Are they going to say, X map was disqualified ... probably not ... are they simply not going to select said map for the top 10 player's choice ... this would be the most likely of scenarios.
When it comes to an organisation as big as Blizzard, in the most cases it is best to keep your mouth shut when dealing with the community. Which is why you never see them speak specifically about issues that we have long wanted an answer for. Once they give us an answer it becomes almost set in stone, so, unless there is a real need for an answer we are never going to get one.
I just wanted to note that I reread the official contest rules and, to the best of my knowledge and reading ability, there is no specific clause in the contest rules that prevents you from updating your map on Battle.net. There is only a paragraph stating the deadline to making a submission to the contest via their submission form. This "don't update your map rule" comes from related blog postings, which a contest entrant could easily miss, and I feel it would be ludicrous if Blizzard disqualified entrants based on a rule that wasn't stated in the official contest rules.
That being said, we inquired with Blizzard on the possibility of making a few crucial changes to major bugs for our map, and they told us that they would be "firm" on their decision to not allow updating. So, we have not made and will not be making any updates past the deadline, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
I just wanted to note that I reread the official contest rules and, to the best of my knowledge and reading ability, there is no specific clause in the contest rules that prevents you from updating your map on Battle.net. There is only a paragraph stating the deadline to making a submission to the contest via their submission form. This "don't update your map rule" comes from related blog postings, which a contest entrant could easily miss, and I feel it would be ludicrous if Blizzard disqualified entrants based on a rule that wasn't stated in the official contest rules.
That being said, we inquired with Blizzard on the possibility of making a few crucial changes to major bugs for our map, and they told us that they would be "firm" on their decision to not allow updating. So, we have not made and will not be making any updates past the deadline, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
I am not trying to be rude or anything but you could have summed that up by saying "Updating your map is not against the rules based on what I read, but we asked Blizz for confirmation and they said yes it is."
Pretty meh when half of the entries are already released maps.
How would you like to see star battle one of the first popular maps wn this :DDDD
Would that be too bad? I mean, the guy has ran a page 1 map and supported it for years, with no reward. I'd rather see Star Battle win than some random unplayed minigame.
Still, the above does not apply to NOTD. They ran a successful kickstarter that gained them more than the top prize is already valued at, so their entry alone screams of greed.
I suggest crucifying me, I have 3 entries from that 79 (I think I am the only one who has more than 1) and all of them not made for the contest maps.
Though I made updates on all of entries just cause the contest, I could have done what Tya did: upload my map with a different name after some changes. And that shows why cant you make a contest and say only "new" maps allowed.
Btw I have to agree that most of maps sent for the contest are really nice, but I would say that probably non of it as good as a good standalone pc game, which is understandable as most maps are made by one person. I just thought there would be at least one big collaboration which releases an awesome AAA game for the contest.
@Hookah604: GoEDIT: I wonder what advantages the SC2 engine has so that it's a viable choice for game development (compared with other engines like Unity or Unreal). I'd like to think it makes certain things easier like Blizzard keeping up the servers and we don't need to do any coding to handle multiplayer.
Sc2 comes with lots of assets. (you can make a nice game without any modeling or buying models)
(I would love if Blizz would allow more control over the engine...)
Should following the rules be a competitive disadvantage?
Rules shouldn't disadvantage those who comply with them, at least so far as rules intend to structure competition fairly. Rules ideally protect those who abide them from the abuses of those who don't, reassuring the competitors that success will be won on merit alone.
Yet rules are not created in a vacuum, instead their purpose is ever vulnerable to the interests and faults of those who design and enforce them. Even people whose values drive them to make the fairest possible rules they can imagine may fail to notice bias inadvertently favoring their own interests, or cause an imbalance of which opportunists are all too happy to take advantage. That rules are often implemented deliberately in service to interests of the very people making the rules almost goes without saying.
