Idle Worker Counter

This morning, I’d like to write a short entry about the only real issue I’ve come across in HotS so far. You see, in just about every day, HotS is better than its predecessor. But there is one way in which, sadly, the game has taken a step back.

The idle worker counter.

It used to be a popup of sorts. It used to be that as soon as a worker was idle, this blue square would appear next to the minimap, along with a count of exactly how many workers were idle.

That square has now been incorporated into the UI. Most of the time, the counter is set at zero. When a worker becomes idle, the number changes.

This is bad. Terribad, because your eye no longer reacts to the appearance of said square. It’s bad because your eye specifically does not respond to the much more subtle change in the number of the counter.

In other words, it’s much, much easier to overlooked idle workers in the current build of HotS than in WoL. It’s clear from every other change made in the game that Blizzard is trying to make it more user friendly. They’re trying to make the game easier to play, and this is perhaps the one aspect of the game which has been made more difficult. It’s an easy fix, although there must be countless ways in which to fix it. I expect Blizzard to change it shortly, but you never know.

Post Patch Thoughts

It seems like so long ago when the servers went down. I must admit, I went through the various stages of denial. I thought it might have been my internet connection, or the software. But eventually I had to face the truth. That the HotS Beta servers were down.

It drove me to play a few games of WoL, which, apparently, I suck at now.

But now the beta is back and better than ever.

One of the first things I noticed? That there is a very sexy new way the game handles a win. Fireworks and eye candy. Complete loss of control of the game -- even if you push buttons. Now, when you win a game of StarCraft, there is no mistaking.

It brings me back to one of my first rants on the official SC2 forums. I wanted to know how to add the line "has left the game" to my spam filter. It was an oft used trick, and it got me one day, and I figured I'd solve the problem.

But now, what? two years in? Blizzard has solved the problem for us. No longer will trolls be able to win a small percentage of the games they play for typing a clever sentence. But really, it was about time. I mean, one line output to let the user know he's won? It had to be updated.

The next thing I noticed was that, by default, you cannot select enemy units. It was kind of awkward, to come up on a toss player with a building warping in, but not know if it was a gateway or forge. This slight feature change, seems to serve only one purpose. To get us to look at the settings page and change it. Fine, Blizzard, I'll look at your in game options.

I have to say that the new death animations are awesome! All in all, despite my nit picking, they've breathed fresh and awesome life into my favorite video game.

DepressedCraft

Blizzard made me depressed.

Here I was, helping them to beta test HotS, when I clicked somewhere I’d never clicked before. My profile. What I saw there shocked me, brought me through the various stages of denial, ultimately ending with depression.

They showed me the total number of games played, 90. So far so good. But then they also showed me how many games I won, 40. The bastards!

For I am trained in arithmetic. My brain couldn’t help but subtracting the latter from the former. I had lost 50 games! Blizzard, is this your subtle way of insulting me? I am a delicate flower, who plays SC2 for the escape, for the fantasy. I do not play to do math and to relive the horror of losing a StarCraft game. But to multiply that loss fifty times over! Shame on you!

What’s worse, I’m also trained in ratios and fractions. I can’t help but now have the knowledge that I’ve only won 44% of the time, despite my best efforts! Woe is me! I’m a failure at the one thing I ever loved …

Or maybe I slice my sarcasm too thick, and Blizzard could treat us all like the adults, average aged 35, big boys that we are, save us the math, and post the meaningful statistics right there in the UI.

3 Gate WaitCraft

StarCraft is one of those games that’s so big and so epic, there’s more than one way to play it. Some prefer the campaign. Others, 4v4 battles. Still, some prefer custom games. Me? I only ever do 1v1.
That’s right. Every time click the StarCraft 2 icon on my desktop, I do it to que for the 1v1 ladder. 

What I noticed the other day is how many obstacles or “gates” there are between me and StarCraft.

Step one, double click the desktop icon. Wait for the game to load.
Step two, enter my password. Wait for the game to load again.
Step three, various clicks to start my usual 1v1 multiplayer. Wait for opponent to be found.
Step four, final loading screen wait.


