Starcraft II problems - solved!

I have to thank Savbot for his workaround! Now Starcraft II is patched and ready for play.
Sometime tonight I'll start playing and hopefully post my first impressions.

Until then good luck!

Starcraft II problems

I got a guest pass for Starcraft II from David and I couldn't wait to start playing. But is is not meant to be yet.
This should be a very easy process - install Starcraft II, patch it up, sign up on Battle.net and play for 7 hours straight.

If you do get a guest pass you should also borrow friend's DVD and install the game. I did that and that was OK even if it took a while. Before install make sure you have 12 GB free on hard disk. BTW my UT 3 install is about the same size but includes CBPs 1-4 and number of downloaded maps...

After install if goes automatically to download the patch 1.01 so it would not fry your graphics card. This is also a nice feature. And this is where it went wrong for me. Download of the patch stopped at 64% and would not go any further. Then I tried to patch it up at work but also no joy. Firstly I had to let it through the firewall but still it didn't get updated. Next thing to try was to repair installation of Startcraft II. That didn't help. To force restart of the patch download I have deleted content of the C:\\StarCraft II\Updates folder and it did start download from the beginning. Then I'm back to issue with only 64% of download completed. 

OK, I'll download the patch myself thank you very much! But this didn't work either. Just now I have found a thread on Battle.net forum about this and possible workaround. If you have the same problem go here to see it.

I'll try this workaround from Savbot when I get home.


1) first of all you will need to Download a Torrent Downloader program, in my case i used uTorrent.
2) install uTorrent.
3) go into you Starcraft 2 directory, and you will see 6x torrent files. These are the torrent files that Blizzard Downloader created for download of the patch content.
4) now open those torrent file with uTorrent, and download the patch content through uTorrent rather then through Blizzard Downloader (which NEVER works btw).
5) after all the files have downloaded go into where the files have downloaded to usually under user/downloads.
6) look for a file called updates (this is the patch content for 1.0.1)
7) copy and paste the updates folder into you Starcraft 2 directory.
8) Run game, and the game will do the rest.


An update about actuall game may come soon!

Owned in Zen pinball

A while ago we purchased Zen pinball for PS 3. I love this game and it feels good when you play it. Zen Studios is doing it right by releasing new tables from time to time to keep us interested in the game. One of these additional downloadable tables is Ninja Gaiden 2. If you haven't played it check the trailer below.



Me and my wife have been playing Ninja Gaiden for a while and usual score we get in a game is about 5-7 M. But few days ago I got owned big time. Jasmine had a multi-ball for about 1.5 - 2 minutes. Her final result after that was a whooping 49,864,000. I know it is nowhere near on-line high scores but since we play local hotseat these don't get posted.

During multi-ball, 3 balls were stuck in right lane just above the right flipper (detail highlighted below). Could this be the reason? I don't know but if you do let me know.

Asus Ares - fast and expensive

Buying a graphic card for PC is always a difficult. Just when you finalize your decision new model comes along. One option to reduce frequency of graphic card upgrades is to buy fastest dual card. One of these is Asus ARES. I would love to give you personal experience but for a number of reasons I can only point you to a review done by Hot Hardware site.

Here is how this beast looks like.

Summary of features includes:

• 4 Gb GDDR5 memory
• 4800 MHz memory clock
• 3200 stream processors
• metal case

It is obvious this is no average stuff. Everything that comes in metal case with foam mould is expensive, really expensive. Think about $1200 USD.

To find the details about this card check the review. If you find reading of 11 pages too long here are the key points:

• fastest card ever (for now at least)
• overclocking is supported
• gaming mouse included

So, if you have some extra money and big power supply treat yourself...

Are you fast in Starcraft?

Starcraft is a truly legendary RTS game. It stood the test of time and it is probably the best RTS game. I've been playing it with friends for a long time and it was a great fun. We used to record matches and then discuss them and have a good time analyzing strategies and moves made. All those games were very casual, even we tried hard to be the best.

