Date: Starts May 28th, ends June 8th

Rule Change: While you have to be registered on the forum to submit an entry, there is no date before limit.

SC2 is fastly approaching, and will be a major portion of BlizzCon - we want you to show us you belong there by writing a good SC2 article. There are no particular topics needed aside from being SC2 related. Articles will be judged on effort, quality, accuracy and relevance to SC2, with bonus points awarded for telling site readers information about SC2 that is not already on the site here. The writer of the top article, based on criteria listed here, will be the winner of a BlizzCon ticket.

Articles are due by June 8, 2009 at 12 AM EST.

Please posts your articles in this thread!

Check out this thread for the other two Blizzcon ticket contests.

Details
- Articles must be reasonable length (Approximately 5-6 paragraphs max.)

i wish to enter the contest.

It looks interesting, but I doubt I'll be able to attend BlizzCon even if I get tickets, so I won't steal the chance from someone else. Good luck everyone!

alright here is my artical on sc2 hope it goes well with a big bang ^^.

Starcraft, a game that has been released eleven years ago, and to this day it remains one of the best and most important video games in history. Now the sequel to the greatest real time strategy game of all time is now under the way and due for November, with millions of people around the world biting their finger nails counting down the days until it hits the shelves. With a new game and a new wave of players, who knows what the limits of Starcraft Two will be, but from what I know it will be one of the biggest titles in the last five years in gaming.
Starcraft Two, a trilogy of mass production and micro managing genius will be released in the month of November 2009 prior to Christmas, but who can wait that long? Starcraft two will be broken up into three different games the first game or the original Starcraft Two is provisionally entitled Wings of Liberty which is the Terran campaign and the first look playable battle.net 2.0. The other two games will be titled Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void respectively. Battle.net 2.0 will be the brand spanking new battle.net to go with Starcraft Two and Diablo Three.
Terran the outcasts from Earth are back with a story of their own to tell. With Jim Raynor getting kicked off his vulture he is now back in an epic struggle between the Zerg and Protoss. The Terran in Starcraft Two will have many new units, special abilities, and new buildings in order to try and take over with their biological and mechanical unit mix. They are the second most mobile race in the game to Protoss and will remain to have high actions per minute in order to play at top level with them. Zerg the legends of Char the gift that dies and comes back and keeps on giving is now back with Kerrigan at command. Trying to wipe out the entire of all other races will be her desire and she will stop at nothing in order to get the job done. With the Zerg advancing and evolving into newer and more deadlier units they are the most in mobile race in Starcraft Two. The Zerg have gotten stronger and with new units and more abilities the fleshy Zerg will be a formidable foe. Protoss the technically most advanced race is back after the lose of Auir to show that the first born is really the best. With powerful units and the most mobile force in the game, the protoss will not be a race to fool around against. With all three races it will create a most epic and interesting game.
Now it is time for the most important announcement to be made for Starcraft Two. A forth race? You are asking a forth race; there is no such thing how could it be! Well its true there is a forth race. In the Starcraft book written by Gabriel Mesta There was a huge war on a backwater planet between the Zerg, Terran, And Protoss. The Terran Nuked the land enthuse destroying a crystal holding the secrets of the forth race and the ability to reborn this race. That forth race is the Xel’Naga creator of the Protoss and Zerg this is a mysterious race. So mysterious that Blizzard has kept a watchful eye on it and has not let it go out into public, but one Starcraft Two site has found wave of this and has posted it waiting for later information. The Site is www.starcraftzone.com which holds this information. Nothing is known about this new race other than it will be a fair fight for the Protoss, Zerg, and Terran.
Starcraft the Best RTS of all time came out in the year of 1998, eleven years later the most anticipated sequel will come out. There is only so much known about the game Starcraft Two, but it will be epic. I cannot wait for this game to come out and if you are reading this I can guess the same goes for you. Terran, Protoss, Zerg, or Xel’Naga which race will you chose?

Note www.starcraftzone.com was used as an info site.

OMG!!! I cant believe I didnt register in a WRITING competition D:<! ENGLISH MAJOR MAD D:<!!

Are we supposed to be criticizing the articles in this forum, or another one? I guess I'll tentatively put my criticism in a spoiler tag.

There is still plenty of time until June 8 to submit an article MageKirby.

This note:



When we say register, we meant register an account to SC2GG, not register to enter the contest.

