Major changes are coming to StarCraft II with patch 1.5.0. The menu screen will be split into two distinct areas, and each will be focused on a distinct experience. The StarCraft II section will be where players go for head to head ladder competition, as well as custom games focused on traditional StarCraft II gameplay, such as melee maps and micro trainers. Meanwhile, the new Arcade section will the place where the community can find and play the vast array of custom games that explore the many possibilities of the StarCraft II editor. From tower defense to RPGs and beyond, the Arcade will bring your creations to players around the world. We want the Arcade to offer the best experience possible, so we’re making changes to improve everything from the interface to the editor itself. Your input can help us refine it even further. Here are some of the improvements we already have planned: Global Changes
· Added StarCraft II & Arcade as game Types
o Creators define which basic type best fits the game that they have created. Each game will only appear in either StarCraft II or the Arcade.
· Game Genres
o We’ve used community feedback and the existing game list to create a comprehensive menu of genres for creators to choose from. Now players will have tools to more easily find the games they are looking for, which in turn gives creators an easy way to find their audience.
Arcade
· Game Presentation
o Browsing § Browsing for games is a totally new experience. Players can search for games based on genre, over all popularity, star rating, newness, and recent spikes in popularity.
o Game Icons § The game icon contains a large game image (provided by the creator), the game’s name, and star rating. Hovering over the icon displays the game description.
o Game Info page
§ Clicking on a game icon brings players into the Game Info page, a section devoted entirely to showing off what a game is all about, providing play instructions, and revealing other important information about the game.
§ All the content in Game Info is under control of the game creator, except for reviews.
§ Joining public matches and creating private games is done from the Game Info page. This will be the portal players return to again and again to play the game.
§ Game Info contains these sections:
· Overview: This will contain the game description, as well as screenshots that show off the action.
· How to Play: This is where players will find the Basic Instructions, How to Win, and Advanced Instructions sections. This is also useful space for additional images to help players understand how to enjoy your creation.
· Patch Notes: You’re able to update patch notes as often as you like, so players can see how the game is growing and improving.
· Reviews: After playing, players can give your game a star rating and enter a text review. Once enough ratings are provided, your game gets an Average Star Rating. Players can also mark each other’s reviews as “Helpful” which will ensure that the best reviews rise to the top.
· Tutorial support
o Creators can now publish tutorials. This is a powerful way to introduce new players and give them a place to learn the ropes before they dive in.
o A “Play Tutorial” button appears on the Game Info page if a tutorial exists. Clicking the Play Tutorial button launches players directly into the tutorial game.
· Game exclusive chat channels
o There is now a “Join Chat” button on the Game Info page that allows players to join a channel named after your game, which makes connecting with other players and creating a community around your game easier than ever before.
StarCraft II Platform
· StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast.
· Editor
o Added UI XML Editor for adding and modifying SC2Layout files
o Editor updated to use Visual Styles in Editor
o Added high resolution minimap support
o Font Style editing added to Text Editor
o Added Data Editor horizontal auto-layout to better utilize available screen space
o User-defined data system, accessed through the new User type in the Data module as well as the corresponding functions in the trigger library.
· Cinematic Editor o New editor module with powerful tools for creating in-game cinematic sequences.
· AI Editor o New editor module for user friendly management of AI wave timing and composition.
· Galaxy o Trigger Debug Window support for breakpoints, stepping through functions, and variable inspection o Galaxy script code memory limit increased; 4x -10x more memory can be utilized depending on how scripts are being used. o Added support for passing structure, array, and function references as function parameters o Improved Galaxy error message output
· Actor o Camera Actor added for controlling camera through actor events
o Scene Actor added for controlling global actor settings (Halo settings, Power visual hiding)
o Light Actor added for creating lights in the world
o Terrain Actor added for physics impact FX support
o Creep Actor added for higher performance creep effects including creep engulfment
o Ragdoll deaths and support for combat driven physics impulses
o Added support for water ripples and physics collision based water splashes
o Terrain squib support for tileset specific dust or snow clouds FX
o Line and Arc targeting cursor support
o Added ActorInfoDisplay cheat for live actor debugging
· Game Engine
o Max selection size increased from 255 to 500.
o Added trigger event for Behavior apply/remove
o New Stunned flag for Behaviors that allows queuing commands
· Graphics Engine
o Added support to define lighting regions in the game world
o Lighting can now be set per player
o Added unit specific Halo support for pre-targeting
o Anti-aliasing support
· User Interface
o Custom unit status bar support added
o Added new in-game pathing display that shows the path a unit will take on the minimap
o Added self-cast hotkey support
o Added Font Glow support
o Added powerful control over frames, portraits, status bars, text, trigger dialogs and more. Full details, tips, and tutorials are being created to help creators take full advantage of these tools.
