Mozzared, you're extremely naive if you believe the pop system is anywhere near capital. Capital systems deny monopolies when not corrupt. The front page is monopolized.
Anyway, I really hate when people say, be constructive to Blizzard. Especially, when its the Blizzard moderation staff on their forums... You're basically telling to waste their time and energy, unnecessarily. It takes more than mountain to change anything in Blizzard, D3 Art direction, real ID, for example.
People grew up on Blizzard and they have every right to be angry. They also have every right to be angry with a product they bought. My mother is old and bought some crab meat recently, it was rancid and she tried to eat it. I proceeded to take the meat to the store and ripped a new one in the manager there. I am not going to sit there and explain in essay format why I disliked the rancid crab meat my mother bought. I am going to tell that person that their store is filth and everyone I know not to buy from them. Which, is exactly how I am going to be with Blizzard, since I feel my money was taken unjustly. Blizzard has always done the bait and switch tactic, but, it went to far this time with "Bnet 2.0." I don't like being tricked.
If you found out companies could delete bad comments about their stores on google.com, how would that make you feel about buying from them knowing they did? You can actually buy reputation services for google.com to leave you tons of good comments about your store. This is similar to what Blizzard does. A bunch of people buy rancid crab meat, post a few comments about their store on google.com, then people know not to buy from them again. Blizzard filters everything they can, almost big brother scary to try and maintain a good reputation. Which, ultimately shows there are alot of problems with customer satisfaction and relations. Thank god for Amazon.com.
Look at amazon.com and read some of the reviews for SC2, next find an "objective" low rating review and I dare you to post it on their forums. Watch how fast Blizzard will remove it. Blizzard is a bunch of liars when they say they want constructive criticism, and liars if they say they listen to the community. They're not a morally correct company, and do not stand by their products 100%. They're afraid and have every right to be. If they were not they simply would allow the community to defend their products, but, since Blizzard products are not what they used to be, they're afraid and are resorting to mass censorship.
Now, head over to the CS:S forums, I guarantee you will see someone just as pissed of there as they are here. That is what happens, when people don't know how to find another game to be a fanboy for. Some people have played Blizzard games exclusively, and that might end with SC2. Hell, I've made sure I bought every Blizzard title since I played Rock N Roll racing. And, while sentimental to me, I realized I was just like you guys here, stuck in this shit hole. Yes, SC2 was suppose to be a huge exciting and defining moment in our gaming lives, guess what its wasn't, its shit, now move on. Valve, although did the same to the CS:S community as Blizzard did to its RTS community, will dominate very hard in this decade(their numbers already are), because they're adapting and growing with their communities. Something Blizzard refuses or doesn't know how to do.
Well let's wait for D3 before making this decision...
After seeing the D3 hunter trailer... I think my decision was made nearly instantly for myself but...
Btw, if you ever played Diablo2:Hell Unleashed you will gain a new respect for the mechanics of D2. Its like D2 hard mode, its very entertaining from a modders perspective. The UI and mechanics of D2 made that game playable for ages. After watching some area play for D3, its going to be nothing like the mechanics of D2.
mid 2000 Horrendous graphics check
Art direction ridiculous check
mystery science theater 3000 quality storyline check
WoWish gameplay check
fixed drop mechanics check
status of recent Blizzard games in line graph showing a descending curve with product quality check
Don't give your hopes up, like I said, some people get stuck in the fanboy bubble and agonizingly don't know how to get out.
Mozzared, you're extremely naive if you believe the pop system is anywhere near capital. Capital systems deny monopolies when not corrupt. The front page is monopolized.
Oh, yes, there's a couple of featured maps, I guess that whole analogy is now ruined. Obviously the fact that in both systems whoever gets to the top has an easier time staying there, or that one has to advertise and compete to even get his product shown are now completely countered.
Really man, I hate to be condenscending but if you honestly believe the population system and capitalism are "nowhere near eachother" then you're thoroughly misunderstanding how they both work. You could argue that I should be saying 'free market' instead of 'capitalism' but even that is mostly semantics.
I won't buy a Blizzard game again!
I know that D3 will be a good game, but Blizzard will find a lot of ways to fuck up the fun of that game too.
Community is the last word Blizzard thinks about...
What I can't really believe is, that you guys actually have hope, that Battlenet/Custom-map Scene and the Poop-System will be good at one time...
GL&HF while waiting for this.
I will just release my unfinished projects and stop caring about this shit anymore.
The more I visit this site and the more I read about Blizzard failing, the more I get aggressive so really no point for me in here.
