I don't know how many of you have seen it, but one of the more recent episodes of extra credits that was basicly about what incentivices campanies to hire game designers and how to properly train aspiring game designers. Spoiler: It is not intimate knowledge with the engine which is used.
Funny side note: I definetly concure on the math part. I have seen two major games doing horrible things to the variables attack speed and attack cooldown recently:
SC2, where attack speed as labled for attack cooldown in the weapon info, which logicly would make you assume higher attack speed value = higher rate of fire
and GalCiv3 where you the tooltips say increase attack speed by X% and what they do is reduce attack cooldown by X%, which is actually pretty horrible when these numbers add up to 95% and a weapon shoots 20 times as much instead of twice as much... I am digressing...
Apart from that, I think it would be a rather nice touch if Blizz people would at least probe the community for potential hires. Regardless on whether they might interested in working in a AAA game scale team or rather would like to continue spinning their own wheels in a small project.
Then again why would you change a running system, where people are creating stuff for your brand for free and you can take whatever great idea you want at anytime (can we call this EULA-nuking?).
edit:
Also on the issue of people coming up with (/stealing) the same idea. I would even go one step further then saying it is possible: Get used to it.
My current take on the world is that there are more and more people start doing intellectual work (scientific, engineering, artistic, whatever) and through the internet in particular the amount of people who are able (since there is most often an inspiration aspect) to get a certain creative idea increases, too. As well as these people having the tools (e.g. Galaxy editor) to implement this idea.
To take it even one step further: I think we might cease to have singular personalities like Einstein since the field becomes way closer, what these people is still exceptional, but it might not stand out anymore, since there are many people very close to the same point.
Ok, enough on that topic now, I am feeling pretentious now ...
Honestly, I don't think Blizzard needs mappers—they've obviously got plenty of talent in that department who know the editor far more intimately than any of us. The area of weakness that I do see is writing—for my money, the storytelling has been going steadily downhill since WoL and I think they could badly use an injection of new talent. That's hard to do, though—writing teams get pretty set in their ways and are generally pretty resistant to change.
Dude, have you all forgotten about Skyrim already? Mods should stay free, and commercial games should be left to the professionals who need the money.
Turning Starcraft II modding into a commercial endeavor will either fail (because nobody pays for content when there are plenty of free alternatives, be it other SC2 maps or other games in general) or will turn this into a much, much smaller community (because most people play the Arcade because it's free, and once paid content gets favored they'll be gone).
Dude, DOTA2 has implemented monetization for mods since middle of march 2016. AFAIK to this day it only has 3 "user" made maps that are included in that system, but gears are turning - Valve is producing a successful experiment with mod monetization while blizz is catching up with building infrastructure to support such thing (I heard you can now purchase DLC for sc2 within the game without being redirected anywhere).
You can successfully add monetezation into arcade. You just need to be not an idiot about it (thankfully, blizz now has an example of both good and bad solutions to the issue).
I think it will be extremely hard for either one of us to get hire. But having one of us to just make it and say "I got hire by Blizz" Will be super incredible. It will give this community hope that one day some of us can do it to. I understand that been a continent away or 2 for that matter is not impossible. Is not at all a barrier to Blizz if they wanted to hire you there will be no stopping it.
Talent is here I just cant believe neither one of us can be even consider for such jobs.
Dude, have you all forgotten about Skyrim already? Mods should stay free, and commercial games should be left to the professionals who need the money.
Turning Starcraft II modding into a commercial endeavor will either fail (because nobody pays for content when there are plenty of free alternatives, be it other SC2 maps or other games in general) or will turn this into a much, much smaller community (because most people play the Arcade because it's free, and once paid content gets favored they'll be gone).
Skyrim was definitely a good example of how not to integrate a payed mod system.
I agree, mods should stay free, for theplayers.
When you add a barrier of entry to any game, it's going to make a smaller player base. AAA games recently have been falling into this trap a lot, with season passes for maps and characters that segment people who pay for DLC vs those that don't. This act has arguably destroyed games like Evolve and Titanfall.
