Code A preliminary; if you can afford the plane ticket there and back, you’ll have free room and board!

Patch 1.2 is Live!

Patch 1.2 for Starcraft 2 was released for the North American servers today! Log in and download them now!

This patch has chat channels, something everyone’s been waiting for. Now we can all idle in Starcraft 2 chat, and talk to others when not playing. They’ve also added a new masters league, above diamond. From the patch notes, it seems as though diamond is the highest a player can place into by placement matches, and can only be moved into masters from the diamond league. There are now customizable hotkeys.

My favorite bug fix: “Mass Recall can no longer target larvae or eggs.” How awesome/terrible would it be to mass recall something and also bring along a wall of eggs?

For a list of all of the patch notes, go here.

GomTV hiring English Casters

GomTV is now hiring English Casters to cast the Code A series of the GSL.

That’s right. This is your chance to make it big! All they need is a video of you commentating. Also, you need to be able to fly into korea and get lodgings, which they won’t pay for. A small price to pay for the totally awesome price of commentating for GSL and living the dream.

Go to the GomTV page and check it out!

SCReddit Invitational: Finale NOW

Dear readers,

I’m so very sorry to have forgotten to warn you about this, but the final day of the SC Reddit Invitational (with stars such as KiwiKaki, White-Ra, TT1, etc) is currently going on RIGHT NOW at http://www.justin.tv/screddit. It’s being casted by TotalBiscuit until 6:30 PM EST, then will be casted by Day[9] and djWHEAT.

Tune in for some great matches!

GSL Map Pool to Change Soon

Progamer NSP_Genius recently posted that the Global Starcraft 2 League is about to have a major change in their map pool. Next season, four old maps are to be removed, and four new ones to be added.

There are three maps confirmed to be removed from the map pool; they are Steppes of War, Delta Quadrant, and Blistering Sands. The fourth map to be removed has not been named. Four new maps are currently being tested in the Gisado Star-Challenge, a Korean King of the Hill-style tournament.

The new maps (Aiur Garden, Tal’Darim Altar, Biohazard, and Crossfire) look larger and more macro-oriented than most of the maps being removed (I’m looking at you, Steppes of War). How they’ll fare is yet unknown, but they look very promising.

Sources (Korean): http://www.playxp.com/sc2/bbs/view.php?article_id=2528178&search=3&search_pos=&q=, http://esports.gomtv.com/gsl/community/view.gom?mbid=1&msgid=5891

Contest to meet Day[9] and iNcontroL at PAX East

The Kingston HyperX community (a community based around the HyperX brand of memory chips) is holding a contest which has a grand prize of an all-expense paid trip to PAX East in March and hanging out with Day[9] and iNcontroL.

Day[9] is PC Gamer UK’s gamer of the year and, in my opinion, the most influential Starcraft and Starcraft II persona to date. His Day[9] dailies are key in assisting a noob (like yours truly) ascend to greater heights of ballitude. He is a previous World Cyber Games USA gold medal winner in Starcraft: Brood War, shoutcaster, diamond-ranked random player and all-around baller.

iNcontroL is a pro-gamer who is currently a part of team Evil Geniuses (EG), which has other high-level players such as IdrA, DeMusliM, iNkA, LzGamer, and more. He was formerly a top-tier Starcraft: Brood War player with a WCG gold medal and several other high-place finishes under his belt. He, too, is a baller.

Kingston HyperX’s new contest allows for the grand prize winner of the fan-made content contest not only to go to PAX East, a three-day gaming “festival”, with all expenses paid, but also to hang out with the previously mentioned two professional gamers. With a grand prize like that, how could you resist?

Patch 1.2 to Release Next Week

Blizzard has announced on their forums that their newest balance patch for Starcraft 2, patch 1.2, will be released next week.

Blizzard had opened (but have since closed) a Starcraft 2 Public Test Region. This was a server where players could play with proposed balance changes before it is released onto the ladder as a patch. The idea was first used in World of Warcraft.

To get a sense of the new changes that will be coming, you can view the PTR 1.2 patch notes here. Note, though, that the Infestor nerf (fungal growth not being able to hit air units) has been removed.

This will affect GSL play, since the new patch will be released near the end of the round of 32. The majority of balance changes appears to be Protoss buffs, though Void Ray speed would get nerfed. Considering how well Protosses have done in the GSL Open Season 3, however, it’s possible that the patch may not include as many Protoss buffs as previously indicated.

Source: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/1568008036

MeatyOwlLegs reaches 4,000 points on Ladder

MeatyOwlLegs has the distinction of being the first player on the Starcraft 2 ladder to reach 4,000 points.

MeatyOwlLegs is the alternate account of NaNiwa, a notoriously bad-mannered player who had been banned from the ESL Pro Series and the Intel Extreme Masters Season V. Despite his bad manner, he is an extremely skilled player and had been third place in the EPS before he was removed.

He currently plays on the EU server.