Hate to burts your bubble but this is what i said, With the Zerg advancing and evolving into newer and more deadlier units they are the most in mobile race in Starcraft Two.
In mobile meaning they are the least mobile race in the game.
2nd. if you have watched any of the games that have been posted for sc2 you can clearly see that zerg has the most trouble getting on higher ground and moving about map, where terran and protoss have easiest time as in collousus, and reapers. also protoss blink? and warp pyrimid?

Oh, sorry. I was just finding the wording a little difficult to understand. The word you're looking for is immobile.

To be honest, I think the Zerg are probably intended to still be the most mobile race in SC2, particularly with Nydus worms which transport units long distances underground, spine crawlers which are moving buildings, Zerglings, which I believe are now the fastest ground units in the game (not sure about the Helion), and Infestors, which move while burrowed. Of course, the Zerg will still have ultramobile Mutalisks and hordes of drop-equipped Overlords, as well as production capacity from all around the map (this may even be increased with the Queen's Spawn Larvae ability).

nydus worm got cut from sc2. spine crawlers are slower than reavers.

The Nydus Worm was definitely not cut, and while Spine Crawlers are indeed slow, it would be hard to compare them to Reavers, which are no longer in Starcraft II. From the last Battle Report, though, the Spine Crawler seemed to be faster than a floating Terran building, which makes them the fastest moving building in the game.

nydus work is still in sc2

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT!


Get your entries in people..

Check the contest post for more details - go HERE!

here is my entry, if you guys need the text only version I have it on word
Sorry if there are some english mistakes this is not my native language I did the best I could
Enjoy!



feedback would be much appreciated! (1800words btw)

Woot, baller article mark =| lot of work in this!

thank you very much kastoria, it indeed took me quite a while to write it

Trooper:
and for the forth race you are talking about, It is the Xel Naga's the race that created both protoss and zerg(zerg were created by toss+xel nagas but/we thats not the point)
blizzard have comfirmed that in the multiplayer version fo the game, there will only be 3races(zerg terran protoss) but that it is nto impossible that we see Xel Nagas in the signle player campaing, but it is unlikely that it is going to be a playable race in campaign since there are three sc2 part of the game planned each being terran,zerg,protoss.
Great Article overall though

^{Starcraft 2 May Equalize Starcraft Professional Gaming}

When we observe professional gaming in Korea we see several motivated teams, an abundance of corporate sponsorship invoking and continuing prosperity in e-sports, television channels broadcasting to millions of viewers, stadiums full of inflatable tube-banging Koreans – even women – treating gamers like Shaq, and amid the spectacle of the event we wonder to ourselves, “Why isn’t it like this in North America?” When it comes to Starcraft, very few non-Koreans are on a competing level and a second question is asked, “What makes them better than us at Starcraft?”

Sponsored teams of players compete in Korean leagues. Members all live and practice together helping each other to build upon their speed and skill, to counter strategies by developing and implementing build orders, and to maintain a consistent play style. If a player were to be ill-practiced, they would not fare as well against a player who was prepared. Not all skill comes from the team’s home, however. The tournaments and play styles of other teams also greatly influence the direction professional Brood War is played. That is to say the game style played today – while still mostly the same programming – is not the same game style used even a few years ago; it is constantly evolving. A map might offer a new situation; a macro of a certain unit combination proves to be very effective against a build order; a player comes up with a creative and complicated micro. How does North America – where players cannot replicate those conditions – compete with that?

There are two popular predictions for popular gaming upon the arrival of Starcraft 2 and the zerg rush of gamers to local game shops. The first is an unfortunate circumstance: as was the case with Counterstike 1.6 and Counterstrike Source there was a split in audience; many accepted the newer title, but still many others refused to play it. It has forced many tournaments to offer both games as an option. The second is less depressing: like we saw upon the arrival of Halo 3, Halo 2 was retired for many people – particularly those who competed; a fluent transition between titles was made. For the purpose of this article, I will assume the Halo instance occurs and Starcraft 2 replaces Starcraft: Broodwar as the singular title professional gamers compete at.

Instantly everyone is on the same level and it is this point alone that gives the rest of the world a once-in-a-decade chance to catch up to Korea at Starcraft. With the release of Starcraft 2, the difference in skill level - while still present because of a Professional Brood War player’s refined APM – is much less drastic because everyone learns Starcraft 2 at the same time. It is then the responsibility of motivated gamers to learn the game thoroughly and push themselves to be on a professional level. If they are unable to develop some strategies and devise counter strategies based on what their opponents are doing, they will be owned. The importance of organised competitions like the World Cyber Games will be apparent when the world’s first best Starcraft 2 players face off.

