Blizzard Unveils Custom StarCraft 2 Game Types, Encourages Map Design 83
The first of the Blizzard-made maps is a humorous creation called Aiur Chef, an eight-player free-for-all in which players collect “ingredients” from around the map that are required for recipes, which each grant various rewards, such as points, items, and special powers. You compete against an opponent for a high score, and while you can’t kill each other, you are able to hinder the collection of ingredients through effects like stuns and slowing effects. Each of the three rounds has a “theme ingredient,” and you can see units running around carrying pots and drumsticks and rolling pins. There’s a new UI window showing which ingredients you have left to collect.
Another custom game, titled Left 2 Die, is based on one of the missions in the single-player campaign where players were swarmed by hordes of zombies every night, using daylight hours to rebuild and go on the offensive. Blizzard received enough positive feedback about that particular mission that they decided to go ahead and make a standalone version (tipping their hat to Valve's Left 4 Dead in the process). It's a co-op game, and as you mow down zombies you collect Zerg Biomass to buy upgrades for your army (upgrades that are shared, so you don’t have to worry about competing with your partner). There are new zombie units to contend with, inspired by those in Left 4 Dead, but adapted so they make sense in an RTS.
Next is a game called Starjeweled, which sections off half of the UI into Blizzard’s interpretation of the popular Bejeweled puzzle game. When you match a group of similar symbols, they disappear and grant you resources to spend on units, which then go out and try to attack an enemy base.
Perhaps the most notable of Blizzard's custom games is what they call Blizzard DOTA, based on the hugely popular Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients. In teams of five, players will control Heroes that can buy items, gain experience and level up, while the map constantly spawns waves of monsters from both bases. The heroes will be a collection of notable Blizzard characters from various games.
During the panel about the map tools, the Starcraft 2 team was very focused on introducing map makers to the basics of development. They talked about the necessity of making the first few minutes of a custom game easy to understand for new players, since getting massacred while being utterly confused is not an experience most players will want to repeat. They also encouraged map makers to take a more active role in soliciting and responding to feedback. Blizzard relies heavily on iteration, and they think the community would benefit from doing so as well.
Blizzard was insistent that the custom maps they will be releasing are part of an ongoing process to keep making new maps and custom games for players. One of their big goals for the immediate future is to keep demonstrating what their map editor is capable of and getting assets in the hands of players to facilitate building. To that end, the custom games they’re building will be unlocked, so the community will be able to look at the internals and modify whatever they see fit. (And speaking of security, they're working on better safeguards to keep people from copying others' maps, should the creators wish to keep them private.) Another reason they built the maps was to see in what areas the editing tools were lacking, so they could continue to add and streamline functionality.
BNet 2.0 a disappointment (Score:5, Insightful)
The game itself is amazing and I have had a lot of fun playing it, throughout the beta and the release, but I am really sad at how Bnet 2.0 turned out. The so called "social experience" is not social at all. Hard to meet and talk to new people because there are no chat channels. There's no guild support. You can't name your own custom games (what the fuck????).
Facebook integration is great and all, but I hardly have any friends that play the game. Most of the people I played with in the original game I met on Bnet in.... chat channels. The whole thing is just so ass backards and feels like a hack.
Not interested (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed - your content, their whimsy (Score:5, Insightful)
All of your content gets loaded onto Blizzard's infrastructure. There is no local storage. If they don't like your map/gametype -- for any reason -- they can wipe it from existence. Why do they do this? Because they can [arstechnica.com] .
Re:BNet 2.0 a disappointment (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:BNet 2.0 a disappointment (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too bad Blizzard is screwing their mod communit (Score:2, Insightful)
Bear in mind that for a while, Blizzard has been taking orders from people whose positions of power came from the success of the Shrek video game franchise and Guitar Hero. If you're expecting these people to understand the value of a grass roots developer community, think again. It's not just that they are hostile, it's that they just plain don't get it. And if you've ever been down the org chart from someone who makes decisions like this, you understand that you really don't get the opportunity to explain it to them, or if you try, they still don't get it (and you end up with even *less* power.)
I don't know, but I'm guessing that a lot of the talent that Blizzard had, moved on to greener pastures and we're seeing the consequences of that in their games.
The kicker is that these decision makers are probably right. They are probably driving a quarter or two of unprecedented growth for the company.
So this is what it comes down to? (Score:3, Insightful)
Blizzard (over)charges US$60 for their new game, disallows LAN play, cuts off their player base (Seriously? Get caught cheating in SC2 and you're not allowed to play anymore? In single player?), can't deliver new product (what part of this, exactly, isn't just a rehash of the existing franchise, with newer graphics?), and now wants everyone to get excited about map editing? Back in the days of Q2 and Unreal, I could see that... map editors where new and exciting tech back then... but the current RTS market? Even for a huge franchise (but now shrinking, due to Blizzard's slipshod handling of this latest entry), a map editor is less of a "wow factor" than an obvious and expected component in an RTS. No map editor? Multiplayer lasts for a few months, then stops. Without new maps, your game lasts only as long as you are actively (and expensively) promoting it. Duh.
in lieu of announcements about Heart of the Swarm, the devs are using Blizzcon to showcase the map-editing tools
Right... Call me when they have something worth looking at, because as far as I can tell, StarCraft2 isn't.
