That seems incredibly impractical. It would mean they spent substantial dev time making a ton of stuff they had no intention of using for years, rather than actually getting the game done and on store shelves. How does that make sense?
If you think about it, we were given all the tools used to make WoL when we bought the game. Every single mission was made in the very same editor we're using now. I doubt they're "holding back" on us.
Don't you think there'd be enough motivation to buy HotS/LotV *just* for their respective campaigns and the veritable landslide of mapmaking assets that come with that?
If you think about it, we were given all the tools used to make WoL when we bought the game. Every single mission was made in the very same editor we're using now. I doubt they're "holding back" on us.
And yet, nobody has been able to recreate a WoL-like campaign due to the nature of how it's implemented into the game...
(and i know i'm a freak for mentioning it thank you) but talking about "shelves"..
Did you ask store managers about the post retail "blizzard starcraft2" policy in the stores selling them?
i did ;^)
at the time, i was looking for a potential price drop (hasn't happened yet lol)
but i was baffled at how quickly star2 was set aside (yes logical that they wouldn't get much stock since most players pre bought it and the rest of most sales was done in the week it came out, but still...)
so i asked around..
they were told to "quickly" put it on the side (obviously) to make way for wow extensions (whichever i don't care about the specifics since they are all cons with strings attached) and this including all the advertising that goes with it...
Bet you can't find it anymore lol (as a product, not some virtual downloadable shite).
If this not one of the clear saddening signs of how much actwithoutavision has sucked all out of the good ole blizz, i don't know what is?
Just because the map editor is non-newb friendly doesn't mean you have to get all superior to everyone else and say "unless you can use it leave". Personally I only hate the data editor, and in all honesty it's annoying to the point where I've been really put off to finish any map.
Not everyone gives a shit about every data field in the data editor, and that's the issue here. Blizzard treated every single field equally when they're not, and also connected things in an odd fashion. I understand the data editor just fine, it's just annoying as fuck to deal with so I don't bother.
A "Noob Friendly" version of (at least) the data editor would benefit the mapping community greatly, as not only would new people not be put off as much. But veterans of mapping will also have a more enjoyable time making their maps and not feel like it's a chore.
Describes what I feel perfectly .
In W3 I could make new custom races with some clicks here and there. In 1 hour, I could have a new race with new heroes and new abilities (simple abilities, but still).
Now I need days to make a goddamn thing. I really wish (I'm repeating, but well) that you could write data stuff as code. I'm sure the way it's integrated you should be able to. It would be much more easier, at least for veterans.
Also, between other things I hate, is that "artistic" parts are always in the middle, and my head explodes checking the originals back to see if whatever those fields are for are the same value, and if animations and lights and whatever other shit is the same, just because I'm a goddamn perfectionist. I hate how in some stuff (not units, other things like tilesets, for example) don't separate art from data properly.
Also, now that I'm on with the rant, they need to improve paths/routes. They suuuuuck so haaaard. They work as they want and they're crappy as hell. I'm starting to think on creating invisible doodads with specific paths and place them all around just like in W3. I wonder why you can't properly add collisions to them as you want, they could use some mix with regions (or maybe you can and I'm just retarded). It wasn't a vital point on W3, but I used paths a lot, and I see they suck in SC2. Paths should be merged with regions and you should be able to define their collision. Yeah, rant, but I just lose some precious time working with this and I'm angry xDDD.
I wonder why you can't have one water over another, too. My dreams of water boiling to let lava rise are no more :(.
From everyone's rants about the popularity system, I think I have come up with the perfect solution. The popularity system we currently have should be what you see when you decide to host a map. When you join a map, the DEFAULT SCREEN (VERY IMPORTANT) that you see should be exactly like the current popularity system, but deleting all games that dont have anyone in the lobby. This would make it so that whenever you decide to host a page 8 game, other people see it on page 3-4 (because honestly, what games are played that are past page 4?).
