There's a new Tournament that has cropped up. Sponsored by SC Elite, it's a 2on2 league, with 8 regular games followed by "Playoffs?". :)
Also, The Brood War Bash League is looking for Refs for their upcoming playoffs. You can contact Albeeno if your interested.
Thanks to StarCraft Legacy.

The ISL is now changing over as well to the new S.C. design (I Think) but Lockeye did announce that the New Season should start on July 10.

In the site that calls themselves "extra thick doors to seal in the hipness", it seems that when they closed those doors, they must have locked themselves out, cause they are still not up. StarCraft Infoceptor has 5 New Customs to play with. There's a real cool Medieval Castle (Protoss Gateway) among others, so pop on over there and check it out.

There's a New Report here, between Kain-the Feared and GX soso. There is a real interesting strat as well with the Protoss, furthermore increasing the debate that the Protoss are too strong. There is a couple of pictures, but they have to be Downloaded. Thanks to StarCraft Network. On top of that Agent911 of I Can't Win has done a Battle Report between Thor and Montaro. Its 3 pages long, and 55 pictures, so it's a big one. You can go here for that one, and as usually, it's pretty entertaining. On top of that, there was a few "Comments" on Battle.Net as well. Boy, he has it in for Blizzard a bit, but I guess they deserve it. I said this before, and I will say this now... Blizzard is run by Circus Monkeys.

06/26/99

Small Site Survivors Guide
There has been a update on the SSSG pages, with 11 new articles added. There would have been more, but I was to damn tired to do the rest of them. :)

An Introduction to JavaScript
Javascript Essentials
Online Marketing Plan - by Mark Joyner
Do more for your business than simple sales - by Mark Joyner
Use Postcards in your Promotion - by Mark Joyner
Networking - A Marketing Plus! - by David Bancroft
Writing Killer Net Ads Like the Pros! - by Robert Silber
Wow, Search Engine Secrets - Dilwyn Tng (06/25/99)
Adding Order Forms To Your Site In Minutes! - by Roger Remacle
Cool Tricks for Keeping Track of Your Marketing (Part 1 of 2) - By Mark Joyner
Cool Tricks for Keeping Track of Your Marketing (Part 2 of 2) - By Mark Joyner

More should be on it's way. Any submissions to The Small Site Survivors Guide (or anything else for that matter) can be sent to shiva

More News
StarCraft Dominion has released Legacy of the Dead, the preview pack of it's first campaign. Nice to see a campaign come out EARLY. Over at StarCraft Millennium, They are begging for a Graphics Designer for their new WarCraft Millennium site. They need it for TOMORROW!!!!

There's a new Editorial at GameSurge, written by ButterBall, entitled, " The New Phase", which you can find here. It's about the Home consoles, but I was bored... :D

Just Some News
Desler at Campaign Creations is looking for some Voice Actors. He's looking for both a Irish and a American accent. You can go here if your interested. Desler has also been Interviewed by Cherry7up of The Scum Federation as well. (I thought I had already said that a couple of days ago? Damn, when you get old, you start losing your memory) You can find that here. Extreme StarCraft has 2 more chapters for their Fan Fiction Friday. Chapter 4 of "Project Ghost" and the second chapter of "War of the Nations." They also have that real frigging annoying pop-up for a poll. Boo, hiss...

StarCraft Dominion has released some New Hero Portraits, which you can find here, and also, their Legacy of the Dead Preview pack should be released tomorrow. Also, Xds~Fallen has done a Interview, this time with Game Nation. Mostly tournament stuff, and what he thinks of StarCraft, but still quite good. You can read the interview here.

I don't know why I even bother with this any more, More Customs at Infoceptor...

Did I mention that Scum Federation is now part of the Extreme StarCraft Family? They also have 3 reviews up of The Fury of the Dominion. Damn, I have to start writing this down. A Bilstein Designed Map, Zahara, has been released at StarShack. It's a four player map, 128x128, and looks quite good, so check it out.

06/25/99

StarFiles Is Up!
Yeap, I finally did it, and it should be up. Over 40 megs of files to download off MY SERVER (I hate people who just link, especially if they have the space. Too damn lazy to upload I guess) including the latest addition, Starserver. So go here...

shivaSite StarFiles

shiva's Views.
At the present moment, I am uploading the StarFiles section. So far so good, despite the fact the wife got into it, and accidentally stopped the transfer, so I have to reload half of it back in. (sigh)

At the present moment, there is around 40 Megs of files stored on my server, and there are plans to add even more during my next "Rape and Pillage" session on the Internet. Also, a quick update on more changes that I hope to have in place before I take my "extended Break" on Monday. With luck, and hopefully some planning, I will be able to get my site completely updated, so expect a lot of stuff over the next couple of days.

