Watching Phase I and Phase II Beta replays after Final Release...

[protoswarrior]

Hi guys,

This hasn't been posted anywhere, and I am not promoting pirating in any shape or form.


I was wondering if there would be a way to conserve the Beta client and files in another folder somewhere on my harddrive and download a launcher to specifically target that folder to be able to watch all my old beta replays from Phases I-II.

This is relevant after the Phase I is done, and when the game goes live after July 27th.


So far, I made a complete copy of my Starcraft II Beta folder from Program Files (x86) and from my Starcraft II Beta folder from My Documents.


Anyone planning to do this? If so, any tips on how I could make this work?

[TheEconomist]

Yep, you can. I don't know if its against the ToS to mention it though. I'll ask a mod.

[Gifted]

Ahh, Tychus brought it to my attention. In this case it's preserving some of your beta launcher.. My best suggestion, compress your copied folder in your favorite format (Such as .zip or .rar) and wait about a week or so to see what the community as a whole pulls off.

[protoswarrior]

Prudent suggestion

Doing it right now Although Winrar is better

[TheEconomist]

For the original SCBW, there was a program that automatically recreated old .exe so you could watch old replays. I'm sure something like that will surface that you don't have to crack the game a la custom launchers. If not, just keep a separate installation of the beta once the retail comes out.

As for my backups, I have an automatic backup solution on my flash drive that copies it to it whenever a file is added or modified. I also have burn them to a DVD every few days and also 7zip them about every two weeks. Can never be too sure I want to keep these precious memories forever.

[Gifted]

Prudent suggestion

Doing it right now Although Winrar is better

True enough, going to change "zip" to "compress" cause I use Rar and other formats as well.

[Kknewkles]

It HAS been posted. Blizz said they didn't see this feature as necessary and no, it won't be possible to watch Beta replays after release.

But I have all my replays in a folder, just in case. I hope this issue will ultimately cause a riot and Blizz will come to their senses.

[TheEconomist]

As a side note, StarCraft 2 replays don't have much redundant data so any compression should be good. The less advanced the faster you can compress and uncompress.I've tried LZMA with a dictionary size of 512MB (requires 6GB RAM) and it was just as effective as WinRAR and WinZip with dictionary sizes of less than 4MB but take less resources to compress and uncompress.

@Kknewkles: You will be able to watch beta replays as long as the beta is supported by your OS. Just not through the retail.

[newcomplex]

wow omg.

Could you please please please put this online on a torrent or something somewhere? I stupidly downloaded the next patch without backing up my old one and now I can't use the map editor

Would be much appreciated -_-.

[protoswarrior]

I have a shitty ass connection for that kind of stuff... (Rogers cable ) Can anyone else do the upload?

Mine would take a month to upload...