As you may or may not know, today Blizzard released StarCraft Leagues, a customizable and sponsored system of creating leagues directly on battle.net. Although I have dearly wanted to launch TLTour for some time now, I am not willing to release a system if it is going to be compromised by a new patch half way through the season. When I am confident that TLTour can be launched in a stable environment, then I will re-announce the tour.
Does this suck? You bet. I promise you nobody feels worse about it than I do. But again, I believe it is worth waiting for something done right, rather than rushing it out with no regard for the outcome.
At this time I would like to take the space and thank these people specifically for their hard work on TLT. I know this is very disapointing, but your dedication to this project and unwillingness to compromise quality are valuable qualities that will not be forgotten.
Qi.Tiger - TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER TIGER
fonger - quickmatch developer
HnR)Insane - website programmer
mnm - website developer and team coordinator.
pheer - website developer
Entropy - consultant
Bill307 - map creator
Taiche - debugger
I would also like to thank the endless people who gave support to this project through encouragement, advice, PMs, and virtual slaps on the back. That is the only reason we got this far.
Again, this is NOT the end of TLTour. It is simply a delay until I can figure out exactly what is going to happen. When we have a firmer grip on things, we will keep you informed.
omg. Something awesome comes along and then a freakin patch comes out. How coincidental is it that tltour is launched and blizzard releases new patch? T.T
I'm usually able to surmise my feelings on a given subject, but I really don't have any words on how much I appreciate the individual efforts of everyone involved in this, especially Manifesto. Being the public face of the project, you're tasked with with being the answer man to every tedious question, and you seem to have a pretty endless well of patience sometimes.
Even if this new leagues system makes the current incarnation of the TL ladder obsolete, I doubt many people will forget how hard you worked on this.
A meager "thanks" seems so inappropriate, but I promise you it's as sincere as they come.
On April 25 2007 00:51 ChoboCop wrote: God Damnit.™
Delayed for good.
What is coming is better, I know, TeamLiquid, has always been the lead in new things to come, good things take long to come. So I'm not sad, I'm just hyped even MORE, to see what will the TL.net Staff , Mani, Tiger and all of the people involved on the Tour, going to come up with!.
Wow i'm equally ecstatic about the new patch, it looks like it can be incorporated with TLT. sounds like the patch itself will do most of the work for teamliquid although the anti-hack system will probably be updated too ^^ YAY.
ok, this is pathetic from blizzard imo. Isn`t there one man who to say : "The new patch will be realeased in one week,one month or one year". I dont know what they are trying to accomplish , but ffs this is a 8 year old game. This is not WoW or WC3. Its not a such a big deal. And I am almost certain that this blizzard "news" are somewhat related to whats going on with tlt3. The worst thing will be if people from the starcraft community are compromising the tl project by suppling information to Blizzard about whats going on here.
T_T I still don't quite understand : exactly how does this blizzard patch affect TLT??
edit: nvm. Just read the bnet website. Hmm so it seems now blizzard will provide an interface that connects bw/bnet to a league database (win/loss reporting etc).
I think, altough this will probably make you lose part of your work on the project, it might be very useful to create a new battle.net embedded version that has more potential.
If I understand the information at the Blizzard webpage correct anyone can apply for that LDK to form a league of their own? I don't know if I think that is what the community really need. A real ladder would have been so much better. Still. Respect to Blizzard for still trying to developing StarCraft. Maybe it will turn out to be a really good idea in the end.
After skimming the information about LDK I still think we need TLTour tho. And to all of you that have been working hard to create TLTour. Thank you guys so much for your dedication, passion and hard work to bring all the rest of us a new ladder. Im sure we will see it launch and that it will be a great one. Right decision to delay it for a bit right now tho.
By the way. This new system released by Blizzard, is it the last nail in the coffin of Blizzard and WGtour cooperation?
I might be alone, but I think this patch is awesome , especially for league creator like TL. The blizzard pack will make the creation of a league easier and incorporated into battle.net. That means that it would save a lot of work for the developpers.
I think TL decision to delay the TLTour is reasonnable. You should try this blizzard kit and see if it makes thinks easier and smooth to run.
I will always think that using battle.Net as a place to play is the best way to go (compared to pvpgn server). Everyting except the Anti ack will be incorporated on battle net.
As i understand it, the players will just have to register on the league on the website of this league and then just play the league on the regular bnet. So far so good.
If i still understood correctly, it is the "so needed" interface for wgtour but not only for them, for all the site that want to run a league. So TLTour should still exist cause it is "also" a league that can be supported through blizzard.
