Agreed. I don't know what Blizzard did exactly, that made people angry, and I don't want to know.
You should know the answer to that. We all know what that answer is and there is no reason to discuss that further.
I give tons of thanks to Traysent because he is definitely doing an amazing job and trying to clean things up and make them right. The remedy started with Cloaken and the various Blizzard Devs that were so kind to join us in the IRC and the torch seems to have been passed to Traysent.
With that said, I think he is doing an amazing job!
Yeah I don't get what the hate is all about either. People seem to have gotten really angry toward StarCraft lately to the point where it's pretty much being bashed on every StarCraft-related site. It's especially bad on Reddit and the official forums though.
I agree that the improvements are nice but too late. The player base isn't too impressive. And most map makers gave up in the first year.
However, there's a speck of hope that Heroes of the Storm will bring in a wave of players, assuming it syncs up with the same arcade as sc2. Let's hope it's not a flop for that reason.
And then all the improvements will not have been made in vain. However, if there's one thing I'd like to change, it would be to make the open games lobby the default tab in the arcade.
If I'm not mistaken, the hate towards Blizzard can be summarized as being due to the following:
Complicated editor (data specifically, and their unwillingness to simplify it).
Lack of support towards mappers (popularity system for like the first 20 months, the interest that they've shown recently was basically non-existent before now).
I don't really see the open games being the standard view as a major problem. Spotlight being the default seems more professional and if they were to make open games the default, I have a hard time seeing it making a noticeable difference. But it would show that they're open to feedback, which is a good thing I guess.
If I'm not mistaken, the hate towards Blizzard can be summarized as being due to the following:
Complicated editor (data specifically, and their unwillingness to simplify it).
Lack of support towards mappers (popularity system for like the first 20 months, the interest that they've shown recently was basically non-existent before now).
I don't really see the open games being the standard view as a major problem. Spotlight being the default seems more professional and if they were to make open games the default, I have a hard time seeing it making a noticeable difference. But it would show that they're open to feedback, which is a good thing I guess.
I think the editor is great. (far better than w3 or sc1)
I dont really care about blizzard's support.
I think the editor is great. (far better than w3 or sc1) I dont really care about blizzard's support.
The only major problem I see is bnet....
Any hate or negative feelings of any kind us developers have felt towards Blizzard has absolutely NOTHING to do with the editor. There are few things I can say I am 100% on but this I am sure of.
Preface;
1) I love the editor. It's complexity does not bother me.
2) I think Blizzard have done more for the SC2 arcade than they ever did for the WC3 or SC1 scene.
3) I also think bnet 2.0 is far, far superior to the WC3 or SC1 interface.
However, the editor's complexity and unforgivingness is, in my opinion, what puts a lot of people off using it and is probably the prime reason why the SC2 custom map scene gets so much hate.
I also have no clue why the SC2 custom maps are considered inferior to WC3's. I play both, and I'd say with definitive certainty that a lot of the "best" WC3 maps would not be well received today.
Preface;
1) I love the editor. It's complexity does not bother me.
2) I think Blizzard have done more for the SC2 arcade than they ever did for the WC3 or SC1 scene.
3) I also think bnet 2.0 is far, far superior to the WC3 or SC1 interface.
However, the editor's complexity and unforgivingness is, in my opinion, what puts a lot of people off using it and is probably the prime reason why the SC2 custom map scene gets so much hate.
I also have no clue why the SC2 custom maps are considered inferior to WC3's. I play both, and I'd say with definitive certainty that a lot of the "best" WC3 maps would not be well received today.
Pretty much this. The editor is amazing and super powerfull, far better than what any other Blizzard game had ever offered us and I love it for it, even if it is complex. Its just not for everyone. But who cares? Id rather have a smaller community with the most amazing maps ever (Seriously, the good SC2 maps are much much better than anything in WC3 - you can just polish things so much more with the SC2 editor and make things so much more playable) than a large community with mediocre, outdated maps like WC3.
Interface might be superior (even though it horribly lags and bugs), but that doesnt mean its a better system.