Hopefully, at least some of it will be up tonight, so expect a announcement late tonight or early tomorrow

8:00 PM

New Map of the Week- Episode 5 of the Enslaver campaign has been released by Blizzard. You can get it here. Here's the post:

Enslavers: Dark Vengeance

Episode V
A: Showdown Episode V
B: Dark Vengeance
A Single Player Veteran Level Campaign. (Look in the campaign folder in your maps directory for the original Enslavers missions)

What has gone before...

At the same time that the UED was launching their massive assault against the Dominion capital of Augustgrad, a small Protoss force was sent to the Homeworld of Aiur. Their mission to secure three stasis cells that held the bodies of critically wounded Protoss war heroes went awry as several Dark Templar destroyed two of the stasis cells, and were captured mere moments before they could destroy the third. Led by the powerful and defiant Dark Templar, Ulrezaj, these traitors to Aiur were found guilty by the tribunal, but before their sentencing could be carried out, a strike force commanded by the Terran criminal Alan Schezar arrived. These invaders freed the Dark Templar from their imprisonment and nearly destroyed the Protoss base that housed them in the process.

During his escape, Ulrezaj stole a Khaydarin crystal and -- through the powerful psionic emanations from that crystal -- was tracked back to a Terran base on Korhal controlled by the sympathizer Alan Schezar. The Protoss criminals were nowhere to be found at the base, but Schezar did have a sizable contingent of Zerg there, controlling them through means unknown. The Protoss fleet sent to attack the Terran base was faced with a difficult choice: either flush out the base commander by destroying the Terran Command Centers and force him to divulge where Schezar and Ulrezaj had fled, or track down and reclaim the stolen Khaydarin crystal.

Some Protoss warriors chose to reclaim the stolen Khaydarin crystal and discovered that Ulrezaj had made five twisted copies of it. These warped Khaydarin crystals were tracked to the ash world of Char. On Char, a small assault group of elite Protoss warriors escorted a Dark Archon to each twisted crystal where the Dark Archon's psionic fury shattered the crystals. One can only guess what diabolic scheme he had planned for the crystals.

If you destroyed the warped Khaydarin Crystals then you should play episode 5a.

Other warriors elected to destroy the Command Centers and gain the location of the nefarious Alan Schezar from the base commander. A small group of assassins was then dispatched to Braxis with orders to terminate Alan Schezar. When the Dark Templar pierced the terran defenses and destroyed Schezar's Goliath, the unexpected happened and Schezar surrendered his forces and knowledge to the Protoss. Before Schezar was able to reveal what he knew, a large group of Zerg assaulted Schezar's base, but the combined Protoss and Terran forces were able to wipe out the nearby Zerg nests.

If you destroyed Schezar's Goliath and he joined your forces, then you should play episode 5b.

To have these levels run properly, they must ALL be placed in the Campaign Folder in your Starcraft/Maps/ directory. When asked if you want to overwrite the (1)Episode05A.scx and (1)Episode05B.scx placeholder maps, answer "Yes". Download it now! (342K)

If you do not already have Episodes I,II, III, IV of Enslavers, you can download them all here (963K)
Requires Brood War to play
Single Player Veteran Level Campaign
Use Map Settings

Looks Like Simple.Craft is getting ready for their Server Move. There's just a title screen up, and if you let it run a bit, you get a voice message as well! Have to admit, it's pretty cool. There's a new version of StarSelect, (v0.9) a Battle.Net optimizer. Here are the details:

Reengineered the user interface. VIS button is permanently hidden/gone. Chat facility added. (!!!) No more alt-tabbing!
Tons of tiny improvements.
GX server IP has been changed.
Chat users are marked as being online.
Can you believe StarSelect is actually smaller than it used to be? Unfortunately, I had to include riched20.dll in here because the one most people have is outdated and buggy.
Up and coming if I ever feel like working on this again: Command history. - Break out whisper window by individual users (aka MIRC).- Status icons next to channel user names (ops, ladder rating, etc.) - Allow option to timestamp chat events. - Add proprietary chat command to wake up lazy users who are alt-tabbed out. - Log chat to file. - Test servers by doing a complete login. - Detect split servers (this would be better on a web page, not a client app).
Known issue:
StarSelect uses the same bot to track users as it does to chat. Therefore, it intercepts all /whois messages. Because StarSelect is constantly issuing /whois messages of its own to update the status of users on your user list, the workaround StarSelect to display /whois messages that you issue from the chat window is to display the next two whois info messages it sees after you type a /whois command. So don't be surprised if you see other whois messages coming through in chat. I could work around this by making StarSelect create two bots, but I think that's stupid. :-)

You can get it here. Note: This will be made available off my site Saturday. Please check the StarFiles section.

