The purpose of this is to trim the forum list, merge related threads or delete threads that nobody goes to (Heroes of the Storm).
- The introduction thread will give users a place to start posting, maybe give users Curse points for posting here? I've talked to at least 5 people who visit the SC2mapster site but is too shy to post. This thread can build rapport and give users an opportunity to ask any on the spot questions they have.
- Map Showcase is for showing what map you just made or sharing a map you played and want to provide feedback on it. - Project Workplace will be the combination of other threads that are about general map development
Note: My suggestions here would be opened to heavy revisions since I only visit a few threads.
Stage 9: If the adding the wikipedia back is causing problems, we will then instead create a http://www.gamepedia.com/ wiki site. Ahh look at this black background so pretty :).
Stage 10: Allow map uploads to have the option of uploading a map OR providing a link to the map found in battle.net That way, map authors can have a place to discuss their map using the map project functions without sacrificing their hard work.
Conclusion Thank you again for your time to read this epic multi post report. At the end of the day, as long as the rest of the content is fixed then we should be good. The faster load times of the site makes browsing SC2mapster less annoying. I am optimistic with this new update; here is hoping we'll be getting more anti-spam measures soon!
"That's why it's so important that we keep this discussion going. As we pool the wants and needs from this community and the others together - SC2Mapster isn't so small, then."
Time to all SC2mapster users! :P Lets get their feedback in too.
Will we get additional features in the future? Mrflamegoat said he doesn't have and concrete answers to their capabilities but from what I can tell, it looks like the core site is. After reading Mrflamegoat's responses, this is what I gather:
- I'm going to guess that Curse does not have any plans to add any additional features to SC2mapster at this time because it is actually physically impossible.
- The only possible kind of changes they can provide are fixing bugs.
- Curse staff has decided to make CurseFORGE sites ENTERPRISED, meaning all the code of all sites will be the same. This decision is a logical decision as it provides efficiency to oversee several sites and also being able to do the work of maintaining one site that gets copied over to all the CurseFORGE sites.
- The design of the new CurseFORGE sites have been finalized and locked long time ago.
- Ever since Curse dev finalized the webcode, they've actually been working day and night upgrading each CurseFORGE site with SC2mapster being one of the last FORGE communities to get the upgrade. - Reason why SC2mapster is one of the last websites to get the upgrade is because SC2mapster was a one-of-a-kind site and that the dev wasn't an active employee Curse. This gave more reason to change the site to a centralized system.
If you were responsible of continuing the CurseFORGE upgrade, what would you do? Lets say it is indeed impossible to add changes at this time. You'd have to undermine the whole system or do a big redo so that SC2mapster can be feature-ready. If I was part of the Curse Team, I would do this:
Stage 1: Introduce the CurseFORGE dev team with the Curse Minecraft dev team Stage 2: Effective immediately, I would create an internal project called: "CurseFORGE Forum upgrade" where we will reassign some Minecraft dev staff to work with the CurseFORGE team. Since the CurseFORGE is now centralized, each CurseFORGE site will benefit from this continued upgrade. Stage 3: With the loss of some Curse Minecraft dev staff, we can do some temporary redistribution of work responsibilities. What I would do is temporarily promote experienced other Curse developers as team-leaders and be responsible for overseeing a handful of new Curse employees. Effective immediately, the new Curse employees would undergo a "Curse career growth" opportunity by being trained to work on Minecraft customer support duties.
Stage 4: With the new project setup, we would replace CurseFORGE forums to Xenforo forums and continue to tweak and upgrade the software to make it modular to be able to attach, detach features on different CurseFORGE sites. We will also maintain the "centralized" direction so that some of the web code can be overseen by all the CurseFORGE sites.
Xenforo is a forum software platform that I believe the Curse Minecraft dev is using already. The xenforo template is the same as the one in the minecraft sites. Stage 5: We would copy and paste the breadcrumbs found in the Feed The beast Forums.
In our situation, we have a front page that we cannot change at all, its part of the centralized code. But what if we can change the forums? Thats why I would have my Curse staff work together in copying the forum code and use that instead. That forum code has a "Homepage" that we can use like our old home page. This will be easier to pitch to the Operation Managers of Curse because it would be efficient than having to redo the work of our centralized code.
