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.)
This seems like the fairest method. I'd happily pay a fee to be able to upload custom maps.
This seems like the fairest method. I'd happily pay a fee to be able to upload custom maps.
They should just have the requirement to have at least 1 payed game on the account, e.g. Wings of Liberty (SCBW not so much, since it's possible to steal other people's keys by just being on the first battle.net making it a worthless protection, no idea about wc3). So, if you are banned, you loose something.
They should just have the requirement to have at least 1 payed game on the account, e.g. Wings of Liberty (SCBW not so much, since it's possible to steal other people's keys by just being on the first battle.net making it a worthless protection, no idea about wc3). So, if you are banned, you loose something.
I swear its almost as if you guys are creating a black hole that sucks me into this discussion sometimes.
I seriously cannot even grasp or understand 1% of what you guys are saying. You really think that content creators should have to pay money themselves and receive nothing in return? Am I really reading this correctly?
I swear its almost as if you guys are creating a black hole that sucks me into this discussion sometimes.
I seriously cannot even grasp or understand 1% of what you guys are saying. You really think that content creators should have to pay money themselves and receive nothing in return? Am I really reading this correctly?
The problem is that it is exploitable and can potentially cause a lot of work for Blizzard, if uploaders of questionable content cannot be harmed in any way. Since Heroes will be free to play, you cannot ban people from the game. Therefore, they need to find a way to punish players having a bought game that you are banned from instead.
Most people that want to upload maps for Heroes should already own at least 1 of Blizzard games, so the number of effected persons are limited. And if you want access, you just get another game of your choice which is better than only paying for access.
But this discussion is leading far from the contest, so I guess that Heroes' mapmaking should be discussed in its own topic and not here.
Btw, I've forseen the problem with patching maps after the contest's deadline before the contest ended and mentioned it in my reply mail (to quote myself: "I hope you are capable of disabling the updates for that map. If I had not asked, I would have updated it regardless."). But they didn't seem to have understood the hint or reacted at all. Oh well, now I can enjoy and watch how they will attempt to solve that problem.
The problem is that it is exploitable and can potentially cause a lot of work for Blizzard, if uploaders of questionable content cannot be harmed in any way. Since Heroes will be free to play, you cannot ban people from the game. Therefore, they need to find a way to punish players having a bought game that you are banned from instead.
Most people that want to upload maps for Heroes should already own at least 1 of Blizzard games, so the number of effected persons are limited. And if you want access, you just get another game of your choice which is better than only paying for access.
But this discussion is leading far from the contest, so I guess that Heroes' mapmaking should be discussed in its own topic and not here.
Btw, I've forseen the problem with patching maps after the contest's deadline before the contest ended and mentioned it in my reply mail (to quote myself: "I hope you are capable of disabling the updates for that map. If I had not asked, I would have updated it regardless."). But they didn't seem to have understood the hint or reacted at all. Oh well, now I can enjoy and watch how they will attempt to solve that problem.
My only problem with this whole thing is that you guys just go to the most obvious solution, which really does not provide a solution at all. It is kind of how anti-piracy works, their intentions are good but they lack innovative spirit and the result is a worse experience for everyone involved.
Even a minimum of, say 40 games of Heroes played (without leaving mid-game) on a free account before it is allowed to publish maps would do the trick to prevent the majority of map upload spammers.
They still have quite a few options, but to them, a hefty fee may be the surest method of weeding out bannable maps.
- They could select MvPs.
- They could have a tiered permissions system.
- They could have something like the Steam Workshop, where maps are voted/sponsored into rotation.
- They could charge for individual uploads.
- They could charge for access to the editor.
- They could only pay attention if bannable maps gain popularity/notoriety (like they have with SC2, and that's worked fine so far).
- They could verify uploaders with snail mail (this verifies your address, but they would still need to ban you).
- They could screen uploads monthly/bi-monthly (kind of like a monthly contest). Would be nice of selected maps get some kind of reward, but this costs them money on a periodic basis.
- And many moreee...
Ultimately, what they will want is something to discourage this behavior, because there's nothing physically preventing you from uploading a swastika.