Anyway, I have to note, He brings up a large number of excellent points, and I am forced to agree with his reasoning, Especially on who your audience is. On the other hand, flaming is against the forum rules iirc.
I do note that Elemental tower defenses somehow jumped up to almost the top of the list immediately after release, which seems to counter the argument that it is impossible for new maps to become popular, and considering that blizzard (said? suggested? recommended?) to advertize your maps if you want them to become popular (both actual popular and popularity system popular, which are two separate things loosely related.) especially considering that Battle-net exposure is, unlike warcraft 3 exposure, is effectively zero, unless advertised. (certainly I think this is a system flawed, but I also think that flaming in this thread is more flawed of an approach)
Edit: To reply to the post below mine, Assuming anyone noticed I have edited this post in the thread that ProzaicMuze linked to, I agree with points 1 2 and 3 and am neutral on 4, as I have no project at this time (and lack any method to use galaxy yet)
Also, The example of Elemental Tower defense was flawed, I agree, I did not take the fact it was a preexisting map into account. I think more so that I should not bother talking about the popularity system, considering that unless blizzard scraps it, there is no way around it. Also, the quality of hero attack games has gone down very quickly as a result of it finding it's way to page one, namely because of all of the leavers, and the leaver bonus issue it has. (I preferred it before, when everyone would stay, even with less games, as now, I have to join and load 4-5 games if i want one with less than 2 leavers.) This means ofc that in certain cases, being *popular* is a bad thing, and I would only play games of it if they are completely remade. (before, only people who knew about the map were able to join, which meant they either saw the advert on the chat-rooms, or a forums, rather than large numbers of *players* who have no idea how to play the game and as a result leave after a single death, and due to leaver bonus, usually ruining the game (or at least my enjoyment of it)
I can't believe people are using Elemental TD as example of a working system because it jumped to page 1 after release. Its by far the worst example! It was already popular before release - because its a remake of war 3. Ironically, if War 3 had b.net 2.0, elemental TD probably would never be popular in the first place. Case in point, where is the popularity of Elemental TD now? Its dropped by a lot and will be nowhere in a month.
And look at Hero Attack. That author had been spamming Hero Attack for like half a year or more? And its just NOW getting to page 1. Obviously people love that map. How many popular map like Hero Attack were buried by the system? Special Forces is #2 right now, and that map is old. The first time I played that kind of map was when the system had a cyclic list and a special forces map popped up. Again, another popular map that got buried by the system.
What's with the advertising your map so it'll get played (useless advice) going on? Civlization Sapphire, Zombie World War, Clash of Kings, are all recent maps that jumped to page 1/2 with no advertising whatsoever. They are fun maps that just came out of nowhere. Even Special Forces (#2 map with higher popularity than Desert Strike!) had no ads going on. Whereas people who make videos and spam like crazy never got their maps played. Look at Bounty, Meph, and Rodrigo, they did everything the blizzard fanboys tell them to do, and their maps are nowhere.
The only new map that got to page 2 with a video is probably Starcruisers. :) That video got so much attention in this site and blizzard's forum, the players actually went out to play that map. They wanted to play so much, the map got to page 2 briefly. After being able to play it a few times, they stopped. Other than Starcruisers, there's really no original map that's on page 1/2 that got there due to advertising.
[lastly, Hero Attack might overtake Sotis! Go go hero attack!]
I can't believe people are using Elemental TD as example of a working system because it jumped to page 1 after release. Its by far the worst example! It was already popular before release - because its a remake of war 3. Ironically, if War 3 had b.net 2.0, elemental TD probably would never be popular in the first place. Case in point, where is the popularity of Elemental TD now? Its dropped by a lot and will be nowhere in a month.
Obviously we don't know where Elemental TD is going to, but your argument is irrelevant - even if it's a remake of a warcraft 3 map, there's still the fact that it started with 0 popularity. If the popularity system really was as horrible as everyone is making it out to be, then element TD would never have gotten past page 57 because it won't get any plays with 0 popularity.
No one said that the popularity system was bad at "getting known maps on page 1". (I hope so though)
What the most guys want to say is, that the system sucks at "getting unknown maps on page 1" (without getting on page 1, unknown maps don't even get a chance to be known)
And I think you understand this point well.
If Icefrog would release "DOTA" in SC2 it would instantly go to page 1 even if it would be a lot worser than "SOTIS".
I don't know how it is for you but I stopped playing Starcraft 2 mainly because there is no variation on the custom maps.
Its not like in Warcraft 3 where you see everyday a cool map, because someone hosts a game with a yet unknown map.