Stage 6: Once Home Forums page is added, I would modify it like this:
Latest Threads - This will display 4-5 of the latest forum posts. News Module - Just like the legacy format. This will be more unique because all news will be archived in the forums as the first row. All websites do this. For example, when Mrflamegoat created the News about the update happening soon, that expanded page was formatted to display comments from bottom to top. That format makes discussion reading awkward. In fact, it has made news discussion awkward since this site came out... Why no carousel? Carousel is that module that auto slideshows different pictures, you see it in the Battle.net launcher and lots of websites. I LOVE the carousel and it is a nice design feature however, considering most of the content here is not picture oriented, there would be no use for it. This would put extra work for staff to find and crop pictures and require News to have a nice graphic title in front of the picture. I would LOVE to do that but alas, I'm not staff and I don't think anyone else would want to do that. Project of the Week - Every week, a project from the Project Page will be displayed here. Similar to the News Module, PotW will be unique because it would be a throwback, a retro look, a hidden gem display. My ideal module would allow staff to be able to set a "playlist" of maps and just display partial information of that project page. Also, if possible, Staff can automate this module to set specific parameters of displaying PotW, for example, "maps that have at least 100 downloads" or "maps that have been published for at least 3 months". Wiki of the Week -Every week, a wiki page will be displayed here. Just like PotW, we can have a "playlist" of wikipages.
Current Users Online - This will display current (non spam) users followed by a comma and displaying up to 10. The order will not be alphabetical but order of time logged in. Staff such as Moderators and Admins will have Green and Red color respectively. Use Bukkit.org as an example. Stage 7: I would change the Menu links to this:
Note: All the arrows are drop-down menus that display when you hover the mouse. For mobile users, they need to tap the link.
Home - is for the Home Forums. To go back to the main Homepage, you can click on the SC2mapster logo. About Us - it will redirect you to a stickies news thread that describes the website's objective. Its like writing a prospectus for an essay. We will also display our basic forum rules here. Finally, we will display a list of moderators the news module will display Wiki/Tutorials - This is our wikipedia pages which will also house user made tutorials. Shoutbox - SC2mapster's chat room. It can be either an expanded browser mode of the IRC, a new tab of browser IRC or maybe our own chat database. Check out this example: http://www.staredit.net/forums/ and then scroll to the very bottom. They have a small chat box. Another idea is to have the shoutbox be displayed as a thin horizontal module between Top menu links and the start of the forums.
Radio - an optional experiment feature where users can DJ their songs and share with SC2mapster users live. We can maybe designate specific SC2mapster members with DJ capabilities as well as have a displayed scheduled when they would come on. Maybe it can also be used as a podcast to discuss and talk about LiveStreams - an optional experimental feature where we would create a Twitch webpage and designate SC2mapsters to stream their development work, playing Starcraft 2 Arcade, or other games. check out hive's example: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/streams/ Rewards -I would display the Rewards in other places besides the front page. They will be also be located in the project area, Team area and Dashboard.
"...you did hit on something that I feel IS important and IS objectively true. It doesn't feel like what this community is all about. I want you to know personally, that we ARE aware of that :]"
Mrflamegoat, I appreciate you listening to us. Its time for me to provide my own requests. Some of them have been already mentioned several times BUT.. I want to explain my requests in my own way. May you revisit this section again in the future once all site functionality is 100%. Lets begin!
Life of some SC2mapster users A lot of the users in this community here are dedicated mappers and Starcraft/Warcraft gamers. Besides eat, sleep and work, this is our daily routine:
Besides the website and the game, there are other places where a SC2mapster user is still only exposed to a dark pallete. You talk about how consistent all the CurseFORGE websites are now? Well, my argument is that SC2mapster users are exposed to a consistent pallete of dark colors in different websites and applications. Ifonewindow is different, itwillbecome aneyesorelikethissentence. If Bnet launcher, Galaxy Editor, Bnet forums, SC2 menu and SC2 gameplay was more bright, if starcraft 2 was a happy and sunshine game, then we'd be celebrating a forum that is finally a consistant with the Starcraft 2 theme.
