So we all know it is just a matter of time. Just like warcraft 3, eventually people will be making tons of maps with the maximum number of players that the game allows (16). I figure I'm ahead of the curve on this one.
Basically, the first 15 players (players 1-14 + hostile which is player 15) all work perfectly fine in a normal melee game. The difficulty comes with that 16th player, which is player 0 (or white). By annexing the last player, there is no place left for anything neutral - including resources. This means that by default, if you make a 16 player melee map and try to play it in FFA mode for example, the other 15 player's resources will have RED outlines instead of the normal neutral yellow when clicked on and be unharvestable since they are owned by an enemy.
So clearly, a workaround is needed. Somewhere in some form, the game defines what alliance configuration resources are harvestable under (allied, neutral, own, hostile) - it must since you CAN harvest resources when they are owned by neutral or yourself and CAN'T when they're owned by the enemy. My first idea was to try to hunt this down by looking in unit traits and abilities for anything related to this such as minerals, gas, scv, the SCV gather ability. But so far, I haven't been able to find it. If the editor organized abilities the way warcraft 3 did, I bet I could have found it pretty easily, but they reorganized the editor in starcraft 2 and now I can't find it. I'd assume it's in there somewhere though. Ideally everyone would be able to harvest normally, albeit with the strange caveat that their minerals and gas would be red, but that would just be an unavoidable side-effect.
I'm aware that changing this could also require some further changes to get everything working correctly, but as far as I know now it is possible.
I'm curious how much thought other mapmakers have put into this, maybe other people might be able to point me in the right direction.
Edit: By default you can have up to 14 players, with player 0 being neutral and player 15 being hostile. It's different from warcraft 3 where you could have up to 12 players + neutral hostile and neutral, because in starcraft 2, you have the option of making neutral+hostile into players, which brings the player count from 14 to 16. Replacing neutral hostile with a player is fine, the problem is with player 16.
this argument has been made countless times, but i still disagree. I've played 14 player maps with other people and it was lag free. 2 extra people shouldn't make an "end of the world" difference, especially since you can lower settings, and as time goes by, people will start getting better and better pcs. I used to have a computer that couldn't play wc3...few years later i could play it with 12 ppl, max settings and max armies.
I really hope a solution to the 16 player can be found. I made a 16 player "primeval isles in space" style map during beta and i'd hate to go see the 16th slot wasted every game.
Why can't blizzard just make a 17th NEUTRAL ONLY player, like the one in wc3 and sc?
I was tired last night and decided i wanted to watch a 4v4 made up entirely of computers. So what i did is set myself up as referee and popped in 8 ai's.
Then i look at the observer slots. In beta, if there were 8 slots in the game, there would be 8 available for observing. THERE ARE ONLY 7 NOW!. yes, including the slot i filled in. So the game apparently is actually 15 players???
Who ever heard of a odd numbered multiplayer game? What if sc1 was 7 players? And wc3 was 11 players? How ridiculous would that have sounded? Boy, i sure hope this is just a bug.
Player 0 = Neutral, Player 15 = Hostile. 1 - 14 Can be set to Users/Computers (If the settings are or aren't locked). So it isn't really odd numbered as far as the lobby.
so i made a quick quick map purely for testing purposes where placed 16 locations and minerals under control of each player. I also set each player (including neutral and hostile) to user and published it.
It publishes alright, and in the listing screen it shows with a (16) next to it. Unfortunately, it will not let you have people/ai's in it. It leaves 1 spot empty in the game lobby. The AI button remains visible (it doesn't grey out like in maps where all the positions are filled), but it won't add that final 15th ai (16 including me). So i tried to invite a friend instead and it actually removes one of the ai's to make room for him, limiting it again to 15.
Do you guys think this is a bug or intentional? Remember, you're able to publish 16 player maps, but it won't let you have 16 people in it. It definitely doesn't look like when you fill up a 4/8/14 player map.
this argument has been made countless times, but i still disagree. I've played 14 player maps with other people and it was lag free. 2 extra people shouldn't make an "end of the world" difference
Actually, it can and does make an "end of the world difference". Most RTS games use a peer to peer connection model, and it's nothing to do with your graphical settings, its the data that needs to be sent to each player, which increases exponentially for each extra player because every player connects to every other player. Makes it very laggy.
Since bnet is involved I'm not sure exactly how much is peer-peer and how much is client-server, but there is actually good reason the number of players is normally limited.
Now if you had 14 players and they only had 10 units each it might be okay, but 14 players with 200 units each would probably be unplayable.
Actually, it can and does make an "end of the world difference". Most RTS games use a peer to peer connection model, and it's nothing to do with your graphical settings, its the data that needs to be sent to each player, which increases exponentially for each extra player because every player connects to every other player. Makes it very laggy.
Since bnet is involved I'm not sure exactly how much is peer-peer and how much is client-server, but there is actually good reason the number of players is normally limited.
Now if you had 14 players and they only had 10 units each it might be okay, but 14 players with 200 units each would probably be unplayable.
This is true, except Battle.net 2.0 is not P2P.
So it does not apply.
Yeah I'm not sure exactly what network model they are using, some people still seem to think there are p2p elements in there, and I believe they have used some client-server/peer-peer bastard child before. Do you have any links that specifically show the network model battlenet 2.0 uses?
Anyhow the above issue may just be an oversight of the battlenet interface, since the editor actually does let you set 16 user controller players.
Regarding the resource issue, if you did manage to get 16 players in you could code in triggers so that when someone went to harvest a resource it changed the owner to the harvestor.