Yeah, I really wish people would pick an example where a map is unknown and has no fan base lined up before release. Mineralz is the perfect example, except a lot of people seems to think that map sucks. And its popularity is very misleading, that game has people afk in it for 7+ hours to get the unlock, so its really not all that popular as the hours suggest.
Actually, what most people are saying the map sucks at getting people to play past page 2 maps. Page 1 only contains so many maps, and not every popular map can exist in page 1 at the same time. In reality, there's probably 100+ 'page 1' maps out there, but obviously you can only play about 10 of them. The old system lets you play ALL 100+ 'page 1' maps any time you want.
Let me sum up how the horrible excuse of a community known as b.net players choose what maps to play.
You must meet atleast one of these things to get your map popular.
1. Be on Page 1.
2. Be a remake of something, even if it was bad. As long as it was made in a previous game you will succeed.
You must NOT have any of the following if you wish to be popular.
1. New IP, aka NOT a remake and something new and fresh.
2. Fun.
3. Not on Page 1.
I dont even know if this is what the thread is about because i honestly did not read it but im just rolling the dice here and hoping im in the right thread.
I might not be able to add a lot to this cause, but I can still say that :
I stopped playing ST2 Custom because of the bad distribution of players amongst existing maps (wether good or not they are). We do not have a good choice of custom maps. It looks right now like a random flash game website NEVER uploading any new games to the front page. How do you get fresh game then? Don't even try, you just can't dude!
What could easely be made to fix as much as possible? Hire one guy to play customs game, roam forums of mapmaker and keep in touch with the mapmaker community. His job would also be to set a WEEKLY featured map list with at least 2 choices each time.
That, such a simple solution, would surely fix a CRAPLOAD of actual problem right now. Why?
Because of the simple fact that distributing a greater number of player on a bigger % of maps would start a natural rotation of maps. Player that play featured maps aren't playing other maps, what goes up for some make others go down. I'm sure there a mathematical way to prove it, but I'm far from behing able to do that.
A question remains : Will a double weekly featured map system draw player stock from all games? Or will big pimped games player pool remain untouch?
Mozzared, you're extremely naive if you believe the pop system is anywhere near capital. Capital systems deny monopolies when not corrupt. The front page is monopolized.
Anyway, I really hate when people say, be constructive to Blizzard. Especially, when its the Blizzard moderation staff on their forums... You're basically telling to waste their time and energy, unnecessarily. It takes more than mountain to change anything in Blizzard, D3 Art direction, real ID, for example.
People grew up on Blizzard and they have every right to be angry. They also have every right to be angry with a product they bought. My mother is old and bought some crab meat recently, it was rancid and she tried to eat it. I proceeded to take the meat to the store and ripped a new one in the manager there. I am not going to sit there and explain in essay format why I disliked the rancid crab meat my mother bought. I am going to tell that person that their store is filth and everyone I know not to buy from them. Which, is exactly how I am going to be with Blizzard, since I feel my money was taken unjustly. Blizzard has always done the bait and switch tactic, but, it went to far this time with "Bnet 2.0." I don't like being tricked.
If you found out companies could delete bad comments about their stores on google.com, how would that make you feel about buying from them knowing they did? You can actually buy reputation services for google.com to leave you tons of good comments about your store. This is similar to what Blizzard does. A bunch of people buy rancid crab meat, post a few comments about their store on google.com, then people know not to buy from them again. Blizzard filters everything they can, almost big brother scary to try and maintain a good reputation. Which, ultimately shows there are alot of problems with customer satisfaction and relations. Thank god for Amazon.com.
Look at amazon.com and read some of the reviews for SC2, next find an "objective" low rating review and I dare you to post it on their forums. Watch how fast Blizzard will remove it. Blizzard is a bunch of liars when they say they want constructive criticism, and liars if they say they listen to the community. They're not a morally correct company, and do not stand by their products 100%. They're afraid and have every right to be. If they were not they simply would allow the community to defend their products, but, since Blizzard products are not what they used to be, they're afraid and are resorting to mass censorship.
Now, head over to the CS:S forums, I guarantee you will see someone just as pissed of there as they are here. That is what happens, when people don't know how to find another game to be a fanboy for. Some people have played Blizzard games exclusively, and that might end with SC2. Hell, I've made sure I bought every Blizzard title since I played Rock N Roll racing. And, while sentimental to me, I realized I was just like you guys here, stuck in this shit hole. Yes, SC2 was suppose to be a huge exciting and defining moment in our gaming lives, guess what its wasn't, its shit, now move on. Valve, although did the same to the CS:S community as Blizzard did to its RTS community, will dominate very hard in this decade(their numbers already are), because they're adapting and growing with their communities. Something Blizzard refuses or doesn't know how to do.