Life of some Minecraft users Mrflamegoat, I've recently visited your twitch channel and was happy to see that you too are a Minecraft player. By the way, how is the Project Ozone 2 modpack? I'm still playing FTB infinity skyblock. Anyway, as a Minecraft player, this is what we are exposed too:
Bright Mojang Logo, bright blue sky, Brightness set to bright so you don't have to use torches while mining, watching PopularMMOs youtube channel, checking to see why your plugin doesn't work. Everything bright!
Can you imagine if the Minecraft websites were different?
You're comfortable with that because you're mostly exposed to that pallete. I play both games and I'm exposed to both. So I'm comfortable with both. So I hope this brings some more understanding where some users stand on the visuals. To everyone: There is no right and wrong, only preference.
SC2mapster Activity vs other CurseFORGE Activity
For our non-english speakers, let me explain the graph above. The blue rectangle represents SC2mapster and the orange is other CurseFORGE websites. The left rectangles represent forum participation while the right rectangles represent Project/Assets upload activity. My point is to explain Mrflamegoat that both Forum and project activity is high. Reason being is simply that map development for Starcraft 2 is one of the most advance programs to use. The SC2mapster forums is our interactive instruction manual. Nobody user can develop Starcraft 2 maps without it.
In Minecraft, I can open up Mavel and work on commands like /sethome and make them into a plugin. I can go to those Minecraft skin editors websites and create my own skin. I don't need to use the forums constantly while working on minecraft projects.
House Analogy
Here is another unique visual. In house of CurseFORGE, the project page is located in the entrance of the house since that is where most of the activity is from. Other CurseFORGE sites barely use the forums so respectively they are located below the house where the pipes and rats are.
In house of SC2mapster, there are no rooms, no basement, no 2nd floor. Just one big open room. A SC2mapster user have 2 tabs opened - the project/Assets page and the Forums page. Minimized is the galaxy editor while the Starcraft launcher is ready to go.
The point of this odd picture is to show Mrflamegoat that us SC2mapster equally values the Starcraft 2 game, the Project page, the Forum page and the Galaxy Editor. The SC2mapster forums is not a "last resort" resource website but rather a vital link in the chain of programs opened while developing. If you see a SC2mapster user with duel monitors. I can guarentee that their setup is this: 1 monitor will have the SC2 game and Galaxy Editor while the 2nd monitor will have full screened the forums.
I want to help SC2mapster and Mrflamegoat get a better understanding of each other. To do that, I want to provide information for both parties to understand; i'm going to give a rundown on what Curse does and I'm also going to give examples of what we want here in SC2mapster. With all the information outlined and detailed, it will give a better visual of SC2mapster standpoint vs Mrflamegoat standpoint. Time to get back on track on our conversation with Curse to see if we can continue getting more and better changes to SC2mapster community. Let us begin!
" Curse, Inc. is home to more than 65 of the web’s most sought after gaming sites. Our sites include wikis, news, guides, tools and databases all combining to create some of the world’s deepest and richest gaming communities. Each of our sites are built around individual game titles, delivering the ultimate experience for gamers seeking to congregate around coverage that is relevant to their gaming interests. All Curse sites run on our world-class, proprietary publishing platforms Cobalt and Hydra."
World of Curse So what other websites does Curse have? After researching, I discovered a lot of websites and applications by Curse. The picture below is a representation of what Curse manages:
Did you know Curse manages all these websites!? When I visited some sites, it gave me a friendly reminder that we're not alone in the Curse world. In the picture above, the size of each bubble is an estimate of how big those communities are. The bigger the bubble, the higher activity. If you are interested in checking out other Curse websites, here is a list:
Where is SC2mapster located? SC2mapster is located in the CurseFORGE bubble near the top right. CurseFORGE are special websites that have project upload capabilities. The picture below shows all the CurseFORGE websites.
CurseFORGE management. Before and After contact with Mr. Squirrels
If you can recall a post by a Curse Admin explaining to us why there are spam and no updates on the website. He mentioned that the SC2mapster code is outdated and the developer was hard to contact. My assumption is that they were able to reach Mr. Squirrels to help upgrade and help along with other CurseFORGE sites.
"As we’ve been doing with all of our legacy sites, we’re moving over to our latest and greatest project backend and forum software which once complete, gives us much better visibility over operations and allows our staff to more easily keep an eye on things. As well as providing a code base we have much more control over to stay on top of bugs, issues, features. Most of our communities are rather small..."
