An interesting read that sheds some light on their design philosophy. A highlight or two:
Quote:
GC: This perception of this suspension of reality that people seek out in certain online multiplayer gaming experiences like World of Warcraft, I think, is a very interesting thing from a sociological standpoint. Why they're interested preserving their anonymity there but yet throwing themselves out there for everyone to see in the social networking space, that has been a very interesting thing for us to wrap our heads around at Blizzard.
This explains that whole foray into the real ID bit (which is also discussed in more detail in the article). But I, for one, don't find it the LEAST bit hard to understand. People join facebook / twitter / myspace for the express purpose of having a social experience - of enhancing their social lives. Gamers do not play games for the same motivation at all - at the end of the day, many gamers do not play games to have a social experience. They play games to have fun (or take up time).
Quote:
GC: Sure. Well, look at our own StarCraft marketplace. We talked about it at last year's Blizzcon. That's still on the roadmap. We do plan to put out a whole marketplace for our content. We've got a huge vibrant map community - maps and mods for StarCraft II. We have our Galaxy Map Editor... Just for StarCraft II, there are over 50,000 maps just in the U.S., maps and mods. There are puzzle game mods, first-person shooters, tower defense games, you name it. Maps, mods. We have this huge vibrant community.
50,000 maps! Of which 0.1% are played with any regularity. I feel as if this fellow actually believes what he's saying and he's not all wrong. But I, at least, don't feel that the community is vibrant. I would describe it as largely disgruntled and disillusioned. Am I wrong?
When I saw the winners, I had zero motivation to load up SC2 and see if they were on B.Net. That, to me, is a failure. Very happy I did not participate.
Rocket Arena I can see. Photon cannon defense or whatever seemed god awfully boring - not only did I not want to play it, the fact that it WON caused me to realize how terrible most of the other custom maps were and I have since ceased playing SC2 at all. Again: that, to me, is a failure.
I didn't submit and so I feel like I've got a pretty neutral perspective. I don't even like most of the other authors who submitted works. But photon cannon defense (and potentially zergling round-up) are just insulting. Blizzard has insulted my intelligence and my taste in gaming.
I think Bounty made the right choice. The custom map community just isn't there - I don't even play them anymore and I know that I am not the only one. Blizzard does put in some effort to improve editing / custom map community, but Colt has a point in that they have failed to make a single significant change in over half a year. They haven't even given a hint about what they're doing, and it's hard to design a map for a shadowy distribution system about which we know nothing. I have been working on, for example, an extensive single player campaign, but of late, I haven't bothered. Because there's really no delivery system available for it. What am I going to do? Release it as a zip file and have people play it by loading through the editor? Okay let's say I load it up through Battle.net - but I use a mouse-look camera and it performs horribly on B.Net. Actually, in general, there's a 10 to 20% decrease in frame-rate which is entirely inexplicable to me. I certainly can't upload the whole thing with the size restrictions I'm given, nor is loading from one map into another currently supported. They say they will add support, but when? The real issue at hand is that Bounty (and many other mapmakers) do not trust Blizzard anymore.
Insofar as Eiviyn / Colt argument. You both make silly remarks at one another. Colt, you have a point, but you are overly aggressive and therefore annoying. Though, what your detractors fail to understand (or, rather, they understand but fail to remark upon) is that if you were not so vitriolic, you would certainly not be as well remembered as you are, which is your goal.
Eiviyn, you yet seem to miss the point. While it is certainly foolish to have a hobby that you do not enjoy, Bounty's post is about how his once-enjoyable hobby was ruined by the popularity system / Blizzard. That is altogether reasonable. People don't just flip a switch between doing something and not doing it. Bounty enjoyed it once but gradually became disillusioned and wanted to vent. Why should his enjoyment of map-making not hinge on having a decent system to allow him to share that map? That purity nonsense about only taking pleasure from the mapmaking itself is just that. Nonsense.
Do you know how many people wrote novels before the printing press was invented?
