StarCraft II fans will definitely want to check out the latest BFF Report. Mike B. aka Fony shows you everything you need to know about the three new Blizzard-made custom maps: Aiur Chef, StarJeweled and Left 2 Die. As you can probably tell from their titles, the games are based on Iron Chef, Bejeweled and Left 4 Dead.

Watch BFF Report episode 55 after the jump to see these StarCraft II maps in action!

It's been a busy few days for Ryan Winzen, the 25-year-old who's creating a Starcraft MMO using Starcraft II's editing tools. Last week he posted a video of his World of Starcraft mod on YouTube. It quickly went viral, which led to the video being pulled due to a copyright claim by Activision Games Inc. Well, it turns out that's not the end of the story.

In a letter posted this morning on the World of Starcraft forums, Winzen says he was contacted by Riot Games for a potential position in game design. Lead Designer Tod "Zileas" Cadwell confirmed the offer on the League of Legends forums and made the following comment:

"When I see a modder with a lot of drive that has done something cool, I tend to contact them. I shot him an email recently asking if he was interested in exploring an opportunity here. As to what comes of that, who knows -- that depends on the mutual fit and his own goals."

Winzen also states that he spoke with the deputy general counsel from Blizzard last night, and it's clear they want the name of the project to be changed. Winzen is currently leaning toward Starcraft Universe (currently in holding by Mille25) or Starcraft Chronicles. He also says that he is fully respectful of Blizzard's Intellectual property and they had every right to pull the video from YouTube.

You can read Winzen's full letter after the jump. Also, head over to Pixelated Geek to read e-mails from Winzen regarding this entire process.

UPDATE: The World of Starcraft video has been pulled from YouTube. It has been replaced with this message: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Activision Games Inc."

Fans are using StarCraft II's editing tools to build a World of Starcraft MMO. Yes, you read that right. Ryan Winzen of Winzen Productions (which isn't affiliated with Blizzard) is currently working on the game, and you can watch it in action in the pre-alpha video after the jump. It's definitely worth a look.

Below the video you'll find a letter that Winzen wrote to Blizzard and published on the World of Starcraft forums today. It sheds some light on why he's working on the project. Check out the forums for more details on the game.

[via PC Gamer]

The ZAM Network is growing! We are extremely pleased to unveil SC2Ranks.com, VindictusDB.com and TorchlightArmory.com, some of the most well-designed, informative, and accurate websites for StarCraft II, Vindictus and Torchlight! These three games are among the most popular PC games to be released in the last few years, and each site features its own impressive set of tools to help the gamers they serve. While you may come to ZAM to learn more about World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy or EverQuest, we're guessing that one of these new sites may focus on another game you're interested in.

Improving and enhancing the gameplay experience of gamers and online communities has always been the single most important goal at ZAM, and all three of our brand new sites continue this trend. Both Shadowed and Premixedpie, the founders of the sites, will continue to run their day-to-day operations and be the faces for their communities; some of you may recognize Shadowed from his efforts on WoW Interface and he's done a great job with SC2 Ranks. Any of you that frequent the Vindictus official forums may have heard of Vindictus DB, but if you haven't you'll find the same sort of terrific database experience that you've come to expect from ZAM's properties.

That said, the staffers here at ZAM are excited to further the vision of each of these sites. With over 10 years of experience in databases and resources, we're eager to bring our expertise to these sites while keeping the core of what made them great in the first place. So, if you dream about destroying Zerg, drop-kicking gnolls, or crushing endless waves of spiders with your bare hands, go check out SC2 Ranks, Vindictus DB and Torchlight Armory. Let us know what you think, and please shoot us your thoughts here or in our feedback forum!

