Not sure why people are so riled up over this. They're basically terms of use, aren't they? Those are always hella strict. For the simple reason of giving them a huge edge should something be ever taken to court. They'd run into problems if they were somewhat mild in the rules and somebody did something bad; the guilty folks would just point out that whatever they created "wasn't banned according to the terms of use".
I doubt they're going to ban your risk map for being risk, tbh.
They should ban the official campaign map The Dig because one of the triggers in the editor is named Drillme which is a blatant sexual reference.
After playing Ultimate Tank Defense the other night, I just KNEW the Swastika shape that the mobs ended up forming completely coincidentally would be the reason for it's ultimate ban.. Damn I wish I would have posted that before they knew the reason so I coulda sounded like a prophet or something..
its more than just these ludicrous polices.. its a combination of everything.. I have good friends i want to play with from other zones.. I cant unless i buy the game again. Then theres chat rooms... Something that blizzard never actually planned for...its only after massive uproar did they decide too put it in, the very fact that the guys at blizzard didnt have a problem with this at the start shocks me. Then you have this horrific map popularity system , which is going to make so many maps never see the light of day.. And too top it off now, if my terrain remotely resembles a nazi sign.. i might possible get my account Banned permantly (60$ down the drain) , Just wait when blizzard drops the bomb about "pay for custom maps" and sends you an email forcing you to charge for your map because they see it as a cash crop.
what if i upload a map , and blizzard gives me a warning to remove the content or face being banned when im out of the country for a few months?? .. you know what else? on the sc2 forums i mentioned that "starcraft 2 has the worst ever moderators" (yes i know i should'nt have said that. but the response from blizzard went way over the board.. check the screen shot of what happened. ""PERMANENT BAN" http://i36.tinypic.com/hrg93o.jpg
this new draconian blizzard is not the old blizzard that we all fell in inlove with. Its garbage.
Not sure why people are so riled up over this. They're basically terms of use, aren't they? Those are always hella strict. For the simple reason of giving them a huge edge should something be ever taken to court. They'd run into problems if they were somewhat mild in the rules and somebody did something bad; the guilty folks would just point out that whatever they created "wasn't banned according to the terms of use".
I doubt they're going to ban your risk map for being risk, tbh.
We can hope, can't we? Fact is though, Blizzard didn't even have anything like this for any of their previous games. This is completely new and uncharted territory we're in here and we have no idea what they'll do with it. They've already shown a willingness to ban maps, haven't they? Who knows what they'll do.
They've indicated at least that they're going to be doing something different than previously. This is a quote because I'm not quite sure how quote tags work in this forum: I have to ask, why do you guys review maps "to ensure that they promote a fun and safe environment for all players" in this game, and not the original?
Because we can. Literally. We have a support department now of size and ability to enforce these types of things. It simply wasn't possible when our in-game support used to consist of approximately 20 technical support agents. We did, however, actually police Warcraft III maps to a small degree if they were reported. But it was a rather archaic process.
So it seems now that they'll have a taskforce of people at least partially dedicated to scouring maps. If one of those people takes something in your map the wrong way, you're done for. Just hope they don't have some sort of quota to make their jobs look useful.
Mostly, though, it'd be all fine and dandy because of this:
You're confusing our removal of inappropriate content with some draconian measure to delete maps as we see fit. Our goal is purely to ensure that maps don't contain inappropriate content, as defined here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=33752
If only they hadn't defined inappropriate content so broadly that it could include almost anything.
Really, we got no idea what they'll do with the kind of power they granted themselves now. Their record so far really isn't great though.
We'll have to wait and see, but as this is something almost nobody actually cared about or wanted, and many people are adamantly opposed to and yet they implemented it anyway (like the popularity system) it reflects poorly on Blizzard's understanding of their community and what's best for custom maps.
@molotovsoda: Go
And too top it off now, if my terrain remotely resembles a nazi sign.. i might possible get my account Banned permantly (60$ down the drain) , Just wait when blizzard drops the bomb about "pay for custom maps" and sends you an email forcing you to charge for your map because they see it as a cash crop.
what if i upload a map , and blizzard gives me a warning to remove the content or face being banned when im out of the country for a few months?? .. you know what else? on the sc2 forums i mentioned that "starcraft 2 has the worst ever moderators" (yes i know i should'nt have said that. but the response from blizzard went way over the board.. check the screen shot of what happened. ""PERMANENT BAN" http://i36.tinypic.com/hrg93o.jpg
this new draconian blizzard is not the old blizzard that we all fell in inlove with. Its garbage.
