While I don't usually agree with your sentiments, you've hit the mark with the core issues of the Arcade problem. There simply are not enough people interested in the custom mapping scene, and those who are are playing the top few mods or featured content, leaving little for the rest. I can't tell how many times I've left frustrated trying to play an obscure map publicly.
The current custom map scene is falling to the same trappings of the celphone apps market, where the few gain the most exposure and the rest is laid to the wayside. While this may also have happened in the past with SC1 and Warcraft 3's flood of TD's and DOTA, it was still possible to create a lobby for an obscure map and have someone join within reason. I don't know exactly what it speaks of to the general custom map playerbase, but it seems like there just aren't enough active players to justify creating content for anything outside a popular War3 remake or an iteration of a popular genre. It leads to stagnation.
- Edit -
As for actual improvements to the editor, anything to make it more like the Warcraft 3 system would be great. Include a wizard and simplify the system. I remember there was talk from the devs that there were going to be more Warcraft 3 features implemented in the editor. I'm anxiously waiting to see what they will do.
Fockewolf's heart is in the right place, and the majority of what he says has basis in truth, he just has a really, really, bad way of communicating those ideas. As such, he has, I dare say, annoyed Blizzard to the point, where they are never going to take anything he says seriously, regardless if it is a good idea or not.
But, you all should be able to understand where he is coming from, there are very few of us with the professionalism and strength to keep a level head after everything that has, or has not happened, over the last three years. There are only two known super-projects left, SCU & Tofu, and both are on the tip of being cancelled indefinately because of a lack of financial support/financial opportunity.
Herein lies the problem from hiring within the community, there are very few of us who have the people skills required to succeed in a corporate world. Most of us develop mods for a reason, and that reason usually has to do with escaping dealings with people in real life. The people at the top, elitists, are the exact other problem. Their arrogance and ignorance only serves to undermine their potential, so whilst yes, they might have the skills required, they will not be hired or contacted because of the way they behave.
When working in a corporation, people skills is paramount to everything else. You will be forced to communicate, resolve conflicts and not to take things personally. Sacrafice your ideas for the good of the game and the good of the company, regardless of how strongly you believe in them.
The main problem, and I will stress this again, is the player base.
Times have changed, you can now go on Steam and play really awesome indi games - Battle.net has been left behind because Blizzard were simply too slow to act on opportunities. Yes, Battle.net gave us TDs, gave us MOBAs and all other kinds of genres, Battle.net was the breeding ground for the Indi games industry today. Even Minecraft was a combination of Infiniminer and Survival (That Notched played on battle.net).
As a direct result of this, Blizzard basically built the indi games market but they didn't make a dollar from it. This would have left a sour note.
IMO, and what I will be suggesting, is that the Arcade needs to be migrated away from Starcraft II and into the launcher.
Battle.net should rival Steam, Battle.net should be the service.
arcade dedicated server would allow a lag free "photon cycles"
my only mapmaker request:
allow the use of a custom 4th race selectable within the regular lobby in a melee context (everything seems in place already, why this feature isn't "allowed" is beyond me)
Thank you DogmaiSEA for giving us this possibility. Maybe something good will come out of it.
Feature: Statistics for authors
Priority: 1
Use: I know that statistics are usually boring, but for me personally they can be really useful. In addition to global data like:
Total Number of Players, Total Number of Unique Players, Total Map Starts, Average Time Played, Average Time Played without games
lasting less than 2 minutes, etc. (whatever comes to your mind could be here - the more the better), I would also love the
possibility to have my own statistics controlled by triggers. Just set of counters that I can increase or decrease by specific
trigger, from which I could check for example, on which part of my map players give up often, where do they die the most etc. If for example 80% players would die 10 times on a second boss this would give me an idea that maybe I should change something.
These data could be accessible from "Manage Published" option in editor.
Other or additional idea would be to create one server-side bank per map where I could store interesting (for me) values. This
could also be controlled by triggers and accessible from "Manage Published".
Feature: Bug Report
Priority: 2
Use: Similar how reviews are handled, but only for bugs. Many people report bugs in the reviews section already and it is good,
but I feel that this isn't right place for it and often bugs influence the score itself. Maybe it would be good idea to split
these things up. Also, great addition would be to allow author to respond for these bug reports in usual bug tracker fashion,
checking one of the options: Fixed, Not Fixed, Not a bug - its a feature, Future Development; as well post some comment in
response to each report.
Feature: Map size increase to at least 512x512
Priority: 3
Use: Seriously... what the hell? Why this is such big deal? The only response from Blizzard I found on the internet a while ago
was "We currently have no plans to increase map size". Really? Why?
Let me tell you something. We are artists. We need inspiration and possibilities. You are great on the field of inspiration.
Remember this little asset of soccer ball you've put into the editor? When I saw it, I was 100% sure that this will inspire
someone, even I tried something myself. Look now, one of most popular maps - Star Strikers! Just because this one little asset.
