On the basis of Blizzard's seemingly haphazard approach to tweaking the Arcade system to fit the needs and demands of the community, I have decided to compile a list of changes that need to be made to the Arcade system to improve it. The aim is to make an Arcade system that maximizes the freedom and enjoyment of playing Arcade games and that which properly encourages mapmakers to push the limits of SC2 mapmaking, to innovate, to take risks and come up with new ideas that could prove to be the next big thing. But most importantly, to ensure that SC2 is a place of fun custom games which will keep us all occupied for years to come.
If we are careful to insist that Blizzard works closely with the community, we can get the system we've been expecting from Starcraft II since before launch. This, of course, requires a certain degree of transparency and openness that was previously not present in our collective relationship with Blizzard. This, I believe, is an excellent step in that direction, and if I can garner your support in updating and maintaining the list and keeping Blizzard accountable to it, I believe we can truly help make Starcraft II the best RTS and user-created content experience to date.
If you find a way to use low-poly versions of certain models (they exist), you can do a model swap with actors using a signal you send to every actor in a trigger. Be sure to check with players if that's fine with them!
Christian. I prefer my Bible in the NIV, but will gladly use other versions (except The Message or any of those other versions that dumb it down too much). I like having translations that at least make an effort to be accurate in conveying the meaning of verses in the Hebrew and Greek in which they were originally written (Uh oh! I just flamebaited.). Theology and related subjects also interest me. Oh, and I believe in the afterlife. After all, I read my Bible.
You could just place a dialog with a button on it that takes up the whole dialog over the command panel, then set the dialog's transparency to 100.
This makes the buttons unclickable but hotkeys are usable and the buttons are visible. The only issue is that the buttons won't show a tooltip on mouseover.
Gizmo, you really should update this map! I know it's kinda old, but you're getting public attention now, so it's a really prime time to play around with the map a bit longer.
I'm saddened to see that this doesn't seem to have any progress on it in over a year now. This was a map I seriously was looking forward to getting to play. It was pretty fascinating and still fascinates me.
Do you think Valve, Microsoft and Apple don't take a cut out of Steam, XBLA and Itunes? And as for going full indie, marketting is a huge part of why these venues are used. People get exposure to the products when there's a place for them to be displayed.
I'm also talking about exclusivity. A SC2 map would only be limited to Battle.net, whereas a standalone game can be put on as many non-exclusive platforms as you want: Steam, Humble Indie Bundles, your own website, maybe even XBLA...
You aren't limited and if you want to give a company a cut so you can get exposure, that's fine, but you have so much more control over things like pricing. Plus, by building a game using your own engine, you can do whatever you want in the game and not be limited by missing or poorly documented trigger actions or data editor fields. You also don't have to compete with all the newbie maps that get released daily.
Life is so much easier if you try to profit off standalone games than SC2 mapmaking.
One idea is to have one behavior that is hidden and shared by all those auras (e.g. having these behaviors create this behavior on initial and remove it on final).
You could also use an effect on behavior initial and behavior final to do this if you want to keep buff counts down on an unit.
Why would you want to give Blizzard a cut of the profit when you could, in the same amount of time it'd most likely take for them to get the marketplace up, just learn to code a standalone game and then sell it on whatever platform you feel like selling it on at whatever price you feel like selling it at? I'm talking Humble Indie Bundles, Steam, your own website, whatever...
Why limit yourself to Battle.net? Why put up with such a terrible platform with such terrible netcode (for things like online keyboard and mouse events)?
Look at League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, seriously. Who the hell needs Blizzard for making money? If you're a mapmaker, I advise that you make maps for entertainment only and/or for establishing a portfolio or professional connections ("Look at what I can do!"). Making professional contacts through mapmaking - that's how DotA 2 got started.
I'm aware of EAGLE, but that seems to have gone vaporware. More to the point, though, EAGLE was only a global leaderboard for maps. I was talking about a fully functioning interface with a webserver that could be used for much more than global leaderboards.
I recall there is a limitation with banks. They don't commit while they are in 'write' mode, and once you close 'write' mode and reopen them for rewriting, any new data that is written doesn't get properly saved, sometimes resulting in blank values in the bank. This was discovered through a series of quick tests about half a year ago. It could be fixed by now.
Oh? I didn't know that. That might explain why you have seemingly random bank resets on certain maps like Desert Strike. I wonder if 1.5 did address bank reliability, though. If that is so, then this might be a worthwhile project to pursue.