To clarify, I believe the guy who got his map deleted got his publishing rights temporarily revoked, got his map deleted, and was able to re-upload the map when he fixed the creep mob accidentally vaguely resembling a swastika.
Also, that's pretty harsh of them to ban you like that, although it'd help your believability if you got a screenshot of the post you got banned for.
But yes, somewhere along the line Blizzard became money obsessed and overly protective/draconian. They used to be my favorite company for a while, but Valve has surpassed them in every way.
you know what else? on the sc2 forums i mentioned that "starcraft 2 has the worst ever moderators" (yes i know i should'nt have said that. but the response from blizzard went way over the board.. check the screen shot of what happened. ""PERMANENT BAN" http://i36.tinypic.com/hrg93o.jpg
this new draconian blizzard is not the old blizzard that we all fell in inlove with. Its garbage.
Doesn't surprise me, some of their mods shouldn't even be there to begin with, during beta i got a 72 hour ban because some guy made another thread of an upcoming patch, where we had already about 12 threads of the same thing, his lines were "omg patch coming woot!!" when i replied telling him to search before posting and that there was enough of those threads in page 1 with no facts at all other than silly speculations, he deleted his post, making mine look like the OP, Blizz mod came around, saw that i was the first poster and banned me because i was "making" troll threads. I know some people can get confused by stuff like that, but a mod shouldn't make those mistakes, at least it was beta so i didn't care.
If nobody will listen they will have to ban all people.
If following all those rules, there is almost no map you can create. Well maybe something like LittleBigPlanet...
I for sure will advertise SC2Mapster. And if they will go against that, that's just being bad for nothing.
If they will push too hard, everyone will go to private servers instead, its like supporting piracy.
Everyone who brought the game(software) should have right to have FUN with the game(software).
They are becoming full of itself. I wont take shit from them. I didnt bought the game yet, we will see how this will turn out. Today I planned but we will see.
Everyone who likes SC2 melee, its perfect IMO. But other side, custom maps, support, and Galaxy Editor, is getting really mean.
Those rules are load of bullshit. Can't remake one of the most famous maze maps in sc2? I'm talking about Escape Gay Heaven. *BANNED* *ACCOUNT TERMINATED*. What a load of horseshit. Also the whole "Inappropriate content "category should be deleted. Talk about censoring our creativity. What blizzard is now doing with sc2 is making me really angry. Talk about good company gone bad.
what if i upload a map , and blizzard gives me a warning to remove the content or face being banned when im out of the country for a few months?? .. you know what else? on the sc2 forums i mentioned that "starcraft 2 has the worst ever moderators" (yes i know i should'nt have said that. but the response from blizzard went way over the board.. check the screen shot of what happened. ""PERMANENT BAN" http://i36.tinypic.com/hrg93o.jpg
this new draconian blizzard is not the old blizzard that we all fell in inlove with. Its garbage.
This is nothing new either. I was banned from the forums years ago, during vanilla WoW, for saying 'that sucks' in a post. Just because the forum moderators are strict, that doesn't make the entire company horrible?
Really, people are getting needlessly worked up over this. EVERY GAME IN EXISTENCE has these harsh rules written down somewhere, purely for court reasons. Especially with that whole 'map market' idea floating in the background, can you blame them for covering their asses legally? The stupid thing is that rules like these have been there since at least Warcraft 3, if not 2, and people are still yanking about a "good company gone bad". Do your effing research before making such claims.
If these terms of use truly inspire you to leave SC2 altogether, and you honestly agree with everything that has been posted in this thread so far, then great - buzz off. One less idiot to deal with, as House would say it.
Rules like these have been since at least wc3? What are you talking about m8? There was no rules in wc3 map making. There was total freedom in map content. There was no blizzard gm checking our maps. There was porn and racism in maps, and it was great. Now hold on before you make an angry post, nobody forced these things in your face. I'm talking about that having a freedom of choice was great. How people used it, was sometimes not so great, but I didn't see any racist map or such being hosted often so that there is few of them is not a problem.
These rules are very strict. Like dropping a f-bomb can get your map banned, that strict, which is ridiculous. And this isn't some legal mambo jambo to cover their asses. These are the guidelines which the gm's follow, and they are the ones who check EVERY MAP before it's put out there for people to play. You don't see a problem? Really, I've been called a blind blizzard fanboy more than once, but man you take the cake. This is bad for all map makers.
Rules like these have been since at least wc3? What are you talking about m8? There was no rules in wc3 map making. There was total freedom in map content. There was no blizzard gm checking our maps. There was porn and racism in maps, and it was great. Now hold on before you make an angry post, nobody forced these things in your face. I'm talking about that having a freedom of choice was great. How people used it, was sometimes not so great, but I didn't see any racist map or such being hosted often so that there is few of them is not a problem.