To expand on the idea of a fee to access the editor, they could have developers put a hold on your credit card (not a charge), that only charges you if you get banned as a punishment fee. This way content creators don't need to pay for anything, unless they decide to break rules. There's no real money to really be gained from charging for access to content creation, so this makes sense solely as a mechanism to punish offenders. They'll still need to react when people with deep pockets decide that breaking those rules are worth the cost of punishment. There may be an instinctive reaction to putting people's credit on hold, so other forms of temporary payment are possible.
On the other hand, if they want actual prevention, they'll need to screen submissions somehow, which also makes sense if they're going to do competitive map rotations.
+ The objective isn't really to stop 'map spammers'. It's to prevent the addition of questionable content. A person uploading questionable content isn't adverse to being banned, so it can still be uploaded. However, you're not wrong in suggesting an initial player investment. Maybe they could require that the account have at least a few $ spent on Blizzard products before they can upload (skins, characters, other games, etc). This way the access fee doesn't really feel like a fee, and we don't have to 'grind' our way to accessing the editor.
If SC2 required X hours played before you're allowed to publish maps, it would definitely have weeded quite a few publishers out.
While I wouldn't particularly 'mind' paying a small fee (if it's small enough, I'm not paying more than 10 or 20 bucks), it's basically the whole anti-piracy debacle all over again. You're telling me that there are so much people uploading porn and swastika's that it drags down the platform on such a large scale that measures need to be taken that affect ALL developers? Honestly, I despise this 'political-correctness' race the gaming industry has been in for a couple of years now. The internet as a whole has been unmoderated for so long and while there's porn and swastika's, all users have seemingly found their place within the system. The same holds true for a bunch of games. People dedicated enough will always find a way to upload porn and swastika's, and people not dedicated enough will not require draconic punishment to stop them from doing it. Just write a non-responsibility clause in the EULA and put a couple of guys on banning any dirt that may come up. Stop trying to police digital communication.
Just write a non-responsibility clause in the EULA and put a couple of guys on banning any dirt that may come up.
This would work best, in my opinion. Alternatively, could have a select team of moderators (such as Blizz staff and MVPs selected by them) to moderate the arcade and nuke anything from it that violates the rules, or have an Approval system, where people can vote for approval/rejection and the team makes the final verdict (similarly to the Hive Workshop/some Steam Workshops). Although the latter idea would be much more of a hassle and time/effort demanding than the first.
When did porn/swastikas/inappropriate material become such a major issue though? I haven't seen anything like that while browsing through maps, which leads me to assume that either nearly-none of it is being uploaded, or that they're doing a decent job so far at taking it out asap...
While I wouldn't particularly 'mind' paying a small fee (if it's small enough, I'm not paying more than 10 or 20 bucks), it's basically the whole anti-piracy debacle all over again. You're telling me that there are so much people uploading porn and swastika's that it drags down the platform on such a large scale that measures need to be taken that affect ALL developers? [...] Just write a non-responsibility clause in the EULA and put a couple of guys on banning any dirt that may come up. Stop trying to police digital communication.
Blizzard has no choice. It doesn't matter if it's 100's or 1 person uploading a swastika. As a multinational company they have to abide by the laws in all countries they do business in. In the case of a swastika, such content is a felony in Germany. So either Blizzard must take such content down, or risk being banned from Germany, along with fines. In the case of pornography, they run the risk of lawsuits from both religious groups, or from the pornography industry itself for copyright violations. Per the US DMCA, if Blizzard policies the content at all, they become liable for anything and everything on B.net.
As noted above, there are other methods, but a small fee (I was thinking 10 to 20 USD) serves a deterrant. Someone interested in making games will not be deterred by such a low amount, but prevents multiple resign ups. Having the community police the content could be possible, but that adds a fairly large amount of complexity since the community would have to report maps, then have such reports double checked, and then submitted to Blizzard, who then takes the final action. In reality, a mixture of the above would be far more effective.
