Anyway, i dont think ppl realize , but when you compare sc2 to war3 editors, You have to remember that warcraft 3 had a ton of pre-made hero abilities/unit abilities. Whereas in sc2, No such abilities exist, Like you dont have mass'es of pre-made abilities to choose from . So if they gave you a war3-like editor from the start. We'd all be screwed because every last one of us would have had to figure out how to code extensively to make a basic ability.
In sc2, the beauty is you dont need to know a programming language at all to be able to do some truly inspiring custom abilities.
At the same time, however, having a ton or pre-made stuff was also a blessing. Not everybody needed a ton of custom stuff, and the available abilities were already covering a lot of stuff.
People could focus more on the triggers and gameplay balancing, instead of spending time creating new data entries. THIS is why we got DotA, because setting up the heroes, abilities and minion spawning is relatively-easy.
And like you said, for Warcraft III there is always JASS. But it was optional, only for the dedicated. The entry barrier was low for the base editor.
In comparison, Starcraft II has of course the more flexible and more powerful editor - but the barrier entry is a lot higher, sometimes for the wrong reasons (seriously, why is it so damn difficult to just copy&paste a single unit?).
i think the barrier is easier personally. But it depends on what type of easy we are talkign about. Is it easier to have the "know how" to create a custom ability on sc2 ? I'd say so as you dont need to learn any programming language. As long as you understand the data editor acts like puzzle pieces, its really just learning how to place the pieces together. And actors arent really that difficult either, just link the actor event to an effect and you are good to go.
In practice however, the result has been that it takes so painstakingly long to do anything that it drives me nuts, Even when i know what i am doing it still takes forever and that does piss me off. Not really the complexity, as i think the complexity is a bit easier compared to war3 ( for custom abilities). The monotonous work is the issue.
I do agree that because of all the already made abilities in war3, the editor was much easier as a base for a new user to mess around with. But remember i was addressing the issue of "if blizzard gave us a war3 editor instead of what we have now for starcraft 2) we'd be screwed because there are barely any blizzard abilities that are worthy of being used in custom maps. You'd be extremely limited and we'd all be forced to learn whatever language sc2 is using... Whats it by the way? i dont even know.. And i am the maker of zealot frenzy lol......
Another way of learning the editor would be working on something existing. I consider myself lucky in that I am able to work on a map I had been a fan of for a couple of years.
Some of the first things I did were bug fixes and actually managing to find some data values in the editor. It has been a little over then a year by now and I think it is save to say, that I learned about the editor faster then I would have on my own. In fact I pobably wouldn't have given the editor a second look (my first look was about an hour long when sc2 wol was freshly out).
By now I would say, that I understand the majority of things going on in this map though most of the things I make are still reproduced from some existing mechanics. But I am much less intimidated by the idea of starting a map of my own now.
If making things from scratch sin't your thing, maybe you can also find a similar arrangement with someone.
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At the same time, however, having a ton or pre-made stuff was also a blessing. Not everybody needed a ton of custom stuff, and the available abilities were already covering a lot of stuff.
People could focus more on the triggers and gameplay balancing, instead of spending time creating new data entries. THIS is why we got DotA, because setting up the heroes, abilities and minion spawning is relatively-easy.
And like you said, for Warcraft III there is always JASS. But it was optional, only for the dedicated. The entry barrier was low for the base editor.
In comparison, Starcraft II has of course the more flexible and more powerful editor - but the barrier entry is a lot higher, sometimes for the wrong reasons (seriously, why is it so damn difficult to just copy&paste a single unit?).
i think the barrier is easier personally. But it depends on what type of easy we are talkign about. Is it easier to have the "know how" to create a custom ability on sc2 ? I'd say so as you dont need to learn any programming language. As long as you understand the data editor acts like puzzle pieces, its really just learning how to place the pieces together. And actors arent really that difficult either, just link the actor event to an effect and you are good to go.
In practice however, the result has been that it takes so painstakingly long to do anything that it drives me nuts, Even when i know what i am doing it still takes forever and that does piss me off. Not really the complexity, as i think the complexity is a bit easier compared to war3 ( for custom abilities). The monotonous work is the issue.
I do agree that because of all the already made abilities in war3, the editor was much easier as a base for a new user to mess around with. But remember i was addressing the issue of "if blizzard gave us a war3 editor instead of what we have now for starcraft 2) we'd be screwed because there are barely any blizzard abilities that are worthy of being used in custom maps. You'd be extremely limited and we'd all be forced to learn whatever language sc2 is using... Whats it by the way? i dont even know.. And i am the maker of zealot frenzy lol......
Another way of learning the editor would be working on something existing. I consider myself lucky in that I am able to work on a map I had been a fan of for a couple of years.
Some of the first things I did were bug fixes and actually managing to find some data values in the editor. It has been a little over then a year by now and I think it is save to say, that I learned about the editor faster then I would have on my own. In fact I pobably wouldn't have given the editor a second look (my first look was about an hour long when sc2 wol was freshly out).
By now I would say, that I understand the majority of things going on in this map though most of the things I make are still reproduced from some existing mechanics. But I am much less intimidated by the idea of starting a map of my own now.
If making things from scratch sin't your thing, maybe you can also find a similar arrangement with someone.