When I played WC3, there were tons of maps I would never think about playing normally, but every once in a while would see being hosted and would say "fuck it, I'll play it" because it was fun every once in a while, just not constantly. I joined because I knew it would fill quickly, because there were people like me who would see it flash before their eyes and join. When you have thousands of people doing this, the host of that game always has someone to play with. When you have the 30 people in the "looking for custom game" channel, you never have people to play with. When no one is willing to go past page 3 because the game will never, ever fill, you never have people to play with. This funnels everyone into the games that they know will fill quickly, even if they are more boring maps (because slightly boring is better than an empty lobby). If you feel this is not true, know that I have joined games I would rather not play just because I wanted to play a game, not wait for a full game. Therefor, my argument is valid.
On a different note, the editor is horrible.
I am making a new unit.
The unit is the lyote, but based of the zergling.
I create a new unit based off the zergling.
I duplicate the lyote actor (so it won't mess up any lyote crittors).
I attach the lyote actor to my new lyote unit.
All the models and sounds get fucked up (I actually have no idea why this happens, but it pisses me off and I have to switch them back manually).
Now I want the lyote unit to do more damage. But wait, that will mess up the zergling damage, even though they are two completely different units.
I duplicate the zergling claw weapon.
I duplicate the zergling claw effect.
I change the damage on the duplicated zergling claw effect.
I change the lyote unit to have the duplicated weapon.
I change the duplicated weapon to use the duplicated effect.
All the sound files are messed up (when the lyote attacks it no longer makes the hit sound, because those sounds were lost in the weapon duplication).
I am not making this up. This is exactly what I have been trying to figure out for the past hour.
In WC3, it would have been as simple as duplicating the unit, changing its model, and changing its attack damage.
I agree that many improvements were made, I just wonder whos idea it was to have the fields in an actor change based on what unit that actor is linked to... And I don't even know what is going on with the attack sound files.
Edit: Ah, figured it out. I hadn't copied the actor that went with the effect. See what a pain in the ass it is?
The Galaxy Editor is extremely Advanced, it gives you the options to do everything people in Warcraft 3 Wanted, and then Some. Sure it takes awhile to create stuff, but the customization of it all is great.
That is part of the issue, but the issue I'm talking about is that it often fucks things up, requiring you to go back and fix it (and know more about the editor). A newish mapmaker can't just tinker in the editor, because something as simple as assigning an actor to a new unit messes up all of the models and sounds in the actor. That is not "extremely advanced" or an "extra option", it is simply poor design.
A lot of fields in the editor have "default" values that automatically try and find something with the same ID (For example, if you have a behavior with the ID "Banana" and an apply behavior effect with the ID "Banana", they're automatically linked). The sound fields are defaults because blizzard was lazy and wanted to save time, so they made the sounds first, gave them the right IDs, then created the unit with the matching ID and didn't even have to touch the sounds field. To me this sounds like a smart thing, and not poor design. Yes, it screws up when you're duplicating units, but all you have to do is just copy paste the fields from the original which takes like 3 seconds, and when you're making a custom unit with custom sounds it saves you a lot of time.
Also, to make you save time, when you duplicated a unit duplicate all actors, effects, weapons and behaviors linked to it so that you don't have to duplicate them later and go back a billion times to change links.
I dont mind the duplicating thing screwing up sounds. As I said, it takes 3 seconds to fix, and in addition to that I make all my units from scratch so i dont even notice this.
crap, the chocolate on top of my cookies melted and now I have chocolaty fingers. Post over.
Not necessarily true. I mean no offense, but as you get more advanced, you don't necessarily want all those fields filled in for you automatically. The editor's duplication process is actually, IMO, pretty much perfect. When you didn't get the sounds to work correctly, that is something you did wrong. Sometimes you want a unit to share the same weapon as another unit! Sometimes you want some of these things to not be changed, and if the editor changed them, advanced mappers would have to go back and change everything they didn't want. The system works fine, and I never have any issues with it.
Also, the Loyote actor is the UNIT actor, not the sound actors. You have to go in and mess with those yourself. What you did is just bad data editing. I would not be so rude on this issue, if you weren't blaming your mistakes on the editor.
My issue is that the fields ARE filling themselves in automatically. I wanted my unit to act like a zergling and look like a lyote, but when I attach the duplicated lyote actor to the duplicated zergling unit, all the fields automatically change. To things that don't exist. Its not like I was even creating an actor from scratch. I duplicated the lyote actor so that I could use its model, animations, and sounds, and it goes and changes all those fields when I try to link it to my unit. That is what I hate about the editor.
