No Map Protection - atleast initially, let to alot of people opening up and exploring maps.
100's of Pre-made Spells with many Heroes already in the game.
No Pop system as in easy to host a small map and get some testers & feedback.
Motivation All of the above led to people being alot more 'fired up' and willing to pump out maps.
But bare in mind it's only been just over a year. War3 mapping never really kicked off until TFT came out i.e. the first expansion. So lets see what HOTS has in store for us!
As the blizzard legacy continues on, games will have more and more resources, but genres, play styles, and gameplay types will always always be diminishing in number, because new ones are being generated, but the ones that are the most diverse and interesting and easy ones have already been made. Warcraft had water travel and starcraft had space travel. Warcraft is in fantasy realm. Fantasy can support a ton of stuff. It can range from prehistoric to rennaissance and still look good. Meanwhile, starcraft can only range from present day to end of the universe. People nowadays have no idea of what the future holds. This is another drawback. SciFi has only recently begun to be explored. We should just accept that sc2 will never see very many "next big things."
I think Mozared hit the jackpot ont he reason why though. Warcraft has so much more freedom in resources and diversity in Ages. They even have some cartoony starcraft units in there. Starcrtaft just has...well...starcaft...
This is the problem though. In Warcraft, you had access to that kind of stuff from the get-go. You then had modelers and skinners alongside it to make some more interesting stuff. In Starcraft 2, you need to get seperate modelers in and make a heapload of stuff and generally put in tons more effort just to achieve the same starting position. It's possible, as demonstrated by maps like Spellstorm and Fields of Glory, but it's not as open to everywhere.
I know im talking a decade away probably, But they said Warcraft 4 Engine will be the same as SC2s, so Im thinking that the same editor will be used and It will be UPDATED 100 fold, Then we can make the best maps possible.
Every time I feel any motivation to work on my own map, something like the Squad TD ban comes up to remind me how badly the custom content community is restricted.
This is a real blow for UMS making and I feel deserves a lot more attention.
Squad TD was banned because the author placed a sponsor's advert on the loading screen.
Let's put things in perceptive;
User creates amazingly popular content. User gets sponsored by 3rd party company.
Blizzard bans and removes user's content.
Money is an amazing motivator. SC2 mapping is already basically dead due to lack of motivation. User tries to monotize his creation; user receives boot to face.
I love Blizzard, really. I'm probably as big a fanboy as you can get, but this just goes one step further to demolish what little remains of this dead activity.
I think it might be all the things we're mentioning... time will tell. I don't have any hope for a marketplace btw. I think it had more legal issues than they expected and now they don't know how to handle it...
This is a real blow for UMS making and I feel deserves a lot more attention.
Squad TD was banned because the author placed a sponsor's advert on the loading screen.
Let's put things in perceptive;
User creates amazingly popular content. User gets sponsored by 3rd party company.
Blizzard bans and removes user's content.
Money is an amazing motivator. SC2 mapping is already basically dead due to lack of motivation. User tries to monotize his creation; user receives boot to face.
I love Blizzard, really. I'm probably as big a fanboy as you can get, but this just goes one step further to demolish what little remains of this dead activity.
Hmyeah, but it does kind of tie into the arcade that they have coming. They don't mind monetising maps, as long as they get the income for it. It kind of makes sense tbh; it's not that Blizzard desperately needs the money, but if you invented a new sport you'd probably want to get a percentage of the income generated by tournaments in it too. I think there's a point where one needs to let go and simply 'let his invention float free', but I don't think this really quite applies to the world of gaming as it is - that would just force a lot of good developers out of hard-earned money.
What's wrong with you Mozred, Crainy hit the nail on the head. You seriously think if war 3 had b.net 0.2, it'll have an active custom map scene? At the end of the road, judging by the 60k+ maps out there, all the reasons listed from hard to use sc2 editor and the lack of fantasy units didn't matter. People wanted to make maps. B.net 0.2 killed the community.