I'm fairly excited about this. I enjoyed DOTA but the matchmaking system (i.e. WC3 custom games, i.e. non-existent) + community was atrocious. I simply became no longer willing to spend 2 hours to find 30 minutes of decent gameplay. While a direct port is somewhat strange, I actually believe this makes sense. Why change gameplay that is already highly successful? Plus I'm sure that Icefrog & team will continue to provide updates.
As far as LoL and HoN goes, I severely disliked LoL. My main issue was the match-making + levelup system. When I played LoL, I got so many victories in a row that, as a level 11, I was consistently matched with level 30s. While I understand the need to keep matches "fair", it's simply not fun for me to play people who have SIGNIFICANT game-provided stat & ability (they had a blink skill I could not use!) advantages over me.
Lastly, you cannot sign your rights away. Actually contracts (especially waivers) often fail to stand up in court. By no means does Blizzard own the idea of Dota nor even the heroes or skills; they may(1) own the map and certainly the WC3-based assets (sounds, models, etc.) but little else.
(1) I actually doubt Blizzard could successfully market the map without giving a % to Icefrog. I'm fairly confident that if Blizzard tried to sell Dota without giving a cut to Icefrog/other creators, then he could successfully sue them. On the other hand, the reverse is certainly true.
I have to laugh at people blaming Rodrigo, as I place no blame on him at all.
This ban is extremely draconian. The words in Rodrigo's map HAVE NO CONTEXT. If a nine year old saw that word 'dyke' do you know that nine year old would think? Nothing. There is nothing at all offensive about it and to ban his map as a result is insane.
One of the marine models has him getting eviscerated - SLICED IN HALF - where the top half pops into the air and lands with blood pooling. And yet this one word is going to make a difference?
No fucking way. It's not Rodrigo's fault for using a word that has some negative connotations, how for example would I know if someone might be offended at the following words?
Babe - Offensive slang describing a woman. See "Woman."
Oriental - Unacceptable to some Asian-Americans. Use Asian-American or Asian(s), the specific term.
Banana - An offensive term referring to Asian-Americans who allegedly have abandoned their culture.
Objectionable because no person or group can appropriately attach judgmental terms to others. Just as
objectionable: Coconut for Mexican-Americans and Oreo for black Americans.
Peg Leg - Use prosthesis or artificial. Also avoid hook.
Peon - A Latin American peasant, sometimes derisively applied to entire groups of Hispanics or others. Avoid.
Petite - Reference to a woman's body size. Can be offensive, use carefully. See "Woman."
Project - As in public housing project, has come to denote race. Use public housing development or subsidized
housing.
Samurai - As a term or caricature, can be offensively stereotypical. Avoid unless referring specifically to the
historical Japanese warrior class.
Shine - An objectionable reference to a black person. Do not use.
Spade - A garden tool or card suit. Be careful of usage. Highly insulting when referring to blacks, a popular
pejorative years ago.
Ugh - A guttural sound used to mimic some American Indian speech. Highly offensive. See "American Indian."
And these are just a fraction of offensive words I found on a SINGLE website. Might as well not use the English language at all.
Edit: Made a post in that thread stating the same thing.
Your method is what most people use. Additionally, Blizzard already has an example of this - they used it for their Lost Viking game! (search for SS_ type effects and such)
My issue with auto-attack isn't that it's boring per se, I just don't believe in the idea of a dedicated healer, which an auto-attacking boss usually demands. How many of the auto attack bosses created have dedicated healer heroes/units? All of them if I'm not mistaken.
There's a reason why most FPS no longer even use medkits - I remember well the days when Call of Duty had medkits and I remember my relief when CoD stopped using them. How many modern FPSes use medkits now? Very few because gathering medkits just didn't fit in an intense action game.
Now there's a huge difference between an FPS and an RPG or RTS, but I am finding that even MMOs are trying to steer clear of the idea of a dedicated healer. If you look through discussions of Guild Wars 2, for example, you'll see they have spread the healing abilities to all classes. And why wouldn't they? If you ever played WoW for any real period of time, you've experienced the great annoyance of trying to find a healer for a dungeon/raid. Sadly, they're often in short supply - because people like dealing damage!
