Yet, they tried. No doubt it's a matter of tastes, but they have done something that no other video games company would have. I'm kind of bored of reading people saying "Blizzard is not what it used to be", as far as I'm concerned I enjoyed D3 and it does not "suck". I have no issue with splitting SC2 in 3 games either, and yet I'm one of the first to complain when games are offering DLCs no longer than a week after their release (SF4 is worth $120 of DLCs... no comment...)!
Of course Blizzard does bad choices once in a while, and one may think they tend to do it a lot lately, but from what I know about the company, it's pretty much all about waiting. Their games are not that good when they come out, it's only after years of feedback that they can start changing it and making it better. In the meantime, fanboys will whine and complain... If you want to see for yourself, just compare the vanilla version of WoW and what it has become now. It's pretty much like night and day! Comparing the vanilla SC to its expansion is like night and day as well, so you should expect SC2 to be what it's supposed to be when the last expansion will be released. Bored of waiting? Then play other games, there are more than enough to fill your needs.
I was going to reply to that, but the fact that some of you think Starcraft 2 has strategic depth..Well...Yea.
Dawn of War the first RTS has so many races. All felt unique, fun, and viable. Granted some things were unbalanced but thats another point. Thats a game with lore and strategy I can get immersed in.
It's true DoW is immersive, way more than SC2... It's true it's unbalanced as well, which shows it's probably not a good idea to add too many races if you want a game to be competitive. SC2 has asymetric gameplay, DoW doesn't... which makes it even harder to add a 4th race! Basically, DoW is all about positioning (finding cover, holding strategic points,...), SC2 and TFT on the other hand are all about the army composition (training units fast and finding the proper counter to the opponent's army). I like both Blizzard games and DoW but let's be honest here, if I have to watch pro players having a duel I'd rather watch them play SC2. DoW has slower, longer games, and the issue of a game does not rely on as many factors as in SC2 or TFT. It's basically like comparing chess (DoW) and poker (SC2).
They stepped away from proven model to replace it with their own lousy worse-executed thing.
Funny you'd say that... Usually people complain that big companies are not taking any risk and doing shitty games that look exactly the same as the game going by the same name from last year... Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty, etc... There are almost too many to count! Right now Blizzard is taking a risk at not providing something that every player would expect, and you're still not OK with it. And people wonder why Blizzard won't listen to them? Talk about fanboys... You can't please them all, because none of them ever agrees on what the perfect game would be. It's generally a good advice NOT to listen to fanboys and lead your game in a completely new, unexpected direction, because they will complain either way. Basically, listen to what they say so you know what you should and shouldn't do.
You don't need to create a variable for this to work: Look for the function "attribute game value" in your switch, instead of a local variable you added.
Basically, just remove the local variable "gamemode" you added in your trigger. Remove the "wait" and "set variable" functions at the beginning (which are of no use anymore anyway), then set your switch to use the function "attribute game value", with the parameter "tech level".
I've done the modifications for you in case you still don't get it, see the attached file. If you want to test it without uploading your map on BNet, you will have to change the default value of your "tech level" game attribute, save, then start the game from the editor. If it still doesn't work, there is probably something wrong with the actions within your switch.
The same happened to me approximately half a year ago... Basically I started seeing artifacts in games (SC2 first, but then it was in almost any 3D game) and my video card died after a few weeks. I tried baking the card (there are actually tutorials everywhere on how to do this) and it worked for a few days, but then the card was completely failing (even on the desktop). Sometimes, just reducing the screen resolution can help. I remember setting my desktop to 1024*768 and the artifacts disappeared for a while, but keep in mind that the video card is dying anyway, so... sooner or later, it will fail.
Probably because it wouldn't make sense, story-wise... I'm guessing the Xel'Naga is going to be part of the protoss campaign, you can guess that from the storyline in WoL already (especially with the last mission from the shard). I don't see any point in allowing players to control the Xel'Naga as a separate race, they are more or less "heroes" from the past... It wouldn't make sense to train them by dozens from a base, with its own tech tree etc...
