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I think Blizzard should make the source of SC public, or sell it to Kespa or something...
Coz the way it is now, its basically an abandoned project, they dont earn money from CD sales anymore, they receive very little money from Ads.
im thinking maybe some deal can be agreed where money of ads can still go to blizzard(or blizzard gets paid as much as they usually earn, but Advertising space is owned by Kespa for example), but let the ppl who care about game fix the ladder and maybe make new servers for testing of potential new patches...
I have some things i wanna know and i'd like if some1 who has experience(knowledge) about these things to fill me up with info...
1. Would a thing like this be possible? (blizzard handing their project to the community, or some korean organization)
2. Am i right about Blizzard getting no cash from SC anymore?
3. what do u think of the idea in general?
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1. This has been done with other games before like Q3.
2. ppl still buy CDs from time to time, and there are ads on BNet, but I doubt that this covers the server costs. Speaking of which, who's gonna pay these?
3. Dunno really. Could lead to splitting the community if ppl released different patches concurrently, see emule for instance.
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Making a project like Starcraft open source is not a simple task. Selling it to Kespa doesn't make it open source it just gives Kespa the ownership. Making a project open source opens alot of avenues for a project both good and bad, Blizzard may not want the project to start splitting into different avenues and have people creating different mods and versions of one of the most popular games out there. I am also sure that Blizzard still gets paid by all the Korean leagues for use of the game over a public access channel, so they probably still are making money off it, hell they have Starcraft chips and pop.
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2. Am i right about Blizzard getting no cash from SC anymore?
No. They get alot of money from Koreea.
Do you really think they don't get money from televised matches? And don't sell copyright for koreean companys who make starcraft like food (i saw something like chio chips but with sc figures some time ago on some forum), starcraft like toys (i also saw on a thread some time ago, they had toys of starcraft figures) etc.
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The do get cash from SC, but it's negligible, even more compared to the CASH they get from WoW.
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On December 07 2006 05:47 indecision wrote:
1. This has been done with other games before like Q3.
2. ppl still buy CDs from time to time, and there are ads on BNet, but I doubt that this covers the server costs. Speaking of which, who's gonna pay these?
3. Dunno really. Could lead to splitting the community if ppl released different patches concurrently, see emule for instance.
John Carmack actually releases most of his engines to the public, usually when the next big is about to come out. Also when it is brand new he sub leases the entire engine to MANY other gaming companies to make games with, so in a way engines like that are public or at least can be bought and looked at.
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They do get cash. Releasing it as opensource is nice idea, but what about battle.net? Every client would be potentionaly incompatible and not easily patchable. The power of StarCraft is that there is "one" place where all the players meet durning their online gaming.
In fact, for the really good programming (Blizzard optimalization) SCBW is opensource, you can make whatever you want in a day...
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Abandoned project? What the fuck is up with these threads.
Blizzard is in the business of making commercial software for entertainment purposes. This isnt some sourceforge shit that a few dudes put together while only communicating via MSN. Tons of hardwork from many programmers, artists, management folks and whoever else handled launching the game to retail went into this. On top of that Blizzard has been keeping the game updated a bit and patched most major bugs through the years. It also happens to be a highly successful IP for Blizzard(Though you wouldnt know because they havent gone back to it in like 7 years).
There is also nothing for Blizzard to gain from releasing the source due to how tight of an experience they have made Starcraft(And all their other games) from a user perspective. You click like 2 things to get online to play multiplayer, the game comes with a map editor there is no need for a 3rd party editor out of the box, etc. Giving out the source would surely wreck havoc on the online experience and if they had done it years ago I personally doubt that SC would still be a viable game to play online.
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1. blizzard will never do that
2. few cash
3. making sc os isn't really gonna improve it.
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On December 07 2006 10:49 red.venom wrote:
Abandoned project? What the fuck is up with these threads.
