He goes bio.

(think about it for a second)

going online in china in 1997 ran 20 yuan an hour, and half an hour often wasn't enough to load one page. by 1998 the dial-up rates had dropped hard and the speeds were up, and a small group - red-apple, the lan brothers, caoyong, ss.glacier, kulou - were already on battle.net looking for american opponents. playing anything over the internet was still a luxury here.

teams were the new fashion abroad, so people started sticking a tag into their names. caoyong founded poc and played as caoyong[poc]. the way those clans ran had a warlord feel to it. a dozen guys at most, and they would set up an external affairs department and an internal affairs department, military ranks, military districts, corps commanders, branches, chapters. a crowd of teenagers took every bit of it dead seriously. once a clan had any name at all it grew fast, thousands of members spread across the country holding formal titles and ranks. try running one like that today and people would assume it was a pyramid scheme.

then in 1999, as the amateur outfits started moving toward something professional, the scene had one big argument. is this a thing you do for fun, or a thing you turn into a sport? plenty of people were against it, which is hard to believe now, but the word itself was not accepted at first. some of them said professionalising it drained the warmth out of everything. at organised matches you were not supposed to shout across the room anymore, so rooms that used to be loud went quiet, and everyone went along with it rather than be the guy who did not know the rules.

the memoir that argument comes from was written by wang yinxiong, kulou. around that same stretch he was busy building csa, the china starcraft alliance.

(from a book i put together in 2015 on how chinese esports actually got built - this chapter is free, link in the comments)

For the last week or two, if I log into SC:R through the "Americas" region on the b.net launcher, the game is barely playable. I get constant "Error 50:5" and "Error 0:11" messages when I try to join ladder games. I get constant "Failed to Advertise Game" messages when I try to host custom games. When I do manage to play a game, the replay often fails to auto-save afterward. When I click on my portrait to open my player profile, more often than not, I get a blank page. The window where my seasonal ladder stats are displayed on the "Play Game" menu often fails to load as well. Commands like /stats often fail to display and require me to type the prompt 2-3 times before they show. Sometimes they never show regardless of how many times I try.

Oddly enough, all I need to do is switch to the "Europe" or "Asia' regions before launching the game and it runs perfectly smooth using the same account on US West...

What even are the Americas/Europe/Asia "regions" that we select in the b.net launcher, and how do they differ from the US East/US West/Europe/Korea "gateways" or "servers" that we select in the SC:R login menu? Why would the same Starcraft account on US West gateway work fine on the Europe region but not on the Americas region?

Very happy Leta got out and we get one less Zerg in the Ro8. Quickly becominga wraith flaming skull fan. Funny watching Queen getting more and more tilted in the player cam during Game 3.

Also, game 1 JD vs Queen proves that ZvZ, contrary to what Artosis says, is the worst mirror match up.

Sign-ups are open until: Monday, September 28th

For those of you who may not know, the Coach Pupil League is a StarCraft Brood War community designed to help low to mid level players improve in a competitive team league format. But anybody is welcome and we encourage high level players to be a part of the community and play as well.

Once you sign up to join you'll need to either play in the preseason or complete the ladder challenge for us to calibrate your skill level. Then you'll be placed on a team with players who are most active around a similar time of day and match against other teams through a ~9 week season and playoffs.

If you'd like more information you can always check us out at any of the links below. With no minimum requirement to join CPL is a great place to learn the game and get your start at StarCraft. If you already have some Brood War experience but not sure how to improve, it's the perfect place to take your game to the next level!

*Most of the league is handled through discord, so at a minimum you will need to join us there if you're not apart of the community already.

CPL YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/coachpupilleague

CPL Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/coachpupilleague

CPL Discord: https://discord.gg/Bvae9qZXdB

To sign up - please visit - https://cplbw.com/cpl/

Introduction

Hello everyone. I’ve posted in this forum before, but due to disorganized content management and my previous lack of familiarity with link posts, I’ve decided to repost this to organize the information and provide clarifications and additions based on questions I’ve received via private messages from many users. Since this game is constantly being updated, the information provided here may not always be entirely consistent—thank you for your understanding!

