Rock, Paper, Shotgun

WITCHCRAFT, TRICKERY, DEVILRY, PERVERSION. A man, if he truly deserves that title, has sullied the noble art of waiting a long time for a new videogame. He has jumped the gun in the most devious possible way. He has… no, I can barely stand to repeat it.

But I must. His crime must be known. He has recreated the units from the impending StarCraft II expandosequel Heart of the Swarm, before it has even been released, and packaged them into a four-map mod for the current version of Wings of Liberty. I… I don’t know what to say. He might as well have wiped Blizzard’s hard drives and then taken the very bread from their mouths, such is the heinousness of this thought-crime and the surely catastrophic consequences of making something that looks and plays a bit like something in future might play.
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It seems like only last week that I found myself watching men playing Countertstrike and wondering how they came to be so good at man-shooting and here I am today watching two people playing Starcraft 2, which makes me realise how bad I am at mouse-clicking. These people though? Very good at mouse-clicking. They’re playing in the Grand Final of Blizzcon’s Starcraft 2 tournament and the winner scoops $50,000, which is probably half of America’s forecast GDP for 2012. I don’t follow the competitive Starcraft community, but I believe the two fellows playing have what the kids call ‘beef’ with one another. Enjoy

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There was something else that Blizzard were talking about at Blizzcon this weekend, which was the next instalment of Starcraft II. The beta for Heart Of The Swarm is apparently “months” away, so it looks like we can expect the next game before the end of next year. Anyway, the trailer (below) shows a bunch of CG and in-game scenes, basically telling the story of Kerrigan’s lust for revenge, as well as teasing a bunch of the stuff that’s going to happen (and the units that are going to appear) in the new campaign.
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Blizzard have removed the Starcraft II demo from Battle.net, to replace it with a “Starter Edition” – a move which echoes World Of Warcraft’s free 20-level trial. The Starcraft II starter edition allows you try out a bunch of the single player game, and also the Terrans in custom games and single-player vs AI games. More details below.
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One of these days, we must take a long, hard look at ourselves. And also at the StarCraft II modding scene, to see how well it’s living up to the promise that the modkit could turn the game to whole new genres.

Blizzard themselves have now made good on that promise, releasing the final, public versions of three long-promised cheeky nods to other games…
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Grandmaster leagues, faster Battlecruisers, Bunkers that take longer to build and tweaked Infestors are just some of the many changes coming in the 1.3 patch for StarCraft 2, now live on the game’s test servers (thanks, Bigdownload!). The Grandmaster league (currently only available for 1v1 matches) is more than a little demanding, accepting as it does the top 200 players in each region, making it more exclusive than becoming, say, a real-life judge. Full patch notes after the jump.
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Are you a bit of a StarCraft 2 contender? Do you keep build orders in your wallet, eat nothing but egg whites and speak not of your poops, which have started resembling shaving foam? If so, I suppose you’ve probably heard this news already. Nevermind.

With the new 1.2 patch Blizzard has introduced a Master League for its sci-fi RTS, comprised of the top 5% of the game’s Diamond League (or the top 1-2% of the total players in a region). Blizzard has also revealed plans for a Grandmaster League, made up of just the top 200 players in a region. Personally, I’m hoping for all these numbers to keep extending in such a way that the very top of the league table somehow ends up linking with the very bottom in an ouroboros loop. I think that’d be swell. Thanks to BigDownload for the tipoff.

Question, hot shot. What’s the most popular user-created map on the European StarCraft II servers right now?

I bet you have no idea. I bet a single bead of sweat just appeared on your forehead. Ah, youth! You’re cute. Here’s the answer: It’s Star Battle, a 6v6 Defense of the Ancients-style mod that uses not fantastic heroes, but sluggish, superpowered space-ships. So, Defense of the… Space.. ncients? Anyway, it looks swell.
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To celebrate achieving a place in our advent calendar, Blizzard has released a demo of their hot young RTS StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. It contains the first 3 missions of the game’s single-player campaign, plus the chance to slap around the AI in skirmish mode. No online shenanigans, sadly. Get it here. Alright, so I don’t have “evidence” or “a source saying” that this is because of our advent calendar, but I do have my gut impulse, which is a powerful thing and leads me around like a horse on a leash and has yet to be wrong. Anyway, I’ve put a video of Day9 doing his commentary thing after the jump. If you haven’t seen the state of the SC2 match commentary community, take a look.
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This is mad. Over on StarCraft 2 forum Teamliquid, a poster who goes by Lomilar has been talking about a program he’s coded called EvolutionChamber. It uses genetic algorithms to find powerful build orders, meaning his program takes a population of build orders, kills off the useless ones, and has the most successful ones reproduce asexually to create a new population, which tests itself again, and so on. I’m taking all this from this blog post by programmer Louis Brandy, wherein he breaks down what Lomilar’s done so that lay folk can understand it.

EvolutionChamber’s already come up with one ludicrous build order, which I’ve posted beneath the jump.
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As we reported last week, Blizzard have taken the extremely peculiar decision to ban players from playing StarCraft II for using cheats in the single-player game. This meant that, despite cheating no one but themselves, they were locked out of playing the single-player game. Which is clearly bonkers. But it’s not enough for the developer. Blizzard’s lawyers are now setting out to sue those who create cheats.

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