What's wrong with you Mozred, Crainy hit the nail on the head. You seriously think if war 3 had b.net 0.2, it'll have an active custom map scene? At the end of the road, judging by the 60k+ maps out there, all the reasons listed from hard to use sc2 editor and the lack of fantasy units didn't matter. People wanted to make maps. B.net 0.2 killed the community.
No, it's opinions like Crainy's and apparently yours that kill the community. Blaming battle.net got old, no, ancient, months ago. That's not to say that an old excuse can't be right, but... it just isn't.
Let me tell you something: mankind's biggest failure is that we try to blame everybody and everything BUT ourselves for our own mistakes. We constantly do things we shouldn't do because we're too weak to resist (Christianity's Eve and the apple). Afterwards, because we can't face the fact that we suck, we blame others, or even other things. I'm no exception - I play risky in LoL and sometimes/often end up with a bad score because of it. I then rage at people who rage at me. The "bnet sucks" argument is the epitome of this phenomenom.
Why? Because it's a cheap way out for lazy mapmakers to blame the system. Coming from someone who's had lifelong problems with 'the system' in real life, I'm not going to say that 'the system' is never wrong and critique is not needed - but Sc2 mappers have taken it to an extreme over the past few years. When it all comes down to it, Blizzard has given us the tools and possibility to create good maps and even to get them played. What good maps have been made for Sc2, regardless of their placement on the pop list? My definition of good for the purpose of this discussion is a map that is A) polished, B) revolutionary, C) easily accessible and D) fun to play for a majority of people. Right, ten or so. How many of those are high on the pop list, or have been on top? Seven or eight. Read my posts on the previous page: I've put forward a quite convincing argument (I say) as to why Warcraft 3 had a bigger and more extensive map scene, and my arguments have yet to be disproven. Others as well as myself have also put forth COUNTLESS of uncountered arguments as to why the popularity system isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
Now what do we get for that? If there's one kind of person in this world I hate, it's the person who makes said mistakes (the apple) but A) blames others for each and every one of them and most importantly, B), does not even try to be a better person, no matter how small the effort. These are your stereotypical "bnet sucks" people. I hate to break it to you, but 95% of the maps that fail on bnet fail because they SUCK. Don't kid yourself. Once you've admitted to that, THEN we can start thinking about discussing what's bad about the popularity system, even though it's getting an overhaul in a couple of months anyway. I guess I can't really say I'm bothered too much by forum posts, but if there'd be one thing about them that would enrage me it's these people who put out crappy maps and then think they've earned to right to post snappy 1-liners about how battle.net is all terrible.
To end my rant about society: yes, I genuinely, seriously think that if Warcraft 3's battle.net had been set up similarly to Starcraft 2's, we would've had a roughly similar WC3 map scene. It would probably have been less extensive, but DOTA would've been created, and 95% of the good maps we all remember would've been out there: the biggest loss would've been 'escape from gay heaven' style maps, but they would've been created with less 'offensive' themes. Battle.net 2.0 is, imo, not set up as well as the Warcraft 3 system to allow for good spreading and creation of maps, but we HAVE to realize that the first errors lie with US, and that blaming the system in snarky one-liners it pretty much the most cocky, arrogant and selfish stance you could take towards the whole ordeal.
In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, amen.
Out of context like hell. Somebody put a guy from Blizzard on the spot who's himself a mapper first and foremost, rather than a developer. "Blizzard" never "accused" anyone of 'not advertising enough', it was simply the only real thing the guy could say aside from repeating AGAIN that the custom map system has revisions planned.
Yeah, ofc, Mozared, WE are the issue. WE, the community, that pump out pretty awesome and creative maps even though we know they will never be played because of that stupid system.
I just want to be able to play the maps that i think are good and that i like, and not have a system that dictates me what i have to considere "good". Every quality map has an audience, the job of the Battle.Net is to bring those maps to that audience, and it fails at that simple task.
