Am I the only one who gets tired of all the remakes? Mass Recall, WC3, old Arcade maps, etc. I can understand it might be fun to relive old memories, but couldn't all that time and all those resources have been spent on new, original stuff? It's not easy to come up with new ideas, but the amount of remakes just makes me want to ask, "Why not just play the original?" Now that the campaign scene is slowly starting to take off, it's becoming more and more obvious to me just how more fun it is to play something new.
Variants of other things is cool (Haunted Forest/Slenderman, SC: Universe/WoW), but plain remakes is just boring, IMO.
play Queen Survival! (hooray 1000 posts, do i get super powers now?)
a good remake always takes the base concept and tries to get rid of the flaws. plain remakes are indeed boring
"make something original OR remake some legacy map"
Yes it is. The time you spend on making one map is time you cannot spend on making another. Now, I don't want to get too economical here, because original ideas are hard to come up with, so it's not given that people who make remakes have it in them to create original work. But there seems to be such a trend with remakes.
I dont know about multiplayer arcade maps but the sc1 campaigns HAD to be remade. In think in general it's just good to have the old story and gameplay come alive with improved graphics, controls and AI. I think this also applies to every SC1 custom map.
But what I don't like as much is trying to remake WC3 maps. I am looking forward to decent total conversions but so far the only thing we have is ugly looking stuff that are cross-breeds between WoW/WC3 and SC2 assets. They just look ugly. Better remake the maps solely with SC2 assets. What I also don't like is the amount of remakes of the same thing. We already have Mass Recall, which is well made; I don't need more sc1 campaign remakes that want to add Michael Liberty or other details only found in the books.
In general the're too many projects which try to emulate WC3 or its systems (heroes, leveling, creeps, fantasy setting etc.). Sometimes I think people forget how cool Sci-Fi can be (Alien, Terminator, Matrix, STARCRAFT).
BUT, if it makes people happy they should go for it. After all everyone should make what they themselves enjoy, otherwise the project will suck, no matter what they try.
What if .. many people are actually making original stuff, but since 95% of projects are destined to never get finished we're fated to mostly see remakes, because when remaking things you already have guidelines which relieve a huge portion of stress making the project more likely to get published.
Not only guidelines, but you also probably have an already-existing playerbase. You're bound to get more people when you have a map they recognize and are familiar with, than when you got something unknown to them.
Remakes are fine and all, I like the idea of being able to play something old with updated controls and all the bugs ironed out, but I'd like to see some new content as well. Though what'd be just as nice is reboots - take an old idea and create it anew!
I would assume, that remaking existing games is good for developing gamedev skills. Popular games of past are already a collection of many good and few bad design choices. Implementing them and then releasing the game teaches give the understanding of what real makes the game interesting. Even if the original was loved by players, the remake may not be popular, and that usually requires a few new decisions, that could make the game fun and replayable: some features must be removed, some new added.
One more thing: if it's not an old wc3 map, but rather a standalone game with original mechanics, it may be pretty perpendicular to the way how sc2 editor works. So, mapmaker is forced to be very inventive, to learn editor features, do many things through code, to bend the rigid editor in a shape that would allow inplementing that game. So, it's good for learning editor.
But after all, the only thing that is driving creation of a map is a passion, sometimes obsession to create some particular game. Being haunted with those feelings it's realy easy to spend 12 hours a day on mapmaking, and create a complex map in a short period of time. So, there's no "what is right to create" question, there's only "I create what I'm eager to create" statement.
That's the kind of community Blizzard games attract because that's the kind of company Blizzard themselves are. Casuals are all about instant gratification, and pet projects/original projects are far from instantly gratifying. They are about the opposite, especially for anyone just starting out, and especially with the kind of performance and UI problems the editor has. Additionally, most mappers who went to sc2 looked for fame and glory, a precedent not assisted by the promise of the marketplace, rather than personal accomplishment, and this is still mostly the case. The amount of people who complained in irc about popularity alludes to the mindset of the majority of mappers for the game as a whole, and this is not a healthy environment for any kind of objective quality, derivative or not.
That said, I never saw any difference between sc2 and wc3 in terms of how stagnant the content was. W3 was mostly carbon copy clones unless you dug; at least in wc3 you could dig. Sc2 is merely accelerated by being an extension of wc3 in both people and content.
Campaigns are a whole 'nother bag of toothy man-eating dicks, but suffice to say, I wish luck to anyone who tries to make campaigns in sc2. Just don't forget your roots and you'll find your way eventually.