Tech-Base is hiring! Here's their post. ( Damn, a lot of blue today):

TechBase is once again hiring new staff. This is the first part a major change to the site that should start in roughly two weeks. But first, we need people to help out with the new coverage. Specifically, we're looking for three new strategists (one for each race), someone to cover Files, someone to manage and expand the Community section, and someone to manage and expand the Information section. Interested? Head on over to the application page. Other positions may be opening in the future, so stay tuned!

Alliance News - GameSurges has a New Layout up and running, so go check it out. Voices of the Shadow has just started their news section, for the Shadowrun Game. The format is VERY similar to mine (I wonder why? :D ) but check this site out, especially if you play Shadowrun. HongX got there news scripter up and running, thanks to FrozenBlade, so Honging went a little news crazy. I guess he was just imitating me. And Zero of ZeroHour has gone on vacation, but he did find the time to put up a review of Alpha Centauri, plus he has reworked his articles from RTS Nation as well. You can check it all out right here.

1:00 PM
The Teams have been announced for The Canada vs USA Tournament sponsored by Area9. Team Canada is Grrr, Boo!, and Fallen, who are against Team USA's Montaro, Pillars and properly Maynard. Game reports will be done by Kain-the-Feared, Crexis, Stratus, MuOn and A9 Sudden. The Tournament is slated for The July 3rd weekend. You can get the Fuzzy the Bear reports with all the info and Pre-Tournament Battle Reports (seems the guys have been practicing :) right here, and you can also go to their Forum.

Blizzard Central is Down, with nothing but a title screen that says "returning Soon." Mean while, both Blizzard Fans, GA Strategy and Brood War Dynasty are also completely down as well, but since two are slated for server moves, they should be back up very soon.

StarCraft Legacy has announced a New Story to be released on Fridays. Called "Phoenix Legion", The first part, the Prologue, and Chapter One, are already out. As well, there is a reviews section.

A New Clan League has been started by the Immortal Lords. This setup is unique in that there are 3 leagues, you need members that are ranked in the top 1000 in the B.net ladder, and the format is 2on2, 3on3, and 4on4. You can read the rules at this page.

Brood War Addicts have Made Some Announcements. First off, there are some slight changes to the design, and the announcement that Old~El~Paso is to be the new Co-Webmaster. They are also looking for map makers and editorial people.

There's a new Mirror Site for The Antioch Chronicles campaign, Negative Suns. It's from RTS 2000, and you can find it here. But that's not the big news, Negative Suns Has been Updated! Here's the post:

"Hey folks. I'm pleased to announce that v1.01 of Negative Suns will be released Monday. All the bugs in the campaign will be fixed, and the whole thing will be 13mb smaller, AND posted in easy-to-download and easy-to-extract ZIP files. Plus, since it'll be one map per ZIP, players who already have v1.00 will only need to download certain maps to "patch" their copy, instead of getting the whole thing again! Hope that helps! Stay tuned to Antioch for updates."

Wow, good thing I haven't Downloaded it yet...

StarCraft Infoceptor has yet Another Custom, this one changes the Wraith (again!) into a "Talon Fighter". Unfortunately, this is real hard to see on their site. They also report on a Customs Breakthrough, so here's the post:

"Once again with great thanx to Shadow, there is now another breakthrough in Starcraft Customization. Using hex editing, Shadow has found a way to edit the speed of each unit as well as the free form of adding frames. This new technique has made great help with the Warcraft 2 Conversion and hence you an expect the following in the next version:

A Complete Reshapement of Unit Movement Speeds, expect the Elven Archer to move faster, Dwarven Warriors to slow down plus a lot more

With the ability to reshape framing, it is now possible to convert multi sprited units with accuracy. The Goliath and the Gnome Cannon can now be converted
Interesting? Apart from this, Shadow has also done great deeds allowing many more units to be converted. I shall post previews as soon as everything is tested!"