You didn't read my post. If you did, you didn't understand it. But anyway:
You can play the maps that you think are good, you just can't do it well with random people if the maps you think are good differ from the maps the majority of players considers good. The system doesn't dictate you in what you have to consider good, it simply gives you a list of the maps the majority considers good. The problem is that right now (since fun or not isn't ideal), that's the only thing it gives you. And if every quality map has an audience, there's nothing stopping those people from joining a chat channel.
You didn't read my post. If you did, you didn't understand it. But anyway:
You can play the maps that you think are good, you just can't do it well with random people if the maps you think are good differ from the maps the majority of players considers good. The system doesn't dictate you in what you have to consider good, it simply gives you a list of the maps the majority considers good. The problem is that right now (since fun or not isn't ideal), that's the only thing it gives you. And if every quality map has an audience, there's nothing stopping those people from joining a chat channel.
I've been suggesting that since beta, Quantum. With the lobbies per map system, where you don't need to name the lobbies, it would work fine. Your lobby is empty for more than 1 minute? you get into the "waiting for people" tab. Simple as that.
Well, since StarCraft 2 doesn't provide constant money income (like WoW)
I don't think that Blizzard will pay that much attention to the custom
map community. Of course they adress some issues and provide solutions,
but I don't expect anything big coming soon. We will see what difference
HotS will make.
I talked to many people regarding custom maps in StarCraft 2 and most
said that something doesn't feel right, but they cannot identify it. I
for one think that it's the setting. WarCraft 3 was a RTS, but with RPG
Elements and felt much more like a game about fantasy. Whereas StarCraft
2 is just 'science fiction'; actually all maps have something to do with
science fiction and so it's like playing in the same world over and over
again. In this game you control a Marine, in the other one you build
towers that are mechanical. All the same for me. Of course, in WarCraft
3 it was all fantasy, too. But it felt different. It is hard to explain.
Maybe it's just me and I lack ideas for a world of science fiction, but
nothing amazes me when I play a map on battle.net anymore. And I'm not
talking about the quality of the maps there.
I think it's the lack of assets. In W3, you had hundreds of custom models within the game. The campaign had tons of new units, and then we had creep races, too. The hero system was pretty decent, and there were lots of items with lots of attributes.
In SC2 heroes are a pain and, aside from the melee units, you have like 20 units only. SC2 lacks assets.
What I think you're aiming at is the fact that Warcraft 3 is more
generic. Knights in armour, knights on horses, brutal Orcs, undead
zombies... run of the mill medieval fantasy stuff. A vampire hunters map
works great in WC3 because Dreadlords can actually double as vampires.
Footmen double as knights. Peasants double as citizens of a city. Shades
double as ghosts. Etc. The Starcraft universe is a lot more original and
defined: a marine is simply an astronaut with a huge gun. He doesn't
double as anything. He's an astronaut with a huge gun. Protoss are space
aliens. Zerg are monsters. All tilesets are futuristic. Trying to even
just create a suitable DOTA map for SC2 is hard because if you're not
adhering to the Starcraft lore, it's going to seem like completely new
lore ripped off from Starcraft because of the models and general
feeling.
Or in a nutshell: What did Warcraft 3 DOTA feel like? Right, an epic
battle between the ancients and the invading demonic force. Original
heroes, Centaurs, huge zombies, skeleton kings, Trolls. What does
Starcraft 2 SOTIS feel like? Right, an epic battle of several original
Characters that look like futuristic space fighters like in Starcraft 2
lore.
Agree, but I think it's mostly because of the lack of assets. Try to make a, I don't know, TD. You will have repeated models again and again and again, which sucks like hell.
I wonder why they haven't done a WoW->SC2 mod already so we can use those assets.
And of course, Bnet 0.2 doesn't help, but I'm bored of repeating how much I hate it. Aside from popularity and lack of real-time-host-lobbies, the abuse and control of Blizzard is one of the worst things.