Blizzard is in the business of making commercial software for entertainment purposes. This isnt some sourceforge shit that a few dudes put together while only communicating via MSN. Tons of hardwork from many programmers, artists, management folks and whoever else handled launching the game to retail went into this. On top of that Blizzard has been keeping the game updated a bit and patched most major bugs through the years. It also happens to be a highly successful IP for Blizzard(Though you wouldnt know because they havent gone back to it in like 7 years).
There is also nothing for Blizzard to gain from releasing the source due to how tight of an experience they have made Starcraft(And all their other games) from a user perspective. You click like 2 things to get online to play multiplayer, the game comes with a map editor there is no need for a 3rd party editor out of the box, etc. Giving out the source would surely wreck havoc on the online experience and if they had done it years ago I personally doubt that SC would still be a viable game to play online.
I don't like your representation of the average free software programmer much, I think it's impolite and inaccurate to say the least. I'd also like to say that a variety of nightmare scenarios usually surface in connection to any proposal to make anything an open source project, having very little to do with reality and history.
You don't have make something free software to make it open source. There are various conditions thinkable for open sourcing StarCraft which would be advantageous for both Blizzard and the StarCraft community.
The main reason it doesn't happen is not because the companies would suffer, but because they don't have a proper understanding of the matter. Starting an investigation as to if and how StarCraft should be made open source would be a major investment for Blizzard, and it's understandable that it's not willing to make it.
Perhaps when more about open sourcing software becomes known and generally accepted knowledge, then they can more easily follow precedents set by other companies.
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It's not gonna happen anytime soon and most likely not at all. Maybe in 50 yrs. That would give really good possibilities.
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A few weeks ago I went to a Best Buy for a wii, and to my suprise, I saw Starcraft broodwar stocked along with WoW, Diablo, Half-life 2 on the same shelf. I find it amazing they're still selling copies to this day.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
blizzard values its product quality like none other and open source will degrade the quality (or at least they will assume so)
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Im buying a new copy before 2007, my cdkey got owned ._.
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IMO whoever thinks SC is not an abandoned project, is wrong. (its obviously not totally abandoned, but i dont think blizzard even has 1 person thats constantly dedicated to starcraft.)
coz, lets face it, if Ilintar or ashur had the access to the source code, they could patch the stuff from 1.13f to 1.14 in like a week, maybe even less... So, my guess is, after all that pressure from korea about hatch bug and all, some big shot at Blizzard told some random employee "go fix this mess" - and we got the 1.14.
Starcraft grew so much, its not even a standard game anymore, its a society thing, especially in korea... there must be a good way to let ppl who care about it actually care about it...
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On December 07 2006 15:07 nite2 wrote:
IMO whoever thinks SC is not an abandoned project, is wrong. (its obviously not totally abandoned, but i dont think blizzard even has 1 person thats constantly dedicated to starcraft.)
are you taking Sandlot and those other 2 tourneys that happened a year ago for granted?
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On December 07 2006 12:42 thedeadhaji wrote:
blizzard values its product quality like none other and open source will degrade the quality (or at least they will assume so)
A product doesn't randomly lose quality or value when the source is released.
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is awesome32278 Posts
But making it open source would make it easier to hack right?
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It's been proven time and time again that an open source creates the best security.
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Osaka27172 Posts
Abandoned? Were you not here two months ago for sandlot?
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On December 07 2006 15:07 nite2 wrote:
IMO whoever thinks SC is not an abandoned project, is wrong. (its obviously not totally abandoned, but i dont think blizzard even has 1 person thats constantly dedicated to starcraft.)
coz, lets face it, if Ilintar or ashur had the access to the source code, they could patch the stuff from 1.13f to 1.14 in like a week, maybe even less... So, my guess is, after all that pressure from korea about hatch bug and all, some big shot at Blizzard told some random employee "go fix this mess" - and we got the 1.14.
I agree. Blizzard's employees have much better things to do than looking over a nine-year-old game.
However, just because the source tree is rarely touched, it does not mean they should open-source it. It is after all, the intellectual property of Blizzard. While keeping "unity" (as someone mentioned above) is definitely a reason, I think Blizzard is much more concerned about their coding and design methodology.
