Baneling BBQ: Honored Protoss Zealot

by Emil Erlandsson

Visit Baneling BBQ for more cartoons from Emil Erlandsson

Starting this Friday, the ESEA LAN Playoffs and Finals for season 8 kicks off in Dallas, Texas. ESEA has released the official schedule for the event below.

Day 1 – Friday, April 29 – Starting at 5:00pm CST 

Day 2 – Saturday, April 30 – Starting at 10:00am CST 

Day 3 – Sunday, May 1 – Starting at 9:30am CST

The event will be streamed on ESEA.net, ESEANews.com and via Justin.tv, which can be found below.

In a shocking blow to the gaming community over the weekend, Sony’s Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media, Patrick Seybold has alerted all PlayStation Network and Qriocity users that their data has been accessed by an “unauthorized user.” According to Seybold, names, addresses, emails and possibly credit card information have been obtained by the user, posing a potential security risk for all involved.

Below is the official letter from Sony:

Valued PlayStation Network/Qriocity Customer:
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network. In response to this intrusion, we have:

• Temporarily turned off PlayStation Network and Qriocity services;
• Engaged an outside, recognized security firm to conduct a full and complete investigation into what happened; and
• Quickly taken steps to enhance security and strengthen our network infrastructure by re-building our system to provide you with greater protection of your personal information.

We greatly appreciate your patience, understanding and goodwill as we do whatever it takes to resolve these issues as quickly and efficiently as practicable.

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

For your security, we encourage you to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information. Sony will not contact you in any way, including by email, asking for your credit card number, social security number or other personally identifiable information. If you are asked for this information, you can be confident Sony is not the entity asking. When the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services are fully restored, we strongly recommend that you log on and change your password. Additionally, if you use your PlayStation Network or Qriocity user name or password for other unrelated services or accounts, we strongly recommend that you change them, as well.

To protect against possible identity theft or other financial loss, we encourage you to remain vigilant, to review your account statements and to monitor your credit reports. We are providing the following information for those who wish to consider it:

U.S. residents are entitled under U.S. law to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus. To order your free credit report, visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228.

We have also provided names and contact information for the three major U.S. credit bureaus below. At no charge, U.S. residents can have these credit bureaus place a “fraud alert” on your file that alerts creditors to take additional steps to verify your identity prior to granting credit in your name. This service can make it more difficult for someone to get credit in your name. Note, however, that because it tells creditors to follow certain procedures to protect you, it also may delay your ability to obtain credit while the agency verifies your identity. As soon as one credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the others are notified to place fraud alerts on your file. Should you wish to place a fraud alert, or should you have any questions regarding your credit report, please contact any one of the agencies listed below.

Experian: 888-397-3742; www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: 800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
TransUnion: 800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790

You may wish to visit the web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft or reach the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580 for further information about how to protect yourself from identity theft. Your state Attorney General may also have advice on preventing identity theft, and you should report instances of known or suspected identity theft to law enforcement, your State Attorney General, and the FTC. For North Carolina residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 9001 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-9001; telephone (877) 566-7226; or www.ncdoj.gov. For Maryland residents, the Attorney General can be contacted at 200 St. Paul Place, 16th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21202; telephone: (888) 743-0023; or www.oag.state.md.us.

We thank you for your patience as we complete our investigation of this incident, and we regret any inconvenience. Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible. Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.

Sincerely,
Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment

A few days ago word got out that Blizzard was looking to adjust the balance of StarCraft II to weaken the popular Four Warpgate Rush. Tonight Blizzard released the notes for their 1.3.3 patch which is on the Public Test Realm.

The changes include:

Balance

PROTOSS
Archons are now a massive unit.
Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.
Cybernetics Core
Research Warp Gate time increased from 140 to 180.
Gateway
Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37.
Stalker train time decreased from 42 to 37.
Zealot train time decreased from 38 to 33.
Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.

TERRAN
Ghost
Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.
Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.

ZERG
Spore Crawler
Root time decreased from 12 to 6.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.
Fixed a bug where players were still able to stack flying units on top of each other.

Obviously, the biggest change that will affect popular play is that units coming out of a Warpgate take more time to train than units from standard Gateways. While this will have the desired affect of weaker Four Gate rushes, there will likely be a shift to proxy Gateways in its place.

It is important to note that these changes are just on the PTR. Also, this does not mean that any of these changes will be rolled out in the next patch. The PTR serves as a testing ground for Blizzard to see how the community will adjust if these changes were made.

Weekend Update: April 22nd-24th

by Alex “Yeunanimous” Yue

This weekend was absolutely packed with great StarCraft II action. With the NASL and the TSL3 running on both Saturday and Sunday, SC2 fans were in the great position of having too many great games to watch at once.

NASL

Kicking off with the NASL’s Saturday show, the first game of the day saw the two German titans HasuObs and Goody going head to head. In a thrilling match up, HasuObs showed some impressive play netting him the win 2-1. The second game of the night was Brat_OK vs. Machine. Brat_OK won the first game, however, Machine managed to collect himself and won games 2 and 3. CatZ vs. SeleCT was up next. Showing off his aggressive style, SeleCT took down CatZ 2-0. StarTale’s ACE vs. compLexity’s Stalife was up next. Unfortunately for Stalife, ACE cleaned house 2-0. The last match of the night saw Ret vs. MC. Despite being the underdog, Ret managed to beat MC 2-0.