Consider the following: a game theory research study of exploring successful strategies over time had computer players face off against one another in the most dangerously boring of all games, Prisoners' Dilemma. All manner of AIs entered the proverbial arena, from the height of incredibly complex decision-making algorithms to the lowest if-then-else procedures. Computer players then fought to the death over many generations (determined through successive iterations of a genetic algorithm), and by the end researchers had determined which strategies dominate overall, and some which prosper in very specific circumstances. Turns out the hilariously simple Tit-for-Tat strategy dominated, but that's boring compared to the virtual ecosystems that emerged. AIs with either pacifist or punish-once strategies would congregate into modestly successful colonies, which would surprisingly become hosts to an infestation of clever AI parasites. The success of their deviant strategy hinged entirely on the gentle AIs respect for an implicit rule, that individual success depended on cooperation with one another. So the deviant AIs would cooperate in response to aggression, and betray those who would have cooperated, trending toward an fluctuating equilibrium of analogous citizens, criminals, and cops.
When everyone follows the rules and restrict their possible actions for the sake of fairness, it only takes one deviant to exploit their disadvantage.
When the people making the rules wield them as tools to restrict those who would dare usurp them, breaking rules is the only way to succeed.
Of course, deviance is only an advantage when you avoid getting caught, haha.
TLDR for the functionally illiterate — Rules should be respected except when its more useful to break them, but be careful about it.
@JademusSreg: Go Excellent references used here, but I'm afraid too much for this thread. Your simplified version would have been enough.
Being totally out of this contest or the news about it I have to say I've been following this thread to know a little more, but now its all about updating or not after the deadline.
Haha, prefer to imagine people appreciate unpacking abstractions around an issue with some humor, insight, anecdote, eloquence and no small amount of phallic jocularity*. Preferable to relentlessly rewording repurposed assertions resisting rational refutation routing oratory recursion, which is to say open dialogue that explores concepts through playful and constructive collaboration is far more useful than shouting into the internet*.
Whoever wins, celebrate their successes, as one would hope they'd not be that petty and begrudge one's achievement.
LOL thanks Tya for defending my map. I should probably clarify a few things tho:
1) I submitted my map before the contest deadline. I don't know how you got the date that I submitted to be on June 1, unless the map log gets the LOCAL submission time instead of the PST one? (I submitted in the dead hours of the morning of June 1, which would be before the deadline on May 31st PST)
2) I have not made any updates to the map after the submission. All updates have been made on a SECOND map that i uploaded (Non-Contest version) after. I was actually one of the people who e-mailed Traysent/Blizzard about whether we can update our map through a second map link. I'd be pretty silly to do the opposite now, wouldn't I? :3
3) Fleet Assault and Mission Frontier are NOT the same map. They may LOOK the same since they are primarily played from a top-down view, but I assure you they are different.
4) Mission Frontier was not created before the contest.
I'm also pretty sure this list of the 79 accepted entries are those that have submitted BEFORE the contest deadline.
EDIT:
Also,
Quote:
Because Kildare has been working on a single map for awhile.
This depends on how long you define "awhile" as. I've actually used up all the available 20 upload slots that was allocated to me lol
1) I submitted my map before the contest deadline. I don't know how you got the date that I submitted to be on June 1, unless the map log gets the LOCAL submission time instead of the PST one?
Which map was yours? And they didn't send an email at all? I guess it would be a lot of work to explain why to every person who submitted a map and didn't make it, as I estimate at least 20 games didn't make it.
They didn't send an email. Except for the "Contest Submission Received" automatic confirmation. I asked about it on the Rock the Cabinet news post and Traysent said they would double check and get back to me. Haven't heard anything yet though.
The map I submitted is Ice Baneling Escape 2. It is a slide/bound type map.
Upon its submission, I was absolutely sure that it met all the requirements. The only thing I did unusual was submit it twice, because on the last day, after I had submitted it, someone reported to me a fairly serious issue. So I updated the map, then submitted it to the contest again at 7:35 PM PDT on the 31st of May. I assumed that they would only take my most recent submission. Perhaps not?
From my point of view, this contest was a trial run. It has served to drum up hype/excitement/interest in the Arcade, but far far more importantly, increased interest in doing map work. This point is crucial because it has been confirmed (Dustin Browder in gameplay interview) that Heroes of the Storm will have custom maps. I'm currently in the Techincal Alpha, and the Custom Games is currently greyed out, but it is there. Heroes of the Storm is entirely defined by its maps, and Blizzard has stated that maps will be rotated often.
