Mon, May 7th 2012, 10:06 -
p33p
Some huge updates from Blizzard are coming along with Heart of the Swarm!
Greetings fellow StarCraft II players! The past couple weeks have been amazing for the StarCraft II community. At the Dreamhack Open we saw the Swedish "Spoon Terran," Thorzain, triumph over GSL champion Polt in front of a hometown crowd in an amazing series. That same weekend, the Major League Gaming Spring Arena finals went to best of 7 games to see DongRaeGu victorious against MarineKing, avenging a loss in the Winter Championship. Looking ahead, Team Liquid StarLeague 4 was just announced here and is already getting a lot of excitement from the community. And finally, we have exciting news coming out of Korea as KeSPA and OnGameNet commit to all-new StarCraft II leagues, joining GomTV's GSL and GSTL to create an all-new StarCraft II eSports landscape. Add all of that to the 2012 Blizzard World Championship Series, and the StarCraft II community is already off to an epic 2012 in what could be the most exciting eSports year yet.
In the midst of all this great community news, we want to announce some of the exciting things we’re working on this year for StarCraft II. Here's a list of some of the features we are planning to release at or around the launch of Heart of the Swarm:
Multiplayer resume from replay
Global Play
Multilanguage support
Clan/group system
Unranked matchmaking
Multiplayer replay viewing
Let's go into more detail on each of these, starting with multiplayer resume functionality. We know how important eSports is for the StarCraft II community, and it’s important to us too. For some time now we have been discussing ways to improve StarCraft II to ensure that tournaments both large and small run as smoothly as possible. While we are discussing many different improvements, we've heard your feedback and are creating a way that games can be continued if they are ended prematurely during an eSports event. We have been investigating solutions to this issue for some time, but we expect to offer the ability to resume play from a replay at or around the launch of Heart of the Swarm.
Some of you may have read details about Diablo III Global Play, which will allow Diablo III players to create characters in different regions from their home region so they can play with friends in other parts of the world. We know this is something StarCraft II players have been asking for, and we’re working hard to make it available along with multilanguage support, at or around the release of Heart of the Swarm. We’ll have information as we get closer to Heart of the Swarm’s release.
We continue to read your passionate requests for clan support. We can confirm that we are building a clan/group system that will be released with Heart of the Swarm. We also intend to have our first version of unranked play so you will have the ability to match-make against like-skilled players without having to affect your ladder ranking while you practice off-race or experiment with a new build order.
We'll also be offering a beta sneak peek of Heart of the Swarm to attendees of the MLG Spring Championship on June 8–10 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Additionally, we will be releasing news in the next few weeks about how your participation in the upcoming Arcade (1.5) beta can win you chances to get into the upcoming Heart of the Swarm multiplayer beta test.
It’s shaping up to be an amazing year for StarCraft II. Can you believe that Flash will soon be competing in StarCraft II? Before we sign off, we wanted to call attention to a newly created StarCraft II magazine, GLHF magazine, created by a passionate group of StarCraft players. The first issue features some high production quality in our opinion and is well worth checking out. See you online!
The StarCraft II Team
Source: Battle.net
Blizzard has released a statement in regards to the balance testing they have been doing with current situations in the Pro-Level scene. Some of it focuses on scouting purposes. The rest is up to you to read in the
official thread.
Here are some of the things Blizzard is noticing with balance:
Globally, all matchups below pro-level are pretty balanced.
-We aren’t currently seeing any problems with non-pro-level matchups, but as always, we’re watching them very carefully on a weekly basis.
-We want changes we're making to balance at this time to be small, strategic adjustments that will only affect pro-level play.
Zerg at the pro-level are struggling a bit to scout effectively in the early game.
-This is tricky to balance, because we do not want to hinder sneaky strategies or tactical early play vs. zerg.
-Our goal here is to improve zerg scouting, but not to the point where other races feel like they can’t or shouldn’t make any strategic early moves vs. zerg.
Zerg at the pro-level are slightly too susceptible to all-in rushes.
-We want to make creep spread a little bit easier to counter hellions in ZvT.
-We want to make the general zerg defense slightly stronger in the early game.
Protoss at the pro-level are doing well, but not at the very top of the pro-level.
-At this time, we’re keeping a very close eye on this, and preparing to make any necessary adjustments.
We are closely watching TvP to see if the offensive capabilities of terran in the early/mid game becomes too much, or if late game strength of protoss becomes too much.
-We aren’t making a change to affect this now, but it’s very near the top of our list of things we’re watching.
and here is what they are testing:
Overlord movement speed increased to 0.586, up from 0.4687.
Upgraded overlord movement speed unchanged.
Queen starting energy increased to 50, up from 25.
Observer build time decreased to 30, down from 40.
If you feel like testing out these changes made, please play the "Antiga Shipyard (1.4.3 Balance v2.0)" and post in
the feedback thread.
Source: Battle.net
Mon, Apr 30th 2012, 21:43 -
stebo88
Blizzard has been showing much of their passion and love for eSports since the release of Starcraft 2. For those who don't know or do not follow the competitive scene, Blizzard recently launched
The StarCraft II World Championship Series which will be subsituting for this year's Blizzcon. They launched an
official stream page with a full schedule of events to come. I wonder why Blizzard did not do this sooner.
Here is their official statement,
With the launch of the
StarCraft II World Championship Series, we’ve added a new section to StarCraft2.com
dedicated entirely to eSports. This will be where you’ll find all the latest information regarding the StarCraft II World Championship Series, including upcoming events, stream information, and general event coverage.
Once you’ve navigated over to the new eSports page, you’ll find a brief overview of this year’s SC2WCS and additional general eSports information.
So what are you waiting for?
Check it out now!
Source: Battle.net
Fri, Apr 27th 2012, 09:36 -
stebo88
It has been revealed by David Kim that he believes Starcraft 2 is in 'good place' with internal data, tournament results, as well as the feedback he has received from pro-players and the community at large. It's a long read, but I've done the honors of highlighting some of the important facts to present first.
A 45-55% win rate suggests that there is no sign of imbalance. Here’s the latest global adjusted ratings data:
Tournaments
One interesting thing to note is that there still is a skill gap even at the pro level. This is what we’re seeing:
1. Protoss has good representation in terms of the number of protoss tournament qualifiers at the general professional level, but has the lowest representation at the very highest professional level.
2. Zerg has the lowest representation at the general pro level, but has been showing the best standings at the highest tournament levels until very recently.
3. Terran has good representation over all.
Maps
our data shows a 70% PvT win ratio on Cloud Kingdom, a 62% win ratio in PvZ on Korhal Compound, and a 37% win ratio on Metalopolis for TvZ. It’s worth noting that these represent the heaviest imbalances in the maps on our ladder, but that this also isn’t necessarily a problem.
To read more on balance issues by David Kim, click the link below.
Source: Battle.net