New CurseFORGE frontpages
Like what Mrflamegoat said, with the new upgrades we are given these Benefits:
- if someone finds a bug, even if they only browse Bukkit.org, SC2mapster can benefit from the fix as well!
- Better and updated security (work in progress as I just saw 2 spam posts earlier).
- added features since the web code is manageable, meaning less obstacles.
Mrflamegoat, the web developer
"As for the other concerns that have been brought up here - they're all being addressed or will be addressed. We've already made a few changes and will continue tweaking and moving and pushing and prodding until we find a happy balance. Christmas is coming up soon, most people are out of the office, it's a perfect time for me to settle in and get all this feedback together so I can give the developers plenty to do for their New Years Resolutions."
We must understand that Mrflamegoat and company are more "Web Developer" oriented and that is not a bad thing. Would you rather Curse add cool snow animations and then accidentally release our passwords? The back-end system is now organized and every single CurseFORGE site is now Centralized. 99% of all forum sites out there have this standard white background... so that is where Mrflamegoat is coming from. If they change visuals, it would have to be across all sites, and I know for a fact that hundreds of other curse users wouldn't like it.
"This is a much larger job than most understand - we're not a small site by any means and things that "seem" trivial, just aren't. That's not to say we won't ever revisit this, but we want to focus more on big picture features, fixes, and just getting things running smooth long before we approach the visuals. Sorry!"
Queen's Grievances "Don't stop speaking up :] There's good stuff there, and I definitely still want to hear it."
Although I've been showing some understanding, its time for me to take a turn. I want to express some grievances. This update is long overdue. It is hard for us SC2mapster members to complain because on one hand, this is a free website and we're don't want to take Curse for granted. On the other hand, if you are providing a free website with a description with what you want to achieve, then take responsibility in keeping your service objective. Reading the previous posts is a bit sad and embarrassing because some of the compliments are basic common forum functionality found elsewhere, even in old forums that are even outdated. You know the website is so bad when:
Users are complimenting that the site doesn't take few minutes to load anymore.
Spam is finally minimal or non-existent.
Reply box now use bbcode functions that was already improved back in 2010.
How do you make this corner buildable? It has to be an island. One alternative way was that I extended the corner and placed stuff down. I don't want to put any doodad or unit down.
Outside of SC2 I have played Shadow of Mordor, its pretty fun but in the end game you become so OP its funny.
I have Shadow of Morder. Its a really fun game, I read that the developers used to work on the 1st Assassin Creed Game. The game is like Assassin Creed in Lord of the Rings + polished game design.
i've been a fan of the CNC series. I've mustve played the 1st game campaign many times both GDI and NOD. I can do a rough terrain of most of the levels by memory. I posted a thread on the CNClabs forums to see if anyone wants to start a conversation mod or a mod that has the CNC Generals style but i didn't get any interested responses. I'm always interested in this but I don't think anyone else is interested.
Per QueenGambit's map making tradition (where I revisit old project notes and start working on a map then loose interest and play another game), I found an online flowchart I used to work on. It is called: Lucidchart http://www.lucidchart.com
Lucidchart is a free online flowchart maker. This can be useful for
- General campaign story planning
- Custom tech tree development
- Map terrain organizing
Here is an example of what I used it for:
In the picture above, I created several grey hallow boxes that represent different levels. Then I designated specific shapes for points of interest (Player Spawn, Enemy Main spawn, NPC base, etc). Next, I used arrows to represent ground/air pathing. What do you guys think?
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Stage 8: Rearrange the Forums
The purpose of this is to trim the forum list, merge related threads or delete threads that nobody goes to (Heroes of the Storm).
- The introduction thread will give users a place to start posting, maybe give users Curse points for posting here? I've talked to at least 5 people who visit the SC2mapster site but is too shy to post. This thread can build rapport and give users an opportunity to ask any on the spot questions they have.
- Map Showcase is for showing what map you just made or sharing a map you played and want to provide feedback on it.
- Project Workplace will be the combination of other threads that are about general map development
Note: My suggestions here would be opened to heavy revisions since I only visit a few threads.
Stage 9: If the adding the wikipedia back is causing problems, we will then instead create a http://www.gamepedia.com/ wiki site.
Ahh look at this black background so pretty :).
