Slashdot Mirror


Blizzard Releases StarCraft Patch

NRP128 writes "Blizzard has released an update for the aging StarCraft real time strategy game. From the official site: 'We have released a mini patch for StarCraft (1.12b) to address a crash that occurred for certain players using the new Korean chat functionality in patch 1.12. Please see the patch notes for further details.' Several new features seem to have been added in addition to the Korean chat functions. The patch notes can be found on the Starcraft site.

12 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Impressive by XenoRyet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm actualy suprized/impressed that they are still activly maintaining Starcraft. I knew Blizzard was cool.

    --
    If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
    1. Re:Impressive by Drac8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Indeed, Starcraft was and still is one of the best RTS games and its soo cool to see blizzard still fixing it. I read in a CGW mag. that there is a starcraft mod in development for War 3. Lets hope Blizzard is as cool as they usually are and lets them continue (they were waiting a response from Blizzard about it).

    2. Re:Impressive by Drac8 · · Score: 3, Informative

      AH here we go!, Found it for ya http://revolution.wc3campaigns.com/

  2. It's nice... by InfallibleLies · · Score: 4, Informative

    ..to see that some companies actually support their product this long after its release. Everyone else is only concentrating on their current products, the ones that are making them money.

  3. Update: ladder for newbs now by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to be a top ranked Starcraft player, I'd say changing the ladder speed from fast to fastest removes a great deal of micro tactics. So many tactics, I could make a good argument that there would be less skill involved. But I don't care anyway, I stopped playing because people started map hacking. If map hacking was stopped in its tracks early on, Starcraft may still be popular today.

    1. Re:Update: ladder for newbs now by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The race power question is answered this way: Which map are you playing, and is it broodwar. Broodwar islands has the most imbalanced race: Protoss. You can use a strategy I invented: DarkTemplar+ Shuttle + TONS of corsair. You can destroy any expansion with DT+ shuttle, and they can't run detection on you because the corsair defeat it. I went 72-0 on ladder with it, only to be defeated in semi-finals worlds (25,000$ tourney) because people scouted on me and the guy had good luck. If things get bad for this initial strategy, you mass expand to every island and put up cannontowers/templar for psistorm and its almost impossible to take out any of them.

      If you're not on islands and start extremely close, its not zerg that wins, but terran. Do 4-6 marine + 4-6 scv, and nothing can stop it feasably. I dominated river styx with this opening strategy.

      Like chess, Starcraft is all about who could get the upper hand fastest. Once you have the upper hand, you can use strategies to sure up your lead and theres little the enemy can do about it. I've played games that escalated the whole way up to Carriers and BattleCruisers before someone started to get an advantage, but those are 1/1000 games. Warcraft3 is a newb game, where you can lose half your army and come back to win if you click faster than your opponent. There was some solace in the rest you can do by changing up to a conservative strategy in Starcraft.

      For the most part zerg has the upper hand though, especially on fastest. You need to be able to micro to stop a good zerg, and its unpredictability. To crawl up your forces with siege or microing psistorm, you need the game to be slow. The mass drop of zerglings/hydrolisks is the biggest imbalance in the game. Protoss and Terran have to pay for their dropships, but zerg gets theirs for nearly free. Terran almost has to put all their forces together to stop zerg, so when you spend time to push out from your base, and they drop way back inside your base, you lose all your buildings. Protoss's psi storm was weakened last patch so you can no longer rely on cannons/psistorm to stop the drop.

      I also prefer traditional Starcraft over Broodwar. Broodwar's units completely cancel out the short game. You can have the upper hand early on, but the mid game units can level the entire playing field. Of course, most players aren't top notch and just like to use all the units in the game without earning them by playing a competitive game.

      A majority of players aren't skilled enough to play a game of Starcraft and tech successfully against a good player, but teching is absolutely necessisary for Broodwar. So a majority of players like Broodwar over Starcraft because it makes them feel like they're using a wider range of units. They don't see that by being forced to tech to tier 3, they lose 1/3 of the game(tier 1).