These rules are very strict. Like dropping a f-bomb can get your map banned, that strict, which is ridiculous. And this isn't some legal mambo jambo to cover their asses. These are the guidelines which the gm's follow, and they are the ones who check EVERY MAP before it's put out there for people to play. You don't see a problem? Really, I've been called a blind blizzard fanboy more than once, but man you take the cake. This is bad for all map makers.
First of all, yes, rules like these existed in Warcraft 3. Not directly with the target of custom maps, but you did apply to terms of use when starting the editor that said that basically all your maps are belong to Blizzard.
Second; racist maps, I've never seen. There was alledgedly one map with 'porn' in it, and that was seriously mild, showing one erotic picture after completing a certain task. The worst I've come across was stuff like the earlier mentioned 'escape from gay heaven', and I'm not even sure whether they'd ban that now.
Third; According to the rules, using 'fuck' in your map can get you banned. Whether this actually means that you'll get a ban or suspension if you make one map where a character exlaims 'Fuck!' at some point... No. If you honestly believe this, you need to google 'terms of use'. I guess we'll see who'se right here.
Fourth; "Guidelines which the gms follow"? "Check every map"? What the hell have you been smoking? You realize you can just... you know, publish your maps, and play them? You're acting as if any map has to pass a 3-part test and judgement by Blizzard internals before you can even get to test it. This isn't the case. As far as we know, there aren't any GMs checking ANY maps that don't get reported. ESPECIALLY not "before it's put out there for people to play". Don't jump to conclusions.
Fifth; If you consider me a Blizzard fanboy, you haven't been around much. I'm one of the most objective people I've met. There's plenty of things about Starcraft that can rise concern, and even these terms of use can. But this is way overboard. Blizzard aren't fascists, and you would know this if you had EVER scrolled through ANY terms of use of ANY game. Claiming this is something new is even more stupid. If you happen to be a WoW player, go and take a look at that game's TOU - it basically tells you that Blizzard has the right to ban you for no reason at any time, log use and sell your chat messages and/or delete/alter your characters. It's been that way since Vanilla, which is about six years ago now.
@IzzoSc2: Go
I'm one of the most objective people I've met.
Contradictory statement is contradictory.
Anyway, this is the justification for this policy:
The guidelines are the standard bullshit that every company on the face of the planet will stick in their policy somewhere. The difference here is that Blizzard actually has the manpower to enforce those guidelines to a considerable degree. The reason they're doing this is not because they're fascist (or communist), but rather because these maps and their gameplay are all hosted on Blizzard servers and bandwidth. The game is also rated T, at least in the USA, which means, since Battle.net is an obligatory thing to log on to at least once, that Blizzard can't just cop out with "Online experience is not rated by the ESRB." Blizzard MUST enforce the custom maps and filter the language, otherwise ESRB would have grounds to change the rating to M (the rating change won't matter at all to Blizzard, but the press reports and news articles made from it CERTAINLY will be a gut punch to Blizzard's reputation). Worse still, because the maps are hosted by Blizzard, they might be sued for harassment or somesuch; of course, they would win the case, but they'd lose money due to court/lawyer fees.
My thoughts:
It's clearly unfortunate that we are limited severely in what we can do. Escape Gay Heaven is something that would probably be a perma-ban offense. Risk might be hit for a trademark, or it might be hit for all the country names, but it's hard to say. Civilization might have religions (if modeled after the fourth game, at least) along with the usual civilization names and figureheads. Russian Roulette, a funmap I made, would probably be blocked due to the entire core of the gameplay being based on trying to survive despite committing suicide. Even Mafia (like the party game) would be iffy because of the clear connotations of a real-life problem (the mafia), complete with illegal acts such as chain murdering and vigilante justice, plus the illegal AND sexual-connotation-ish role of prostitute/whore (roleblocker). Blizzard should post some more clear examples, for starters.
Anyway, this is the justification for this policy: The guidelines are the standard bullshit that every company on the face of the planet will stick in their policy somewhere. The difference here is that Blizzard actually has the manpower to enforce those guidelines to a considerable degree. The reason they're doing this is not because they're fascist (or communist), but rather because these maps and their gameplay are all hosted on Blizzard servers and bandwidth. The game is also rated T, at least in the USA, which means, since Battle.net is an obligatory thing to log on to at least once, that Blizzard can't just cop out with "Online experience is not rated by the ESRB." Blizzard MUST enforce the custom maps and filter the language, otherwise ESRB would have grounds to change the rating to M (the rating change won't matter at all to Blizzard, but the press reports and news articles made from it CERTAINLY will be a gut punch to Blizzard's reputation). Worse still, because the maps are hosted by Blizzard, they might be sued for harassment or somesuch; of course, they would win the case, but they'd lose money due to court/lawyer fees.