What's wrong with you Mozred, Crainy hit the nail on the head. You
seriously think if war 3 had b.net 0.2, it'll have an active custom map
scene? At the end of the road, judging by the 60k+ maps out there, all
the reasons listed from hard to use sc2 editor and the lack of fantasy
units didn't matter. People wanted to make maps. B.net 0.2 killed the
community.
Yeah, Mozared, if you want to play a small map the majority doesn't like, you are unable. You must gather at a channel and call people.
In W3, I could play random maps all the time without caring about calling people inside. I can't do that in SC2, which pretty much ruins the experience for me. Yeah, there's that crappy Fun or Not thing, but it gets you into a random map without letting you select it. I want a random list I can refresh from where I choose the map I want to play.
I don't give a crap about a majority that plays only just one map. I hated DotA because it was all over my screen when I wanted to play W3, and I hate the popularity system because now I have 10 maps all over my screen for the entire goddamn time.
Yeah, Mozared, if you want to play a small map the majority doesn't like, you are unable. You must gather at a channel and call people.
In W3, I could play random maps all the time without caring about calling people inside. I can't do that in SC2, which pretty much ruins the experience for me. Yeah, there's that crappy Fun or Not thing, but it gets you into a random map without letting you select it. I want a random list I can refresh from where I choose the map I want to play.
You're overvalueing Warcraft 3. I'll be the first to admit that playing a non-popular map was easier in Warcraft 3, but it's not like you could simply host unknown map X, fill it up within a minute and go. I happen to have a lot of experience with this because it's exactly the way I hosted my own AoS-style map. If people didn't know the name, it'd easily take 5 minutes to fill up the map, and even then, out of the 40 games I've played inside my own map I think I only had like 15 games where I didn't have one, two or three leavers within 2 minutes into the game.
Lobbying in a chat channel takes 5 minutes at most too. The main disparity between the two is during late-night games, when you could still fill up unknown WC3 custom maps but have a harder time filling up unknown SC2 custom maps due to the lack of people in chat channels.
I think the main reasons are:
But bare in mind it's only been just over a year. War3 mapping never really kicked off until TFT came out i.e. the first expansion. So lets see what HOTS has in store for us!
@QuantumMenace: Go
i have to agree... maybe they'll figure it out in hots or lotv if they really foolish. they aren't evil but sadly they are really thick.
As the blizzard legacy continues on, games will have more and more resources, but genres, play styles, and gameplay types will always always be diminishing in number, because new ones are being generated, but the ones that are the most diverse and interesting and easy ones have already been made. Warcraft had water travel and starcraft had space travel. Warcraft is in fantasy realm. Fantasy can support a ton of stuff. It can range from prehistoric to rennaissance and still look good. Meanwhile, starcraft can only range from present day to end of the universe. People nowadays have no idea of what the future holds. This is another drawback. SciFi has only recently begun to be explored. We should just accept that sc2 will never see very many "next big things."
I think Mozared hit the jackpot ont he reason why though. Warcraft has so much more freedom in resources and diversity in Ages. They even have some cartoony starcraft units in there. Starcrtaft just has...well...starcaft...
I know im talking a decade away probably, But they said Warcraft 4 Engine will be the same as SC2s, so Im thinking that the same editor will be used and It will be UPDATED 100 fold, Then we can make the best maps possible.
Good points Mozared.
Source? Can't imagine anyone at Blizzard would say that. Sounds like that 640 RAM quote from Bill Gates all over again?
This is a real blow for UMS making and I feel deserves a lot more attention.
Squad TD was banned because the author placed a sponsor's advert on the loading screen.
Let's put things in perceptive;
User creates amazingly popular content. User gets sponsored by 3rd party company.
Blizzard bans and removes user's content.
Money is an amazing motivator. SC2 mapping is already basically dead due to lack of motivation. User tries to monotize his creation; user receives boot to face.