Imagine a painter that sees beautiful house and wants to paint it. He feels inspired, he wants to do something meaningful in his
life. And what? No no no no, his painting frame (canvas?) is too small. What a shame, Van Gogh was never born.
Remember when you asked the community which Dark Templar model you should use? Small blade or big scythe? Remember community
answer? Yes! BOTH!
We need possibilities to create great maps, don't take them away from us.
If there was anything that I've learned in my programming life, that would be to leave stuff as a option as often as you can.
Don't know which is better? Leave as an option. Don't know how something should be displayed? Leave as an option. Don't know which
control method use? Leave as an option. I know that this may not be applicable everywhere, like leaving marine damage as an option for tournament maps probably won't be an good idea, but we are talking about editor. Stuff that create stuff. Don't put these stupid and artificial bounds on us.
What are you afraid of? Performance? If map won't be playable this is not your problem, it's author's problem.
Btw. I've checked. In SC:BW slow overlord needs 9 minutes 42 seconds (yes, I've spent 10 minutes staring into slow flying overlord) to get from Top-Left to Bottom-Right of the map. In SC2, same slow
overlord needs only 6:10, so the map is even smaller!!!
We know that some of the following suggestions might be unrealistic or very hard to implement, but please take the time to read through them and think about what impact they would have on the modding scene!
Feature: Asynchronous player input / local triggers
Priority: VERY HIGH
Description:
We desperately need a way to make mods with a custom controls system feel more responsive. The Arcade will never unleash its full potential if its not possible to create mods with custom controls, since it will always be limited to the default top down view. Almost all games which use custom controls have bad ratings complaining about lag and "bad" controls. This needs to be improved.
As an example of how this could work:
There could be special "local" triggers which just allow certain events, conditions and actions which don't require the game to be in a synchronous state. Examples for events would be key presses or camera movements. Actions could be interaction with the UI for a specific player, camera modification, Actor modification, ...
Yes, making single player games running locally by default is a good first step, however I don't think it resolves the core problem. We want awesome MULTIPLAYER experiences using custom controls!
Implementing asynchronous player input support would make it possible to create shooters, side scrollers, racing games and so much more! Yes, its a huge task, yes it will require a lot of work, but its essential for the Arcade to develop into something bigger!
Feature: Server-side storage of player data and global banks
Priority: VERY HIGH
Description:
Server-side banks have two advantages over local files:
- Security
- Bound to account instead of computer
If Blizzard expects more professional developers to start creating games for the Arcade they have to ensure that there is a save way to store player data for their projects.
In addition, it would be awesome to have to possibility of "global banks", bound to a specific map or maybe even the entire account. A global bank would basically allow to store global data for the map, such as highscore lists. This would open up endless possibilities and could even be used to create statistics together with some sort of simple time API!
Feature: Multiplayer Campaign / map linking support
Priority: HIGH
Description:
It would be awesome if it would be possible to upload entire "Map Packs" instead of just a single map. A map pack would basically be a collection of maps which belong together. Players would HAVE to download all maps of the map pack to play any of them, enabling the possibility to load any map from the map pack with script while in the game.
This would allow mappers to create entire campaigns and also help solving the map size and map texture limit problem, since we could simply load a new map for each zone in the game!
Feature: Improved support for games not using default camera
Priority: HIGH
Description:
In addition to the key input delay problem, ambigious modders also face the problem of a game engine which has a lot of trouble dealing with games not using the default camera view. This is obviously because StarCraft was optimized for melee games and top down view.
However, it would be awesome if there would be features to support games which dont use the default top down camera, and use a more three-dimensional camera instead for a first/third person look, like shooters or RPGs.
The following features would allow us to create AMAZING games:
- Level of Detail system: A Level of detail system would basically reduce the detail of all doodads/units/terrain textures depending on their distance from the players camera (far away objects would render with very low details), allowing modders to use a much higher farclip without causing huge FPS drops. As of right now, modders have to use a very low farclip and fog effects to make games like this possible, which looks very bad.
- Automatic 3D Camera Collision System: It would be awesome if there was a way to enable some sort of camera collision for 3D games. It is possible to create a 2D (note: not 3D!) camera collision using triggers that check pathing and current camera position, however those solutions are effected by battle.net delay (See „input lag“) and therefore dont work well over battle.net. In addition its impossible to simulate 3D camera collision using script, since there is only 2D pathing in the game.
Feature: Containers for the galaxy programming language
Priority: HIGH
Description:
It would be awesome to have containers for the galaxy programming language, which could store all basic datatypes like integer, string, fixed, ...
We already have containers for units (unit group!) and players (player group, which is basically just a container for int limited to a length of 16 and numbers from 0-15), so why not add them for all important data types? This would be INCREDIBLY useful!