Concerning the features added in HotS now, I don't see why you hate them so much. What exactly did you expect? There are a lot of tiny features added, along with an entire campaign (2 or 3 missions shorter, indeed, but so were the BW campaigns compared to SC1). There are new units, who are actually changing a lot of things in melee (which also means we're going to have hundreds of patches in the coming years... just like BW). I can't help but feel like SC is actually not your kind of game... You're expecting SC2 to be like WoW or Warcraft, at least in terms of content. Would you compare Saints Row to Darksiders? They're from the same company but it doesn't mean each game individually can't have their own strengths and weaknesses... They don't have to be the same in terms of content, yet they are both interesting games to play, worth paying the full price for.
Maybe $40 is a bit too much for an expansion, but as far as I'm concerned they provide enough content to make my SC2 experience completely different, both from a player and a mapper points-of-view. So either way, I'm pretty sure I will buy the expansion and I will like it. I also know features will keep coming during a few years (just as it happened between the release of WoL and HotS), so in the long term I'm pretty sure the expansion will be worth the $40 it costs... If we're lucky, it will even cost less in a year and you hopefully won't be as skeptical as you are now.
I tried to replicate what the map does (from what I remember when I played it), look at the attached file... Pretty much everything is explained (I added comments everywhere in the triggers). If you want to prevent frame drops (when loading models and effects), maybe you should add preloads in another trigger... But other than that, I think the map I made is pretty much everything you're looking for. I was looking to do it myself some day anyway, the original map is fun and I always wondered what it would look like on one of my own melee maps! Have fun (no credits needed for the help, but it's always nice)! :)
EDIT: I noticed a little bug with the warning sound when playing terran, basically you just have to remove the default value in the switch to make it work again. Everything else seems to work just fine (although timings are not accurate, it's up to you to change them to your tastes). Enjoy!
Just throwing some ideas after watching the videos... It would be nice to have some kind of a metronome, to make sure people keep in rhythm. Of course it could be a problem with the lag, but overall it should help keeping in sync with other people. I guess only the host should have access to this function, like a tiny window displaying BPMs, allowing to set them higher or lower, and mute/unmute it. There should be something on the UI as well to let everyone know when the tick is going to happen.
Maybe you should also allow players to use their actual keyboard to play tunes, instead of mouse clicks on units. There is a problem (again) because layouts differ from a country to another, but maybe it can be fixed by allowing players to pick their layout in the lobby (if the setting is not set to default for someone, just apply the differences instead of applying an entire preset each time). It will be easier to play fast tunes if you remove the risk of missing your clicks.
Some combinations will result in ridiculously hard challenges, while other may be won by default. But I guess that's part of the game right?
Exactly! :)
Deception becomes a part of the gameplay, everyone is involved in the creation of the challenge, without knowing if it's good or bad for them. What matters in the end is how skilled you are in this particular situation. That's why a well-thought design is mandatory, making sure every combination possible is both fun to play and well-balanced... And there must be enough parameters to choose from during an entire game, too! That's probably the hardest part, because the more options you give, the less balanced it will be.
The cadavre exquis often gives silly results to be honest (try it yourself with some friends one day, you'll end with stories about "pandas and unicorns buying condoms to a drug-dealing fireman, on the top floor of a tower made of cheese during a storm"...). Originally, I was hoping it would be possible to create some sort of library/dictionary, so that the first player to write a sentence in the chat ("player X must do THIS with/without THAT") will make the game create a challenge accordingly. But the obvious flaw to this is that players will make the challenges impossible for their opponents and too easy for themselves.