@PSGMud: Go
Well let's wait for D3 before making this decision...
After seeing the D3 hunter trailer... I think my decision was made nearly instantly for myself but...
Btw, if you ever played Diablo2:Hell Unleashed you will gain a new respect for the mechanics of D2. Its like D2 hard mode, its very entertaining from a modders perspective. The UI and mechanics of D2 made that game playable for ages. After watching some area play for D3, its going to be nothing like the mechanics of D2.
mid 2000 Horrendous graphics check
Art direction ridiculous check
mystery science theater 3000 quality storyline check
WoWish gameplay check
fixed drop mechanics check
status of recent Blizzard games in line graph showing a descending curve with product quality check
Don't give your hopes up, like I said, some people get stuck in the fanboy bubble and agonizingly don't know how to get out.
Oh, yes, there's a couple of featured maps, I guess that whole analogy is now ruined. Obviously the fact that in both systems whoever gets to the top has an easier time staying there, or that one has to advertise and compete to even get his product shown are now completely countered.
Really man, I hate to be condenscending but if you honestly believe the population system and capitalism are "nowhere near eachother" then you're thoroughly misunderstanding how they both work. You could argue that I should be saying 'free market' instead of 'capitalism' but even that is mostly semantics.
I learned a lot in this 1 year with Starcraft 2:
I won't buy a Blizzard game again! I know that D3 will be a good game, but Blizzard will find a lot of ways to fuck up the fun of that game too.
Community is the last word Blizzard thinks about...
What I can't really believe is, that you guys actually have hope, that Battlenet/Custom-map Scene and the Poop-System will be good at one time... GL&HF while waiting for this.
I will just release my unfinished projects and stop caring about this shit anymore.
The more I visit this site and the more I read about Blizzard failing, the more I get aggressive so really no point for me in here.
Anyone who makes another reply in this thread without first reading this is an idiot.
I will flame you. You've been warned. . .
You're Blizzard's new fanboy hero now? I dare you to say that anything on this thread is a lie.
@RodrigoAlves: Go
that anything on this thread is a lie.
Anyway, I have to note, He brings up a large number of excellent points, and I am forced to agree with his reasoning, Especially on who your audience is. On the other hand, flaming is against the forum rules iirc.
I do note that Elemental tower defenses somehow jumped up to almost the top of the list immediately after release, which seems to counter the argument that it is impossible for new maps to become popular, and considering that blizzard (said? suggested? recommended?) to advertize your maps if you want them to become popular (both actual popular and popularity system popular, which are two separate things loosely related.) especially considering that Battle-net exposure is, unlike warcraft 3 exposure, is effectively zero, unless advertised. (certainly I think this is a system flawed, but I also think that flaming in this thread is more flawed of an approach)
Edit: To reply to the post below mine, Assuming anyone noticed I have edited this post in the thread that ProzaicMuze linked to, I agree with points 1 2 and 3 and am neutral on 4, as I have no project at this time (and lack any method to use galaxy yet) Also, The example of Elemental Tower defense was flawed, I agree, I did not take the fact it was a preexisting map into account. I think more so that I should not bother talking about the popularity system, considering that unless blizzard scraps it, there is no way around it. Also, the quality of hero attack games has gone down very quickly as a result of it finding it's way to page one, namely because of all of the leavers, and the leaver bonus issue it has. (I preferred it before, when everyone would stay, even with less games, as now, I have to join and load 4-5 games if i want one with less than 2 leavers.) This means ofc that in certain cases, being *popular* is a bad thing, and I would only play games of it if they are completely remade. (before, only people who knew about the map were able to join, which meant they either saw the advert on the chat-rooms, or a forums, rather than large numbers of *players* who have no idea how to play the game and as a result leave after a single death, and due to leaver bonus, usually ruining the game (or at least my enjoyment of it)
Could you be a little clearer on who you are agreeing with?
@Ranakastrasz: Go
Element TD is a Tower Defense, a WC3 Remake, an expected map, a popular name. ;)
I can't believe people are using Elemental TD as example of a working system because it jumped to page 1 after release. Its by far the worst example! It was already popular before release - because its a remake of war 3. Ironically, if War 3 had b.net 2.0, elemental TD probably would never be popular in the first place. Case in point, where is the popularity of Elemental TD now? Its dropped by a lot and will be nowhere in a month.
