Step 1) Make an empty mod.
Step 2) Import a ton of stuff.
Step 3) Publish the mod.
Now, never touch the mod again.
Step 4) Make your map. Add your mod.
Step 5) Create whatever data/triggers you need using the stuff you imported into your mod.
Step 6) Publish the map. Update the map as you please.
When someone downloads your map for the first time, they'll have some gigantic download. However they won't need to download more than once, even if you update the map (not the mod).
While the gigantic download is limited to one, I still see it as a problem. If several maps were several GB in size, I don't think I would download them to play.
When I want to play a game I prefer to play it as immediately as possible. There's still the wait for filling up lobbies and I don't want to use my internet download limit unless the map somehow proves elsewhere that it's extremely epic and worth playing.
This may be just me but if at least one other person agrees with me, this may be a bigger problem. We have plenty of Blizzard assets (I think) and I trust alot of us are creative and hope we get more out of less space ;)
LOL Trieva, i doubt there would be any SC2 map that would be several GB in size. At most it'll only be a few hundred MB. And with today's internet speed(unless you're from a third-world country) a few hundred mb only takes several minutes to download. Of course, you are still right that some people might be turned off by the download size, but that's a risk I'm willing to take if i can increase the quality of my map.
Did not know you could do that. I've not tried it, but, could person A upload a mod, and person B use it? Say if I wanted to do all the data work for a map, I'd publish and update a data-heavy mod. The other person would focus on terrain and/or triggers. Is that viable?
Did not know you could do that. I've not tried it, but, could person A upload a mod, and person B use it? Say if I wanted to do all the data work for a map, I'd publish and update a data-heavy mod. The other person would focus on terrain and/or triggers. Is that viable?
It is possible, but it requires the mod to be public and therefore it would be available for everyone.
Did not know you could do that. I've not tried it, but, could person A upload a mod, and person B use it? Say if I wanted to do all the data work for a map, I'd publish and update a data-heavy mod. The other person would focus on terrain and/or triggers. Is that viable?
Yes of course it can. Why wouldn't it be viable? It's precisely what it's meant to be used as. xD
It is possible, but it requires the mod to be public and therefore it would be available for everyone.
Actually, while I'm not 100% sure about this, but if your map has linked dependencies to the said mod before it becomes private, it will still remain linked to it. The reason I say this might work is coz I had passed my map to a friend, and it had a linked dependency to a private mod that I published. He still managed to open it successfully, so it might just work even if its a mod published by someone else(you just need to have said person link the dependency for you). Someone will need to test that out tho to be sure.
That sounds like a bug then, though. Also it will break if you have to reupload projects referencing those private mods, since you cant reselect them for publishing.
Well i could be wrong. But then again, all you really need to do is just lock the mod from being edited. That should prevent anyone from stealing work, no?
I have discussed this, and thought about it a bit. I wanted to post it on the blizz forums; but due to their thinking I have an authenticator when I do not (and there "i do not have an authenticator" button telling me to change my password. Then tells me I need to enter the code from my authenticator... which I dont have; or to press the "I do not have an authenticator" button; which again, tells me to reset my password; which I do; leading me to a new scree telling me to enter the code from my authenticator... yeah; you know. Brilliance in it's truest form.
Many people feel that allowing older maps into the competition really lowers the chance of newer maps getting in. Blizzard is going to narrow the field down for us; from the submitted maps. Neat. Though; usually the maps that blizzard highlights end up on page 3-5, where they get maybe 10 hours played per day. If you are asking the general community to rank games which are played once a day, we are going to end up with a lot of contesting maps which remain unplayed. None of this is blizzards fault (unless you want to get into the ultimate death of custom games, dating back to the beta) but it is a huge motivational knock to anyone trying to start something new for this.
Since blizzard is going to be picking the map pool to vote from; they are less likely to pick the long-standing favorites of the actual players and more likely to pick things that make good use of the arts. Why? well, if blizzard put lottery defense, marine arena, nexus wars, and ...idk, whatever else floats at the top of the list... on the voting table; they would win by sheer numbers alone. Why? because that is what people actually like to play. The contest is flawed in that it is promoting games that people do not actually favor playing. I think it will be highly unlikely (just like many featured games) that the winning pool of games will stay above page 2 in the long run.
A huge reason for all this; as many people including blizzard stand by (i agree with also) is that the data editor is an amazing tool. It takes a lot of work to get something done in there; though what you get done is highly customizable and NEAT! 4 months? Data editing for any game above a mini game is going to take longer than that to sort out. Again, limiting us to games that have been years in the making; or games based around the arts.
