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Starcraft News for Feb 8th



Antioch Chronicles Special Edition
Here's some news from Auspex ya'll might find interesting :)

Hey, everybody. For you campaign fans out there, I'm happy to announce that a new v1.04 Special Edition of Episode I of The Antioch Chronicles will soon be available for download, featuring completely restored and enhanced sound, new altered hero portraits, balance and compatibility updates for SC1.04/BW, and some other surprises, all to get you pumped and ready while Episode II keeps stewing back at the ol' campaign headquarters. Drop by the site and check it out! There are even sound samples and portraits to look at if you're curious. Have fun.


HOMM III Movie
Lan's drooling over some HOMM III movie and grabbing himself in unreported areas. Little more than we needed to know, huh? :) Hell he got so excited he forgot he didn't work at StarShack anymore :p If you want to get in on the drool fest download the Intro movie here from The Nether Gods. Only 14mb!


Fenix Demo Mission
SC Legacy has released a demo mission for the campaign they're working on. It's mission 18 of the campaign, a sideplot mission that won't give away any of the story. Features 2 new hero voices, new title screen and a new victory screen. Get more info on the campaign and download the 4.5mb Fenix Demo Mission here. Feedback is encouraged.


ZILEASERIZER 2000 BETA MODEL!
This is lol ! Go here and choose a unit, choose an imbalance issue, pick a Protoss unit and be amazed, hehehe. [ news source - sc legacy ]


X-Files Like it Should Be
The X-Files was so good last night!! Bout time they filled in some of the holes. I was beginning to think Chris Carter had told so many lies even he forgot what the truth was.


Another Bill Roper Interview
The Diablo II Graveyard snagged an interview with Blizzard titan Bill Roper. The interview deals totally with Diablo II and some of the hot issues and chars in the game. Read it here.


Game Reviews
Avault has a reviews up on Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire, Gangsters: Organized Crime and Rainbow Six Mission Pack: Eagle Watch. IGN has some screens and a preview up on Starfleet Command.


PlayStation Emulator Gets Go Ahead
A San Francisco Federal Court rejected Sony's request to put a restraining order on Connectix Virtual Game Station. Read more in this IGN article. Maybe now we'll see the Nintendo Emulator, UltraHLE, site reopen. Gamespot also has an article on the decision.


Quake III Arena Screens
Gamespot UK got some new screens of Quake III Arena to whittle away the wait over. View them here.
Starcraft News for Feb. 7th



Win BroodWar!!
LorDeep of The Starcraft Network tells me they are giving away a free copy of Brood War. All you have to do is fill out a form (Name, email and ICQ# if you have it) and your entered! Doesn't get much easier than that :) Enter here.


Firebat Man Gifs Found !!
Those that have been around since the Starcraft Beta days will remember the Gif Wars. They had to be one of the more inventive ways we found to make the time pass while we waited for SC. Many were lost over time and sites shutting down, but I'm thrilled to announce I got my hands on the Firebatman series by Magmus. He sent me links and permission to put Firebat Man up on the Gif Wars Page so if you've never seen these before, or like me, have been looking for a copy for forever todays the day :) I've got all three in the series, so get clicking and Enjoy :) And thanks Magmus!

Fire-Batman (Firebatman saves the SouthPark cast)
Fire-Batman: Kidnapped (Hydralisk Boone and Zerganator kidnap Alfred)
Fire-Batman: Staying Alive (Captain Planet teams with Fire-Batman to take out a disco crazed Frotoss)
Check out all the Gif Wars!


Site of the Year Awards
SC Legacy took the top 10 thing one step further and put up the Starcraft Site of the Year Awards. Categories include Best Campaign, Best Customs Site, Best Program, Best Strategy Site, Most Appealing Layout, News Site of the Year, Best Site Run by an Individual, and StarCraft Site of the Year. I'm very proud (and surprised) to say that this site won Best Site Run by an Individual :) Thanks for the heads up SC Legacy :) Check out all the awards here and congrats to all the sites!




Win More Stuff
The Unholy Battlegrounds is having a contest to win 2 Brood War T-Shirts and 2 WarPig Action Figures. All you have to do to win is send in the funniest picture you can from a Blizzard game complete with a caption. Editing is allowed. For more details go here. Contest ends February 19th. Only US and Canada residents eligible.


Download Enslavers Campaign
New Campaign From Blizzard !!!
Blizzard's map of the week this time is a new single player veterans level campaign. It looks like there will be a new level every month! Download Enslavers: Dark Vengeance, Episode 1 The Rescue Now!! Requires Brood War to play. Get all the info and follow the installation instructions here.


Brood War Music
Blizzard has released the Brood War Intro Music in mp3 format. Download it now (2mb). If you don't have Winamp yet, grab it here.


Kali v1.62
This latest version adds support for Falcon 4, PowerSlide, Baldur's Gate, Tribes, Jet Fighter Full Burn, Worms: Armageddon and more. Download your upgrade here.