My theory is that Blizzard intends to have fairly regular contests of people submitting maps, and in addtion to cash prizes for the winners, add their maps to the rotation pool. This has 2 advantages for Blizzard. 1) Gameplay will never become stale since the tactical and strategic choices in game will be varying all the time and 2) It makes balancing far easier since heroes that are powerful on some maps, are terrible on others. Thus no hero will be strictly bad or good, it will be entirely situational, which makes from a more dynamic metagame and will keep people interested.
As some of you may recall, Blizzard sent out an email to many mapmakers asking for what they wanted, and we compiled a fairly substantial list. To date, Blizzard has fufilled quite a bit of that list, and it is entirely possible they will carry through and add the rest.
Here is the compiled list that Dogmai put together (very nice format). Messages from Blizzard
Going off that list, to date Blizzard has implemented the following:
Standalone Launcher (though not for arcade, but the B.net Desktop App is standalone from all the games and has been extended to more games, Storm and Hearthstone)
Free to Play Arcade
Map/Mod Encryption (not entirely the greatest but still)
Financial Support (This is debatable because of the limted prize pool of the contest)
More communication between Blizzard and Developers (We now basically have a dedicated CM for the Arcade, Zoevia, and Traysent has been more active)
Arcade should be expansion free (Goes with F2P Arcade)
Those are currently implemented items.
In terms of announced items: Warcraft 3 Assets back at Blizzcon.
JademusSreg has been doing some digging in the Storm data files, and found 2 URLs, that are somewhat open to interpretation, but I lean on the more optimistic interpretation. The URLs point to a SC2Docs and StormDocs, which sugguests a dedicated area for Documentation of the editor. I do not believe it is for game info since both SC2 and Storm already have places in their respective web areas for that.
So, regardless of winners, this contest feels entirely like preparation for Heroes of the Storm moving to Beta and the Custom Games area of it being opened and the Storm editor being released for usage for those in the Alpha/Beta. Also, in the interview, Dustin Browder explicitly stated that the main thing holding up custom maps for Storm was working out the issues of banning bad (porn, swastikas, etc.) maps, since as a F2P game, anyone could upload anything and resign up in a heartbeat after being banned. I foresee a minor fee for being a developer, which is entirely understandable, practically every developer I'm aware of charges a fee to access or publish from, the development tools (Apple, Google, Unreal, Valve, Crytek, etc.)
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Are they going to say, X map was disqualified ... probably not ... are they simply not going to select said map for the top 10 player's choice ... this would be the most likely of scenarios.
When it comes to an organisation as big as Blizzard, in the most cases it is best to keep your mouth shut when dealing with the community. Which is why you never see them speak specifically about issues that we have long wanted an answer for. Once they give us an answer it becomes almost set in stone, so, unless there is a real need for an answer we are never going to get one.
Wait and see what they come up with.
I just wanted to note that I reread the official contest rules and, to the best of my knowledge and reading ability, there is no specific clause in the contest rules that prevents you from updating your map on Battle.net. There is only a paragraph stating the deadline to making a submission to the contest via their submission form. This "don't update your map rule" comes from related blog postings, which a contest entrant could easily miss, and I feel it would be ludicrous if Blizzard disqualified entrants based on a rule that wasn't stated in the official contest rules.
That being said, we inquired with Blizzard on the possibility of making a few crucial changes to major bugs for our map, and they told us that they would be "firm" on their decision to not allow updating. So, we have not made and will not be making any updates past the deadline, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.
I am not trying to be rude or anything but you could have summed that up by saying "Updating your map is not against the rules based on what I read, but we asked Blizz for confirmation and they said yes it is."
Why is this discussion even still going on? lol
Pretty meh when half of the entries are already released maps.
How would you like to see star battle one of the first popular maps wn this :DDDD
I, for one, will be voting for Star Bar >.>
Gotta say, competition is fierce. I'm happy just to be among the 79 accepted entries. I'll probably excrete rainbows if I make it into the 10 picks :P
For the record, I only started working on my submission after the contest was announced.
Would that be too bad? I mean, the guy has ran a page 1 map and supported it for years, with no reward. I'd rather see Star Battle win than some random unplayed minigame.
