Make it like what Valve has done to Team Fortress 2. You have your good old tried and true server lists that can be sorted in whichever way you want, plus you can turn that into a simple list which will group all the servers by maps (what blizzard tried to do) achieving what we have now in Bnet 2.0 without the popularity sorting.
If we did anything along these lines, i think a better idea would be to make actual playable maps that last 5-10 minutes with 2-4 players, make a LOT of those maps, all different though, but have all use the same bank file, get players to actually gain points for each game they finish, and give them a good reason to play again: more points unlock stuff.
If we did something like that, where there are actual fun maps to play, there is absolutely no reason to ban us - we provided short good maps that coincidentally took up the first 2 pages of bnet AND mock the popularity system.
Of course, every map will have mockeries of the popularity system in every way possible. I think the name "popularity wars" should be in each map with an appropriate suffix :)
some ideas:
very short TD, tower upgrades are unlocked by "popularity wars points", and spawns are increased accordingly
Some Hero-based maps (defenses, wars, etc.) in which your hero is saved, and gets ability/talents/items based on the PWP (popularity wars points)
A tug map, which again gives bonuses for PWP
To use the same bank file I believe you have to have the same publisher, with good reason, or maps could commit bank-file terrorism. :P
I realize that games are anonymous now. I want a way to have a game be targetable and joinable by link from a channel.
So imagine being in Sc2Mapsters channel, and you're talking about *hosting* a map, well when you say create game YOU DO NOT MEAN JOIN ONE THATS ALREADY OPEN. Maybe call it "Create Lobby".
While you are creating a lobby, it is NOT PUBLIC YET! Give us some time to set up the lobby ffs! New slot types for lobby games need to include "reserved for invites", "reserved for invites or channel", and "public". The lobby would give you a link to the lobby, and you could throw that in a channel, and an optional password for wishing to join from channel.
Flagging a slot as public does not immediately insert those slots into the public/anonymous games lobby. There would be a button that says "go public" for that, so you could prepare and chat it up with your brosefs before going public.
Channels could fix so much for us that I still have hope. If channels are done correctly. Could solve a lot of our problems.
1) Cannot download and host a map without republishing. This is fucking huge. I understand that not wanting 1,000,000 versions of the same map, but there was no intelligent design to support this idea. Fixing this would be pretty simple, RSS feeds into a battle.net map directory. If you are familiar with how you can *like* something in facebook from basically anywhere on the web, same idea. You visit sc2mapster.com's map browser that has discussion/feedback on map, links to youtube previews, and link's to battle.net's RSS based map directory. From there, instead of downloading, you can click an "add to favorites" button. When you log into SC2 and create a custom map, you'll find that map under a "my favorites" section next to "my published". Itt this combines the best of both worlds.
2) As far as popularity is concerned, it should be just one of many sortable columns, but first it needs to have it logical flaws fixed. What should popularity mean? If 1 player plays the fuck out of a map all day long, is it a popular map? No. I would consider popular to mean that a lot of unique battle.net account id's play that map within the last 24 hours, not caring how many times the map creator's buddies have boosted it all day.
3) Secondly I'd like to filter by many other things including lobby not empty, lobby not full, average wait time in game lobby. Functional category filters. A search field. Popularity should only be nothing more than another sortable column, not the gate keeper to custom maps.
4) Chat channels and the ability to create a closed lobby, giving the opportunity to prepare a lobby before opening to the public. Options to setting up a lobby should include reserving slots for invitations. etc etc, bnet COULD be great.
Don't you think they will ban everyone? It can have 5000 people doing it. They will ban all of them for cheating.
Blizzard Policy says that your account can be closed if you actions "Is otherwise considered inappropriate for the game world" Since they determine what is the game world, it's the same to say that they can ban your account for any reason they want and you can't do anything about it because you installed the game, you agreed that you wouldn't do anything "inappropriate for the game world."
You realize that this also means that they could easily ban you for boosting..
1) Cannot download and host a map without republishing.
This is fucking huge. I understand that not wanting 1,000,000 versions of the same map, but there was no intelligent design to support this idea.
Fixing this would be pretty simple, RSS feeds into a battle.net map directory.
If you are familiar with how you can *like* something in facebook from basically anywhere on the web, same idea.
You visit sc2mapster.com's map browser that has discussion/feedback on map, links to youtube previews, and link's to battle.net's RSS based map directory. From there, instead of downloading, you can click an "add to favorites" button.
When you log into SC2 and create a custom map, you'll find that map under a "my favorites" section next to "my published".
Itt this combines the best of both worlds.
As far as popularity is concerned, it should be just one of many sortable columns, but first it needs to have it logical flaws fixed.
What should popularity mean? If 1 player plays the fuck out of a map all day long, is it a popular map? No. I would consider popular to mean that a lot of unique battle.net account id's play that map within the last 24 hours, not caring how many times the map creator's buddies have boosted it all day.
Secondly I'd like to filter by many other things including lobby not empty, lobby not full, average wait time in game lobby. Functional category filters. A search field. Popularity should only be nothing more than another sortable column, not the gate keeper to custom maps.
Chat channels and the ability to create a closed lobby, giving the opportunity to prepare a lobby before opening to the public. Options to setting up a lobby should include reserving slots for invitations. etc etc, bnet COULD be great.
Could you guys give it up on the popularity system... Jesus christ you can only beat a dead horse so much..
And the blizzcon answer was correct. Build a private place where you and your testers can communicate.
Theres a couple 1000 people making thier own maps. Even if the game list only new games.. Half of you people crying wouldnt get anybody to join anyways.
Im gonna be a negative nancy here and beat you with your reality stick. If people are not playing your map. Its prolly because its not fun to play.
Ive had my map up towards the top of the list a couple time. I gotta test it with friends till it gets to about 20 plays. People start playing it ... it goes way up on list... 2 days later is at the bottom again with no plays.
I will admit this is because its not much fun.
If you need testers theres a ton of people right here willing to help you test.
You really shouldnt be testing on bnet unless your at a beta stage where the game is playable. Yes it might be hard to get random people. But make use of this community. Make use of your wow /sc2/wc3 friends.
QUIT BEATING A DEAD HORSE.. Im sure we will see changes in the future.
If you want to give up because of the current pop system..... GOOD RIDDENS SC2 would be better off with out you making your crappy maps anyways.
( I mean this in the nicest of ways. But i garentee Ive been playing on Bnet for longer then alot of you is my guess. Its not really that bad.. most of ya are mad nobody joins your map. Understandable. But quit complaining and find people on SC2mapster to test your maps with.)
Idk if you read it but I'm almost halfway serious about being motivated to make a map that both abuses and insults the popularity system.
Game lasts 5 minutes. Every 5 seconds you gain time resource. You can spend it on making the map better, advertising aka attempting a viral campaign, or boosting.
The higher quality the map, the more legit players will play it, but only if its visible. I can't guess what percentage of players searches how deep into the page listings, but its safe to say that its most probably exponentially decreases with each page. Spending time on map quality probably only effects repeat players logarithmically beyond a certain point.
Ofc boosting can work on even a terrible map but with few repeat legit players.
Idk what to think about how effective a viral campaign would be. But I imagine maybe if you save up enough time resources you could spend it on a youtube review and that would get you a lot of plays instantaneously.
Also during the game there would be a blizzard bully that would patrol the different mapster's desks and have a random chance to do something mean like reset popularity or temporarily ban a map for offensive content.
Idk we could have some fun with this after all maybe. :p
I am not happy with boosting, the fact that it helps your map be popular is just lame, but I don't think people should be banned for gaming blizz's terrible system.
Popularity system is a epic crap.
If you make a map that last exactly 5 minutes and than writes out that popularity system sucks, than I will publish it on eu.
I am still making my map, but I wont release it on this crap system. (its 14 player, very complex and long strategy game, so it has no chance in this stupid system.) If blizzard wont "fix" popularity than I hope somebody will make a server without popularity system...
This honestly. If somebody could hack SC2 to connect players through a portal website with BASIC sort/search/filter capability it would be all you need.
Categories, keywords, simple game lobby.
The popularity system is awful and we all know that, but the playerbase isn't helping here.
If people keep clicking on *random crappy map here*, it just means they like to play it over and over to have some fun inbetween ladder matches (not that there's something wrong here) and ANY new sorting, be it based on "hours played/day", "players in lobbies" or ratings of any kind will ultimately lead to the current situation. If any of you missed the last blogpost about custom maps, Blizzard is basically suggesting that instead of whining we should make our maps fun by dumbing them down so that players can fully grasp them in the first minutes.
I agree with those saying that the fun should be in the creation process, and it was at least for me.
On the other hand, though, acknowledging that nobody will ever play them leads to deep frustration.
Whatever you decide to do, keep in mind that nothing is going to change in the next months.
lol yeah that'd be something like North Korea not knowing its a shitty country until they visit South Korea and then they're like, holy shit NK is shitty!
Boosting is gaming the stupid system. Sentry scramble isn't a great map. Its boosted better than anything else. It lasts 300 seconds till somebody legitly wins it. The funny thing is at exactly 5 minutes several people always leave the game. Every single game I've ever been in.
Boosting is bad in my eyes because its faking having a good map. Its putting more effort into getting your map popular than actually working on quality.
Thats not for me. If boosting is necessary well no wonder all the popular maps are shitty.
Ok I found your TD on the 8 or 9th page.
Been waiting 7 minutes for people to join.
One person entered and left the lobby.
In warcraft 3 if your map was good people would have filled the lobby within like 3-4 minutes.
The checksum part of starcode is better security than any obfuscation or encryption. Plus the compression makes it so that you're having to convert bases on every cleartext value.
The checksum part may be readable, but if its a good 1-way hash then thats all they'll be able to do, read it and NOT change it.
No you have to bot. I've seen a few awesome maps deep down, like 10+ pages deep.
Though I challenge you all to play that fking lame sentry scramble game. Its got more bots botting it than the rest of SC2 combined. If you start a stop watch, at exactly 5 minutes into the game, the bots will leave. Its F'ing hillarious.
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@Hookah604: Go
I recognized the eve online music.
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This'll work. :D
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To use the same bank file I believe you have to have the same publisher, with good reason, or maps could commit bank-file terrorism. :P
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One more thing.
I realize that games are anonymous now. I want a way to have a game be targetable and joinable by link from a channel.
So imagine being in Sc2Mapsters channel, and you're talking about *hosting* a map, well when you say create game YOU DO NOT MEAN JOIN ONE THATS ALREADY OPEN. Maybe call it "Create Lobby".
While you are creating a lobby, it is NOT PUBLIC YET! Give us some time to set up the lobby ffs! New slot types for lobby games need to include "reserved for invites", "reserved for invites or channel", and "public". The lobby would give you a link to the lobby, and you could throw that in a channel, and an optional password for wishing to join from channel.
Flagging a slot as public does not immediately insert those slots into the public/anonymous games lobby. There would be a button that says "go public" for that, so you could prepare and chat it up with your brosefs before going public.
Channels could fix so much for us that I still have hope. If channels are done correctly. Could solve a lot of our problems.
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@KratsAU: Go
Pasting from other thread.
1) Cannot download and host a map without republishing. This is fucking huge. I understand that not wanting 1,000,000 versions of the same map, but there was no intelligent design to support this idea. Fixing this would be pretty simple, RSS feeds into a battle.net map directory. If you are familiar with how you can *like* something in facebook from basically anywhere on the web, same idea. You visit sc2mapster.com's map browser that has discussion/feedback on map, links to youtube previews, and link's to battle.net's RSS based map directory. From there, instead of downloading, you can click an "add to favorites" button. When you log into SC2 and create a custom map, you'll find that map under a "my favorites" section next to "my published". Itt this combines the best of both worlds.
2) As far as popularity is concerned, it should be just one of many sortable columns, but first it needs to have it logical flaws fixed. What should popularity mean? If 1 player plays the fuck out of a map all day long, is it a popular map? No. I would consider popular to mean that a lot of unique battle.net account id's play that map within the last 24 hours, not caring how many times the map creator's buddies have boosted it all day.
3) Secondly I'd like to filter by many other things including lobby not empty, lobby not full, average wait time in game lobby. Functional category filters. A search field. Popularity should only be nothing more than another sortable column, not the gate keeper to custom maps.
4) Chat channels and the ability to create a closed lobby, giving the opportunity to prepare a lobby before opening to the public. Options to setting up a lobby should include reserving slots for invitations. etc etc, bnet COULD be great.