Also, it seems that Cherry7up has been causing Some Problems at The Acolytes campaign site. You can read the posts at StarCraft Infoceptor. Also, Brood War.com has a New Map of the Week. Called Desert Death, it's a 4 player map. Looks good too.

Funny how all the sites are reporting on GundamCraft and on the NEW 3D Lost Temple VRML. Geez, I had that one last week! :D

06/24/99

Today's news
Blizzard Oblivion has a new RPG Map out . Called Ommadon, it has 8 heros, 6 levels of play, emerald enhancements, and 10 upgrades per hero. You can get it at their website.

Brood War Dynasty is now Down Completely. All that's coming up is a "page cannot be displayed" message, so it looks like they are having more problems. Talking about problems, have you noticed that Extreme StarCraft hasn't really Updated Their Site since Monday? None of their daily features have appeared at all, and their news is down to one or two a day.

Simple.Craft Has posted a announcement that their server hosts, Blizzard Nation, has taken their mirror site of The Negative Suns Warp Rift Down, due to the fact that Campaign Creations already has 3 mirror sites up. They have also announced that they are to be Moving Servers as well, to a different server, as soon as the details are worked out. They are hoping that it will take 3 days, so expect it to happen Sunday or so.

Infoceptor has been busy with Another Custom. This one changes the Terran Vulture into a Blob kind of thing. StarCraft Millennium has received another email from The Sounds of StarCraft about a New Technical Document that has been posted up at their site. Also as well, SpaceDominator has put up a little rant on some guys Post On Bnet. It's pretty much to the point, to say the least...

Another Interview, this time {ph}-Expo has been interviewed by Chupas of BroodWar.com. They talk about his Season One ladder, and a bunch of other stuff. Also, a very interesting post... OutPost13 has mentioned that they are setting up a 3 game Tournament, 2on2, vs BW:Dynasty. Staff only. Be interesting to see who wins this one.

Over at StarShack, I noticed this post of the New Layout at the WaterCraft site, plus a weekly updated units section as well. Serves me right for neglecting my campaigns page... They also have a Brand New Map as well, Station Sellis RPG.

Well, it was a pretty boring news day, or maybe I wasn't into it today, I don't know. Anyway, I'm off to do shopping, and then, I will organize that mess of my file sections. Sigh, maybe I should have just linked it like a whole bunch of sites do... Nah, that is such a scumbag way to do things.

06/23/99

shiva's Views
I just love Wednesdays... PinGuide continues to be worked on. The Flyers section is first, followed by Manuals and Pictures. The StarCraft Section will be growing shortly as well, but I have yet to decide what to start on first... Update: 9:00. - looks like its files :)

21 Bells
Hmm, better check my email. Seems Blizzard Oblivion, my host, is looking for a New Host themselves. Damn, don't tell me I am gonna have my URL change for the 4th time in 4 months. Once again, There are More Ladder Resets at Blizzard. I didn't bother to see how many pages there are, so you have to check them out here.

A couple of interviews... Cerebrus of Realm of Scums has interviewed SCX, the creator of the War of the Tribes Campaign. Also, "Team America" Captain, Montaro has been interviewed by FuzzyTheBear over at SC Gurus. You can read the interview right here.

Custom Sounds... Tek7 of Sounds of StarCraft has released a email to everyone (well, not everyone :D ) plugging 10 new sound files for SC, plus 60 sounds from the original disk. I Can't Win has a Battle Report out, between of all people CannonBalls and KalGrim (of BW:Dynasty). You can find the report here. If you have to ask who won...

This is the News...
Remember that little bug in StarCraft? Well it seems, The Extractor Bug May Be Useful After All. IN-Agent 911 of I Can't Win has put up a very interesting post, and with apologies, here's part of the post...

"So what good is the bug? This is where hone missed something :) I always do the bug when going for the quick expansion as Zerg. Basically the 10 drone hatch then pool technique. The reason I do it, is to save a larvae. If I went 9 drones, I'd get the 2nd hatchery and pool up at virtually the same time, but by that time, I would have wasted a single larvae, but using the bug, I can make sure I don't lose one. When the pool get's started, im back down to 8 supply and got 3 larvae. Then it's Drone, bug extractor drone again, then train an overlord. By the time the pools done, I got exactly 3 larvae, which are nearly always automatically zerglings, and a sunken going up by my expansion if I feel like I need it :). "

So there you have it. A useful bug after all...