That is a lot of opinion I am having right there. My opinion. Some fact; some theories; conclusions drawn from historical events. A little negativity. It can all be argued any way I guess. My general feeling (as others have mentioned to me as well) is that this is really just a free publicity stunt. How much do you think that "snowflake" video cost to make? This is designed as a very cheap way to get more attention. Which is not a terrible thing; some mappers are going to earn a touch of cash for their hard work. I think that for better results, "they should give everyone a ribbon for trying." Whew, so soccer mom. In general, I do not support that type of thinking or concept; but here are my thoughts behind it:
Say the rewards were spread out to the top 50 maps; allow multiple winners, sure. say 100 bux for 40-50, 150 for 30-40 200 for 20-30, 300 for 10-20, 500 for 5-10, then go up from there. Keep your spending the same though. there are dozens of editors out there who would work their ass off for a shot at that. Why? a decent map is gonna get 100 bux. It is really.. nothing... a hundred bux for hundreds of hours in the editor. But then they can say, "well, maybe I got a shot at 200 bux?" Almost anyone who really goes for this will have something to show for it. And blizzard will have something to show for it as well; 50 games that are actually playable on the arcade. variety. Editors with new found spirit to keep fighting the good fight! at least 50 editors who say, "Man, blizzard gave me cash, they must not be so bad after all!".
I feel that with this "top 3" going on; and old maps being playable, you are "damned-if-you-do". "you" being blizzard. You will either have to pick some of the long standing best maps; or best made maps. Which means that new entries do not stand a chance; or you have to pick newer stuff that isn't nearly as good as what is already out there. In which case, how is this not a crapshoot? "Here is 7 grand for a subpar map which will be forgotten about within a month."
Just rambling. Getting the brain juices going. Have at you!
Following the Deadline, Sponsor shall review the submissions to confirm that the submissions meet the Contest requirements, and then select submissions that will be made available by Sponsor for judging by the Arcade community. The submissions that will be made available for public judging will be those submissions that, in Sponsor’s sole opinion, are the best based on the following criteria: Accessibility, fun, engagement, creativity, freshness, visual quality, and technical achievement.
The judging criteria are only used by Blizzard for selecting the initial map pool (and maybe the three winners) where players will then pick the five best ones. The players will most likely only use their own opinion of "fun" as the judging criteria, no matter how Blizzard defines it.
If you don't like subjective judging criteria, don't take part in an art contest (such as this one).
Fair chance for hard work is socialism. In this system quality is not being supported and going down until everything is a complete crap.
As opposite, competition where only good stuff has chance (and good stuff is usually < 10% of all stuff) - supports quality, and this is the principle our civilization is built on.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I think it would make the most sense to make the size limit the battle.net upload limit.
@Trieva: Go
Step 1) Make an empty mod.
Step 2) Import a ton of stuff.
Step 3) Publish the mod.
Now, never touch the mod again.
Step 4) Make your map. Add your mod.
Step 5) Create whatever data/triggers you need using the stuff you imported into your mod.
Step 6) Publish the map. Update the map as you please.
When someone downloads your map for the first time, they'll have some gigantic download. However they won't need to download more than once, even if you update the map (not the mod).
That's the idea behind it anyway.
LOL Trieva, i doubt there would be any SC2 map that would be several GB in size. At most it'll only be a few hundred MB. And with today's internet speed(unless you're from a third-world country) a few hundred mb only takes several minutes to download. Of course, you are still right that some people might be turned off by the download size, but that's a risk I'm willing to take if i can increase the quality of my map.
@Trieva: Go
Several GB would be about the size of your garden variety standalone AAA title. There's also a cap at 150mb.
Err that cap is only for a single account. I think he's also referring to when you upload via multiple accounts.
ANy reason mexico is not allowed to join?
Go play Antioch Chronicles Remastered!
Also, coming soon, Antioch Episode 3: Thoughts in Chaos!
Dont like mapster's ugly white? Try Mapster's Classic Skin!
@Kildare88: Go
Did not know you could do that. I've not tried it, but, could person A upload a mod, and person B use it? Say if I wanted to do all the data work for a map, I'd publish and update a data-heavy mod. The other person would focus on terrain and/or triggers. Is that viable?
It is possible, but it requires the mod to be public and therefore it would be available for everyone.
Yes of course it can. Why wouldn't it be viable? It's precisely what it's meant to be used as. xD
Actually, while I'm not 100% sure about this, but if your map has linked dependencies to the said mod before it becomes private, it will still remain linked to it. The reason I say this might work is coz I had passed my map to a friend, and it had a linked dependency to a private mod that I published. He still managed to open it successfully, so it might just work even if its a mod published by someone else(you just need to have said person link the dependency for you). Someone will need to test that out tho to be sure.
@Kildare88: Go
That sounds like a bug then, though. Also it will break if you have to reupload projects referencing those private mods, since you cant reselect them for publishing.