· StarTools
o We’re making our internal art tools available to the public.
o StarTools is a set of plugins for Discreet®'s 3ds max®, these tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in StarCraft II custom maps.
Updating Your Game for Patch 1.5
All game types
· Set up your Type and Genre
o Games published prior to Patch 1.5 will still be available on the service when the patch goes live. All user created games will default to appearing in Arcade, under the “Other” genre.
o Creators will need to re-save their game in the 1.5.0 client version and select the Type and Genre where they want to their game to appear.
Arcade game types
· Add a Game Icon Image
o The icon image is the first thing players see. It’s a great opportunity to make a first impression on potential players - check out existing app-stores for inspiration.
o Game Icon Images are added through the StarCraft II Editor.
· Add Game Info
o Game Info is where players learn about your game and see what cool experiences it has to offer. At a minimum, you’ll want to provide a complete Description, easy to understand How to Play Instructions, and some screenshots that make your game look awesome.
o Going a step further and creating customized images (e.g. a diagram of game controls, or a simple guide map of the play area) for Game Info will really help you stand out. The old saying about “show not tell” should be your motto here!
o Game Info is added through the StarCraft II Editor
· Set up a default mode
o From the Game Info page, there’s a big “PLAY” button that most players will use to get into your game. This creates or joins a public lobby, of the default mode you define for your game.
o This means you likely want to set the default to what you consider your “core” game experience.
o Alternatively, some games have players set up gameplay parameters after they load into the match. This is fine, but it’s recommended to make the setup process as streamlined and user friendly as possible so new players aren’t scared off right when they start the game.
· Build a Tutorial
o Tutorials are a powerful way to introduce new players.
o Ideally you’ll give players a smooth introduction to game mechanics in a fail-safe environment, teaching them everything they need to have fun before they start playing your main game mode.
o Tutorials can also be built and used as a practice mode for players to experiment in a sandbox type environment.
o To use the Tutorial feature, first publish the tutorial map to Battle.net. Then you can configure your main game to point to the tutorial.
Not sure what to think of this, will this solve the problem of new maps not becoming popular even though they are a good extention of already popular maps? (looking at you, bxmonobattle!)
So... there is STILL no way to find players if I pick a map not on the first few pages without spamming chat channels? There's no list of open lobbies, or a way to filter the game list to show games with players waiting?
WC3 map system had a lot of problems. But at least could I create a game on ANY map, no matter how popular, even one I just created 5 minutes ago, and get players in it right away because it actually showed up on a list of lobbies.
I can't understand how Blizzard can spend so much time on this and not fix the one thing everyone has been screaming about since launch. [insert your top 5 favorite facepalm images here]
Surely I'm not the only one who couldn't careless about this? I would rather see Blizzard balance the game more, such as working on actual unit changes and making new maps or adding tournament maps to the ladder pool. Personally that new menu looks like garbage....
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
On May 13 2012 07:05 Stress wrote: Surely I'm not the only one who couldn't careless about this? I would rather see Blizzard balance the game more, such as working on actual unit changes and making new maps or adding tournament maps to the ladder pool. Personally that new menu looks like garbage....
omg you try to think a little bit ? HOTS is comming out you know ? , we need sevral of patches with interface changes before hots hit.. TL community , are only blizzard haters ? whats wrong with you people .. EVEN IF blizzard makes something good .. you hate it...
On May 13 2012 07:05 Stress wrote: Surely I'm not the only one who couldn't careless about this? I would rather see Blizzard balance the game more, such as working on actual unit changes and making new maps or adding tournament maps to the ladder pool. Personally that new menu looks like garbage....
Yeah I am with you there, It would be nice to have a system that didn't feel lonely and where custom games and new maps could actually get played easily, and it doesn't seem that hard to make it seems rather intuitive. Not sure why blizz is essentially fumbling the ball and not moving forward. I'm not sure which direction they're going but it's not quite forward..
