Do you also tell people on TeamLiquid they should not whine about game balance because those are not Blizzard forums? You are free to ignore the thread, we won't hate you!
So I'm the rude one now, eh. You just insulted and mocked new (maybe inexperienced about how awesome Battle.net 0.2 is, sure why not) mapmakers for crying when their map doesn't get played, when the Wc3 system actually allowed you to find people for anything very easily, but "if people know your attitude" that's fine I guess... let's move on, I agree we are a bit off topic here.
You haven't really answered me though. If I'm the "common uninformed mapper", which I am, then where does your perspective and wisdom a-la "look at the greater picture you whiny peasants!" come from exactly? Please enlighten us with your direct mapping experience and something that isn't Blizzard telling the playerbase that the system can still be improved, we honestly only see a bugged patch that slightly improved something here and there but completely ignored valid suggestions posted on the forums during the last whole year. And failed.
Promoting niche non-mainstream maps is basically impossible now, and this is a damn fact. Doesn't really matter how good or original your creation is, without coordinated boosting after server restarts you can't climb that list with non-TD/Tug maps since nobody clicks past page 3 or wants to wait 20 minutes in an empty lobby for that matter. Also, seeing your map die for good just because the server decided to reset pop counters and nobody played it in the next few minutes is the single most frustrating thing you can experience, and it happens a lot.
Please don't tell others they do not know what they are talking about, the system IS indeed awful. This is a general board afterall and it's perfectly natural for the same discussions to repeat themselves if things don't f*ing get fixed after a year, this doesn't make them less true. My 2c, or monthly wall of text.
You people cannot grasp the entirety of the situation. Simple as that. I deduce it to you and others being either incredibly mentally retarded or simply "hurt" that "Aww, I made map but no one play it!! *cries*".
Its amusing to the say the least.
So uh... you are now calling people who actually manage maps and have a clue retarded?
It's just pathetic that you are allowed to moderate anything here.
Yeah, the popularity system is horrible, Blizzard sucks balls, they're not supporting 'the community', it's all Kotick's fault, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I've only just released a map that nobody really cares about in the slightest yet.
Enough, these replies are getting ridiculous.
Do you even know what you are talking about? I'm just curious, when was the last time any of you tried publishing a multiplayer map on Battle.net, or even successfully played in a full lobby past page three? Please englighten me - you must have a damn good reason to argue this system isn't fubar, we know it's pointless to create new threads but when a mapmaker comes here and politely points out the flaws of the system you shouldn't call them "illogical expectations" just because it's been like this for a year and Wc3 is something to forget even though it magically worked.
My page 3/4 map had its popularity counter locked for 18 hours and fell to page 20something because of that. It's not coming back anytime soon, because bookmarks are a tiny fraction of what people actually click and you know that. In the meanwhile the smart Battle.net playerbase was playing every single bad clone of popular maps they found on the first pages... but yep that was brilliant, we should bow down to Blizzard for finally doing something :)
Thanks for your feedback, Illi... Iil...Ilil... you there!
You can disable autorun in Map Settings -> Aggressive Stance (OFF). I wrote that in the Help, but I haven't found a better way to tell players yet since I'm already throwing a lot of informations at their face when the map starts :P
As for static matches, I agree new players often play like that and win/lose by HP count... I usually test new versions with experienced friends though (both on EU and NA) and bunkering never really happens, most solid builds are "techy" enough (air, casters) to allow aggressive plays when you have full vision from the tower. I dunno, arenas actually become fun and dynamic when you get the gist of them (and get used to Surrender quickly every time you fuck up and you know you're going to lose).
Of course I've always got a lot of ragequits and bored players... criticism and suggestions are most welcome. I've obviously played this quite a lot and you might be annoyed by things I'm not really noticing anymore :)
They are not opened. They are preloaded (uploaded from players to the server) which is different.
Preloading big banks doesn't cause problems anymore afaik.
Reading and processing too many of those values without delays, though, does.
All stuff you put in the "Map Initialization" trigger is executed at the very last moment of the loading screen, before you actually get to see the map... if it fails for any reason, the map can't start at all. If you have Wait actions in it, however, everything that follows obviously needs the game timer to initialize first.
I have a fully working Top100 ranking system in place which requires 700ms (which really is a lot of CPU time) to decode and process completely on my PC, in case you are worried about the impact on the server, and I've been pushing bank limitations since May. As you can see from this (just a bank with dummy records I use for local tests, actual online banks hold additional informations) I preload pretty big savefiles for up to 9 players in the lobby.