Basically, you wait for the game to load (or an opponent to be found) four times! That seems kind of steep to me. I mean, sure, it’s nice to see Kerigan's smoking bod. Her breasts are perfect, who would ever get tired of looking at those? And yeah, StarCraft is a complicated game. It NEEDS those loading screens. I mean, maybe one day the technology will be there to let us click on an icon and play our usual SC2 game in one simple step. But hey, it’s only 2012. This is only a major release by Blizzard/Activision. Four waiting times, I’m sure, is the absolute minimum possible number of waits that can separate a SC2 player from his usual game. Maybe they'll get around to it when we buy the game for the third time in 2014.


One day, computers will be able to predict our choice. Or allow us to pick the options on a quick-loading, initial screen. But until then, the millions of StarCraft players all over the world will just have to wait … and wait … and wait … and wait … to play.

RvR is Popular Now?

Random vs random is easily the rarest matchup. It would have to be, what with random being the most seldom used race. While I am a random player, it used to be days and weeks in between random vs random matches.
All that seems to have changed in just the past few days.
I don’t know why, but I’ve been having random vs random games like it’s nobody’s business. Every day, multiple times a day. It makes me wonder what the cause is? One player suggested that he’s simply playing beta for the Lols. But I have the feeling that Day9 must have asked people to play random. Or that some other similar event has caused people to start playing random.
I will say this, Blizzard makes it fun to play random. While we haven’t received a separate MMR for each race, in HotS, we do get separate ranks for each race. I used to think that Zerg was my best race. But according to the new leveling system, Zerg is actually my worst race and I play Protoss best. Thanks Blizzard!

Yes Virginia, Pros Bunker Rush

One of the most entertaining aspects of SC2 for me, is the shit that the players talk. Maybe I get more of this because I play as random, but take the circumstance of rushes. If I roll terran and I decide to bunker rush, I’m always labelled a cheeser and a noob.

Here I was, thinking that bunker rushing was a standard tactic. I’ve seen it done countless times by pros. I have always considered it an almost ‘always good’ strategy in TvZ. Unless the map is prohibitively big, I’ll bunker rush a zerg without even thinking. I’ll fake a bunker rush, just to make him waste mining time. I’ll fake a bunker rush just to throw him off of his game.

Then I turn to twitch.tv and watch some Korean claiming to be the #1 Terran in the world. I see him in the middle of a game where he’s obviously winning -- and bunker rushing a protoss!

Then it hit me … you can bunker rush a protoss. The exact winning strategies that draw the most shit talking, are the same things that the top pros are doing.

So that got it in my head that I want to bunker rush a protoss.

Next game I random TvP, I go for a blind 2xrax bunker rush strategy. Turns out this guy was going for a fast expand building layout. I wound up winning that game, easy.

Moral of the story? The next time someone tells you what a noob cheater you are, he just might not have any fucking clue what he’s talking about.

24/24 Workers

I want to write a post celebrating Blizzard for a very minor change. There’s a good chance this change has been around the entire beta, and I’ve only just noticed it. I’m talking about the worker counter.

Click on a Nexus, Hatchery, or Command Center in HotS and you’ll see the most wonderful improvement to StarCraft since Dark Swarm. You’ll see a counter listing the number of workers mining, as a ratio to the maximum number of efficient workers. It looks something like:

14/24

This solves the greatest StarCraft mystery on my mind. How many workers is enough? Before this feature, I honestly had no idea. Answering the question of how many workers I should have mining had raised even greater philosophical questions to me. What is knowledge? Is that post I read on Team Liquid’s forums accurate? When HDStarCraft said otherwise, who is correct?

In one simple mouse over, Blizzard has laid the issue to rest. What’s even better about this feature is that the ratio changes, based on the number of mineral patches. If you mine out a patch, the number will change to look something more like 24/21. So it even helps you to micromanage that awkward in between number of workers mining as you’re playing longer macro games.

I played a set of three games the other day, keeping this information close to my heart, and I played LIKE A GOD! For once, I could make just enough workers. I have a feeling what I had been calling ‘saturation’ was actually under saturated.

My first game, a ZvZ, I was able to saturate two bases PERFECTLY, then switch immediately to a Stephano style max roach rush ftw!

Game two, a PvZ, I was able to saturate one base before launching the popular sentry-immortal attack, again ftw!

Game three, a TvZ, I was able to saturate two bases like a boss, and push a maxed thor-marine army, ftw and a hat trick.

Blizzard, let’s spread awareness of your best, most cost effective improvement, ever. If you’ve helped me, then you’ve helped hundreds, nay, thousands of gamers to take their StarCraft play to the next level.