As a programmer I seriously think that one of the most common used features of every programming language I've used so far has been its containers. It would also make it easy to pass/return lists of data to/from functions. (See Unit Group which can simply be passed as parameter and returned)
Feature: Full environment modification support via script
Priority: MEDIUM
Description:
This would include smth like:
- Getting terrain texture at point
- Setting terrain texture in area
- Changing terrain height
- Adding/removing cliffs
- Adding/removing water
- Placing doodads with collision without having to use units
- ...
A full blown API like this would open up endless possibilities for creating randomized terrain to improve replayability and awesomeness of mods! It would also work towards resolving the map size problem since there could be workarounds like using "portals" to warp into another zone (Which would basically just generate a new terrain etc.)
The editor is still missing lots of documentation, not only in the data editor but also in the trigger editor, which often misses important details about specific functions (What happens if parameter is null, possible return values etc.). A good example of this is the "Player of Player Group" function which returns the player within the specified player group at the selected index. Its not clear if the index starts at 0 or 1, so as a programmer you have to guess and test.
In addition there seem to be lots of missing patch notes about editor changes. Almost all big patches do changes to the editor which are not listed in the patch notes but can still have a big inpact on projects. Its important to know if something changed about the editor, no matter how minor this change will be. As an example, in patch 2.0.10 the global variable size limit has been increased significally but this change was not mentioned at all in the patch notes, however it might have saved a project relying on those changes to be able to continue.
It would be awesome if Blizzard could work on this, so we don't need to manually go through the entire editor to find possible changes (by accident) each time a new patch is released.
Priority 1:
External IDE support for galaxy editor OR normal text galaxy editor with syntax highlighting, functions and variables rename and traversing through them by click
Priority 2:
secure server-side banks for players
Priority 3:
normal lobbies without autostart, with game names and better open games section. All for reducing host waiting time to at least bnet 1.0 waiting time
Priority 4:
More knowledge about actors, their messages and etc. Tutorials or (better) some kind of wiki, like about movers section
Priority 5:
Galaxy improvements like dynamic arrays or type checking (is number) etc
Wow, I didn't realize so many other people were being bugged by the map dimensions and texture limitations, I only ever saw myself complaining about them.
So, for me:
Priority 1: Map dimension limits increase
Description: The map dimensions, limited to a 256x256 smaller than its Warcraft III (and apparently StarCraft 1, says maticpl) homologues, was what alienated me from trying to do anything with the editor right off from the start. It has come to my attention that the StarCraft II Editor can actually support larger maps, so it's just a matter of giving the authors the possibility to enlarge their maps and make it playable on Battle.Net.
Priority 2: Texture limitations lift
Description: Self explanatory. Game as old as Age of Empires allow all textures in the game to be used, there's no reason for a 2010 game to still be stuck in the feudal age with this.
Priority 3: Full editor documentation
Description: It would have been better if someone had accurately and rigorously documented every field and its function while creating the editor. Perhaps it is not too late still?
Oh, and if I recall correctly, you could change tiles with triggers, thus you could have potentially unlimited tiles. Very sure you can't do that in SC2.
Not exactly so. I am not 100% sure of this, but the limit is 16 even with triggers. In RP maps, they had triggers for us to change the tiles to our liking and, imagining an Ashenvale tileset, you could add, for example, Lordaeron Winter Snow, Icecrown Glacier Dark Ice, Village Crops... at some point, you'd try to place some texture and end up getting Ashenvale Dirt or Leaves instead.
This is because the map had reached the limit. Even if you had limited yourself to just the initial tileset, the engine would accept adding a few more tiles, in-game and in real time, but would eventually reach a limit and choose a random(?) one from the array when attempting to add a new one from that point on.
I've no idea if this has already been named or not, but...
Copy/paste support for the new pitch and angle modify options on doodads. If you roll/pitch a doodad over, copy and paste it, the roll/pitch resets for the new doodad.
Priority 6: Allow Doodads to be added/placed through triggers
This would allow people to have dynamic maps that can change every play through. Allows environments to be more interesting and unpredictable. This can be done already with units but would be preferable to do with doodads.
Actually this is already possible. Doodads are Actors you know;)
For the arcade can we have automatic global language translations? That way we don't have larger publishes because of local files and it's very possible for more people to play the map (because of more nationalities). Since we can log into other servers (where our map may also be published) it would be handy having that translated too. I'd like to read reviews of my map and the last time I tried I couldn't copy text from the Korean server to use on google translate.
+1 to that. I don't really see why they made it un-copyable.. Also, as an editor from KR server I can tell you this, language is a huge, HUGE barrier. Just having map title in english drops like half of your audience. It's kinda social thing, but people *have* to study english here so they don't really wanna see it when they are relaxing and having fun playing games.
and..
about the server-side bank, if Blizz is ever going to do map marketplace I think this is just essential. There are lots of maps out there and while some of them would suit a paid map some of them are better with F2P model. Well, I'm sure they're putting more thoughts than I could.
