Trying to please everyone is a sure way to play. Kids these days... a bunch of whiny little entitled brats. Blizzard has done more for its gaming community the most other companies. If you don't like what they are doing, don't buy the expansion and design your own RTS.
It's silly to complain about HOTS from a beta.. obviously they are saving all of the cool stuff for the games release. If you think you can design a better balanced game... blizzard has given everyone the tools to create their own version of starcraft... get to work... show that you can design a better game or stfu.
Trying to please everyone is a sure way to play. Kids these days... a bunch of whiny little entitled brats. Blizzard has done more for its gaming community the most other companies. If you don't like what they are doing, don't buy the expansion and design your own RTS.
It's silly to complain about HOTS from a beta.. obviously they are saving all of the cool stuff for the games release. If you think you can design a better balanced game... blizzard has given everyone the tools to create their own version of starcraft... get to work... show that you can design a better game or stfu.
The success of Starcraft 2 as a core game and the way it presents itself to the mainstream gamer audience affects the entire community, whether it's esports or map making. Sure, go design a better game and a better map - but no one's going to play it if no one bothers to buy/play Starcraft 2 in the first place. This is the big issue here.
I don't believe SC2 will die so quickly. While that reddit post makes some credible points, it's also very sensationalist in that it tries to paint a black and white scenario of 'Blizzard has to do this or else all fails'. I don't think this is true, because the community itself has a lot of sway. I do believe that Blizzard does need to step up, but with the recent changes and additions of systems, they're showing that they are at least moving in a better direction. What the community needs is a bigger draw to a wider audience, so that we can get and keep the casual audience playing. More players = more map exposure and more viewers for E-sports. Even if some of these casuals won't ever touch either of these, it still brings in potential for their friends to get into the game and get interested.
It's not just about making the game balanced. It's about making the game accessible.
I never understand these threads. I don't know about prize pools, but last I checked StarCraft 2 was on a Dutch version of the American Daily show with two people showing the presentator how much the idea of Barcrafts have been on the rise. Also last I checked Gangnam style was made popular through the StarCraft community and played on the freaking radio daily. Also last I checked Blizzard attempted to have employees contact and co-operate with mappers and pro-gamers alike to improve the balance and interface of the game. Also last I checked Blizzard introduced the arcade as a response to the complaints of mappers with the original system.
Yes, there's a lack of LAN and some different bugs, but I'm kind of at a point where I'm wondering wtf people want from Blizzard. Criticism is not obliged to come with solutions, but I will ask you for some here: what DO you want from Blizzard? What more can they do that would satisfy you as a community member? I'm actually having a hard time coming up with stuff, keeping the previous paragraph in mind. I'm seriously glad I'm not Blizzard right now; while I agreed with a lot of the criticism uttered during the WarCraft 3 and WoW times, it now seems more to me that the community has turned into a collection of whiny little teenagers rather than people with actual insight into the state of the game and legit criticism.
What do I want?
I want the editor to be friendly to casual players so we start seeing more new maps. We've been waiting years for documentation or wizards.
I want the top 10 played list taken offline or moved to a section and replaced with the open lobby list so cool new maps take off right away without requiring a third party fansite to expose it. The only purpose it currently serves is to ensure new maps remain unplayed.
I want old lobbies to show before new ones so people aren't forced to remake them like we were still in the 90s.
I want a Community Manager from Blizzard to actually manage its community by facilitating communication between mappers and developers instead of every other year pretending to care only to retreat back to their lairs after 1-2 months of chatting online with us.
Well I had no idea this reddit forum became so popular. I only used it for HotS beta contest and even though I did a submission in MS Paint that was sure to get me a HotS key, I didn't win because of their '50 reputation' requirement... I call this lame.
And I had no idea the reddit whine forums reached so far, 1 guy who plays games doesn't use forums knew about them, now you know about them, Come on they were stating who 'watches esports' they weren't even mapmakers they were just typical haters who can only play Dota/LoL and their arguments were quite dumb, no one should pay attention - according to them even BW and war3 were bad.. (saying war3 grew only cause of Dota rofl only dotard can say that - war3 is still alive due to Dota but grew thx to it - get out) please QQ moar.