I love Blizzard, really. I'm probably as big a fanboy as you can get, but this just goes one step further to demolish what little remains of this dead activity.
@Eiviyn: Go
Gotta agree.
I think it might be all the things we're mentioning... time will tell. I don't have any hope for a marketplace btw. I think it had more legal issues than they expected and now they don't know how to handle it...
The reason Starcraft 2 mapping is "failing" is simple: Battle.net 0.2. Nothing more to it.
Hmyeah, but it does kind of tie into the arcade that they have coming. They don't mind monetising maps, as long as they get the income for it. It kind of makes sense tbh; it's not that Blizzard desperately needs the money, but if you invented a new sport you'd probably want to get a percentage of the income generated by tournaments in it too. I think there's a point where one needs to let go and simply 'let his invention float free', but I don't think this really quite applies to the world of gaming as it is - that would just force a lot of good developers out of hard-earned money.
@Mozared: Go
What's wrong with you Mozred, Crainy hit the nail on the head. You seriously think if war 3 had b.net 0.2, it'll have an active custom map scene? At the end of the road, judging by the 60k+ maps out there, all the reasons listed from hard to use sc2 editor and the lack of fantasy units didn't matter. People wanted to make maps. B.net 0.2 killed the community.
No, it's opinions like Crainy's and apparently yours that kill the community. Blaming battle.net got old, no, ancient, months ago. That's not to say that an old excuse can't be right, but... it just isn't.
Let me tell you something: mankind's biggest failure is that we try to blame everybody and everything BUT ourselves for our own mistakes. We constantly do things we shouldn't do because we're too weak to resist (Christianity's Eve and the apple). Afterwards, because we can't face the fact that we suck, we blame others, or even other things. I'm no exception - I play risky in LoL and sometimes/often end up with a bad score because of it. I then rage at people who rage at me. The "bnet sucks" argument is the epitome of this phenomenom.
Why? Because it's a cheap way out for lazy mapmakers to blame the system. Coming from someone who's had lifelong problems with 'the system' in real life, I'm not going to say that 'the system' is never wrong and critique is not needed - but Sc2 mappers have taken it to an extreme over the past few years. When it all comes down to it, Blizzard has given us the tools and possibility to create good maps and even to get them played. What good maps have been made for Sc2, regardless of their placement on the pop list? My definition of good for the purpose of this discussion is a map that is A) polished, B) revolutionary, C) easily accessible and D) fun to play for a majority of people. Right, ten or so. How many of those are high on the pop list, or have been on top? Seven or eight. Read my posts on the previous page: I've put forward a quite convincing argument (I say) as to why Warcraft 3 had a bigger and more extensive map scene, and my arguments have yet to be disproven. Others as well as myself have also put forth COUNTLESS of uncountered arguments as to why the popularity system isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
Now what do we get for that? If there's one kind of person in this world I hate, it's the person who makes said mistakes (the apple) but A) blames others for each and every one of them and most importantly, B), does not even try to be a better person, no matter how small the effort. These are your stereotypical "bnet sucks" people. I hate to break it to you, but 95% of the maps that fail on bnet fail because they SUCK. Don't kid yourself. Once you've admitted to that, THEN we can start thinking about discussing what's bad about the popularity system, even though it's getting an overhaul in a couple of months anyway. I guess I can't really say I'm bothered too much by forum posts, but if there'd be one thing about them that would enrage me it's these people who put out crappy maps and then think they've earned to right to post snappy 1-liners about how battle.net is all terrible.
To end my rant about society: yes, I genuinely, seriously think that if Warcraft 3's battle.net had been set up similarly to Starcraft 2's, we would've had a roughly similar WC3 map scene. It would probably have been less extensive, but DOTA would've been created, and 95% of the good maps we all remember would've been out there: the biggest loss would've been 'escape from gay heaven' style maps, but they would've been created with less 'offensive' themes. Battle.net 2.0 is, imo, not set up as well as the Warcraft 3 system to allow for good spreading and creation of maps, but we HAVE to realize that the first errors lie with US, and that blaming the system in snarky one-liners it pretty much the most cocky, arrogant and selfish stance you could take towards the whole ordeal.