Stage 10: Allow map uploads to have the option of uploading a map OR providing a link to the map found in battle.net
That way, map authors can have a place to discuss their map using the map project functions without sacrificing their hard work.
Conclusion
Thank you again for your time to read this epic multi post report. At the end of the day, as long as the rest of the content is fixed then we should be good. The faster load times of the site makes browsing SC2mapster less annoying. I am optimistic with this new update; here is hoping we'll be getting more anti-spam measures soon!
"That's why it's so important that we keep this discussion going. As we pool the wants and needs from this community and the others together - SC2Mapster isn't so small, then."
Time to all SC2mapster users! :P Lets get their feedback in too.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
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Will we get additional features in the future?
Mrflamegoat said he doesn't have and concrete answers to their capabilities but from what I can tell, it looks like the core site is. After reading Mrflamegoat's responses, this is what I gather:
- I'm going to guess that Curse does not have any plans to add any additional features to SC2mapster at this time because it is actually physically impossible.
- The only possible kind of changes they can provide are fixing bugs.
- Curse staff has decided to make CurseFORGE sites ENTERPRISED, meaning all the code of all sites will be the same. This decision is a logical decision as it provides efficiency to oversee several sites and also being able to do the work of maintaining one site that gets copied over to all the CurseFORGE sites.
- The design of the new CurseFORGE sites have been finalized and locked long time ago.
- Ever since Curse dev finalized the webcode, they've actually been working day and night upgrading each CurseFORGE site with SC2mapster being one of the last FORGE communities to get the upgrade.
- Reason why SC2mapster is one of the last websites to get the upgrade is because SC2mapster was a one-of-a-kind site and that the dev wasn't an active employee Curse. This gave more reason to change the site to a centralized system.
If you were responsible of continuing the CurseFORGE upgrade, what would you do?
Lets say it is indeed impossible to add changes at this time. You'd have to undermine the whole system or do a big redo so that SC2mapster can be feature-ready. If I was part of the Curse Team, I would do this:
Stage 1: Introduce the CurseFORGE dev team with the Curse Minecraft dev team
Stage 2: Effective immediately, I would create an internal project called: "CurseFORGE Forum upgrade" where we will reassign some Minecraft dev staff to work with the CurseFORGE team. Since the CurseFORGE is now centralized, each CurseFORGE site will benefit from this continued upgrade.
Stage 3: With the loss of some Curse Minecraft dev staff, we can do some temporary redistribution of work responsibilities. What I would do is temporarily promote experienced other Curse developers as team-leaders and be responsible for overseeing a handful of new Curse employees. Effective immediately, the new Curse employees would undergo a "Curse career growth" opportunity by being trained to work on Minecraft customer support duties.
Stage 4: With the new project setup, we would replace CurseFORGE forums to Xenforo forums and continue to tweak and upgrade the software to make it modular to be able to attach, detach features on different CurseFORGE sites. We will also maintain the "centralized" direction so that some of the web code can be overseen by all the CurseFORGE sites.
Xenforo is a forum software platform that I believe the Curse Minecraft dev is using already. The xenforo template is the same as the one in the minecraft sites.
Stage 5: We would copy and paste the breadcrumbs found in the Feed The beast Forums.
In our situation, we have a front page that we cannot change at all, its part of the centralized code. But what if we can change the forums? Thats why I would have my Curse staff work together in copying the forum code and use that instead. That forum code has a "Homepage" that we can use like our old home page. This will be easier to pitch to the Operation Managers of Curse because it would be efficient than having to redo the work of our centralized code.
Stage 6: Once Home Forums page is added, I would modify it like this:
Latest Threads - This will display 4-5 of the latest forum posts.
News Module - Just like the legacy format. This will be more unique because all news will be archived in the forums as the first row. All websites do this. For example, when Mrflamegoat created the News about the update happening soon, that expanded page was formatted to display comments from bottom to top. That format makes discussion reading awkward. In fact, it has made news discussion awkward since this site came out...
Why no carousel? Carousel is that module that auto slideshows different pictures, you see it in the Battle.net launcher and lots of websites. I LOVE the carousel and it is a nice design feature however, considering most of the content here is not picture oriented, there would be no use for it. This would put extra work for staff to find and crop pictures and require News to have a nice graphic title in front of the picture. I would LOVE to do that but alas, I'm not staff and I don't think anyone else would want to do that.
