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Yea I was pretty sad the end of that turny. Great games, but It would have been cool to see an actual European win. Very excited for the Korean finals next week though!

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Oh for sure, me too.

 

I really loved I think it was game 3, where Stephano got caught by the 2-base all-in but still had the fucking crazy balls to start 2-2 right as the attack hit him.  He defended every battle and drop just barely, the game was on a knife-edge for like 5 minutes, and then he just didn't scout for MVP's third and hadn't realized the extent to which MVP was all-inning and lost to a mediocre engagement because hellbats kill the shit out of lings and never die.

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He was really good all series at stopping drops. Except for that last game where all his drones got torched. 

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I just did a couple hours of what amounts to basically lessons with a silver/gold player.  We played some games and talked extensively about them afterwards each time, it's really incredible to see and be a part of someone actively learning in real-time right in front of you!

 

Not sure why I'm posting this, but it was a really affecting moment for me.  I've spent thousands of hours watching professional Starcraft 1 and 2, and many hundreds exploring educational content like the Day[9] Daily, written guides on improving/builds/the metagame, etc.  It's incredibly fulfilling to be putting all of that into action and really helping someone out a lot.

 

Man I really need to buy HotS.

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Spoiler for last night's MLG final in Korea, but I wrote a post about my experience watching it that touches on the larger concept of how eSports ties into sports. It's not the first time I've written on it, but maybe you guys might fancy a look:

 

http://www.theculturalapocalypse.com/home/2013/6/1/discussing-esports-again-the-drama-of-the-comeback.html

 

I'm interested in the connection between modern conceptions of popular sport and the emergence of "eSports" generally.

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This weekend the Dutch Starcraft League finals were held at the Animecon 2013 and I saw it live. It was amazing to see Starcraft on the big screen, a sight normally associated with a sea of South Koreans. Being in the audience, collective holding your breath or cheering when someone does an amazing play, is super.

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You make it sound like a bad thing...! About time we got some (really professional, by the way) coverage of e-sports.

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Man, I dunno, people dressing up like Pikachu is just something I don't associate with this country, similar to wearing spurred cowboy boots or swimming in holes in the ice.

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Oh, you meant the anime convention part. Well, I hate to break it to you, but they've been around for the last 15 years, attract upwards to 3000-4000 people per weekend, and cosplay has only increased in popularity in the last decade. It's interesting you say you don't associate it with our nation, since it is very much a 'hidden' subculture or hobby. It's very slowly gaining more acceptance in the mainstream, but in light of the massive popularity of these conventions, it's strange it's still relatively 'taboo'.

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Ah that's awesome rodi, I wish I could go to a big live event.  Hopefully next summer now that I finally have a job and can save up some cash.

 

edit: just saw the two big recent changes.  Some cosmetic ladder changes, whatevs, and Spawning is back in! sweet I can put off buying HotS for a while.

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Finished both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm. Waiting impatiently for Legacy of the Void.

 

I need to know what happens to the universe, does saving Kerrigan do anything good or not, also quite interested if she and Raynor would get back together in the end since their falling apart was because of some scumbag who ordered his men to let Kerrigan in the hands of the zerg :(

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All right this is a huge bump and if this counts as epic necro-posting then I am sorry, but the Legacy the Void beta is coming out in two weeks which has me pretty excited. Honestly more than any of the units, what I am most excited about is Archon mode. So if anyone else is similarly excited for Archon mode, let's partner up and get neural link going! *cue Pacific Rim theme music*

 

Provided we get into the closed beta, that is.

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I recently finished Heart of the Swarm (took me long just to get to it), and it's such a step back from Wings of Liberty. For all the bitching about the Starcraft II story, I sincerely like WoL's story. Yes, it's cheesy and cliché-ridden, but it's also tonally consistent, shows a lot of warmth and is both funny and tense throughout. There's a theme, they know how to run it and it works. Heart of the Swarm, in contrast, is a giant mess. The story isn't nearly as gripping, I don't think they captured the feel of the Zerg very well (the inclusion of Primal Zerg make them feel too much like regular animals, whereas the Zerg attraction was always that they acted like an unknowable virus that could spring up and mutate and spread everywhere). It's trying to be edgy and relatable at the same time (there's a brood mother who evolves so much that she's a threat to Kerrigan), but I wanted the Zerg to be utterly inhuman. That you couldn't even understand their thought processes, could barely communicate with them. I did like the conclusion to the story though!

 

And I liked that Stukov made an appearance!

 

The level design was terrific, no doubt, but it still felt like a shallow experience after the richness of Wings of Liberty. As for Legacy of the Void, I'm curious to see how they'll overcome the inherent boringness of the Protoss, who are all Super Noble and Fight Honorably, not to mention their lack of expression. Protoss units, in any case, should make for tons of fun singleplayer gameplay shenanigans, so no worries there. But can I also say that I'm sick of Blizzard throwing ancient gods into the mix whenever they feel they need to up the stakes? The Xel'Naga were once an interesting wild card (an entire extinct race), but now they've been relegated to 'oh, this one dude who just went rogue and you have to defeat him'. I pine for the days of the Overmind, which wasn't anything but a creepy eye staring at you and then a giant building with tentacles.

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StarCraft II is so great, I'll be playing the shit out of LotV when it comes out, powering through the magnificently produced campaign and then on to the 1v1 ladder. I'm less excited about the new units and balance changes than having a bunch of new players online. I'm not a skilled RTS player (Silver with occasional visits to Bronze and Gold)  but I love the competitive aspect of it and the battle.net matchmaking is unparallelled. Lately the ladder has been stale though so I'm really looking forward to LotV shaking things up.

 

Apart from chess maybe, is there any other game where you can consistently be matched against an opponent of your skill level and have a close game. I've saved all my replays and analyzing them in SceLight I'm square at 50% win rate with about 1500 games played.

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