I've been looking forward to this Beta for quite a while, so when ESL announced a contest to win a key, I was all over it. All I had to do was play a certain number of games on their website, no problem. They had 1000 keys to hand out but the website is so unpopular that only +-850 people bothered to participate, the key was mine! There is only one Beta server which I think is in NA, so there's a bit of lag. You also get to play against Koreans, which can be very depressing. The Beta is still quite limited, you can play on the 1v1 ladder or do custom games against friends. There are 4 ladder maps at the moment, only one…

I won't lie, I'm pretty competitive. In a game like Starcraft 2 with tiered divisions, I have to reach the best one. Back in August 2010, I got placed in Bronze and I made it my goal to reach Diamond, which was the highest division at the time. I started out by doing random stuff in bronze; building thors and battlecruisers because they look cool, exploring the various units and strategies that Terran has to offer. It was fun for a while, but it didn't get me closer to silver, something had to change! [caption id="attachment_502" align="aligncenter" width="695"] The 30-minute-PF build failed to deliver.[/caption] I started my quest to improve on Gamefaqs, at the time my go-to site for all gaming advice. I quickly learned…

This is the final installment of my three-part series on how eSports can be improved. Parts one and two can also be found on the OUSS website. 3. An Integrated, Interactive, Viewing Experience In traditional sports marketing, audience participation has been divided into two categories: live attendance and remote viewership. For years, the treatment of these two categories has remained rather static; an attendee at a sports game today would find the experience strikingly similar to that of a match decades in the past and, with the exception of some advancements in film and digital-overlay technology, viewing a football match on television is, in practice, much the same as it was thirty years ago. It is unlikely that either of these ways in which fans consume sporting-content…

Welcome to my introduction on how to successfully start a pro StarCraft 2 team. In only four simple steps you, too, can be struggling to make your way in a new and confusing industry where you are personally held accountable for your every action by thousands of angry children. 1. Finance This is the most difficult first step imaginable as there are only two available options: (i) Be rich. (ii) Ask Total Biscuit. When the world economy collapsed in 2007-2008 there were only two men Barrack Obama could go to for help, HD and Husky. However, in negotiations it arose they had spent all their YouTube monies financing child armies in central Africa in an effort to develop a new RRTS (Real Real-Time-Strategy). Yet, there…

[caption id="attachment_471" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Top 5 Graphic Design: UK (Original image from TL's Pathy)[/caption] And light there was: yesterday marked the start of the OUSS' first fantasy GSTL league, a watershed moment in the society's history. The league is akin to those of fantasy football or baseball in that each participant must form a team of players who will produce points based on the quality of their play. Players earn points in a number of ways: a set win brings in two points; breaking a player's win-streak grants a bonus point; an all-kill two bonus points; and a reverse-all-kill three bonus points; players also receive one point for playing and one point for being on the winning team; a point is lost if a player…

This is the second installment of my three-part presentation on how to help improve eSports. If you missed the first post, you can find it: here. The second way in which I believe eSports needs to change is: 2. Creation of a ‘Local’ Scene Right now eSports is, more or less, made up of a single, global, scene. Within StarCraft II’s pro-community there is one strong regional dynamic: Korea vs. the rest of the world. This dichotomy between Korean and non-Korean players is ubiquitous within the foreign StarCraft community. Both fans and competitors alike have propagated this separation, perhaps necessarily so. There is something about Korean players that gives them the edge over foreigners. It may be due to a combination of their stronger and more…

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest thing going on with StarCraft right now is the Heart of the Swarm beta. A disappointing performance on the ladder as season 4 approached left me still placed in gold and hoping that the upcoming expansion will be my chance to start afresh, begin winning, and get into platinum and beyond. As much as I am excited for the campaign, the most important thing for me will be the new multiplayer units and the new playstyles that they'll allow and encourage, both for us to see in professional play and for us to try out for ourselves. I play Protoss currently (although that's always liable to change back to random or either of the other races), so I'll…

Despite all the growth that we are seeing in eSports, I can’t help but think that it’s stunted. I don’t believe that eSports is a bubble that’s on a timer to burst, not at all, but I do believe certain steps that could be taken to expand the industry are largely ignored. At the most basic of levels, as eSports fans, we all want to see this fledgling community burgeon into an entertainment giant that fills stadiums, makes the news, and connects gamers around the world. To do this industry leaders, teams, tournament organizers, and fans are all going to have to branch out in a different direction and take eSports down a path foreign to the gaming world but familiar to other forms of…

The date of reckoning is approaching, OUSS has a fancy new Facebook page, a bbPress is rocking out as the forum, and we even have an events calendar! All that is really left to set up is the mailing list. The site should be ready to be launched soon and from then the clock starts ticking down towards fresher's fair! (which is the 3rd of October if anyone has forgotten) Tom

Why hello there, fellow Starcraft enthusiasts. After hiding away with a notepad, some pens and an image editor I am proud to announce that the OUSS website's designs are more or less complete. Over the course of the next week this website will (aesthetically at least) undergo extreme transformations whereby it will transform from a humble WordPress Twenty-Eleven theme to a heavily tweaked Suffusion theme, on the subject of which - credits to Sayontan Sinha for writing the original Suffusion theme, without it I would have to write my own :(. Tom