Seems Brood War Dynasty still Hasn't Got Their Server Problems Fixed. Even though they are to move to UGO, there is a rumor that they may go to a temporary server till then. There seems to be some big problems at their existing host. Due to a VERY large strain on their servers, you can now find The Negative Sun program "mirrored" at Simple.Craft as well (Please note, this is a direct link to the download). Also, Campaign Creations have made available some Mirror sites as well. The Antioch Mirror page has all the details.

Yet another New Custom at the custom king, StarCraft Infoceptor. This converts the Terran Wraith into a Flying Saucer, but it is noted that it'd not Brood War "friendly".

06/22/99

shiva's Views
Once more a lot of stuff to tell you, so I'm spreading out the infomation. My new email address will be active sometime today, and I got my unlimited ISP time yesterday :D

Trust me, I have already put it to good use... I have started the most massive undertaking ever in my brief history yesterday. Called PinGuide, it will be a HUGE resource of pinball, with the start of the Flyers archive yesterday. (I added about 100, but that's not even a tenth of what will be there) On top of that, there's screen shots, pictures, manuals,reviews and Technical info to come. I decided to be smart and have it all organized at the start this time, and hopefully, when I have all the infomation collected, (in about 6 months) then comes the fun part, getting it all up and running. Yeah, I'm anal.

On top of all this, I will be doing this for the Quarter Munchers section, and yes, StarCraft. All of this alone would be enough, but I still have plans to get the emulation section back up and running as well. I NEED HELP!

As you can tell, I have gotten so involved with helping other people out, that my site has suffered a bit. Add to that daddy duty, my upcoming trip to the hospital, and various other side things that I have been roped into, I am finding my time a little stretched. I ask that you bare with me for a while, things will get less hectic (I hope) in July.

The Early Evening Sigh of Relief
I.E.5 and Netscape both crashed today. But as you can see, I got I.E.5 working (I reinstalled it) but Netscape is totally FOBARed. Some damn idiotic registry thing, because CERTAIN *&$%^ing companies don't know how to program things properly. Oh well, I'm here now, so it's time to make everyone sorry about it.

Anyway, remember me mentioning how hard it was to get BW:Dynasty up? Well, it's still doing it, but I let it load for 2 minutes, told it to stop, and at least got the text, and this message:

If you even took the time to let the page load, you're reading this post..congratulations :) We're with you..we're having trouble connecting to our FTP and reaching the website on the 'net. It's not just you :). Hopefully these server problems will be fixed soon. - CannonBalls

So I guess my computer isn't possessed by Satan after all. :)

Antioch Chronicles has Finally Released Negative Suns! It's a ^$&#ing massive Download at 80 megs, though it's split up into 17 files, still... geez, not everyone has cable modems. Still, enough people are downloading it to tie up their server. Anyway, you can get it at their site. They also reveal the secret of who the 5th hero is, so if you even care, go here.

Surprise! StarCraft Legacy has released Chapter 3 of My Life for Auir. The chapter title is called "The Horde" BTW. Also, OutPost 13 has released 2 New "Fan Fiction" Stories for everyone to read. The first is called "The Fall" by Brigadier, and the second story is called "Subversion", written by Fnarrg. (Try saying that name 5 times quickly)

Also, at StarCraft Millennium (almost forgot that extra "n") There's 3 more Mental strategies, on Preparing for a melee Game, for a teammate, and for being a Zerg. AND they have updated their "why buy StarCraft" page as well. Also, did anyone know Brood War.com is back? Yeap. they are, and it's a fine looking site indeed. I noticed they have their beta battle reports up as well. So if your interested in games that were played over a year ago, go here. (It is kind of interesting)

This is so important, it needs it's own little paragraph, but The F.A.Q. On Battle.Net Has Been Updated. This was from a post by GFraizer, and the update contains Chat additions and B.Net help (about time). Anyway, you can find the FAQ at Blizzard.

The Early Afternoon Rant
I guess that's what we are calling the news now. :)

I obviously have a problem with Brood War Dynasty in connecting up. It still refuses to load up without timing out, so I will get the Netscape to do it instead later.

Lots of news at Extreme StarCraft (and it's actual news), first off, there's a New Lost Temple VRML that they say is better than the one everyone else (except me) reported on. You can find the info here. There is also a interview with Team Canada Captain X'Ds~Grrrr, who has announced that he has chosen his team, {PH}-BOO! and X'Ds~Fallen. And then since it's Tuesday, that means it's Mandatory Map Monday (?) They have added six new maps:
D-Day
Fort Wars
ChrisFarley vs Zerg (again ?)
Warp'n Fun
Invasion of Metus 9
Dragonball Z Battle
Citadel of Auir
StarCraft Chess

You can get the maps here.