Project of the Week - Every week, a project from the Project Page will be displayed here. Similar to the News Module, PotW will be unique because it would be a throwback, a retro look, a hidden gem display. My ideal module would allow staff to be able to set a "playlist" of maps and just display partial information of that project page. Also, if possible, Staff can automate this module to set specific parameters of displaying PotW, for example, "maps that have at least 100 downloads" or "maps that have been published for at least 3 months".
Wiki of the Week - Every week, a wiki page will be displayed here. Just like PotW, we can have a "playlist" of wikipages.
Current Users Online - This will display current (non spam) users followed by a comma and displaying up to 10. The order will not be alphabetical but order of time logged in. Staff such as Moderators and Admins will have Green and Red color respectively. Use Bukkit.org as an example.
Stage 7: I would change the Menu links to this:
Note: All the arrows are drop-down menus that display when you hover the mouse. For mobile users, they need to tap the link.
Home - is for the Home Forums. To go back to the main Homepage, you can click on the SC2mapster logo.
About Us - it will redirect you to a stickies news thread that describes the website's objective. Its like writing a prospectus for an essay. We will also display our basic forum rules here. Finally, we will display a list of moderators the news module will display
Wiki/Tutorials - This is our wikipedia pages which will also house user made tutorials.
Shoutbox - SC2mapster's chat room. It can be either an expanded browser mode of the IRC, a new tab of browser IRC or maybe our own chat database. Check out this example: http://www.staredit.net/forums/ and then scroll to the very bottom. They have a small chat box. Another idea is to have the shoutbox be displayed as a thin horizontal module between Top menu links and the start of the forums.
Radio - an optional experiment feature where users can DJ their songs and share with SC2mapster users live. We can maybe designate specific SC2mapster members with DJ capabilities as well as have a displayed scheduled when they would come on. Maybe it can also be used as a podcast to discuss and talk about
LiveStreams - an optional experimental feature where we would create a Twitch webpage and designate SC2mapsters to stream their development work, playing Starcraft 2 Arcade, or other games. check out hive's example: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/streams/
Rewards - I would display the Rewards in other places besides the front page. They will be also be located in the project area, Team area and Dashboard.
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"...you did hit on something that I feel IS important and IS objectively true. It doesn't feel like what this community is all about. I want you to know personally, that we ARE aware of that :]"
Mrflamegoat, I appreciate you listening to us. Its time for me to provide my own requests. Some of them have been already mentioned several times BUT.. I want to explain my requests in my own way. May you revisit this section again in the future once all site functionality is 100%. Lets begin!
Life of some SC2mapster users
A lot of the users in this community here are dedicated mappers and Starcraft/Warcraft gamers. Besides eat, sleep and work, this is our daily routine:
Besides the website and the game, there are other places where a SC2mapster user is still only exposed to a dark pallete. You talk about how consistent all the CurseFORGE websites are now? Well, my argument is that SC2mapster users are exposed to a consistent pallete of dark colors in different websites and applications. If one window is different, it will become an eyesore like this sentence. If Bnet launcher, Galaxy Editor, Bnet forums, SC2 menu and SC2 gameplay was more bright, if starcraft 2 was a happy and sunshine game, then we'd be celebrating a forum that is finally a consistant with the Starcraft 2 theme.
Life of some Minecraft users
Mrflamegoat, I've recently visited your twitch channel and was happy to see that you too are a Minecraft player. By the way, how is the Project Ozone 2 modpack? I'm still playing FTB infinity skyblock. Anyway, as a Minecraft player, this is what we are exposed too:
Bright Mojang Logo, bright blue sky, Brightness set to bright so you don't have to use torches while mining, watching PopularMMOs youtube channel, checking to see why your plugin doesn't work. Everything bright!
Can you imagine if the Minecraft websites were different?
You're comfortable with that because you're mostly exposed to that pallete. I play both games and I'm exposed to both. So I'm comfortable with both. So I hope this brings some more understanding where some users stand on the visuals. To everyone: There is no right and wrong, only preference.