Sunday’s edition of the NASL saw Tyler vs. Drewbie. Looking like his old self, Tyler dominated winning 2-0. The next game was between Socke and PainUser. In an exciting back and forth match, Socke’s Warp Gate play proved too strong for PainUser ending with a score of 2-1. Game three was between MaNa and Zenio. Showing why Korean players are held with such high regard, Zenio ended MaNa 2-0. The next game was IdrA vs. Cloud. Highlighting his macro style, IdrA crushed Cloud 2-0. In an amazing rematch from last week’s TSL3 gamers were treated to Boxer vs. Sen. Firmly stating that “The Emperor” is on a come back, Boxer beat Sen 2-1.

TSL 3

Saturday’s edition of the TSL3 saw MC vs. ThorZaIN and Kas vs. Adelscott. Starting off with Kas vs. Adelscott, both players put on a fantastic show, however Kas played a nearly flawless game allowing him to win 3-1. MC vs. ThorZaIN also was a match for the ages. Going all the way to a game five, ThorZaIN and his patented Thor builds proved too strong for MC allowing him to move to the round of four.

Sunday’s first game saw compLexity’s CrunCher vs. NaNiwa. In a fantastic PvP series which went all the way to game five, CrunCher was finally taken out by NaNiwa. Note that this isn’t anything to be ashamed of, NaNiwa recently had a monumental 24-2 run at this past MLG Dallas. The last game of this weekend’s TSL3 saw Boxer vs. HasuObs. Recently Boxer has been doing quite well, especially considering he was really having a rough time up until two or three weeks ago. Unfortunately for Boxer, his recent winning streak was ended by HasuObs who crushed him 3-0.

The V

This week’s edition of The V saw the newly famous Spanishiwa (current champion of The V) versus VTGaming’s Spades. In this great ZvT series, Spanishiwa proved that his last outing in The V was no fluke. Going to game six, Spanishiwa continued to show that he is capable of using both his own unique style, as well as other more standard Zerg styles. Congratulation to Spanishiwa for holding onto his crown as champion of The V.

To watch the series, click here.

One of the most valuable things to help amateur StarCrat II players improve is to pick the brain of other StarCraft II enthusiasts. Obviously not everyone gets to rub elbows with the SC2 elite, however thanks to ESEA and their newest edition of “Playing Toss with coL.Antimage #2” you can get the next best thing; a replay of a game plus a full walkthrough of every decision made by compLexity’s Antimage.

In this second edition of the series, Antimage walks you through the PvT game on Tal’darim Altar LE that put him into the Grandmaster League.

Antimage walks you through how to deal with a meching Terran player who also adds in some Banshees and Vikings by using Colossus and Stalkers.

If you’re a Protoss player, do yourself a favor and give this article a looks over. Chances are you’ll pick up on some subtle techniques that will really help your play come along.

Click here to view Playing Toss with Antimage #2

In a post by Kapeselus, a community manager at Blizzard, he mentions that Blizzard is currently looking into the 4Gate by Protoss players.

According to him, it is possible that the fix will come in the form of a nerf or reduced build times, however this has not been made clear yet.

Below is the entire post from Kapeselus:

Hello to you, Protoss players. I am coming with a gift of information that some of you may find interesting!

We have been looking into the 4gate issue and our designers have played with a lot of different fixes and changes, even those that were not strictly numbers related. While strong, 4gate is a lesser problem in other matchups, but we recognize that PvP is a different story.

Just throwing a nerf bat at warpgates would make protoss weak in early game. This is why we are currently looking at increasing warpgate research time, while at the same time compensating for it with reducing build time of protoss tier 1-1.5 units (though build times reduced only for gateways, cooldowns will stay the same for warpgates). This is an example of a fix you may see, but our developers plan to explore further options, before the patch officially hits.

We will address 4gate in the next patch.

Battle.net Forums

To view the original forum thread, click here.

Tomorrow will mark the debut of IGN’s new Starcraft II ProLeague. Up until recently, a lot of the details surrounding the league have been pretty vague, especially regarding how the games will be streamed and if VODs will be available.

Today, via facebook, the IGN ProLague announced that “Our VODs will be: 1. In HD 2. 100% Free 3. Available to everyone.”

Now this may not seem like big news, however when you consider how the other major StarCraft II leagues distribute their content, it takes on more weight. For example, to have access to the NASL’s HD stream and VODs, you need to pay $25 for an HD pass. Even for the GSL, you need to pay $10 to watch VODs.

To check out the IGN ProLeague, head over to their website tomorrow at 8 PM EST.

Today the organizers for The Copenhagen Games Xperia PLAY tournament announced the groups for the first group-stage of their Counter-Strike tournament. The groups are:

The format of the tournament will see the top two teams from each group advance to the second group-stage. Third and fourth place teams will advance to the B-tournament, while fifth placed teams will go on to play the C-tournament. It is important to note that teams who have played each other in the first group-stage will not be put into the same second group-stage.

With €20,000 (~$28,000) in prize money on the line, The Copenhagen Games Xperia PLAY tournament is sure to be hard fought and full of great games. Be sure to tune into HLTV.org on April 21st through the 23rd as they will be providing coverage of the event.

Image courtesy of HLTV.org

Last night, Artosis posted a video to his Youtube channel showing off some of the behind-the-scenes action from this past GSL World Championships. On top of that, Artosis is also giving away a copy of StarCraft 2 signed by Incredible Miracle’s MVP, World Champion of SC2. In order to win this copy of SC2, you need to subscribe to ArtosisTV, favorite one of his videos and post the link in the comments of this video. The winner will be announced on April 24th at 5:00 PM KST.