Both Infoceptor and SC ORG have comments on this Silent Lurker Bug found in Brood Wars. Truefully, its not worth the time or the air to mention it other than point to their sites. StarCraft Infoceptor also has a New Custom, this time changing the Templar Archives into some weird Ball thing. There's also a interesting set of Comments from FlamingHateMail about doing a Top Ten Contest over at OutPost13, as well as mention of a GameGurus article(s) with their comments on the ESC mess. Both are... interesting.

iMagine SCMs have released their Latest Map, after what seemed a very long time. This map is called Mixed Base Madness, and here's the plug...

A twilight madness map in which you move your flying buildings on to a specific area to receive the kind of units you want. Plus you can use the buildings which are not moving at the moment to develop "Super units", these units rock and you can get lots of them. This will be one of the most creative madness maps you have played in a long time! Grab it here.

Tarsonis is still down... You know it occurred to me that though David Shipley has disappeared, what about the other guys there? Maybe Legacy could create a special site, just so the other guys could at least post their stuff. Good idea?

06/21/99

Several things to start. First off, I would like to welcome Voices of the Shadows to shivaSite. Stormcaller just moved in, and its always nice to have a Shadowrun/SC site. :)

Also, Stormcaller also wrote a little article on his take on The Top Ten Mess, and it's a lot nicer than mine, so it makes a good counter point. You can find it as part of The Truth right here

If your a Small site, and wish to be hosted, please get in touch with me and we will talk. Both myself, and the other members of The Small Site Alliance are looking for more members to join the family. Remember, "strength in numbers."

In case you missed it, The shivaSite Week in Review was also put out late last night and the Previous weeks news was archived here as well.

And finally, in case you didn't notice, shivaSite is now a Sub-Domain. Both the new URLs and the old ones are working, but as I get all the links fixed over, the older address will go. Please bookmark the new address above. This doesn't just affect myself, but all of the other sites within shivaSite as well. So if you bookmark Quarter Munchers, Pinball Fanatics, Zero Hour, and SCR, you will have to change your bookmarks as well.

More News, and Hopefully it's Worthwhile This Time

8:00 pm PST
It's has been a rather interesting day to say the least, the only problem I have had is it's Daddy Duty Week, and anyone who has had a one year old to look after knows what that means. :D

So lets Start with the Mess, shall we? First off, I Can't Win has posted a response to my series of articles on The Elite sites, Lockeye and this whole Top Ten Thing. Okay, He disagrees with some of the things I said, but it was so well written (and intelligent!) that how can I argue? He made some great counter points, so I guess we will all find out who was right or wrong soon enough. (I'm thinking that we were both right on several points) Anyway, after I read it, I put a reply on his site :) I know, a massive abuse of privilege, but what the hell hey? Anyway, I encourage you to go right here if you want a prime example of a constructive reply to another person's post.

Everything else was the usual, so I won't even bother with it, since my earlier post pretty much covered it anyway, but I do have More to Say. (I can almost hear the groans already, but I will try and be brief this time... Honest!)

I will only mention one thing, and one thing only. And this is what has disturbed me the most today. The fact that both Simple.Craft and StarCraft Legacy are not only calling for a boycott of Extreme StarCraft, but S.C has even gone so far as to say they / he will never mention ESC again. This may be a little long-winded, but having a website, especially as successful as Simple.Craft, comes with a certain amount of responsibility. And I am not talking about themselves or other websites either, I am talking about the Fans who go to these sites for their infomation. To not only deny these people of infomation purely on the basis of a personal vendetta is not only irresponsible, but shows a complete lack of respect to all those people who visit the site. It shows a complete lack of class, and only gives the impression of a bush league operation, that is more willing to serve their own needs above the needs of their "customers". I strongly urge Simple.Craft to reconsider their stand, because though I may have some problems with some of their people, I respect their site and the hard work that has been put into it by ALL members.

Anyway, time to get off the soapbox...(besides, I might fall off and hurt myself) and start dealing with matters that has brought this site the fame and fortune it rightfully deserves (Damn, that is so sick) THE NEWS!

