HalcyonSpirit

One week added to the submission period due to insufficient number of entries. ONE MORE WEEK UNTIL THE END OF THE SUBMISSION PERIOD! GET TO WORK! Well of course I didn't chew you to bits. After all, velociraptors shred.

Watch Day[9]'s daily webcast at 10PM Eastern (past casts here). No, seriously, he's awesome and it'll really help you because he breaks things like this down. The reason you're losing your concentration is probably because you have a set checklist of things you want to do strategy-wise, maybe specifically a build order of some kind, and once you get that done you're struggling to come up with what to do next on the spot. You're getting too specific with your goals in that they have a set end time (the end of a build order, for instance), rather than concentrating on things that continue through the entire game. He has said in the past, regarding your issue, that you should form a mental checklist of general things you need to do (in other words, your macro). Are all my unit-producing structures producing? Are all my workers working? Am I scouting? Is my army ready to attack/defend? Etc. If you're not doing something when you ask, go do it, then move on. Keep running through this checklist over and over through the entire game, every game, until it becomes second nature to check these things. Don't concentrate on overarching strategy; it's useless if you can't keep up with the checklist. Once you get the macro down, then you'll be able to shift your focus toward doing those things in a more meaningful manner, such as looking for specific things when scouting, or forming a strategy in your head during the game based on what's already happened.

Not anymore. GOMTV or whoever owns them has taken all of them down. Hence my lamenting of not being able to see them. EDIT: Found them elsewhere. SPOILERS ahead. http://www.justin.tv/imoogle/b/270952341 http://www.justin.tv/imoogle/b/270953201 FruitDealer ate NEXLiveForever. Just completely ate him alive. I hope FruitDealer wins the entire thing; he's SO much better than pretty much any other Zerg right now.

I wish I could watch more than just the first set.

I'd buy it even if looked essentially the same, with the same engine, as the original two. The only thing I'm concerned about is this new development method they're talking about. But right now, I don't care about that. I DON'T CARE. I'm too busy crying tears of joy to care.

Can... can it be true? Can it really be coming? I don't want to get excited yet, they could still screw it up... but it's SO HARD NOT TO GET EXCITED. EDIT: ... Nope, I can't resist.

Actually, after the 1.1.1 patch, people are qq'ing about Ultralisks again because now their splash damage radius is actually sensible. It now emanates from the Ultra, not the unit being attacked, which reduces the effective radius of Ultra splash. Thors are now stronger than Ultras in an evenly numbered matchup.

What I want to know is how the hell these people figure out how to do this stuff.

Yes, the DA link is fine, and the length of the piece is fine as well. No worries.

No rule has been missed. There doesn't seem to be any indication it was written before the beginning of the month, so you're quite fine. Now, if you were to admit to breaking the rule about when it needs to be written... well, then I do suggest you stay in that velociraptor shelter until I forget all about it. And you don't have to put it up on GDocs or whatever. It's just a suggestion for easier archival (if I ever get around to doing that ; ).

It's situational. Getting the island expansion - any island expansion - is a risky move. Yes, it can prevent the opponent's main army from attacking it easily, so if it remains hidden or you have a good air defense force, it can really pay off. On the other hand, you can't defend it with your main army easily, so if your opponent makes a big strike against it, you won't be able to defend it like you would a normal expansion. So it's a risk vs. reward issue. Normal expansions are a more guaranteed payoff because you have your main army to defend it, while an island expansion can create a bigger payoff in the long run but is vulnerable to large, swift blows. Pick which one you need more in your current match.

First, dark is fine. Not many dark subjects come up probably because we like writing about others things. Doesn't mean we won't like reading them. Second, if you're writing something for, say, a class, and it was done entirely in the submission period, you're free to use that as your submission. There's no restriction on what it was written for, it just needs to be started within the submission period (and, obviously, comply with the other rules on submissions).

One week left for submissions!

I shouldn't have started listening to this right before heading to bed. It's been on loop for a while now and I can't get it out of my head! It's... too... CATCHY!

It's a shame that TLO lost the other two games and thus got knocked out of the tournament...

Early pressure and Chrono Boost/MULES. CB can either boost your economy production to keep pace with the Zerg or your army production to put early pressure on when the Zerg is still vulnerable after getting the Hatchery (that's 350 minerals not spent on military units, and it won't be made up for a while). MULES boost Terran's mineral intake considerably, allowing them to create more units (SCVs or military). In either case, the Protoss and the Terrans can gain an economic or military boost without having to spend the minerals on another expansion that they have to defend (even while it is still constructing and not adding to the economy).

Semi-firm. Use your discretion. If you need more room, take it, but make sure it's justified. And don't go crazy; going significantly over the limit (we're talking maybe 150-200 or more here) will just get it disqualified. Woot!

Looking forward to it. Ah. I'll fix that right now. Just fyi, unless otherwise stated, submission always lasts from the first day of the month to the last day of the month, and then voting is the first two weeks of the next month. Hehe, yeah, once you get into a certain way of expressing ideas, it can be difficult to switch it up to another style. Just takes time and patience to sit down and get going on it. Good luck!