A lot of you are seeing this as a bad thing. I tend to agree, the delaying of TLT is horrible, it was going to be my first and most likely the best so far. The work they have already done is amazing. But think about it this way, at least we know blizzard hasn't forgotten us. I have a feeling they are testing this system out to use it in future games, possible SC2, and maybe we will actually see the beta by the end of the year as they've said.
What I fear is this this patch will do to TLTour what they did to WGTour, that is delay it as the organizers wait for additional features and the new patch so that they can work with anticipated new information, only to have the patch never come...
The problem isn't just that the hard work was wasted, but also that the grounds on which tlt was to be the best ladder aren't there any more. Without the advantage of a smart, well-designed ladder, it will be harder for them to arrive at a dominant ladder. This means a lot more people will be starting leagues, and TLT will have to work hard to be dominant.
I feel really bad that the wind got taken out fo your sails on this one TLTour team. I dont think you can blame Blizzard particularly for this due to their "when its done" and deathly secret attitude to announcements. Either way, good decision on delaying this till its ready
Maybe now that TLTour is delayed, we can see some of the things that were coming out in the first and second season earlier, such as 2v2, statistics by matchup, etc.
TLT's facility is still stronger, we can setup Hamachi based games via Quickmatch with chat facility. Also within battle.net itself you can check your stats via our bot. If they are using BWL there are still working map hacks on it. Ours has no such withdraw, We still hold the upper hands. In addtion we can host in all 4 gateways at once within b.net realms and also private server if we ever go there.
By the way pheer till now has coded nothing, Peter kicked him out. And LordMartin is also one of the lead developers.
Why are there complete idiots here saying Blizzard hates SC?
Blizzard just made a kit that any website can use to create their own ladder. Now we no longer need to spend all the effort to create our own launchers and find ways to report games automatically. This is a tremendous gift to the community. We should be thanking them for making this awesome service available to us!
The only thing to be upset over is the fact that they didn't warn us sooner that they would be releasing such a service. But besides that, it's obvious they are doing something great for the community. People too stupid to see this should be smacked in the face.
On April 25 2007 00:23 kNyTTyM wrote: omg. Something awesome comes along and then a freakin patch comes out. How coincidental is it that tltour is launched and blizzard releases new patch? T.T
No coincidental, but this new tool of Blizzard can help WGTour a lot. You bet.
On April 25 2007 13:00 Rotodyne wrote: Question: Does the League package work now, or is it activated in patch 1.15?
o_O? Well seeing as how there is no league option in StarCraft right now, people couldn't use it even if everything else was ready except for the patch being downloaded.
On April 25 2007 13:00 Rotodyne wrote: Question: Does the League package work now, or is it activated in patch 1.15?
o_O? Well seeing as how there is no league option in StarCraft right now, people couldn't use it even if everything else was ready except for the patch being downloaded.
On April 25 2007 11:53 Bill307 wrote: Why are there complete idiots here saying Blizzard hates SC?
Blizzard just made a kit that any website can use to create their own ladder. Now we no longer need to spend all the effort to create our own launchers and find ways to report games automatically. This is a tremendous gift to the community. We should be thanking them for making this awesome service available to us!
The only thing to be upset over is the fact that they didn't warn us sooner that they would be releasing such a service. But besides that, it's obvious they are doing something great for the community. People too stupid to see this should be smacked in the face.
Haha, yeah Blizzard has my support cause I recently realize how much fucking work these kinds of things take. Go Blizzard! Well, specifically the good few men behind this.
Okay, I'm 100% positive that blizzard is intent on killing sc so we all gay it up and just go play wowfor 15 a month, I bet they just read tl.net every once and a while and thought, "FUCK! independant ladder to pull away potential wow homosexuals, time to bs something up and never do it, plan wgt ladder didn't work."
Paranoia aside, I support the decision, if they go through with this, a tltour launched through the official league system could be awesomeness to unimaginable heights. This is also not as much as a huge project as the wgt ladder, I'd expect 4-5 months wait at the most.
I think that this league option is amazing...especially for us not-so hardcore players. I have a pretty large group of friends that I play starcraft with...and being able to make a league that tracks stats, etc...with icons and shit is AMAZING! I am excited...thumbs up to Blizzard for doing this. It really shows that they still care about the fanbase of a game...most other RTS's will release patches for a year or so and then abruptly stop. Almost ten years into it and we are getting leagues....a sizeable addition...I love Blizzard!