IceFire returns to Brood War Addicts, and he is asking for a Co-Webmaster to help him run things. It's the usual list of benefits, plus another thing that jumped out at me, (of course) you have to be a "nice person." Judging by the performance of half the SC Community, I would say he might have a harder time filling that requirement. ( Yes, I include myself in that as well. )

DarkKnight of Camelot Systems has posted that ScAIEdit II is Temporarily Inactive, or in other words, he has a life. He also posts what his plans are for it, so if you are interested, you can go here. Boy, is BW Dynasty ever Loading Slow at the moment. It almost timed out, and is taking so much time to load, I could eat dinner and come back, and It's still loading. Anyway, I gave up, so I will catch them later.

Alexis of StarCraft Org has released version .9 of her Terran Strategy Guide. Tons of great infomation, even for the initial stages of her guide, so go to the direct link at StarCraft Org . Thanks to Extreme StarCraft for the news. Speaking of Extreme StarCraft, I got a email from The Realm of Scums asking me to add their campaign, Resurrection, to my Campaigns and Conversions page. I'm sorry to say it slipped my mind, and due to a couple of things happening (actual several at once) I won't be able to do either until I do the massive reorganization slated for July. So to make up for it, how about I put up a link to The Realm of Scums right here, and when the reorg happens, I will make sure to add both. Sorry. Once I clean out some things, they will be added.

SC Legacy has just posted that Chapter 2 of The Aeon of Strife has been completed, and is available for your viewing pleasure here. Also, their reviews section is being updated for tonight as well. Shafe's SC Source has also posted something, a new ZealotOnAStick Rant, which you can view here. You can get the idea of the article by the title: "Lameness on Battle.net (or: ZOAS's Day o' Frustration) " Oh yeah, I can agree with this... it happens to me all the time.

Oh, thanks to StarCraft Network (My affiliates =] ) There was something at Brood War Dynasty, a new Map of the Week. Called Island of Anguish, it's a 192x192, for up to 4 players. ToyMarine gives it a thumbs up, so try and get it. Maybe you can have better luck than me. I swear, my computer is possessed by Satan...

In between organizing boycotts of various sites, Tandur has written up a Review of Episode One of E.D.A.S.T.. You can head over to the direct link here on the Simple.Craft site. And finally, Zero of ZeroHour goes on Vacation, but he did find the time to do some reviews of movies, a couple of articles, plus some odds and ends.

Me, I'm outta here.

The News, for What it's Worth Now (and it's not much)
Okay, I feed and change the kid, fully expecting to get back to work and start my first update. And what do I see... sigh.

Yeap, the Extreme StarCraft Thing has now really blown up in everyone's faces, and you can bet I will have something to say about it. But you know what? I would rather get the news update done first. Sigh, the first one I come across it this at StarCraft Legacy

Hmm, all this Extreme SC stuff is getting quite personal. You'll notice, I didn't bother putting a link to their site, because I feel that none of you should be subjected to their kind of stupidity. Now, I apologize for being rude, but the fact is, the time calls for it. I recently read the response from Extreme SC about SCL's retraction from their top ten listing. All I have to say is give it a break, grow up, and move on. Their response was misinformed and it attacked SCL alone. (Even though a number of well respected sites also retracted themselves from their top ten) This report attacked Enforcerman as being self-centered (I made it sound good to what Extreme SC had posted to say the least). Now, when they did this, they claimed he attacked their opinions, well, when they attacked him they did much more than that. They made it personal. There is no reason to do this, seeing how it cannot possibly solve a thing. Therefore I, Python, announce that I will never personally set foot ( type in www.extremesc.com ) on the Extreme SC site EVER again. (or until a formal apology is announced) Yes, technically, I am announcing a Extreme SC boycott. I URGE all of you to end their reign of character damaging, terror. I hope all of you will do the same. Don't let a site like that get the best of us.

Then, to add to my misery, and since there was nothing else to report on by SCL, it just so happened that Simple.Craft was next on my lists of sites to check out, and guess what I saw?

Well, today, I was looking over Extreme: Starcraft's "Sunday Humor" in which they put up remarks about letters. Obviously, the "news" bit was a way for E:SC to take it's shots at various sites (particularly Starcraft Legacy). Now if you go and visit SCL, they want to boycott E:SC. That's kinda extreme, because the second people read that, they're gonna hop on over to Extreme SC to see if they have a response. So what I'm proposing (and I'm gonna try to get Simple.Craft staff to follow) is to just not post any Extreme: Starcraft news. It's just easier that way. There's more of us than there is of them. AND, as a second note, don't post about this on your sites. Just silently accept it, and faze Extreme: Starcraft out of our lives.

