The long and short is, too many options, not enough interest, plenty of people with ideas, not enough people willing to work on them for any period of time, too many people chasing money, too few doing this as a hobby or a passion, too much expectation, not enough realism.
Oh and an absolute lack of any patience (not all, but some).
I want to know what public problems effect this community today.
I'd say a big factor of people leaving is that the delay with the mouse/key events prevents considerable deviation
from standard RTS play, the lag making them virtually useless in most situations. We can "make" any game, it would just lag too much to be playable (and we have to force players to download the map and open it through the editor if want a no-delay single player game, contradicting the use of the Arcade. This would be effective with LAN, however..., but again, no.)
There's also the fact that updates to the editor/arcade are literally spaced years apart.
And how much Blizzard chose to rely on the data module. Assets (textures/sounds/models) should be its own module. No one should be forced to go into data (the data module is debatably the most complicated part of the editor). I really like how they did the trigger module, however. I just don't want to have to open up data every time I want to reference imported assets (notably sounds). There's just too much integration with a part of the editor many people want nothing to do with, and again, the fact that we can't expect Blizzard to do anything about it, at least not within a reasonable time frame. Data is a great time saver for Blizzard in developing actual league gameplay, it just gimps the rest of us.
It's so close to being the ideal editor for someone who maps as a hobby, there's just not enough being done for it. The only reason I haven't switched to Unity yet is that... If SC2 seems like a lot of labor for little chance of success, Unity seems like a ton more labor for an even smaller chance of success.
Also, it's not like that entering lobby bug is serious or long term at all.
But I should say, I think their community team is fantastic nowadays, and that gives me hope, enough to stick with SC2. There are still plenty of things Blizzard can do for the Arcade (for example, giving it it's own platform and treating it as a new release [among other things]).
The apparent lack of care from Blizzard with it's lore, so much as it's support for offline games/UMS maps that buzzkilled about half of aspiring people in the first days since WoL was released. The limitations for technical support, the early complications with getting external models and configuring them in the Data Editor, as well as the ridiculous 80MB limit have all contributed further for many potential names like Oracle, Lavarinth, IskatuMesk and others to walk away and stick with Brood War. Combine the undervalueing of good maps like Tower Defense Tycoon, decrease in audiences when noticing SC2 was reduced to another Hard-Counter based game and the lack of incentive from Blizzard itself, focusing instead more in Diablo III and WoW, and you got pretty much every symptom laid out.
Not to mention what happened in HotS and the Existor leak to stir people's anger further. This is attributed to Blizzard itself, as they sacrificed security for speed, underestimating data-miner's skills, when the most logical would be to release it all ONLY at the release date, but Blizz already wanted people to hop in at record time.
NOTE: If there's some problem with this post, please PM and let me know. I once was radical concerning this, and this posture had me suspended on another forum.
And how much Blizzard chose to rely on the data module. Assets (textures/sounds/models) should be its own module. No one should be forced to go into data (the data module is debatably the most complicated part of the editor). I really like how they did the trigger module, however. I just don't want to have to open up data every time I want to reference imported assets (notably sounds). There's just too much integration with a part of the editor many people want nothing to do with, and again, the fact that we can't expect Blizzard to do anything about it, at least not within a reasonable time frame. Data is a great time saver for Blizzard in developing actual league gameplay, it just gimps the rest of us.
I do want to address this. The data editor is indeed the most complicated part of the editor, and yes, the data editor is a great time saver when you understand how it works... but that's the catch, very few people understand fundamentally how it works. The primary issue is that the data editor was designed for software engineers, people who have experience with multiple kinds of programming. Actors is another place people get lost all the time, because they don't see the underlying paradigm behind it (it is a paradigm in CS all to its own). Consequently, yes, it has a learning cliff, for most mappers are NOT software people by trade or even by hobby, they map, and they know little outside of mapping, some know more then others, but few are actual CS students or software engineers. So yes, for people who know how it works and why it works, it is a colossal time saver and VERY efficient. For those who don't, it is indeed a handicap. And what frustrates people is that although you don't have to do EVERYTHING in data, quite a few avoid it at all cost and use triggers, which kills performance and forces you back to the data editor anyhow.
Public interest is the biggest factor to me. Not enough people are interested in playing SC2, let alone custom maps to support a healthy community. It's hard to do anything SC2 related that isn't about Esports, the singleplayer campaign/story or the top 10 played list. Anything else and you're looking at a very niche audience.