On April 25 2007 21:05 Drowsy wrote: Okay, I'm 100% positive that blizzard is intent on killing sc so we all gay it up and just go play wowfor 15 a month, I bet they just read tl.net every once and a while and thought, "FUCK! independant ladder to pull away potential wow homosexuals, time to bs something up and never do it, plan wgt ladder didn't work."
Paranoia aside, I support the decision, if they go through with this, a tltour launched through the official league system could be awesomeness to unimaginable heights. This is also not as much as a huge project as the wgt ladder, I'd expect 4-5 months wait at the most.
Maybe its just a launching pad for when sc2 comes out. And anyway, I dont think this league support will be just for small groups of players. Its probably catering to the larger communities.
On April 25 2007 11:53 Bill307 wrote: Why are there complete idiots here saying Blizzard hates SC?
Blizzard just made a kit that any website can use to create their own ladder. Now we no longer need to spend all the effort to create our own launchers and find ways to report games automatically. This is a tremendous gift to the community. We should be thanking them for making this awesome service available to us!
The only thing to be upset over is the fact that they didn't warn us sooner that they would be releasing such a service. But besides that, it's obvious they are doing something great for the community. People too stupid to see this should be smacked in the face.
I quoted it in order the complete idiots mentionned above dont miss this point or read it TWICE
actually I think u could start ladder without new patch since u already have all things needed to do it, then u could stop the ladder for some time if 1.15 would come out *_*
On April 27 2007 16:33 MIStrZZZ wrote: actually I think u could start ladder without new patch since u already have all things needed to do it, then u could stop the ladder for some time if 1.15 would come out *_*
Yea thats the major problem, and the best we have is BWL, which is already compromised and which Ashur has abandoned T_T. Why doesn't Blizz give Ashur what he needs for the anti-hack? From what I heard things would be really easy to fix from within Blizzard themselves.
I don't understand why everyone's so pissed off at blizzard.
from what i see, they just implemented a whole league template/database completely customizable at your disposal, saving you all the work, and of course, money to maintain it, since it *is* on battlenet.
so all in all, i see all of this as a good thing.
well, the only con would be the unforementioned wait time for the patch, but haha, as someone on the first page of replies said "at this stage in the game, we are immune to delays, we've waited for 9 years."
On April 30 2007 12:17 stanners wrote: I don't understand why everyone's so pissed off at blizzard.
from what i see, they just implemented a whole league template/database completely customizable at your disposal, saving you all the work, and of course, money to maintain it, since it *is* on battlenet.
so all in all, i see all of this as a good thing.
well, the only con would be the unforementioned wait time for the patch, but haha, as someone on the first page of replies said "at this stage in the game, we are immune to delays, we've waited for 9 years."
On April 26 2007 12:37 TheOvermind77 wrote: I think that this league option is amazing...especially for us not-so hardcore players. I have a pretty large group of friends that I play starcraft with...and being able to make a league that tracks stats, etc...with icons and shit is AMAZING! I am excited...thumbs up to Blizzard for doing this. It really shows that they still care about the fanbase of a game...most other RTS's will release patches for a year or so and then abruptly stop. Almost ten years into it and we are getting leagues....a sizeable addition...I love Blizzard!
I agree with you very much on this item, and I am actually working on writing something up for my family and group of friends. Gonna 'open source' it to some large extent. The most annoying thing about this is that I have no idea what the interface is going to look like, but I have some guesses, and these are different than what most people seem to be talking about here.
First, I expect the mopaqs to be purely client side and that therefore replays will not be loaded up to battle.net and stored there, as some people here are speculating. I instead expect that this will either work as a webservice set or, better yet, a rest interface called directly from the client computer. Of course, those people exposing their mopaq and web interface to the world are not going to want outsiders to know what their http addresses are for uploading data, for fear that the information could be used to send unclean or false data to the server. I think that I can work around this with a basic installation script that will force the installer to modify their 'mopaq connection interface' on the server side during installation.
With this in mind, I am setting up the system using mysql database, planning on using large blobs to store the replay data (this will conserve server space because it will reduce block usage on most filesystems), and php for the front-end, and possibly a future 'pure-perl' presentation of apm data (which I coded a lot of in the past, and need to get back to it).
I'm not a great hacker, but I'm decent, have a CS degree (whatever that counts for). But, if you are interested, let me know. I might need help when the mopaq design finally comes out. They are not communicating any information yet, it seems. I hope that it is the client side REST type system that I describe. That way, I just have to deal with some $_FILE arrays and temp files that need to be piped into the database.
EPT
The fruits of your labour will ripen when it is time. 
