In addition, we’re beginning to reach out directly to mod and game developers that have created fun, quality maps on Battle.net to get direct feedback, help them tackle obstacles, and provide them with early access to the 1.5 feature set so that they can begin to prepare for Arcade prior to its release. We’ll be revealing more details about the Arcade and the changes we’ve made to the concepts in the near future.
So is there anyone here get a chance to test this patch? Looking forward your testing articles.
Anyway, I will publish the "Patch 1" of GAx3 mod this week. Which would add more features to the editor hmmm. I have hesitated if I should delay it till SC2 1.5.0, but since Patch 1 is almostly done, I decided to publish it.
Honestly, _IF_ they are only doing modders with published work it kind of defeats the purpose ... cause 99% of published work sucks, and the ones who did create something amazing (like Mephs) have already left because of problems with the pop system. What they really need to do is give it to myself, Dryeyece, Ryan, Prozaic, EternalWraith etc etc ... those people involved in _unpublished_ but extremely big projects.
I was approached not by Blizzard directly, but through a mate, to give feedback directly relating to the UI/Trigger system and most of it was common sense. (Like why is Show/Hide Dialog hide by default when Dialogs are already hidden).
Little things that could have saved me hours and hours because the seconds and minutes add up over the course of a project.
The patch will do very little for me, because Tofu is basically finished, and once released the core load of the work will move to Data (balancing) rather than scripting cause the engine is modular and already in place. When I needed the _new_ debugger most I asked for it but wasn't given it, so it took me weeks and weeks to fix a few things that would have taken me seconds if I could see the code run and variable values on the fly. It would still be nice because I still have quite a few more features I would like to include in, and if HotS is coming soon I may as well hold off until then. (Like other major modders).
But at the same time, there are half a dozen projects I wish to do after Tofu, a remake of Phantom, Desertstrike, Monobattles, + 3 brand new ideas that haven't been done before. All these projects require minimal work compared to Tofu, but honestly I do not know if I can do them or not. I want to do this stuff for you guys, to give you good quality maps with good UI and scripting, that don't lag, are cheat free etc, that can connect to the Tofu achievement network. But, my family isn't happy ... it has been a year and a half working on Tofu, some is my fault, some is Blizzards fault, and I have been living off savings during that time.
At the same time there is the tutorial series I want to do, basically teach you guys to remake Tofu, at that level, covering everything ... but again my family is not happy about the idea ... because I am giving away my knowledge, but why do I care? I want the quality of maps to come up - but once the market place gets involved and money is on the table, expect everyone to change ... that knowledge becomes worth a lot of money, because it can make people a lot of money ... so who knows what will happen ...
What they really need to do is give it to myself, Dryeyece, Ryan, Prozaic, EternalWraith etc etc ... those people involved in _unpublished_ but extremely big projects.
Proficient as these map developers may be, I get the impression they are reaching out to devs of published maps because the Arcade may be using those maps in some capacity, and it wouldn't exactly be possible to do that with unreleased projects. Not to say notorious developers of yet-unreleased projects should be excluded; that's just the impression I have of the situation.
But at the same time, reaching out to give it to published maps ... what is the point? They have already finished their projects (or the bulk of it), they don't need the new debugger, or new tools or anything ... it is the people who have not finished their projects that need these tools most.
Perhaps you do have a point though, there might be new arcade only features such as server side banks that need to be tested ... but at the same time, if they gave me the new editor chances are I could pump out Tofu to open beta in a few weeks and woila, then they have an extremely polished well coded map to test all these "advanced" features on ...
Proficient as these map developers may be, I get the impression they are reaching out to devs of published maps because the Arcade may be using those maps in some capacity, and it wouldn't exactly be possible to do that with unreleased projects. Not to say notorious developers of yet-unreleased projects should be excluded; that's just the impression I have of the situation.
You may have a point there. They are probably going to try to make the arcade the biggest success as quickly as they can. I frankly think its stupid to widthhold any of the new mod tools or map editor improvements. Think about it. Who are those selling to? Modders of course. What percentage of their sales is that? Almost nothing.