I mean, Blizz are doing so much lately - bringing back stats, XP for the custom maps... come on. Can't complain so much.
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I want the editor to be friendly to casual players so we start seeing more new maps. We've been waiting years for documentation or wizards.
What is so hard really, isn't the community helping enough? Also this isn't why you don't see new and original maps - I think most of the complaints about CG are that there aren no original and interesting maps
which is because maybe the community is out of ideas and only repeats BW/War3? ones?
It really isn't enough. Having mapping be community-dependant makes things difficult when everyone is busy working on their own projects. While it's good that figuring out problems is attended to with a direct response from someone in the community, there's a lot of problems that could be fixed if there was simply documentation provided. There are also a lot of needlessly complex steps required to do certain things in data that wizards would save you much time on.
Just try swapping the textures of a unit. It's certainly doable if you follow a guide, but the amount of steps and modified values you have to go through makes the process ridiculous. All you want to do is swap Diffuse map A with Diffuse map B, you shouldn't have to follow a 10 step guide to do it.
What do I want?
I want the editor to be friendly to casual players so we start seeing more new maps. We've been waiting years for documentation or wizards.
Ok, now let's sort through your arguments here:
I could very well argue that the editor is already pretty casual friendly, but why would you want this and what would you hope to gain from it? I think all that would change is that we'll have an influx of shitty maps, and that's it. People who want to get into the editor are willing to go through the 'tremendous' effort of looking up a couple tutorials online, and people who don't even want to put that effort into their maps are very unlikely to put out something worthwhile to play anyway.
I want the top 10 played list taken offline or moved to a section and replaced with the open lobby list so cool new maps take off right away without requiring a third party fansite to expose it. The only purpose it currently serves is to ensure new maps remain unplayed.
I want old lobbies to show before new ones so people aren't forced to remake them like we were still in the 90s.
These are the only arguments I can find myself agreeing with or at least understanding. These are simple changes of which I'm not sure why Blizzard hasn't made them yet. They seem to be experimenting with the whole battle.net 2.0 thing, trying to do something revolutionairy, but I really don't see the merits in this system.
I want a Community Manager from Blizzard to actually manage its community by facilitating communication between mappers and developers instead of every other year pretending to care only to retreat back to their lairs after 1-2 months of chatting online with us.
Yeah, except they are actually doing this. Maybe you don't know where to look, but there's plenty of ways Blizzard actually engages in and listens to its community. The arcade wouldn't have ended up like it has if they didn't listen to the mapping community.
Conclusion: you seem to agree with this barrage of filth thrown in posts like the OP based on A) one argument that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, B) two proper arguments which are honestly still relatively small things when it comes to custom gaming and C) one argument based upon a lack of your own information. This is exactly what I meant with my previous post. Are those two middle arguments really a ground for everyone to go batshit insane about how 'SC2 is failing' and how 'Blizzard has dropped the ball' and how 'SC2 will disappear as a proper e-sports game this way'? If you genuinely think so, you're overreacting pretty harshly.
I could very well argue that the editor is already pretty casual friendly, but why would you want this and what would you hope to gain from it? I think all that would change is that we'll have an influx of shitty maps, and that's it. People who want to get into the editor are willing to go through the 'tremendous' effort of looking up a couple tutorials online, and people who don't even want to put that effort into their maps are very unlikely to put out something worthwhile to play anyway.
I think this is overlooked by people on this forum specifically (and not on other discussion sites like reddit) because this forum consists of expert authors who have already put their blood and sweat into understanding the editor. On top of that, many people here have experience in coding other languages and thus data editor didn't present a challenge.
There are some maps that were huge in Warcraft III that were made by people who were not advanced editors. Footman Frenzy, Enfos, and Wintermaul Wars are just a few off the top of my head. It's easy for us to dismiss newbie editors as being unable to make anything interesting, when on the contrary it was the amateurs who typically made some of the most fun maps.
Quote from Mozared:
Yeah, except they are actually doing this. Maybe you don't know where to look, but there's plenty of ways Blizzard actually engages in and listens to its community. The arcade wouldn't have ended up like it has if they didn't listen to the mapping community.