Allow people to kick AFK hosts and pending players in lobbies. Sometimes this makes games never playable because some AFK host won't start the game or a pending player won't accept the invite.
Priority 1
Improve the Fun or Not so that unknown games can become popular easier. This could be done by simply making Fun or Not more used, or by some other method but I think it would help those new to map making that have a hard time getting their map out there.
Priority 1
Make banks more secure and easy to use and secure. Many maps can be hacked way too easily and the process to keep hackers away is way too complicated at the moment.
Priority 2
Have a bug report section in the game info section so that people can notify developers of bugs simply and easily without ruining the game's rating with bad reviews.
Priority 3
Don't let games with little playing time disappear so quickly. I've noticed that games with no playing time or very little playing time will disappear from the Arcade, and unless it is in your bookmarks or published maps list, you can't find it. This also causes games to fall quickly in the popular list. For example, one of my games dropped about 13 pages in the span of the 3 hours I was away. This makes it extremely difficult to make your map known so that people will play it.
What kind of confuses me is their statement that they have long-term goals for the Arcade that they want feedback on. They don't actually describe those goals at all in the message.
I mean, let's think about this: the Arcade is essentially a side-feature from which they make no additional revenue. It might sell a few more copies, but how much, really? It can't be selling that many HotS copies, as essentially none of the most popular games have upgraded to HotS.
So what can their plan be for a feature that doesn't make them any money? They will never truly support the Arcade under those conditions. If you ask me, the response should not be these little requests like more terrain levels/tiles and server side storage, but rather for them to finally create this marketplace that they have talked about in the past.
If mappers can make money from the Arcade, they will put more time into doing so. If Blizzard can make money from the Arcade, they will put more time into doing so. And it also inspires some more long-term goals... After Legacy of the Void they could contemplate making the Arcade a separate platform with access to resources from more of their IP.
Eh IMO paying for customs is a bad idea. This game is primarilly played by kids, having the kids pay extra money to play thier favorite custom games or really any custom game just doesn't seem right, i know growing up as a kid i loved playing wc3 custom games and i didn't have the money to go around buying all these extra games. I mean the idea of shaking down kids for their allowance money just doesnt seem right to me. You don't have to make money on everything, some things are more important.
I have many fond memories of playing wc3 customs with my brothers and real life friends when we were kids, when you charge money and put games out of reach for people you take this away from them. if you like making games for people then do that, if its money you want make an Indie game and try to sell that or something. If you dont like map making to the point where someone would have to pay you to do it, maybe find a hobby that you would engage in for free.
Eh IMO paying for customs is a bad idea. This game is primarilly played by kids, having the kids pay extra money to play thier favorite custom games or really any custom game just doesn't seem right, i know growing up as a kid i loved playing wc3 custom games and i didn't have the money to go around buying all these extra games. I mean the idea of shaking down kids for their allowance money just doesnt seem right to me. You don't have to make money on everything, some things are more important, if you like making games for people then do that, if its money you want make an Indie game and try to sell that or something. If you dont like map making to the point where someone would have to pay you to do it, maybe find a hobby that you would engage in for free.
Your right, But thats the reason we need to shift the focus of arcade games to Battle.net Indie games :). Blizzard still has a HUGE chance to make TONS of cash, If we focus arcade from RTS games and TO The new launcher were ALL players can play it from warcraft, to diablo, to starcraft, It can bridge the gap and after about 1 year open it up for a map marketplace.
To say that mappers could make money from it is not to say that they would have to. While my vision of an Arcade would support paid versions of games, people would still be able to release free games... And they could be browsed for according to paid/free as well. Besides, I think you're underestimating the age of most Starcraft 2 gamers. Most are in their late teens or early 20s, I believe.
Having paid games makes this sound like what the app market has become, where every thing you play has some kind of marketplace where you can purchase something. Personally, I do not like this concept, as it is extremely inconvenient for the consumers when games that are not even that great have a cost to play, even though they used to be free at one point. It is just a simple way for developers to make money. I don't have a problem with that, but they should just have one cost up front for everything, and not have us pay for every single feature or game mode. Either way, I still think Arcade games should remain free as it is part of the StarCraft game, and we already paid to use the game so I feel that we should be able to use all of it without extra costs.
That being said, this all seems a bit off topic. The original post was looking for improvements of the current Arcade system. This is starting to get into a topic of should we separate the Arcade into its own game and have its own costs.
I didn't suggest in-game microtransactions, just being able to sell the game itself, and perhaps assets for use in making games.
And I don't agree that it's off-topic because Blizzard's message refers to long-term plans for the Arcade but doesn't actually provide them... Furthermore, I think the release of the marketplace (which was already "promised" by Blizzard in the first place) would be a major improvement of the current Arcade system.