SC2mapster Activity vs other CurseFORGE Activity
For our non-english speakers, let me explain the graph above. The blue rectangle represents SC2mapster and the orange is other CurseFORGE websites. The left rectangles represent forum participation while the right rectangles represent Project/Assets upload activity. My point is to explain Mrflamegoat that both Forum and project activity is high. Reason being is simply that map development for Starcraft 2 is one of the most advance programs to use. The SC2mapster forums is our interactive instruction manual. Nobody user can develop Starcraft 2 maps without it.
In Minecraft, I can open up Mavel and work on commands like /sethome and make them into a plugin. I can go to those Minecraft skin editors websites and create my own skin. I don't need to use the forums constantly while working on minecraft projects.
House Analogy
Here is another unique visual. In house of CurseFORGE, the project page is located in the entrance of the house since that is where most of the activity is from. Other CurseFORGE sites barely use the forums so respectively they are located below the house where the pipes and rats are.
In house of SC2mapster, there are no rooms, no basement, no 2nd floor. Just one big open room. A SC2mapster user have 2 tabs opened - the project/Assets page and the Forums page. Minimized is the galaxy editor while the Starcraft launcher is ready to go.
The point of this odd picture is to show Mrflamegoat that us SC2mapster equally values the Starcraft 2 game, the Project page, the Forum page and the Galaxy Editor. The SC2mapster forums is not a "last resort" resource website but rather a vital link in the chain of programs opened while developing. If you see a SC2mapster user with duel monitors. I can guarentee that their setup is this: 1 monitor will have the SC2 game and Galaxy Editor while the 2nd monitor will have full screened the forums.
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I want to help SC2mapster and Mrflamegoat get a better understanding of each other. To do that, I want to provide information for both parties to understand; i'm going to give a rundown on what Curse does and I'm also going to give examples of what we want here in SC2mapster. With all the information outlined and detailed, it will give a better visual of SC2mapster standpoint vs Mrflamegoat standpoint. Time to get back on track on our conversation with Curse to see if we can continue getting more and better changes to SC2mapster community. Let us begin!
" Curse, Inc. is home to more than 65 of the web’s most sought after gaming sites. Our sites include wikis, news, guides, tools and databases all combining to create some of the world’s deepest and richest gaming communities. Each of our sites are built around individual game titles, delivering the ultimate experience for gamers seeking to congregate around coverage that is relevant to their gaming interests. All Curse sites run on our world-class, proprietary publishing platforms Cobalt and Hydra."
World of Curse
So what other websites does Curse have? After researching, I discovered a lot of websites and applications by Curse. The picture below is a representation of what Curse manages:
Did you know Curse manages all these websites!? When I visited some sites, it gave me a friendly reminder that we're not alone in the Curse world. In the picture above, the size of each bubble is an estimate of how big those communities are. The bigger the bubble, the higher activity. If you are interested in checking out other Curse websites, here is a list:
Curse's popular websites:
http://www.gamepedia.com/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/
http://www.mmo-champion.com/
https://bukkit.org/
http://www.arenajunkies.com/
http://www.diablofans.com/
http://www.hearthpwn.com/
http://www.overpwn.com/
http://www.lolnexus.com/
http://www.heroesnexus.com/
https://reignofgaming.net/
http://www.azurilland.com/
https://reignofgaming.net/
http://www.muthead.com/
http://n4g.com/
Where is SC2mapster located?
SC2mapster is located in the CurseFORGE bubble near the top right. CurseFORGE are special websites that have project upload capabilities. The picture below shows all the CurseFORGE websites.
Separate Forums:
https://dev.bukkit.org/ (moderate Activity)
https://www.sc2mapster.com/ (moderate Activity)
https://wildstar.curseforge.com/ (no Activity)
https://minecraft.curseforge.com/ (no Activity)
Websites that uses https://www.curseforge.com/forums as their forum.
https://www.wowace.com/
https://wow.curseforge.com/
https://worldoftanks.curseforge.com/
https://www.skyrimforge.com/
https://teso.curseforge.com/
https://rift.curseforge.com/
https://rom.curseforge.com/
https://tsw.curseforge.com/
https://terraria.curseforge.com/
CurseFORGE management. Before and After contact with Mr. Squirrels
If you can recall a post by a Curse Admin explaining to us why there are spam and no updates on the website. He mentioned that the SC2mapster code is outdated and the developer was hard to contact. My assumption is that they were able to reach Mr. Squirrels to help upgrade and help along with other CurseFORGE sites.