Now what if instead of trying to appeal to players, you were to make your mods available to otherModders. This changes the perspective from paid content, which feels like a hinderance, to a paid convenience.
Let's say you had a great idea for a MOBA game, you could buy a data package that had premade heroes, a terrain package for moba style games, a trigger package for unit spawns, and an art package because maybe you want a fantasy theme rather than a sci-fi one. With this you have a base to build out your ideas.
But it's none of it is required, all of these things can be created by you the modder if you want to put in the time and effort. This just adds a convenience and assistance for those who may not have the time or experience with the editor to create the maps they envision.
(NOTE: after reading through what I wrote, I want to clarify by mods I mean SC2mods, or dependencies, as they are basicly packages that can be added to most maps)
Another scenario would be: Have you ever played a map you really liked and had an idea "What if?"
"What if they added warcraft units to nexus wars?" or "What if you had multiple ships in StarBattle?"
Currently, if a map is locked, you would need to create everything from scratch. If a map is unlocked you could make your changes, uploaded it, and not give any create to the original map maker.
Now with a system that allowed protected mods to be shared, you could have your own version of a map, and all blizzard would need to add is a section in the description that shows "Dependencies" and have that link back to the original. Credit is given where it's due. You may even want to have a note on the loading screen, or add a menu in game that lists all the mods (dependencies) and a description of what they are.
Basicly a website that allowed users to browse for assets they are interested in. Could offer paid content or could be completely free. Having a rating system, comments, and sorting would be greatly beneficial.
Check out my YouTube channel for test playthroughs of custom campaigns as well as editor tutorial videos. Mapmakers, don’t hesitate to PM me if you would like me to test your campaign.
That's an interesting idea, but what's the value proposition for the purchaser? They're not going to make money off the thing they buy if they can't resell the actual content to players, so you end up with a market of people who are willing to spend money to ease the creation of what are, essentially, vanity projects. I'm sure that market isn't non-existent, but how many people on here are paying each other for work?
I don't know how many of you have seen it, but one of the more recent episodes of extra credits that was basicly about what incentivices campanies to hire game designers and how to properly train aspiring game designers. Spoiler: It is not intimate knowledge with the engine which is used.
Funny side note: I definetly concure on the math part. I have seen two major games doing horrible things to the variables attack speed and attack cooldown recently:
SC2, where attack speed as labled for attack cooldown in the weapon info, which logicly would make you assume higher attack speed value = higher rate of fire
and GalCiv3 where you the tooltips say increase attack speed by X% and what they do is reduce attack cooldown by X%, which is actually pretty horrible when these numbers add up to 95% and a weapon shoots 20 times as much instead of twice as much... I am digressing...
Apart from that, I think it would be a rather nice touch if Blizz people would at least probe the community for potential hires. Regardless on whether they might interested in working in a AAA game scale team or rather would like to continue spinning their own wheels in a small project.
Then again why would you change a running system, where people are creating stuff for your brand for free and you can take whatever great idea you want at anytime (can we call this EULA-nuking?).
edit:
Also on the issue of people coming up with (/stealing) the same idea. I would even go one step further then saying it is possible: Get used to it.
My current take on the world is that there are more and more people start doing intellectual work (scientific, engineering, artistic, whatever) and through the internet in particular the amount of people who are able (since there is most often an inspiration aspect) to get a certain creative idea increases, too. As well as these people having the tools (e.g. Galaxy editor) to implement this idea.
To take it even one step further: I think we might cease to have singular personalities like Einstein since the field becomes way closer, what these people is still exceptional, but it might not stand out anymore, since there are many people very close to the same point.
Ok, enough on that topic now, I am feeling pretentious now ...
Honestly, I don't think Blizzard needs mappers—they've obviously got plenty of talent in that department who know the editor far more intimately than any of us. The area of weakness that I do see is writing—for my money, the storytelling has been going steadily downhill since WoL and I think they could badly use an injection of new talent. That's hard to do, though—writing teams get pretty set in their ways and are generally pretty resistant to change.