A good portion of the Warcraft 3 code is probably branched from the Starcraft code-line. Starcraft 2 will likely to do the same, if it ever happens.
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Cambium, I don't think War3 uses that much code from Starcraft. Probably a bit of AI (reasoning, rules, directioning), networking part, and maybe some parts of the general structure, that's all I can think of. Anyway making SC open source will definitely cause issues for Battle NET's security. (Except if they make Battle.NET open source too, but that would affect other Blizz games)
This idea is fancy to think of but well we all know that it's not gonna happen 
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On December 07 2006 16:51 IntoTheWow wrote:
But making it open source would make it easier to hack right?
no
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On December 07 2006 18:32 mrdx wrote:Cambium, I don't think War3 uses that much code from Starcraft. Probably a bit of AI (reasoning, rules, directioning), networking part, and maybe some parts of the general structure, that's all I can think of. Anyway making SC open source will definitely cause issues for Battle NET's security. (Except if they make Battle.NET open source too, but that would affect other Blizz games) This idea is fancy to think of but well we all know that it's not gonna happen
I can think of a few more to add onto the unit AI.
Map -- fog of war, minimap rendering
Units -- attack, move, patrol, etc.
Game structure -- hotkey, possibly the entire UI.
That being said, I'm not saying they were copied line by line. It's more than likely that those things were recoded to improve efficiency. However, the methodology was probably identical.
As well, I'm not crediting all these things to SC, since Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2 did precede it. SC was probably built upon the Warcrafts.
Obviously, all these things are just my speculations; unless someone works/worked for Blizzard tells us, we'll never know for certain. Or alternatively, they could release the source code, but that won't happen any time soon.
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is awesome32278 Posts
Ok.
I dont know much about this, thats why i was asking
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starcraft might be in better hands, but blizz wouldn't do something like that. they've got way too much pride.
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Game would become better, security would become better. the thing with open source is that there must be some board that indicates which changes are accepted and which are not. The community could well be divided over things (like hold lurker) and diversion between different builds is disaster.
But Blizzard generally are not supportive of these kinds of ideas, so I dont think it will happen.
Cambium, afaik the wc2 engine was only used in the starcraft alpha, they built a complete new one for the release (of course you copy some smaller parts, but they started from scratch).
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Calgary25996 Posts
Hay guyz, i hav theeze el1t3 ideaz based on factz i jus made up ez.
Edit:
This is such an illogical idea I don't even know where to begin. Why would Blizzard, a company making money off someting they own, make it open source? It just completely defies logic.
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is awesome32278 Posts
Because they dont make money out of the game anymore. :3
edit: or if they do its very very little.
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Calgary25996 Posts
On December 07 2006 22:02 IntoTheWow wrote:
Because they dont make money out of the game anymore. :3
edit: or if they do its very very little.
Where did you get that fact from? Secondly, the lesson here is if you're making money you should give your product to the public for free?
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um... some ppl cant read. i wrote this suggestion starting from the fact that blizzard gets no money from SC anymore... (that fact seems wrong now, coz i didn think of TV rights)
Basically, if this happened, we would have the access to the code, but we would also have an organization like mozilla (kespa is the logical choice) that would actually decide which suggestions become reality.
I really wish Ashur & ilintar said their opinion on this idea... (ashur did post, but its a one word post)
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On December 07 2006 17:15 Manifesto7 wrote:
Abandoned? Were you not here two months ago for sandlot?
roflmao,that was a cute trick to entertain the crowd,making them believe they care about bw. then the talks started bout wgt becoming official ladder and blablabla-fact is we still aint got ladder and it's still impossible to play from europe with a player from us.west/us.east/asia without lag.(sometimes lag is really big,sometimes we don't c it until we start playing hamachi and realise how big latency is over net).
also how many people can't create games,how many people have extra high latency-for what?some 10yr old game that requires pentium 133mmx.
if blizzard started an official ladder and fixed the problems with the servers-i'd say they care.
but throwin up a fancy tour will solve nothing.
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The one thing I would personally change myself if it ever got released to the public... Rather then displaying the game at 640x480 I would display it at higher resolutions like say 1280x960 on a 19 inch monitor you could see like 4 times as much map that would fucking OWN!
