Starcraft2Forum.org News
As part of an ongoing coverage of Battle.net’s top StarCraft 2 players, Blizzard released another list of the “StarCraft II Top 200” today. The list isn’t all that exclusive and is based on a series of what appear to be subjective considerations. But honestly, what the list is and who is on it really isn’t the concern.
What is of some note is the fact that one of the names appears to be missing. According to some of the comments, a user named Vnrock was removed from the list because of hacking. I took a look-see into his profile, and sure enough, Vnrock is listed as #4 rank in a Diamond league. Just below user Qwerty, who ranked #131 on this list.
So naturally I’d expect Vnrock to be somewhere on this top 200 list. But he’s not. Why? Because he’s a hacker.
So Blizzard has removed him from the list, right? No big deal? Think again. Only a month from release and it appears that hacks are in play in StarCraft 2, on Battle.net, in ladder games. From what we can tell the user was removed from the Top 200 list, but it doesn’t appear his account has been banned, and Blizzard sure hasn’t made a move to publicize him as a cheater, or to publicly ban his account as a warning.
What’s important here is how Blizzard reacts. Are they going to enforce measures they put in place to prevent hacking? At the moment it doesn’t appear so, but let’s hope they take an interest, especially without a LAN version of the game. I, for one, will be very leery about playing any tournaments from here on out.
All of this also calls into question the validity of the Top 200 List. Who on there could be hackers that don’t have as much proof against them as Vnrock? Hard to tell!
Sources: Battle.net, User Profiles
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Blizzard has announced intentions to release Patch 1.1 for StarCraft 2 in the coming week. Unofficially we’re expecting the release to be around September 1st. Among the redacted list of changes are:
Reaper build time increase from 40 to 45 seconds
Bunker build time increase from 30 to 35 seconds
Siege Tank damage in Siege mode reduced to 35 (+15 vs. Armored; upgrade +3, ++2 vs Armored)
Battlecruisers ATG damage decreased from 10 to 8
Ultralisk damage reduced to 15 (+20 vs. Armored)
Zealot build time increased from 33 to 38 seconds
Warp Gate cooldown time increased from 23 to 28 seconds
To be honest our concerns with these changes lie mostly in the fact that it’s a bit late to be messing with unit and build timings. Players are already adapting to these and messing with the time rather than the cost and damage numbers is unnecessarily chaotic. Stay away from changing the build times, and focus more on nerfing damage itself. Secondarily you won’t be reducing the number of units on the field which leads to more interesting games.
Conversely, we do feel that the Warp Gate cooldown is a good move. It is far too easy for Protoss to replenish their forces instantly when nearing the food cap in late game.
Read the full Situation Report
Source: Battle.net
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Blizzard announced earlier today that BlizzCon “virtual tickets” are on sale on the BlizzCon website. Priced at $39.95, the pass gives you access to DirecTV’s coverage of the convention, as well as exclusive in-game “Deathy” the Murloc pet, and a special StarCraft II avatar.
There still has been no information released regarding the musical act invited this year or the feature merchandise in the store (which the virtual ticket also claims you’ll be able to order) for attendees.
In other news, a new blogger has appeared on the scene. A friend of mine from California she’s a very experienced gamer and partakes in StarCraft 2 as well as World of WarCraft and other titles. She’s launched her new blog, PwnageInPink. If you have some interest you should take a look. She has some very cool insights.
Also, StarCraft2Forum.org is currently upgrading to vBulletin 4 so you can expect some major changes around here. We apologize for the lack of updates, but that is partly due to this upgrade.
Source: Blizzard.com
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Comm-Link Online, Blizzard’s newest series of StarCraft 2 related news, is coming of age and is beginning to produce quality information for the community. #4 was released yesterday, August 21st, and contains some important updates for Battle.net players. Among which is the announcement that StarCraft 2 will soon see a “free” name change service for players, but they haven’t said when.
Apparently some users registered under names they’re not exactly happy with. Now, we’re not quite sure why Blizzard is calling the changes “free” which would imply that they normally wouldn’t be… But we’ll deal with that as it comes.
There are also a series of interesting discussion pages that link to the hot topics of week including a couple of multiplayer discussions regarding heavy macro vs. micro and a community spotlight tips discussion.
We’ve also been sniffing around for Battle.net patch updates that might include some balance changes, but so far we’ve come up with nil. Keep checking back with us as we’re expecting some changes here at StarCraft2Forum.org and we should be serving up more news than you can even handle!
Source: Battle.net
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In celebration of StarCraft 2′s release StarCraft.org and the Amateur Hour team are putting on a launch party next Saturday, August 14th. The tournament is meant to be part of the fun, but still the grand prize is an Nvidia GTX460 768MB dedicated memory video card, which should be enough to turn some heads. You have to visit their forums to sign up so make sure to check out their news post for more details!
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Good news! The tournament finals videos between Layzee and Naive are now live! Here’s some links to watch those on YouTube:
The first Starcraft2forum.org tournament has finally come to a close! Congratulations to our first place winner, Layzee, and our runner up Naive! They played a great 3 games with Layzee edging out Naive in the final 2. Layzee will be taking home our grand prize $1,500 custom PC. While Naive and our other two semi-finalists Wannabkilled and Yossarian will be sent a Razer Imperator mouse. If you’re interested in building your own PC be sure to check out our tutorial.
Also, a final thanks to all our sponsors who helped make this tournament possible with their support, and also to Starcraft.org’s Amateur Hour team for shoutcasting and streaming our finals for us, great work guys!
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According to a Blizzard press release on Tuesday, StarCraft 2 has become the fastest-selling RTS game ever made, and has easily become 2010′s biggest PC launch of the year. With 1.5 million copies sold in just the first 48 hours, it’s clear that StarCraft 2 is a runaway success.
Gamestop also released statements indicating that StarCraft 2 has been by and large their best-selling PC game of all time. Industry experts have adjusted their estimates of StarCraft 2 sales in 2010 to 6.5 million. That’s just craziness! And even better, these estimates do not include sales in Korea or other areas outside North America.
Sources: Blizzard.com, Gamasutra