In the examples I mentioned, I used pretty simple sentences... But maybe it would be better to have parameters like "bottle of wine" or "jalapeño" (or whatever, as long as people really don't have any clue what's going to happen if they use it). They would rather show a general idea, rather than a predictable result. "Bottle of wine" could either be a hellion or a firebat, and "jalapeño" could result in either a shower of banelings or a maze of moving firewalls... Basically, playing 2 games, and using the same parameters each time, would not give the same result... You wouldn't be able to rely on that to win anymore, using the chat to create challenges could end up in silly situations... Imagine someone writing in the chat "my life sucks", which could result in a challenge where a mothership must catch enough medics in a vortex in a given period of time, or a zealot having to run away from infestors trying to catch him with neural parasite... :D
EDIT: I just thought of another way... It's possible to create some sort of dungeon master telling a short story. Each time an important character is mentioned (or an event), one of the player in the game is asked to choose who/what it is, among a list of choices. And so on until the story is finished... Then what was written is created on the map, and the "hero" must do what the story told to win points.
I think there was something like that organized a while back already... I remember a map in which various members of our forums took part, each creating a little arena (some of which were quite nice). In the end, there was something like 36 arenas in a single map file... I have absolutely no clue what happened to the map (it's a shame really), but as far as I know, it was supposed to be a community-oriented project as well.
Anyway, I love the idea (retro gaming, YES!)... I can't really join you right now though, I have other important matters to deal with lately. I just wish this project will not suffer the same fate as the previous project. Maybe the first step would be to name a few retro games people would wish to see converted to a SC2 map, just to keep the inspiration coming! :)
Pacman, Double Dragon, Micro Machines, Duck Hunt, Punch Out,... You name it!
The cadavre exquis (literally "exquisite cadaver" from French) is a basic pen and paper game, where each player take turns writing parts of a sentence on a paper. You only pass the paper to the next player after folding it (to hide what has been written). At the end of a turn, we unfold the paper and read the sentence, in which everyone participated without knowing what the others wrote...
It's not really a game by itself (it was more of a "writing exercise", centuries ago), but it can be used as a way to create random challenges between friends (kind of like Truth or Dare). Usually, the first player writes a name/character, the second player writes an action, the third player writes a location, and so on... I was just wondering if the concept could be done in SC2, tell me what you think of it.
Players would take turns in a random order (defined at the beginning of the game). The first player would have to pick the name of any player currently in the game (including himself if he's ready to take the risk). Some players after him would have to pick an option among a list of possibilities (what to do, what conditions, etc...), which, in the end, would create some kind of a challenge. If the picked player succeeds in this challenge he gains 2 points, if he loses all the other players gain one point. The game would end when a player reaches 10 points (or 10+N more points than anyone else, in case of a tie).
Examples of results:
Player 1, must kill 3 ultralisks, using only psi storms.
(player 1 then spawns as a high templar, in an arena filled with ultralisks controlled by the other players)
Player 2, must not be seen by marines, without using blink.
(player 2 then spawns as a stalker without blink, and must reach a location on the other side of an arena, filled with marines controlled by the other players)
Player 1, must not be killed, in a zombie apocalypse.
(player 1 then spawns as a random unit, in an arena filled with hostile zombies, and must survive X seconds)
Player 1, must not be killed, using only psi storms.
(player 1 then spawns as a high templar, and must survive X seconds against waves of units sent by the other players)
Each parameter of the challenge has to be picked by a player currently in the game (who picks the next parameter is chosen at random). A parameter picked in a previous challenge cannot be picked twice (except the player who must succeed, obviously), to prevent players from scoring with a challenge too easy for them.
What do you think? Is it even possible to create, can it be fun to play, does it have a good replay value?
It says that review is optional, but leaving it as it is will produce infamous blank review.
Really? That sucks... and I guess it also shows the little interest I have for the Fun or Not section of the Arcade... There are too many melee maps in the Arcade to make this option interesting, the last thing I want to play when browsing for custom maps is another melee (not to mention good melee maps are quite rare anyway). Either that, or when you have to play a random map from a teenager with no talent, or a map with rules so complicated you have to spend 10 minutes reading tips. I'd rather see a Legacy section as some people already mentioned, rather than this Fun or Not option, which leads to boring games (or maps from the first pages anyway) in a lot of cases.