Them existing in obscure chatrooms and providing their emails to specific community members I don't find to be useful. I don't personally feel its a fair statement to say that "Blizzard engages its community" when the reality is they engage specific members sometimes, and even then only recently in the last two months. We've no idea if they'll even remain engaged for the foreseeable future given their two years worth of absence.
I think this is overlooked by people on this forum specifically (and not on other discussion sites like reddit) because this forum consists of expert authors who have already put their blood and sweat into understanding the editor. On top of that, many people here have experience in coding other languages and thus data editor didn't present a challenge.
There are some maps that were huge in Warcraft III that were made by people who were not advanced editors. Footman Frenzy, Enfos, and Wintermaul Wars are just a few off the top of my head. It's easy for us to dismiss newbie editors as being unable to make anything interesting, when on the contrary it was the amateurs who typically made some of the most fun maps.
To be fair, this only depends on what kind of 'newbies' you're talking about. Any map you just named should be relatively easy for a newbie to create, even without reading tutorials. And don't write me off as an 'expert author' overlooking errors - I have extremely limited data editor experiences, below average triggering experiences and I generally only concern myself with terrain. On another note - I'm not actually saying newbies can't make good maps. I'm just saying that the editor is already newbie friendly to such an extend where making mapmaking even more accessible would likely only cause an influx of dogshit.
Them existing in obscure chatrooms and providing their emails to specific community members I don't find to be useful. I don't personally feel its a fair statement to say that "Blizzard engages its community" when the reality is they engage specific members sometimes, and even then only recently in the last two months. We've no idea if they'll even remain engaged for the foreseeable future given their two years worth of absence.
I don't think the Sc2MAPSTER chatroom is obscure. Neither do I think them meeting up with representatives of the community (something they have been doing these 'two years worth of absence') is either. Again I have to ask: look at it from Blizzard's point of view. What would you want them to do? They can't go around replying to everybody on the forums, that's for sure. I would probably have handled this whole deal the same way in picking out community representatives to talk with, if I were Blizzard.
I believe amongst all of the "dogshit" newbie maps that would come with making the editor more accessible we would see a lot of fun maps as well. I consider the sc2mapster chatroom obscure. Nobody knows to look there unless they are a frequent poster on this forum.
If I were in Blizzard's shoes I would ensure the community managers were skimming (among the forums they already do) the custom maps forums, responding to interesting topics with something like "I don't know, but let me run this by them and see what they say" and potentially follow up later.
I understand the developers are not community managers and I don't expect them to be. But it's in their best interests to keep the dialogue open to all of the people who want to make Starcraft a better game and not just a small subsection of people on this website.
I know you don't agree with me, but surely you can see where I'm coming from right?
That I can, but my question still stands. Not as much to you as to the 'haters' in general. Even if you're completely right, does that warrant...
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this is one of the biggest nails in the coffin for the Starcraft 2 scene
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This shows a clear and disgusting lack of understanding on Blizzard's part and is entirely unacceptable for a company trying to design a competitive game.
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This lack of understanding on Blizzards part is the number 1 reason why Starcraft 2 is dying, and their utter failure in understanding even the most basic concepts of designing a casual-friendly game are mind-blowing.
Even from pure business aspects blizzard is failing; as you said sc2 was built to be an e-sports games and yet they are unable to even market it properly.
The exec are clueless in looking for a quick money grab by trying to sell as many copies as possible by marketing to noobs instead of realizing where and how the profit care from long term business like the pros scene.