And I know that the lyote unit actor had nothing to do with the attack sound disappearing, I just thought that when I duplicated the zergling attack it would keep the sound. But apparently the same sound actor can't be used by more than one effect. Yet the same weapon can be used by more than one unit? Having to figure out which things have to be 1:1 linked and which things are resources to be used is frankly poor design.
There, I've finally sorted out my thoughts on the matter in a much clearer way than my first post.
This is a matter that really gives me some headache, but guys, I want to share a thought with you: As a fan of competetive Starcraft I laugh and shake my head when I think about the fact that just a few months ago tournaments with thousands of dollars at stake were played on Steppes of War, Blistering Sands and all those other incredibly shitty maps.
Maybe we will look back in a hopefully not so distant future and laugh at that once we had X Wars, Y Arena and Z Special Forces on page 1 all the fucking time. :)
I really wish that you could write data stuff as code.
Save the map as an SC2Components folder and look the Gamedata files. They are just xml you can edit as if it were every other xml code. Thats what I did for editing COnversation State Data which is much simpler to handle there.
Save the map as an SC2Components folder and look the Gamedata files. They are just xml you can edit as if it were every other xml code. Thats what I did for editing COnversation State Data which is much simpler to handle there.
I knew there should be a way, thanks for the answer :P.
I don't need to work on data too much for my current project, but will need to in any of the future candidates, so I'll probably look at it from that perspective. I'm dying to make crap, I can't ever think about doing something serious.
@Lonami: Go You must be really bad at mapping in order to think that the
WC3 editor was better than SC2's editor. . . especially the Data Editor.
. .
In many ways it is. The Data Editor especially is a clumsy compromise between the power of something like the Unreal Engine and the ease-of-use of something like the WC3 Object Editor. Instead of the best of both worlds, the result is simply a horrendous workflow.
Anyone who tries to argue the point that we're behind the WC3
progression is foolish. Are you really trying to say that 1 year after
launch people had large communities dedicated to making WC3 Maps? That
those same communities had already created tutorials for large portions
of the editor? That Blizzard actually cared enough about UMS to even TRY
to fix their stupid mistakes?
Oh yeah, that's right. . . none of the above is true.
Most of the above is true.
1. There were large communities dedicated to WC3 modding from the beginning: WC3Campaigns, WC3Sear.ch, Campaign Creations, etc. They were all more active, individually, than the current SC2 modding community put together.
2. Those communities had already created tutorials for most of the World Editor, yes. They had also produced tools for handling SLKs, BLPs, MDXs, etc., as well as plug-ins for 3DS and MilkShape, tutorials for MDL editing, and so on.
3. The WC3 communities were active enough that they successfully lobbied Blizzard for new features, actually. For example, things like cast events didn't exist at release. But sure, Blizzard didn't support WC3 modding enough. They don't support SC2 modding enough, either.
As someone who has written tutorials (and will eventually write more), I
find it shocking that so many of you seem to think we're developing
slowly. Um, hello? My first month here I gave you guys attachments,
custom movers, in depth actors, etc! Just imagine if Helral, OneTwo,
Beider and so forth hadn't been creating the tutorials that they did?
Many of you would STILL be failing your way through the editor if not
given up.
And this is the real reason I replied. It's important to note that none of the above is a reflection on you or other tutorial makers. It's really not your fault that SC2 modding hasn't caught on. The toolset just isn't very good, and credit for that goes to Blizzard.
I went from 'let's take this place over!' to 'screw it' in about two days: the days after popularity sort was implemented. The only way you can emerge from the sea of thousands of maps is by spamvertising on the forums and even then a lot depends on dumb luck.
I'm not too lazy to learn the editor. The harder the better, it keeps competition down. Diablo 2 is very hard to mod and I'm the king, getting into the top 10 mods of the year at ModDB in 2009. However, Diablo 2 has a significant single player community which enables people to recommend the mod to each other and get the snowball rolling, whereas if a multiplayer SC2 map is dead you won't sit there in the lobby and wait for some other lost soul to join it.