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On December 07 2006 17:32 Cambium wrote:
I agree. Blizzard's employees have much better things to do than looking over a nine-year-old game.
However, just because the source tree is rarely touched, it does not mean they should open-source it. It is after all, the intellectual property of Blizzard. While keeping "unity" (as someone mentioned above) is definitely a reason, I think Blizzard is much more concerned about their coding and design methodology.
A good portion of the Warcraft 3 code is probably branched from the Starcraft code-line. Starcraft 2 will likely to do the same, if it ever happens.
Intellectual property? I don't think we should take your opinion on open source software seriously.
On December 08 2006 01:51 nite2 wrote:
um... some ppl cant read. i wrote this suggestion starting from the fact that blizzard gets no money from SC anymore... (that fact seems wrong now, coz i didn think of TV rights)
Basically, if this happened, we would have the access to the code, but we would also have an organization like mozilla (kespa is the logical choice) that would actually decide which suggestions become reality.
I really wish Ashur & ilintar said their opinion on this idea... (ashur did post, but its a one word post)
The problem of unity and royalties etc can be addressed by not making it entirely free software. You can release the source under suitable license terms that would benefit everyone.
On December 07 2006 21:55 Chill wrote:
Hay guyz, i hav theeze el1t3 ideaz based on factz i jus made up ez.
Edit:
This is such an illogical idea I don't even know where to begin. Why would Blizzard, a company making money off someting they own, make it open source? It just completely defies logic.
To improve the quality of their product; and their reputation.
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give the starcraft to the hands of BWlauncher makers and we are in SC heaven.
That resolution thing would be huuge if it was really done!
So many other stuff to improve... from technical shit on Bnet, to making minimap refresh more often, over to the betatesting of potential changes in game balance...
and ladder, real ladder.
FUCK why cant blizzard just offer jobs to ashur and ilintar. ffs they are already doing one hell of a job, and if they could actully work on SC knowing they are safe financially... man, that'd be great for everyone.
Blizzard would be a saint among game companies, comunitiy would be in awe, and ilintar and ashur would earn money for what they love doing. All that for like 4-5K us dolars for each. I cant even imagine how much they earn on WoW each day...
BTW. i agree, sandlot is a one time thing, doesnt prove shit.
Stalling this thing with WGT shows how much they care...
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
On December 08 2006 02:52 Dendra wrote:
some 10yr old game that requires pentium 133mmx.
Actually, it runs perfectly on pentuim 60. Not 16x speed replays, but still.
I don't think making SC opensource and released to the public. Remember the history of Lost Temple, once (and that was pretty long ago) I've had about 50 different LT maps in my downloads folder. Now that's ok, but imagine a OSL_StarCraft_v.1.21, WCG_StarCraft_v1.15, StarCraft_gamei, WGT_StarCraft_v.1.14, PGT_StarCraft_v.1.25, WGT_StarCraft_v.1.25, KeSPA_StarCraft_v.1.15, StarCraft_FINAL_by_1337_t36m etc all installed on your computer. SC should still have one owner who makes decisions.
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Firefox is opensource and we all have the same program... so its not a problem.
it doesnt have to be opensource, it just needs to get away from the paws of blizzard... yeah i know blizz made SC, but just like parents need to let go of their child, blizzard needs to let SC go, coz right now, the only thing they're doing, is holding it back...
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is awesome32278 Posts
On December 07 2006 22:07 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On December 07 2006 22:02 IntoTheWow wrote:
Because they dont make money out of the game anymore. :3
edit: or if they do its very very little. Where did you get that fact from? Secondly, the lesson here is if you're making money you should give your product to the public for free?
Well its not a fact. Nothing in this thread is a fact since we are all speculating and no one has real info. But considering the $$$ they need to keep Battle.net alive alive, the money they get fom Battle.net ads, how many copies of Starcraft are still being sold: i dont think Blizzard is making much money out of it.
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Netherlands13554 Posts
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EPT