My findings:
- Loading big compressed strings is MUCH faster than preloading a lot of integers one by one. Also, when the map takes too much to load someone WILL crash... so don't preload every single sound you use in game, just the ones that will be used in the first minutes to avoid that awful starting client lag.
- My encryption algorhytm (md5sum-like parity check, actually) was too complex before I optimized it, and occasionally made everyone crash after 1 second for the very same reason.
- I can safely load the first bank in the Map Initialization thread, as long as it doesn't load immediately. If I don't set a delay, someone occasionally gets the "Desynced!" server message along with a corrupted bank.
- Same happens if I try to load and process all 9 banks at once, that's a guaranteed desync, I need something like a 1 second delay inbetween banks.
- Only the first 7xx characters of each string are loaded, that's why I needed to split Rankings data in 11 different chunks. Loading partial strings doesn't cause crashes though afaik.
- Patch 1.2 removed size limitations, I could barely have a Top40 before that.
- I tried Blizzard signatures when they were implemented and scrapped them quickly. When a genuine check fails, chances are the player itself will get dropped for some reason.
The most overhyped maps on B.Net fell down to page XX and died in a matter of days.
So much for "you just need to advertise your maps" uh Blizzard? :P
But yeah, they DO know how frustrating their system can be now. And that's good.
They also Featured them...
except their maps DO have a category, while others still don't (you can only see them with the ALL filter).
If any of you ever wondered why it's so hard to play Featured maps, it's because they aren't listed elsewhere.
Doesn't bother me honestly, they can stick them there for months, page 3+ maps won't be affected.
As long as they understand the reason they had to...
My map is nowhere near the popular definition with just 440 bookmarks, but I get spammed with the "omg y u no change this" crap every once in a while so I know how annoying that can be. I just play with my Busy status on, enjoy my clean screen and tell people inbetween games that Battle.net is the only place where I do not discuss about map balance.
About Up & Coming... scores should not "start" from anywhere, why are they on a 0-100 scale in the first place? Make them reflect the % of players pushing that nice FUN button, it's a no brainer really. Then remove from that list all maps without enough votes or with a played counter greater than X and you have a working system. I know, that would actually make sense and it's Battle.net we are talking about here... :|
0
Do you also tell people on TeamLiquid they should not whine about game balance because those are not Blizzard forums? You are free to ignore the thread, we won't hate you!
0
@EternalWraith: Go
So I'm the rude one now, eh. You just insulted and mocked new (maybe inexperienced about how awesome Battle.net 0.2 is, sure why not) mapmakers for crying when their map doesn't get played, when the Wc3 system actually allowed you to find people for anything very easily, but "if people know your attitude" that's fine I guess... let's move on, I agree we are a bit off topic here.
You haven't really answered me though. If I'm the "common uninformed mapper", which I am, then where does your perspective and wisdom a-la "look at the greater picture you whiny peasants!" come from exactly? Please enlighten us with your direct mapping experience and something that isn't Blizzard telling the playerbase that the system can still be improved, we honestly only see a bugged patch that slightly improved something here and there but completely ignored valid suggestions posted on the forums during the last whole year. And failed.
Promoting niche non-mainstream maps is basically impossible now, and this is a damn fact. Doesn't really matter how good or original your creation is, without coordinated boosting after server restarts you can't climb that list with non-TD/Tug maps since nobody clicks past page 3 or wants to wait 20 minutes in an empty lobby for that matter. Also, seeing your map die for good just because the server decided to reset pop counters and nobody played it in the next few minutes is the single most frustrating thing you can experience, and it happens a lot.
Please don't tell others they do not know what they are talking about, the system IS indeed awful. This is a general board afterall and it's perfectly natural for the same discussions to repeat themselves if things don't f*ing get fixed after a year, this doesn't make them less true. My 2c, or monthly wall of text.
0
Yet I have the felling something is wrong here! :P
0
So uh... you are now calling people who actually manage maps and have a clue retarded?
It's just pathetic that you are allowed to moderate anything here.
0
Enough, these replies are getting ridiculous.
Do you even know what you are talking about? I'm just curious, when was the last time any of you tried publishing a multiplayer map on Battle.net, or even successfully played in a full lobby past page three? Please englighten me - you must have a damn good reason to argue this system isn't fubar, we know it's pointless to create new threads but when a mapmaker comes here and politely points out the flaws of the system you shouldn't call them "illogical expectations" just because it's been like this for a year and Wc3 is something to forget even though it magically worked.
I'm sorry, this is just stupid.