I will not invest months of my time into a map that is dead by default unless I get lucky. I'm not retarded;
......
Also, SC2 was a bit of a commercial failure. It appears Dota-like games (League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth) have taken over from old school strategy games, just like RPGs displaced adventure games.
I went from 'let's take this place over!' to 'screw it' in about two days: the days after popularity sort was implemented. The only way you can emerge from the sea of thousands of maps is by spamvertising on the forums and even then a lot depends on dumb luck.
I'm not too lazy to learn the editor. The harder the better, it keeps competition down. Diablo 2 is very hard to mod and I'm the king, getting into the top 10 mods of the year at ModDB in 2009. However, Diablo 2 has a significant single player community which enables people to recommend the mod to each other and get the snowball rolling, whereas if a multiplayer SC2 map is dead you won't sit there in the lobby and wait for some other lost soul to join it.
I will not invest months of my time into a map that is dead by default unless I get lucky. I'm not retarded;
......
Also, SC2 was a bit of a commercial failure. It appears Dota-like games (League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth) have taken over from old school strategy games, just like RPGs displaced adventure games.
No offense meant mr BrotherLaz, but you are definitely a downer..You clearly don't think too much of yourself (this is a satirical comment) .. Hope your childlike behavior felt good, however i feel no one invested is due to fall for your "clever" ploy.
You really think your attitude will make galaxy addicts quit? Ohhh yeah, i forgot, u ze king ;^)
However, Diablo 2 has a significant single player community which enables people to recommend the mod to each other and get the snowball rolling, whereas if a multiplayer SC2 map is dead you won't sit there in the lobby and wait for some other lost soul to join it.
SC2 is no different.
There are plenty of examples of good solo/small team maps which rise to page 1 extremely fast. They just don't stay there because they have no lasting content. E.g. Protoss Special Forces, Night Special Forces, Infested Arena 1+2.
The community is begging for a good single player/small team map, as evidenced by seemingly bad ones shooting up the popularity list until their content is exhausted.
From everyone's rants about the popularity system, I think I have come up with the perfect solution. The popularity system we currently have should be what you see when you decide to host a map. When you join a map, the DEFAULT SCREEN (VERY IMPORTANT) that you see should be exactly like the current popularity system, but deleting all games that dont have anyone in the lobby. This would make it so that whenever you decide to host a page 8 game, other people see it on page 3-4 (because honestly, what games are played that are past page 4?).
When I played WC3, there were tons of maps I would never think about playing normally, but every once in a while would see being hosted and would say "fuck it, I'll play it" because it was fun every once in a while, just not constantly. I joined because I knew it would fill quickly, because there were people like me who would see it flash before their eyes and join. When you have thousands of people doing this, the host of that game always has someone to play with. When you have the 30 people in the "looking for custom game" channel, you never have people to play with. When no one is willing to go past page 3 because the game will never, ever fill, you never have people to play with. This funnels everyone into the games that they know will fill quickly, even if they are more boring maps (because slightly boring is better than an empty lobby). If you feel this is not true, know that I have joined games I would rather not play just because I wanted to play a game, not wait for a full game. Therefor, my argument is valid.
After reading through this entire thread i think this hits the nail on the head. What a lot of people are ignoring is the fact that wc3 custom game's had a supply and demand presence. Before the custom map list was flooded (and ruined imo) by dota bots, the list was filled at a GOOD pace with games that would fill quickly and repeatedly. By some miracle of god/buddha/satan this was caused by the famous grey screen/error upon joining a game that was being improperly hosted(goddamn port forwarding) game. Because only half intelligent people who could overcome this problem were able to host games, THEY controlled what was played. Those that didnt know how or didnt want to host their own game were forced to join the games on the list, try something new, or wait until they found something bearable. THIS is what led to the variety and success of the wc3 custom map list. With the current system, everyone just wants to join something they know will fill and start quickly, regardless of what it is. SCII lacks this variety factor, everyone knows they can click on nexus wars and get a game going. So they literally dont even have the option of trying the page 3/4/5/X games that they might like.