Re:Too bad Blizzard is screwing their mod communit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just that they are hostile, it's that they just plain don't get it.
Yep, the same way they just "don't get" that removing the ability to play on a LAN breaks the game for many buyers.
The same way they "don't get" that they are killing the potential longevity of this game with their draconian control measures.
The same way they "don't get" their entire user base.
I have purchased several copies of damn near every game Blizzard has made for the last 2 decades. I haven't been on battle.net since the days of Diablo I.
I (and the other 3 members of my family) used to be huge WoW players.
I don't see any Blizzard games on the current (or near future) market that grab enough interest (now that I see what they did to StarCraft) to entice me to spend more than about $20 on anything they've got. $60 is ridiculous, especially since they're requiring me to go online to activate single-player mode, I can't just drop in at a LAN party and play, I can get banned (and locked out of single-player mode) for cheating in single-player... The list goes on. Blizzard, you really dropped the ball with this one.
If the problem is that your developers (or whoever is actually steering your company) "just don't get it", you better find someone who does... fast.
The kicker is that these decision makers are probably right. They are probably driving a quarter or two of unprecedented growth for the company.
... followed by an amazing swan-dive that will drag the entire company into the gutter. Good job looking at the short term, fellas!
--
"We'll show those pirates what for! We'll alienate our customer base, and bankrupt ourselves! Let's see them steal our intellectual property after that!"
Still no team melee (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read they were introducing new map types and play modes, my first hope was that they'd bring back team melee [battle.net].
And before someone says it's already in the game, it's not. It was a really innovative way to play RTS as a team, and it's a shame they haven't included it. If you don't remember the mode from the original, have a look at the thread on the forum asking for its return [battle.net].
Re:BNet 2.0 a disappointment (Score:4, Insightful)
It's getting really old for every story even mentioning a Blizzard game getting half filled with people complaining about battle.net 2.0. You don't like it. We get it. There's no reason to make 20 new posts in every story about how you've been buying every Blizzard game for the past 20 years but now you're never going to buy one again because you hate DRM or whatever. The majority of the time these posts are completely off-topic, too.
Seriously, what does this post have to do with the new custom maps discussed at Blizzcon, or anything else discussed at Blizzcon, other than tangentially that they're both related to SC2? What part of the content of this post hasn't been posted 1000 times before in every story even mentioning SC2 -- or WoW -- in the past year? Not to mention the fact that one of the things you specifically mentioned, chat channels, is a feature they've been promising to add for almost just as long.
Get over it.
Re:ITT noobs complaining about SC2 (Score:3, Insightful)
So, how do you determine the difference between a passionate supporter of an idea and a troll? Or between a fan/apologist and a shill? Because, I gotta tell you, I've seen from first-hand experience that most slashdotters have traditionally got it woefully wrong. When I see someone being accused of being a troll or a shill, I do a cursory check the person's post history, to see whether their posts have a common theme. More often than not, the accusation of being a troll is misplaced, and I have yet to see an accusation of being a shill that has held any water.
If you don't want to waste your time on an argument, then don't reply, don't moderate, don't get involved. It's not really any of your business. It's business between those who do want to argue the point, and take it seriously. I don't care what trolls or shills want; a well-argued opinion not yet countered deserves the same respect as any other well-argued opinion not yet countered.
Re:BNet 2.0 a disappointment (Score:3, Insightful)
Because instead of fixing real problems, Blizzard decides to focus on puff work?
I'm not a fan of b.net 2.0 (it sucks compared to the old b.net). Blizzard has made things better since SC2's release, but things have moved so slowly that I've not really played SC2 much (I had hoped SC2 would tide me over until Halo Reach, but my b.net 2.0 issues took TWO WEEKS to resolve. In the end, I played Flash games and SC2 has been collecting dust ever since. All that's happened is I played 20 minutes from mid-August until September 14 to verify that yes, my account was fixed.
There are still plenty of issues with b.net 2.0, so while new map types and such are cool, I'm sure a bunch of people would prefer Blizzard fix the issues so they can have a regular game of SC2 first rather than a buggy game with a new map.
Especially at something like Blizzcon - make a worthwhile announcement about common complaints. Of course they can't because the fixes to b.net are really in the form of "for an extra $10/month, you can play local LAN games" and "for $5/month you can play your friends in Europe" and such (thanks, Activision. Nope you have fun screwing up Bungie like you did Blizzard). And they can't do that because they haven't finished setting the rates yet.
I was seriously considering pre-ordering Diablo 3 when I got SC2. I'm happy I didn't considering most of the issues aren't with the game itself, but b.net. At least if I get back into Sc2, I have some new gametypes to play. Guess I should get that done before I get charged a monthly fee for them.