I mapped in WC3 and loved it, it took me a couple of years to be able to make anything decent but I felt like the only things limiting me were advanced triggers and possible implementation of JASS and such. I bought SC2 pretty much for the sole reason of mapmaking, and I was shocked. The data editor put me off almost immediately, only after 2-3 years have I started understanding some fundamental parts of it. For me it simply is too complicated, I try and solve most of my problems with triggers but I feel like 50% of the things I try to accomplish in the Data editor I need help with. Which means I have to create threads for problems that I could've solved easily in WC3, but luckily the community here helps me out a lot! Without Sc2mapster I would've given up long ago.
Hunger, war, lack of universal health care, an aging population to name a few.
Oh, mapping-wise? Probably the all-around lack of improvements to the editor that are spread years apart, little campaign support, the fact that it's hard for average people to get into, etc.
There's a sense of urgency in everybody, I speculate. This urgency has an underlying cause, I presume.
There is a coming poverty, and so money once became an incentive to map making, I hypothesize.
In the beginning, it wasn't about money. Then Blizzard said, "let there be a market place!" but it was not so. Those poor souls who were drawn in by the lure of a Market place, a chance not to shine, but gain the shiny things, poured right in. There was evening and there was morning, the second day, and popularity became an issue.
It has always been sought after, popularity, since audiences flock to where the crowd has gathered, a fan-fare, a circus, or League of Legends: A pond of stinking sweat, crammy keyboards, and yes, money.
Then the mark of Cain has been etched. Competitiveness instead of brotherhood has shaped the world. The fires of industry burning under the earth, each one their own Sauroman, dreaming of the glory and the power. But Gandalf said Sauron does not share power.
But unbeknownst to them, the lidless eye of Battle.net, has chained maps under its command. It must see you or the burden of the one mod will always hang heavy, draining the will, the strength, the innocence of the shire from within.
Whips crack, as those in the back said, "Publish!" and those in the front said, "Not enough space!" And as they kept pushing, pushed back to the edge, it said, "Let's give them 'Connection has timed out'!" Many had fallen in those days.
But a few remain. Though everything has changed: you can feel it in the waters; you can feel it in the air, there is still hope.
One day, the one shireling will find a way into mount doom, with a good friend, a forewarning of a golum, and a bitten-off finger, maybe, just maybe, we can ride to the white shores with the last elves, and forever be glowing with a misty glow and HDR Bloom bleeding all over the place.
I therefore conclude that Starcraft 2 isn't good enough to keep people hooked e-sports wise. Terran is imba, Zerg is imba, Protoss is imba. Starcraft 2 mod for Command and Conquer will never be as good as the real Starcraft 2. But it was a dream. A dream lost which they blamed on UI. It was the three-part monetization that had cluttered the unit tree.
The lack of strategy and the rise of blobs due to the youtube attitude of "I wasted 5 minutes of my life" pacing change. That instead of taking the map and be conscious over strategically positioning and counter-positioning, you had 3 bases worth after taking your first expo. The blob is inevitable. The blob is so C&C.
And yes, lack of Campaign Support. God darnit! Why should I lag online when a simple load campaign package from the menu with an option "Play offline" would be nice.
You'd download a campaign archive, put in folder, load from Battle.net (offline or online) and boom! But we could also make our own loader. I can do batch files only though.
The editor is advanced, and the community has not a comprehensive online guide and tutorials for it. Not even blizzard posts a weekly tutorial on battle.net. They don't even post weekly map packs for single player experience like before.
I always find it ceaselessly entertaining when people look at custom content from a monetary perspective. Their inevitable failure is neither surprising nor concerning. And popularity... lol.
Frankly I've always found data the easiest to use. It's well structured and it all connects in a logical way. I have had no programming experience and any games I have modded have not had anything similar to the data editor.
And I swear half of peoples issues with the data editor are either incredibly easy to do and they can't take the 20 minutes to figure it out, or are easily solved by looking at previously existing data. Granted some things in the data editor and mind bending to figure out or are just made more complex then necessary. Sure it's not always the most straight forward editing process to figure out but once you get a rhythm everything starts to flow.
Yes, however the fundamental concepts of the data editor are still difficult. For a normal amateur coder, they are used to either Object Oriented or Procedural programming, not data drive programming or Actors programming.
I do agree that there are new features that need to be added, and maybe with Heroes of the Storm we will get them. The other thing is that, yes, people need to be more helpful. For whatever reason, people are unwilling to do collaborations or make generic stuff people can use, even though the editor makes it trivial to do so. People speak of publish limits, but why does everyone need to host and use up a file slot for a dependency with code and data that is duplicated over and over and over all over?
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I want to know what public problems effect this community today.
People typing 'effect' when they mean 'affect' :D
Seriously though - probably the lack of interest in SC2 as a whole is the biggest cause and symptom of the lack of mapmakers.