Anyway I'm not trying to suggest that any of the bosses here with auto-attack suck or are boring, cause they aren't. Just explaining why I personally try to design bosses without auto-attack.
Though I find it a bit ironic that the bosses least resembling WoW bosses are the ones that are being received better.
I would suggest that this is true because WoW bosses tend to have a large amount of auto-attack. Even those with many phases or additional elements still use auto-attack as a baseline offense. While this sorta works (and is in fact necessary to give meaning to the accumulation of rare gear) with WoW and WoW's tank<>healer<>DPS role triangle, I don't believe it's the ideal approach for non-MMO bosses.
I can attest (as I am the one who designed all of the boss's abilities) that the Smash TV boss, all the heroes, and all the cinematics (that were shown) were created entirely from scratch AFTER the contest started.
Glad people still like that DNA Wars boss battle I made oh so long ago...
I have always appreciated the polish that Bibendus has put into Crush Company, though I felt the controls were a bit imprecise last I tried it on B.Net (WASD woes perhaps or maybe I'm just bad). And even though the Mengsk battle (as of this posting) has no votes, I appreciated the laser beams. I myself was a bit tempted to create something similar for our Smash TV fight but I didn't want to steal :O
As far as concerns that our smash TV fight is too hectic / no gameplay, I assure you it's not! Well maybe a bit hectic but definitely conquerable, learnable, and strategy-requiring. The smallish video size rather obscures a lot of what's going on. Case-in-point: at about the 10% HP mark on boss, my hero was at 2993 / 3000 HP. As opposed to our video recorder who died very early on.
By the way, for the data purists out there, all of the bosses abilities were created in the data editor, with the exception of the spiral psi storms.
I would actually prefer if someone were using a "premade."
I say this because I'd much rather someone spend time to create a boss for a map that they plan on releasing (or is already in circulation) than to create a boss in isolation that would never be seen again.
With that said, most of the entrants (so far) seem to have created the boss from scratch, even if they had pre-existing framework.
I created that DNA Wars boss battle... actually I only made that whole deal as an exercise in creating button prompts. And I don't think it's very good but that music sure did sync up absurdly well. If you're interested in any of the effects/triggers/whatever, you can find the map @: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/dna-wars/files/8-voldemon-demo/ Though it was made back in beta so I actually don't even know if it will open anymore.
Zaraf managed to pull me away from my Starcraft Tactics project to create a boss for this contest/his smashTV map. Hopefully we can come up with something neat!
0
@crazyfingers619: Go
An interesting read that sheds some light on their design philosophy. A highlight or two:
This explains that whole foray into the real ID bit (which is also discussed in more detail in the article). But I, for one, don't find it the LEAST bit hard to understand. People join facebook / twitter / myspace for the express purpose of having a social experience - of enhancing their social lives. Gamers do not play games for the same motivation at all - at the end of the day, many gamers do not play games to have a social experience. They play games to have fun (or take up time).
50,000 maps! Of which 0.1% are played with any regularity. I feel as if this fellow actually believes what he's saying and he's not all wrong. But I, at least, don't feel that the community is vibrant. I would describe it as largely disgruntled and disillusioned. Am I wrong?
0
@Bibendus: Go
When I saw the winners, I had zero motivation to load up SC2 and see if they were on B.Net. That, to me, is a failure. Very happy I did not participate.
Rocket Arena I can see. Photon cannon defense or whatever seemed god awfully boring - not only did I not want to play it, the fact that it WON caused me to realize how terrible most of the other custom maps were and I have since ceased playing SC2 at all. Again: that, to me, is a failure.
I didn't submit and so I feel like I've got a pretty neutral perspective. I don't even like most of the other authors who submitted works. But photon cannon defense (and potentially zergling round-up) are just insulting. Blizzard has insulted my intelligence and my taste in gaming.