I do agree that having the Arcade as a separate game would be cool, but it just seems pricey and it already exists inside StarCraft so I don't see a reason other than to let developers earn some money, that it should become a new game. The marketplace you spoke of would be a better option I'd say, because it would still be inside StarCraft, and it could have options like donate or something that would help developers. Again, we did already pay for StarCraft, so if the Arcade is included with StarCraft, that means that part of the price we paid includes the Arcade part of it. However, that doesn't go to the developers, it just goes to Blizzard.
Re-implement full spawning and don't take it away. It was doing more to revive the scene than almost anything else.
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Curse PremiumWhile I don't usually agree with your sentiments, you've hit the mark with the core issues of the Arcade problem. There simply are not enough people interested in the custom mapping scene, and those who are are playing the top few mods or featured content, leaving little for the rest. I can't tell how many times I've left frustrated trying to play an obscure map publicly.
The current custom map scene is falling to the same trappings of the celphone apps market, where the few gain the most exposure and the rest is laid to the wayside. While this may also have happened in the past with SC1 and Warcraft 3's flood of TD's and DOTA, it was still possible to create a lobby for an obscure map and have someone join within reason. I don't know exactly what it speaks of to the general custom map playerbase, but it seems like there just aren't enough active players to justify creating content for anything outside a popular War3 remake or an iteration of a popular genre. It leads to stagnation.
- Edit -
As for actual improvements to the editor, anything to make it more like the Warcraft 3 system would be great. Include a wizard and simplify the system. I remember there was talk from the devs that there were going to be more Warcraft 3 features implemented in the editor. I'm anxiously waiting to see what they will do.
Fockewolf's heart is in the right place, and the majority of what he says has basis in truth, he just has a really, really, bad way of communicating those ideas. As such, he has, I dare say, annoyed Blizzard to the point, where they are never going to take anything he says seriously, regardless if it is a good idea or not.
But, you all should be able to understand where he is coming from, there are very few of us with the professionalism and strength to keep a level head after everything that has, or has not happened, over the last three years. There are only two known super-projects left, SCU & Tofu, and both are on the tip of being cancelled indefinately because of a lack of financial support/financial opportunity.
Herein lies the problem from hiring within the community, there are very few of us who have the people skills required to succeed in a corporate world. Most of us develop mods for a reason, and that reason usually has to do with escaping dealings with people in real life. The people at the top, elitists, are the exact other problem. Their arrogance and ignorance only serves to undermine their potential, so whilst yes, they might have the skills required, they will not be hired or contacted because of the way they behave.
When working in a corporation, people skills is paramount to everything else. You will be forced to communicate, resolve conflicts and not to take things personally. Sacrafice your ideas for the good of the game and the good of the company, regardless of how strongly you believe in them.
The main problem, and I will stress this again, is the player base.
Times have changed, you can now go on Steam and play really awesome indi games - Battle.net has been left behind because Blizzard were simply too slow to act on opportunities. Yes, Battle.net gave us TDs, gave us MOBAs and all other kinds of genres, Battle.net was the breeding ground for the Indi games industry today. Even Minecraft was a combination of Infiniminer and Survival (That Notched played on battle.net).
As a direct result of this, Blizzard basically built the indi games market but they didn't make a dollar from it. This would have left a sour note.
IMO, and what I will be suggesting, is that the Arcade needs to be migrated away from Starcraft II and into the launcher.
Battle.net should rival Steam, Battle.net should be the service.
hi
the player in me request:
arcade dedicated server would allow a lag free "photon cycles"
my only mapmaker request:
allow the use of a custom 4th race selectable within the regular lobby in a melee context (everything seems in place already, why this feature isn't "allowed" is beyond me)
ty dogmaïSEA
Thank you DogmaiSEA for giving us this possibility. Maybe something good will come out of it.
Feature: Statistics for authors
Priority: 1
Use: I know that statistics are usually boring, but for me personally they can be really useful. In addition to global data like: Total Number of Players, Total Number of Unique Players, Total Map Starts, Average Time Played, Average Time Played without games lasting less than 2 minutes, etc. (whatever comes to your mind could be here - the more the better), I would also love the possibility to have my own statistics controlled by triggers. Just set of counters that I can increase or decrease by specific trigger, from which I could check for example, on which part of my map players give up often, where do they die the most etc. If for example 80% players would die 10 times on a second boss this would give me an idea that maybe I should change something. These data could be accessible from "Manage Published" option in editor.
Other or additional idea would be to create one server-side bank per map where I could store interesting (for me) values. This could also be controlled by triggers and accessible from "Manage Published".
Feature: Bug Report
Priority: 2
Use: Similar how reviews are handled, but only for bugs. Many people report bugs in the reviews section already and it is good, but I feel that this isn't right place for it and often bugs influence the score itself. Maybe it would be good idea to split these things up. Also, great addition would be to allow author to respond for these bug reports in usual bug tracker fashion, checking one of the options: Fixed, Not Fixed, Not a bug - its a feature, Future Development; as well post some comment in response to each report.