Still, the above does not apply to NOTD. They ran a successful kickstarter that gained them more than the top prize is already valued at, so their entry alone screams of greed.
Not greed, more common sense.
Why would one with an awesome map not enter the contest and give it a shot?
@Mille25: Go
It can be both.
dogmasea, can i have the rest of your pop corn..?
I suggest crucifying me, I have 3 entries from that 79 (I think I am the only one who has more than 1) and all of them not made for the contest maps.
Though I made updates on all of entries just cause the contest, I could have done what Tya did: upload my map with a different name after some changes. And that shows why cant you make a contest and say only "new" maps allowed.
Btw I have to agree that most of maps sent for the contest are really nice, but I would say that probably non of it as good as a good standalone pc game, which is understandable as most maps are made by one person. I just thought there would be at least one big collaboration which releases an awesome AAA game for the contest.
Sc2 comes with lots of assets. (you can make a nice game without any modeling or buying models)
(I would love if Blizz would allow more control over the engine...)
Rules shouldn't disadvantage those who comply with them, at least so far as rules intend to structure competition fairly. Rules ideally protect those who abide them from the abuses of those who don't, reassuring the competitors that success will be won on merit alone.
Yet rules are not created in a vacuum, instead their purpose is ever vulnerable to the interests and faults of those who design and enforce them. Even people whose values drive them to make the fairest possible rules they can imagine may fail to notice bias inadvertently favoring their own interests, or cause an imbalance of which opportunists are all too happy to take advantage. That rules are often implemented deliberately in service to interests of the very people making the rules almost goes without saying.
Consider the following: a game theory research study of exploring successful strategies over time had computer players face off against one another in the most dangerously boring of all games, Prisoners' Dilemma. All manner of AIs entered the proverbial arena, from the height of incredibly complex decision-making algorithms to the lowest if-then-else procedures. Computer players then fought to the death over many generations (determined through successive iterations of a genetic algorithm), and by the end researchers had determined which strategies dominate overall, and some which prosper in very specific circumstances. Turns out the hilariously simple Tit-for-Tat strategy dominated, but that's boring compared to the virtual ecosystems that emerged. AIs with either pacifist or punish-once strategies would congregate into modestly successful colonies, which would surprisingly become hosts to an infestation of clever AI parasites. The success of their deviant strategy hinged entirely on the gentle AIs respect for an implicit rule, that individual success depended on cooperation with one another. So the deviant AIs would cooperate in response to aggression, and betray those who would have cooperated, trending toward an fluctuating equilibrium of analogous citizens, criminals, and cops.
When everyone follows the rules and restrict their possible actions for the sake of fairness, it only takes one deviant to exploit their disadvantage. When the people making the rules wield them as tools to restrict those who would dare usurp them, breaking rules is the only way to succeed. Of course, deviance is only an advantage when you avoid getting caught, haha.
TLDR for the functionally illiterate — Rules should be respected except when its more useful to break them, but be careful about it.
@JademusSreg: Go Excellent references used here, but I'm afraid too much for this thread. Your simplified version would have been enough.
Being totally out of this contest or the news about it I have to say I've been following this thread to know a little more, but now its all about updating or not after the deadline.
Haha, prefer to imagine people appreciate unpacking abstractions around an issue with some humor, insight, anecdote, eloquence and no small amount of phallic jocularity*. Preferable to relentlessly rewording repurposed assertions resisting rational refutation routing oratory recursion, which is to say open dialogue that explores concepts through playful and constructive collaboration is far more useful than shouting into the internet*.
Whoever wins, celebrate their successes, as one would hope they'd not be that petty and begrudge one's achievement.
@JademusSreg: Go
Or you know, at a bare minimum, consolidate all the hate mail into one I Hate You card, signed everyone.
LOL thanks Tya for defending my map. I should probably clarify a few things tho:
1) I submitted my map before the contest deadline. I don't know how you got the date that I submitted to be on June 1, unless the map log gets the LOCAL submission time instead of the PST one? (I submitted in the dead hours of the morning of June 1, which would be before the deadline on May 31st PST)
2) I have not made any updates to the map after the submission. All updates have been made on a SECOND map that i uploaded (Non-Contest version) after. I was actually one of the people who e-mailed Traysent/Blizzard about whether we can update our map through a second map link. I'd be pretty silly to do the opposite now, wouldn't I? :3
3) Fleet Assault and Mission Frontier are NOT the same map. They may LOOK the same since they are primarily played from a top-down view, but I assure you they are different.
