SC2Mapster

Quote from wargirlwargirl: Go

Whos getting Heroes of the Storm

only if there is editor

"Why should I buy it?"

You shouldn't, because its a free game.

There isn't an editor planned, and they suggested that the Heroes models will be made available in a data pack for sc2, further compounding that there probably won't be an editor. I had a lot of hope for a few Heroes maps, but I strongly believe we won't be seeing that!

no editor -> no arcade? then we really are screwed, a shared arcade is all i hoped for

I have no idea why people wanting and were even expecting an editor for this. It's not like there's map editors of LoL, HoN or Smite. It's not like they were ever needed.

Quote from TyaArcade: Go

There isn't an editor planned, and they suggested that the Heroes models will be made available in a data pack for sc2, further compounding that there probably won't be an editor. I had a lot of hope for a few Heroes maps, but I strongly believe we won't be seeing that!

Do you have a source for that? I have never heard that they wanted to port over Heroes models to SC2 arcade. Also, having no editor is totally contradictory to the information I have at my disposal.

Btw, no editor doesn't make sense as they definitely wanted community creations (custom games) 5 months ago. Interview with Kaeo Milker at Gamescom 2014 in August about draft mode, MMR, custom games; skip to 16:54 for the custom games.

Quote from Mozared: Go

I have no idea why people wanting and were even expecting an editor for this. It's not like there's map editors of LoL, HoN or Smite. It's not like they were ever needed.

Did you play Heroes already?
A main feature of Heroes is that there are different maps with different mechanics allowing different Heroes to shine more or less on different maps (Abathur is good on big maps like Cursed Hollow (at least pre-patch before hidden nerfs), Hammer is good on small maps like Dragon Shire). It's now unimaginable that you would only play on a single map in Heroes. That would become very boring. Thus, there is a need for an editor as I don't think that Blizzard wants to release all maps by themselves. Just like you don't play StarCraft's melee on the same map over and over again.
In addition to that, you need an editor to modify the observer UI (which is a feature in Heroes and I'm doing that already without an editor). Some people are already creating custom maps for heroes to be able to present all mounts and skins ingame before they have been released. (This is limited by your ability to create map files and edit them without the use of a sophisticated editor. You only have text-altering programs at your disposal. But SC2 galaxy code should be copy-paste-able for the most parts.)

Since Heroes is the SC2 engine with additions, it would make sense that an editor will come. But we don't know to which extend we can create funmaps for it. We might receive limitations. So, for entire new game types, you might end up having to use the Arcade.

Btw, I've also found text fragments in the battle.net cache that talk about custom games. Blizzard wants to add "clusters". For me, it looks like they want to add groups of authors for files. That wouldn't make sense, if they didn't think about custom games, right?

For example, a few lines from that file:

  <e id="3277">You cannot be a cluster and a member of a cluster at the same time.</e>
  <e id="3279">You cannot publish into another author's map cluster.</e>

Quote from FunkyUserName: Go

a shared arcade is all i hoped for

I would have loved to see that, but so far it does not look like this is coming (-> video link posted above, skip to 16:54).

@Ahli634: Go

When they said "custom games", they mean being able to customise the teams. As in, you and 3 friends playing a 2v2 on Sky Temple would be a "custom game" in their terminology.

Dustin Browder, in an interview, stated that they want to bring community developed maps to Storm, but one issue they still needed to figure out is how to deal with malicious/nasty maps (Porn, etc.), since, with Starcraft 2, they could ban the map or even the account, but with Storm being F2P, the banned person could whip up a new account in no time.

Personally, I could see a minor fee being charged for the right to publish custom maps, say, 5 to 10 USD. Nothing of any real note, but enough to dissuade anyone from just uploading crap over and over. As it stands, we all effectively pay 40 to 60 USD for publishing rights in SC2. As a one time fee, it should be of little consequence to anyone who is halfway serious about this kind of thing.

Quote from ArcaneDurandel: Go

Personally, I could see a minor fee being charged for the right to publish custom maps, say, 5 to 10 USD. Nothing of any real note, but enough to dissuade anyone from just uploading crap over and over. As it stands, we all effectively pay 40 to 60 USD for publishing rights in SC2. As a one time fee, it should be of little consequence to anyone who is halfway serious about this kind of thing.

or let ppl with sc2 account upload maps only :D

Quote from TyaArcade: Go

@Ahli634: Go

When they said "custom games", they mean being able to customise the teams. As in, you and 3 friends playing a 2v2 on Sky Temple would be a "custom game" in their terminology.

I'm not sure if you've listened to it past the first sentences...