"As we’ve been doing with all of our legacy sites, we’re moving over to our latest and greatest project backend and forum software which once complete, gives us much better visibility over operations and allows our staff to more easily keep an eye on things. As well as providing a code base we have much more control over to stay on top of bugs, issues, features. Most of our communities are rather small..."
New CurseFORGE frontpages
Like what Mrflamegoat said, with the new upgrades we are given these Benefits:
- if someone finds a bug, even if they only browse Bukkit.org, SC2mapster can benefit from the fix as well!
- Better and updated security (work in progress as I just saw 2 spam posts earlier).
- added features since the web code is manageable, meaning less obstacles.
Mrflamegoat, the web developer
"As for the other concerns that have been brought up here - they're all being addressed or will be addressed. We've already made a few changes and will continue tweaking and moving and pushing and prodding until we find a happy balance. Christmas is coming up soon, most people are out of the office, it's a perfect time for me to settle in and get all this feedback together so I can give the developers plenty to do for their New Years Resolutions."
We must understand that Mrflamegoat and company are more "Web Developer" oriented and that is not a bad thing. Would you rather Curse add cool snow animations and then accidentally release our passwords? The back-end system is now organized and every single CurseFORGE site is now Centralized. 99% of all forum sites out there have this standard white background... so that is where Mrflamegoat is coming from. If they change visuals, it would have to be across all sites, and I know for a fact that hundreds of other curse users wouldn't like it.
"This is a much larger job than most understand - we're not a small site by any means and things that "seem" trivial, just aren't. That's not to say we won't ever revisit this, but we want to focus more on big picture features, fixes, and just getting things running smooth long before we approach the visuals. Sorry!"
Queen's Grievances
"Don't stop speaking up :] There's good stuff there, and I definitely still want to hear it."
Although I've been showing some understanding, its time for me to take a turn. I want to express some grievances. This update is long overdue. It is hard for us SC2mapster members to complain because on one hand, this is a free website and we're don't want to take Curse for granted. On the other hand, if you are providing a free website with a description with what you want to achieve, then take responsibility in keeping your service objective.
Reading the previous posts is a bit sad and embarrassing because some of the compliments are basic common forum functionality found elsewhere, even in old forums that are even outdated. You know the website is so bad when:
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just wait after the holidays.
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@DrSuperEvil: Go
oh right ty
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nice find! :), submit it to https://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/
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How do you make this corner buildable? It has to be an island. One alternative way was that I extended the corner and placed stuff down. I don't want to put any doodad or unit down.
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@DrSuperEvil: Go
ty DrSuperEvil
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Conceptually, can a map force players to see Show Grid and Show No Build locally? If so, can you regulate that to showing in specific regions?
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@DrSuperEvil: Go
Wait a minute... is this your brother, the one that has almost 22,000 posts on the hive!?
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@tdhsst: Go
I have Shadow of Morder. Its a really fun game, I read that the developers used to work on the 1st Assassin Creed Game. The game is like Assassin Creed in Lord of the Rings + polished game design.
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@OmegaWeaponX85: Go Hey OmegaWeapon (like your name btw)
i've been a fan of the CNC series. I've mustve played the 1st game campaign many times both GDI and NOD. I can do a rough terrain of most of the levels by memory. I posted a thread on the CNClabs forums to see if anyone wants to start a conversation mod or a mod that has the CNC Generals style but i didn't get any interested responses. I'm always interested in this but I don't think anyone else is interested.
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@GlornII: Go
Thanks for the information, GlornII. If ever I build a computer, I will be asking you for advice ! :)
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Per QueenGambit's map making tradition (where I revisit old project notes and start working on a map then loose interest and play another game), I found an online flowchart I used to work on. It is called: Lucidchart http://www.lucidchart.com
Lucidchart is a free online flowchart maker. This can be useful for
- General campaign story planning
- Custom tech tree development
- Map terrain organizing
Here is an example of what I used it for:
In the picture above, I created several grey hallow boxes that represent different levels. Then I designated specific shapes for points of interest (Player Spawn, Enemy Main spawn, NPC base, etc). Next, I used arrows to represent ground/air pathing. What do you guys think?