@joehd: Go
this list need to be implemented : http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/70323-funkys-arcade-wishlist/
if this won't happen with the release of lotv, sc2mapster will have at least one user less.
The long and short is, too many options, not enough interest, plenty of people with ideas, not enough people willing to work on them for any period of time, too many people chasing money, too few doing this as a hobby or a passion, too much expectation, not enough realism.
Oh and an absolute lack of any patience (not all, but some).
I dunno. WC3's competitive scene was (while not absent) pretty flat. I feel confident in saying that WC3 lived on it's custom maps.
We'll see what LotV brings. I sure as hell hope they don't rush it. They fixed Diablo up, here's hoping they fix StarCraft up.
@joehd: Go
I'd say a big factor of people leaving is that the delay with the mouse/key events prevents considerable deviation from standard RTS play, the lag making them virtually useless in most situations. We can "make" any game, it would just lag too much to be playable (and we have to force players to download the map and open it through the editor if want a no-delay single player game, contradicting the use of the Arcade. This would be effective with LAN, however..., but again, no.)
There's also the fact that updates to the editor/arcade are literally spaced years apart.
And how much Blizzard chose to rely on the data module. Assets (textures/sounds/models) should be its own module. No one should be forced to go into data (the data module is debatably the most complicated part of the editor). I really like how they did the trigger module, however. I just don't want to have to open up data every time I want to reference imported assets (notably sounds). There's just too much integration with a part of the editor many people want nothing to do with, and again, the fact that we can't expect Blizzard to do anything about it, at least not within a reasonable time frame. Data is a great time saver for Blizzard in developing actual league gameplay, it just gimps the rest of us.
It's so close to being the ideal editor for someone who maps as a hobby, there's just not enough being done for it. The only reason I haven't switched to Unity yet is that... If SC2 seems like a lot of labor for little chance of success, Unity seems like a ton more labor for an even smaller chance of success.
Also, it's not like that entering lobby bug is serious or long term at all.
But I should say, I think their community team is fantastic nowadays, and that gives me hope, enough to stick with SC2. There are still plenty of things Blizzard can do for the Arcade (for example, giving it it's own platform and treating it as a new release [among other things]).
Lack of technical support / bug fixing from Blizzard. It's pretty pathetic.
See Here
The apparent lack of care from Blizzard with it's lore, so much as it's support for offline games/UMS maps that buzzkilled about half of aspiring people in the first days since WoL was released. The limitations for technical support, the early complications with getting external models and configuring them in the Data Editor, as well as the ridiculous 80MB limit have all contributed further for many potential names like Oracle, Lavarinth, IskatuMesk and others to walk away and stick with Brood War. Combine the undervalueing of good maps like Tower Defense Tycoon, decrease in audiences when noticing SC2 was reduced to another Hard-Counter based game and the lack of incentive from Blizzard itself, focusing instead more in Diablo III and WoW, and you got pretty much every symptom laid out.
Not to mention what happened in HotS and the Existor leak to stir people's anger further. This is attributed to Blizzard itself, as they sacrificed security for speed, underestimating data-miner's skills, when the most logical would be to release it all ONLY at the release date, but Blizz already wanted people to hop in at record time.
NOTE: If there's some problem with this post, please PM and let me know. I once was radical concerning this, and this posture had me suspended on another forum.
I do want to address this. The data editor is indeed the most complicated part of the editor, and yes, the data editor is a great time saver when you understand how it works... but that's the catch, very few people understand fundamentally how it works. The primary issue is that the data editor was designed for software engineers, people who have experience with multiple kinds of programming. Actors is another place people get lost all the time, because they don't see the underlying paradigm behind it (it is a paradigm in CS all to its own). Consequently, yes, it has a learning cliff, for most mappers are NOT software people by trade or even by hobby, they map, and they know little outside of mapping, some know more then others, but few are actual CS students or software engineers. So yes, for people who know how it works and why it works, it is a colossal time saver and VERY efficient. For those who don't, it is indeed a handicap. And what frustrates people is that although you don't have to do EVERYTHING in data, quite a few avoid it at all cost and use triggers, which kills performance and forces you back to the data editor anyhow.
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Curse PremiumPublic interest is the biggest factor to me. Not enough people are interested in playing SC2, let alone custom maps to support a healthy community. It's hard to do anything SC2 related that isn't about Esports, the singleplayer campaign/story or the top 10 played list. Anything else and you're looking at a very niche audience.
