Why do you even started talking about Unity when we were discussing editor's improvement? Oh, right, because it's an alternative game making engine, that's being improved 24/7, has comprefensive tutorial and builds no limits around the developer, cause he's free to code whatever he needs with fully functional modern object oriented language!
The key problem is not scripting and programming but assets
Unity's Asset Store is full of free or realy cheap assets of great quality and great range of styles. Also, standard practice for indies is to make a small team of coder + artist. We, mapmakers, got used to this kind of greenhouse where we have nice assets, but they limit us. Having an artist would open wide horizons.
Oh, and by the way, things went the way that I can now do all 2d and 3d art. Why? Because working in sc2 with its assets made me learn all that to avoid spamming shitty zealots and marines all around my maps as thousands other maps do.
Don't you feel this "but we have assets!" point is a bit weak weak?
And about the scale of games. The bigger game's scale, the more advantage Unity has. Because for big game one just spends a month or two on the architecture, and it feels like zero progress, just deep coding, but as soon as it's done, the progress raises with a speed of light, cause the whole initial engine fits the purpose. In sc2 a person of great plans is doomed to months of clicking on endless lists of data entries. Or, in worse case, spamming functions on galaxy. Or in worst case clicking on endless lists in trigger gui. If you don't mind I'd bring this allegory: feels like time spendings are proportional to map's complexity in editor, and to logarithm of game's complexity in unity.
So, the "unity is for cheap small arcade games" point can esily be disposed. I could bring my experience, compare development times, but I feel noob in Unity, and it's not convincing enough (even though it's already convincing).
Now about the player base. SC2 player base is ridiculously small if we compare it to, say, Google Play. NA server Arcade №1 map, Squad td, has 50k likes. Best games on Google Play has hundreds of millions downloads.
Maybe Storm will bring more players to Arcade, let's see.
Still we should do everything to bring our wishes to blizz, it's what we responsible for. We can't force them, but we can try. Also, we don't know what they think about it. Some conservative mapmakers may think editor doesn't need new things, blizz may think opposite, we don't know. The fact that editor exist already implies they are interested in our mapmaking. And it's a good timing these days, if they (supposedly) started editing the engine itself for lotv needs, it may be a good moment to ask for a couple of things.
Every new data object will drasticaly increase difficulty for a newcomers and the complexity of editor's architecture overal.
It will definitely not. Data is a set of independent objects that can be functionally connected. Adding more types won't affect newcomers, they simply won't be aware of, and jsut keep creating their simple things. Also, it won't complexify "architecture", architecture is rather the rules of of how data parts connected, it will stay in object oriented paradigm. It may slightly complexify data structures if mapmakers start using new features, which is the purpose of cahnges actually.
But the changes we want are not limited by data changes.
But you right after all, editor will always have its limits, even if blizz will do a couple of changes every year.
Yea, I once auto-formations for my old civ map, and, as I remember, it required a system of workarounds to overdo the natural habits of move order.
And I didn't notice any button changes, I never noticed them at all, have no idea, what it may mean.
So, Blizz plan to make some engine changes for LotV? Don't they want to ask our community about the changes we always wanted? Like the points you mentioned.
Or, for example, I always wanted a "territory" kind of system (example games: civilization, rise of legends), that would push borders, also maybe give buffs to friendly units on friendly territory. It would be easy to create as a part of engine, and it would work fast, much faster than if we created it with triggers (I created this system too, and after massive optimization it was still rather performance heavy). It could even be made relatively easy by implementing multiple creeps, so a validator could distinguish between friendly and enemy creeps.
What about squadron formations? Like when melee units automatically being lined in front of lined ranged. Is this present in any form inside the modes?
wait, how did you fix the brightness on your terrain? mine is so dark :(
Try to edit map's light. You can, for example, increase diffuse multiplier for terrain, also play with colorization and saturation, also you can define colors and directions of three sources of light. Just play with every parameter. It's possible to make sc2 look quite like wc1 in terms of specturm.
The art mod contains the models for the respective races console.
So racist! So, if I'm black, I can't use elven console? Those blizzards motherfuckers got big motherfucking problems! Just need to finish my watermelon, smoke a joint and read a rap song!