A simple way to do it is to combine the actor events (basically switching animations when a buff is applied/removed) with acceleration:
1) set your unit's acceleration to a very low value.
2) add the "run" behavior on that unit so that it's off by default, and will only activate when a validator checking your unit speed will reach a specific value.
3) set the actor events so that when the buff is applied, the animations are switched.
I did this on my map The Last Hour (a bit hard to see on this video, but check here: ), this is how I managed to get both dogs and civilians running when they had to travel long distances. I had to check in the official campaign to find a way to do this (there is a dog running ahead of you right on the first mission, so I edited the map and checked how it was done... the rest was pretty easy to guess but mostly required tuning for a nice result).
There is already a behavior named "run" which will do exactly what it's meant for: civilians and dogs with this behavior will use a different set of animations (of course, the animations have to be included in the model, which means you won't be able to make any unit run, unless you export the models, add some animations using 3DSMax or Maya, then import them back).
The events are already included in the actors (for both dogs and civilians), so you won't have to add them. The only thing you need to add (besides adding the behavior itself to the unit) is a validator for this behavior, checking for the unit speed. Since a unit's acceleration is pretty high by default, they will switch from walking to running almost in a blink (they reach their max speed almost instantly, so you won't see any transition).
The simplest way I found is to set the acceleration very low, it will make the unit look like it's walking for a short distance, slowly growing up speed, eventually starting to run when the momentum is significant enough. It makes sense to set the decceleration to a low value as well, I have not yet seen people able to stop their momentum in a blink after running!
There is a flaw to this method though... You can't use these units for kiting. It's really not efficient to attack-move with these units, as they won't be able to build momentum fast enough to evade/pursue enemies.
They're not specifically from HotS, they were in WoL since forever. I think they appear either on a specific terrain type, or when you use terrain objects. There are 2 terrain objects which basically form a hole, in which you can see some tunnels filled with these locusts. I don't know exactly where they are used in the campaign maps, though I think it was on that mission where you have to fight the Leviathan (when you blow up parts of the space station, I think you can see them crawling below)... The reason why these locusts appear in the corner of a map is still unknown, some people said it was some kind of easter egg.
1. Resetting the "up&coming", "featured" and all other pages at each new season would be nice to help mappers... I'm fed up with seeing the same maps over and over in the first pages, I still can't believe people keep playing these maps since the release of WoL (Pimp my Footman, Space Battles, Nexus War, etc...)! Don't they get bored at some point? Do they even know there is way more than enough good maps to play on the Arcade to keep them busy?
2. No. No no no. NO NO NO NO. NOOOOOOOOOO! I want to play HotS, and I don't care if it's not perfectly balanced right on day 1. SC1 wasn't perfectly balanced either when Brood War came out, and yet the game ended up as awesome as it could be. I see no point in delaying HotS anymore, it's already been 2 years. Don't make it another Duke Nukem For(n)ever...
3. Although it's an entire game with a singleplayer campaign of its own, I was expecting something closer to 30€... Not to mention the price of the special editions, which are insanely expensive given the items included. Hopefully the price will be slightly lower than 40€ if you buy the box version in your local store (it was the case for WoL, I bought it 10-15€ cheaper than the digital version on BattleNet).
4. It depends... Most SC2 players are playing melee only. Eventually, the game will be balanced so I guess it will be a success (not to mention the addition of clans and other cool features). For mappers however, I still think there's room for improvement. I expect them to do something in the coming years, probably with the release of the second expansion. I seriously doubt the players will pay attention though, since they're not even able to review custom maps properly (seriously, have you checked some reviews at random? they give 1 star each time they lose a game, as if it was the author's fault... A lot of them still don't know you can rate a map without writing a blank review...). The more I play this game, the less I like the average player. They blame Blizzard at every patch (the Diablo 3 community is getting seriously ridiculous, by the way), and can't review a custom map properly if it requires more than "pop up marines and rush like an idiot".