My thoughts: It's clearly unfortunate that we are limited severely in what we can do. Escape Gay Heaven is something that would probably be a perma-ban offense. Risk might be hit for a trademark, or it might be hit for all the country names, but it's hard to say. Civilization might have religions (if modeled after the fourth game, at least) along with the usual civilization names and figureheads. Russian Roulette, a funmap I made, would probably be blocked due to the entire core of the gameplay being based on trying to survive despite committing suicide. Even Mafia (like the party game) would be iffy because of the clear connotations of a real-life problem (the mafia), complete with illegal acts such as chain murdering and vigilante justice, plus the illegal AND sexual-connotation-ish role of prostitute/whore (roleblocker). Blizzard should post some more clear examples, for starters.
The internet, a place where corporations mug you to death.
...the Swastika shape that the mobs ended up forming completely coincidentally...
Yea, it's a chain of unfortunately coincidences that they form up like this every time you play the map. It doesn't have anything to do with the way the triggers and regions are set up.
Blizzard will never ever remove every map containing bad language or other minor issues, they'll restrict themselves to the bad cases.
The reason why Blizzard set-up so strict rules and broad definitions is to escape any sort of law-suits and whatnot. If they'd accurately define everything somebody would find a loophole and abuse it.
But this way Blizzard can always say "NO U DONT". And I like that. I think it's necessary. Blizzard will basically be the police. In real live some police officers probably wouldn't have any problems knocking you out and letting it look like you assaulted them in the first place. But you trust them not to do this.
Well.. gotta trust Blizzard now.
Blizzard posts a set of terms of use, everybody goes absolutely MENTAL over it, claiming this is part of an elaborate scheme of 'Blizzards downfall', I point out that it might not be that bad though even readily admit that there might be something fishy going on about Blizzard.
You try and tell me that I'm not being more objective than someone who takes a simple post regarding rules on maps, judges an entire company by it and takes a stance against it, the company as a whole and anybody even mildly supportive of the idea without even knowing the exact consequences or results.
Everyone is biased in some way, and there's a lot of things you can call me, but in a case like this... subjective isn't one of them. If there's one thing I pride myself on it's that I am always extremely careful before taking any side and attempt to gather as much information as possible before even attempting to do so.
Yes, because we are all pulling this out of our asses right? Because this is the first time Blizzard has been this anal about something so completely stupid, right? Because, this is the first time people have complained about bad choices on blizzards part, and blizzard not making up for it.
Here's an example:
Look at WoW 6 years ago. It was a great MMO that completely fucked all other MMO's ever to be created over the next two years back at release. It actually took time and dedication to actually get anywhere and you couldn't reach end-game in a month. Now look at what Blizzard has done to WoW simply because they want to appeal to a broader audience because that gets them more cash. They want to pull in casuals who can pick up the game, and beat it in less than a month. You can pug the strongest fucking character ever to exist in lore and don't even have to try. What has Blizzard done to bring back the old feeling of WoW that 80% of it's playerbase on a daily basis states they miss? Not a damn thing. What about the gold spammers and gold farmers that hog up your channels and spam you randomly? Nothing's done. They simply do not care about their player base anymore or their community. How long as this popularity system been in place? And how long have people been complaining about it? I'll answer for you, the moment the system became flawed. And it's been quite a while.
There has been two patches to Starcraft in 2 weeks. Both that fix problems I've never even seen before. What about the count down timer that everyone complains about? What about this crappy popularity system that's been implemented that's killing maps I've never even heard of because they are at the bottom of the popularity list? Why did they water down multiplayer? What happened to the broad choice of units from the first Starcraft? Why is the game 60 dollars?
Also, you mention TOS's and UELA's. Have you read the map editors? It states that the map editor (Which this whole thread is based on) is not supported by Blizzard themselves, when they're the one's who used the damn editor to make the game in the first place. And that customer support will not help with Editor related issues. From what I've seen you guys post on here, custom maps are the soul and heart of Blizzards games, and Blizzard could give a shit less about the people who use the Editor, or they'd directly support the tool themselves. Blizzard wants to regulate something they don't even support.
GG
"Blizzard posts a set of terms of use, everybody goes absolutely MENTAL over it, claiming this is part of an elaborate scheme of 'Blizzards downfall', I point out that it might not be that bad though even readily admit that there might be something fishy going on about Blizzard".