  4. OMG ZERG RUSH! by darkmayo · · Score: 3, Funny

    KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE.

    oh and nerf Pallies.

    --
    "I am a kernel in the linux army"
  5. "Teh suxxor" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, too bad they didn't eliminate the suck.

    WoW still does have a lot of problems, but I think it's pretty good for a MMORPG in its 2-3rd month of being public.

    1. Combat system is purely level based. If you're more than three levels lower than a target, it can slaughter you and there's not a damned bit of skill you can use to prevent that. All your attacks will miss and all your abilities will be resisted. This goes for both PVE and PVP.

    I've soloed in PvE creatures that were 5 levels above me with my Paladin. Most of the time, fighting monsters more than 3-4 levels above me is death though. That is how it should be in PvE. It is annoying in PvP though. Blizzard in their manual states that 'level shouldn't matter as much in PvP' but any of my spells/seals/judgements as a paladin miss in PvP if the Character is 4 or more levels higher than me. This is plain annoying, and not skill based at all.

    2. Mobs link like mad, and there's absolutely no way to pull them.

    The only mobs that link are the ones that are super huddled together and not roaming around. It's usually pretty easy to tell which ones will arggo together and which ones wont. It's easy to pull too, as long as you have a ranged weapon or spell. I'm not sure why you would have any trouble, as this is usually pretty obvious.

    This means that a quest involving level 10 monsters may not be completable until level 20, since you won't be able to take on four or five level 10s until that time.

    I've never had this happen. The only quests I've ever needed help with are the elite quests in which blizzard states you need multiple players.

    Unless you're a mage, the only class with croud control abilities.

    My paladin can get arggo'ed by 3-4 enemies of about the same level and live. I have a rogue that doesn't have trouble with 2-3 enemies as long as he uses potions.

    3. Insane respawn times. Mobs respawn very, very quickly, such that most of the times I've died have been because mobs I'd already cleared out suddenly started respawning.

    I haven't seen this at all, most mobs don't seem to respawn for 5-10 min. Mob's that do respawn quickly are usually something that players look for so they can grind on that mob (and blizzard ends up 'fixing it').

    Combined with #2, this makes for some painful gameplay, as you clear your way through a cave only to have the path out all link down on you since they respawned while you were healing.

    Huh? I've went into caves before that were my level, and yeah sometimes once you get to the end of it and do whatever it is you came for when you go back the mobs will have respawned. But you either just kill them again, or hearthstone out to avoid the walking. The mobs for the most part don't link in caves that aren't instances (which are elite so you need more than one person)

    Are you playing a priest or a mage? If so you might want to take up a class that doesn't die as easily.

    Of course, once dead, you're almost guarenteed to die several more times, since you can only ressurect at your corpse and all the mobs in the area will have respawned.

    The area in which you can respawn is pretty big, you don't have to respawn right next to where you died. You can easily look and see where the mob is, and walk away from it and respawn.

    Rule #2 guarentees there'll be no escape. Unless you res at the graveyard, in which case you have to waste 10 minutes waiting for res sickness to wear off, and probably need to run back anyway to complete whatever you were doing. In some cases this is actually less time than it would take to repeatedly die at your corpse.

    It depends, but if you are dying on the same quest over and over again maybe you should level up before trying

    4. Quest and shop NPCs can be killed. This means that more often than not, you'll be unable to complete a quest because some Horde

  6. Unit colors on map by subbawt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The colors of units on the map should be customizable. It sometimes gets confusing for us color blind folks, especially when being sneak attacked.

  7. Not a surprise at all by *s.panzer* · · Score: 4, Informative

    that blizzard is updating starcraft. Its the number one game in Korea and there are two 24/7 starcraft stations there. I mean seriously!

  8. Why do ppl still play it? by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because It's good. Period.

    --
    Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
  9. And of course... by Tuxedo+Jack · · Score: 3, Funny

    The patch was released to fix the chat function because, as we all know, that in Korea, only old people play Starcraft.

    --

    Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!