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@DuckyTheDuck: Go
Yet, they tried. No doubt it's a matter of tastes, but they have done something that no other video games company would have. I'm kind of bored of reading people saying "Blizzard is not what it used to be", as far as I'm concerned I enjoyed D3 and it does not "suck". I have no issue with splitting SC2 in 3 games either, and yet I'm one of the first to complain when games are offering DLCs no longer than a week after their release (SF4 is worth $120 of DLCs... no comment...)!
Of course Blizzard does bad choices once in a while, and one may think they tend to do it a lot lately, but from what I know about the company, it's pretty much all about waiting. Their games are not that good when they come out, it's only after years of feedback that they can start changing it and making it better. In the meantime, fanboys will whine and complain... If you want to see for yourself, just compare the vanilla version of WoW and what it has become now. It's pretty much like night and day! Comparing the vanilla SC to its expansion is like night and day as well, so you should expect SC2 to be what it's supposed to be when the last expansion will be released. Bored of waiting? Then play other games, there are more than enough to fill your needs.
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It's true DoW is immersive, way more than SC2... It's true it's unbalanced as well, which shows it's probably not a good idea to add too many races if you want a game to be competitive. SC2 has asymetric gameplay, DoW doesn't... which makes it even harder to add a 4th race! Basically, DoW is all about positioning (finding cover, holding strategic points,...), SC2 and TFT on the other hand are all about the army composition (training units fast and finding the proper counter to the opponent's army). I like both Blizzard games and DoW but let's be honest here, if I have to watch pro players having a duel I'd rather watch them play SC2. DoW has slower, longer games, and the issue of a game does not rely on as many factors as in SC2 or TFT. It's basically like comparing chess (DoW) and poker (SC2).
Funny you'd say that... Usually people complain that big companies are not taking any risk and doing shitty games that look exactly the same as the game going by the same name from last year... Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Call of Duty, etc... There are almost too many to count! Right now Blizzard is taking a risk at not providing something that every player would expect, and you're still not OK with it. And people wonder why Blizzard won't listen to them? Talk about fanboys... You can't please them all, because none of them ever agrees on what the perfect game would be. It's generally a good advice NOT to listen to fanboys and lead your game in a completely new, unexpected direction, because they will complain either way. Basically, listen to what they say so you know what you should and shouldn't do.
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You don't need to create a variable for this to work: Look for the function "attribute game value" in your switch, instead of a local variable you added.
Basically, just remove the local variable "gamemode" you added in your trigger. Remove the "wait" and "set variable" functions at the beginning (which are of no use anymore anyway), then set your switch to use the function "attribute game value", with the parameter "tech level".
I've done the modifications for you in case you still don't get it, see the attached file. If you want to test it without uploading your map on BNet, you will have to change the default value of your "tech level" game attribute, save, then start the game from the editor. If it still doesn't work, there is probably something wrong with the actions within your switch.
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@zeldarules28: Go
My point exactly. :)
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@SoulFilcher: Go
The same happened to me approximately half a year ago... Basically I started seeing artifacts in games (SC2 first, but then it was in almost any 3D game) and my video card died after a few weeks. I tried baking the card (there are actually tutorials everywhere on how to do this) and it worked for a few days, but then the card was completely failing (even on the desktop). Sometimes, just reducing the screen resolution can help. I remember setting my desktop to 1024*768 and the artifacts disappeared for a while, but keep in mind that the video card is dying anyway, so... sooner or later, it will fail.