It's not Terms of Use, it's "We want to make the game a nice place for little kids to enjoy and have fun playing! ^_^". Last time I checked, the Halo series was rated M, and Starcraft is a lot more violet than Halo. And look at the player base of Halo, or any console game for that matter. Most console games are rated M anyways.
Now you cleverly reply "Oh you silly retard! The rating M 6 years ago isn't like todays rated M!"
Correct. It's rated based on what is deemed mature at that specific time period. Have you seen movies rated 14+? They contain sexual content and violence. That was the rating M 6 years ago. Starcraft itself is rated T and have you seen how the units die? Jim Raynor drinking scotch all the time? Or people smoking all the time, or the skimpy dressed lady on Tychus' shoulder? Or the skin-tight leather Kerrigan's wearing? (Which is sexy as all hell) Or the blood and suggestively disturbing Zerg creatures in the flashback with the Ghost Kerrigan?
And WoW was the elaborate downfall of Blizzard.
tl;dr person the post is directed at is a moron.
/rant over
On a side note, Blizzards pathing could have caused the Swastika because have you ever used the "spawn unit then move to point" trigger? They usually go there in a line and it's fairly easy to form a swastika.
Say what you will about WoW, but it's still destroying the competition to an extent that every MMO is trying to emulate it.
And obviously Blizzard will cater to their largest audience. They are a business, after all. Would you rather design content that would only be seen by 5% of your playerbase, or 95%? I really don't understand this argument that Blizzard has sold out and whatnot considering that casual players and random scrubs aren't able to complete the large majority of the hard modes and even top guilds keep giving Blizzard credit for designing tough encounters.
You guys are also forgetting that there is a "Report Inappropriate Content" button in the game. So it probably makes a lot more sense that another player reported the map for the swastika (this happened all the time in WoW for much tamer things). The most obvious course of action here is to remove the map because otherwise said reporting player might make a big deal out of it and then go on to say that Blizzard is a neo-nazi sympathizing company. Really a no-win situation, but whatever, I guess it's easier to overreact and hyperbolize the situation and Blizz sold out and omg boycott.
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Not sure why people are so riled up over this. They're basically terms of use, aren't they? Those are always hella strict. For the simple reason of giving them a huge edge should something be ever taken to court. They'd run into problems if they were somewhat mild in the rules and somebody did something bad; the guilty folks would just point out that whatever they created "wasn't banned according to the terms of use".
I doubt they're going to ban your risk map for being risk, tbh.
@DarkRevenantX: Go
will i get banned for saying "lets kick as and chew bubble gum" in my map?
Honestly though, im not buying anymore blizzard games after this. This is the last straw.
QFT
They should ban the official campaign map The Dig because one of the triggers in the editor is named Drillme which is a blatant sexual reference.
After playing Ultimate Tank Defense the other night, I just KNEW the Swastika shape that the mobs ended up forming completely coincidentally would be the reason for it's ultimate ban.. Damn I wish I would have posted that before they knew the reason so I coulda sounded like a prophet or something..
@molotovsoda: Go
its more than just these ludicrous polices.. its a combination of everything.. I have good friends i want to play with from other zones.. I cant unless i buy the game again. Then theres chat rooms... Something that blizzard never actually planned for...its only after massive uproar did they decide too put it in, the very fact that the guys at blizzard didnt have a problem with this at the start shocks me. Then you have this horrific map popularity system , which is going to make so many maps never see the light of day.. And too top it off now, if my terrain remotely resembles a nazi sign.. i might possible get my account Banned permantly (60$ down the drain) , Just wait when blizzard drops the bomb about "pay for custom maps" and sends you an email forcing you to charge for your map because they see it as a cash crop.
what if i upload a map , and blizzard gives me a warning to remove the content or face being banned when im out of the country for a few months?? .. you know what else? on the sc2 forums i mentioned that "starcraft 2 has the worst ever moderators" (yes i know i should'nt have said that. but the response from blizzard went way over the board.. check the screen shot of what happened. ""PERMANENT BAN" http://i36.tinypic.com/hrg93o.jpg
this new draconian blizzard is not the old blizzard that we all fell in inlove with. Its garbage.
We can hope, can't we? Fact is though, Blizzard didn't even have anything like this for any of their previous games. This is completely new and uncharted territory we're in here and we have no idea what they'll do with it. They've already shown a willingness to ban maps, haven't they? Who knows what they'll do.
They've indicated at least that they're going to be doing something different than previously. This is a quote because I'm not quite sure how quote tags work in this forum:
I have to ask, why do you guys review maps "to ensure that they promote a fun and safe environment for all players" in this game, and not the original?