Dude, DOTA2 has implemented monetization for mods since middle of march 2016. AFAIK to this day it only has 3 "user" made maps that are included in that system, but gears are turning - Valve is producing a successful experiment with mod monetization while blizz is catching up with building infrastructure to support such thing (I heard you can now purchase DLC for sc2 within the game without being redirected anywhere).
You can successfully add monetezation into arcade. You just need to be not an idiot about it (thankfully, blizz now has an example of both good and bad solutions to the issue).
I think it will be extremely hard for either one of us to get hire. But having one of us to just make it and say "I got hire by Blizz" Will be super incredible. It will give this community hope that one day some of us can do it to. I understand that been a continent away or 2 for that matter is not impossible. Is not at all a barrier to Blizz if they wanted to hire you there will be no stopping it.
Talent is here I just cant believe neither one of us can be even consider for such jobs.
Marie T. Freeman If you're too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you're just too darned busy. https://www.facebook.com/wargirlmaps.maps
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Skyrim was definitely a good example of how not to integrate a payed mod system.
I agree, mods should stay free, for the players.
When you add a barrier of entry to any game, it's going to make a smaller player base. AAA games recently have been falling into this trap a lot, with season passes for maps and characters that segment people who pay for DLC vs those that don't. This act has arguably destroyed games like Evolve and Titanfall.
Now what if instead of trying to appeal to players, you were to make your mods available to other Modders. This changes the perspective from paid content, which feels like a hinderance, to a paid convenience.
Let's say you had a great idea for a MOBA game, you could buy a data package that had premade heroes, a terrain package for moba style games, a trigger package for unit spawns, and an art package because maybe you want a fantasy theme rather than a sci-fi one. With this you have a base to build out your ideas.
But it's none of it is required, all of these things can be created by you the modder if you want to put in the time and effort. This just adds a convenience and assistance for those who may not have the time or experience with the editor to create the maps they envision.
(NOTE: after reading through what I wrote, I want to clarify by mods I mean SC2mods, or dependencies, as they are basicly packages that can be added to most maps)
Another scenario would be: Have you ever played a map you really liked and had an idea "What if?"
"What if they added warcraft units to nexus wars?" or "What if you had multiple ships in StarBattle?"
Currently, if a map is locked, you would need to create everything from scratch. If a map is unlocked you could make your changes, uploaded it, and not give any create to the original map maker.
Now with a system that allowed protected mods to be shared, you could have your own version of a map, and all blizzard would need to add is a section in the description that shows "Dependencies" and have that link back to the original. Credit is given where it's due. You may even want to have a note on the loading screen, or add a menu in game that lists all the mods (dependencies) and a description of what they are.
By storefront I was referring to something like the Unity Asset Store or Steam Workshop:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/570/workshop/
Basicly a website that allowed users to browse for assets they are interested in. Could offer paid content or could be completely free. Having a rating system, comments, and sorting would be greatly beneficial.
Formally Kinkycactus
This thread is getting off topic...
KSNumedia's Assets: Custom Models for campaigns and mods!
@ksnumedia: Go
I find it still slightly on topic and its pretty interesting hearing some of the veteran mapmakers talk about modding and payments.
@Hockleberry: Go
I totally agree. This thread has definitely gotten a lot more interesting and insightful to read.
Check out my YouTube channel for test playthroughs of custom campaigns as well as editor tutorial videos. Mapmakers, don’t hesitate to PM me if you would like me to test your campaign.
@ZombieZasz: Go
That's an interesting idea, but what's the value proposition for the purchaser? They're not going to make money off the thing they buy if they can't resell the actual content to players, so you end up with a market of people who are willing to spend money to ease the creation of what are, essentially, vanity projects. I'm sure that market isn't non-existent, but how many people on here are paying each other for work?
Blizzard already contacted me for The Curse of Tristram. I can not reveal anything yet but yes, they are watching.
Congratulations, very much earned <3