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Probably because it wouldn't make sense, story-wise... I'm guessing the Xel'Naga is going to be part of the protoss campaign, you can guess that from the storyline in WoL already (especially with the last mission from the shard). I don't see any point in allowing players to control the Xel'Naga as a separate race, they are more or less "heroes" from the past... It wouldn't make sense to train them by dozens from a base, with its own tech tree etc...
Concerning the features added in HotS now, I don't see why you hate them so much. What exactly did you expect? There are a lot of tiny features added, along with an entire campaign (2 or 3 missions shorter, indeed, but so were the BW campaigns compared to SC1). There are new units, who are actually changing a lot of things in melee (which also means we're going to have hundreds of patches in the coming years... just like BW). I can't help but feel like SC is actually not your kind of game... You're expecting SC2 to be like WoW or Warcraft, at least in terms of content. Would you compare Saints Row to Darksiders? They're from the same company but it doesn't mean each game individually can't have their own strengths and weaknesses... They don't have to be the same in terms of content, yet they are both interesting games to play, worth paying the full price for.
Maybe $40 is a bit too much for an expansion, but as far as I'm concerned they provide enough content to make my SC2 experience completely different, both from a player and a mapper points-of-view. So either way, I'm pretty sure I will buy the expansion and I will like it. I also know features will keep coming during a few years (just as it happened between the release of WoL and HotS), so in the long term I'm pretty sure the expansion will be worth the $40 it costs... If we're lucky, it will even cost less in a year and you hopefully won't be as skeptical as you are now.
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I tried to replicate what the map does (from what I remember when I played it), look at the attached file... Pretty much everything is explained (I added comments everywhere in the triggers). If you want to prevent frame drops (when loading models and effects), maybe you should add preloads in another trigger... But other than that, I think the map I made is pretty much everything you're looking for. I was looking to do it myself some day anyway, the original map is fun and I always wondered what it would look like on one of my own melee maps! Have fun (no credits needed for the help, but it's always nice)! :)
EDIT: I noticed a little bug with the warning sound when playing terran, basically you just have to remove the default value in the switch to make it work again. Everything else seems to work just fine (although timings are not accurate, it's up to you to change them to your tastes). Enjoy!
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Just throwing some ideas after watching the videos... It would be nice to have some kind of a metronome, to make sure people keep in rhythm. Of course it could be a problem with the lag, but overall it should help keeping in sync with other people. I guess only the host should have access to this function, like a tiny window displaying BPMs, allowing to set them higher or lower, and mute/unmute it. There should be something on the UI as well to let everyone know when the tick is going to happen.
Maybe you should also allow players to use their actual keyboard to play tunes, instead of mouse clicks on units. There is a problem (again) because layouts differ from a country to another, but maybe it can be fixed by allowing players to pick their layout in the lobby (if the setting is not set to default for someone, just apply the differences instead of applying an entire preset each time). It will be easier to play fast tunes if you remove the risk of missing your clicks.
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Exactly! :)
Deception becomes a part of the gameplay, everyone is involved in the creation of the challenge, without knowing if it's good or bad for them. What matters in the end is how skilled you are in this particular situation. That's why a well-thought design is mandatory, making sure every combination possible is both fun to play and well-balanced... And there must be enough parameters to choose from during an entire game, too! That's probably the hardest part, because the more options you give, the less balanced it will be.
The cadavre exquis often gives silly results to be honest (try it yourself with some friends one day, you'll end with stories about "pandas and unicorns buying condoms to a drug-dealing fireman, on the top floor of a tower made of cheese during a storm"...). Originally, I was hoping it would be possible to create some sort of library/dictionary, so that the first player to write a sentence in the chat ("player X must do THIS with/without THAT") will make the game create a challenge accordingly. But the obvious flaw to this is that players will make the challenges impossible for their opponents and too easy for themselves.