0
@Eiviyn: Go
I think Bounty made the right choice. The custom map community just isn't there - I don't even play them anymore and I know that I am not the only one. Blizzard does put in some effort to improve editing / custom map community, but Colt has a point in that they have failed to make a single significant change in over half a year. They haven't even given a hint about what they're doing, and it's hard to design a map for a shadowy distribution system about which we know nothing. I have been working on, for example, an extensive single player campaign, but of late, I haven't bothered. Because there's really no delivery system available for it. What am I going to do? Release it as a zip file and have people play it by loading through the editor? Okay let's say I load it up through Battle.net - but I use a mouse-look camera and it performs horribly on B.Net. Actually, in general, there's a 10 to 20% decrease in frame-rate which is entirely inexplicable to me. I certainly can't upload the whole thing with the size restrictions I'm given, nor is loading from one map into another currently supported. They say they will add support, but when? The real issue at hand is that Bounty (and many other mapmakers) do not trust Blizzard anymore.
Insofar as Eiviyn / Colt argument. You both make silly remarks at one another. Colt, you have a point, but you are overly aggressive and therefore annoying. Though, what your detractors fail to understand (or, rather, they understand but fail to remark upon) is that if you were not so vitriolic, you would certainly not be as well remembered as you are, which is your goal.
Eiviyn, you yet seem to miss the point. While it is certainly foolish to have a hobby that you do not enjoy, Bounty's post is about how his once-enjoyable hobby was ruined by the popularity system / Blizzard. That is altogether reasonable. People don't just flip a switch between doing something and not doing it. Bounty enjoyed it once but gradually became disillusioned and wanted to vent. Why should his enjoyment of map-making not hinge on having a decent system to allow him to share that map? That purity nonsense about only taking pleasure from the mapmaking itself is just that. Nonsense.
Do you know how many people wrote novels before the printing press was invented?
0
@Mephs: Go
Don't really care much bout the argument either way.
But the letter's a waste. Not clever. Comes across as someone who just decided to randomly type out uninspired sarcasm. Which is exactly what it is.
0
I'm fairly excited about this. I enjoyed DOTA but the matchmaking system (i.e. WC3 custom games, i.e. non-existent) + community was atrocious. I simply became no longer willing to spend 2 hours to find 30 minutes of decent gameplay. While a direct port is somewhat strange, I actually believe this makes sense. Why change gameplay that is already highly successful? Plus I'm sure that Icefrog & team will continue to provide updates.
As far as LoL and HoN goes, I severely disliked LoL. My main issue was the match-making + levelup system. When I played LoL, I got so many victories in a row that, as a level 11, I was consistently matched with level 30s. While I understand the need to keep matches "fair", it's simply not fun for me to play people who have SIGNIFICANT game-provided stat & ability (they had a blink skill I could not use!) advantages over me.
Lastly, you cannot sign your rights away. Actually contracts (especially waivers) often fail to stand up in court. By no means does Blizzard own the idea of Dota nor even the heroes or skills; they may(1) own the map and certainly the WC3-based assets (sounds, models, etc.) but little else.
(1) I actually doubt Blizzard could successfully market the map without giving a % to Icefrog. I'm fairly confident that if Blizzard tried to sell Dota without giving a cut to Icefrog/other creators, then he could successfully sue them. On the other hand, the reverse is certainly true.
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@DanOwl: Go
Um. Did you try deselecting the unit flags "unselectable" and "untargetable"?
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@criss123: Go
I have to laugh at people blaming Rodrigo, as I place no blame on him at all.
This ban is extremely draconian. The words in Rodrigo's map HAVE NO CONTEXT. If a nine year old saw that word 'dyke' do you know that nine year old would think? Nothing. There is nothing at all offensive about it and to ban his map as a result is insane.
One of the marine models has him getting eviscerated - SLICED IN HALF - where the top half pops into the air and lands with blood pooling. And yet this one word is going to make a difference?
No fucking way. It's not Rodrigo's fault for using a word that has some negative connotations, how for example would I know if someone might be offended at the following words?