Feature: Map size increase to at least 512x512
Priority: 3
Use: Seriously... what the hell? Why this is such big deal? The only response from Blizzard I found on the internet a while ago was "We currently have no plans to increase map size". Really? Why?
Let me tell you something. We are artists. We need inspiration and possibilities. You are great on the field of inspiration. Remember this little asset of soccer ball you've put into the editor? When I saw it, I was 100% sure that this will inspire someone, even I tried something myself. Look now, one of most popular maps - Star Strikers! Just because this one little asset.
Imagine a painter that sees beautiful house and wants to paint it. He feels inspired, he wants to do something meaningful in his life. And what? No no no no, his painting frame (canvas?) is too small. What a shame, Van Gogh was never born.
Remember when you asked the community which Dark Templar model you should use? Small blade or big scythe? Remember community answer? Yes! BOTH!
We need possibilities to create great maps, don't take them away from us.
If there was anything that I've learned in my programming life, that would be to leave stuff as a option as often as you can. Don't know which is better? Leave as an option. Don't know how something should be displayed? Leave as an option. Don't know which control method use? Leave as an option. I know that this may not be applicable everywhere, like leaving marine damage as an option for tournament maps probably won't be an good idea, but we are talking about editor. Stuff that create stuff. Don't put these stupid and artificial bounds on us.
What are you afraid of? Performance? If map won't be playable this is not your problem, it's author's problem.
Btw. I've checked. In SC:BW slow overlord needs 9 minutes 42 seconds (yes, I've spent 10 minutes staring into slow flying overlord) to get from Top-Left to Bottom-Right of the map. In SC2, same slow overlord needs only 6:10, so the map is even smaller!!!
Regards
Matic
We know that some of the following suggestions might be unrealistic or very hard to implement, but please take the time to read through them and think about what impact they would have on the modding scene!
==================================================================
Feature: Asynchronous player input / local triggers
Priority: VERY HIGH
Description:
We desperately need a way to make mods with a custom controls system feel more responsive. The Arcade will never unleash its full potential if its not possible to create mods with custom controls, since it will always be limited to the default top down view. Almost all games which use custom controls have bad ratings complaining about lag and "bad" controls. This needs to be improved.
As an example of how this could work:
There could be special "local" triggers which just allow certain events, conditions and actions which don't require the game to be in a synchronous state. Examples for events would be key presses or camera movements. Actions could be interaction with the UI for a specific player, camera modification, Actor modification, ...
Yes, making single player games running locally by default is a good first step, however I don't think it resolves the core problem. We want awesome MULTIPLAYER experiences using custom controls!
Implementing asynchronous player input support would make it possible to create shooters, side scrollers, racing games and so much more! Yes, its a huge task, yes it will require a lot of work, but its essential for the Arcade to develop into something bigger!
==================================================================
Feature: Server-side storage of player data and global banks
Priority: VERY HIGH
Description:
Server-side banks have two advantages over local files:
- Security
- Bound to account instead of computer
If Blizzard expects more professional developers to start creating games for the Arcade they have to ensure that there is a save way to store player data for their projects.
In addition, it would be awesome to have to possibility of "global banks", bound to a specific map or maybe even the entire account. A global bank would basically allow to store global data for the map, such as highscore lists. This would open up endless possibilities and could even be used to create statistics together with some sort of simple time API!
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Feature: Multiplayer Campaign / map linking support
Priority: HIGH
Description:
It would be awesome if it would be possible to upload entire "Map Packs" instead of just a single map. A map pack would basically be a collection of maps which belong together. Players would HAVE to download all maps of the map pack to play any of them, enabling the possibility to load any map from the map pack with script while in the game.
This would allow mappers to create entire campaigns and also help solving the map size and map texture limit problem, since we could simply load a new map for each zone in the game!
Feature: Improved support for games not using default camera
Priority: HIGH
Description:
In addition to the key input delay problem, ambigious modders also face the problem of a game engine which has a lot of trouble dealing with games not using the default camera view. This is obviously because StarCraft was optimized for melee games and top down view.
However, it would be awesome if there would be features to support games which dont use the default top down camera, and use a more three-dimensional camera instead for a first/third person look, like shooters or RPGs.
The following features would allow us to create AMAZING games:
- Level of Detail system: A Level of detail system would basically reduce the detail of all doodads/units/terrain textures depending on their distance from the players camera (far away objects would render with very low details), allowing modders to use a much higher farclip without causing huge FPS drops. As of right now, modders have to use a very low farclip and fog effects to make games like this possible, which looks very bad.
- Automatic 3D Camera Collision System: It would be awesome if there was a way to enable some sort of camera collision for 3D games. It is possible to create a 2D (note: not 3D!) camera collision using triggers that check pathing and current camera position, however those solutions are effected by battle.net delay (See „input lag“) and therefore dont work well over battle.net. In addition its impossible to simulate 3D camera collision using script, since there is only 2D pathing in the game.