Well, here is my transcript (don't worry, I didn't just create that for this post, it's old):

Quote:

Kaeo Milker at Gamescom 2014:

So, first, I don't have a lot of updates on our custom maps and when we will bring them into the game. I will continue to confirm that we are totally going to do that. Rob seems really excited about it. This entire genre spawned out of custom maps made by Blizzard's players in StarCraft and WarCraft III, so it's kind of this cool full circle thing of like: the genre came from Blizzard players in custom maps and now we are going to make our own version of that game and give them an editor, so they can make custom maps. So, it's pretty exciting to think what the community is going to do when they can make maps for this game now. So, we are thinking about it, working on it and it will come later on, not in our alpha phase, probably in beta or beyond it, but we totally gonna do it.
As far as how we are going to treat where the maps go and that stuff, right now we have no plans to combine the StarCraft II Arcade with the Heroes' one. We probably keep them separate and kind of make a delineation between different types of games and the rulesets across them. But we love the Arcade in StarCraft, it is free to play for everybody, so if you haven't checked it out, even if you don't own StarCraft, you can go and play the Arcade today and check out all the amazing maps the community makes there. I love that and I'm excited to get Heroes to a point where we can see what they want to make for it as well.

With custom games, he means that there will be a feature to add community-created content. Most likely, it won't arrive in beta, maybe not even at release, but they are planning to support it. "full circle" would be a key word here.
To which extend we will be able to modify Heroes' maps, we do not know. They have the SC2 arcade and Heroes and it is unlikely that they will create two equal, rivaling systems. (So, combining them in some form would have made sense... maybe a possibility in future.)

So, where is your source for Heroes' models coming to Arcade and a no-editor-policy in Heroes, TyaArcade aka TyaStarCraft aka Eiviyn?

Quote from ArcaneDurandel: Go

Dustin Browder, in an interview, stated that they want to bring community developed maps to Storm, but one issue they still needed to figure out is how to deal with malicious/nasty maps (Porn, etc.), since, with Starcraft 2, they could ban the map or even the account, but with Storm being F2P, the banned person could whip up a new account in no time.

Personally, I could see a minor fee being charged for the right to publish custom maps, say, 5 to 10 USD. Nothing of any real note, but enough to dissuade anyone from just uploading crap over and over. As it stands, we all effectively pay 40 to 60 USD for publishing rights in SC2. As a one time fee, it should be of little consequence to anyone who is halfway serious about this kind of thing.

That's what we know since 1+ years.
I personally would go for the solution that the account has to contain persistent content that was payed with real money. So, for example another Blizzard game license (whose keys cannot be stolen from other players over battle.net, so not SC 1) or a bundle/skin/hero in Heroes of the Storm bought with real money.

Quote:

This entire genre spawned out of custom maps made by Blizzard's players in StarCraft and WarCraft III, so it's kind of this cool full circle thing of like: the genre came from Blizzard players in custom maps and now we are going to make our own version of that game and give them an editor, so they can make custom maps. So, it's pretty exciting to think what the community is going to do when they can make maps for this game now. So, we are thinking about it, working on it and it will come later on, not in our alpha phase, probably in beta or beyond it, but we totally gonna do it.

Omg I did not know this! You're right, I didn't watch the video, watching it now.

The heroes data pack came from the BlizzCon 2014 arcade meetup.

This is the interview that made me suspicious over whether there will be a Heroes arcade. It's pretty much "I don't have a great answer yet, but it's something we really wanna do". That's very positive but it's not confirmation. I'd love to make Heroes arcade maps so I've been keeping an eye on this.

@Mozared: Go

As players that we are that like to tweak our maps a little here and a little there that question coming from you really dosent make sense. Ill be nice to have the option to play with new textures new assets and also tweak the mechanics of the game a little bit. So really it makes sense.

Come to think of it, I suppose it makes some sense; HotS seems to have a slightly different (less competitive?) approach to MOBA's than games like League or Smite, and making custom maps possible within the game sounds like something a bit more logical in that light.

Thanks for the updates of information, everyone.

Quote from Mozared: Go

I have no idea why people wanting and were even expecting an editor for this. It's not like there's map editors of LoL, HoN or Smite. It's not like they were ever needed.

Dota2 does have an editor though.

edit: Didn't realise I did a partial necro. Might as well add something more to the discussion then.
With Blizzard already implementing new maps in Alpha/Beta, I believe they are aiming at a very map-driven meta game (perhaps not to the same degree as Starcraft II). It would make a lot of sense to have the community create new maps, since the tools are already more or less ready to be used (as they are based on Galaxy Editor), and it would also save Blizzard time and money if the community would happen to produce maps on a similar level. Blizzard's only job would basically be to do 2D artwork for the maps, as well as some 3D polish if needed be. Even if they would not decide to follow this path, they could still go for the Dota2 approach of having a custom game section (much like Arcade) where players can play different modes and maps uncompetitively.