If the war3 you are talking about is my war3 mod. I think I've already made it very clear that is NOT any kind of remade.
It's a public mod that allows you to combine war3 units, heroes, abilities with the SC2 editor. War3 editor is short at its features, while SC2 editor is short at its fantasy resources. (tons of spells and heroes, and some roll-play elements)
To me, Renee, you are one of only 3-4 people in all of Starcraft 2, at least in the English speaking side, that has put forth effort into a serious project. I respect that more than anything.
im making absolutely new game, with fresh gameplay becuz of it, and nobody interested at my project at all, i guess people just love something they know, something that "people will play for sure" becuz they already did, fighting against it, its fighting against human nature, people always looking for easy ways to win.
but u know my grandmother always told me that not all shortcuts are good choice, most of them are paths to dead end.
Look at all of the great content that came out with the "rock the cabinet" contest. A lot of unique ideas. Where are those ideas? Page 14? Page 22? "Unplayed" is where. SCU? Unplayed.
Squad TD? Initially a carbon copy of legion TD
Hero line wars Starlight? Initially a copy of Hero Line Wars liteon
Gem TD? Still in the top played, 6 years later, a game which was created before TFT came out!
There is a good deal of top played "New content" but there is a lot of "new content" that is lost forever. I really don't see a problem recreating an older game, and updating it based on what current players think should be upgraded. As many people have mentioned, these games already have communities of players, they already have a goal, a plan, an end-game.
Some mapmakers just like to make people happy, by providing them with content. Many get discouraged when no one is interested in their project. To think that the state of affairs is anything but conditioned reasoning, is wrong.
It is a tad absurd how many original games are in the editor, it's just you and I don't know about them. Half of them are never played and will likely never see the light of day. If blizzard ever reworked things so that there was little latency (unrealistic I know) I think we'd see far more innovation, and a lot more would be plausible. But as it is I don't sc2 ever being a massively played game, the genre just isn't that big, it'll likely stay as it is now for quite awhile.
Just to echo a few comments - people create what they want to create, it's up to the players to decide whether they'd rather just play the original or not. I can't deny that doing a remake of something widely known is initially going to attract way more attention than doing something that's more of your own thing, but I very much doubt that people are doing remakes for popularity or "instant gratification". There's no instant gratification, people are just going to hate you for taking something they like and turning it into some kind of half-assed false idol.
At the end of the day, how original can you really get with the Galaxy Editor without dedicating your life to it? If we're talking about creating a, say, original campaign, what is that? Original story, original gameplay, original units, original models/textures, original races with original backstories. And of course you'd want all of these to be good. That's an insane amount of work and dedication one needs put in, so it's no wonder people aren't doing all of this, especially as their first project. I'd much rather have people take an already established concept / storyline / whatever, add their own thing to it and focus on improving other aspects of it rather than the typical route of start a massive project and hype it up as the best thing ever way too early, never to be heard from again.
Basically, play something, get inspired by it, take the good in it, add more good of your own to it, and with a decent amount of effort you just might have something awesome. Yeah, that'd be my message for aspiring mapmakers. I mean, that's what actual companies do, and none of us are getting paid.
Whether or not the Blizzard Arcade actually rewards recreating the same stuff over and over and discourages new and creative concepts no matter how good they are and is generally a bunch of bullshit, that's another thing entirely.
There's a bunch of maps and projects that deserve the spotlight that don't get them and there are ones that don't that do. I mean some maps have been on the top list for years without any significant changes and very little replay value. There have been so many maps and projects that needed that little bit of interest to help keep them going. For the most part without the interest the team/person working on them just stop.
I stopped working on my project several times due to lack of interest until I finally decided that I don't care if the map becomes popular or not. I'm making it for myself now. Also, I will have added so many assets to Sc2 that people could create entire fantasy maps by just using my dependencies.
Well none of us are psychologists. It surprises me that large amounts of people still play wow. A friend of mine finally got me to try it like a month or two ago and I just don't get the appeal.
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Am I the only one who gets tired of all the remakes? Mass Recall, WC3, old Arcade maps, etc. I can understand it might be fun to relive old memories, but couldn't all that time and all those resources have been spent on new, original stuff? It's not easy to come up with new ideas, but the amount of remakes just makes me want to ask, "Why not just play the original?" Now that the campaign scene is slowly starting to take off, it's becoming more and more obvious to me just how more fun it is to play something new.