Score Screen Bug

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm bug.

This is another minor issue I’ve been having. It seems to come at random. But after finishing a multiplayer game, I will drop back to the score screen. In HotS, the score screen is a sort of a window that appears over the normal user interface. However, this window often displays no info whatsoever. That is, other than a small spinning circle, which usually indicates that it’s “loading.” However, the load never arrives.

Some games the information will be there. Other’s just a spinning circle.

Mothership Core vs FFE wall

l'm playing the Beta of HotS and I’m still loving it. However, I’m also still experiencing a bug where, when I play as random, my icon at the loading screen is displayed as Protoss. Unlike other posts I’ve read on the official StarCraft forums, The icon does not necessarily display the race I will spawn as.

I’d also like to talk for a bit about Blizzard’s most recent change, adding their version of the neutral supply depot at the base of the ramp. It’s unclear whether they did this to allow zerg to more easily defend a cannon rush at the bottom of their ramp, or to discourage the ease with which protoss can FFE.

But there is a big balance issue at stake here. Before, not only could a protoss FFE, it was standard in their vZ matchups. Now it’s much more problematic. But let us not forget that protoss also has the mothership core. I believe Blizzard’s reasoning is that the fast mothership core will make up for the fact that Protoss can’t as easily wall off their ramp like they did before. It also encourages protoss to get their first cannon up faster to then destroy the rocks.

I’ll have to play a few more games to really get the feel for it, but I think Blizzard is doing a good job of keeping up their balance. Sure, it changes the entire dynamic of openers in the game. But if they’re going to give the toss such a powerful unit at the beginning of the game, I think it’s fair that they have a weakness to go with it.

BattleNET 2.0!

I just finished spending a few games with the updated Battle.net for StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm. Let me tell you, I was blown away.

I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting. But it certainly wasn’t a complete redesign. The first thing you’ll notice when you play HotS now, is Kerrigan. She’s front and center of the screen, tits bulging out of her ghost uniform, looking sexy and she knows it with all the special effects and zergy dreadlocks.

If anything I was ever so slightly disappointed by this, as I was tempted to click on the woman, and clicking her does nothing. Until I clicked on one of the buttons -- then she did some kind of animation before the screen changed. I can’t emphasise this enough, but everything looks awesome! The buttons, the eye candy, it was all top notch.

Personal to me is the addition of the unranked ladder. I was happy to see that they did away with the checkbox for ranked games that was in the older version, and now we have a whole other button to push.

Right after hitting the button to play my first game, I noticed my first bug. There I was, playing my first match, a qualifier to determine my league. I play as random, had selected random, but when the loading screen came up, it drew a Protoss icon next to my name. I haven’t played protoss for months. So this might have thrown off my opponent or not -- he didn’t seem to notice. But take note Blizzard, that icon should have been the random one. In subsequent games, the icon displayed correctly.

Once in the game, the eye candy didn’t stop. As I’m sure you’ve seen in other youtube videos, the in game death animations have all been updated. Blowing your opponent away has never been more fun!

If anything, here is where the first actual adjustment takes place. In a game of mine, after some probe kills, I mistook one of piles of dead probes for a living probe. Not a big problem, not much of anything really. But definately worth mentioning that the new frag gibs will take a bit of getting used to.

Also, shortly after when I typed gg, I realized I had no idea where the surrender button is. Turns out my usual F10 didn’t seem to work, and the menu button is no longer in the upper left. It’s now in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Good to know.

Let me make one thing clear. The value of buying HotS, IMHO, is in this update alone. I only play SC2 for the multiplayer and as far as I’m concerned, they made me very happy. I’m looking forward to playing more in the future. Thanks Blizzard!

Swarm Host v Widow Mine

Now that I’ve been playing HotS for a while, I’d like to share some thoughts on the new balance and game design.

Now if you came to me before playing the beta and asked me what the game was missing, I think the answer is obvious. Zerg with the fewest number of units, would certainly need a few more.

At the crux of the strategy of StarCraft is siege tech. Terrans get their siege tech first. Followed by Toss, second. Finally Zerg get their siege tech all the way in tier three. So if you asked me, what does zerg need for their expansion, I’d say they need siege. Blizzard, seems to agree, because they introduced the Swarm Host.