I'm asking because this is 90% of the criticism I see lately. I too have lost some faith in Blizzard over the years, but I think I've lost a substantially greater deal of faith in its community. I mean - the World of Warcraft o-boards were at this level during WOTLK and onwards (and I've given up on the Blizzard o-boards in general), but at least you could still find thinking people on unofficial fansites. Now we're getting this kind of crap even here on Mapster, which I view as an 'unofficial unofficial' kind of board, being one step further than proper pure SC2 fansites like SC2legacy or such that don't have the emphasis on mapping.
i think the editor is pretty ez to use but it also depends on what kind of project you wanna make.. and i really dont understand this sc2 is dying stuff.. yes game has some flaws.. yes blizzard made some errors but hopefully they will fix them..
i think that the community is doing more harm than good or at least everyone that is preaching doomsday for sc2. maybe shut up and try to make smthing to make sc2 a better place
Trying to please everyone is a sure way to play. Kids these days... a bunch of whiny little entitled brats. Blizzard has done more for its gaming community the most other companies. If you don't like what they are doing, don't buy the expansion and design your own RTS.
It's silly to complain about HOTS from a beta.. obviously they are saving all of the cool stuff for the games release. If you think you can design a better balanced game... blizzard has given everyone the tools to create their own version of starcraft... get to work... show that you can design a better game or stfu.
The success of Starcraft 2 as a core game and the way it presents itself to the mainstream gamer audience affects the entire community, whether it's esports or map making. Sure, go design a better game and a better map - but no one's going to play it if no one bothers to buy/play Starcraft 2 in the first place. This is the big issue here.
I don't believe SC2 will die so quickly. While that reddit post makes some credible points, it's also very sensationalist in that it tries to paint a black and white scenario of 'Blizzard has to do this or else all fails'. I don't think this is true, because the community itself has a lot of sway. I do believe that Blizzard does need to step up, but with the recent changes and additions of systems, they're showing that they are at least moving in a better direction. What the community needs is a bigger draw to a wider audience, so that we can get and keep the casual audience playing. More players = more map exposure and more viewers for E-sports. Even if some of these casuals won't ever touch either of these, it still brings in potential for their friends to get into the game and get interested.
It's not just about making the game balanced. It's about making the game accessible.
A shame. Blizzard probably won't even read the e-mail.
What do I want?
Well I had no idea this reddit forum became so popular. I only used it for HotS beta contest and even though I did a submission in MS Paint that was sure to get me a HotS key, I didn't win because of their '50 reputation' requirement... I call this lame.
And I had no idea the reddit whine forums reached so far, 1 guy who plays games doesn't use forums knew about them, now you know about them, Come on they were stating who 'watches esports' they weren't even mapmakers they were just typical haters who can only play Dota/LoL and their arguments were quite dumb, no one should pay attention - according to them even BW and war3 were bad.. (saying war3 grew only cause of Dota rofl only dotard can say that - war3 is still alive due to Dota but grew thx to it - get out) please QQ moar.
I mean, Blizz are doing so much lately - bringing back stats, XP for the custom maps... come on. Can't complain so much.
What is so hard really, isn't the community helping enough? Also this isn't why you don't see new and original maps - I think most of the complaints about CG are that there aren no original and interesting maps
which is because maybe the community is out of ideas and only repeats BW/War3? ones?
It really isn't enough. Having mapping be community-dependant makes things difficult when everyone is busy working on their own projects. While it's good that figuring out problems is attended to with a direct response from someone in the community, there's a lot of problems that could be fixed if there was simply documentation provided. There are also a lot of needlessly complex steps required to do certain things in data that wizards would save you much time on.
Just try swapping the textures of a unit. It's certainly doable if you follow a guide, but the amount of steps and modified values you have to go through makes the process ridiculous. All you want to do is swap Diffuse map A with Diffuse map B, you shouldn't have to follow a 10 step guide to do it.
Ok, now let's sort through your arguments here:
I could very well argue that the editor is already pretty casual friendly, but why would you want this and what would you hope to gain from it? I think all that would change is that we'll have an influx of shitty maps, and that's it. People who want to get into the editor are willing to go through the 'tremendous' effort of looking up a couple tutorials online, and people who don't even want to put that effort into their maps are very unlikely to put out something worthwhile to play anyway.
These are the only arguments I can find myself agreeing with or at least understanding. These are simple changes of which I'm not sure why Blizzard hasn't made them yet. They seem to be experimenting with the whole battle.net 2.0 thing, trying to do something revolutionairy, but I really don't see the merits in this system.
