CommunityStarcraft - The State of the Community

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The State of the Community

Written by Graham

Friday, 28 November 2008 21:33

There has been a decline in new Starcraft 2 information from Karune in the past few weeks due to the current developmental position of the game. With this in mind, I thought it would be reasonable to take some time to write about CommSC's plans for the future.

Among site development items, our preparation for beta coverage is the most important. It was confirmed at Blizzcon 2008 that the Starcraft 2 beta would not surface prior to the advent of 2009 and thus many fans expect a late January or early February release. These months are rapidly approaching but since neither Ben nor I attended this year's Blizzcon, we do not have a guaranteed Starcraft 2 beta key. Although heartening, Karune's announcement that there will be opportunities for fans to earn a key in the coming months comes with the reality that hundreds of diehard fans will be vying for a limited number of keys. Likewise, Blizzard's usual gift of beta keys to fansites is rarely mentioned and possibly not an option for Starcraft 2. So at first glance, the options for our first-hand beta coverage seem to be dangerously limited.

But all is not lost. We assume that the beta will be cracked shortly after release and spread around the web to be downloaded for free, so 'bootleg coverage' is always an option (the cracked version would be identical to the real deal). In addition, some of our members did attend Blizzcon 2008 (oi^^ Stebo) and they can assuredly provide their own first-hand opinions of beta. Lastly, other fansite operators attended Blizzcon and consequently have beta keys with which they can test out the game. We will compile information from all of these sources, with the vast majority hopefully coming from our exclusive experiences, and present it in a Beta section on the site. Presentation of information will come in a variety of forms: videos, screenshots, articles, etc.

Other than beta, we have a few other projects in progress on the site. I have been working my way through our Game Info section, updating unit and building articles with better formatting, the latest information, and applicable screenshots. This process does take a lot more time than I expected (for it to be done right) and I have only completed the Protoss as of this posting. I will try to finish the Terran by the end of this next weekend, but I can't make any promises.

In terms of member interaction, our month-old forums are slowly growing with new members every week. I would like to thank those 5 or so regular posters who are trying to help the forum get on its feet. Your help is much appreciated. Along those lines, we would like to encourage any regular front page readers to create accounts and join the discussions on the forums. If you like the site, tell your friends to check us out. If you don't like the site, please post in the suggestion section of our forums and tell us what we need to change. We are always open to suggestions and as our regulars can tell you, we act on reasonable ones.

As we update the Game Info section, wait for beta, and attempt to foster growth in our forums, I will be bringing our Archive section back from the grave. We took this section down a few weeks before Blizzcon 2008 to make room for our exclusive Blizzcon section, but we will re-post it by the end of this week. I will make a Blizzcon 2008 article within the Archive section so that all of the information that we organized during the event will still be available for viewing. In addition, Ben will be bringing quite a few high-definition gameplay videos from various sources on the web to our Videos section for your viewing pleasure in the coming weeks.

That's all for now but be sure to check back regularly to our front page for the latest Starcraft 2 news.