In the examples I mentioned, I used pretty simple sentences... But maybe it would be better to have parameters like "bottle of wine" or "jalapeño" (or whatever, as long as people really don't have any clue what's going to happen if they use it). They would rather show a general idea, rather than a predictable result. "Bottle of wine" could either be a hellion or a firebat, and "jalapeño" could result in either a shower of banelings or a maze of moving firewalls... Basically, playing 2 games, and using the same parameters each time, would not give the same result... You wouldn't be able to rely on that to win anymore, using the chat to create challenges could end up in silly situations... Imagine someone writing in the chat "my life sucks", which could result in a challenge where a mothership must catch enough medics in a vortex in a given period of time, or a zealot having to run away from infestors trying to catch him with neural parasite... :D
EDIT: I just thought of another way... It's possible to create some sort of dungeon master telling a short story. Each time an important character is mentioned (or an event), one of the player in the game is asked to choose who/what it is, among a list of choices. And so on until the story is finished... Then what was written is created on the map, and the "hero" must do what the story told to win points.
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I think there was something like that organized a while back already... I remember a map in which various members of our forums took part, each creating a little arena (some of which were quite nice). In the end, there was something like 36 arenas in a single map file... I have absolutely no clue what happened to the map (it's a shame really), but as far as I know, it was supposed to be a community-oriented project as well.
Anyway, I love the idea (retro gaming, YES!)... I can't really join you right now though, I have other important matters to deal with lately. I just wish this project will not suffer the same fate as the previous project. Maybe the first step would be to name a few retro games people would wish to see converted to a SC2 map, just to keep the inspiration coming! :)
Pacman, Double Dragon, Micro Machines, Duck Hunt, Punch Out,... You name it!
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The cadavre exquis (literally "exquisite cadaver" from French) is a basic pen and paper game, where each player take turns writing parts of a sentence on a paper. You only pass the paper to the next player after folding it (to hide what has been written). At the end of a turn, we unfold the paper and read the sentence, in which everyone participated without knowing what the others wrote...
It's not really a game by itself (it was more of a "writing exercise", centuries ago), but it can be used as a way to create random challenges between friends (kind of like Truth or Dare). Usually, the first player writes a name/character, the second player writes an action, the third player writes a location, and so on... I was just wondering if the concept could be done in SC2, tell me what you think of it.
Players would take turns in a random order (defined at the beginning of the game). The first player would have to pick the name of any player currently in the game (including himself if he's ready to take the risk). Some players after him would have to pick an option among a list of possibilities (what to do, what conditions, etc...), which, in the end, would create some kind of a challenge. If the picked player succeeds in this challenge he gains 2 points, if he loses all the other players gain one point. The game would end when a player reaches 10 points (or 10+N more points than anyone else, in case of a tie).
Examples of results:
(player 1 then spawns as a high templar, in an arena filled with ultralisks controlled by the other players)
(player 2 then spawns as a stalker without blink, and must reach a location on the other side of an arena, filled with marines controlled by the other players)
(player 1 then spawns as a random unit, in an arena filled with hostile zombies, and must survive X seconds)
(player 1 then spawns as a high templar, and must survive X seconds against waves of units sent by the other players)
Each parameter of the challenge has to be picked by a player currently in the game (who picks the next parameter is chosen at random). A parameter picked in a previous challenge cannot be picked twice (except the player who must succeed, obviously), to prevent players from scoring with a challenge too easy for them.
What do you think? Is it even possible to create, can it be fun to play, does it have a good replay value?
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Really? That sucks... and I guess it also shows the little interest I have for the Fun or Not section of the Arcade... There are too many melee maps in the Arcade to make this option interesting, the last thing I want to play when browsing for custom maps is another melee (not to mention good melee maps are quite rare anyway). Either that, or when you have to play a random map from a teenager with no talent, or a map with rules so complicated you have to spend 10 minutes reading tips. I'd rather see a Legacy section as some people already mentioned, rather than this Fun or Not option, which leads to boring games (or maps from the first pages anyway) in a lot of cases.