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So we all know it is just a matter of time. Just like warcraft 3, eventually people will be making tons of maps with the maximum number of players that the game allows (16). I figure I'm ahead of the curve on this one.
Basically, the first 15 players (players 1-14 + hostile which is player 15) all work perfectly fine in a normal melee game. The difficulty comes with that 16th player, which is player 0 (or white). By annexing the last player, there is no place left for anything neutral - including resources. This means that by default, if you make a 16 player melee map and try to play it in FFA mode for example, the other 15 player's resources will have RED outlines instead of the normal neutral yellow when clicked on and be unharvestable since they are owned by an enemy.
So clearly, a workaround is needed. Somewhere in some form, the game defines what alliance configuration resources are harvestable under (allied, neutral, own, hostile) - it must since you CAN harvest resources when they are owned by neutral or yourself and CAN'T when they're owned by the enemy. My first idea was to try to hunt this down by looking in unit traits and abilities for anything related to this such as minerals, gas, scv, the SCV gather ability. But so far, I haven't been able to find it. If the editor organized abilities the way warcraft 3 did, I bet I could have found it pretty easily, but they reorganized the editor in starcraft 2 and now I can't find it. I'd assume it's in there somewhere though. Ideally everyone would be able to harvest normally, albeit with the strange caveat that their minerals and gas would be red, but that would just be an unavoidable side-effect.
I'm aware that changing this could also require some further changes to get everything working correctly, but as far as I know now it is possible. I'm curious how much thought other mapmakers have put into this, maybe other people might be able to point me in the right direction.
Edit: By default you can have up to 14 players, with player 0 being neutral and player 15 being hostile. It's different from warcraft 3 where you could have up to 12 players + neutral hostile and neutral, because in starcraft 2, you have the option of making neutral+hostile into players, which brings the player count from 14 to 16. Replacing neutral hostile with a player is fine, the problem is with player 16.
Can't imagine how laggy that'll be.
How many user players is allowed ? 12 ? 14 ? Less ?
@shamokee: Go
this argument has been made countless times, but i still disagree. I've played 14 player maps with other people and it was lag free. 2 extra people shouldn't make an "end of the world" difference, especially since you can lower settings, and as time goes by, people will start getting better and better pcs. I used to have a computer that couldn't play wc3...few years later i could play it with 12 ppl, max settings and max armies.
I really hope a solution to the 16 player can be found. I made a 16 player "primeval isles in space" style map during beta and i'd hate to go see the 16th slot wasted every game.
Why can't blizzard just make a 17th NEUTRAL ONLY player, like the one in wc3 and sc?
War3 had 16 players, just like SC2. 0-11 were red through brown and the other four were the neutral players.
That's interesting! Why so many neutrals?
So if even wc3 had as many as 4 neutral beyond the original 12 spots, why can't sc2 have that 17th slot?
@Hobbesss: Go
so i found some crappy news.
I was tired last night and decided i wanted to watch a 4v4 made up entirely of computers. So what i did is set myself up as referee and popped in 8 ai's.
Then i look at the observer slots. In beta, if there were 8 slots in the game, there would be 8 available for observing. THERE ARE ONLY 7 NOW!. yes, including the slot i filled in. So the game apparently is actually 15 players???
Who ever heard of a odd numbered multiplayer game? What if sc1 was 7 players? And wc3 was 11 players? How ridiculous would that have sounded? Boy, i sure hope this is just a bug.
i feel like i'm the only one making some noise about this in the blizz forums.
Am i the only one that still cares about the 16 player thing?
@Hobbesss:
Player 0 = Neutral, Player 15 = Hostile. 1 - 14 Can be set to Users/Computers (If the settings are or aren't locked). So it isn't really odd numbered as far as the lobby.
@HandLMaps: Go
But the hostile CAN be used as a 15th player melee, and i have published evidence of that.
@Hobbesss: Go
so i made a quick quick map purely for testing purposes where placed 16 locations and minerals under control of each player. I also set each player (including neutral and hostile) to user and published it.
It publishes alright, and in the listing screen it shows with a (16) next to it. Unfortunately, it will not let you have people/ai's in it. It leaves 1 spot empty in the game lobby. The AI button remains visible (it doesn't grey out like in maps where all the positions are filled), but it won't add that final 15th ai (16 including me). So i tried to invite a friend instead and it actually removes one of the ai's to make room for him, limiting it again to 15.
Do you guys think this is a bug or intentional? Remember, you're able to publish 16 player maps, but it won't let you have 16 people in it. It definitely doesn't look like when you fill up a 4/8/14 player map.
Actually, it can and does make an "end of the world difference". Most RTS games use a peer to peer connection model, and it's nothing to do with your graphical settings, its the data that needs to be sent to each player, which increases exponentially for each extra player because every player connects to every other player. Makes it very laggy.
Since bnet is involved I'm not sure exactly how much is peer-peer and how much is client-server, but there is actually good reason the number of players is normally limited.
Now if you had 14 players and they only had 10 units each it might be okay, but 14 players with 200 units each would probably be unplayable.
This is true, except Battle.net 2.0 is not P2P.
So it does not apply.
Yeah I'm not sure exactly what network model they are using, some people still seem to think there are p2p elements in there, and I believe they have used some client-server/peer-peer bastard child before. Do you have any links that specifically show the network model battlenet 2.0 uses?
Anyhow the above issue may just be an oversight of the battlenet interface, since the editor actually does let you set 16 user controller players.
Regarding the resource issue, if you did manage to get 16 players in you could code in triggers so that when someone went to harvest a resource it changed the owner to the harvestor.