Variants of other things is cool (Haunted Forest/Slenderman, SC: Universe/WoW), but plain remakes is just boring, IMO.
play Queen Survival! (hooray 1000 posts, do i get super powers now?)
a good remake always takes the base concept and tries to get rid of the flaws. plain remakes are indeed boring
Remakes are good for testing assets and hammering out bugs/mechanics.
It's also not a case of;
"make something original OR remake some legacy map"
It's more;
"this is what I want to make, so it's either this or play a different game"
Lastly, personally, I still play some WC3 and I'd like to be able to play without the 12 unit selection limit, awful pathing and 0.5 sec input delay.
exist too the remake I started (I still working in it) StarCraft: Reawakening, this one is more lore friendly than MR ;)
Yes it is. The time you spend on making one map is time you cannot spend on making another. Now, I don't want to get too economical here, because original ideas are hard to come up with, so it's not given that people who make remakes have it in them to create original work. But there seems to be such a trend with remakes.
You left this very important second part out;
"this is what I want to make, so it's either this or play a different game"
I dont know about multiplayer arcade maps but the sc1 campaigns HAD to be remade. In think in general it's just good to have the old story and gameplay come alive with improved graphics, controls and AI. I think this also applies to every SC1 custom map.
But what I don't like as much is trying to remake WC3 maps. I am looking forward to decent total conversions but so far the only thing we have is ugly looking stuff that are cross-breeds between WoW/WC3 and SC2 assets. They just look ugly. Better remake the maps solely with SC2 assets. What I also don't like is the amount of remakes of the same thing. We already have Mass Recall, which is well made; I don't need more sc1 campaign remakes that want to add Michael Liberty or other details only found in the books.
In general the're too many projects which try to emulate WC3 or its systems (heroes, leveling, creeps, fantasy setting etc.). Sometimes I think people forget how cool Sci-Fi can be (Alien, Terminator, Matrix, STARCRAFT).
BUT, if it makes people happy they should go for it. After all everyone should make what they themselves enjoy, otherwise the project will suck, no matter what they try.
What if .. many people are actually making original stuff, but since 95% of projects are destined to never get finished we're fated to mostly see remakes, because when remaking things you already have guidelines which relieve a huge portion of stress making the project more likely to get published.
@DuckyTheDuck: Go
Not only guidelines, but you also probably have an already-existing playerbase. You're bound to get more people when you have a map they recognize and are familiar with, than when you got something unknown to them.
Remakes are fine and all, I like the idea of being able to play something old with updated controls and all the bugs ironed out, but I'd like to see some new content as well. Though what'd be just as nice is reboots - take an old idea and create it anew!
I would assume, that remaking existing games is good for developing gamedev skills. Popular games of past are already a collection of many good and few bad design choices. Implementing them and then releasing the game teaches give the understanding of what real makes the game interesting. Even if the original was loved by players, the remake may not be popular, and that usually requires a few new decisions, that could make the game fun and replayable: some features must be removed, some new added.
One more thing: if it's not an old wc3 map, but rather a standalone game with original mechanics, it may be pretty perpendicular to the way how sc2 editor works. So, mapmaker is forced to be very inventive, to learn editor features, do many things through code, to bend the rigid editor in a shape that would allow inplementing that game. So, it's good for learning editor.
But after all, the only thing that is driving creation of a map is a passion, sometimes obsession to create some particular game. Being haunted with those feelings it's realy easy to spend 12 hours a day on mapmaking, and create a complex map in a short period of time. So, there's no "what is right to create" question, there's only "I create what I'm eager to create" statement.
Yea, this.
@EivindL: Go
That's the kind of community Blizzard games attract because that's the kind of company Blizzard themselves are. Casuals are all about instant gratification, and pet projects/original projects are far from instantly gratifying. They are about the opposite, especially for anyone just starting out, and especially with the kind of performance and UI problems the editor has. Additionally, most mappers who went to sc2 looked for fame and glory, a precedent not assisted by the promise of the marketplace, rather than personal accomplishment, and this is still mostly the case. The amount of people who complained in irc about popularity alludes to the mindset of the majority of mappers for the game as a whole, and this is not a healthy environment for any kind of objective quality, derivative or not.
That said, I never saw any difference between sc2 and wc3 in terms of how stagnant the content was. W3 was mostly carbon copy clones unless you dug; at least in wc3 you could dig. Sc2 is merely accelerated by being an extension of wc3 in both people and content.