The fix: (an elaboration upon my own and others comments and suggestions)
Easy:
Make the first page a person sees upon clicking join custom game their bookmarks list.
Show some stats on the:
-current number of games in progress
-current number of open spots in a lobby for this game
-average fill time
Allow an option to auto-join nearly full games (or games that will be full with your presence) in an order set by you. Maybe be able to number your bookmarks 1-10
Let word of mouth return the players lost to the bloodbath and revitalize the scII custom map community
Profit when the return rate for your expansion pack is greater than what it would be now
Long:
Institute a WORKING system such as the above. (suggestions welcome)
include basic models from wc3 with the next patch (as noted in the thread already, you simply cant make a variety of maps with 3 races that all scream starcraft)
include all the models from wc3 and then some in the next expansion
Forget this premium map bullshit, we are not stupid console gamers that pay $15 for a couple of maps that an intern could make in a week. (Maybe im behind on the news for this, have they come to their senses yet?)
Profit and be glorified for making the best game ever
TL;DR: go back and read it
Sorry to revive an old thread. Just thought i should add my two cents. Pardon the grammar, its late and there is no more caffeine.
you guys were just born in the "everything overdone for me, and quicker buster! cause i'm not made out of time!" era
"the players can't be bothered = then why bother?" = lol
While players are unique snowflakes.. they can be made to change.. one at a time...
It's hard work and mapmakers are notoriously lazy.. (i should know = i'm one lazy sonovubitch.. so lazy i gave up trying and (like a perv) watch invested people do their thing.. until i have sufficient time to invest my own galaxy).
i've plunged through several aspects of this stuff.. just to get the feel or shall we say scent of it ;) and i'm nice, so i'll share.
mapmaking: the real objective, funny as hell, hard because long and seemingly "hopeless"
(especially long for me, i hate tutorials (nothing personnal and a mighty thank you to all who invest in such an awesome fashion ;) ) (why would i want to miss out on the discovery experience? "wastenotwantnot") .. so i bid my time and enjoy)
testing/refining: one needs colleagues/friends as mad for mapmaking as possible ... takes time and.. social skills and most of all passion for one's work...
advertising: requires other people doing it.. or the aforementioned passion will wither..
mod's life: up to players
happiness: getting at least a hug a day, giving at least a hug a day
mapmaker's happiness: [seeing how many mapmakers are out for blood] not likely sorry ;)
@Kueken531: Go
That seems incredibly impractical. It would mean they spent substantial dev time making a ton of stuff they had no intention of using for years, rather than actually getting the game done and on store shelves. How does that make sense?
If you think about it, we were given all the tools used to make WoL when we bought the game. Every single mission was made in the very same editor we're using now. I doubt they're "holding back" on us.
Don't you think there'd be enough motivation to buy HotS/LotV *just* for their respective campaigns and the veritable landslide of mapmaking assets that come with that?
And yet, nobody has been able to recreate a WoL-like campaign due to the nature of how it's implemented into the game...
Not to mention,
(and i know i'm a freak for mentioning it thank you) but talking about "shelves"..
Did you ask store managers about the post retail "blizzard starcraft2" policy in the stores selling them?
i did ;^)
at the time, i was looking for a potential price drop (hasn't happened yet lol)
but i was baffled at how quickly star2 was set aside (yes logical that they wouldn't get much stock since most players pre bought it and the rest of most sales was done in the week it came out, but still...)
so i asked around..
they were told to "quickly" put it on the side (obviously) to make way for wow extensions (whichever i don't care about the specifics since they are all cons with strings attached) and this including all the advertising that goes with it...
Bet you can't find it anymore lol (as a product, not some virtual downloadable shite).
If this not one of the clear saddening signs of how much actwithoutavision has sucked all out of the good ole blizz, i don't know what is?
Describes what I feel perfectly .
In W3 I could make new custom races with some clicks here and there. In 1 hour, I could have a new race with new heroes and new abilities (simple abilities, but still).
Now I need days to make a goddamn thing. I really wish (I'm repeating, but well) that you could write data stuff as code. I'm sure the way it's integrated you should be able to. It would be much more easier, at least for veterans.