I didn't just mean interface, I also meant, well, pretty much everything is superior. Seriously, load up WC3.
Also never noticed it lagging. Plenty of minor bugs (like successfully joining a lobby, but the screen shows me as still being on the arcade menu) though.
I could be mistaken on this but last I heard "Heroes of the Storm" will be separate from the Arcade.
Yes, it will be. So far, there is no interaction between -S-C-2- Heroes! and Arcade. I've asked about it on the influencer summit.
Also, Mr. Browder couldn't answer, if the arcade can use Heroes models, but he noted that one down. So, I hope we will receive an answer soon-ish.
Also, I've dropped off some suggestions about arcade:
- some kind of lobby advertisement (not necessarily free text; tags definable within the map itself could work, too) -> "map test", "beginners", "experts", "diamond+", "bronze-silver", ...
- "recently updated" category that shows maps that is frequently worked on
- something that prevents new maps from being rated. Imagine a new editor user testing his map via publishing it. Then a few people play it and there is a bug that prevents proper play, so the players rate it with 1 star. Then the map appears with 1-star on battle.net and nobody would join it as all other open lobbies have at least 3 stars. Bad ratings and nobody joining his lobby could demotivate the new editor user making him stop tinkering with the editor.
- Singleplayer category (realized as a flag in map options -> map is in a category, so, it's more like an extra to the map as most maps support multiplayer and as a bonus: singleplayer with AI). The Devs didn't like putting that as a category as the maps still belong to another category. But I assume we will receive some checkmark on the arcade browsing UI, if they want to implement some support for singleplayer browsing.
- a Page where you can see all maps or files a player published. The devs said that some of their team wanted to do something like that for a long time now. I assume they implement it.
- Better support for user-made Campaigns: a UI listing all maps of the campaign which might be capable of reading out the progress from a bank file. Also, creating another lobby after one map.
- arcade icon in the tooltip in the open lobbies to help recognizing maps in it. ("Browse" shows bigger icons, open lobbies only contains text, custom games display minimap image in tooltips => open lobbies needs arcade image in tooltip)
So, I assume they will focus on arcade and development tools this year, since they've asked about feedback regarding these.
That's cool that they are asking for feedbacks. Open map listing is the one greatest change. That's why I think if they make open map listing the primary focus like many users are asking for, they can bring back the map scene.
Regardless, the final goal should be like the old b.net, where players can play any maps with different maps being popular at a time instead of the same stale map that's going on right now. Before people come in and claim you can't play any map, well, that's how b.net 1 custom map scene got so popular, people CAN. Perhaps not now with all the bots and small playerbase. But while the map scene was blooming, people could, and that's what we want.
Preface;
1) I love the editor. It's complexity does not bother me.
2) I think Blizzard have done more for the SC2 arcade than they ever did for the WC3 or SC1 scene.
3) I also think bnet 2.0 is far, far superior to the WC3 or SC1 interface.
However, the editor's complexity and unforgivingness is, in my opinion, what puts a lot of people off using it and is probably the prime reason why the SC2 custom map scene gets so much hate.
I also have no clue why the SC2 custom maps are considered inferior to WC3's. I play both, and I'd say with definitive certainty that a lot of the "best" WC3 maps would not be well received today.
1) The editor is and has always been fine, better tutorials and then some modding of it and it would be working good enough and with the Blizzard help that has now come 3 years too late it would have been flawless.
2) They have done more but that is because it was a flawed system. The system in WC3 worked perfectly for everything except for people putting cheats into maps and then trying to host it.
3) The interface is superior but the system is horrible. The game and it's parts lives or dies during the first months of existance, Blizzard massively botched that with the only way to play custom games being a popularity list and no chat channels for 10 months, oh the group clan thingy came with HotS should have been there at launch.
People gave up when they couldn't even get a single person except their friend who they had asked 10 times already to try their new alpha map with. Mapping is and always has been a social experience, if you can't get the part of it, what is the point in creating anything except for self-improvement?