@abvdzh: Go
Why do you even started talking about Unity when we were discussing editor's improvement? Oh, right, because it's an alternative game making engine, that's being improved 24/7, has comprefensive tutorial and builds no limits around the developer, cause he's free to code whatever he needs with fully functional modern object oriented language!
Unity's Asset Store is full of free or realy cheap assets of great quality and great range of styles. Also, standard practice for indies is to make a small team of coder + artist. We, mapmakers, got used to this kind of greenhouse where we have nice assets, but they limit us. Having an artist would open wide horizons.
Oh, and by the way, things went the way that I can now do all 2d and 3d art. Why? Because working in sc2 with its assets made me learn all that to avoid spamming shitty zealots and marines all around my maps as thousands other maps do.
Don't you feel this "but we have assets!" point is a bit weak weak?
And about the scale of games. The bigger game's scale, the more advantage Unity has. Because for big game one just spends a month or two on the architecture, and it feels like zero progress, just deep coding, but as soon as it's done, the progress raises with a speed of light, cause the whole initial engine fits the purpose. In sc2 a person of great plans is doomed to months of clicking on endless lists of data entries. Or, in worse case, spamming functions on galaxy. Or in worst case clicking on endless lists in trigger gui. If you don't mind I'd bring this allegory: feels like time spendings are proportional to map's complexity in editor, and to logarithm of game's complexity in unity.
So, the "unity is for cheap small arcade games" point can esily be disposed. I could bring my experience, compare development times, but I feel noob in Unity, and it's not convincing enough (even though it's already convincing).
Now about the player base. SC2 player base is ridiculously small if we compare it to, say, Google Play. NA server Arcade №1 map, Squad td, has 50k likes. Best games on Google Play has hundreds of millions downloads.
Maybe Storm will bring more players to Arcade, let's see.
@abvdzh: Go
Still we should do everything to bring our wishes to blizz, it's what we responsible for. We can't force them, but we can try. Also, we don't know what they think about it. Some conservative mapmakers may think editor doesn't need new things, blizz may think opposite, we don't know. The fact that editor exist already implies they are interested in our mapmaking. And it's a good timing these days, if they (supposedly) started editing the engine itself for lotv needs, it may be a good moment to ask for a couple of things.
It will definitely not. Data is a set of independent objects that can be functionally connected. Adding more types won't affect newcomers, they simply won't be aware of, and jsut keep creating their simple things. Also, it won't complexify "architecture", architecture is rather the rules of of how data parts connected, it will stay in object oriented paradigm. It may slightly complexify data structures if mapmakers start using new features, which is the purpose of cahnges actually.
But the changes we want are not limited by data changes.
But you right after all, editor will always have its limits, even if blizz will do a couple of changes every year.
@Renee2islga: Go
Yea, I once auto-formations for my old civ map, and, as I remember, it required a system of workarounds to overdo the natural habits of move order.
And I didn't notice any button changes, I never noticed them at all, have no idea, what it may mean.
So, Blizz plan to make some engine changes for LotV? Don't they want to ask our community about the changes we always wanted? Like the points you mentioned.
Or, for example, I always wanted a "territory" kind of system (example games: civilization, rise of legends), that would push borders, also maybe give buffs to friendly units on friendly territory. It would be easy to create as a part of engine, and it would work fast, much faster than if we created it with triggers (I created this system too, and after massive optimization it was still rather performance heavy). It could even be made relatively easy by implementing multiple creeps, so a validator could distinguish between friendly and enemy creeps.
So yea, need engine changes...
@Renee2islga: Go
What about squadron formations? Like when melee units automatically being lined in front of lined ranged. Is this present in any form inside the modes?
@egodbout: Go
Press shift + ctrl + F10, edit map's light.
For example, I just edited Agria's light, so it looks like a fantasy world instead of depressing reality:
p.s. wow, this post ended up looking like weed smoking propaganda
Try to edit map's light. You can, for example, increase diffuse multiplier for terrain, also play with colorization and saturation, also you can define colors and directions of three sources of light. Just play with every parameter. It's possible to make sc2 look quite like wc1 in terms of specturm.
So racist! So, if I'm black, I can't use elven console? Those blizzards motherfuckers got big motherfucking problems! Just need to finish my watermelon, smoke a joint and read a rap song!