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“We Say Farewell to the Gorilla Terran” w/ Wiggin– Episode #114

This Episode:

  • Balance Testing
  • Blizzard Security Issue
  • StarCraft in the News
  • Jinro Retires
  • Mionix Sponsors NaNiwa
  • KeSPA & eSports Fed. Trade Lock
  • TSL4 Ro32
  • Korean WCS
  • and more…


•  Doghouse Systems.com  StarCast is proudly sponsored by Doghouse Systems.com.  If you use the code StarCast or Biscuit at checkout, you will get double memory on you next Doghouse System.

•  Tweaked Audio.com  Go to Tweaked Audio.com for high-performance, noise-reducing ear buds.  Use our code StarCast and get 30% your next order as well as free shipping.

Additional support comes from:

•  SC2 Quote of the Day.com  Daily quotes from the Starcraft 2 community. The site may suck, but the quotes are sick. Make sure to check out the NEW quote archive, with all the quotes from your favorite Starcraft nerds!

•  Listener KurenTV


Coming Up!

Episode # 115
Date: August 16th
Guest:  Michael Van Driel ” Adebisi”, Professional SC2 Observer for MLG/everything else!

News

Call to Action: Balance Testing
Via StarCraft2.com:
We’ve recently published a custom version of Antiga Shipyard, called “Antiga Shipyard 1.5.0 Balance v1.0,” in which we’re testing a few small balance changes to StarCraft II. Our plan is to bring the changes to the game in a week or so. Here’s the situation:

  • Globally, matchups outside the professional level are balanced, and we see no significant issues.
  • As always, we are watching matchup balance in order to react as best as possible when issues do arise.
  • At the very highest levels of eSports competition, we feel that terran players are at a slight disadvantage against zerg. Many terran players, specifically those just below the very highest skill level, are underperforming in this matchup.
  • We’re dealing with this issue very carefully, because at the highest end of the pro level, terran players look about equal against protoss.
  • We’re making the smallest changes that we believe will address this.


Here’s what we’re testing:

Creep tumor build radius, vision radius, and creep spread radius decreased from 10 to 8.
This is a relatively minor change, but one that we feel will positively impact game balance at the highest levels of competition. After carefully watching as the pro game has shifted since zerg players started spreading creep more often, we noticed the increase in creep spread was only having a significant impact on TvZ. These are our goals with this change:

  • Keep the early game queen defenses and creep spreading viable, while at the same time making it slightly more difficult for the zerg pro to quickly spread creep across the whole map.
  • With tactics where a single creep tumor is being used, there is practically no change. Creep doesn’t spread fast enough for this change to make a difference at most levels of play.


Raven movement acceleration increased from 2 to 2.25.
Raven movement speed increased from 2.25 to 2.5.
After seeing pro players using the raven, we made these changes considering these two lines of reasoning:

  • Even the best micro players in the world were struggling to use the raven due to the slower acceleration and movement speed of the unit. Seeker missile cost or cast range appear to be secondary factors.
  • Because ravens are difficult to use, we don’t expect this buff will have more than a small impact on high-level play or any significant impact on balance at most skill levels.

 

Breaking: Blizzard Security Issue
Blizzard:
This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.
At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

StarCraft in the News
CNN Article: Wired for Success or Destruction?
Gaming Reality section of CNN ran this article last week.

CNN Article: Should pro gamers be considered athletes?

Reddit: /r/starcraft, stop submitting harsh negative feedback to John D. Sutter (author of the CNN article), it doesn’t help if we want more media coverage

The Rest:
Australian Tech Site Delimiter Runs a Tastosis Article
Australian TV Runs a South Korean Gaming Piece
CNN Runs a LG-IMMvp Piece
Fox News Runs a “Should Video Games be in the Olympics?” Piece and mentions Starcraft
New Zealand TV Runs a BarCraft Segment on the Evening News
PR Mentions Starcraft on Marketplace
Sweden’s national Twitter account Tweets About WCS
Sweden’s Biggest Newspaper Runs an EGThorZaIN.RC Article
Sydney Newspaper Runs a WCS Piece
Trend?

Liquid_Jinro Retires
Jinro wrote a very personal response to this news on Team Liquid.  To sum it up [and I really recommend reading the entire message] Jinro describes losing the drive to play and that ultimately his retirement was his own choice and was not due to his lack of results recently.  Nazgul also weighs in on Jinro’s retirement.

Mionix Sponsors NaNiwa
Mionix, a Swedish computer peripheral company, is now in a short-term sponsorship with NaNiwa.  He will be entering IEM, Cologne as a result.

Quote from Press Release:
”When we heard that Johan had left his previous team and was interested in participating at IEM we felt it was the natural step for us to offer him that possibility, as a part of our approach in to E-sports and to keep on building brand awareness within the scene. We are proud to work together with Johan and are confident that this partnership will lead to great things ahead.” -Peter Nygren, Mionix

KeSPA, eSports Fed. agree on trade lock until Oct 2013
Via ESFI World:
“For the next fourteen months, the Korean eSports Association (KeSPA) and eSports Federation cannot transfer players to each other. This trade lock period will last until October 2013.”
This includes SlayerS
“Any GSL players not included in the 25-player roster from the Federation as well as players qualified in the KeSPA-hosted amateur tournament (formerly known as the Courage Match) will be able to join KeSPA teams during its draft period.”