Back to the topic at hand, the sheer number of entries to the contest, many of which ARE new, serves to inform Blizzard that there is interest in such contests and there are people who would be willing to do such maps with a limited timeframe. I envision Blizzard doing seasons of map rotations for Storm, and having people submit maps at the end of each season, with the winners being given prizes and their maps included in the official map rotation for each season. If this were to be the case, I would see blizzard providing map guidelines, few as they are (I await someone making a single lane or 4-5 lane map).
Blizzard has no choice. It doesn't matter if it's 100's or 1 person uploading a swastika. As a multinational company they have to abide by the laws in all countries they do business in. In the case of a swastika, such content is a felony in Germany. So either Blizzard must take such content down, or risk being banned from Germany, along with fines. In the case of pornography, they run the risk of lawsuits from both religious groups, or from the pornography industry itself for copyright violations. Per the US DMCA, if Blizzard policies the content at all, they become liable for anything and everything on B.net.
But see, that's the thing. This sounds like it makes sense and I'd believe you, if not for the fact that all of this has already happened on WarCraft 3, and back then Blizzard didn't give a rat's ass about it. I remember there being a point in time when a certain porn version of an 'escape from gay heaven' map (note the slander in the name of that map type to begin with) was quite popular and regularly hosted. Believe me, I understand where they're coming from: as a multinational corporation releasing products in multiple nations you generally want to take a 'sweepstake' approach that avoids any and all possible legal issues by being so strict that even the most strict countries won't have an issue with your content. But the thing is, all of this has happened before and gone by quietly during Warcraft 3. I don't think laws have changed so much that a different approach is warranted; it's just Blizzard's position that has received a bit more spotlights.
I realize they're trying to avoid sinking money into any legal issues to begin with, but it is definitely slowly edging down into a grey zone if you compare the situation now with how it was in the past. And since nobody is doing that as the 'political correctness' race is slowly becoming a cultural heritage of the western world, people choose to ignore the implications associated with these decisions in the guise of 'being understanding'.
But see, that's the thing. This sounds like it makes sense and I'd believe you, if not for the fact that all of this has already happened on WarCraft 3, and back then Blizzard didn't give a rat's ass about it. I remember there being a point in time when a certain porn version of an 'escape from gay heaven' map (note the slander in the name of that map type to begin with) was quite popular and regularly hosted. Believe me, I understand where they're coming from: as a multinational corporation releasing products in multiple nations you generally want to take a 'sweepstake' approach that avoids any and all possible legal issues by being so strict that even the most strict countries won't have an issue with your content. But the thing is, all of this has happened before and gone by quietly during Warcraft 3. I don't think laws have changed so much that a different approach is warranted; it's just Blizzard's position that has received a bit more spotlights.
I realize they're trying to avoid sinking money into any legal issues to begin with, but it is definitely slowly edging down into a grey zone if you compare the situation now with how it was in the past. And since nobody is doing that as the 'political correctness' race is slowly becoming a cultural heritage of the western world, people choose to ignore the implications associated with these decisions in the guise of 'being understanding'.
Why not combine the EULA you guys proposed with a code that detects certain images or patterns?
One could argue that they would not want to do this for cost reasons but I think its a much better investment as opposed to eliminating a large portion of your potential content creators.
I have registered my two maps. And i was very happy when saw them in this list.
BUT! In on of my map there is a really shitty bug. The model of one missile is dissapeared, so a half of game one of heroes shoots with these 'No model ball"s :)) I am in frustration now. What should i do? I don't want to upload new version (coz Blizzard said). But in ohter hand when people see this shit in my map they will thing "what the fuck is going on here?" :)))
This seems like the fairest method. I'd happily pay a fee to be able to upload custom maps.
They should just have the requirement to have at least 1 payed game on the account, e.g. Wings of Liberty (SCBW not so much, since it's possible to steal other people's keys by just being on the first battle.net making it a worthless protection, no idea about wc3). So, if you are banned, you loose something.
I swear its almost as if you guys are creating a black hole that sucks me into this discussion sometimes.
I seriously cannot even grasp or understand 1% of what you guys are saying. You really think that content creators should have to pay money themselves and receive nothing in return? Am I really reading this correctly?