The problem is that there is no law stating that kids can't go watch R-rated movies. It's a self-imposed regulation in theaters and stores selling the movies. Same goes for music, if I recall correctly. They do it so as to not have any controversy or anything of that nature that would result in a loss of sales. The ratings are fine, there's no issue with giving movies or games ratings. However, requiring BY LAW that they cannot sell M-rated games to minors is, as far as I know, an unprecedented move on any form of art.

I will listen to it tomorrow, but I wanted to point out that Mirror 1's zipped album is corrupt. The other two are fine, however.

Resulting in a water-type attack, not a ground-type. No, they dig into the sea floor until they need to attack, and then BAM, new volcanic island. Fire-type AND ground-type.

OK, first things first: The September 2010 Short Story Competition has begun (a day ago)! Secondly: Commentary! Happy birthday, Banjo! by JH Sounds This wasn't my favorite entry, though I readily admit that my negative bias toward fanfiction could partly be to blame. Even so, the story didn't do anything for me. The premise seems to be decent; however, I do not feel the writing properly conveys the story. The dialogue, for instance, feels a bit stiff, as if it's there merely to move the story along. It also seemed to jump a bit; the transitions from, say, the roast to the argument and then to the presents just feels too forced. Individually they are alright, but moving between them needs work. Same can be said of other parts of the dialogue. As far as the narrative goes, I feel this is a classic example of telling the reader the story and about the world instead of showing the reader the story and world. For instance, show emotions through action instead of just saying that such-and-such character is experiencing such-and-such feeling. There were some examples of this in places, but in others it was just telling the reader. Finally, things were glossed over a little too much, such as the rolling eggs incident. From start to finish, it was 6 sentences long. Flesh out the scenes some more! So This Is High School by diotrans It's been a long while since I've read anything in storyboard style, so this was refreshing in that way. It was easy to understand, so no problems there. I could more-or-less visualize the scenes just from what was provided, which is good. I couldn't visualize the characters themselves since there weren't really any descriptions given of them, but since it's a storyboard, I can't really complain about that. The story itself was very believable. Not much was given in the way of descriptions, but what was there was done in a way that helped to facilitate understanding the people involved, particularly Jared. Anyone who's been a similar position in high school (and let's face it: that's a good majority of people) would be able to relate to Jared in some manner. I was cringing at points because I knew exactly what was passing through his head at points toward the end. I felt bad for him. That's a good thing for a story. The way it was ended for this competition would actually be a decent cliffhanger point, given the very last piece of dialogue. You should finish this. It caught my interest. Prologue by Random Hajile I want to say this right now: The beginning couple of sentences feel almost cheesy in the way they're written. It's supposed to drum up dramatic tension, I suppose, but it loses its impact a bit because it's just like so many "it's another day like any other day BUT NOW IT'S ABOUT TO BE VERY DIFFERENT!" openings. You can keep it as it is, but consider altering it to lose that feeling. Getting beyond that, this was quite well-crafted. The small details included in the various activities give lots of insight into the character's persona in a short period of time without having to explicitly spell it out for the reader. There's a few stumbles, but nothing particularly serious. Perhaps the most drawing of the story elements is, obviously, meeting Aria Winter. Again, her character is given depth very quickly, but there's much more that the reader can't know yet. Her actions, from the reader's standpoint, are both straightforward and complex. We know there's something under the surface, since we're outside the situation, but it doesn't hurt the appeal of the straightforward attitude she at least appears to have. I would suggest giving a little more physical detail of her during this introduction, since right now she's little more than a scarce few features in the reader's mental video. If you don't put it in here, I feel it should be done at the beginning of the very next scene with her. All-in-all, it's a big draw, and I would definitely read further into the story if it is ever provided. Crossing Paths by Jam Stunna There's not much I can really comment on at length here. It's a one-shot story that doesn't have much happen in it. It's just two people randomly "crossing paths," if you will. Not much else. The narrative is well-done in that it flows well from one sentence to the next. It's not quite seamless, but it's not broken in the least. The dialogue is pretty good. It stutters a little, but I guess that works because it's a conversation between strangers; neither is probably very comfortable. My issue with this piece is largely that, partly because not much happens, I can't connect with either of the characters. In short stories, connecting with the characters tends to be quite important. There are of course cases where it isn't needed, but when the whole thing revolves around the two characters present, something needs to fill the gap if the character connection isn't made. I'm not entirely sure how I would tweak the story to accomplish this. (Given the name of one character is Jamil, I'm assuming that it's probably at least partly non-fiction. I'm ignoring this in order to look at it purely from a story-writing standpoint.) <3 by SoulinEther There's various ways I could go about writing a commentary on this piece - some shorter, some longer - but I think I can sum up my feelings very succinctly in this case: "... What." Thirdly: I'm Terran up the night!

Video games have taught me that doing a barrel roll means doing an aileron roll. (Star Fox)

Apparently there was a weak SOS signal in Morse code coming through a little while ago. Caught the tail end of it before it disappeared. Can't remember what frequency it was on, though...

Mmm... cheesy... I saw that too. Twice, actually; it's on HD's channel as well. I like watching high-level SC2 battle commentaries. I'll probably never be as good as them, so at least getting to watch the good players is fun.