0
for each K from 1 to playersMax
if K = triggering player
do something on K.
players already are integers :)
0
Right.
My page 3/4 map had its popularity counter locked for 18 hours and fell to page 20something because of that. It's not coming back anytime soon, because bookmarks are a tiny fraction of what people actually click and you know that. In the meanwhile the smart Battle.net playerbase was playing every single bad clone of popular maps they found on the first pages... but yep that was brilliant, we should bow down to Blizzard for finally doing something :)
How about no.
0
Thanks for your feedback, Illi... Iil...Ilil... you there!
You can disable autorun in Map Settings -> Aggressive Stance (OFF). I wrote that in the Help, but I haven't found a better way to tell players yet since I'm already throwing a lot of informations at their face when the map starts :P
As for static matches, I agree new players often play like that and win/lose by HP count... I usually test new versions with experienced friends though (both on EU and NA) and bunkering never really happens, most solid builds are "techy" enough (air, casters) to allow aggressive plays when you have full vision from the tower. I dunno, arenas actually become fun and dynamic when you get the gist of them (and get used to Surrender quickly every time you fuck up and you know you're going to lose).
Of course I've always got a lot of ragequits and bored players... criticism and suggestions are most welcome. I've obviously played this quite a lot and you might be annoyed by things I'm not really noticing anymore :)
0
They are not opened. They are preloaded (uploaded from players to the server) which is different.
Preloading big banks doesn't cause problems anymore afaik.
Reading and processing too many of those values without delays, though, does.
All stuff you put in the "Map Initialization" trigger is executed at the very last moment of the loading screen, before you actually get to see the map... if it fails for any reason, the map can't start at all. If you have Wait actions in it, however, everything that follows obviously needs the game timer to initialize first.
0
I have a fully working Top100 ranking system in place which requires 700ms (which really is a lot of CPU time) to decode and process completely on my PC, in case you are worried about the impact on the server, and I've been pushing bank limitations since May. As you can see from this (just a bank with dummy records I use for local tests, actual online banks hold additional informations) I preload pretty big savefiles for up to 9 players in the lobby.
http://paste.sc2mapster.com/3421/
(file size usually around 9-10k)
Haven't crashed once since patch 1.3
My findings:
- Loading big compressed strings is MUCH faster than preloading a lot of integers one by one. Also, when the map takes too much to load someone WILL crash... so don't preload every single sound you use in game, just the ones that will be used in the first minutes to avoid that awful starting client lag.
- My encryption algorhytm (md5sum-like parity check, actually) was too complex before I optimized it, and occasionally made everyone crash after 1 second for the very same reason.
- I can safely load the first bank in the Map Initialization thread, as long as it doesn't load immediately. If I don't set a delay, someone occasionally gets the "Desynced!" server message along with a corrupted bank.
- Same happens if I try to load and process all 9 banks at once, that's a guaranteed desync, I need something like a 1 second delay inbetween banks.
- Only the first 7xx characters of each string are loaded, that's why I needed to split Rankings data in 11 different chunks. Loading partial strings doesn't cause crashes though afaik.
- Patch 1.2 removed size limitations, I could barely have a Top40 before that.
- I tried Blizzard signatures when they were implemented and scrapped them quickly. When a genuine check fails, chances are the player itself will get dropped for some reason.
0
The most overhyped maps on B.Net fell down to page XX and died in a matter of days.
So much for "you just need to advertise your maps" uh Blizzard? :P
But yeah, they DO know how frustrating their system can be now. And that's good.
0
They also Featured them...
except their maps DO have a category, while others still don't (you can only see them with the ALL filter).
If any of you ever wondered why it's so hard to play Featured maps, it's because they aren't listed elsewhere.
Doesn't bother me honestly, they can stick them there for months, page 3+ maps won't be affected.
As long as they understand the reason they had to...
0
pretty much.
0
My map is nowhere near the popular definition with just 440 bookmarks, but I get spammed with the "omg y u no change this" crap every once in a while so I know how annoying that can be. I just play with my Busy status on, enjoy my clean screen and tell people inbetween games that Battle.net is the only place where I do not discuss about map balance.
0
This is all they need to fix Fun or Not imo (bump if you agree):
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2301723307
About Up & Coming... scores should not "start" from anywhere, why are they on a 0-100 scale in the first place? Make them reflect the % of players pushing that nice FUN button, it's a no brainer really. Then remove from that list all maps without enough votes or with a played counter greater than X and you have a working system. I know, that would actually make sense and it's Battle.net we are talking about here... :|