I'd also point out that security would obviously be a big issue with this, as I can't really think of a way to prevent someone from breaking into the webserver, so the next best thing would be to simply limit the damage a malicious player could do. For example, ensuring that players only have write access to their OWN specific section of the online database. That way, if someone cheats, he only affects his own data, not anybody else's. This could allow the mapmaker to check the database and single out who is cheating.
Instead of limiting it to just being a global leaderboard, I was thinking of a general online data storage system where a trigger library is released to allow a mapmaker to easily get his map to interface with the system.
You know how some mapmakers had been lamenting the inability to upload data from a map directly to some remote data storage location?
... What if one of us wrote a program meant to be run in the background while you play the game that would check for updates to the bank file and scan the bank file for data to be uploaded to some online database you set up?
I realize this isn't exactly 100% accessible, because not everybody would download that program. But some maps could accommodate players who didn't get the program by not bothering to record their data.
But the basic idea is you could set up two-way communication with a webserver doing this. The program could be set up so that a map would interface with the webserver by writing commands to the bank file that would be interpreted by this program running in the background, which then performs the necessary tasks. For example, the map could provide a hostname and password to open a connection to the webserver. If you need to write data to the server, just update your bank with data under a "WriteToServer" bank section. And if you need to receive data from the server, just use a "ReadFromServer" section.
For writing to server, the program would read the bank file and then upload that data to the server and then editing the bank file to erase the "WriteToServer" data that has been written. For reading from server, the program would write the data to a different section in the bank that the map is responsible for checking, and then delete the "ReadFromServer" data that had been read.
Thoughts? Of course, you'd need to figure out some security measures to prevent people from knowing how to break into the webserver.
EDIT: Dang, I just looked in the 3rd party tools section and it looks like I've been beaten to the punch. Still, it'd be nice to have a general-purpose tool that every map could share and for which there would be a simple API to get everything set up as you need, so players only need 1 program for all maps that use an online database, instead of having to download an unique one for every new map.
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On the basis of Blizzard's seemingly haphazard approach to tweaking the Arcade system to fit the needs and demands of the community, I have decided to compile a list of changes that need to be made to the Arcade system to improve it. The aim is to make an Arcade system that maximizes the freedom and enjoyment of playing Arcade games and that which properly encourages mapmakers to push the limits of SC2 mapmaking, to innovate, to take risks and come up with new ideas that could prove to be the next big thing. But most importantly, to ensure that SC2 is a place of fun custom games which will keep us all occupied for years to come.
The list can be found here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/6933237515
If we are careful to insist that Blizzard works closely with the community, we can get the system we've been expecting from Starcraft II since before launch. This, of course, requires a certain degree of transparency and openness that was previously not present in our collective relationship with Blizzard. This, I believe, is an excellent step in that direction, and if I can garner your support in updating and maintaining the list and keeping Blizzard accountable to it, I believe we can truly help make Starcraft II the best RTS and user-created content experience to date.
Let there be a new golden age of mapmaking!
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You could also try tweaking the camera Far Z.
If you find a way to use low-poly versions of certain models (they exist), you can do a model swap with actors using a signal you send to every actor in a trigger. Be sure to check with players if that's fine with them!
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Christian. I prefer my Bible in the NIV, but will gladly use other versions (except The Message or any of those other versions that dumb it down too much). I like having translations that at least make an effort to be accurate in conveying the meaning of verses in the Hebrew and Greek in which they were originally written (Uh oh! I just flamebaited.). Theology and related subjects also interest me. Oh, and I believe in the afterlife. After all, I read my Bible.
You mean we have to pray that Blizzard will feature our maps? Sigh, why does it have to be that difficult?
I don't know, the SC2 editor easily defeats that argument. :P
... Or Starbound. Hmm.
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You could just place a dialog with a button on it that takes up the whole dialog over the command panel, then set the dialog's transparency to 100.
This makes the buttons unclickable but hotkeys are usable and the buttons are visible. The only issue is that the buttons won't show a tooltip on mouseover.
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Gizmo, you really should update this map! I know it's kinda old, but you're getting public attention now, so it's a really prime time to play around with the map a bit longer.
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Please post about this on the Battle.net custom maps forum, where the devs will read it and do something about it.
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I'm saddened to see that this doesn't seem to have any progress on it in over a year now. This was a map I seriously was looking forward to getting to play. It was pretty fascinating and still fascinates me.