In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, amen.
If wc3 had same bnet as bnet0.2 I would have probly never become mapper and saved 10000000h of my life from playing different customs...
@QuantumMenace: Go
Out of context like hell. Somebody put a guy from Blizzard on the spot who's himself a mapper first and foremost, rather than a developer. "Blizzard" never "accused" anyone of 'not advertising enough', it was simply the only real thing the guy could say aside from repeating AGAIN that the custom map system has revisions planned.
Yeah, ofc, Mozared, WE are the issue. WE, the community, that pump out pretty awesome and creative maps even though we know they will never be played because of that stupid system.
I just want to be able to play the maps that i think are good and that i like, and not have a system that dictates me what i have to considere "good". Every quality map has an audience, the job of the Battle.Net is to bring those maps to that audience, and it fails at that simple task.
@Crainy: Go
You didn't read my post. If you did, you didn't understand it. But anyway:
You can play the maps that you think are good, you just can't do it well with random people if the maps you think are good differ from the maps the majority of players considers good. The system doesn't dictate you in what you have to consider good, it simply gives you a list of the maps the majority considers good. The problem is that right now (since fun or not isn't ideal), that's the only thing it gives you. And if every quality map has an audience, there's nothing stopping those people from joining a chat channel.
lol....do I need to say more?
I've been suggesting that since beta, Quantum. With the lobbies per map system, where you don't need to name the lobbies, it would work fine. Your lobby is empty for more than 1 minute? you get into the "waiting for people" tab. Simple as that.
I think it's the lack of assets. In W3, you had hundreds of custom models within the game. The campaign had tons of new units, and then we had creep races, too. The hero system was pretty decent, and there were lots of items with lots of attributes.
In SC2 heroes are a pain and, aside from the melee units, you have like 20 units only. SC2 lacks assets.
Agree, but I think it's mostly because of the lack of assets. Try to make a, I don't know, TD. You will have repeated models again and again and again, which sucks like hell.
I wonder why they haven't done a WoW->SC2 mod already so we can use those assets.
And of course, Bnet 0.2 doesn't help, but I'm bored of repeating how much I hate it. Aside from popularity and lack of real-time-host-lobbies, the abuse and control of Blizzard is one of the worst things.
Yeah, Mozared, if you want to play a small map the majority doesn't like, you are unable. You must gather at a channel and call people.
In W3, I could play random maps all the time without caring about calling people inside. I can't do that in SC2, which pretty much ruins the experience for me. Yeah, there's that crappy Fun or Not thing, but it gets you into a random map without letting you select it. I want a random list I can refresh from where I choose the map I want to play.
I don't give a crap about a majority that plays only just one map. I hated DotA because it was all over my screen when I wanted to play W3, and I hate the popularity system because now I have 10 maps all over my screen for the entire goddamn time.
You're overvalueing Warcraft 3. I'll be the first to admit that playing a non-popular map was easier in Warcraft 3, but it's not like you could simply host unknown map X, fill it up within a minute and go. I happen to have a lot of experience with this because it's exactly the way I hosted my own AoS-style map. If people didn't know the name, it'd easily take 5 minutes to fill up the map, and even then, out of the 40 games I've played inside my own map I think I only had like 15 games where I didn't have one, two or three leavers within 2 minutes into the game.
Lobbying in a chat channel takes 5 minutes at most too. The main disparity between the two is during late-night games, when you could still fill up unknown WC3 custom maps but have a harder time filling up unknown SC2 custom maps due to the lack of people in chat channels.
Judging from mozareds posts I wonder if he even plays maps in sc2 or has ever tried hosting your own game.
And not to mention wc3...