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A simple way to do it is to combine the actor events (basically switching animations when a buff is applied/removed) with acceleration:
1) set your unit's acceleration to a very low value.
2) add the "run" behavior on that unit so that it's off by default, and will only activate when a validator checking your unit speed will reach a specific value.
3) set the actor events so that when the buff is applied, the animations are switched.
I did this on my map The Last Hour (a bit hard to see on this video, but check here: ), this is how I managed to get both dogs and civilians running when they had to travel long distances. I had to check in the official campaign to find a way to do this (there is a dog running ahead of you right on the first mission, so I edited the map and checked how it was done... the rest was pretty easy to guess but mostly required tuning for a nice result).
There is already a behavior named "run" which will do exactly what it's meant for: civilians and dogs with this behavior will use a different set of animations (of course, the animations have to be included in the model, which means you won't be able to make any unit run, unless you export the models, add some animations using 3DSMax or Maya, then import them back).
The events are already included in the actors (for both dogs and civilians), so you won't have to add them. The only thing you need to add (besides adding the behavior itself to the unit) is a validator for this behavior, checking for the unit speed. Since a unit's acceleration is pretty high by default, they will switch from walking to running almost in a blink (they reach their max speed almost instantly, so you won't see any transition).
The simplest way I found is to set the acceleration very low, it will make the unit look like it's walking for a short distance, slowly growing up speed, eventually starting to run when the momentum is significant enough. It makes sense to set the decceleration to a low value as well, I have not yet seen people able to stop their momentum in a blink after running!
There is a flaw to this method though... You can't use these units for kiting. It's really not efficient to attack-move with these units, as they won't be able to build momentum fast enough to evade/pursue enemies.
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They're not specifically from HotS, they were in WoL since forever. I think they appear either on a specific terrain type, or when you use terrain objects. There are 2 terrain objects which basically form a hole, in which you can see some tunnels filled with these locusts. I don't know exactly where they are used in the campaign maps, though I think it was on that mission where you have to fight the Leviathan (when you blow up parts of the space station, I think you can see them crawling below)... The reason why these locusts appear in the corner of a map is still unknown, some people said it was some kind of easter egg.
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1. Resetting the "up&coming", "featured" and all other pages at each new season would be nice to help mappers... I'm fed up with seeing the same maps over and over in the first pages, I still can't believe people keep playing these maps since the release of WoL (Pimp my Footman, Space Battles, Nexus War, etc...)! Don't they get bored at some point? Do they even know there is way more than enough good maps to play on the Arcade to keep them busy?
2. No. No no no. NO NO NO NO. NOOOOOOOOOO! I want to play HotS, and I don't care if it's not perfectly balanced right on day 1. SC1 wasn't perfectly balanced either when Brood War came out, and yet the game ended up as awesome as it could be. I see no point in delaying HotS anymore, it's already been 2 years. Don't make it another Duke Nukem For(n)ever...
3. Although it's an entire game with a singleplayer campaign of its own, I was expecting something closer to 30€... Not to mention the price of the special editions, which are insanely expensive given the items included. Hopefully the price will be slightly lower than 40€ if you buy the box version in your local store (it was the case for WoL, I bought it 10-15€ cheaper than the digital version on BattleNet).
4. It depends... Most SC2 players are playing melee only. Eventually, the game will be balanced so I guess it will be a success (not to mention the addition of clans and other cool features). For mappers however, I still think there's room for improvement. I expect them to do something in the coming years, probably with the release of the second expansion. I seriously doubt the players will pay attention though, since they're not even able to review custom maps properly (seriously, have you checked some reviews at random? they give 1 star each time they lose a game, as if it was the author's fault... A lot of them still don't know you can rate a map without writing a blank review...). The more I play this game, the less I like the average player. They blame Blizzard at every patch (the Diablo 3 community is getting seriously ridiculous, by the way), and can't review a custom map properly if it requires more than "pop up marines and rush like an idiot".