StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[UntamedLoli]

It used to only be on the korean battle.net but it got updated over to everyone a while ago.

[Marco]

The hype machine is running.  And with all the beta keys being given out around the end of July in contests, pretty good bet the beta will soon follow.

[IskatuMesk]

So fellas, I would have had some awesome sc2 video footage to show you from a recent event, but I can't because it wasn't broadcasted.

"Omg mesk why!?!?!?"

Well, let's talk about the Esports scene for a bit. Currently in Korea, an organization called KeSPA, pretty much governs the scene. They either control the tournaments or have major sway to who runs them. KeSPA is basically the little white man blowing the whistle. They're responsible for things like disqualifying players out of tournaments for accidentally pressing "a" in chat.

KeSPA basically controls the Korean Starcraft progaming scene.

But hold on.

Remember how Blizzard is removing LAN (or at least forcing you to authenticate on battle.net first, no one really knows where they're going with this), and how they're making Battle.net 2.0?

Well, Blizzard wants control of esports. Total control.

KeSPA doesn't like that.

To show their disdain for our men in blue, they actually cockblocked the broadcasting in the ESL for several long-awaited showcase matches, like Nada vs Moon. They actually cockblocked a lot of the players from even getting to play from what I understand.

And that's why I can't give you some amazing videos, because I was totally geared up to record the stream and stuff. So, instead, here's some crappy cam footage someone managed to get.


Starcraft II e stars Seoul match Garimto vs Bright Part 1/3

Starcraft II e stars Seoul match Garimto vs Bright Part 2/3

Starcraft II e stars Seoul match Garimto vs Bright Part 3/3

[UntamedLoli]

Pretty much KeSPA can DIAF and the LAN part became clear after they pulled this one.

EDIT: More videos and still surprised at how fast it loads, all I've heard about the comps is that they are Dell XPS's

Starcraft 2 Match WhO vs Shy - July 24th, 2009 (1/2)

Starcraft 2 Match WhO vs Shy - July 24th, 2009 (2/2)

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Well, at least Starcraft II now supports 12 players for sure (after counting the number of player slots in the melee pre-start in HKS' linked videos). Although the player slots screen could extend more below for 16 players if the programmers really want to.

But I am happy they didn't just decide to go back to 8 max players (from WC3's 12) for some lame reason.

EDIT : Fast Loading can be relative in this case since SC2 might have been coded with more cache aspects to remember more key aspects to prevent reloading from HD over and over the same data commonly loaded. If so and in other words, in this video the computer might have loaded a previous melee's data and then it shows the loading start of a computer that just mass loaded from its RAM cache instead of manually loading from the HD.

Although regardless if I am right or wrong, it's probably good either way (either it's made to load faster in general or it uses RAM cache to keep more common data).

[IskatuMesk]

From what I've heard SC2 only supports 8 players but allows 4 extra observer slots. This may be different for UMS maps, but for melee as it is the max actual player count is still 8.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

From what I've heard SC2 only supports 8 players but allows 4 extra observer slots. This may be different for UMS maps, but for melee as it is the max actual player count is still 8.

Well, for b.net matchup melee I can understand that it would be 8 since 12 tend to become on whoever team can gangbang best the other team or too big for ffas to honestly determine who would be the true "winner" (since the best players will likely lose simply for above reason). That's also considering b.net scores and their matching system in the grand scheme of things.

However, I would find it retarded if it's anything less than 12 for UMS. But it seems unlikely since if there are 9th to 12th player observer slots, it probably mean that they are real unused player slots converted to observer slots (similar to how you put "observers" on in WC3 and unused slots becomes observers). Thus, normal 9th to 12th real player slots otherwise.

[Maglok]

They mentioned you can use all 12 for UMS yes.

[Xenon]

Maglok> Do you remember where you heard that?

I like that you can swing the camera around in observer/replay mode. Options for camera control better be available for custom maps.

[Maglok]

Not really, sorry. I am not one to not mention the source, so I guess you have to believe me on it.

[Falchion]

Hmmm... has anyone seen this?

[imgwh 640x480]http://www.gamer-source.com/image/media ... es/311.jpg[/imgwh]

[GreatGodSajuuk]

Well I have seen quite a lot of rectangles in my time...

[AA7Dragoon]

Yes, the infamous box filled only with a question mark.  I know it well.

[Lavarinth]

Maglok> Do you remember where you heard that?

I like that you can swing the camera around in observer/replay mode. Options for camera control better be available for custom maps.

What Maglok said is true. I told him this from the press conference I attended a month ago.

[Rocco]

Yes, the infamous box filled only with a question mark.  I know it well.

Mine has a red x.
Oh wait, I have a real computer.