Personally speaking, I think anyone who spends his or her entire day winning via proxy Barracks / proxy Gateway / 6-pool Zergling rush should also be banned, but this is probably a good reason why I don't work for Blizzard's anti-hacking banhammer division. Either way, Blizz has just announced that more than 5,000 StarCraft II players have been banned or suspended in their ongoing fight against cheaters and/or hackers within StarCraft II. There's not really much else to say on the matter, but remember to always re-watch your demos if you believe that someone is hacking. One of the easiest ways to check is to toggle the camera view to only your opponents view, and if he does suspicious things (like moving his army to avoid an ambush, without knowing your army is there), then feel free to let those little alarms in your head go off.

Either way, this indicates Blizz's strong anti-hacking stance in StarCraft II, so you'd better think twice before trying to cheat your way to the top of Diamond.

Apparently Blizzard's SC2 patch notes were leaked a few days earlier, when they posted it for about 10-20 minutes on the main site, but then quickly took them down. Well, now those patch notes are back, and they're pretty much the same as before; if you're familiar with Blizzard's Armory Report from a few weeks back, then you can guess what's in store today.

Unfortunately, the Protoss (nooooo) Zealot unit got a significant nerf in the form of an additional 5 seconds added onto their regular build time and warp gate cooldown time. This build time extension was to reduce the amount of pressure early game Protoss players had against Zerg players by streaming Zealots into the Zerg base. Terran players, understandably, have gotten some pretty solid nerfs all around, with Battlecruisers losing two damage to ground units, Siege Tanks losing a whopping 15 damage to light units in Siege Mode (so from 50 base to 35 + 15 to armored) and Reapers / Bunkers both getting a five second additional build time (thank goodness).

Interestingly, Zerg players don't get much in this patch, except losing 5 of their bonus damage versus armored units; perhaps Blizzard believes that the Terran nerfs are enough to bring Zerg players back to the competitive level? Only time will tell!

You can check out the full patch notes after the jump.

For anyone interested in the Starcraft II eSports scene, Saturday marked the conclusion of the very first Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Global Gamescom 2010 Starcraft II tournament, with a young player from Sweden, MorroW, taking the competition by force with his aggressive Reaper play as Terran. Unfortunately, however, amid the celebrations of proud Terran players everywhere, there have been rumblings of dissent from many pro gamers around the world who are asserting that this tournament has exposed some fundamental balance flaws in Starcraft II. 

Of all the things that Blizzard knows how to do well, one really stands out: making money. Their newest effort is StarCraft II, which sold 1.5 million copies worldwide in two days. At sixty bucks a pop, what is that, 90 million dollars in two days? Not a bad pull.

The numbers it put makes it the fastest selling strategy game of all time and already the best selling PC game of 2010. Now that it's been out for over a week, what could the numbers possibly be? Congrats Blizzard, and uh, can you take us out on your yachts and jets and other stuff rich people have? We'll bring chips.

As we reported before, Blizzard has made the StarCraft II website a game in and of itself. By taking the "entrance exam" and "liking" things on facebook, we as the StarCraft II fan community have unlocked over 50% of the art, audio clips and video sneak previews from the upcoming game. And the best stuff is yet to come.

So far there are some very humorous propaganda art pieces that seem to portray the Terran as deep space hillbillies and a video that chronicles the Terran's history. All in all, it's a cool website that deserves a look now and again to see what new items the community as a whole has unlocked. Check it out here.

We've got to admit, we love taking these little personality tests that companies come up to promote their game. The Secret World's "Which Secret Society do you belong to" was good but it seems Blizzard has raised the bar. Their "Join the Dominion" section of the StarCraft II website lets you unlock rewards by taking the entrance exam that determines your place in the Dominion army, submitting fan art and Facebook "liking" things throughout the website.

By putting time into the website and getting your friends to do the same, you do your part to progress the unlockable content bar. Every time it goes up by 5%, new concept art, videos and other awesome goodies unlock, until the bar is full and it unlocks the best prize. It's like we are leveling up as a StarCraft II fan community as a whole, and every time someone submits fan art, that's one more thing to "like" on Facebook, which helps to advance the bar. Oh, leveling, why are you addicting like drugs?

Check it out here for yourself.