The problem is that it is exploitable and can potentially cause a lot of work for Blizzard, if uploaders of questionable content cannot be harmed in any way. Since Heroes will be free to play, you cannot ban people from the game. Therefore, they need to find a way to punish players having a bought game that you are banned from instead.
Most people that want to upload maps for Heroes should already own at least 1 of Blizzard games, so the number of effected persons are limited. And if you want access, you just get another game of your choice which is better than only paying for access.
But this discussion is leading far from the contest, so I guess that Heroes' mapmaking should be discussed in its own topic and not here.
Btw, I've forseen the problem with patching maps after the contest's deadline before the contest ended and mentioned it in my reply mail (to quote myself: "I hope you are capable of disabling the updates for that map. If I had not asked, I would have updated it regardless."). But they didn't seem to have understood the hint or reacted at all. Oh well, now I can enjoy and watch how they will attempt to solve that problem.
My only problem with this whole thing is that you guys just go to the most obvious solution, which really does not provide a solution at all. It is kind of how anti-piracy works, their intentions are good but they lack innovative spirit and the result is a worse experience for everyone involved.
I think we can do better than this honestly.
Blizzard could send offenders strongly-worded letters?
@Charysmatic: Go
Even a minimum of, say 40 games of Heroes played (without leaving mid-game) on a free account before it is allowed to publish maps would do the trick to prevent the majority of map upload spammers.
They still have quite a few options, but to them, a hefty fee may be the surest method of weeding out bannable maps.
- They could select MvPs. - They could have a tiered permissions system. - They could have something like the Steam Workshop, where maps are voted/sponsored into rotation. - They could charge for individual uploads. - They could charge for access to the editor. - They could only pay attention if bannable maps gain popularity/notoriety (like they have with SC2, and that's worked fine so far). - They could verify uploaders with snail mail (this verifies your address, but they would still need to ban you). - They could screen uploads monthly/bi-monthly (kind of like a monthly contest). Would be nice of selected maps get some kind of reward, but this costs them money on a periodic basis. - And many moreee...
Ultimately, what they will want is something to discourage this behavior, because there's nothing physically preventing you from uploading a swastika.
To expand on the idea of a fee to access the editor, they could have developers put a hold on your credit card (not a charge), that only charges you if you get banned as a punishment fee. This way content creators don't need to pay for anything, unless they decide to break rules. There's no real money to really be gained from charging for access to content creation, so this makes sense solely as a mechanism to punish offenders. They'll still need to react when people with deep pockets decide that breaking those rules are worth the cost of punishment. There may be an instinctive reaction to putting people's credit on hold, so other forms of temporary payment are possible.
On the other hand, if they want actual prevention, they'll need to screen submissions somehow, which also makes sense if they're going to do competitive map rotations.
+ The objective isn't really to stop 'map spammers'. It's to prevent the addition of questionable content. A person uploading questionable content isn't adverse to being banned, so it can still be uploaded. However, you're not wrong in suggesting an initial player investment. Maybe they could require that the account have at least a few $ spent on Blizzard products before they can upload (skins, characters, other games, etc). This way the access fee doesn't really feel like a fee, and we don't have to 'grind' our way to accessing the editor.
If SC2 required X hours played before you're allowed to publish maps, it would definitely have weeded quite a few publishers out.
I actually agree with Bounty.
While I wouldn't particularly 'mind' paying a small fee (if it's small enough, I'm not paying more than 10 or 20 bucks), it's basically the whole anti-piracy debacle all over again. You're telling me that there are so much people uploading porn and swastika's that it drags down the platform on such a large scale that measures need to be taken that affect ALL developers? Honestly, I despise this 'political-correctness' race the gaming industry has been in for a couple of years now. The internet as a whole has been unmoderated for so long and while there's porn and swastika's, all users have seemingly found their place within the system. The same holds true for a bunch of games. People dedicated enough will always find a way to upload porn and swastika's, and people not dedicated enough will not require draconic punishment to stop them from doing it. Just write a non-responsibility clause in the EULA and put a couple of guys on banning any dirt that may come up. Stop trying to police digital communication.
