Conan The Politician

One more bit of good news after another: a significant patch has come to the SCII beta. It has added a good bit of 1v1 and 2v2 maps for ladder and regular matches. In addition, they have a working version of the SCII Map Editor. Though I haven't tried any of the scripting abilities (I probably won't either), it should be something to look forward to. If it's going to be more robust than the Warcraft III map editor, I can't wait to see what it can deliver. You should be able to to test the maps you create, I hear, while not being able to play online with them just yet. On gameplay customization, they have FINALLY allowed for hotkey templates to choose from. That's right: Starcraft finally has the ability to use a grid-style hotkey layout! Your keyboard hand can finally stay on one spot of the keyboard to use all building and unit abilities universally! I'm not sure if mods/add-ons have allowed for this on the first Starcraft in the past, but I'm excited all the same. As far as mechanics are concerned, they turned my zerg-world upside down! You can no longer target a unit/building with an ability or command within a group via the wire-frame ( the box where all of the units are displayed within a group. No more quick chrono-boosting for Protoss, and no more quick spawn larvas for Zerg (at least not in the sense that most players are accustomed to). Also, larva are no longer lost due to canceling an egg morph. It's causing quite a stir balance-wise, as zerg players can stretch the amount of larva they have at a hatchery long before a queen comes into play (I've heard folks putting out 10-12 zerglings on a 6 worker spawning pool rush, rather than the standard 6 zerglings). It also allows for crazy unit switches on the flip of a dime. Say you're building up your economy and begin to produce 9 drones at your hatcheries. You scout to find that your opponent is about to attack you early. You can immediately cancel all of those workers and turn them into zerglings instead. While this may seem all good from a flavor stand-point (zerg are adaptive little beasties), players who play zerg, protoss, and terran seem to be on both sides of the fence as to how this will play out. Here's a thread about the zergling exploit: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121021 Also, using the hatchery's 'Select Larva' command will now select eggs if there are no larva. Most zerg players are finding this annoying to no end: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121025 Money, eh? Think there should be an entry fee for a community tournament? Cash prizes for the top players, eh? EH??

As a well-concealed bump, I'm here to say (for those of you who don't know) that there is a new way to get yourself a beta key for SC2: pay 5 bucks for the preorder at Gamestop, and they will print out a beta key for you on the receipt. If you've already pre-ordered at a particular Gamestop, I suggest you go over there and pick up the key (which you are absolutely entitled to). I was able to pick up my 3rd key this way without need of a receipt, so long as you have your name in their pre-order list database. There's a policy for online pre-orders: If you use the beta-key provided by the pre-order, you cannot cancel that pre-order. I'm sure that there's some sort of fail-safe in place to ensure that you can't cancel, but pre-ordering in person is supposedly a different matter entirely. I've heard stories from a few folks that have managed to get their beta-key and then cancel the pre-order. So with this being the most accessible point in the beta as of yet, one question remains: when the hell is the OC community going to have its first SCII tournament? Five bucks for a beta key -- some fellows out there on ebay must be feeling pretty darn stupid about now.

As I see it, any game can be serious/hardcore if it can make you feel horrible after doing something wrong or losing. Tightly-balanced competitive online games tend to bring this out the most if you ask me. Casual games either are too easy to lose, or if you do lose, you don't feel any negative impact because of it.

A few days have come and gone, and Blizzard has taken a different approach for the next wave of beta invites. Anyone who has already received a beta key may have received an ADDITIONAL beta key to give out to a friend via e-mail (no doubt via the address tied to his/her battle.net account). If you already got your key in a previous wave, check your e-mail, and spread the love! I'm not sure if this is in addition to a wave of standard opt-ins, but if this is all they did to include more players into the beta, I can sympathize with anyone who'd be upset over such an action. Hear me out: The simple fact that anyone can be invited by a beta-tester leaves the opportunity for people who weren't even waiting for the game (or even knew about it) to get in. The result: a bunch of folks who'll probably dabble with a few matches and then drop it when they find out they aren't that much into a game like Starcraft 2. This will lead to wasted invites and less data/feedback from the community. Personally, I gave my additional beta key to a fellow opt-in who wasn't fortunate enough to get picked in any of the waves as of yet. Be responsible with the invites; there are plenty of foaming-at-the-mouth opt-ins to choose from.</soapbox> Also,to anyone else that's enjoying the beta, throw your battle.net 2.0 handle out on a post. Unless IRC channel is abuzz with sc2, I don't see anyone giving out names.