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I'm also talking about exclusivity. A SC2 map would only be limited to Battle.net, whereas a standalone game can be put on as many non-exclusive platforms as you want: Steam, Humble Indie Bundles, your own website, maybe even XBLA...
You aren't limited and if you want to give a company a cut so you can get exposure, that's fine, but you have so much more control over things like pricing. Plus, by building a game using your own engine, you can do whatever you want in the game and not be limited by missing or poorly documented trigger actions or data editor fields. You also don't have to compete with all the newbie maps that get released daily.
Life is so much easier if you try to profit off standalone games than SC2 mapmaking.
0
One idea is to have one behavior that is hidden and shared by all those auras (e.g. having these behaviors create this behavior on initial and remove it on final).
You could also use an effect on behavior initial and behavior final to do this if you want to keep buff counts down on an unit.
0
Why would you want to give Blizzard a cut of the profit when you could, in the same amount of time it'd most likely take for them to get the marketplace up, just learn to code a standalone game and then sell it on whatever platform you feel like selling it on at whatever price you feel like selling it at? I'm talking Humble Indie Bundles, Steam, your own website, whatever...
Why limit yourself to Battle.net? Why put up with such a terrible platform with such terrible netcode (for things like online keyboard and mouse events)?
Look at League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, seriously. Who the hell needs Blizzard for making money? If you're a mapmaker, I advise that you make maps for entertainment only and/or for establishing a portfolio or professional connections ("Look at what I can do!"). Making professional contacts through mapmaking - that's how DotA 2 got started.
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Have you spoken to the original creator(s) (Nanaki and Endarire) about this remake?
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It's a rule on the forums not to discuss moderator decisions. They really hate when you do that.
And also, what's with the republican label?
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I'm aware of EAGLE, but that seems to have gone vaporware. More to the point, though, EAGLE was only a global leaderboard for maps. I was talking about a fully functioning interface with a webserver that could be used for much more than global leaderboards.
Oh? I didn't know that. That might explain why you have seemingly random bank resets on certain maps like Desert Strike. I wonder if 1.5 did address bank reliability, though. If that is so, then this might be a worthwhile project to pursue.
I'd also point out that security would obviously be a big issue with this, as I can't really think of a way to prevent someone from breaking into the webserver, so the next best thing would be to simply limit the damage a malicious player could do. For example, ensuring that players only have write access to their OWN specific section of the online database. That way, if someone cheats, he only affects his own data, not anybody else's. This could allow the mapmaker to check the database and single out who is cheating.
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What happened to this? It seems abandoned.
Anyway, I recently suggested something like this, but with more utility.
www.sc2mapster.com/forums/general/general-chat/40727-idea-for-webserver-bank-system
Instead of limiting it to just being a global leaderboard, I was thinking of a general online data storage system where a trigger library is released to allow a mapmaker to easily get his map to interface with the system.
0
You know how some mapmakers had been lamenting the inability to upload data from a map directly to some remote data storage location?
... What if one of us wrote a program meant to be run in the background while you play the game that would check for updates to the bank file and scan the bank file for data to be uploaded to some online database you set up?
I realize this isn't exactly 100% accessible, because not everybody would download that program. But some maps could accommodate players who didn't get the program by not bothering to record their data.
But the basic idea is you could set up two-way communication with a webserver doing this. The program could be set up so that a map would interface with the webserver by writing commands to the bank file that would be interpreted by this program running in the background, which then performs the necessary tasks. For example, the map could provide a hostname and password to open a connection to the webserver. If you need to write data to the server, just update your bank with data under a "WriteToServer" bank section. And if you need to receive data from the server, just use a "ReadFromServer" section.
For writing to server, the program would read the bank file and then upload that data to the server and then editing the bank file to erase the "WriteToServer" data that has been written. For reading from server, the program would write the data to a different section in the bank that the map is responsible for checking, and then delete the "ReadFromServer" data that had been read.
Thoughts? Of course, you'd need to figure out some security measures to prevent people from knowing how to break into the webserver.
EDIT: Dang, I just looked in the 3rd party tools section and it looks like I've been beaten to the punch. Still, it'd be nice to have a general-purpose tool that every map could share and for which there would be a simple API to get everything set up as you need, so players only need 1 program for all maps that use an online database, instead of having to download an unique one for every new map.