This thread was marked as Locked by _ForgeUser4411133.
Inspirational example illustrating how talented and resourceful people can put aside their petty differences, come together, and succeed spectacularly in accomplishing nothing.
This thread was marked as Locked by _ForgeUser4411133.
Inspirational example illustrating how talented and resourceful people can put aside their petty differences, come together, and succeed spectacularly in accomplishing nothing.
Okay after reading, and slightly participating through the http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/54563-has-the-arcade-gained-momentum/ thread, I have come to realize that this is wasted brain power crying over the past. What we should be doing is looking to the future.
So lets figure out how to FIX this from this point on. Lets look at the past mistakes and figure out how to fix it all. if there is any chance for these 2 communities to succeed, then something will have to be thought of by the communities best, worst, and middle.
To post in this thread put : "Melee" or "Arcade" above the text so that we can keep track which side your talking about or "both"
Simple suggestion:
Make better and play better maps.
ohh, also:
REVIVE MAP NIGHTS!
Delete sc1 from this world so everybody has to play sc2 LOLOLOL no jks jks
umm we could have a better map showing off system like engamer <-
Melee:
Their problem is that there is no good platform for new maps to be tested/played/shown.
If you think about what players care about:
- Pro Players are only interested in the maps the tournaments use. Also, they might not like tournaments that use multiple maps the player doesn't know as he needs to invest more time to prepare for the map (or they will end up playing something generic or an all-in on these maps).
- Tournaments are interested in the maps other tournaments use, the ladder uses and which they like themselves. But the tournaments usually have no idea which maps are good or bad, so they go for the low-risk way and pick more established maps. But I assume they would also like to see some new maps that they can display to their viewers.
- Ladder players play their ladder maps that Blizzard puts into the ladder. Blizzard might pay people to create some maps from time to time, so they might use their own products instead of community's maps. Also, Blizzard might now have the experience and manpower to be able to pick maps from the community because there might a lot to pick from.
-> Nobody is really interested in testing new maps.
-> Solution: battle.net players interested in new maps need to test these. Once maps start to be more popular, pros might join the tests. (Their time is money, so they can't really test new maps often.)
Problem: Battle.net makes it difficult to test new maps as you might join games with enemies much better/worse than you and games seem to start automatically. It seems that it is much easier to play ladder instead.
-> Groups of testers need to be formed/supported, battle.net needs to be more friendly to new maps and players.
Arcade maps have the same testing problem. The old battle.net was able to support new maps as players could advertise their lobby and their intentions: "Trying out new map, skill level: Mid-Master".
Does anyone have information how the process in the payed Korean mapmaking team works? How do they test the maps: closed/publicly? Are their testers random people or payed or melee mapmakers with a great 1vs1 skill level?
I think one big factor for melee is that sc2 has an excellent matchmaking + easy to use ladder interface, so a lot of players might never look left/right to play other maps as it is more "dangerous". Maybe the ladder should switch out all maps more often than switching out only 1-2 per season and use community maps. But you still got the problem with the selection of the maps... how to determine which one to pick?
2 huge problems with your thinking.
1. There isn't a suitable replacement for StarCraft 2 at the moment.
2. Until Blizzard takes certain actions and implements certain features and fixes and actually provides sufficient support for mappers (pretty much of what is in that recent feedback list) and -since its well past it's height, 2011- provide sufficient rewards for map makers for their time and effort, there is no future.
The community tried. We tried. Check out many of the stickies spread throughout the site that have not had posts in months or even years. It didn't do any good.
Blizzard has to take action. They have to. The community did everything it could, way beyond what was reasonable effort and we simply could not do it.
The only one person or organization who actually has the power to "look towards the future" is Blizzard. They took every precaution to make it this way. Always before we could make 3rd party editors and 3rd party multiplayer (like garena) to solve issues Blizzard would not. Now, because of their new DRM, we don't have that option.
Before Blizzard could get away with not giving the community full and extensive support. However because they deliberately took the power away from us (through DRM) for us to support ourselves, we are entirely dependent upon Blizzard for what we need to succeed. If Blizzard will not provide that support (I think its fair to say they had no intention and still do not considering its been 3 years) then the community will do exactly what it has done. Died.