On top of that: yes the arcade will expose some buried maps. However most of that content is made by people who are no longer updating and largely gone. Maps that are not being updated don't get played for very long. And athough a lot of buried content will come to light, it could take several years for the makers to trickle back; if they some ever do.
It will take some time for a new wave of content to reach the players after the initial "come towards the light" wears off. Will take 6 months probably but content to replace that wave may take at least that long to come out. And if they want to start drawing both players and modders back they need to community to look as vibrant as possible.
I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of those Blizzard art tools. My group has been working steadily but its such a pain making models from scratch with the current tools (Ie ntoxicated's tools). After several series of bugs we don't even dare put bones of them or even try to animate them. Fortunatly we are busy with tanks, vehicals, and ships which we can get away with not animation for a while but the time will come when we will need to do that. Hopefully my group can get those art tools before we get to the infantry.
Rodrigo: “Hello?” “Hello, here’s Blizzard and we just want to warn you that we WILLNOT contact you. So, don’t expect our calls” Rodrigo: “Errr… ok?” “And your maps suck btw. And f#&@ facebook.”
Dryeyce is looking forward to the art tools too, he gets too excited ... for me I just am longing for that bloody debugger ...
As I don't know anything about this guy I won't comment.
Its more of a case of losing 3 months of development time. It seems par for the course 1 of 4 things will happen.
1. I will be ignored and lose 3 months.
2. I will be ignored until their next wave of "elites" within a week of HotS release. This does me no good whatsoever.
3. I will be ignored and they won't release the tools until 6 months after HotS release. This is the most likely case given their track record. This is also the worst case.
4. I will be given the tools within a week. I would have a heart attack if this happened due to the sheer shock. If I survived the heart attack I would be in a coma for 2 weeks as my mind tries to grasp the idea that Blizzard was proactive for once.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/4592755/Developer_Update_with_Game_Director_Dustin_Browder_-3_12_2012#blog
So, 1.5.0, the greatest patch since the launch of SC2. Tons of new edit features that otherwise would be in hots.
And they said:
In addition, we’re beginning to reach out directly to mod and game developers that have created fun, quality maps on Battle.net to get direct feedback, help them tackle obstacles, and provide them with early access to the 1.5 feature set so that they can begin to prepare for Arcade prior to its release. We’ll be revealing more details about the Arcade and the changes we’ve made to the concepts in the near future.
So is there anyone here get a chance to test this patch? Looking forward your testing articles.
Anyway, I will publish the "Patch 1" of GAx3 mod this week. Which would add more features to the editor hmmm. I have hesitated if I should delay it till SC2 1.5.0, but since Patch 1 is almostly done, I decided to publish it.
Honestly, _IF_ they are only doing modders with published work it kind of defeats the purpose ... cause 99% of published work sucks, and the ones who did create something amazing (like Mephs) have already left because of problems with the pop system. What they really need to do is give it to myself, Dryeyece, Ryan, Prozaic, EternalWraith etc etc ... those people involved in _unpublished_ but extremely big projects.
I was approached not by Blizzard directly, but through a mate, to give feedback directly relating to the UI/Trigger system and most of it was common sense. (Like why is Show/Hide Dialog hide by default when Dialogs are already hidden).
Little things that could have saved me hours and hours because the seconds and minutes add up over the course of a project.
The patch will do very little for me, because Tofu is basically finished, and once released the core load of the work will move to Data (balancing) rather than scripting cause the engine is modular and already in place. When I needed the _new_ debugger most I asked for it but wasn't given it, so it took me weeks and weeks to fix a few things that would have taken me seconds if I could see the code run and variable values on the fly. It would still be nice because I still have quite a few more features I would like to include in, and if HotS is coming soon I may as well hold off until then. (Like other major modders).