Also, between other things I hate, is that "artistic" parts are always in the middle, and my head explodes checking the originals back to see if whatever those fields are for are the same value, and if animations and lights and whatever other shit is the same, just because I'm a goddamn perfectionist. I hate how in some stuff (not units, other things like tilesets, for example) don't separate art from data properly.
Also, now that I'm on with the rant, they need to improve paths/routes. They suuuuuck so haaaard. They work as they want and they're crappy as hell. I'm starting to think on creating invisible doodads with specific paths and place them all around just like in W3. I wonder why you can't properly add collisions to them as you want, they could use some mix with regions (or maybe you can and I'm just retarded). It wasn't a vital point on W3, but I used paths a lot, and I see they suck in SC2. Paths should be merged with regions and you should be able to define their collision. Yeah, rant, but I just lose some precious time working with this and I'm angry xDDD.
I wonder why you can't have one water over another, too. My dreams of water boiling to let lava rise are no more :(.
From everyone's rants about the popularity system, I think I have come up with the perfect solution. The popularity system we currently have should be what you see when you decide to host a map. When you join a map, the DEFAULT SCREEN (VERY IMPORTANT) that you see should be exactly like the current popularity system, but deleting all games that dont have anyone in the lobby. This would make it so that whenever you decide to host a page 8 game, other people see it on page 3-4 (because honestly, what games are played that are past page 4?).
When I played WC3, there were tons of maps I would never think about playing normally, but every once in a while would see being hosted and would say "fuck it, I'll play it" because it was fun every once in a while, just not constantly. I joined because I knew it would fill quickly, because there were people like me who would see it flash before their eyes and join. When you have thousands of people doing this, the host of that game always has someone to play with. When you have the 30 people in the "looking for custom game" channel, you never have people to play with. When no one is willing to go past page 3 because the game will never, ever fill, you never have people to play with. This funnels everyone into the games that they know will fill quickly, even if they are more boring maps (because slightly boring is better than an empty lobby). If you feel this is not true, know that I have joined games I would rather not play just because I wanted to play a game, not wait for a full game. Therefor, my argument is valid.
On a different note, the editor is horrible.
I am making a new unit.
The unit is the lyote, but based of the zergling.
I create a new unit based off the zergling.
I duplicate the lyote actor (so it won't mess up any lyote crittors).
I attach the lyote actor to my new lyote unit.
All the models and sounds get fucked up (I actually have no idea why this happens, but it pisses me off and I have to switch them back manually).
Now I want the lyote unit to do more damage. But wait, that will mess up the zergling damage, even though they are two completely different units.
I duplicate the zergling claw weapon.
I duplicate the zergling claw effect.
I change the damage on the duplicated zergling claw effect.
I change the lyote unit to have the duplicated weapon.
I change the duplicated weapon to use the duplicated effect.
All the sound files are messed up (when the lyote attacks it no longer makes the hit sound, because those sounds were lost in the weapon duplication).
I am not making this up. This is exactly what I have been trying to figure out for the past hour.
In WC3, it would have been as simple as duplicating the unit, changing its model, and changing its attack damage.
I agree that many improvements were made, I just wonder whos idea it was to have the fields in an actor change based on what unit that actor is linked to... And I don't even know what is going on with the attack sound files.
Edit: Ah, figured it out. I hadn't copied the actor that went with the effect. See what a pain in the ass it is?
The Galaxy Editor is extremely Advanced, it gives you the options to do everything people in Warcraft 3 Wanted, and then Some. Sure it takes awhile to create stuff, but the customization of it all is great.
That is part of the issue, but the issue I'm talking about is that it often fucks things up, requiring you to go back and fix it (and know more about the editor). A newish mapmaker can't just tinker in the editor, because something as simple as assigning an actor to a new unit messes up all of the models and sounds in the actor. That is not "extremely advanced" or an "extra option", it is simply poor design.
@HamsterBoo: Go
A lot of fields in the editor have "default" values that automatically try and find something with the same ID (For example, if you have a behavior with the ID "Banana" and an apply behavior effect with the ID "Banana", they're automatically linked). The sound fields are defaults because blizzard was lazy and wanted to save time, so they made the sounds first, gave them the right IDs, then created the unit with the matching ID and didn't even have to touch the sounds field. To me this sounds like a smart thing, and not poor design. Yes, it screws up when you're duplicating units, but all you have to do is just copy paste the fields from the original which takes like 3 seconds, and when you're making a custom unit with custom sounds it saves you a lot of time.