Starcraft 2 offers the rest of the world a chance to compete. Korea’s established and upcoming players will not fail to try and understand and develop the game as much as possible taking advantage of whatever they discover. The rest of the world must do likewise – to overcome that smaller hurdle and compete. Will North Americans pass on this chance to enter professional gaming in the most popular competitive franchise ever and gg first, or will its gamers step up to display their commitment and skill?

good luck to everyone, incase you need the text version for a better reading here it is


Since 2001, my friend and I have been playing Starcraft regularly, for fun (maybe 2 or 3 times a month), and then we discovered Iccup in late 2007, which lead us to play more and more, then he stopped playing but I kept playing alone, then I discovered the GomTv Star Invitational animated live by Nick Tasteless. Then I wanted to learn more about pro-starcraft, went on youtube and started watching games, which linked me to this site, Sc2gg. Since then I’ve never stopped watching VODs of starcraft games... How this is all Sc2 related you will ask me? Well it is because I want you all to know that in the text that follow, you will have the opinion about starcraft2 of and hardcore starcraft1 fan. – Being a fan of blizzard in general(Played Diablo1,2,some warcarft2 and also starcraft), I heard that a big announcement was going to be made by blizzard themselves on the World Wide Invitational In Korea the 18th of may 2007. I was definitely hoping for starcraft 2, even if most the people on various forum were saying it was going to be Diablo 3, or worse a new WoW patch(Please god no!). The next morning I woke up in a hurry, opening my old and slow computer, skipping all the anti-virus scan and going on the official Blizzard website...-Hell, it’s about time..., then came the tears of joy (No kidding). It was here, in front of my eyes, zealot rushing on a terran expansion , siege tanks, and some awesome new units...It was almost there!(That’s at least what it thought at the time ^^)
As of Today, half of my bookmarks on my internet browser are starcraft 2 related, the other half being starcraft 1 related. Enough of me, let’s talk about the real stuff now!

Starcraft 2 is bringing the basis of starcraft1, so hardcore fans like me won’t feel disappointed and will already have more skills at this game than people who never played the original game, as reported by all the person who played the alpha version of the game (Like our beloved Greth!). The basic Tier1 units for each races are still the same for each races, so the early game should be pretty similar to the early game of starcraft1.( A good example is the bunker rush that we saw in the Battle Report #2). As the games goes on, thats where we will see the new units appear and come in play such as banelings, roaches, Nullifer, immortals, reaper etc...
In my opinion, the biggest difference people will notice when they will start playing the game is that it’s going to be harder than ever to defend their base, and economy, since all the races are so much more mobile. For the Terrans, the reapers really are the new harass toy, being a tier1 unit having the ability to jump cliffs and also having a researchable ability that allow them to lay mines with a timer (around 4seconds) exploding with the same power of the vulture spider mine. Now imagine all the potential damage that could be done to a line of worker! Yes, I know... it is scary. Even if it seems impressive, Terrans will still be the less mobile race in my opinion, and here is why... The protoss still have the dangerous high and dark templar who can both deal terrible, terrible damage to the enemy worker lines(either with the DT blade or the HT Psyonic Storm). But the real threat for the enemy is the new warp-in ability that the Protoss now have. In starcraft 1 before being able to do a real massive drop on the enemy, the Protoss player had to wait for arbiter tech+recall, which could take a while. The protoss now have the ability to warp in units wherever there is psi on the map so the protoss player just have to make a Warp Prism, travel to the enemy base, go in phase mode(The Prism goes into a Phasing mode, where it generates its own psi matrix and acts like a substitute pylon.) and now the player can stream almost infinite amount of units into the enemy base( there is a small cool down for each unit being shifted there). To add to all this, protoss have other unit that can easily invade enemy base without having to go to the ramp, there is the colossus that I’m sure everyone of you have hear about and, and finally, the new kind of ‘’dark dragoon’’ called the Stalker that has the ability to teleport anywhere(yes, even on cliff). But now comes the real deal... Zerg... In starcraft 1, zerg is the race I hate the most playing against due to their mobility, it is so damn hard to move your army around and to be able to follow the zerg army! Mutalisk micro-management was scary with 11muta+1ovie in one group, now imagine that with no limit of unit selection, like a group of 30 mutalisk stacked, wow, just wow... Now either if you were terran or protoss, remember you ‘’Wtf faces’’ when u see a dozen overlords flying in your base to do a doom drop, well be prepared to still do those faces because not only these kind of drops will be available, but the zerg now also have the Nydus Worm which can spawn at anypoint you are able to see on the map, that means that the zerg player only had to fly an overlord near your base to cast a nydus worm which is a tunnel that works the same way as the Nydus Canal...oh, and lurkers are still there... If you guys aren’t crying yet, I guess you are zerg players!
So with all this being said I think that defensive style are still going to be viable but much less used because of the difficulty it will involve to play in such a fashion.