But at the same time, there are half a dozen projects I wish to do after Tofu, a remake of Phantom, Desertstrike, Monobattles, + 3 brand new ideas that haven't been done before. All these projects require minimal work compared to Tofu, but honestly I do not know if I can do them or not. I want to do this stuff for you guys, to give you good quality maps with good UI and scripting, that don't lag, are cheat free etc, that can connect to the Tofu achievement network. But, my family isn't happy ... it has been a year and a half working on Tofu, some is my fault, some is Blizzards fault, and I have been living off savings during that time.
At the same time there is the tutorial series I want to do, basically teach you guys to remake Tofu, at that level, covering everything ... but again my family is not happy about the idea ... because I am giving away my knowledge, but why do I care? I want the quality of maps to come up - but once the market place gets involved and money is on the table, expect everyone to change ... that knowledge becomes worth a lot of money, because it can make people a lot of money ... so who knows what will happen ...
Proficient as these map developers may be, I get the impression they are reaching out to devs of published maps because the Arcade may be using those maps in some capacity, and it wouldn't exactly be possible to do that with unreleased projects. Not to say notorious developers of yet-unreleased projects should be excluded; that's just the impression I have of the situation.
But at the same time, reaching out to give it to published maps ... what is the point? They have already finished their projects (or the bulk of it), they don't need the new debugger, or new tools or anything ... it is the people who have not finished their projects that need these tools most.
Perhaps you do have a point though, there might be new arcade only features such as server side banks that need to be tested ... but at the same time, if they gave me the new editor chances are I could pump out Tofu to open beta in a few weeks and woila, then they have an extremely polished well coded map to test all these "advanced" features on ...
You may have a point there. They are probably going to try to make the arcade the biggest success as quickly as they can. I frankly think its stupid to widthhold any of the new mod tools or map editor improvements. Think about it. Who are those selling to? Modders of course. What percentage of their sales is that? Almost nothing.
On top of that: yes the arcade will expose some buried maps. However most of that content is made by people who are no longer updating and largely gone. Maps that are not being updated don't get played for very long. And athough a lot of buried content will come to light, it could take several years for the makers to trickle back; if they some ever do.
It will take some time for a new wave of content to reach the players after the initial "come towards the light" wears off. Will take 6 months probably but content to replace that wave may take at least that long to come out. And if they want to start drawing both players and modders back they need to community to look as vibrant as possible.
I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of those Blizzard art tools. My group has been working steadily but its such a pain making models from scratch with the current tools (Ie ntoxicated's tools). After several series of bugs we don't even dare put bones of them or even try to animate them. Fortunatly we are busy with tanks, vehicals, and ships which we can get away with not animation for a while but the time will come when we will need to do that. Hopefully my group can get those art tools before we get to the infantry.
edit: never mind.
Rodrigo: “Hello?”
“Hello, here’s Blizzard and we just want to warn you that we WILL NOT contact you. So, don’t expect our calls”
Rodrigo: “Errr… ok?”
“And your maps suck btw. And f#&@ facebook.”
Sad thing is I don't think Rodrigo is joking -_-
@FockeWulf: Go
Dryeyce is looking forward to the art tools too, he gets too excited ... for me I just am longing for that bloody debugger ...
As I don't know anything about this guy I won't comment.
Its more of a case of losing 3 months of development time. It seems par for the course 1 of 4 things will happen.
1. I will be ignored and lose 3 months.
2. I will be ignored until their next wave of "elites" within a week of HotS release. This does me no good whatsoever.
3. I will be ignored and they won't release the tools until 6 months after HotS release. This is the most likely case given their track record. This is also the worst case.
4. I will be given the tools within a week. I would have a heart attack if this happened due to the sheer shock. If I survived the heart attack I would be in a coma for 2 weeks as my mind tries to grasp the idea that Blizzard was proactive for once.
Or ...
You can do what we are doing ... getting our asses into gear trying to push to open beta asap so we can say look what we mades new tools nao plox.
And then they will just...ignore you completely. This is one of those cases where I hope to be proven wrong.
Ooh, ooh, I was contacted by Blizzard! Talked directly to one of their guys!
It was a Blizzard lawyer who asked me to cease and desist with the in-game donor benefits.