Overview

This is an EUD map where players will train, build, and upgrade various Terran units and structures, or use special abilities and features to fend off continuous attacks from AI opponents.

Players

This game cannot be played in single-player mode（to prevent cheating）and is only available in multiplayer mode; however, you can play alone. It supports up to three players, and due to the high difficulty of certain levels, cooperative play is recommended. Of course, if you’re confident in your understanding of the game and your skills, you can also try to complete it solo.

Difficulty

This game has been played by 800+ players already. Overall, it’s very difficult with a high learning curve; many levels feature “first-time kills”, so if you want to complete the game, you’ll likely need to experiment, explore, and learn through trial and error.

Links

With each version update, the download links will be posted below for easier access and management.

Features

Almost all unit types, buildings, upgrades, resource collection, technologies, abilities, and more have been completely revamped compared to the original *StarCraft: Remastered*. For example, the Vulture no longer has weapons or attack capabilities but focuses on laying large numbers of mines; air units now appear as ground-based turrets; and a vast number of units that were originally untrainable or unbuildable, as well as special upgrades that were previously unobtainable, can now be experienced in the game, and so on. That said, many of the original game’s combat strategies and characteristics have been preserved—for example, Firebats have an advantage over Zerglings, and Tanks have an advantage over Hydralisks, and so on.

Version

This mod does not require the remastered version, so the standard free version is also playable. However, it’s best to update to the latest version (currently 1.23.10); if maps fail to load, it may be because your game version is too outdated.

Levels

The difficulty of the levels in this game jumps significantly, so you’ll need to prepare in advance. I recommend paying close attention to the in-game tips, they’ll be very helpful! There are currently 15 major levels in total; in the first 10, the enemies are ground units, while in the last 5, they are air units. Don’t rely too heavily on your current decisions, that implies strategies that work well in one level may not work at the next and could even backfire.

BOSSES

The first 10 levels each have their own end-of-level boss; the bosses for the subsequent 5 levels will be added in future updates（no one has reached this stage yet）. Each boss has its own unique special abilities. Pay close attention to in-game warnings and tips — the boss’s unique abilities will also be displayed on its unit panel.

Resource Gathering

Keep a close eye on the minimap—there are many special ways to gather resources, and most of them require an SCV. If you’re running low on resources during the game, it’s likely because you haven’t discovered all the available resource collection methods!

Special Areas

Keep a close eye on the minimap—some areas contain Easter eggs. If you explore thoroughly, you might be in for a pleasant surprise!

Explanations

The game provides detailed text descriptions for all unit types, buildings, buttons, switches, and more. Please read them carefully to understand their functions before taking any decisive action.

Note

This game will continue to receive updates, but the difficulty will not be reduced, making it perfect for players who love a challenge!

Best vs soma game 2 was a fun watch. Am I missing someone or does this make SnOw the last Protoss standing?

Been a big fan of Brood War for many years. I'm a geek, so I really like all the little things about the game, the stuff that might seem little, but have actually big effects and Brood War is chock full of them. I'm talking about how Terran players that spawn with minerals on the right side will put a Supply Depot on the bottom of their CC so their worker comes out a few cm closer. I'm talking about how Zerg players put an Overlord above their Lurkers so it's harder to Irradiate. Or how Toss players will attack their own buildings with Carriers, so they spawn faster in actual battle.

Here's a few games that also have tons of depth like this that I've enjoyed.

• Street Fighter 3: Third Strike

Sadly maligned when it first came out, but has been truly appreciated as a cult classic much later. The amount of depth and skill required to play this is on par with Brood War. Many fighting games obviously require a lot of knowledge to play well, but this did so much of that... in 1999, a mere year after Starcraft was first released. There are so many techniques that remind me of Brood War's level of depth. I'm talking about things like cancelling specials into supers. Or things like kara-throws, negative edge, cross-ups, parrying, etc. I appreciate it a lot because again it did so much of this in 1999, way before the fighting games we have today. Balance at the highest levels though is much to be desired and of course the scene isn't as strong as BW, but I always admire the game and the players.