This would work best, in my opinion. Alternatively, could have a select team of moderators (such as Blizz staff and MVPs selected by them) to moderate the arcade and nuke anything from it that violates the rules, or have an Approval system, where people can vote for approval/rejection and the team makes the final verdict (similarly to the Hive Workshop/some Steam Workshops). Although the latter idea would be much more of a hassle and time/effort demanding than the first.
When did porn/swastikas/inappropriate material become such a major issue though? I haven't seen anything like that while browsing through maps, which leads me to assume that either nearly-none of it is being uploaded, or that they're doing a decent job so far at taking it out asap...
Blizzard has no choice. It doesn't matter if it's 100's or 1 person uploading a swastika. As a multinational company they have to abide by the laws in all countries they do business in. In the case of a swastika, such content is a felony in Germany. So either Blizzard must take such content down, or risk being banned from Germany, along with fines. In the case of pornography, they run the risk of lawsuits from both religious groups, or from the pornography industry itself for copyright violations. Per the US DMCA, if Blizzard policies the content at all, they become liable for anything and everything on B.net.
As noted above, there are other methods, but a small fee (I was thinking 10 to 20 USD) serves a deterrant. Someone interested in making games will not be deterred by such a low amount, but prevents multiple resign ups. Having the community police the content could be possible, but that adds a fairly large amount of complexity since the community would have to report maps, then have such reports double checked, and then submitted to Blizzard, who then takes the final action. In reality, a mixture of the above would be far more effective.
Back to the topic at hand, the sheer number of entries to the contest, many of which ARE new, serves to inform Blizzard that there is interest in such contests and there are people who would be willing to do such maps with a limited timeframe. I envision Blizzard doing seasons of map rotations for Storm, and having people submit maps at the end of each season, with the winners being given prizes and their maps included in the official map rotation for each season. If this were to be the case, I would see blizzard providing map guidelines, few as they are (I await someone making a single lane or 4-5 lane map).
Interesting thread thus far, just wanted to point out that they have just recently updated the post to 81 instead of the original 79.
But see, that's the thing. This sounds like it makes sense and I'd believe you, if not for the fact that all of this has already happened on WarCraft 3, and back then Blizzard didn't give a rat's ass about it. I remember there being a point in time when a certain porn version of an 'escape from gay heaven' map (note the slander in the name of that map type to begin with) was quite popular and regularly hosted. Believe me, I understand where they're coming from: as a multinational corporation releasing products in multiple nations you generally want to take a 'sweepstake' approach that avoids any and all possible legal issues by being so strict that even the most strict countries won't have an issue with your content. But the thing is, all of this has happened before and gone by quietly during Warcraft 3. I don't think laws have changed so much that a different approach is warranted; it's just Blizzard's position that has received a bit more spotlights.
I realize they're trying to avoid sinking money into any legal issues to begin with, but it is definitely slowly edging down into a grey zone if you compare the situation now with how it was in the past. And since nobody is doing that as the 'political correctness' race is slowly becoming a cultural heritage of the western world, people choose to ignore the implications associated with these decisions in the guise of 'being understanding'.
Why not combine the EULA you guys proposed with a code that detects certain images or patterns?
One could argue that they would not want to do this for cost reasons but I think its a much better investment as opposed to eliminating a large portion of your potential content creators.
So what was the 2 map that was added to make it from 79 to 81?
I have registered my two maps. And i was very happy when saw them in this list.
BUT! In on of my map there is a really shitty bug. The model of one missile is dissapeared, so a half of game one of heroes shoots with these 'No model ball"s :)) I am in frustration now. What should i do? I don't want to upload new version (coz Blizzard said). But in ohter hand when people see this shit in my map they will thing "what the fuck is going on here?" :)))
I don't think Star Battle was there before.
@TheLostAzn: Go
It was.
I'm not entirely sure, but I don't recall "Team 4 Quest" and "Bloodbath" being on the original list, they may be the two new entries.
I think we're overlooking the most important part about this.
They fixed the alignment for Hover.