Because we can. Literally. We have a support department now of size and ability to enforce these types of things. It simply wasn't possible when our in-game support used to consist of approximately 20 technical support agents. We did, however, actually police Warcraft III maps to a small degree if they were reported. But it was a rather archaic process.
So it seems now that they'll have a taskforce of people at least partially dedicated to scouring maps. If one of those people takes something in your map the wrong way, you're done for. Just hope they don't have some sort of quota to make their jobs look useful.
Mostly, though, it'd be all fine and dandy because of this:
You're confusing our removal of inappropriate content with some draconian measure to delete maps as we see fit. Our goal is purely to ensure that maps don't contain inappropriate content, as defined here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=33752
If only they hadn't defined inappropriate content so broadly that it could include almost anything.
Really, we got no idea what they'll do with the kind of power they granted themselves now. Their record so far really isn't great though.
We'll have to wait and see, but as this is something almost nobody actually cared about or wanted, and many people are adamantly opposed to and yet they implemented it anyway (like the popularity system) it reflects poorly on Blizzard's understanding of their community and what's best for custom maps.
To clarify, I believe the guy who got his map deleted got his publishing rights temporarily revoked, got his map deleted, and was able to re-upload the map when he fixed the creep mob accidentally vaguely resembling a swastika.
Also, that's pretty harsh of them to ban you like that, although it'd help your believability if you got a screenshot of the post you got banned for.
But yes, somewhere along the line Blizzard became money obsessed and overly protective/draconian. They used to be my favorite company for a while, but Valve has surpassed them in every way.
Doesn't surprise me, some of their mods shouldn't even be there to begin with, during beta i got a 72 hour ban because some guy made another thread of an upcoming patch, where we had already about 12 threads of the same thing, his lines were "omg patch coming woot!!" when i replied telling him to search before posting and that there was enough of those threads in page 1 with no facts at all other than silly speculations, he deleted his post, making mine look like the OP, Blizz mod came around, saw that i was the first poster and banned me because i was "making" troll threads. I know some people can get confused by stuff like that, but a mod shouldn't make those mistakes, at least it was beta so i didn't care.
To clarify, certain curse words are allowed (such as those in the campaign) as long as they are not used in excess.
So we can advertise beneficial businesses, organizations, or websites? o.O
Ah... just ignore that...
There are 2 choices. Either obey either dont.
If nobody will listen they will have to ban all people. If following all those rules, there is almost no map you can create. Well maybe something like LittleBigPlanet...
I for sure will advertise SC2Mapster. And if they will go against that, that's just being bad for nothing.
If they will push too hard, everyone will go to private servers instead, its like supporting piracy.
Everyone who brought the game(software) should have right to have FUN with the game(software). They are becoming full of itself. I wont take shit from them. I didnt bought the game yet, we will see how this will turn out. Today I planned but we will see.
Everyone who likes SC2 melee, its perfect IMO. But other side, custom maps, support, and Galaxy Editor, is getting really mean.
This might sound negative but...
Those rules are load of bullshit. Can't remake one of the most famous maze maps in sc2? I'm talking about Escape Gay Heaven. *BANNED* *ACCOUNT TERMINATED*. What a load of horseshit. Also the whole "Inappropriate content "category should be deleted. Talk about censoring our creativity. What blizzard is now doing with sc2 is making me really angry. Talk about good company gone bad.
This is nothing new either. I was banned from the forums years ago, during vanilla WoW, for saying 'that sucks' in a post. Just because the forum moderators are strict, that doesn't make the entire company horrible?
Really, people are getting needlessly worked up over this. EVERY GAME IN EXISTENCE has these harsh rules written down somewhere, purely for court reasons. Especially with that whole 'map market' idea floating in the background, can you blame them for covering their asses legally? The stupid thing is that rules like these have been there since at least Warcraft 3, if not 2, and people are still yanking about a "good company gone bad". Do your effing research before making such claims.
If these terms of use truly inspire you to leave SC2 altogether, and you honestly agree with everything that has been posted in this thread so far, then great - buzz off. One less idiot to deal with, as House would say it.
@Mozared: Go
Rules like these have been since at least wc3? What are you talking about m8? There was no rules in wc3 map making. There was total freedom in map content. There was no blizzard gm checking our maps. There was porn and racism in maps, and it was great. Now hold on before you make an angry post, nobody forced these things in your face. I'm talking about that having a freedom of choice was great. How people used it, was sometimes not so great, but I didn't see any racist map or such being hosted often so that there is few of them is not a problem.
These rules are very strict. Like dropping a f-bomb can get your map banned, that strict, which is ridiculous. And this isn't some legal mambo jambo to cover their asses. These are the guidelines which the gm's follow, and they are the ones who check EVERY MAP before it's put out there for people to play. You don't see a problem? Really, I've been called a blind blizzard fanboy more than once, but man you take the cake. This is bad for all map makers.