Objectionable because no person or group can appropriately attach judgmental terms to others. Just as
objectionable: Coconut for Mexican-Americans and Oreo for black Americans.
housing.
historical Japanese warrior class.
pejorative years ago.
And these are just a fraction of offensive words I found on a SINGLE website. Might as well not use the English language at all.
Edit: Made a post in that thread stating the same thing.
0
@Kueken531: Go
Your method is what most people use. Additionally, Blizzard already has an example of this - they used it for their Lost Viking game! (search for SS_ type effects and such)
0
@Bounty_98: Go
My issue with auto-attack isn't that it's boring per se, I just don't believe in the idea of a dedicated healer, which an auto-attacking boss usually demands. How many of the auto attack bosses created have dedicated healer heroes/units? All of them if I'm not mistaken.
There's a reason why most FPS no longer even use medkits - I remember well the days when Call of Duty had medkits and I remember my relief when CoD stopped using them. How many modern FPSes use medkits now? Very few because gathering medkits just didn't fit in an intense action game.
Now there's a huge difference between an FPS and an RPG or RTS, but I am finding that even MMOs are trying to steer clear of the idea of a dedicated healer. If you look through discussions of Guild Wars 2, for example, you'll see they have spread the healing abilities to all classes. And why wouldn't they? If you ever played WoW for any real period of time, you've experienced the great annoyance of trying to find a healer for a dungeon/raid. Sadly, they're often in short supply - because people like dealing damage!
Anyway I'm not trying to suggest that any of the bosses here with auto-attack suck or are boring, cause they aren't. Just explaining why I personally try to design bosses without auto-attack.
0
@RahnSCII: Go
I would suggest that this is true because WoW bosses tend to have a large amount of auto-attack. Even those with many phases or additional elements still use auto-attack as a baseline offense. While this sorta works (and is in fact necessary to give meaning to the accumulation of rare gear) with WoW and WoW's tank<>healer<>DPS role triangle, I don't believe it's the ideal approach for non-MMO bosses.
0
@Bibendus: Go
Yes :>
0
@Bounty_98: Go
I can attest (as I am the one who designed all of the boss's abilities) that the Smash TV boss, all the heroes, and all the cinematics (that were shown) were created entirely from scratch AFTER the contest started.
0
@draugruin: Go
Glad people still like that DNA Wars boss battle I made oh so long ago...
I have always appreciated the polish that Bibendus has put into Crush Company, though I felt the controls were a bit imprecise last I tried it on B.Net (WASD woes perhaps or maybe I'm just bad). And even though the Mengsk battle (as of this posting) has no votes, I appreciated the laser beams. I myself was a bit tempted to create something similar for our Smash TV fight but I didn't want to steal :O
As far as concerns that our smash TV fight is too hectic / no gameplay, I assure you it's not! Well maybe a bit hectic but definitely conquerable, learnable, and strategy-requiring. The smallish video size rather obscures a lot of what's going on. Case-in-point: at about the 10% HP mark on boss, my hero was at 2993 / 3000 HP. As opposed to our video recorder who died very early on.
By the way, for the data purists out there, all of the bosses abilities were created in the data editor, with the exception of the spiral psi storms.
0
@ZarafFaraz: Go
I would actually prefer if someone were using a "premade."
I say this because I'd much rather someone spend time to create a boss for a map that they plan on releasing (or is already in circulation) than to create a boss in isolation that would never be seen again.
With that said, most of the entrants (so far) seem to have created the boss from scratch, even if they had pre-existing framework.
0
@thommiej: Go
I created that DNA Wars boss battle... actually I only made that whole deal as an exercise in creating button prompts. And I don't think it's very good but that music sure did sync up absurdly well. If you're interested in any of the effects/triggers/whatever, you can find the map @: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/dna-wars/files/8-voldemon-demo/ Though it was made back in beta so I actually don't even know if it will open anymore.
Zaraf managed to pull me away from my Starcraft Tactics project to create a boss for this contest/his smashTV map. Hopefully we can come up with something neat!