But then Blizzard gives terran the widow mine. They make it target cloaked units, have infinite ammo, and do amazing single target damage and splash damage.

A single widow mine, in the current patch, is one of the most powerful units in the game. It kills groups of zerglings much more effectively than a baneling, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving. The big question is: Why?

Why does terran have an endless, cloaked and detecting, undodgeable baneling? Why do they have what is effectively a type of siege tank that requires detection to even attack, when Terran already is the fastest race to get their siege tank?

To me, it feels like the widow mine’s redesign is one of the worst calls on Blizzard’s part since the WarHound. I hope this is simply one of their little brain farts, where they figured they’d make the mines reuseable and work against cloaked units, without really thinking about the consequences.

The only reason for giving terran such a strong unit, is how underrepresented terran players are at the highest level of play. It’s kind of sad, really. The race with the most options has been nerfed to irrelevance, and the only fix is to double down on this one unit.

But while a single widow mine can easily turn an entire game in favor of a Terran, the same could not be said about the Swarm Host. Swarm Host tech comes late -- as late as infestors. And since infestors are arguable siege tech in their own right, they basically do nothing to the balance of the game. Before, zerg hand to micro fungal growth. Now zerg can auto attack a position. Big deal.

I have a little saying in strategy games. “To attack your opponent in the spot he would choose / Is to not want to win, is to beg to lose.” With the Swarm Host, Blizzard has given us a unit that is specifically good only at attacking a fortified position. In my mind, that makes the Swarm Host one of the worst units ever. For all the positioning and burrowing that a Swarm Host has to do, they can’t have the oft used Terran advantage of attacking with high ground volleys.

So for the Zerg themed HotS patch, Terran gets an auto detecting, high dps, cloaked alternative to their siege tanks. Zerg gets a unit that replicates a handful of zerglings. Get back to the design board, Blizzard.

No Warp on High Ground HotS

It is a time of turmoil in the realm of StarCraft 2. Players are growing bored of the current and stagnant Wings of Liberty. Yet those lucky enough to be invited into the beta testing of Heart of the Swarm are also uncertain of the future of the game.
Our favorite casters, even, know not the nuances of the game, as it changes on a daily basis.
Yesterday, I saw Husky upload a video talking about how he didn’t know that the battle hellions could be healed by medivacs. Neither did I. And I agree it makes no sense.
But then, just this morning, HD StarCraft uploaded a video and made a mistake he didn’t even know about. He said he didn’t know why this player didn’t just warp in a pilon on the low ground and, with vision, warp onto the high ground.
Now I know HD plays as toss and all. But there are some who would say that he doesn’t really play at all. I mean, even I knew that you can’t warp units into the high ground in HotS. The reason why, while not readily apparent, is easy enough to understand.
In HotS, maps have become larger. The trend is going towards macro style play. Meaning everyone’s base has more ground to cover. Add to that the mothership core, a flying unit that toss can get extremely early in the game, and you’re setting up a recipe for disaster. And by disaster I mean, a new era of 4gate type rushes.
Before, pulling off such a trick required a hallucination, or a Stargate and flying unit, or running a unit into the base for vision on the high ground.
Now, with a mothership core, you basically just need the pylon, and the rest of the attack comes for free. This acts as a multiplier effect for the most powerful spell in the early game, the forcefield. So, although it seems like an elaborate and unimportant rule change, I can understand why blizzard came to change it. Though I haven’t tested it myself, in theory, a warp prism would still do the trick.
I want to say for the record, that I just think it’s sad that I happen to know more about the nuances of the game than my favorite casters. But what makes it even worse is that my favorite casters are still way better than me, if it ever came down to a 1 on 1. Do you hear me HD and Husky? I’ll take you on any time, any where!

Workers Auto Start in HotS!

Yay, my computer is fixed and I finally had a chance to sit down and play -- to really play the new Heart of the Swarm Beta. For whatever reason, my new PC is immune to the “Client version not recognized” bug that plagued my old PC.

Now, I’ve been out of practice, so one of the first things I noticed was the addition of a simple check box: Play as Ranked.

This checkbox is quite dear to me, as I’ve previously posted on Blizzard’s forums asking for the free game feature. After hearing some bullshit answers from them, saying how maybe it would be a feature to be released in HotS, I eventually pointed out that it was trivial to program. I said, it’s only a checkbox.

Now, said checkbox has arrived. However, I am once again reminded that Blizzard has almost certainly intentionally left out a feature that would normally be kept in the game, for the sole purpose of leaving it for the second purpose of the same game. What cool features are they leaving behind for third time they make us buy StarCraft? Only time will tell.

Remember that I play as random, and my worst race is definitely Terran. So imagine how I felt when my first game wound up being a TvT. The second game I played was a RvR, which almost wound up being a TvT. My third game? A TvT. This left me wondering if there might not be some kind of a bug in the software. I mean, I enjoyed practicing my Terran play, and I definitely got to get a feel for how the new widow mine works. But enough is enough. However, I shaln't complain. Never complain about random numbers. Or, the nerd in me wants to be technically correct and say pseudo-random numbers.

One thing about the widow mine that I hadn’t noticed before -- it only attacks ground units. I had placed one by each of my opponent’s probably expos and was a bit disappointed to see that he managed to get his expo up anyway. I had my mine positioned in such a location where I was sure it could attack the command center being constructed. It simply didn’t, because it only attacks ground units. How that SCV managed to construct the thing without dying, I’ll never know. Maybe it was luck, or maybe the mines don’t target building SCVs, I’d have to watch the replay to be sure.

The other thing that really freaks me out is how the SCVs now automatically start mining. The game also starts with your rally point set to the minerals. While this makes sense on so many levels, it takes a bit of getting used to. Nearly every game I play starts with a loooooong load time. And after that, a bit of lag just at the start of the game. Just enough to make me wonder wtf is going on when I see all of my workers going for the minerals by themselves.

I would be curious to learn why Blizzard decided to start the game with the workers already mining. After so many years of us having to tell the works to do that. Did they decide that they wanted to eliminate the mindless repetition aspect of the game?

A factor that comes into play here is, what I might call for lack of a better phrase, The pro split. I always just tell the workers to head straight for the closest mineral patch. But pros always send three workers to one side, and three to the others. They might even take the time to set two workers to sync on the closest mineral patch. A technique I’ve heard called cloning. And while the pros seem to be able to do this without a problem, I never have. If you mess up, you’re way behind, and if you do it perfectly, what do you gain? I’m sure a pro would know exactly how much they gain, but I’m also sure that it’s a very small amount, in the 5 to 15 mineral range.

Still I applaud the decision for an unpopular reason. Etiquette. Without the ritual of sending your workers to the mineral line at the start of every game, our fingers are now freed up to type a proper greeting to our opponents. And I’ve always found that StarCraft players are among the most rude on the entire internet.

So if one day, you happen to have a HotS game against Maulakai and you see me type “May the best man win.” Be a doll, and cast your APM to the wind by typing back something. Preferably less BM.

I know that this is the StarCraft blog and all, but I’m sorry. This morning, I have to type about World of WarCraft. If I could take back the blog title, I would. I’d call it: Maul’s Blizzard’s Bitch Blog.

After finally leveling my druid to 90, I thought I’d seen all of the new game content. I mean, okay, maybe there are some raids and pvp stuff that I’m missing. But from my past play, I know that most of the new stuff is in the new dungeons and leveling. At least for the way I play it is. But you have to admit, everything about this new version of WoW is simply better.

The daily quests work together better. You now get to daily quest grind for your mounts. Some may say that this isn’t quite as good as previous versions. I would compare the new system to the old, WotLK days. The achievements I had to endure to fly on a Red Proto Drake! But I kind of like the idea that you can now choose a faction, grind out the rep, and get the reward. It wasn’t very fun to have to find just the right party composition to interrupt for More Rabi.

Or, what I like the best is how they’ve improved Archaeology. Formally, this was the worst profession ever. The most grind for the least reward. Now, you can level your arch. while doing daily quests. I’d always felt somewhat like a jackass for having leveled all of the secondary professions on my toons. In hindsight it felt like a waste of time. But now, in Mists of Pandaria, I can actually level them all in a way that feels meaningful, while doing other things in the game.

Currently, I’m grinding out the last bar of rep for the Cloud Serpent Riders. I’m butchering that name, for sure. But the point is, I level fishing, first aid and arch. while getting rep for them. It’s wonderful! And to think I went into this expansion, giving all of my cloth to my Warlock Tailor because “Everyone knows first aid is simply a cloth sink.”

But what’s really great is that the game doesn’t simply end and go to daily quests once you hit the level cap. The content continues! How pleasantly surprised I was to see more cutscenes and quests involved in level 90, end game content. Bravo, Blizzard.

For some reason, it pleases me to no end that they’ve finally added a way to water walk, to fish out in the middle of open water, without the hassle. All of my toons have a stack of pots of water walking on them -- pots that don’t work! Oh, blizzard knows they don’t work. If I have one complaint, it’s that they didn’t fix the pots -- they simply added something better, knowing that I would grind to the new thing anyway.

Even the way the game handles alts is great. The way toons share mounts and achievements now makes total sense. Before, you could hop on an alt, and the players around you would have no idea what your skill level was. They wouldn’t be able to pick up on the subtle clues -- like the fact that you’d earned a red proto drake, to assess your skill level. Now they can.

The one point where they seem to have lost the thread is with the pets. Now, even without ever having played a game of pokemon in my life, it’s obvious what game they’re copying. But where they’ve lost the thread is, you can’t fight against players everywhere. The absolute, best place to fight would be in a raid, while everyone is waiting on some guy to arrive. Not being able to pet battle in the one situation where you really do need to dick around completely misses the mark for me. Patch, please!
I once heard a Blizzard executive say ‘I hope we can continue to meet and exceed your expectations.’ Well, Blizzard, this time, I can certainly say that you have. Thanks for making my most played game of all time even better.

No card, no play.

So my luck with StarCraft hadn't been very good. Sure, I got invited into the HotS beta. But before i could play, my computer died. It's still in the shop. Meaning i could only play on my laptop. But that computer has a recognized bug. Battle.net doesn't recognize my client version. It's all over their forums. So no HotS for me.
But wait, I have a third computer. My iMac. Turns out the game works on it! But my iMac has compete garbage for a video card. Even with all the settings turned down, the laggy response time makes it unplayable.
Alas, I have turned to WoW. With a recently turned level 90, there's plenty to do in Pandaria. Until my pc gets a new power supply, that is.

Don't leave me hanging

How the standard StarCraft greeting became "gl hf" I'll never know. But I'm an artsy fartsy kind of guy. I have to be different. For years, playing go in KGS, I used the greeting "Long days and pleasant nights." It's from a Stephen King book. But once an opponent finally gave the correct response, "May you have twice the number," I knew it was time for something different.
I closed my eyes, and came up with, "May the best man win."
I'm not sure where that one comes from, but I imagine an old 1800s pistol duel. Maybe over a woman.
The other day I used that greeting, and randomly got Zerg again a Protoss opponent. I did my usual build, an economical 7 pool. He scouted and walled off by the time my six lings got to his base. Wp. Which ushered us into a macro middle game. Six bases later, I typed gg. As he bulldozed my army, I watched the gg fade out without a reply. No gg?, I typed.
I don't gg cheesy players, he responded.
Which was fine by me, because I don't click surrender for people who leave me hanging. I look at the gg I'm much the same way as a high five. Sure, you can leave me hanging. But don't expect me to do you any favors. I'll alt tab out and play WoW or take a bio before that. I mean, while a seven pool may be cheese, it's not like the pros are above it. And he won! How is it that StarCraft may be the only game with regular sore winners?
Next time you play StarCraft, I urge you to not take the game personally, and show some respect to your worthy opponent.

PS I got into the HotS beta yesterday! I can't wait to blog all about it.

Let's face it, StarCraft is in a slight decline at the moment. Don't feel sorry for blizzard -- it's their fault! With the recent release of Mists of Pandaria, what gamer hasn't given up a slice of their video gamer playing pie to the new game on the block?
Despite spending more time than usual as a druid, I still try to for in my daily set of StarCraft games. sets of three, of course.
My first game was a PvT. I was happy to win by teching to colossus and smashing him in open battle.
What surprised me was that he turned our to be a diamond ranked player. Diamonds don't usually lose straight up like that.
Second game was a TvP. Imagine my surprise when he scouted me, saw I was terran, and promptly began canon rushing my front door. I had already walled off, mind you. So I built a bunker, just to be safe, held off the rush, and won in the first few minutes. Turns out that clown was diamond as well.
Who does that, I wonder? Until now, I thought diamond ranked players were better than that. Blind cheese will never work as good as scouted, planned cheese. I can only assume he blind cheeses me because I play as random. But honestly, we can invoke Sun Tsu here:

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat fights first and then looks for victory.

My domination over the gold league continued. I believe it was my tenth win in a row before I received a promotion back into platinum. And not just mid level, they placed me in the top ten.
It does make me wonder, for the umpteenth time, about the whole secret MMR that Blizzard uses. Was my MMR really that low at the beginning of the season? Did it really jump up so high? It sure would be nice to know.
Any way, since my promotion, I've managed to lose more games than I'd care to admit. Allof those losses due to rushes.Am I just unlucky, or are people rushing more? Either way I can't really complain because, as a random player, I cheese 7 pool every time I ZvP. And I've gotten really good at it.
In other news, Blizzard removed the WarHound! I totally called it! See my post below for the proof. It's quite obvious. As many players have pointed out, WarHounds really were OP. They beat marines, and more importantly, people weren't using marauders anymore.
My next prediction is that they will reintroduce the unit, with the haywire missile as a cast spell. Probably with improved damage. What was OP to A move will be slightly more fair if it requires micro.
But the larger, more important questionis, do they need another unit? Is there really a hole in the terran unit meta game?
Ihonestly have to answer, no. The WarHound feels to me likemore of an attempt to add to the game to justify a second purchase, than a true balancing. Terran was and still is the most robust race. If Blizzard is going to make me buy the game two and three times, fine. I'll admit I'm their bitch. But as a person who doesn't even play the single player campaign, I'd prefer they didn't try so hard to add to the multiplayer just to pad their wallets. What's next, monthly fees ala WoW? Let's not give them any ideas.

Season four just started. Once again, Blizzard asked us to play a single match to determine our placement. I had been in platinum, but sadly, on a losing streak.
I hate to call my losing steaks, losing steaks, because really, they're not. They're terran streaks, my worst race. Random a few terran matches in a row, like I had done the day before, and I fall right out of the top nine.
But my terran streak was a particularly bad one. I found myself being matched against silver opponents! Smurfs,I hoped, though deep down I had a fear that my MMR had indeed dropped that low.
So I played my placement match, won, and was promptly demoted to gold.
Now at first, this was a sad moment for me. Damn you, Blizzard, I'm better than that! The least they could do was show me my MMR so that I could have seen it coming.
Then I played a few matches, and they totally redeemed themselves. Playing against gold ranked opponents is fun. It's easy fun! I makes me feel like a God! Like if Scarlett and Taeja had a love child. I started out in the middle of gold, around 50. After the most fun gaming session in memory, I was number one.
Lets not forget that Blizzard changed the way their sham ranks work. Now, supposedly, number one gold really means you're at the top of gold. Not just at the top of some intermediate, invisible tier.
But I'm also on the longest winning streak of my StarCraft career. Eight or nine wins!
So my official stance on my demotion had changed. Thank you, Blizzard. Thank you,for making me the king of my golden hill.

What's in a word? How powerful are words, anyway?
If therewas a most powerful word in the English language, there is no doubt it would be the word 'star'.
For me, personally, it would be, anyway. But I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one. Lets go down the list and review things that I like, or have liked, with the word start.
The classic video game, StarControl 1 and 2, but not 3. StarCraft 1 & 2. Star Wars 4, 5, and 6, but not 1, 2, or 3. Star Gate the film. Star Hustler, the astronomy show. Most recently, Star Jeweled, the StarCraft mod. And let’s not forget, most commonly, StarBucks, where I’m a gold member. While we’re on the subject of caffeine, I do not always drink energy drinks, but when I do I prefer RockStar.
I hate to think I'm some kind of sucker. But if there was a magic word to make me like something, it would definitely be star.
Are you reading this in total agreement? Or are you reading this thinking I must be sone kind of loon? Hit me up on twitter and let me know. @maulakai

This morning i woke up early. How often does that happen? Not sure what to do with my time, and not wanting to go to work super early, i turned to StarCraft.
Keeping in mind, i play as random. My opponent, terran. He chatted me up fairly heavily, which was my first sign he was cheesing me. I didn't recognize it at the time. I 15 hatched him, my standard against terran. No done scout, as this was cloud kingdom, i had an overlord to see if and when he was moving out.
Not like I'm a pro or anything. But i didn't have to be to spot his push. It was a big red blob on the mini map that had cheese written all over it. With i wasn't fast enough to click over on the map, but i knew from the size and timing it was an all in with scv's in front of marines. Instead if saturating my natural, i held down the Z key. More zerglings, please.
By the time he got to me, i had a done almost done, a few lings, and a few drones in position. The spine never made it, but i was quite pleased with myself to clean up his attack with my next wave of lings. I'd lost a lot of drones, but i had to remind myself that he had lost more.
But he didn't gg. Somehow I'd left three drones on gas, so i went for lair, baneling nest, and a bit later, spire. I scouted him and saw no natural. There would be another wave then. This time i had a wall of spines, for queens and banelings to deal with it. He retreated.
A minute later with mutes on the field,i flew to his mineral line to repay the favor. Imagine my surprise when i saw nothing. Meaning he was already on his way in yet another all in.
I didn't have enough lings. Once again i needed drones, queens, lings and even my mutes. He killed all of them. Another late reinforcing round of lings cleaned it all up. I looked at what i had left. Nothing. He'd killed all my queens, drones and banes. I was about to gg when I decided to send that small hand full of lings to his base. I had over a thousand minerals banked. I started making drones and queens again.
Turns out his base was even more empty then mine. All he had was three mules, which i killed before forcing his orbital to liftoff. Just then, two marines popped, but even with so few lings, they didn't stand a chance.
He typed gg and gave me the win.
Just goes to show, you should never pull an Idra and quit, even after heavy losses. Never give up, never surrender. There's a good chance he's doing worse.

With the recent release of the new HOTS Beta, it's all anyone in the StarCraft 2 scene seems to be talking about anymore.
On that note, I would like to talk about it. Specifically, the WarHound.
Word on the interwebs is that this WarHound is the new imba. In a recent steam I heard "Nobody knows how to deal with them, yet."
I was lucky enough to catch one of the IPL Casts live on twitch.tv. Kevin "CatsPajamas" Knocke (@kevinknocke) made my day when he took my request for his unit tester. I asked to see Marauders vs WarHounds.
This wasn't just a random request either. Days earlier, trolling the official StarCraft 2 forums, I heard rants to the effect of 'Why is Blizz making a new unit for vs. armored units. That's what marauders are for.' My thoughts exactly. The WarHound seems eerily similar to a superfluous ground based vs. armored unit, a role that is already being fulfilled by a unit. Which is why I asked to see them both go head to head.
First run, they simply made a bunch of each unit vs each other. The WarHounds won easily. But next I request even resources, which I consider to be a better measure of a unit than say, even supply. I believe, at even resources, the marauders won by a single, low hp unit. This was a simple, A-move test. Which means that with micro and stim, the marauders would win every time.
Why again, are WarHounds in the game, Blizzard? The one thing I'm still not sure about is the specifics of the WarHound's attack vs non-armored units. But judging from teh HOTS games I've seen livecast and on youtube, I'd say the WarHound is destined to have a nerf.
The one question I'd really liked answered (that almost certainly never will be) is: Is Blizzard making more units to sell us, or are they actually filling holes 'n new roles?

Sets of three

Do you ever wonder how the professional gamers manage to play for hours on end without hurting their wrists? I do. Of course, the short answer is that they don't. They don't not hurt their wrists. As a matter of fact, pro gamers get injuries and surgeries all the time. Was i the only one who cried a little bit inside when i saw Taeja hiding his arms behind his back during an interview? When he did flash us those wrists, they were bandaged all right.
Apparently being imba isn't free.
That's part of the reason why i usually try to take my StarCraft I'm sets of three. Whenever i sit down to play,i have it I'm my head that I'll play three games and then do something else.
At first, playing in sets made me feel like such an old man. Like, hey, I'm not 27 any more. Better give the old wrists a rest. Aside from getting more RL stuff done, from all the chores I've wound up doing in between sets, it also lets me know how i stand with victory.
Play an even number of games and you'll never know. Or rather i should say maybe you'll never know. What happens if you win half and lose half? But play three games, that magic number, and you'll know where you stand. Playing three games of StarCraft in the morning is my own personal way of reading the horoscope. If i win two of three, it's a winning day. And if i win all three, it's a sure sign that Victory is smiling down her love on me.
Also, I'm pretty sure that Victory wants me to avoid repetitive motion injuries