Korean players are well known to be the Masters of Starcraft. In general, Korea has adopted Starcraft as a national sport. Just have a look at this or this.  As a result they have a lot of really good and really fast players. Professional players must be fast if they are expecting to win the tournament(s). Speed is measured as APM (actions per minute).

To see what this is watch the video below.



So, you think you can beat 200 APM? Or even 300 APM? I would love to know your secret and see you play.

New high definition cable - HDBaseT

Just when you think you are all sorted for HD TV and 3D movies somebody thinks of new standard or in this case, interface. But it is not all bad. The latest is HDBaseT.

What is HDBaseT?

This is a product of HDBaseT Alliance - a specification for unified distribution of uncompressed HD content. It has a bandwidth to support full HD, 3D and 2Kx4K formats.

How does it look like?

You are almost certainly familiar with it. It is your standard network cable, cat 5 or 6 with RJ-45 connector.

For comparison of features have a look at this document.

Who is behind it?

HDBaseT is supported by founding companies: LG electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures and Valens Semiconductor.


Will it matter?

It's hard to say yet. Definitely it is a good candidate for a race. It is base on existing, cheap, proven and standard port/cable pair. The questions is how will other big player respond. It is hard to say what Sony Entertainment will do since they are supporting (installing) HDMI in Playstation 3. I don't see a change coming to PS 3 any time soon. But I would love to use my existing home network used for delivery of HD movies. As always, time will tell who will prevail.

Make Something Unreal - Phase 4 winners

Winners of the last phase of Make Something Unreal are announced. This is the last phase and it concludes 2 years long contest. Here are the categories and the winners.

Best Art in a Game Mod

Airborn by Steffen Unger

Airborn is an action adventure total conversion for Unreal Tournament 3 in a fantastic world on flying islands eons after the world has collapsed from overexploitation.

Best Graphics in a Map

The Haunted Lost Temple by The Haunted Team

This version of TH-Temple is specialized version of the Lost Temple only
available for the MSU contest.

Best Machinima

The Plan by John Beswick

A little animated short about a toy with a plan. 

Best Vehicle Set

Angels Fall First: PlanetStorm Mod by AFF Team

A huge collection of futuristic vehicles are available to pilot in this hybrid
FPS/RTS mod that has 11 unique vehicles from huge space destroyer ships,
versatile space fighters, tanks, and more.

Best Use of Physics

Project Swing by Scott and Aaron Ash

Project Swing is a physics oriented vehicle gametype. Players use a
scavenger-like vehicle equipped with grappling hooks that attach to enemies
(primary fire) and strategically placed grapple points (alt fire) around the
map.

Best FPS Mod
The Ball by Toltec Studios

The Ball offers an adventure that puts you in the boots of an explorer who
gets stuck in a cavern and bumps onto an ancient complex holding a mysterious
ball. While making your way through the internal workings of ancient ziggurats,
golden cities, and huge caverns, your only companion is a giant gold and
metal-shelled ball.

Best non-FPS Mod
The Haunted by Michael Hegemann

The Haunted is a fast paced third-person horror-action game which can be
played in singleplayer against AI monsters or in multiplayer, where one player
is the haunted and the other players control and spawn the enemies.

Best Level for a Mod
Hazard: The Journey of Life by Alexander Bruce

A philosophical single player first person environmental puzzle art game
that will change the way you think about the life. This very non-standard game
was selected as a finalist in the Sense Of Wonder 2009 Experimental Gameplay
project at the Tokyo Game Show.

So these are the winners only of this contest. There are many other entries you should check out if you got bored with standard UT3. This content was always an opportunity and showcase for many modders. Again, I wish Epic or somebody else would make a DVD ISO of all winners (including 2nd, 3rd and 4th place) for all phases so we can get it in one go. I hate getting them down separately from different sites...

Anyway, this should consume another sizeable chunk of your free time. Go and have fun.