SC Screensavers and Icons
Here's a Protoss Screensaver created by X (bnet alias: KurenaiJiku) that has a large Protoss fleet flying across your screen. Download it here. If you like it, check out his site, X Productions (alot of excellent original Anime here) and his TC page Gundamcraft. SilverBerg at The Dark Conclave released his first SC Icons. Download them here. The Starcraft Network has a Hydralisk Screensaver at there site. You can download it here.


Starcraft News for Jan. 30th



Blizzard's Map of the WeekEnlarged Map View
The new map, Glacier Bay, is a Brood War Map. It's a 192x192 Ice World map for 2-4 players. Print the Enlarged Map View now. Here's the proverbial teaser :

"Each Dominion Defense Force recruit must pass a battery of tests that are designed to determine if they are truly worthy to serve with the finest fighting force in the galaxy. The most grueling of these trials is code named Glacier Bay. The recruits are informed that they will be stationed at an outpost overlooking Glacier Bay for routine training exercises. To their dismay, Dropships land them on a nearby island and the prospective soldiers are forced to live off the meager resources that their landing zone provides. This requires these prospective soldiers to work up enough intestinal fortitude -- or disdain for their situation -- to swim across the freezing waters to the mainland. This point is pressed once simulated hostile forces are thrown into the exercise." -- General Edmund Duke
Download Now! (118kb)


Detailed Medic Profile
Blizzard has updated the Compendium's Terran Strategy section to include the Medic profile. Covers unit stats, upgrades, detailed info on the special abilities and some strat tips too. I noticed that the Goliath profile also includes info on the Brood War upgrade, Charon Boosters now.

SC Wins Another One
IGN put up there Best of 1998 picks and Starcraft won Best Strategy Game of the Year. Best Online Game of the Year went to Starsiege: Tribes while Best Game of the Year went to Baldurs Gate. Find out who took the rest of the awards here.

Nintendo Emulator Pulled, Sony Sues Connectix
I guess this was to be expected. Sony has filed a copy-right infringement suit against Connectix, the company selling the Virtual Game Station, a full-feature emulator that allows you to play Sony Playstation games on a Maintosh PC. A PC version is in development. Connectix doesn't believe they have violated any intellectual property rights and for now continue to sell the emulator. Read more here at IGN.

As for UltraHLE, the Nintendo Emulator released yesterday, (see story) news isn't good either. The developers have pulled the software and shut down their website indefinitely. Thanks to Nukefest for this info.


Correction
Yahoo buying Geocities for $3.56 billion would work out to approximately $1,000 a member, not $10 as I first posted. *shakes head* I knew that didn't look right but was too lazy to pull out the calculator. Thanks to Jacob for pointing out the error.
Starcraft News for Jan. 29th



Who Says Girls Don't Play?
SoSo at Gamers Extreme got an interview with GiGGLeS~LiZarD. She's currntly ranked # 5 on b.net, holds her own with top ranked players and is representing b.net in the Kali vs B.Net tourney.

AlterNet's Diablo 2 Crypt: The Lost Scrolls
I don't normally announce site opening but what the heck :) This is the first site to concentrate exclusively on the characters of Diablo II, info on the classes, skills and their special abilities. The layout is inventive, I like the tone of it. The interactive skilltree is cool but it blipped around so fast I kept wondering if I was missing info. You can check it out from two prime locations http://alternet.gamegurus.net/Diablo2/ or http://www.diabloii.net/users/alternet/ .

Topaz Chat v3.010
I finally got around to uploading the latest version of Topaz Chat to the Downloads section. I still like this prog better than battle.chat, so much more stable and can't begin to list all the changes since I first posted this prog. Check the Readme.txt for a list of those. Download Now!

TopazChat is a battle.net chat interface that offers many features not normally available in Starcraft or Diablo, making chatting much simpler and flexible. It also has many automatic response features and whisper commands, allowing it to be used as a bot, a channel op, or just to annoy spammers in general. -Lady~Topaz-

Battlefield Communicator v1.2 Public Beta Released
First let me say they've shortened the name to Battle Com (my fingers thank them) and here's a very abbrevieated version of some of the new features. Get full details at Shadowfactor. They've also released the third public beta of the Battle Com Server. Download at the Shadowfactor now!

N64 Emulator Hits PC
IGN has an article up on a new program called UltraHLE, which is supposed to be a fully functional emulator for the Voodoo-equipped PC. Read the article here.
Starcraft News for Jan. 28th



Point of Convergence
SC Legacy released their new map yesterday, Point of Convergence. It requires Brood War to play, is a 192x192 Twilight Terrain for 2-8 players. Read the teaser and download it here.

Brood War Bugs
SC Legacy also had a couple bug reports up. Thought I'd pass them on:

On that blind Dark Archon bug...Is that a bug?? If his sight was reduced to 1, then wouldn't it make sense it would affect his spell casting range also? eh I'll mail Blizz.

Arsenal II Info
Magnus 99 has put up a new tutorial that is now compatible with the GUI changes made in the last release. View it here. On a side note Camelot Systems King Arthur announced that he has

"discovered the meaning of the "Group" variable on the "AI/Orders" page of the Units editor in Arsenal II - it corresponds to the number of a technology required in order for the AI/Order to be carried out. A value of 44 signifies that no technology is required. Any other value corresponds to the technologies in the order they are listed in the technology editor. A new release of Arsenal II will add a listbox for this item so that you don't have to guess on the number required here."