Yeah, except they are actually doing this. Maybe you don't know where to look, but there's plenty of ways Blizzard actually engages in and listens to its community. The arcade wouldn't have ended up like it has if they didn't listen to the mapping community.
Conclusion: you seem to agree with this barrage of filth thrown in posts like the OP based on A) one argument that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, B) two proper arguments which are honestly still relatively small things when it comes to custom gaming and C) one argument based upon a lack of your own information. This is exactly what I meant with my previous post. Are those two middle arguments really a ground for everyone to go batshit insane about how 'SC2 is failing' and how 'Blizzard has dropped the ball' and how 'SC2 will disappear as a proper e-sports game this way'? If you genuinely think so, you're overreacting pretty harshly.
I think this is overlooked by people on this forum specifically (and not on other discussion sites like reddit) because this forum consists of expert authors who have already put their blood and sweat into understanding the editor. On top of that, many people here have experience in coding other languages and thus data editor didn't present a challenge.
There are some maps that were huge in Warcraft III that were made by people who were not advanced editors. Footman Frenzy, Enfos, and Wintermaul Wars are just a few off the top of my head. It's easy for us to dismiss newbie editors as being unable to make anything interesting, when on the contrary it was the amateurs who typically made some of the most fun maps.
Them existing in obscure chatrooms and providing their emails to specific community members I don't find to be useful. I don't personally feel its a fair statement to say that "Blizzard engages its community" when the reality is they engage specific members sometimes, and even then only recently in the last two months. We've no idea if they'll even remain engaged for the foreseeable future given their two years worth of absence.
To be fair, this only depends on what kind of 'newbies' you're talking about. Any map you just named should be relatively easy for a newbie to create, even without reading tutorials. And don't write me off as an 'expert author' overlooking errors - I have extremely limited data editor experiences, below average triggering experiences and I generally only concern myself with terrain. On another note - I'm not actually saying newbies can't make good maps. I'm just saying that the editor is already newbie friendly to such an extend where making mapmaking even more accessible would likely only cause an influx of dogshit.
I don't think the Sc2MAPSTER chatroom is obscure. Neither do I think them meeting up with representatives of the community (something they have been doing these 'two years worth of absence') is either. Again I have to ask: look at it from Blizzard's point of view. What would you want them to do? They can't go around replying to everybody on the forums, that's for sure. I would probably have handled this whole deal the same way in picking out community representatives to talk with, if I were Blizzard.
I believe amongst all of the "dogshit" newbie maps that would come with making the editor more accessible we would see a lot of fun maps as well. I consider the sc2mapster chatroom obscure. Nobody knows to look there unless they are a frequent poster on this forum.
If I were in Blizzard's shoes I would ensure the community managers were skimming (among the forums they already do) the custom maps forums, responding to interesting topics with something like "I don't know, but let me run this by them and see what they say" and potentially follow up later.
I understand the developers are not community managers and I don't expect them to be. But it's in their best interests to keep the dialogue open to all of the people who want to make Starcraft a better game and not just a small subsection of people on this website.
I know you don't agree with me, but surely you can see where I'm coming from right?
@Lucavious: Go
That I can, but my question still stands. Not as much to you as to the 'haters' in general. Even if you're completely right, does that warrant...
I'm asking because this is 90% of the criticism I see lately. I too have lost some faith in Blizzard over the years, but I think I've lost a substantially greater deal of faith in its community. I mean - the World of Warcraft o-boards were at this level during WOTLK and onwards (and I've given up on the Blizzard o-boards in general), but at least you could still find thinking people on unofficial fansites. Now we're getting this kind of crap even here on Mapster, which I view as an 'unofficial unofficial' kind of board, being one step further than proper pure SC2 fansites like SC2legacy or such that don't have the emphasis on mapping.
i think the editor is pretty ez to use but it also depends on what kind of project you wanna make.. and i really dont understand this sc2 is dying stuff.. yes game has some flaws.. yes blizzard made some errors but hopefully they will fix them..
i think that the community is doing more harm than good or at least everyone that is preaching doomsday for sc2. maybe shut up and try to make smthing to make sc2 a better place
A somewhat related youtube video: