Thats great you made 2 tutorials, that helps it does, but at the same time, this is a brainstorming thread :P. its to come up with ideas on what could actually be done, specifically to fix the modding scene. something has to be done. otherwise it will die, and soon... Right now we still have some player base left.
Okay Idea time
1. Merge all arcade regions, keep melee regions separate. This would place the player base at max capacity.
Watch them all... It wasn't just 2 tutorials and the WarCraft 3.
I have also been trying things far more recently. Like that "map mentor" project I started.
As for brain storming... I'm probably going to have to back out of this thread then.
This is most certainly not the first round of these. They pop up every few months. As I have made it clear my opinion is that only action taken by Blizzard can do anything effective to remedy the situation.
1. They have had so much exclusive help at the expense of nearly everyone in the entire community (not SCU's fault, that's Blizzard's) that they should have had it done well before now.
2. I have been asked to test maps that do what they did and even more that were made for free. And all failed.
3. If Subsistence (I am going to keep using these guys because it is the very top project ever started by the community) didn't get official support (after asking 2 separate Blizzard developers on the IRC I have confirmed that the project did not receive any support to take note of) from Blizzard I see no legitimate reason why SCU should get the lion's share (once again, Blizzard's fault, not SCU's).
And what would you know about the profitability of arcade maps?
Because I did the research and explored most of the models that can compare anywhere near this.
First of all the closest thing that exists in the industry is Valve's Green Light system.
However this has a few differences:
1. The games sold and approved are not made under the same engine and their multiplayers are separate.
2. These games are not sold at additional cost unlike any SC2 mod.
3. These games lack a unified "plug and play" multiplayer interface like battle.net provides.
4. These games do not have a large selection of pre-made models to choose from.
5. The people who made greenlight games usually own the bulk of the content, whereas Blizzard claims ownership of anything uploaded.
So there are a few key points to draw from this:
1. The initial cost to be able to play them. Since you have to buy StarCraft 2 to even be able to play the custom mods any pay to play model goes out the window. Now what if the arcade is made free? Great! That still leaves out some 5 million Wings of Liberty owners who will be hostile due to feeling ripped off. Free to play is the only option for any mod here.
2. Ownership will reduce a mod makers inclination to make custom content (such as models) and instead focus on pre-made content.
3. A revised Battle.net interface will be a huge draw for indie developers due to guaranteed access to an already existing player base. This is something indie games cannot guarantee. Its merely a case of making suitable maps for the players.
4. Any pay to play mod will have to be sold independently of any pre-existing game. Only one candidate so far exists for this, and its the canceled Subsistence project.
Now some very successful free to play games to date:
1. League of Legends
2. Planetside 2
3. World of Tanks
The income these games receive is directly related to the size of the active player base. Because only a certain percentage will actually spend any money. So the more players, the more revenue.
Some facts about that:
1. Blizzard alienated many if not most of the people who bought the game for the arcade.
2. The map editor is insufficiently supported.
3. Blizzard also succeeded in alienating a good percentage of the map makers.
4. Too many of the more technically skilled map makers will not come back without sufficient guarantee of reward. At this point it means paying the map maker outright.
Because there are not enough players (saturation) then any "map market" will not be able to produce enough profit to justify it's implementation.
What is actually involved with the implementation?
1. A partial to total overhaul of Battle.net, StarCraft 2, A complete redesign covering between 70-80% of the editor) Blizzard's account security and features, higher more support staff for the mod makers just to name a few.
2. A large PR campaign to attract indie developers (the most likely to come first) as well as promotional aspects for those developers.
I did all of this research when I was designing my premium map project's gameplay and monetization model.
If you think that any arcade map will be profitable by the time LotV comes out then you have got another thing coming. There will not be sufficient saturation, by a very long shot, to make the arcade profitable. And by LotV it will be too late to get any such saturation.
By the summer of 2014 the arcade will be fully written off. People know by now that Blizzard will drop support for LotV at the earliest possible moment, regardless of what state it's in.
This something is that we might finally have a concrete argument that even Activison - Blizzard's CEO cannot refute.
Here it is:
We now know what the final outcome of Activision - Blizzard's current business model will be. Because we have seen in play out on a very large scale already.
If any of you have been paying attention to Electronic Arts (EA) lately, you know that the policy of quick money grabs, milking acquired companies and genres dry, etc has finally caught up with them.
And EA finally figured out why:
Go to part 4.
EA has unveiled their new "Great Game Guarantee".
I had to read it twice. EA finally realized that the cause of their current situation (EA's CEO stepping down, them facing financial ruin, etc) was the decline in quality of their products. Cutting corners, not fixing issues when they arise, excessive DRM, not listening to customers, etc. A very wide range of things that has proven to be a bad idea.
People warned for years that this would happen. They even despaired of EA being "taught a lesson" and "getting what they deserved". Well the last word was the consumer's. Much of what was predicted has finally happened - even the severity of the disaster that has now befallen EA was predicted for years.
Now why this is important for us in the arcade?
Because this is almost the exact same model Activison - Blizzard is running. Its the exact some concept that occurred with the last Sim's DRM (something that probably destroyed the series) is the sort of general concept of Blizzard not doing jack squat about the arcade. About match making. About focusing on content for casuals.
Also about the horrible release of Diablo 3 in Korea, the Diablo 3 Real-Money Auction House, and now Titan which seems to be specifically designed as a milking machine.
It has now been proven what the final outcome of this business model, run by both Activision - Blizzard and EA is. It has taken longer than we expected (if any of us still believed it at this point) and the scenario will take even longer to play out with Activision - Blizzard.
But we now know it will play out. We now know the final outcome of this business model.
And now we can go to Blizzard and even Activision with an indisputable argument that they need to change their course. They need to adopt a new business model because the one they have now has now been proven to end in financial ruin. It will take a long time. But we now have a concrete precedent of the final outcome.
Yes I keep saying the same thing over and over again. But if this will not convince Activision - Blizzard that they need adopt the kind of business model that focuses on consumer satisfaction and quality over sheer profit then nothing will. We will simply just have to wait (a very long time) for the proven outcome to play out. And by then it will be too late.
StarCraft, WarCraft, Diablo etc will be ruined beyond repair by the time business model runs it's course. But we now know it will run it's course.
That's the paradox we cannot solve. Only Blizzard can break it. Their DRM made sure of that.
And from what you've just said then they are trying to replace WoW with a new cash cow. However considering they have had 3-4 bad game releases in a row, there is the chance it might flop.
So it sounds like you would be better off spending your time elsewhere. There is no way the community is going to recover without Blizzard's support and they obviously have no interest in doing so.
Well that's if there is anyone left to make content for said arcade. There are not enough to saturate the arcade. And that's both players and mod makers.
Number 2. This is not a QQ thread, move that to one of the other 2 threads that are for that.
About number 1. There is a brand new platform, the new blizzard launcher could become a central hub. There is no longer a reason to have it inside of their titles if all of them are going to share a steam like application.
1. I am talking about another RTS game made by a different company with the capacity for "plug and play" mods. So far the only thing that comes close is the Spring RTS engine and although its open source, it doesn't have access to a large player base and there is no collection of models, everything has to be made from scratch.
2. I never accused you of making a "QQ" thread. If I thought that, you would know.
3. I've heard rumors about this. I've even got a saved link to some download from this "beta" (never used it though).
However, since I have no idea what it looks like, is supposed to do or anything about it at all then I cannot make a judgment on it.
What I can make judgments on is if closely resembles any of the following clients:
1. Origin - will fail.
2. Steam - will fail.
3. Impulse - will fail.
4. Skype - a possibility but I don't think Blizzard could do it right.
5. Google+/Facebook/Twitter/Myspace - will fail.
That's all the major stuff that I can list off the top of my head.
Edit: I just saw the word "launcher".
This mean I won't be able to upload maps successfully for 4-6 months won't it? And forcing a central launcher means my game may not start at all and... Well this just got more interesting.
Yeah I know, but my only last hypothesis, is blizzard doesnt know HOW to fix it.. they have run out of ideas. Think about it we are on patch 2.0.11, 7 months after the game release, by this time we should be on 2.2.0. so I think they are completely out of ideas. thats what the thread was about, it was less about what could the community do, and more of what could both the community and blizzard do to fix this mess. :) if its never even thought about then it can never be fixed.
You literally just registered didn't you? I take it your brand new?
Ok allow me to give you a quick rundown.
From WoL Beta to patch 1.3.5 a huge debate ran between the following 2 general school:
1. Those that wanted to return to Battle.net 1.0 functionality.
2. Those that wanted to try and work with the new Battle.net 2.0
If Blizzard went with either direction then they might be forgiven for failing or event possibly they might have succeeded.
But instead they went with:
3. A totally random and useless search system called "Fun or Not".
What did this accomplish? Well it did the following:
1. Revealed that Blizzard had and has no idea of what they are doing.
2. Revealed that Blizzard was not paying attention to any customer feedback. (I say any because the weight of either school should have been convincing by itself.
3. Blizzard was bull-headed enough to believe that they knew better than the community.
This was in the first half of 2011 if I recall.
So it failed. What did they do? Nothing. At all.
Then we get to something like November 2012 and we get this new 1.5 patch.
What did it accomplish?
1. It was a split between the 2 schools and had elements of both of them.
2. Showed Blizzard had taken some of our suggestions seriously.
3. Also showed how low of a priority custom mods really are for Blizzard. Since they waited nearly 2 years to release another fix of any kind while other aspects of StarCraft 2 were improved this is clearly the case.
4. It also failed. Literally because it was a mix of the two. They turned out not to be mutually supportive.
Now in no case did Blizzard visibly (if it was behind the scenes then I have some uncomfortable questions) get feedback from the community at large. In fact it would have been better for them to ask the community for layout designs. At least let the community be responsible for the failure of the layout, not some "bright boy" (has he been fired yet?) in Blizzard.
And as I already pointed out, we would love to "look towards the future". A lot of hopes and even dreams were crushed by Blizzard's decisions. But we cannot. We tried and we failed.
Only Blizzard can "look towards the future". Since they refuse to, all we can do is talk about the past.
1. There isn't a suitable replacement for StarCraft 2 at the moment.
2. Until Blizzard takes certain actions and implements certain features and fixes and actually provides sufficient support for mappers (pretty much of what is in that recent feedback list) and -since its well past it's height, 2011- provide sufficient rewards for map makers for their time and effort, there is no future.
The community tried. We tried. Check out many of the stickies spread throughout the site that have not had posts in months or even years. It didn't do any good.
Blizzard has to take action. They have to. The community did everything it could, way beyond what was reasonable effort and we simply could not do it.
The only one person or organization who actually has the power to "look towards the future" is Blizzard. They took every precaution to make it this way. Always before we could make 3rd party editors and 3rd party multiplayer (like garena) to solve issues Blizzard would not. Now, because of their new DRM, we don't have that option.
Before Blizzard could get away with not giving the community full and extensive support. However because they deliberately took the power away from us (through DRM) for us to support ourselves, we are entirely dependent upon Blizzard for what we need to succeed. If Blizzard will not provide that support (I think its fair to say they had no intention and still do not considering its been 3 years) then the community will do exactly what it has done. Died.
Watching WCS Season 2 finals, 80k viewers, actually these are the viewers only online and Live, people could still watch after. Fck twitch tv doesnt work but im on a public pc atm. So who fcking cares as long as there is the pro scene and very cool matches to watch??
I had to read that twice to be sure it read what I thought.
This adds up with many other events to show a serous decline.
Blizzard only cares about viewers for Korean players. That is to say: They are not targeting the bulk of their player base. For any game geared towards E-Sports having anything under 200k for the largest event for a game that sold nearly 5 million copies (WoL) is just pathetic.
At this point I'm pretty sure that Blizzard could lay off half of their total staff to reduce costs and you would still say that StarCraft 2 E-Sports is doing fine.
And as to who cares of major community mapping teams go under as long as there is "pro scene and very cool matches"... You are just proving that you are a willingly blind fanboy. What matters far more than E-Sports is selling a large volume of their core video games.
Basically these two groups got more direct support from Blizzard than almost anyone else in the mapping scene save SCU.
More and more of my core points are proving to be reality. Its very funny how many of your criticize my evidence and credibility and yet my predictions - most of which are not unique to me and did not start with me, they started with people who are long gone - are proving remarkably accurate.
The only kind of indoctrination that has been released publically that is worse than yours is the kind you found in the USSR.
I for one am thankful that there are at least a few new diplomacy maps coming out.
And Zolden... You know well enough what kind of time a full model port takes. Is it really worth blowing that kind of time on a non-premium (that is to say making money off Blizzard like SCU) map?
0
Hey I have an idea. How about you actually use logic and reason to prove my post wrong instead of making false claims.
You are just the resident troll. So far you don't quote sources, just make random claims like you actually knew something.
0
Watch them all... It wasn't just 2 tutorials and the WarCraft 3.
I have also been trying things far more recently. Like that "map mentor" project I started.
As for brain storming... I'm probably going to have to back out of this thread then.
This is most certainly not the first round of these. They pop up every few months. As I have made it clear my opinion is that only action taken by Blizzard can do anything effective to remedy the situation.
0
Much of the above and some other points.
1. They have had so much exclusive help at the expense of nearly everyone in the entire community (not SCU's fault, that's Blizzard's) that they should have had it done well before now.
2. I have been asked to test maps that do what they did and even more that were made for free. And all failed.
3. If Subsistence (I am going to keep using these guys because it is the very top project ever started by the community) didn't get official support (after asking 2 separate Blizzard developers on the IRC I have confirmed that the project did not receive any support to take note of) from Blizzard I see no legitimate reason why SCU should get the lion's share (once again, Blizzard's fault, not SCU's).
0
@SearingChicken: Go
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/general-editor-mapping-659/tutorial-starcraft-2-amphibious-system-215316/
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tutorial-submission-660/porting-warcraft-3-models-starcraft-2-a-218740/
Kindly keep the above in mind.
0
Because I did the research and explored most of the models that can compare anywhere near this.
First of all the closest thing that exists in the industry is Valve's Green Light system.
However this has a few differences:
1. The games sold and approved are not made under the same engine and their multiplayers are separate.
2. These games are not sold at additional cost unlike any SC2 mod.
3. These games lack a unified "plug and play" multiplayer interface like battle.net provides.
4. These games do not have a large selection of pre-made models to choose from.
5. The people who made greenlight games usually own the bulk of the content, whereas Blizzard claims ownership of anything uploaded.
So there are a few key points to draw from this:
1. The initial cost to be able to play them. Since you have to buy StarCraft 2 to even be able to play the custom mods any pay to play model goes out the window. Now what if the arcade is made free? Great! That still leaves out some 5 million Wings of Liberty owners who will be hostile due to feeling ripped off. Free to play is the only option for any mod here.
2. Ownership will reduce a mod makers inclination to make custom content (such as models) and instead focus on pre-made content.
3. A revised Battle.net interface will be a huge draw for indie developers due to guaranteed access to an already existing player base. This is something indie games cannot guarantee. Its merely a case of making suitable maps for the players.
4. Any pay to play mod will have to be sold independently of any pre-existing game. Only one candidate so far exists for this, and its the canceled Subsistence project.
Now some very successful free to play games to date: 1. League of Legends 2. Planetside 2 3. World of Tanks
The income these games receive is directly related to the size of the active player base. Because only a certain percentage will actually spend any money. So the more players, the more revenue.
Some facts about that:
1. Blizzard alienated many if not most of the people who bought the game for the arcade.
2. The map editor is insufficiently supported.
3. Blizzard also succeeded in alienating a good percentage of the map makers.
4. Too many of the more technically skilled map makers will not come back without sufficient guarantee of reward. At this point it means paying the map maker outright.
Because there are not enough players (saturation) then any "map market" will not be able to produce enough profit to justify it's implementation.
What is actually involved with the implementation?
1. A partial to total overhaul of Battle.net, StarCraft 2, A complete redesign covering between 70-80% of the editor) Blizzard's account security and features, higher more support staff for the mod makers just to name a few.
2. A large PR campaign to attract indie developers (the most likely to come first) as well as promotional aspects for those developers.
I did all of this research when I was designing my premium map project's gameplay and monetization model.
0
@houndofbaskerville: Go
If you think that any arcade map will be profitable by the time LotV comes out then you have got another thing coming. There will not be sufficient saturation, by a very long shot, to make the arcade profitable. And by LotV it will be too late to get any such saturation.
By the summer of 2014 the arcade will be fully written off. People know by now that Blizzard will drop support for LotV at the earliest possible moment, regardless of what state it's in.
0
This something is that we might finally have a concrete argument that even Activison - Blizzard's CEO cannot refute.
Here it is:
We now know what the final outcome of Activision - Blizzard's current business model will be. Because we have seen in play out on a very large scale already.
If any of you have been paying attention to Electronic Arts (EA) lately, you know that the policy of quick money grabs, milking acquired companies and genres dry, etc has finally caught up with them.
And EA finally figured out why: Go to part 4.
EA has unveiled their new "Great Game Guarantee".
I had to read it twice. EA finally realized that the cause of their current situation (EA's CEO stepping down, them facing financial ruin, etc) was the decline in quality of their products. Cutting corners, not fixing issues when they arise, excessive DRM, not listening to customers, etc. A very wide range of things that has proven to be a bad idea.
People warned for years that this would happen. They even despaired of EA being "taught a lesson" and "getting what they deserved". Well the last word was the consumer's. Much of what was predicted has finally happened - even the severity of the disaster that has now befallen EA was predicted for years.
Now why this is important for us in the arcade?
Because this is almost the exact same model Activison - Blizzard is running. Its the exact some concept that occurred with the last Sim's DRM (something that probably destroyed the series) is the sort of general concept of Blizzard not doing jack squat about the arcade. About match making. About focusing on content for casuals.
Also about the horrible release of Diablo 3 in Korea, the Diablo 3 Real-Money Auction House, and now Titan which seems to be specifically designed as a milking machine.
It has now been proven what the final outcome of this business model, run by both Activision - Blizzard and EA is. It has taken longer than we expected (if any of us still believed it at this point) and the scenario will take even longer to play out with Activision - Blizzard.
But we now know it will play out. We now know the final outcome of this business model.
And now we can go to Blizzard and even Activision with an indisputable argument that they need to change their course. They need to adopt a new business model because the one they have now has now been proven to end in financial ruin. It will take a long time. But we now have a concrete precedent of the final outcome.
Yes I keep saying the same thing over and over again. But if this will not convince Activision - Blizzard that they need adopt the kind of business model that focuses on consumer satisfaction and quality over sheer profit then nothing will. We will simply just have to wait (a very long time) for the proven outcome to play out. And by then it will be too late.
StarCraft, WarCraft, Diablo etc will be ruined beyond repair by the time business model runs it's course. But we now know it will run it's course.
0
@SearingChicken: Go
That's the paradox we cannot solve. Only Blizzard can break it. Their DRM made sure of that.
And from what you've just said then they are trying to replace WoW with a new cash cow. However considering they have had 3-4 bad game releases in a row, there is the chance it might flop.
So it sounds like you would be better off spending your time elsewhere. There is no way the community is going to recover without Blizzard's support and they obviously have no interest in doing so.
0
@SearingChicken: Go
Well that's if there is anyone left to make content for said arcade. There are not enough to saturate the arcade. And that's both players and mod makers.
0
1. I am talking about another RTS game made by a different company with the capacity for "plug and play" mods. So far the only thing that comes close is the Spring RTS engine and although its open source, it doesn't have access to a large player base and there is no collection of models, everything has to be made from scratch.
2. I never accused you of making a "QQ" thread. If I thought that, you would know.
3. I've heard rumors about this. I've even got a saved link to some download from this "beta" (never used it though).
However, since I have no idea what it looks like, is supposed to do or anything about it at all then I cannot make a judgment on it.
What I can make judgments on is if closely resembles any of the following clients:
1. Origin - will fail. 2. Steam - will fail. 3. Impulse - will fail. 4. Skype - a possibility but I don't think Blizzard could do it right. 5. Google+/Facebook/Twitter/Myspace - will fail.
That's all the major stuff that I can list off the top of my head.
Edit: I just saw the word "launcher".
This mean I won't be able to upload maps successfully for 4-6 months won't it? And forcing a central launcher means my game may not start at all and... Well this just got more interesting.
0
You literally just registered didn't you? I take it your brand new?
Ok allow me to give you a quick rundown.
From WoL Beta to patch 1.3.5 a huge debate ran between the following 2 general school:
1. Those that wanted to return to Battle.net 1.0 functionality.
2. Those that wanted to try and work with the new Battle.net 2.0
If Blizzard went with either direction then they might be forgiven for failing or event possibly they might have succeeded.
But instead they went with:
3. A totally random and useless search system called "Fun or Not".
What did this accomplish? Well it did the following:
1. Revealed that Blizzard had and has no idea of what they are doing.
2. Revealed that Blizzard was not paying attention to any customer feedback. (I say any because the weight of either school should have been convincing by itself.
3. Blizzard was bull-headed enough to believe that they knew better than the community.
This was in the first half of 2011 if I recall.
So it failed. What did they do? Nothing. At all.
Then we get to something like November 2012 and we get this new 1.5 patch.
What did it accomplish?
1. It was a split between the 2 schools and had elements of both of them.
2. Showed Blizzard had taken some of our suggestions seriously.
3. Also showed how low of a priority custom mods really are for Blizzard. Since they waited nearly 2 years to release another fix of any kind while other aspects of StarCraft 2 were improved this is clearly the case.
4. It also failed. Literally because it was a mix of the two. They turned out not to be mutually supportive.
Now in no case did Blizzard visibly (if it was behind the scenes then I have some uncomfortable questions) get feedback from the community at large. In fact it would have been better for them to ask the community for layout designs. At least let the community be responsible for the failure of the layout, not some "bright boy" (has he been fired yet?) in Blizzard.
And as I already pointed out, we would love to "look towards the future". A lot of hopes and even dreams were crushed by Blizzard's decisions. But we cannot. We tried and we failed.
Only Blizzard can "look towards the future". Since they refuse to, all we can do is talk about the past.
0
2 huge problems with your thinking.
1. There isn't a suitable replacement for StarCraft 2 at the moment.
2. Until Blizzard takes certain actions and implements certain features and fixes and actually provides sufficient support for mappers (pretty much of what is in that recent feedback list) and -since its well past it's height, 2011- provide sufficient rewards for map makers for their time and effort, there is no future.
The community tried. We tried. Check out many of the stickies spread throughout the site that have not had posts in months or even years. It didn't do any good.
Blizzard has to take action. They have to. The community did everything it could, way beyond what was reasonable effort and we simply could not do it.
The only one person or organization who actually has the power to "look towards the future" is Blizzard. They took every precaution to make it this way. Always before we could make 3rd party editors and 3rd party multiplayer (like garena) to solve issues Blizzard would not. Now, because of their new DRM, we don't have that option.
Before Blizzard could get away with not giving the community full and extensive support. However because they deliberately took the power away from us (through DRM) for us to support ourselves, we are entirely dependent upon Blizzard for what we need to succeed. If Blizzard will not provide that support (I think its fair to say they had no intention and still do not considering its been 3 years) then the community will do exactly what it has done. Died.
0
I had to read that twice to be sure it read what I thought.
This adds up with many other events to show a serous decline.
Blizzard only cares about viewers for Korean players. That is to say: They are not targeting the bulk of their player base. For any game geared towards E-Sports having anything under 200k for the largest event for a game that sold nearly 5 million copies (WoL) is just pathetic.
At this point I'm pretty sure that Blizzard could lay off half of their total staff to reduce costs and you would still say that StarCraft 2 E-Sports is doing fine.
And as to who cares of major community mapping teams go under as long as there is "pro scene and very cool matches"... You are just proving that you are a willingly blind fanboy. What matters far more than E-Sports is selling a large volume of their core video games.
Basically these two groups got more direct support from Blizzard than almost anyone else in the mapping scene save SCU.
More and more of my core points are proving to be reality. Its very funny how many of your criticize my evidence and credibility and yet my predictions - most of which are not unique to me and did not start with me, they started with people who are long gone - are proving remarkably accurate.
The only kind of indoctrination that has been released publically that is worse than yours is the kind you found in the USSR.
0
This just in:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9754145796
Who says the melee scene is still fine? Blizzard gave them more help than they ever gave us arcade guys.
0
Jesus guys,
I for one am thankful that there are at least a few new diplomacy maps coming out.
And Zolden... You know well enough what kind of time a full model port takes. Is it really worth blowing that kind of time on a non-premium (that is to say making money off Blizzard like SCU) map?
Hybrids get the job done well enough.