The funny thing is that Sc2mapster is a barren wasteland compared to the activity on the Wc3 mapping sites 2010, the same year SC2 was launched, 8 years after WC3 was first released.
Nowadays, my only problem with the editor (technically Bnet) is the lag associated with the key/mouse pressed and mouse moved events. If they were to have the same delay as, say, commands, I could avoid data entirely and make my own ability systems.
I'm sure there's some reason for it, and I do believe it's gotten better. It's still too lagful, though, for anything fast paced. Just saying, it does have its flaws.
"The game and it's parts lives or dies during the first months of existence"
I wouldn't say that at all. Tons of examples to the contrary.
I believe the reason they don't support the lag less key input/ local inputs has something to do with hackers taking advantage of it. Not 100% on that one though.
As for the mapping scene I think people complain to much. WAY to much. It's great to voice your opinion but there is no reason to bring up certain points over and over and over. I get it's not a perfect system. Can you really expect it to be? It's not like they aren't trying to improve it and obviously they didn't expect the original release to prove to have such a myriad of issues from the player base. But that's just my two cents.
I believe the reason they don't support the lag less key input/ local inputs has something to do with hackers taking advantage of it. Not 100% on that one though.
What? How would you take advantage of that? Are you frequently typing your passwords into sc2 while playing sc2 maps?
How about sending input from your computer to the server back to everyone's computer as an explanation for delays (just like every other game input)?
Nowadays, my only problem with the editor (technically Bnet) is the lag associated with the key/mouse pressed and mouse moved events. If they were to have the same delay as, say, commands, I could avoid data entirely and make my own ability systems.
As far as I know, mouse pressed and button pressed is delayed by 0.0625 game seconds in comparison to ability commands.
Mouse move is truely lagging as it is limited to only appear avery few game ticks and seems to occur multiple times at once for a player. So, this can potentially be improved to a level comparable to button presses.
Making responsive UI stuff would require local triggers which wouldn't be able to alter shared data. But SC2 doesn't have such a concept in triggers. So, only data is capable of supporting super-responsive stuff like targetting markers.
I played ton of W3 and all of the problems you mentioned come like 5 years after TFT. Lagging players is still problem even in sc2, though there is no real host...
(also try hosting custom game (not arcade) with extension and then you will see the lag, there are pages that doesnt even load sometimes for me (like recently played maps.))
-
The problem with sc2 lobby system that it will never support any map played by masses and by "pros". Naming lobbies and bots separated noobs from pros, I think if that environment wouldnt have been present, then dota would have never been so popular. (most popular arcade maps has far less skill gaps than dota)
Also, before bots got popular, you could have hosted any map and people filled up the lobby pretty fast. (after bots got popular you could have done the same if you used a bot...). (I have to say, I am not sure exactly why more people tried out "new" maps in W3. Probably many small things add up to be so...)
The interface, the additional tons of information you can put into game info is all nice, but at the end probably less than 10% people read it before they play your map.
You should know the answer to that. We all know what that answer is and there is no reason to discuss that further.
I give tons of thanks to Traysent because he is definitely doing an amazing job and trying to clean things up and make them right. The remedy started with Cloaken and the various Blizzard Devs that were so kind to join us in the IRC and the torch seems to have been passed to Traysent.
With that said, I think he is doing an amazing job!
Yeah I don't get what the hate is all about either. People seem to have gotten really angry toward StarCraft lately to the point where it's pretty much being bashed on every StarCraft-related site. It's especially bad on Reddit and the official forums though.
I agree that the improvements are nice but too late. The player base isn't too impressive. And most map makers gave up in the first year.
However, there's a speck of hope that Heroes of the Storm will bring in a wave of players, assuming it syncs up with the same arcade as sc2. Let's hope it's not a flop for that reason.
And then all the improvements will not have been made in vain. However, if there's one thing I'd like to change, it would be to make the open games lobby the default tab in the arcade.
@LosTacos: Go
I could be mistaken on this but last I heard "Heroes of the Storm" will be separate from the Arcade.