And look at Hero Attack. That author had been spamming Hero Attack for like half a year or more? And its just NOW getting to page 1. Obviously people love that map. How many popular map like Hero Attack were buried by the system? Special Forces is #2 right now, and that map is old. The first time I played that kind of map was when the system had a cyclic list and a special forces map popped up. Again, another popular map that got buried by the system.
What's with the advertising your map so it'll get played (useless advice) going on? Civlization Sapphire, Zombie World War, Clash of Kings, are all recent maps that jumped to page 1/2 with no advertising whatsoever. They are fun maps that just came out of nowhere. Even Special Forces (#2 map with higher popularity than Desert Strike!) had no ads going on. Whereas people who make videos and spam like crazy never got their maps played. Look at Bounty, Meph, and Rodrigo, they did everything the blizzard fanboys tell them to do, and their maps are nowhere.
The only new map that got to page 2 with a video is probably Starcruisers. :) That video got so much attention in this site and blizzard's forum, the players actually went out to play that map. They wanted to play so much, the map got to page 2 briefly. After being able to play it a few times, they stopped. Other than Starcruisers, there's really no original map that's on page 1/2 that got there due to advertising.
[lastly, Hero Attack might overtake Sotis! Go go hero attack!]
Obviously we don't know where Elemental TD is going to, but your argument is irrelevant - even if it's a remake of a warcraft 3 map, there's still the fact that it started with 0 popularity. If the popularity system really was as horrible as everyone is making it out to be, then element TD would never have gotten past page 57 because it won't get any plays with 0 popularity.
@Mozared: Go
No one said that the popularity system was bad at "getting known maps on page 1". (I hope so though)
What the most guys want to say is, that the system sucks at "getting unknown maps on page 1" (without getting on page 1, unknown maps don't even get a chance to be known)
And I think you understand this point well.
If Icefrog would release "DOTA" in SC2 it would instantly go to page 1 even if it would be a lot worser than "SOTIS".
I don't know how it is for you but I stopped playing Starcraft 2 mainly because there is no variation on the custom maps.
Its not like in Warcraft 3 where you see everyday a cool map, because someone hosts a game with a yet unknown map.
@h34dl4g: Go
Yeah, I really wish people would pick an example where a map is unknown and has no fan base lined up before release. Mineralz is the perfect example, except a lot of people seems to think that map sucks. And its popularity is very misleading, that game has people afk in it for 7+ hours to get the unlock, so its really not all that popular as the hours suggest.
Actually, what most people are saying the map sucks at getting people to play past page 2 maps. Page 1 only contains so many maps, and not every popular map can exist in page 1 at the same time. In reality, there's probably 100+ 'page 1' maps out there, but obviously you can only play about 10 of them. The old system lets you play ALL 100+ 'page 1' maps any time you want.
@Mozared: Go
good thing some people are curious enough to search for a map on page 10.
Let me sum up how the horrible excuse of a community known as b.net players choose what maps to play.
You must meet atleast one of these things to get your map popular.
1. Be on Page 1.
2. Be a remake of something, even if it was bad. As long as it was made in a previous game you will succeed.
You must NOT have any of the following if you wish to be popular.
1. New IP, aka NOT a remake and something new and fresh.
2. Fun.
3. Not on Page 1.
I dont even know if this is what the thread is about because i honestly did not read it but im just rolling the dice here and hoping im in the right thread.
@Bounty_98: Go
I might not be able to add a lot to this cause, but I can still say that :
I stopped playing ST2 Custom because of the bad distribution of players amongst existing maps (wether good or not they are). We do not have a good choice of custom maps. It looks right now like a random flash game website NEVER uploading any new games to the front page. How do you get fresh game then? Don't even try, you just can't dude!
What could easely be made to fix as much as possible? Hire one guy to play customs game, roam forums of mapmaker and keep in touch with the mapmaker community. His job would also be to set a WEEKLY featured map list with at least 2 choices each time.
That, such a simple solution, would surely fix a CRAPLOAD of actual problem right now. Why?
Because of the simple fact that distributing a greater number of player on a bigger % of maps would start a natural rotation of maps. Player that play featured maps aren't playing other maps, what goes up for some make others go down. I'm sure there a mathematical way to prove it, but I'm far from behing able to do that.
A question remains : Will a double weekly featured map system draw player stock from all games? Or will big pimped games player pool remain untouch?
@RodrigoAlves: Go
I don't get it why blizz made a good game and a good editor but seem to have the attitude about it.
I saw the D3 Trailer and thought "I can't wait for Torchlight 2".
I didn't watch the D3 trailer because I thought "I don't care anymore...".