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You realize that this also means that they could easily ban you for boosting..
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Not just popularity thats fubar.
1) Cannot download and host a map without republishing. This is fucking huge. I understand that not wanting 1,000,000 versions of the same map, but there was no intelligent design to support this idea. Fixing this would be pretty simple, RSS feeds into a battle.net map directory. If you are familiar with how you can *like* something in facebook from basically anywhere on the web, same idea. You visit sc2mapster.com's map browser that has discussion/feedback on map, links to youtube previews, and link's to battle.net's RSS based map directory. From there, instead of downloading, you can click an "add to favorites" button. When you log into SC2 and create a custom map, you'll find that map under a "my favorites" section next to "my published". Itt this combines the best of both worlds.
As far as popularity is concerned, it should be just one of many sortable columns, but first it needs to have it logical flaws fixed. What should popularity mean? If 1 player plays the fuck out of a map all day long, is it a popular map? No. I would consider popular to mean that a lot of unique battle.net account id's play that map within the last 24 hours, not caring how many times the map creator's buddies have boosted it all day.
Secondly I'd like to filter by many other things including lobby not empty, lobby not full, average wait time in game lobby. Functional category filters. A search field. Popularity should only be nothing more than another sortable column, not the gate keeper to custom maps.
Chat channels and the ability to create a closed lobby, giving the opportunity to prepare a lobby before opening to the public. Options to setting up a lobby should include reserving slots for invitations. etc etc, bnet COULD be great.
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Idk if you read it but I'm almost halfway serious about being motivated to make a map that both abuses and insults the popularity system.
Game lasts 5 minutes. Every 5 seconds you gain time resource. You can spend it on making the map better, advertising aka attempting a viral campaign, or boosting.
The higher quality the map, the more legit players will play it, but only if its visible. I can't guess what percentage of players searches how deep into the page listings, but its safe to say that its most probably exponentially decreases with each page. Spending time on map quality probably only effects repeat players logarithmically beyond a certain point.
Ofc boosting can work on even a terrible map but with few repeat legit players.
Idk what to think about how effective a viral campaign would be. But I imagine maybe if you save up enough time resources you could spend it on a youtube review and that would get you a lot of plays instantaneously.
Also during the game there would be a blizzard bully that would patrol the different mapster's desks and have a random chance to do something mean like reset popularity or temporarily ban a map for offensive content.
Idk we could have some fun with this after all maybe. :p
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I posted before I read this lol.
I am not happy with boosting, the fact that it helps your map be popular is just lame, but I don't think people should be banned for gaming blizz's terrible system.
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This honestly. If somebody could hack SC2 to connect players through a portal website with BASIC sort/search/filter capability it would be all you need. Categories, keywords, simple game lobby.
W2B: bnet v1.0
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lol yeah that'd be something like North Korea not knowing its a shitty country until they visit South Korea and then they're like, holy shit NK is shitty!
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@RodrigoAlves: Go
Boosting is gaming the stupid system. Sentry scramble isn't a great map. Its boosted better than anything else. It lasts 300 seconds till somebody legitly wins it. The funny thing is at exactly 5 minutes several people always leave the game. Every single game I've ever been in.
Boosting is bad in my eyes because its faking having a good map. Its putting more effort into getting your map popular than actually working on quality. Thats not for me. If boosting is necessary well no wonder all the popular maps are shitty.
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@RileyStarcraft: Go
Ok I found your TD on the 8 or 9th page. Been waiting 7 minutes for people to join. One person entered and left the lobby. In warcraft 3 if your map was good people would have filled the lobby within like 3-4 minutes.
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The checksum part of starcode is better security than any obfuscation or encryption. Plus the compression makes it so that you're having to convert bases on every cleartext value. The checksum part may be readable, but if its a good 1-way hash then thats all they'll be able to do, read it and NOT change it.
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@crazyfingers619: Go
No you have to bot. I've seen a few awesome maps deep down, like 10+ pages deep. Though I challenge you all to play that fking lame sentry scramble game. Its got more bots botting it than the rest of SC2 combined. If you start a stop watch, at exactly 5 minutes into the game, the bots will leave. Its F'ing hillarious.