If I'm not mistaken, the hate towards Blizzard can be summarized as being due to the following:
I don't really see the open games being the standard view as a major problem. Spotlight being the default seems more professional and if they were to make open games the default, I have a hard time seeing it making a noticeable difference. But it would show that they're open to feedback, which is a good thing I guess.
I think the editor is great. (far better than w3 or sc1) I dont really care about blizzard's support.
The only major problem I see is bnet....
Any hate or negative feelings of any kind us developers have felt towards Blizzard has absolutely NOTHING to do with the editor. There are few things I can say I am 100% on but this I am sure of.
@Bounty_98: Go
Can't say I agree there.
Preface;
1) I love the editor. It's complexity does not bother me.
2) I think Blizzard have done more for the SC2 arcade than they ever did for the WC3 or SC1 scene.
3) I also think bnet 2.0 is far, far superior to the WC3 or SC1 interface.
However, the editor's complexity and unforgivingness is, in my opinion, what puts a lot of people off using it and is probably the prime reason why the SC2 custom map scene gets so much hate.
I also have no clue why the SC2 custom maps are considered inferior to WC3's. I play both, and I'd say with definitive certainty that a lot of the "best" WC3 maps would not be well received today.
Interface might be superior (even though it horribly lags and bugs), but that doesnt mean its a better system.
Pretty much this. The editor is amazing and super powerfull, far better than what any other Blizzard game had ever offered us and I love it for it, even if it is complex. Its just not for everyone. But who cares? Id rather have a smaller community with the most amazing maps ever (Seriously, the good SC2 maps are much much better than anything in WC3 - you can just polish things so much more with the SC2 editor and make things so much more playable) than a large community with mediocre, outdated maps like WC3.
I didn't just mean interface, I also meant, well, pretty much everything is superior. Seriously, load up WC3.
Also never noticed it lagging. Plenty of minor bugs (like successfully joining a lobby, but the screen shows me as still being on the arcade menu) though.
Yes, it will be. So far, there is no interaction between -S-C-2- Heroes! and Arcade. I've asked about it on the influencer summit.
Also, Mr. Browder couldn't answer, if the arcade can use Heroes models, but he noted that one down. So, I hope we will receive an answer soon-ish.
Also, I've dropped off some suggestions about arcade:
- some kind of lobby advertisement (not necessarily free text; tags definable within the map itself could work, too) -> "map test", "beginners", "experts", "diamond+", "bronze-silver", ...
- "recently updated" category that shows maps that is frequently worked on
- something that prevents new maps from being rated. Imagine a new editor user testing his map via publishing it. Then a few people play it and there is a bug that prevents proper play, so the players rate it with 1 star. Then the map appears with 1-star on battle.net and nobody would join it as all other open lobbies have at least 3 stars. Bad ratings and nobody joining his lobby could demotivate the new editor user making him stop tinkering with the editor.
- Singleplayer category (realized as a flag in map options -> map is in a category, so, it's more like an extra to the map as most maps support multiplayer and as a bonus: singleplayer with AI). The Devs didn't like putting that as a category as the maps still belong to another category. But I assume we will receive some checkmark on the arcade browsing UI, if they want to implement some support for singleplayer browsing.
- a Page where you can see all maps or files a player published. The devs said that some of their team wanted to do something like that for a long time now. I assume they implement it.
- Better support for user-made Campaigns: a UI listing all maps of the campaign which might be capable of reading out the progress from a bank file. Also, creating another lobby after one map.
- arcade icon in the tooltip in the open lobbies to help recognizing maps in it. ("Browse" shows bigger icons, open lobbies only contains text, custom games display minimap image in tooltips => open lobbies needs arcade image in tooltip)
So, I assume they will focus on arcade and development tools this year, since they've asked about feedback regarding these.
That's cool that they are asking for feedbacks. Open map listing is the one greatest change. That's why I think if they make open map listing the primary focus like many users are asking for, they can bring back the map scene.