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Feature: Containers for the galaxy programming language
Priority: HIGH
Description:
It would be awesome to have containers for the galaxy programming language, which could store all basic datatypes like integer, string, fixed, ...
We already have containers for units (unit group!) and players (player group, which is basically just a container for int limited to a length of 16 and numbers from 0-15), so why not add them for all important data types? This would be INCREDIBLY useful!
As a programmer I seriously think that one of the most common used features of every programming language I've used so far has been its containers. It would also make it easy to pass/return lists of data to/from functions. (See Unit Group which can simply be passed as parameter and returned)
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Feature: Full environment modification support via script
Priority: MEDIUM
Description:
This would include smth like:
- Getting terrain texture at point
- Setting terrain texture in area
- Changing terrain height
- Adding/removing cliffs
- Adding/removing water
- Placing doodads with collision without having to use units
- ...
A full blown API like this would open up endless possibilities for creating randomized terrain to improve replayability and awesomeness of mods! It would also work towards resolving the map size problem since there could be workarounds like using "portals" to warp into another zone (Which would basically just generate a new terrain etc.)
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Feature: Better and more complete documentation
Priority: MEDIUM
Description:
The editor is still missing lots of documentation, not only in the data editor but also in the trigger editor, which often misses important details about specific functions (What happens if parameter is null, possible return values etc.). A good example of this is the "Player of Player Group" function which returns the player within the specified player group at the selected index. Its not clear if the index starts at 0 or 1, so as a programmer you have to guess and test.
In addition there seem to be lots of missing patch notes about editor changes. Almost all big patches do changes to the editor which are not listed in the patch notes but can still have a big inpact on projects. Its important to know if something changed about the editor, no matter how minor this change will be. As an example, in patch 2.0.10 the global variable size limit has been increased significally but this change was not mentioned at all in the patch notes, however it might have saved a project relying on those changes to be able to continue.
It would be awesome if Blizzard could work on this, so we don't need to manually go through the entire editor to find possible changes (by accident) each time a new patch is released.
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Just to clarify: proper importer compatible with Blizzard's ArtTools is on it's way.
Oh, one more little thing:
Feature: Add Ctrl + and Delete hotkeys for actor events editing window
Priority: low
Use: would fasten events editing
Priority 1: External IDE support for galaxy editor OR normal text galaxy editor with syntax highlighting, functions and variables rename and traversing through them by click
Priority 2: secure server-side banks for players
Priority 3: normal lobbies without autostart, with game names and better open games section. All for reducing host waiting time to at least bnet 1.0 waiting time
Priority 4: More knowledge about actors, their messages and etc. Tutorials or (better) some kind of wiki, like about movers section
Priority 5: Galaxy improvements like dynamic arrays or type checking (is number) etc
Wow, I didn't realize so many other people were being bugged by the map dimensions and texture limitations, I only ever saw myself complaining about them.
So, for me:
Priority 1: Map dimension limits increase
Description: The map dimensions, limited to a 256x256 smaller than its Warcraft III (and apparently StarCraft 1, says maticpl) homologues, was what alienated me from trying to do anything with the editor right off from the start. It has come to my attention that the StarCraft II Editor can actually support larger maps, so it's just a matter of giving the authors the possibility to enlarge their maps and make it playable on Battle.Net.
Priority 2: Texture limitations lift
Description: Self explanatory. Game as old as Age of Empires allow all textures in the game to be used, there's no reason for a 2010 game to still be stuck in the feudal age with this.
Priority 3: Full editor documentation
Description: It would have been better if someone had accurately and rigorously documented every field and its function while creating the editor. Perhaps it is not too late still?
Not exactly so. I am not 100% sure of this, but the limit is 16 even with triggers. In RP maps, they had triggers for us to change the tiles to our liking and, imagining an Ashenvale tileset, you could add, for example, Lordaeron Winter Snow, Icecrown Glacier Dark Ice, Village Crops... at some point, you'd try to place some texture and end up getting Ashenvale Dirt or Leaves instead.
This is because the map had reached the limit. Even if you had limited yourself to just the initial tileset, the engine would accept adding a few more tiles, in-game and in real time, but would eventually reach a limit and choose a random(?) one from the array when attempting to add a new one from that point on.
I've no idea if this has already been named or not, but...
Copy/paste support for the new pitch and angle modify options on doodads. If you roll/pitch a doodad over, copy and paste it, the roll/pitch resets for the new doodad.
It's a small thing, but it's fairly significant.
Actually this is already possible. Doodads are Actors you know;)
+1 to that. I don't really see why they made it un-copyable.. Also, as an editor from KR server I can tell you this, language is a huge, HUGE barrier. Just having map title in english drops like half of your audience. It's kinda social thing, but people *have* to study english here so they don't really wanna see it when they are relaxing and having fun playing games.
and..
about the server-side bank, if Blizz is ever going to do map marketplace I think this is just essential. There are lots of maps out there and while some of them would suit a paid map some of them are better with F2P model. Well, I'm sure they're putting more thoughts than I could.