First of all, yes, rules like these existed in Warcraft 3. Not directly with the target of custom maps, but you did apply to terms of use when starting the editor that said that basically all your maps are belong to Blizzard.
Second; racist maps, I've never seen. There was alledgedly one map with 'porn' in it, and that was seriously mild, showing one erotic picture after completing a certain task. The worst I've come across was stuff like the earlier mentioned 'escape from gay heaven', and I'm not even sure whether they'd ban that now.
Third; According to the rules, using 'fuck' in your map can get you banned. Whether this actually means that you'll get a ban or suspension if you make one map where a character exlaims 'Fuck!' at some point... No. If you honestly believe this, you need to google 'terms of use'. I guess we'll see who'se right here.
Fourth; "Guidelines which the gms follow"? "Check every map"? What the hell have you been smoking? You realize you can just... you know, publish your maps, and play them? You're acting as if any map has to pass a 3-part test and judgement by Blizzard internals before you can even get to test it. This isn't the case. As far as we know, there aren't any GMs checking ANY maps that don't get reported. ESPECIALLY not "before it's put out there for people to play". Don't jump to conclusions.
Fifth; If you consider me a Blizzard fanboy, you haven't been around much. I'm one of the most objective people I've met. There's plenty of things about Starcraft that can rise concern, and even these terms of use can. But this is way overboard. Blizzard aren't fascists, and you would know this if you had EVER scrolled through ANY terms of use of ANY game. Claiming this is something new is even more stupid. If you happen to be a WoW player, go and take a look at that game's TOU - it basically tells you that Blizzard has the right to ban you for no reason at any time, log use and sell your chat messages and/or delete/alter your characters. It's been that way since Vanilla, which is about six years ago now.
Contradictory statement is contradictory.
Anyway, this is the justification for this policy: The guidelines are the standard bullshit that every company on the face of the planet will stick in their policy somewhere. The difference here is that Blizzard actually has the manpower to enforce those guidelines to a considerable degree. The reason they're doing this is not because they're fascist (or communist), but rather because these maps and their gameplay are all hosted on Blizzard servers and bandwidth. The game is also rated T, at least in the USA, which means, since Battle.net is an obligatory thing to log on to at least once, that Blizzard can't just cop out with "Online experience is not rated by the ESRB." Blizzard MUST enforce the custom maps and filter the language, otherwise ESRB would have grounds to change the rating to M (the rating change won't matter at all to Blizzard, but the press reports and news articles made from it CERTAINLY will be a gut punch to Blizzard's reputation). Worse still, because the maps are hosted by Blizzard, they might be sued for harassment or somesuch; of course, they would win the case, but they'd lose money due to court/lawyer fees.
My thoughts: It's clearly unfortunate that we are limited severely in what we can do. Escape Gay Heaven is something that would probably be a perma-ban offense. Risk might be hit for a trademark, or it might be hit for all the country names, but it's hard to say. Civilization might have religions (if modeled after the fourth game, at least) along with the usual civilization names and figureheads. Russian Roulette, a funmap I made, would probably be blocked due to the entire core of the gameplay being based on trying to survive despite committing suicide. Even Mafia (like the party game) would be iffy because of the clear connotations of a real-life problem (the mafia), complete with illegal acts such as chain murdering and vigilante justice, plus the illegal AND sexual-connotation-ish role of prostitute/whore (roleblocker). Blizzard should post some more clear examples, for starters.
The internet, a place where corporations mug you to death.
I lol'ed :D
It's contradictory only to the subjective people :)
Yea, it's a chain of unfortunately coincidences that they form up like this every time you play the map. It doesn't have anything to do with the way the triggers and regions are set up.
Blizzard will never ever remove every map containing bad language or other minor issues, they'll restrict themselves to the bad cases.
The reason why Blizzard set-up so strict rules and broad definitions is to escape any sort of law-suits and whatnot. If they'd accurately define everything somebody would find a loophole and abuse it.
But this way Blizzard can always say "NO U DONT". And I like that. I think it's necessary. Blizzard will basically be the police. In real live some police officers probably wouldn't have any problems knocking you out and letting it look like you assaulted them in the first place. But you trust them not to do this.
Well.. gotta trust Blizzard now.
Blizzard posts a set of terms of use, everybody goes absolutely MENTAL over it, claiming this is part of an elaborate scheme of 'Blizzards downfall', I point out that it might not be that bad though even readily admit that there might be something fishy going on about Blizzard.