Now on to the new game mechanics, Starcraft2 is bringing some new stuff that helps the player having a better control of what he is doing, and some other adding a new element of gameplay. Let’s start with the mechanics that could help the players managing his micro/macro-management, first of all we got what people on sc2 forums are calling the ‘’Smart Casting’’, this new thing help the player to use his unit ability more smartly, the best example I can come with is that if you have 2 High Templar selected, If you cast a Psionic Storm only 1 of the 2 selected templar will cast it, you have to recast the spell again if you want your other templar to cast another psi storm. Not much else to say about this except that a lot less energy is going to be wasted! The two new mechanics that are yet to be tested in the beta to know if the macro part of the games become too easy with them are the Multiple Building Selection, and the worker Automining. The worker auto mining, well you guessed it, makes your worker gather minerals as soon as they spawn. How the multiple building selection work is that you can select as much of the same building as you want on 1 hotkey. Now to show you guys how it works, let say that I have 4 gateways hotkeyed on ‘’2’’ and i want to make 2zealots (z) and 2High Templar’s (H), I would type on my keyboard: 2zzhh, or, 2hzhz, etc... In my opinion it makes the macro part of the game so much easier, but it remains to be tested. The next mechanic I want to talk about is the building queue order, once again the title says it all, you can order a worker to build another a certain amount of building. Like, I can order an SCV to build 3Supply Depot, so as soon as he finishes the first one he will go build the second one until his building queue is over.
Now for the new mechanics that may changes the overall gameplay. First, there is a new kind of yellow minerals that are called high yield minerals that gives an extra bonus of minerals for every batch a worker gathers. These high yield mineral patches are rare and sparse. Any player that would be able to take and defend such an area would be in a great position into a game. The Blizzard developers also added some doodads, like the Xel Naga tower, which allow to the player that gain control of one of them to greatly increase their sight around this tower. Speaking of sight, units that are firing up on a cliff are no longer revealed to the enemy player, so if the enemy don’t have any way to see up the cliff it can’t attack back. They also added destructible rocks that work the same way as, for an example, the temples on Neo medusa. And the last of those doodads are the long herbs that isn’t allowing you to see what is on the other side.
To finish this text off I would like to talk about my opinion of what is going to happen on the South Korean scene when Starcraft 2 will come out.(Late 2009 no dates or month have been revealed yet). We have to remind ourselves that all the pro-players are part of big teams, owned by big company, like Samsung Khan, or Hwaseung Oz. These companies want to make the most money out of it so I think the market for Sc2 will be too big for them to be denied and with most of the sc1 fans going to become sc2 fans, there will be no point in keeping their sc1 team alive. So maybe three month or four after the release of the starcraft2 game, I honestly don’t think we will still hear a lot about starcraft1. What I’d like though is if they could keep the same teams rosters and still have courage tournament for the new players who wants to be part of a pro-team for Starcraft 2, so the players that already have their pro-gaming licence would be available to already play professionally.(Can’t wait to see what kind of play Boxer would show us!)
Alright thank you folks for reading my article, hope to see you guys on Battle.Net 2.0!

 

Thanks for submitting your articles guys. We'll be running through these tomorrow and posting the final results along with the other contest winners later this week. Good luck to all!

I'm going to suggest leaving this open a couple more days, to get any last entries. Like I wrote in the Commentary contest, I am going to be posting a contest update tomorrow.
So lets assume you have until the last minute of the 10th to do this.

Slick article Mark! Best one out there

Thank you very much

Good luck to everyone who participated!

Topic is closed, staff are voting.

To vote, I chose Edit and copied the entire text of an entry to the voting forum, so as to keep the formatting.

Thanks for your entries!