4) Mission Frontier was not created before the contest.
I'm also pretty sure this list of the 79 accepted entries are those that have submitted BEFORE the contest deadline.
EDIT:
Also,
This depends on how long you define "awhile" as. I've actually used up all the available 20 upload slots that was allocated to me lol
Darn it, I was loving the drama.
Well, it's all going to be moot anyway if my map doesn't make into the final 10. Which I've got the feeling it won't.
They didn't send an email. Except for the "Contest Submission Received" automatic confirmation. I asked about it on the Rock the Cabinet news post and Traysent said they would double check and get back to me. Haven't heard anything yet though.
The map I submitted is Ice Baneling Escape 2. It is a slide/bound type map.
Upon its submission, I was absolutely sure that it met all the requirements. The only thing I did unusual was submit it twice, because on the last day, after I had submitted it, someone reported to me a fairly serious issue. So I updated the map, then submitted it to the contest again at 7:35 PM PDT on the 31st of May. I assumed that they would only take my most recent submission. Perhaps not?
From my point of view, this contest was a trial run. It has served to drum up hype/excitement/interest in the Arcade, but far far more importantly, increased interest in doing map work. This point is crucial because it has been confirmed (Dustin Browder in gameplay interview) that Heroes of the Storm will have custom maps. I'm currently in the Techincal Alpha, and the Custom Games is currently greyed out, but it is there. Heroes of the Storm is entirely defined by its maps, and Blizzard has stated that maps will be rotated often.
My theory is that Blizzard intends to have fairly regular contests of people submitting maps, and in addtion to cash prizes for the winners, add their maps to the rotation pool. This has 2 advantages for Blizzard. 1) Gameplay will never become stale since the tactical and strategic choices in game will be varying all the time and 2) It makes balancing far easier since heroes that are powerful on some maps, are terrible on others. Thus no hero will be strictly bad or good, it will be entirely situational, which makes from a more dynamic metagame and will keep people interested.
As some of you may recall, Blizzard sent out an email to many mapmakers asking for what they wanted, and we compiled a fairly substantial list. To date, Blizzard has fufilled quite a bit of that list, and it is entirely possible they will carry through and add the rest.
Here is the compiled list that Dogmai put together (very nice format). Messages from Blizzard
Going off that list, to date Blizzard has implemented the following:
Standalone Launcher (though not for arcade, but the B.net Desktop App is standalone from all the games and has been extended to more games, Storm and Hearthstone)
Free to Play Arcade
Map/Mod Encryption (not entirely the greatest but still)
Financial Support (This is debatable because of the limted prize pool of the contest)
More communication between Blizzard and Developers (We now basically have a dedicated CM for the Arcade, Zoevia, and Traysent has been more active)
Arcade should be expansion free (Goes with F2P Arcade)
Those are currently implemented items.
In terms of announced items: Warcraft 3 Assets back at Blizzcon.
JademusSreg has been doing some digging in the Storm data files, and found 2 URLs, that are somewhat open to interpretation, but I lean on the more optimistic interpretation. The URLs point to a SC2Docs and StormDocs, which sugguests a dedicated area for Documentation of the editor. I do not believe it is for game info since both SC2 and Storm already have places in their respective web areas for that.
So, regardless of winners, this contest feels entirely like preparation for Heroes of the Storm moving to Beta and the Custom Games area of it being opened and the Storm editor being released for usage for those in the Alpha/Beta. Also, in the interview, Dustin Browder explicitly stated that the main thing holding up custom maps for Storm was working out the issues of banning bad (porn, swastikas, etc.) maps, since as a F2P game, anyone could upload anything and resign up in a heartbeat after being banned. I foresee a minor fee for being a developer, which is entirely understandable, practically every developer I'm aware of charges a fee to access or publish from, the development tools (Apple, Google, Unreal, Valve, Crytek, etc.)