TSL4 Ro32
Liquid_TaeJa vs Dignitas_Bischu
Game 1 through 3

  • Amazing early game aggression from TaeJa in all three games.
  • However, Bischu denied TaeJa’s win in game 3 BEAUTIFULLY.  He broke TaeJa’s defenses with perfect control and JUST enough units.

Game 4:

  • Bischu seemed re-energized by his win in Game 3 taking out TaeJa and making it look easy.

Game 5:

  • Bischu fumbled a 2 base-Colossus all-in and TaeJa hit back with a massive force taking the series.


EG_ThorZaIN vs mouzCC_HasuObs

  • HasuObs is a beast when it comes to Toss harassment.
  • Game 1 went quite long.  Both players playing keep away for a good portion of the game.
  • 3-3 Reapers in Game 3 from ThorZaIN

Quantic.SaSe vs SlayerS_CoCa

  • Game 1: Sase confuses day9 with 2 forges and a quick 3rd, 3/3 maxed army rolls Coca
  • Game 2: Good insight from da9 about controlling the game. Coca gets lucking locking in the immortals, taking the 3rd down, and run by surround.
  • Game 3: Nydus Worm works for Coca after having his natural denied with cannons. Continues to nydus and builds a creep prison. Amazing scrappy play from both players.
  • Game 4: 3 base zerg vs. 2 base protoss, Sase dances immortals into danger.

 

Korean WCS
One of the most highly anticipated parts of the Blizzard World Championship Series, the Korean WCS starts early tonight (at the time of this writing) and continues from the 6th through the 25th.  This series features 16 players chosen via preliminaries, the top 10 GSL players based off of GSL points, and 6 top players from KeSPA.  This will be the first high-profile tournament to feature the KeSPA Broodwar players going head-to-head with top GSL Starcraft 2 pros.  According to Blizzard’s WCS area on the SC2 website, they are partnering with GomTV to do this tournament and there will be a free english stream.
Starts at 2am and I’m staying up to watch this. – Tash
WCS on Team Liquid
Brackets on Liquipedia
Free Stream on Official SC2 Site

KeSPA Not Doing So Hot in the WCS

The Case For Video Games as an Olympic Sport
Day[9]:
“In my eyes, there’s no doubt that digital gaming will at some point be part of the Olympics,”
“Video gaming is a full medium on its own, with developers exploring new mechanics and players forming vibrant communities.”

The Original BarCraft Shut Down Then Resurrected
via Discorax
Chao Bistro closes it’s doors (unrelated to Barcraft) and Oskar the primary organizer and founder of the Barcraft movement retires.

The large Seattle Barcraft community, lead by Barcraft co-founder Matt Wilson revives Barcraft at a new location is Downtown Seattle, Spitfire.

Details and Reddit threads.
http://www.reddit.com/r/BarCraft/comments/xv3ye/seattle_barcraft_is_officially_retired/  Oskar retires. Chao Bistro closes down
Matt Wilson, take the reigns and runs the revivial LAST NIGHT http://www.reddit.com/r/BarCraft/comments/xlbdq/the_revival_of_barcraft_in_seattle_88_at_spitfire/
Spitfire is PACKED (completely overwhelemed the venue hosting it’s first barcraft)
https://www.facebook.com/events/218016051657569/219943184798189/?notif_t=event_mall_reply  Facebook Event
50+ people showed up to watch GSTL Finals on their huge projector in the backroom.

 

Feedback


Kuren
Dear StarCast,
While I’ve tuned in to StarCast for quite some time now I’ve never felt compelled to write to the show about anything until now. I wanted to share a little of my personal experience watching the very last Brood War OSL finals in hopes that more people will check it out and enjoy it as well.

While I loved StarCraft 1 and Brood War when I was a kid, I never truly got into eSports until I was older and StarCraft 2 came out. I then stumbled upon the GSL and instantly fell in love with the scene to the point that it is now my passion in life. So even though I didn’t follow competitive Brood War it still holds a special place in my heart, not only as the foundation for StarCraft 2 and eSports today but as a gem in my childhood.

When MoleTrap announced he had arranged for an English stream of the very last Brood War OSL finals, I got really excited. This was an open invitation to take part in and enjoy a huge moment in eSports history. And who better then MoleTrap, a Brood War casting veteran to cast it. The best part however was seeing the thousands of fans at the venue love every minute of it. It was not only a finals, it was a celebration of the last 13 years and competitive Brood War as a whole. From the Boxer vs Yellow show match, to the JangBi vs Fantasy finals, the fans cheered their hearts out and the players gave it their all. The games were epic and the moments were bittersweet. It was a true honer, not just as a StarCraft fan, but as a nerd, to watch this amazing moment in gaming history take place.

Anyway, I can’t wait for the future of these players and the scene. I can only hope that StarCraft 2 reaches this level, in Korea as well as the rest of the world. Thanks so much for reading my email even if you don’t do it on the show. I really just hope you guys talk about the OSL, as It was such an amazing event and I felt that it didn’t get as much attention from the foreign StarCraft 2 scene as it deserved.

Thanks again,
Sean “Kuren” McCoskey

P.S. Here is a link to the English broadcast of the OSL finals and the “Legend Match” between Boxer and Yellow (the link is set to start right after the sound issues ended):http://www.twitch.tv/ogn_star2hd/b/327376352?t=34m12s

Outro

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