Another week has passed, and I'm assuming with it another draft of opt-ins/beta invites. Anyone else get their keys? From what I've gathered about the game, both my own observations and the observations of others, the ladder system is supposedly not working correctly. Most matches people come across are against opponents who are usually 1-2 leagues difference. Macromanagement has become easier, while economy/production has an added element to it, with each race having their own unique take on this element.

I just got my key last night. If anyone is interested in some friendly 1v1 matches, add me to your buddy list. The name's Volkspanzer.carapace.

You'll be even more frustrated if you watch the 1up videos of their escapades on the beta....

If you don't count the titles they were contracted to develop, Blizzard may actually be releasing 2 games in one year for the first time in its corporate lifetime (barring any VERY possible delays). I really hope that doesn't screw things up, as I'm looking forward to both games (SC2: Wings of Liberty and WoW: Cataclysm). I'm also looking forward to the beta of FFXIV.

Various cooking ware items, like an electric skillet, chopping/dicing mechanism, slow cooker, and a 35 dollar gift certificate to gamestop. Used it online to purchase a used Blazblue: calamity trigger for the 360 for 34.99. The best thing about it: turns out the game came in 3 days (not including the weekend) free of shipping, AND they gave me a limited collector's edition, with all of the bonus soundtrack discs. Yay.

I've been playing a little bit of the current competitor of this game, League of Legends. It's a bit too colorful for my tastes, and I honestly have a hard time telling what is going on between those bright colors and equally-colorful spell effects. Are there any beta keys still floating around for HoN that I could use?

Oh ho, it's not so bad as that. Sometimes I like to switch the brain off when gaming every now and then. It's like daydreaming for a few hours, only to find out you have a good bit of in-game cash and experience afterwards.

There have been efforts to make this game more palatable to western gamers. For example, there were a good amount of quests added in. However, I still find myself grinding a little to get to those next levels. I don't find myself hating the process, honestly. It's like knitting for some people.

If I had a child who drew this, I would proudly place this sheet of paper at eye-level on my refrigerator door, with many 'great job' magnets.

Not to worry, we have carnies to fill in for your crustacean needs. Has anyone had the alledged misfortune of buying soulstorm? Only now I'm finally reaping the benefits after nearly a year of it disappointing me. Though the week will probably short-lived, I'm gonna milk the early beta goodness for what it's worth.

I'd argue with you on that claim, but who am I kidding? I was in the middle of painting nids when I read your response...

I believe zerg are more like tyranids, as the first tyranids (genestealers) were introduced in the 1980s (read the Gaming and Gaming history section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranids ).

Left 4 Dead: the first time hearing a common infected blurt out 'Snap into a Slim Jim!' with the appropriate sound pack.

The sun is shining, and there's not a cloud in sight! The weather's wonderful, so get out there and play some video games.....wait.

An odd theory: Most people think of video games as something that makes their children sit in front of the screen for hours at a time without doing anything else constructive. That being said, perhaps parents are trying to scare their children away from gaming by giving them horrible titles, and rapidly reinforce the notion that gaming is bad. The chance of this being reality is highly unlikely. Thompson moves in mysterious ways.....

Alright, I've got everyone on the clanocr list to my friends' list. I just need a confirmation from everyone except Eten, I believe.

Is anyone having problems playing any wifi battles? I keep getting this message: Disconnected from network during transmission. Error code: 85010... The technical support site says that this error is usually associated with games that have heavy traffic, new, or there is a new wii update, etc. I can spectate matches just fine, but I can never participate in the random online brawls. If anyone is willing to help me test out battling with a friend, I'd appreciate that...

I didn't need to wait anything out. The multitude of fireworks at midnight around the apartment complex from all of the neighbors was all I needed...

Those blackholes are a creative justification for the classic 'falling down a pit' in an environment that's got odd physics as it is. That's how I see it, at least.

I actually found myself second-guessing what I heard, so I'd have to agree on this being a memory-retention exercise over any auditory diagnostic testing.

I'd love to use a wireless router, but every router I've installed in my apartment has burned out in 2 months. As for the problem, it seems that you can get around it by going into the compatibility options in properties for the setup.exe file, change the compatibility to Windows XP (Service Pack 2), and that fixes the problem. Just updated my Wii browser and all.