@FockeWulf: Go
Your completely wrong about your number 1.
Number 2. This is not a QQ thread, move that to one of the other 2 threads that are for that.
About number 1. There is a brand new platform, the new blizzard launcher could become a central hub. There is no longer a reason to have it inside of their titles if all of them are going to share a steam like application.
1. I am talking about another RTS game made by a different company with the capacity for "plug and play" mods. So far the only thing that comes close is the Spring RTS engine and although its open source, it doesn't have access to a large player base and there is no collection of models, everything has to be made from scratch.
2. I never accused you of making a "QQ" thread. If I thought that, you would know.
3. I've heard rumors about this. I've even got a saved link to some download from this "beta" (never used it though).
However, since I have no idea what it looks like, is supposed to do or anything about it at all then I cannot make a judgment on it.
What I can make judgments on is if closely resembles any of the following clients:
1. Origin - will fail. 2. Steam - will fail. 3. Impulse - will fail. 4. Skype - a possibility but I don't think Blizzard could do it right. 5. Google+/Facebook/Twitter/Myspace - will fail.
That's all the major stuff that I can list off the top of my head.
Edit: I just saw the word "launcher".
This mean I won't be able to upload maps successfully for 4-6 months won't it? And forcing a central launcher means my game may not start at all and... Well this just got more interesting.
@FockeWulf: Go
Right now its just a launcher, but IF blizzard were to put the arcade on that, it would open it up to players across warcraft, starcraft, and diablo. and if they made it free2play, then it could REALLY be amazing
@SearingChicken: Go
Well that's if there is anyone left to make content for said arcade. There are not enough to saturate the arcade. And that's both players and mod makers.
@FockeWulf: Go
If the player-base can be found, then the map makers will return. They have until Titan releases to do this, otherwise they are fucked forever. if they dont have this done by titan, their modding community is completely gone. and it will be no ones fault except for the people in charge of starcraft 2, and deciding it would be a crappy E-Sport rather then a game balanced between E-Sports and fun family game, greed will have killed it.
@SearingChicken: Go
That's the paradox we cannot solve. Only Blizzard can break it. Their DRM made sure of that.
And from what you've just said then they are trying to replace WoW with a new cash cow. However considering they have had 3-4 bad game releases in a row, there is the chance it might flop.
So it sounds like you would be better off spending your time elsewhere. There is no way the community is going to recover without Blizzard's support and they obviously have no interest in doing so.
Eh, what Goa said, healthy community is a community that is enthusiastic about itself, where something happens all the time. This should be a libary/playground hybrid where we learn stuff, play maps, encourage mapmaking by various competitions and just have a good time.
You could say we have those Trigger/Data/Terrain exercises, but I noticed that trigger exercise is something that only someone with a mindset of an engineer would participate in (creating gigantic challenging things), data stopped being about learning cool stuff and became triggering exercise v2, only terraining one stands strong, too bad not everyone find pleasure in just creating awesome-looking scenes.
If I was someone completely new I'd see this place as old dusty archives filled with angsty librarians. But on the other hand what can we do, the enthusiasm I feel ran out after first year, map nights are gone, contests/events/collaborations are gone thus any sort of resemblance of an interesting news topics is gone too.
To shake things up we'd need some new blood I assume, to get new blood we'd need blizz to excite people about the arcade. And I'm getting this feeling that blizz believe that their ideas are most correct and everything is fine.
..and maybe it is, I just can't see where this is going anymore, or I just don't care and want to rant instead of doing something productive. For some reason I feel dirty after each whine post I make but still do them anyway ;/
P.S. I'm jealous of Chinese mapmaking contests.
Map making contests...*drools*
zenx1 : how much if any, can one parameter drool? (private joke about parenting)
on thread:
1/ mapmakers need to stop hoping and circumvent issues caused/blocked by blizz
2/ maps must be good and well marketed (not by blizz)
3/ maps must be hosted (not by blizz) in lobbies by players
4/ people (mapmakers or players alike) should learn how to honor galaxy creators/maintenance better (like maverk is doing, for instance)
5/ people should remember that the ability to use galaxy for someone else s financial profit than blizz's will not happen until well after lotv has shipped
§/ remember to brush your teeth
glhf
@houndofbaskerville: Go
If you think that any arcade map will be profitable by the time LotV comes out then you have got another thing coming. There will not be sufficient saturation, by a very long shot, to make the arcade profitable. And by LotV it will be too late to get any such saturation.