@Mille25: Go
Well i could be wrong. But then again, all you really need to do is just lock the mod from being edited. That should prevent anyone from stealing work, no?
I have discussed this, and thought about it a bit. I wanted to post it on the blizz forums; but due to their thinking I have an authenticator when I do not (and there "i do not have an authenticator" button telling me to change my password. Then tells me I need to enter the code from my authenticator... which I dont have; or to press the "I do not have an authenticator" button; which again, tells me to reset my password; which I do; leading me to a new scree telling me to enter the code from my authenticator... yeah; you know. Brilliance in it's truest form.
Many people feel that allowing older maps into the competition really lowers the chance of newer maps getting in. Blizzard is going to narrow the field down for us; from the submitted maps. Neat. Though; usually the maps that blizzard highlights end up on page 3-5, where they get maybe 10 hours played per day. If you are asking the general community to rank games which are played once a day, we are going to end up with a lot of contesting maps which remain unplayed. None of this is blizzards fault (unless you want to get into the ultimate death of custom games, dating back to the beta) but it is a huge motivational knock to anyone trying to start something new for this.
Since blizzard is going to be picking the map pool to vote from; they are less likely to pick the long-standing favorites of the actual players and more likely to pick things that make good use of the arts. Why? well, if blizzard put lottery defense, marine arena, nexus wars, and ...idk, whatever else floats at the top of the list... on the voting table; they would win by sheer numbers alone. Why? because that is what people actually like to play. The contest is flawed in that it is promoting games that people do not actually favor playing. I think it will be highly unlikely (just like many featured games) that the winning pool of games will stay above page 2 in the long run.
A huge reason for all this; as many people including blizzard stand by (i agree with also) is that the data editor is an amazing tool. It takes a lot of work to get something done in there; though what you get done is highly customizable and NEAT! 4 months? Data editing for any game above a mini game is going to take longer than that to sort out. Again, limiting us to games that have been years in the making; or games based around the arts.
That is a lot of opinion I am having right there. My opinion. Some fact; some theories; conclusions drawn from historical events. A little negativity. It can all be argued any way I guess. My general feeling (as others have mentioned to me as well) is that this is really just a free publicity stunt. How much do you think that "snowflake" video cost to make? This is designed as a very cheap way to get more attention. Which is not a terrible thing; some mappers are going to earn a touch of cash for their hard work. I think that for better results, "they should give everyone a ribbon for trying." Whew, so soccer mom. In general, I do not support that type of thinking or concept; but here are my thoughts behind it:
Say the rewards were spread out to the top 50 maps; allow multiple winners, sure. say 100 bux for 40-50, 150 for 30-40 200 for 20-30, 300 for 10-20, 500 for 5-10, then go up from there. Keep your spending the same though. there are dozens of editors out there who would work their ass off for a shot at that. Why? a decent map is gonna get 100 bux. It is really.. nothing... a hundred bux for hundreds of hours in the editor. But then they can say, "well, maybe I got a shot at 200 bux?" Almost anyone who really goes for this will have something to show for it. And blizzard will have something to show for it as well; 50 games that are actually playable on the arcade. variety. Editors with new found spirit to keep fighting the good fight! at least 50 editors who say, "Man, blizzard gave me cash, they must not be so bad after all!".
I feel that with this "top 3" going on; and old maps being playable, you are "damned-if-you-do". "you" being blizzard. You will either have to pick some of the long standing best maps; or best made maps. Which means that new entries do not stand a chance; or you have to pick newer stuff that isn't nearly as good as what is already out there. In which case, how is this not a crapshoot? "Here is 7 grand for a subpar map which will be forgotten about within a month."
Just rambling. Getting the brain juices going. Have at you!
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
"Fun" already is a judging criteria, which includes balance and replayability.
I guess thats always the case when judging something without a clear list of things that can be judged. Things that can be measured. Fun is a feeling
@Crazio: Go
Unfortunately "fun" for the majority of players on SC2 is a short-term thing. So yea, Blizz needs to be more clear about it. =/
@Kildare88: Go
It really is a shame so many people are butt hurt about "Fun" being a judging category... I think that speaks for itself lol.
The judging criteria are only used by Blizzard for selecting the initial map pool (and maybe the three winners) where players will then pick the five best ones. The players will most likely only use their own opinion of "fun" as the judging criteria, no matter how Blizzard defines it.
If you don't like subjective judging criteria, don't take part in an art contest (such as this one).
@Bounty_98: Go
Well ppl only want a fair chance for their hard-work to be successful. Can't blame them for that.=/
@Kildare88: Go
Fair chance for hard work is socialism. In this system quality is not being supported and going down until everything is a complete crap.
As opposite, competition where only good stuff has chance (and good stuff is usually < 10% of all stuff) - supports quality, and this is the principle our civilization is built on.