I'm sure that makes some of ya'll happy out there.

Missing in Action
Blizzard is still looking for these Season 3 Finalists to give them their plaques. If you know any of these people or how to get hold of them, please have them contact Blizzard through Battle.net (best found in the live tech support forum).

[B&G]MeToO
[B&G]Leon
[HoK]newhohoman
[HoK]Hi~Se_Ri
Lovely_Waiter

Intel Bows to Pressure on Privacy and Pentium 3
You've probably heard that Intel's new Pentium 3 chip has a built in serial number that identifies users in online transactions. Not surprisingly, Intel caught some flack over this. Late Monday, Intel said it will offer software to disable the processor serial number technology. Read more in Intel on Privacy: 'Whoops!'. Kind of surprising to me was Sun Industries comments in this article, Sun on Privacy: 'Get Over It'


Yahoo Buying Geocites - Yahoo is supposed to be buying Geocities and it 's 3.5 million members for $3.56 billion(U.S.) That's like what, $10 a member? Pretty cheap considering the advertising bucks geo must generate. Full story here.

In the News
Wired News had a lot of headlines that caught my attention (as you can probably tell from the 2 previous posts). Since news has been kinda slow lately so I thought I'd post 'em.

Microsoft, Intel Ties Explored
MSoft Goal: Limit Netscape
Microsoft Gives In on Temps - In defense of MS, I'm sure it isn't the only large company doing this tactic.
Anti-Abortion Site on Trial - Sometimes, the things people do in the name of Chritianity just doesn't sit well.


Starcraft News for Jan. 27th



Gamespot Throws It's Hat In
Gamespot has added their Brood War Game Guide. It looks pretty extensive with race overviews and info on all the units, not just the new ones, walkthru's for all the single player missions, cheat codes, etc... Check it out if you have the time.

Turok 2 Ships with Forsaken and Free Comic
Acclaim Entertainment has announced that Turok 2: Seeds of Evil is shipping Feb 9th for the PC. For a limited time, Turok 2 will ship with a special bundle, you'll get the full version of Forsaken free, and a limited edition copy of Shadow Man #1. Supplies are limited and not all retailers will have the special bundles so call ahead or order from Acclaims Online Store


Sex Sells, But She's Still Not Buying
About a year ago I posted about Farah Houston's article, Sex Sells, but I'm not buying. I got a lot of great feedback from ya'll on that. Time has passed and she's written a follow-up, Sex Sells - I'm still not buying. I think she's more angry this year than last.

I still can't say that I agree with all she has to say, although I love that that Sin banner shows up in her article, she comes off a little too angry for me. She also doesn't address the area that bothers me most. I hate the way games geared towards 10-15 yr old girls are such lame predictible themes as Barbie (fill in blank) and let's go shopping and the ever popular lets get a date for whatever the event is this time. I'm sorry but in this day and age I find them insulting, boring and wouldn't buy them for an 8 yr old. The only exception might be the digital camera Barbie game as at least it teaches them something useful, but again I'd prefer it not to be Barbie themed cuz hey! maybe there are some 8 year old boys out there who might like to give it a go.

So what would I like? Same thing I wanted last year. More female char options per class and it'd be nice if they had reasonably sized breasts or at least their boobs weren't fixing to pop out of the t-shirt. Course sometimes I don't mind strutting around like that, hmmmm. But hey I'll quit bitching about that as soon as I see some male chars walking around in a thong :) Turn around is fair play and yes girls like to look too you know :p

On a serious side tho, if game companies want to cater to the female gender, the first step I would probably recommend is concentrating on storyline. (sorry but research shows we like a good story) I don't really care to go in and absentmindedly blow things up for an hour, BUT give me a reason for it, a cause, and I'll tear it up and enjoy it while I'm doing it. (arcade games and shooters being the exception to this of course, although a good shooter storyline is cool) Next, and equally important, gimme replayability replayability replayability! I hate shelling out $50 playing it through once and going ok, that was fun... next! Lastly, make a great game, throw in some eye candy for me, humor is always appreciated and I think it will appeal to both sexes.

One last thing, with the online multiplayer trend explosion, I think you'll see more girl gamers hitting the scene. The social interaction is great and where else can you find a hundred guys to talk with in one night? And the cherry on the cake... you get a chance to whoop their ass :) Ok I'll shut up now and take my foot out of my mouth cuz I'm sure I stuck it in there at some point :\ And if you took the time to read this whole thing, I'm impressed :) and umm... you got a thong?? :) oops, there went that foot again. hehehe


Battle.net Buddy Monitor v2.01 Released
Bnet Buddy Monitor v2.01 created by Matthew Everett has been released. New features include the ability to send and receive messages to people on your list, search for people by account number, select which battle.net server the program uses, numerous bug fixes and a new interface. Download now! Thanks for the info Titan


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