You try and tell me that I'm not being more objective than someone who takes a simple post regarding rules on maps, judges an entire company by it and takes a stance against it, the company as a whole and anybody even mildly supportive of the idea without even knowing the exact consequences or results.
Everyone is biased in some way, and there's a lot of things you can call me, but in a case like this... subjective isn't one of them. If there's one thing I pride myself on it's that I am always extremely careful before taking any side and attempt to gather as much information as possible before even attempting to do so.
That is all.
@Mozared: Go
Yes, because we are all pulling this out of our asses right? Because this is the first time Blizzard has been this anal about something so completely stupid, right? Because, this is the first time people have complained about bad choices on blizzards part, and blizzard not making up for it.
Here's an example:
Look at WoW 6 years ago. It was a great MMO that completely fucked all other MMO's ever to be created over the next two years back at release. It actually took time and dedication to actually get anywhere and you couldn't reach end-game in a month. Now look at what Blizzard has done to WoW simply because they want to appeal to a broader audience because that gets them more cash. They want to pull in casuals who can pick up the game, and beat it in less than a month. You can pug the strongest fucking character ever to exist in lore and don't even have to try. What has Blizzard done to bring back the old feeling of WoW that 80% of it's playerbase on a daily basis states they miss? Not a damn thing. What about the gold spammers and gold farmers that hog up your channels and spam you randomly? Nothing's done. They simply do not care about their player base anymore or their community. How long as this popularity system been in place? And how long have people been complaining about it? I'll answer for you, the moment the system became flawed. And it's been quite a while.
There has been two patches to Starcraft in 2 weeks. Both that fix problems I've never even seen before. What about the count down timer that everyone complains about? What about this crappy popularity system that's been implemented that's killing maps I've never even heard of because they are at the bottom of the popularity list? Why did they water down multiplayer? What happened to the broad choice of units from the first Starcraft? Why is the game 60 dollars?
Also, you mention TOS's and UELA's. Have you read the map editors? It states that the map editor (Which this whole thread is based on) is not supported by Blizzard themselves, when they're the one's who used the damn editor to make the game in the first place. And that customer support will not help with Editor related issues. From what I've seen you guys post on here, custom maps are the soul and heart of Blizzards games, and Blizzard could give a shit less about the people who use the Editor, or they'd directly support the tool themselves. Blizzard wants to regulate something they don't even support.
GG
"Blizzard posts a set of terms of use, everybody goes absolutely MENTAL over it, claiming this is part of an elaborate scheme of 'Blizzards downfall', I point out that it might not be that bad though even readily admit that there might be something fishy going on about Blizzard".
It's not Terms of Use, it's "We want to make the game a nice place for little kids to enjoy and have fun playing! ^_^". Last time I checked, the Halo series was rated M, and Starcraft is a lot more violet than Halo. And look at the player base of Halo, or any console game for that matter. Most console games are rated M anyways.
Now you cleverly reply "Oh you silly retard! The rating M 6 years ago isn't like todays rated M!" Correct. It's rated based on what is deemed mature at that specific time period. Have you seen movies rated 14+? They contain sexual content and violence. That was the rating M 6 years ago. Starcraft itself is rated T and have you seen how the units die? Jim Raynor drinking scotch all the time? Or people smoking all the time, or the skimpy dressed lady on Tychus' shoulder? Or the skin-tight leather Kerrigan's wearing? (Which is sexy as all hell) Or the blood and suggestively disturbing Zerg creatures in the flashback with the Ghost Kerrigan?
And WoW was the elaborate downfall of Blizzard.
tl;dr person the post is directed at is a moron.
/rant over
On a side note, Blizzards pathing could have caused the Swastika because have you ever used the "spawn unit then move to point" trigger? They usually go there in a line and it's fairly easy to form a swastika.
Say what you will about WoW, but it's still destroying the competition to an extent that every MMO is trying to emulate it.
And obviously Blizzard will cater to their largest audience. They are a business, after all. Would you rather design content that would only be seen by 5% of your playerbase, or 95%? I really don't understand this argument that Blizzard has sold out and whatnot considering that casual players and random scrubs aren't able to complete the large majority of the hard modes and even top guilds keep giving Blizzard credit for designing tough encounters.
You guys are also forgetting that there is a "Report Inappropriate Content" button in the game. So it probably makes a lot more sense that another player reported the map for the swastika (this happened all the time in WoW for much tamer things). The most obvious course of action here is to remove the map because otherwise said reporting player might make a big deal out of it and then go on to say that Blizzard is a neo-nazi sympathizing company. Really a no-win situation, but whatever, I guess it's easier to overreact and hyperbolize the situation and Blizz sold out and omg boycott.