By the summer of 2014 the arcade will be fully written off. People know by now that Blizzard will drop support for LotV at the earliest possible moment, regardless of what state it's in.
And what would you know about the profitability of arcade maps?
Regardless of what you think... this is not a QQ thread, Post a valid idea for once -_- .....
This threads entire goal is to think of stuff that blizzard or the community, mostly the community, could do to help the mapping scene, crying over the past will never help us move forward, and saying that there is nothing the community could do is BS. Heres another idea from me.
1. Move the entire arcade to starter edition. THEN implement an in-game marketplace using an in-game currency thats EARNED(not bought) by playing arcade maps. This currency can be earned from having a certain amount of average amp over a certain amount of game-time, (it does not increase with apm, apm only verifys you aren't sitting in a game and are actually playing it).
2. For the community: Run new Trigger,Data,Terrain exercises but INSTEAD of just doing throw away's, do it so that these are uploaded to curse and can be used later for people who need it for example. a terrain exercise would be "create a 4 team arena" (always done on a blank map). Then archive these exercises in the WIKI, so that new people can grab these terrains, libraries, cool abilities and stuff in data, etc. The reason we have a low amount of new mappers is because the editor is so difficult, its OUR job as a community to help them and make sure they can build up experience so that in turn they can help others. The editor being hard is blizzards fault but there are things we can do to lessen the impact.
Because I did the research and explored most of the models that can compare anywhere near this.
First of all the closest thing that exists in the industry is Valve's Green Light system.
However this has a few differences:
1. The games sold and approved are not made under the same engine and their multiplayers are separate.
2. These games are not sold at additional cost unlike any SC2 mod.
3. These games lack a unified "plug and play" multiplayer interface like battle.net provides.
4. These games do not have a large selection of pre-made models to choose from.
5. The people who made greenlight games usually own the bulk of the content, whereas Blizzard claims ownership of anything uploaded.
So there are a few key points to draw from this:
1. The initial cost to be able to play them. Since you have to buy StarCraft 2 to even be able to play the custom mods any pay to play model goes out the window. Now what if the arcade is made free? Great! That still leaves out some 5 million Wings of Liberty owners who will be hostile due to feeling ripped off. Free to play is the only option for any mod here.
2. Ownership will reduce a mod makers inclination to make custom content (such as models) and instead focus on pre-made content.
3. A revised Battle.net interface will be a huge draw for indie developers due to guaranteed access to an already existing player base. This is something indie games cannot guarantee. Its merely a case of making suitable maps for the players.
4. Any pay to play mod will have to be sold independently of any pre-existing game. Only one candidate so far exists for this, and its the canceled Subsistence project.
Now some very successful free to play games to date: 1. League of Legends 2. Planetside 2 3. World of Tanks
The income these games receive is directly related to the size of the active player base. Because only a certain percentage will actually spend any money. So the more players, the more revenue.
Some facts about that:
1. Blizzard alienated many if not most of the people who bought the game for the arcade.
2. The map editor is insufficiently supported.
3. Blizzard also succeeded in alienating a good percentage of the map makers.
4. Too many of the more technically skilled map makers will not come back without sufficient guarantee of reward. At this point it means paying the map maker outright.
Because there are not enough players (saturation) then any "map market" will not be able to produce enough profit to justify it's implementation.
What is actually involved with the implementation?
1. A partial to total overhaul of Battle.net, StarCraft 2, A complete redesign covering between 70-80% of the editor) Blizzard's account security and features, higher more support staff for the mod makers just to name a few.
2. A large PR campaign to attract indie developers (the most likely to come first) as well as promotional aspects for those developers.
I did all of this research when I was designing my premium map project's gameplay and monetization model.
@SearingChicken: Go
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/general-editor-mapping-659/tutorial-starcraft-2-amphibious-system-215316/
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tutorial-submission-660/porting-warcraft-3-models-starcraft-2-a-218740/
Kindly keep the above in mind.