Campaigns are a whole 'nother bag of toothy man-eating dicks, but suffice to say, I wish luck to anyone who tries to make campaigns in sc2. Just don't forget your roots and you'll find your way eventually.
@EivindL: Go
If the war3 you are talking about is my war3 mod. I think I've already made it very clear that is NOT any kind of remade.
It's a public mod that allows you to combine war3 units, heroes, abilities with the SC2 editor. War3 editor is short at its features, while SC2 editor is short at its fantasy resources. (tons of spells and heroes, and some roll-play elements)
The mod provide you both, that's its purpose.
I talk about wc3 as a game.
To me, Renee, you are one of only 3-4 people in all of Starcraft 2, at least in the English speaking side, that has put forth effort into a serious project. I respect that more than anything.
Oh, my last post was actually intended to reply to OP:)
I will modify the post a bit. Sorry for the confusion.
im making absolutely new game, with fresh gameplay becuz of it, and nobody interested at my project at all, i guess people just love something they know, something that "people will play for sure" becuz they already did, fighting against it, its fighting against human nature, people always looking for easy ways to win.
but u know my grandmother always told me that not all shortcuts are good choice, most of them are paths to dead end.
cmon guys, its time to bring some HARDCORE
Look at all of the great content that came out with the "rock the cabinet" contest. A lot of unique ideas. Where are those ideas? Page 14? Page 22? "Unplayed" is where. SCU? Unplayed.
Squad TD? Initially a carbon copy of legion TD
Hero line wars Starlight? Initially a copy of Hero Line Wars liteon
Gem TD? Still in the top played, 6 years later, a game which was created before TFT came out!
There is a good deal of top played "New content" but there is a lot of "new content" that is lost forever. I really don't see a problem recreating an older game, and updating it based on what current players think should be upgraded. As many people have mentioned, these games already have communities of players, they already have a goal, a plan, an end-game.
Some mapmakers just like to make people happy, by providing them with content. Many get discouraged when no one is interested in their project. To think that the state of affairs is anything but conditioned reasoning, is wrong.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
It is a tad absurd how many original games are in the editor, it's just you and I don't know about them. Half of them are never played and will likely never see the light of day. If blizzard ever reworked things so that there was little latency (unrealistic I know) I think we'd see far more innovation, and a lot more would be plausible. But as it is I don't sc2 ever being a massively played game, the genre just isn't that big, it'll likely stay as it is now for quite awhile.
Just to echo a few comments - people create what they want to create, it's up to the players to decide whether they'd rather just play the original or not. I can't deny that doing a remake of something widely known is initially going to attract way more attention than doing something that's more of your own thing, but I very much doubt that people are doing remakes for popularity or "instant gratification". There's no instant gratification, people are just going to hate you for taking something they like and turning it into some kind of half-assed false idol.
At the end of the day, how original can you really get with the Galaxy Editor without dedicating your life to it? If we're talking about creating a, say, original campaign, what is that? Original story, original gameplay, original units, original models/textures, original races with original backstories. And of course you'd want all of these to be good. That's an insane amount of work and dedication one needs put in, so it's no wonder people aren't doing all of this, especially as their first project. I'd much rather have people take an already established concept / storyline / whatever, add their own thing to it and focus on improving other aspects of it rather than the typical route of start a massive project and hype it up as the best thing ever way too early, never to be heard from again.
Basically, play something, get inspired by it, take the good in it, add more good of your own to it, and with a decent amount of effort you just might have something awesome. Yeah, that'd be my message for aspiring mapmakers. I mean, that's what actual companies do, and none of us are getting paid.
Whether or not the Blizzard Arcade actually rewards recreating the same stuff over and over and discourages new and creative concepts no matter how good they are and is generally a bunch of bullshit, that's another thing entirely.
- karlprojektorinski AKA Jones
The Sc2 community has confused me since day 1.
There's a bunch of maps and projects that deserve the spotlight that don't get them and there are ones that don't that do. I mean some maps have been on the top list for years without any significant changes and very little replay value. There have been so many maps and projects that needed that little bit of interest to help keep them going. For the most part without the interest the team/person working on them just stop.
I stopped working on my project several times due to lack of interest until I finally decided that I don't care if the map becomes popular or not. I'm making it for myself now. Also, I will have added so many assets to Sc2 that people could create entire fantasy maps by just using my dependencies.
@Daara87: Go
Well none of us are psychologists. It surprises me that large amounts of people still play wow. A friend of mine finally got me to try it like a month or two ago and I just don't get the appeal.