Regardless, the final goal should be like the old b.net, where players can play any maps with different maps being popular at a time instead of the same stale map that's going on right now. Before people come in and claim you can't play any map, well, that's how b.net 1 custom map scene got so popular, people CAN. Perhaps not now with all the bots and small playerbase. But while the map scene was blooming, people could, and that's what we want.
1) The editor is and has always been fine, better tutorials and then some modding of it and it would be working good enough and with the Blizzard help that has now come 3 years too late it would have been flawless.
2) They have done more but that is because it was a flawed system. The system in WC3 worked perfectly for everything except for people putting cheats into maps and then trying to host it.
3) The interface is superior but the system is horrible. The game and it's parts lives or dies during the first months of existance, Blizzard massively botched that with the only way to play custom games being a popularity list and no chat channels for 10 months, oh the group clan thingy came with HotS should have been there at launch.
People gave up when they couldn't even get a single person except their friend who they had asked 10 times already to try their new alpha map with. Mapping is and always has been a social experience, if you can't get the part of it, what is the point in creating anything except for self-improvement?
The funny thing is that Sc2mapster is a barren wasteland compared to the activity on the Wc3 mapping sites 2010, the same year SC2 was launched, 8 years after WC3 was first released.
@Gwypaas: Go
"The editor is and has always been fine"
Nowadays, my only problem with the editor (technically Bnet) is the lag associated with the key/mouse pressed and mouse moved events. If they were to have the same delay as, say, commands, I could avoid data entirely and make my own ability systems.
I'm sure there's some reason for it, and I do believe it's gotten better. It's still too lagful, though, for anything fast paced. Just saying, it does have its flaws.
"The game and it's parts lives or dies during the first months of existence"
I wouldn't say that at all. Tons of examples to the contrary.
Were there latency hosting issues with Warcraft 3 like in BW?
I've always thought that was a big reason for SC1's success with all maps being playable, that a large percent of the player's couldn't host at all.
Yes, laggy hosts were a problem with WC3. Also many people (and nearly all people these days) cannot host without altering their router.
@Charysmatic: Go
I believe the reason they don't support the lag less key input/ local inputs has something to do with hackers taking advantage of it. Not 100% on that one though.
As for the mapping scene I think people complain to much. WAY to much. It's great to voice your opinion but there is no reason to bring up certain points over and over and over. I get it's not a perfect system. Can you really expect it to be? It's not like they aren't trying to improve it and obviously they didn't expect the original release to prove to have such a myriad of issues from the player base. But that's just my two cents.
What? How would you take advantage of that? Are you frequently typing your passwords into sc2 while playing sc2 maps?
How about sending input from your computer to the server back to everyone's computer as an explanation for delays (just like every other game input)?
As far as I know, mouse pressed and button pressed is delayed by 0.0625 game seconds in comparison to ability commands.
Mouse move is truely lagging as it is limited to only appear avery few game ticks and seems to occur multiple times at once for a player. So, this can potentially be improved to a level comparable to button presses.
Making responsive UI stuff would require local triggers which wouldn't be able to alter shared data. But SC2 doesn't have such a concept in triggers. So, only data is capable of supporting super-responsive stuff like targetting markers.
@TyaStarcraft: Go
I played ton of W3 and all of the problems you mentioned come like 5 years after TFT. Lagging players is still problem even in sc2, though there is no real host...
(also try hosting custom game (not arcade) with extension and then you will see the lag, there are pages that doesnt even load sometimes for me (like recently played maps.))
-
The problem with sc2 lobby system that it will never support any map played by masses and by "pros". Naming lobbies and bots separated noobs from pros, I think if that environment wouldnt have been present, then dota would have never been so popular. (most popular arcade maps has far less skill gaps than dota)
Also, before bots got popular, you could have hosted any map and people filled up the lobby pretty fast. (after bots got popular you could have done the same if you used a bot...). (I have to say, I am not sure exactly why more people tried out "new" maps in W3. Probably many small things add up to be so...)
The interface, the additional tons of information you can put into game info is all nice, but at the end probably less than 10% people read it before they play your map.