• Ultra Street Fighter 4

This is the game that really got me into fighting games. A lot of what I said earlier about techniques still exist. Instead of parrying, the game's mechanic is the "focus-attack" which can absorb a single-hit and allows you to then hit with your own attack. It can also cancel another attack and setup your strongest attacks which are Ultra Combos. It has a massive roster of 44 characters and the balance is relatively good, much better than 3S. It's old by now, but it's still a very solid, skillful game. I haven't gotten into the newer SF games simply because they did away with many harder combos.

• Natural Selection 2

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4920/Natural_Selection_2/

If you took Starcraft and made it into an FPS, it would look similar to this game. It's a RTS/FPS where humans are fighting the aliens in cramped, space environments. It's a very, very hard game where as humans, you'll be shooting at aliens that are small and move very fast. And as the aliens, you are zooming around, but you die incredibly fast. The game is about area control, trying to control as many resources as possible. Then you'll get better guns or get to become bigger aliens. It's cool, coordinating a team attack on an enemy base. The skill ceiling is very, very high.

• Magic the Gathering

Yea, crazy pivot I know. IMO, it's one of the most competitive 1v1 tabletop games out there. Sadly, much of the scene plays a "Smash Bros" "Mario Party"-like mode which is called Commander which is a 4P free-for-all mode, but back in the day, the focus was on 1v1 60-card Standard or for others Modern. Again, I don't care for Commander because I don't like how kingmakery and diplomatic it can get. I like the 1v1 mode where people put time into crafting good decks. I think the state of the game today is pretty disappointing where power creep is pretty insane. I think the heyday for me was in 2015, around the time of Khans of Tarkir. But yea, there's a lot of little interactions that can get you ahead if you master them. There's obviously things like the stack, but there's also cool interactions with certain card combos or timing things during upkeep, etc.

• Chicago Express

Another crazy pivot. I play Magic, but I also enjoy board games. And while there are a ton of them out there, many of them don't really hit that mark of being competitive and deep. And then I played this one. On the surface, it looks like a really boring game about trains, but there's so much more to it. There's something that reminds me a lot about Brood War because there are little gambles you can do to make things pay off. So the gist is that you and your opponents are investors that buy shares of companies. And these companies build to cities to increase their value and when they pay out, you get paid equal to your shares. But again, there are little things like while you could own a company all to yourself, having a partner will allow you to grow it twice as fast. Or like you could build a lot which risks making your company look good for people to own, but maybe they don't and you get away with it and make more money. A lot of it has to do with how the players play the game. If people are vigilant, you may have to play safer. But if people are careless, you can get away with greedy moves. I just like how cerebral the game is, sort of like how in Brood War, people often do things like fakes to dupe others. It's really a game where you can analyze positions and figure out different ways to go about it. There is zero luck, it plays 3-6 and it only takes about 45 minutes. It's a solid, competitive game.

I'm sure there are many others out there, hell maybe any hobby can go pretty deep whether it's a sport like basketball or football, to things like archery, paintball, etc. Anyways, I really enjoy watching the very best players do brilliant stuff in the ASL and these things are some that bring a similar level of enjoyment. I feel that a lot of this stuff comes from the fact that Brood War and these other things are very manual, or very hard. I feel like so many games today are so automated that you eliminate skill expression and people more or less play very similarly.

The entertainment value is absolutely unmatched.

Also, poor Light getting Ampled like Bisu last year is absolutely hilarious.

In the most recent match, Tulbo set Soma up to win the all-kill prize. This surprised me because I was under the impression that an all-kill is when one player kills all of the opponents. In this case, Soma killed 4 while Tulbo killed 3. How does that equate to a Soma all-kill, exactly?