This was written by Tandur BTW. At least they also mentioned the New Wraith custom at StarCraft Infoceptor, The Next Canada / USA BW Tournament held at StarCraft Gurus, so it least I have something to write about.

Hey, There's some more! It was out yesterday, but MarbleMan has a interview with Everlast, who if you remember was kicked out of the PGL during the last tournament. WaterCraft has moved to Campaign Creations, oh, and to continue with the "Kinder, more Gentler Community", Azeroth got hacked! (Thanks to SC Network)

And then, it starts again. This Time by Forbiddendonut at OutPost13, who calls Simple.Craft and Python of SC:L to task about staging a Boycott in the first place. Way to go "sheila". :D

Ah, to hell with it. I have the kid all week, so when I have some spare time, I will be finishing this, oh, and expect a few comments as well...

06/20/99

Well, the week is gone, time to start a new one...

The Week in review is up, now I can enjoy my day off

Funny...

I have to give him some credit, he at least had the guts to answer me back, but Lockeye did answer back to my article The Truth. Of course he focused on one thing on the article, himself, and without mentioning any of the other things I had to say, tried to belittle it. Of course, he brings up the hits thing, but what else could he bring up? Everyone who knows me knows my attitude on cheap hit tactics, and how I never bother to email anyone announcing stuff, or even enter myself in contests and links. (Actually, not true, I did with SC:M, but it took 3 months to get in there. Funny, they spelled my name wrong too, but if they think "shiva" deserves a capitalization, who am I to argue with that) I could mention the huge amount of hits that the ISL will get once the huge plug job starts by all the big sites, but it's not of any use really. No matter how well I make the argument, he will only see the one side. (Though I still say that it should be for all tournaments, and not just ISL)

He also gave the impression that "The Truth" just attacked him, which is of course, wrong. I attacked everyone over how the "elite" went about doing things. But I guess the biggest difference between Lockeye and I was, I at least offered solutions, though whether they are of any good is up to you.

Oh, one final thing. When I think of you Lockeye, I don't think of Howard Stern, I think of Rush Limbaugh.

A New SSA Member
Wow, the third in 4 days, and this time, it's someone I know beforehand.

It's with great pleasure that I announce that my affiliate GameSurge has joined as a member of the Small Site Alliance. AN is a great "overall" site, that not only has StarCraft and PC info, but a pretty swank home console game section as well. Actually, here's my favorite line from his post:

"Kinda like ants, we will colonize and spread below your walls, then one day we will break thru and show our true strength. =)."

As soon as I get the Infomation, it will be in the Alliance Homepages

The Truth

Hmm, guess what happens here? :)
This is the first of two I will be doing today, and a regular feature here at shivaSite. It's called The Truth because it is how I feel, and since I don't seem to have a problem pointing out things that other sites are too scared to mention, it's a pretty ( I hope) accurate title. The Truth will concentrate on the major events that happen during the week in the StarCraft community world, and be hopefully, no holds barred, blunt and extremely honest, to the point where I will piss off my friends as well as my enemies. But then, if it didn't, then it couldn't be called The Truth, could it?

I guess to no ones surprise, that the very first article will focus on the "elite" sites announcement, and the firestorm touched off by my comments (as well as others) that resulted on Monday. I decided that I had a lot more on my chest than I realized, so off I went. 2 hours later, I reread it, and decided that either I went to far, or didn't go far enough. ( I still can't make up my mind)

So it's very simple. I don't have a fancy posting thing or super custom CGI script for people to answer back, so what I will do is post ALL emails to me sent as a reply to this article, UNLESS YOU ASK ME NOT TO. I will do a special section just for emails, so if you support / flame me over this, I ask for a couple things... Back up what you are gonna say (or you may end up looking real stupid ) and expect comments from me posted as well. Fair warning given. Of course, if no one bothers to write me, then I guess this won't work at all, but I would really like some dialog started. Maybe, some good will come out of this.

Go to The Truth

The Week in Review

The Second Article is called The Week in Review, in which I give a short version ( for me at least ) of the weeks happenings. You may remember I did this 2 weeks ago, but I will splice the major news within the ratings and rantings this time. Since I had way to much fun doing the truth, I will spend some of my "day off" in writing it out, after I get some sleep. Once it's done, expect the link to go up.

News Archive