$40 USD $60 EUROS vs how many map makers again? Not a significant number. As I said before the content that could be provided outweighs the supposed lost sales. Because without content LotV won't have as much to sell the expansion. Blizzard says there is a large amount of activity in the arcade. How many of those are free players? How many of those are people who didn't buy HotS? Remember the last official numbers we had access to showed that Blizzard managed to lose 3/5 of their player base between WoL and HotS. The number of map makers who are around who actually have the knowledge to produce the content our sales will not make any significant dent. Our knowledge on the other hand can make a big dent. Many new map makers have turned away on account of the complexity of the editor.
Now I had claimed that custom mods were 40% of the player base over 2 years ago (that was of WoL players). Blizzard needs to be able to prove to these lost customers that they have content the lost customers will want to play. This will not happen if map development does not occur.
It would be a very smart business decision to have map makers be able to start development on the new editor now so when LotV finally hits between Q1-Q2 of 2015 the new content will at least be ready for preview.
Its not about idealism. Its about smart business. Maybe the departure of Rob Pardo finally jolted them into action. They have also completely revamped their jobs page and it looks like they are very short of coders. Coming clean with the custom mod community can help improve that supply of qualified labor.
I'm personally not going to commit any serious efforts until I see how this attempt pans out, but perhaps others may be motivated to give it another go. Many of the best modders the community had have not ported to SC2 even after 3 years. Free copies may encourage those people to do so.
How much is this release going to cost? Cause I mean I don't think any Blizzard game is worth $40 any more, let alone $60 or $80 (If you are European).
Considering how badly I and many others were burned on recent Blizzard releases I think they owe us a freebe.
And consider how small the developer community is giving us, even us inactives, free copies of LotV in the hopes we may over come our stigma against Blizzard and start developing again makes a great deal of sense to me. Our entire group is at most worth about $20,000 in actual sales for a single game but we can provide enough content for other people to justify sales when previously they could not.
In fact giving us a well supported beta well before release also makes a great deal of sense to me. If LotV is stand-alone, then I wonder if old games are going to work with it.
We don't know that yet I'm afraid. during my absence I've been getting me a degree in Computer Science and my paid internship is starting very soon. Not sure I'm gonna have the time or the inclination for restarting that large map project.
On the other hand Blizzard told me I couldn't have lots of units without a huge pathing cost and I think I've managed to show them up with a little algorithm I've developed :)
Hmm... I am sorta tempted to finish an old project but since my HD died I would need to recover it some how... "Squad Prototype." was a diplo map engine and it would really make a difference.. but there when I stopped working on it editor was still buggy as ...
IDK I guess it depends on whether I'm gonna actually get some real support this time around instead of vague statements and promises and whether they are going to fire Cloaken like they so dearly need to. He was not good for the community.
Also I heard OrangeBlue got banned by Cloaken for copyright... If thats true then they have still learned nothing. They couldn't give us definitive answers on anything, even copyright, to save their sorry asses.
Actually come to think of it I'm gonna go ahead and wait before I make any jump like this. After the BS put me and others I am going to be very leery about risking more effort for nothing.
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@houndofbaskerville: Go
$40 USD $60 EUROS vs how many map makers again? Not a significant number. As I said before the content that could be provided outweighs the supposed lost sales. Because without content LotV won't have as much to sell the expansion. Blizzard says there is a large amount of activity in the arcade. How many of those are free players? How many of those are people who didn't buy HotS? Remember the last official numbers we had access to showed that Blizzard managed to lose 3/5 of their player base between WoL and HotS. The number of map makers who are around who actually have the knowledge to produce the content our sales will not make any significant dent. Our knowledge on the other hand can make a big dent. Many new map makers have turned away on account of the complexity of the editor.
Now I had claimed that custom mods were 40% of the player base over 2 years ago (that was of WoL players). Blizzard needs to be able to prove to these lost customers that they have content the lost customers will want to play. This will not happen if map development does not occur.
It would be a very smart business decision to have map makers be able to start development on the new editor now so when LotV finally hits between Q1-Q2 of 2015 the new content will at least be ready for preview.
Its not about idealism. Its about smart business. Maybe the departure of Rob Pardo finally jolted them into action. They have also completely revamped their jobs page and it looks like they are very short of coders. Coming clean with the custom mod community can help improve that supply of qualified labor.
I'm personally not going to commit any serious efforts until I see how this attempt pans out, but perhaps others may be motivated to give it another go. Many of the best modders the community had have not ported to SC2 even after 3 years. Free copies may encourage those people to do so.
@ArcaneDurandel: Go
And have they provided us with a way to open these archives? As I recall we had to use an old 3rd party software to get into mpq's.
How much is this release going to cost? Cause I mean I don't think any Blizzard game is worth $40 any more, let alone $60 or $80 (If you are European).
Considering how badly I and many others were burned on recent Blizzard releases I think they owe us a freebe.
And consider how small the developer community is giving us, even us inactives, free copies of LotV in the hopes we may over come our stigma against Blizzard and start developing again makes a great deal of sense to me. Our entire group is at most worth about $20,000 in actual sales for a single game but we can provide enough content for other people to justify sales when previously they could not.
In fact giving us a well supported beta well before release also makes a great deal of sense to me. If LotV is stand-alone, then I wonder if old games are going to work with it.
Also is LotV going to include naval pathing?
@Bounty_98: Go
Hey Bounty,
We don't know that yet I'm afraid. during my absence I've been getting me a degree in Computer Science and my paid internship is starting very soon. Not sure I'm gonna have the time or the inclination for restarting that large map project.
On the other hand Blizzard told me I couldn't have lots of units without a huge pathing cost and I think I've managed to show them up with a little algorithm I've developed :)
Hmm... I am sorta tempted to finish an old project but since my HD died I would need to recover it some how... "Squad Prototype." was a diplo map engine and it would really make a difference.. but there when I stopped working on it editor was still buggy as ...
IDK I guess it depends on whether I'm gonna actually get some real support this time around instead of vague statements and promises and whether they are going to fire Cloaken like they so dearly need to. He was not good for the community.
Also I heard OrangeBlue got banned by Cloaken for copyright... If thats true then they have still learned nothing. They couldn't give us definitive answers on anything, even copyright, to save their sorry asses.
Actually come to think of it I'm gonna go ahead and wait before I make any jump like this. After the BS put me and others I am going to be very leery about risking more effort for nothing.