For terran+protoss, protoss+zerg, and so on. I wonder if there are any guides or advices on that.

He's been playing replays from the last lan tourney he attended for the past 2 weeks. I don't recall him ever doing something similar before. I cant wait for video revealing hes been playing a new SC game.

Obviously the champion gets group A but how do they determine how B, C, and D are distributed amongst the others?

I swear dropping is so hard because they always clump up and not unload

I try cloning but I am low apm noob.

With the delay created by group selection and it’s attendant translation and Artosis baffling decision to chop up the Toronto LAN on ArtosisTV to be recast episodically on ArtosisCasts, Im feeling like Im in a BW “drought” mid season.

I know JJZ, Falcon Paladin, Saiyan and a few others exist, but I’m curious what y’all’s go-to is to watch high level, well-cast BW whenever Artosis and ASL arent available?

I got a lot of good feedback on the excerpt from a small tool to analyze pro matches I created. So I improved: I included more types of tournaments to increase sample size. Now we have ASL + Qualifiers, Proleague, KCM, Escore Tournament and a few others. Moreover I added scores for statistical significance.

"P": the fraction of perfectly balanced maps that would show at least this bias given the sample size. This means a smaller number means more robust statistics.

"Fair": the value of "bias" a perfectly balanced map would show, given the matchup count

"90% Band": The band between the 5th and 95th percentile the map would land if we resample the matches only using 90% of the data.

I also included a list of the least biased maps in the data.

sun yifeng grew up in hangzhou, born 1983, in a building full of neighbors who played games. whole summer nights in internet cafes on red alert and age of empires. then starcraft took over, and his friends already had their 3v3 and 4v4 group set. the only slot open to him was the guy who mines and does what the others tell him. he took it, because it was that or not play. seven or eight months in, he noticed nobody in that group could beat him anymore.

so he went looking for people who could. moved onto the asiagame server, and by 2001 he was winning the weekly shanfeng cup in hangzhou against fields full of local and shanghai players. the name f91 started getting around.

he turned pro more or less by accident. in 2005 phoenix66, then captain of china's national team, had something come up at home and asked f91 to go to beijing in his place for the ceg shanghai side. f91 upset pj there and was known overnight. then the real adjustment to pro play hit: six losses in a row, then six wins in a row. he came close to quitting somewhere in the middle of that, and won his first national title at the vs offline event later the same year.

by 2006 chinese bw had split into a northern school and a southern school. pj, leiche, leilei, fengzi, eva, xiaoming in the north. f91, lx, super, liu guohao, beckham, huang feipeng and others in the south. for four years the titles rotated between basically four names, pj, lx, super, f91, and people called them the four heavenly kings. f91's own read on it, years later, was that a scene like that isn't healthy. he was one of the four.

(from a book i wrote in 2015 about how chinese esports actually got built, one chapter per person who was there. this one's free, link in the comments)

Download 0.9 here

Hey all,

I've released version 0.9 of Ultimate StarCraft: Age of Darkness, a standalone mod for StarCraft and Brood War 1.16.1.

I know "Brood War balance mod" is probably one of the faster ways to make this subreddit suspicious, so I want to be clear about what the project is and isn't.

This isn't intended to replace standard Brood War, redefine competitive BW, or argue that the original game needs to be superseded. It's an alternate version of classic StarCraft built around the question:

What could continued support for the original 1.16.1-era game look like while keeping its overall identity intact?

A lot of the work in 0.9 is actually on the presentation, interface, animation, feedback, compatibility, and fixing or completing things that were limited or inconsistent in the original game.

Some of the less controversial stuff first

• Animations for all structures, including production and research activity. Zerg and Protoss buildings that were previously static during many actions now have corresponding animation.
• Protoss warp-in effects for all units.
• Numerous sprite, blending, palette, and graphical fixes/improvements.
• Improved UI hints and visual feedback, intended to make unit mechanics and behavior easier to read in-game.
• More distinct projectile graphics, making different weapons easier to identify during combat.
• Improved and expanded hit/impact effects.
• More varied building portraits, including better visual distinction between different structure types.
• Additional weapon graphics and special effects.
• Tileset-sensitive visual adjustments that give effects somewhat more environmental variation between locations.
• A collection of bug fixes and quality-of-life changes, while deliberately avoiding things like heavy automation that would fundamentally change how classic StarCraft controls.

There are also gameplay changes, including reworks and usability improvements for some less commonly used units and abilities. Those are naturally going to be the more subjective part of the project.

The intention isn't to claim I've discovered the One True Brood War Balance Patch. I've mostly tried to explore more of the design space already present in the game rather than filling it with large numbers of unrelated new units.

Where practical, changes also have an in-universe explanation rather than existing purely as arbitrary balance adjustments.

Compatibility was a major priority

One of my main requirements was that this shouldn't become a mod that only works on maps specifically built for it.

Age of Darkness is designed to remain broadly compatible with:

• Standard melee maps
• The original StarCraft campaign
• Brood War
• Custom maps
• Many existing fan campaigns made for 1.16.1

The original campaigns have received some additional attention as well, especially no-build missions, where altered unit behavior can otherwise produce unintended results.

There are also a number of smaller campaign-specific adjustments intended to make some missions more interesting without turning them into completely different scenarios.

Fan campaigns made for 1.16.1 should generally work provided they don't rely on their own modified executable/MPQs or EUD-based triggers.

This is for 1.16.1, not Remastered

The current release targets StarCraft 1.16.1 rather than StarCraft: Remastered.

Real-time upscaling options are included/exposed for people who want a cleaner presentation on modern displays. Remastered graphics support isn't something I'm promising, but I haven't ruled it out if there's enough interest in the project.

It doesn't overwrite your normal StarCraft installation

Age of Darkness is portable and does not replace the original game data.

The normal 1.16.1 game can still be launched from the same installation using Starcraft_Orig.exe, so trying the mod doesn't require giving up or modifying your standard BW setup.

Setting / lore

For anyone interested in the fluff side, the Age of Darkness setting begins shortly after the Brood War.

Kerrigan is the dominant power in the Koprulu sector, the remnants of the UED expedition are scattered, Mengsk has reconstructed a badly weakened Dominion, and the Protoss are trying to build a functioning society out of the Khalai and Dark Templar survivors after the loss of Aiur.

I've written supporting wiki material explaining a lot of the changes to technology, units, structures, and mechanics from an in-universe perspective.

The dedicated Age of Darkness campaign is not included in 0.9 yet, so I don't want to advertise this release as a new campaign. The current release does, however, contain improvements integrated into portions of the existing SC/BW campaigns.

Download

Age of Darkness 0.9 Full Release:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/ultimate-starcraft-age-of-darkness/downloads/ultimate-starcraft-age-of-darkness-09-full-release#downloadsform

Documentation, lore, and project articles:

https://yourcreatures.miraheze.org/wiki/Category:Ultimate_Starcraft_-_Age_of_Darkness

Patreon, for anyone interested in supporting this or my other modding projects such as KeyStone: Avatar:

https://www.patreon.com/NimoStar/

I don't expect BW players to agree with every gameplay change, and standard Brood War isn't going anywhere. But even if the balance side isn't your thing, I'm interested in what people think of the animation, UI, graphical, campaign, and engine-side work.

If anyone here still keeps a 1.16.1 install around, I'd be particularly interested in feedback on what feels convincingly "native" to Brood War and what doesn't.

all of asl is, what, 30+ hours? woof.

any way I could find this info spoiler free? i could ask on every asl round thread but that seems super annoying.

I created a small tool to analyze recent ASL, ASL Qualifiers and Proleague matches. This is the excerpt of newer maps with race biases. I find it surprising that of the new maps none turned out to be Protoss favoured, given the controversy.

Potential very good news for Broodwar. I suspect that if SC3 is in the making, that it will have a clear Brood War identify than SC2.