Also, to make you save time, when you duplicated a unit duplicate all actors, effects, weapons and behaviors linked to it so that you don't have to duplicate them later and go back a billion times to change links.
I dont mind the duplicating thing screwing up sounds. As I said, it takes 3 seconds to fix, and in addition to that I make all my units from scratch so i dont even notice this.
crap, the chocolate on top of my cookies melted and now I have chocolaty fingers. Post over.
@HamsterBoo: Go
Not necessarily true. I mean no offense, but as you get more advanced, you don't necessarily want all those fields filled in for you automatically. The editor's duplication process is actually, IMO, pretty much perfect. When you didn't get the sounds to work correctly, that is something you did wrong. Sometimes you want a unit to share the same weapon as another unit! Sometimes you want some of these things to not be changed, and if the editor changed them, advanced mappers would have to go back and change everything they didn't want. The system works fine, and I never have any issues with it.
Also, the Loyote actor is the UNIT actor, not the sound actors. You have to go in and mess with those yourself. What you did is just bad data editing. I would not be so rude on this issue, if you weren't blaming your mistakes on the editor.
Great to be back and part of the community again!
My issue is that the fields ARE filling themselves in automatically. I wanted my unit to act like a zergling and look like a lyote, but when I attach the duplicated lyote actor to the duplicated zergling unit, all the fields automatically change. To things that don't exist. Its not like I was even creating an actor from scratch. I duplicated the lyote actor so that I could use its model, animations, and sounds, and it goes and changes all those fields when I try to link it to my unit. That is what I hate about the editor.
And I know that the lyote unit actor had nothing to do with the attack sound disappearing, I just thought that when I duplicated the zergling attack it would keep the sound. But apparently the same sound actor can't be used by more than one effect. Yet the same weapon can be used by more than one unit? Having to figure out which things have to be 1:1 linked and which things are resources to be used is frankly poor design.
There, I've finally sorted out my thoughts on the matter in a much clearer way than my first post.
This is a matter that really gives me some headache, but guys, I want to share a thought with you: As a fan of competetive Starcraft I laugh and shake my head when I think about the fact that just a few months ago tournaments with thousands of dollars at stake were played on Steppes of War, Blistering Sands and all those other incredibly shitty maps.
Maybe we will look back in a hopefully not so distant future and laugh at that once we had X Wars, Y Arena and Z Special Forces on page 1 all the fucking time. :)
Save the map as an SC2Components folder and look the Gamedata files. They are just xml you can edit as if it were every other xml code. Thats what I did for editing COnversation State Data which is much simpler to handle there.
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!
I knew there should be a way, thanks for the answer :P.
I don't need to work on data too much for my current project, but will need to in any of the future candidates, so I'll probably look at it from that perspective. I'm dying to make crap, I can't ever think about doing something serious.
In many ways it is. The Data Editor especially is a clumsy compromise between the power of something like the Unreal Engine and the ease-of-use of something like the WC3 Object Editor. Instead of the best of both worlds, the result is simply a horrendous workflow.
Most of the above is true.
1. There were large communities dedicated to WC3 modding from the beginning: WC3Campaigns, WC3Sear.ch, Campaign Creations, etc. They were all more active, individually, than the current SC2 modding community put together.
2. Those communities had already created tutorials for most of the World Editor, yes. They had also produced tools for handling SLKs, BLPs, MDXs, etc., as well as plug-ins for 3DS and MilkShape, tutorials for MDL editing, and so on.
3. The WC3 communities were active enough that they successfully lobbied Blizzard for new features, actually. For example, things like cast events didn't exist at release. But sure, Blizzard didn't support WC3 modding enough. They don't support SC2 modding enough, either.
And this is the real reason I replied. It's important to note that none of the above is a reflection on you or other tutorial makers. It's really not your fault that SC2 modding hasn't caught on. The toolset just isn't very good, and credit for that goes to Blizzard.