I mapped in WC3 and loved it, it took me a couple of years to be able to make anything decent but I felt like the only things limiting me were advanced triggers and possible implementation of JASS and such. I bought SC2 pretty much for the sole reason of mapmaking, and I was shocked. The data editor put me off almost immediately, only after 2-3 years have I started understanding some fundamental parts of it. For me it simply is too complicated, I try and solve most of my problems with triggers but I feel like 50% of the things I try to accomplish in the Data editor I need help with. Which means I have to create threads for problems that I could've solved easily in WC3, but luckily the community here helps me out a lot! Without Sc2mapster I would've given up long ago.
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Curse PremiumHunger, war, lack of universal health care, an aging population to name a few.
Oh, mapping-wise? Probably the all-around lack of improvements to the editor that are spread years apart, little campaign support, the fact that it's hard for average people to get into, etc.
There's a sense of urgency in everybody, I speculate. This urgency has an underlying cause, I presume.
There is a coming poverty, and so money once became an incentive to map making, I hypothesize.
In the beginning, it wasn't about money. Then Blizzard said, "let there be a market place!" but it was not so. Those poor souls who were drawn in by the lure of a Market place, a chance not to shine, but gain the shiny things, poured right in. There was evening and there was morning, the second day, and popularity became an issue.
It has always been sought after, popularity, since audiences flock to where the crowd has gathered, a fan-fare, a circus, or League of Legends: A pond of stinking sweat, crammy keyboards, and yes, money.
Then the mark of Cain has been etched. Competitiveness instead of brotherhood has shaped the world. The fires of industry burning under the earth, each one their own Sauroman, dreaming of the glory and the power. But Gandalf said Sauron does not share power.
But unbeknownst to them, the lidless eye of Battle.net, has chained maps under its command. It must see you or the burden of the one mod will always hang heavy, draining the will, the strength, the innocence of the shire from within.
Whips crack, as those in the back said, "Publish!" and those in the front said, "Not enough space!" And as they kept pushing, pushed back to the edge, it said, "Let's give them 'Connection has timed out'!" Many had fallen in those days.
But a few remain. Though everything has changed: you can feel it in the waters; you can feel it in the air, there is still hope.
One day, the one shireling will find a way into mount doom, with a good friend, a forewarning of a golum, and a bitten-off finger, maybe, just maybe, we can ride to the white shores with the last elves, and forever be glowing with a misty glow and HDR Bloom bleeding all over the place.
I therefore conclude that Starcraft 2 isn't good enough to keep people hooked e-sports wise. Terran is imba, Zerg is imba, Protoss is imba. Starcraft 2 mod for Command and Conquer will never be as good as the real Starcraft 2. But it was a dream. A dream lost which they blamed on UI. It was the three-part monetization that had cluttered the unit tree.
The lack of strategy and the rise of blobs due to the youtube attitude of "I wasted 5 minutes of my life" pacing change. That instead of taking the map and be conscious over strategically positioning and counter-positioning, you had 3 bases worth after taking your first expo. The blob is inevitable. The blob is so C&C.
And yes, lack of Campaign Support. God darnit! Why should I lag online when a simple load campaign package from the menu with an option "Play offline" would be nice.
You'd download a campaign archive, put in folder, load from Battle.net (offline or online) and boom! But we could also make our own loader. I can do batch files only though.
The editor is advanced, and the community has not a comprehensive online guide and tutorials for it. Not even blizzard posts a weekly tutorial on battle.net. They don't even post weekly map packs for single player experience like before.
Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.
I always find it ceaselessly entertaining when people look at custom content from a monetary perspective. Their inevitable failure is neither surprising nor concerning. And popularity... lol.
@ArcaneDurandel: Go
Frankly I've always found data the easiest to use. It's well structured and it all connects in a logical way. I have had no programming experience and any games I have modded have not had anything similar to the data editor.
And I swear half of peoples issues with the data editor are either incredibly easy to do and they can't take the 20 minutes to figure it out, or are easily solved by looking at previously existing data. Granted some things in the data editor and mind bending to figure out or are just made more complex then necessary. Sure it's not always the most straight forward editing process to figure out but once you get a rhythm everything starts to flow.
Yes, however the fundamental concepts of the data editor are still difficult. For a normal amateur coder, they are used to either Object Oriented or Procedural programming, not data drive programming or Actors programming.
I do agree that there are new features that need to be added, and maybe with Heroes of the Storm we will get them. The other thing is that, yes, people need to be more helpful. For whatever reason, people are unwilling to do collaborations or make generic stuff people can use, even though the editor makes it trivial to do so. People speak of publish limits, but why does everyone need to host and use up a file slot for a dependency with code and data that is duplicated over and over and over all over?