Allow people to kick AFK hosts and pending players in lobbies. Sometimes this makes games never playable because some AFK host won't start the game or a pending player won't accept the invite.
Priority 1
Improve the Fun or Not so that unknown games can become popular easier. This could be done by simply making Fun or Not more used, or by some other method but I think it would help those new to map making that have a hard time getting their map out there.
Priority 1
Make banks more secure and easy to use and secure. Many maps can be hacked way too easily and the process to keep hackers away is way too complicated at the moment.
Priority 2
Have a bug report section in the game info section so that people can notify developers of bugs simply and easily without ruining the game's rating with bad reviews.
Priority 3
Don't let games with little playing time disappear so quickly. I've noticed that games with no playing time or very little playing time will disappear from the Arcade, and unless it is in your bookmarks or published maps list, you can't find it. This also causes games to fall quickly in the popular list. For example, one of my games dropped about 13 pages in the span of the 3 hours I was away. This makes it extremely difficult to make your map known so that people will play it.
Priority 1
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What kind of confuses me is their statement that they have long-term goals for the Arcade that they want feedback on. They don't actually describe those goals at all in the message.
I mean, let's think about this: the Arcade is essentially a side-feature from which they make no additional revenue. It might sell a few more copies, but how much, really? It can't be selling that many HotS copies, as essentially none of the most popular games have upgraded to HotS.
So what can their plan be for a feature that doesn't make them any money? They will never truly support the Arcade under those conditions. If you ask me, the response should not be these little requests like more terrain levels/tiles and server side storage, but rather for them to finally create this marketplace that they have talked about in the past.
If mappers can make money from the Arcade, they will put more time into doing so. If Blizzard can make money from the Arcade, they will put more time into doing so. And it also inspires some more long-term goals... After Legacy of the Void they could contemplate making the Arcade a separate platform with access to resources from more of their IP.
@MasterWrath: Go
Eh IMO paying for customs is a bad idea. This game is primarilly played by kids, having the kids pay extra money to play thier favorite custom games or really any custom game just doesn't seem right, i know growing up as a kid i loved playing wc3 custom games and i didn't have the money to go around buying all these extra games. I mean the idea of shaking down kids for their allowance money just doesnt seem right to me. You don't have to make money on everything, some things are more important.
I have many fond memories of playing wc3 customs with my brothers and real life friends when we were kids, when you charge money and put games out of reach for people you take this away from them. if you like making games for people then do that, if its money you want make an Indie game and try to sell that or something. If you dont like map making to the point where someone would have to pay you to do it, maybe find a hobby that you would engage in for free.
Your right, But thats the reason we need to shift the focus of arcade games to Battle.net Indie games :). Blizzard still has a HUGE chance to make TONS of cash, If we focus arcade from RTS games and TO The new launcher were ALL players can play it from warcraft, to diablo, to starcraft, It can bridge the gap and after about 1 year open it up for a map marketplace.
@lemmy734: Go
To say that mappers could make money from it is not to say that they would have to. While my vision of an Arcade would support paid versions of games, people would still be able to release free games... And they could be browsed for according to paid/free as well. Besides, I think you're underestimating the age of most Starcraft 2 gamers. Most are in their late teens or early 20s, I believe.
@MasterWrath: Go
Having paid games makes this sound like what the app market has become, where every thing you play has some kind of marketplace where you can purchase something. Personally, I do not like this concept, as it is extremely inconvenient for the consumers when games that are not even that great have a cost to play, even though they used to be free at one point. It is just a simple way for developers to make money. I don't have a problem with that, but they should just have one cost up front for everything, and not have us pay for every single feature or game mode. Either way, I still think Arcade games should remain free as it is part of the StarCraft game, and we already paid to use the game so I feel that we should be able to use all of it without extra costs.
That being said, this all seems a bit off topic. The original post was looking for improvements of the current Arcade system. This is starting to get into a topic of should we separate the Arcade into its own game and have its own costs.
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@fishy77: Go
I didn't suggest in-game microtransactions, just being able to sell the game itself, and perhaps assets for use in making games.
And I don't agree that it's off-topic because Blizzard's message refers to long-term plans for the Arcade but doesn't actually provide them... Furthermore, I think the release of the marketplace (which was already "promised" by Blizzard in the first place) would be a major improvement of the current Arcade system.
@MasterWrath: Go
I do agree that having the Arcade as a separate game would be cool, but it just seems pricey and it already exists inside StarCraft so I don't see a reason other than to let developers earn some money, that it should become a new game. The marketplace you spoke of would be a better option I'd say, because it would still be inside StarCraft, and it could have options like donate or something that would help developers. Again, we did already pay for StarCraft, so if the Arcade is included with StarCraft, that means that part of the price we paid includes the Arcade part of it. However, that doesn't go to the developers, it just goes to Blizzard.
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