I went from 'let's take this place over!' to 'screw it' in about two days: the days after popularity sort was implemented. The only way you can emerge from the sea of thousands of maps is by spamvertising on the forums and even then a lot depends on dumb luck.
I'm not too lazy to learn the editor. The harder the better, it keeps competition down. Diablo 2 is very hard to mod and I'm the king, getting into the top 10 mods of the year at ModDB in 2009. However, Diablo 2 has a significant single player community which enables people to recommend the mod to each other and get the snowball rolling, whereas if a multiplayer SC2 map is dead you won't sit there in the lobby and wait for some other lost soul to join it.
I will not invest months of my time into a map that is dead by default unless I get lucky. I'm not retarded;
......
Also, SC2 was a bit of a commercial failure. It appears Dota-like games (League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth) have taken over from old school strategy games, just like RPGs displaced adventure games.
@BrotherLaz: Go
I don't think you can honestly define Starcraft II as a "commercial failure".
No offense meant mr BrotherLaz, but you are definitely a downer..You clearly don't think too much of yourself (this is a satirical comment) .. Hope your childlike behavior felt good, however i feel no one invested is due to fall for your "clever" ploy.
You really think your attitude will make galaxy addicts quit? Ohhh yeah, i forgot, u ze king ;^)
SC2 is no different.
There are plenty of examples of good solo/small team maps which rise to page 1 extremely fast. They just don't stay there because they have no lasting content. E.g. Protoss Special Forces, Night Special Forces, Infested Arena 1+2.
The community is begging for a good single player/small team map, as evidenced by seemingly bad ones shooting up the popularity list until their content is exhausted.
After reading through this entire thread i think this hits the nail on the head. What a lot of people are ignoring is the fact that wc3 custom game's had a supply and demand presence. Before the custom map list was flooded (and ruined imo) by dota bots, the list was filled at a GOOD pace with games that would fill quickly and repeatedly. By some miracle of god/buddha/satan this was caused by the famous grey screen/error upon joining a game that was being improperly hosted(goddamn port forwarding) game. Because only half intelligent people who could overcome this problem were able to host games, THEY controlled what was played. Those that didnt know how or didnt want to host their own game were forced to join the games on the list, try something new, or wait until they found something bearable. THIS is what led to the variety and success of the wc3 custom map list. With the current system, everyone just wants to join something they know will fill and start quickly, regardless of what it is. SCII lacks this variety factor, everyone knows they can click on nexus wars and get a game going. So they literally dont even have the option of trying the page 3/4/5/X games that they might like.
The fix: (an elaboration upon my own and others comments and suggestions) Easy:
Long:
TL;DR: go back and read it
Sorry to revive an old thread. Just thought i should add my two cents. Pardon the grammar, its late and there is no more caffeine.
^ there is nothing wrong with the system,
you guys were just born in the "everything overdone for me, and quicker buster! cause i'm not made out of time!" era
"the players can't be bothered = then why bother?" = lol
While players are unique snowflakes.. they can be made to change.. one at a time...
It's hard work and mapmakers are notoriously lazy.. (i should know = i'm one lazy sonovubitch.. so lazy i gave up trying and (like a perv) watch invested people do their thing.. until i have sufficient time to invest my own galaxy).
i've plunged through several aspects of this stuff.. just to get the feel or shall we say scent of it ;) and i'm nice, so i'll share.
mapmaking: the real objective, funny as hell, hard because long and seemingly "hopeless"
(especially long for me, i hate tutorials (nothing personnal and a mighty thank you to all who invest in such an awesome fashion ;) ) (why would i want to miss out on the discovery experience? "wastenotwantnot") .. so i bid my time and enjoy)
testing/refining: one needs colleagues/friends as mad for mapmaking as possible ... takes time and.. social skills and most of all passion for one's work...
advertising: requires other people doing it.. or the aforementioned passion will wither..
mod's life: up to players
happiness: getting at least a hug a day, giving at least a hug a day
mapmaker's happiness: [seeing how many mapmakers are out for blood] not likely sorry ;)
but hey, that's life in galaxy on 2011
glhf regardless