Balance is more important overall, but with HotS release sometime in the next 12 months, i'm guessing, the menu system really does need to be reworked. If they just wait for HotS to do it from ground up i'm find with that, overall balance is most important yes.
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
I think its some Starcraft 2 lite edition .. for free...and you can watch streams , but not play....dunno..
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
Basically this has already been implemented into WOW and D3 (used in beta). It allows you to launch the game before the installation is complete of either the game or a new patch. It really isn't that impressive, still takes time before you can launch the game.
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
If you're thinking that they are incorporating twitch/own3d streams into the game you're mistaken. It's a system that simply lets people download parts of the game rather than the whole thing. For instance, someone can just download the UI/login menus and access the game while other parts (single player, melee, etc.) download in the background. It's a system that exists in D3 and WoW (I believe).
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
I think what it means is that they're making it like WoW, where you only need to install some of the game before you need to play. Basically, once you reach a certain point in the installation you can play, but it won't be fully completed, which means that some features won't be accessible until you download them.
Pics look sexy as hell. Curious about all the new stuff though. They might just make this game so much more awesome that it's worth that not huge amounts of people actually play it. Maybe with HotS.
Rofl mad haters. It's not like the balance team had to be put on hold to do this. The people that worked on the UI and editing tools are most likely completely separate from the people that work on balance, so I don't see how that is relevant at all.
And isn't this the kind of stuff that people want changed? There's a huge thread outlining everything that's wrong with the SC2 UI/custom game design and how Blizzard essentially released an unrefined, inferior product... Now Blizzard starts actually working on it, and the first 5 or so posts in the thread are about how people couldn't care less? Nice.
oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
On May 13 2012 07:23 redemption wrote: Rofl mad haters. It's not like the balance team had to be put on hold to do this. The people that worked on the UI and editing tools are most likely completely separate from the people that work on balance, so I don't see how that is relevant at all.
And isn't this the kind of stuff that people want changed? There's a huge thread outlining everything that's wrong with the SC2 UI/custom game design and how Blizzard essentially released an unrefined, inferior product... Now Blizzard starts actually working on it, and the first 5 or so posts in the thread are about how people couldn't care less? Nice.
Well in all fairness this doesn't add a custom games list akin to WC3 so it's still an inferior product. This is what I've been told by someone participating in this alpha.
If there's something that disapointed me after sc2's launch, it's the lack of original custom maps because of their stupid popularity system... Hopefully now this is going to be fair for every mapmaker and good maps will be highlighted as they deserve.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
Yeah, you think to something like HLTV for Counter Strike (Google it if you don't know what it is). But that's not it from what I read here, just like WoW/D3, don't DL all the game before playing.
The only reason people are criticizing it is because it doesn't seem that anything in essence has really changed . . . at least for me, it still looks like it's going by "popularity" mainly instead of what we've been calling for - individual hosts of games like in Bnet 1.
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
If you're thinking that they are incorporating twitch/own3d streams into the game you're mistaken. It's a system that simply lets people download parts of the game rather than the whole thing. For instance, someone can just download the UI/login menus and access the game while other parts (single player, melee, etc.) download in the background. It's a system that exists in D3 and WoW (I believe).
You are partially correct. They are also incorporating actual streaming of games. They had talked about doing so about a year ago... Now, what they are referring to with this alpha, you are correct.
They're kind of burying starcraft multiplayer in order to give this arcade mode top billing, that makes me pretty uncomfortable... They've already announced their intentions to make the custom game section more of a market place such that they can have some ongoing revenue, they're also banking on it drawing a more casual player base than just those interested in sc2 multi but... seems bad. My only hope is that with the combination of the streaming client and new custom games hopefully available in the free version I'll be able to convince my friends to play.
How stupid is it to have a category for "Starcraft" INSIDE of the starcraft 2 application, surely I want to play starcraft.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
Iccup implemented something like this for broodwar lol.
Though i thought you would have known about that! I guess it never really did catch on that much though...
In this case however, i think they are making the client application smaller, and some of the actual game data is streamed from the server during loading or something, though that just seems weird to me
This picture is just a nice representation of what's wrong with the UI. It's just full of nothing.
o.O Surely there will be stuff on the main page though right?
I just want to frickin go on ladder without clicking through five tabs...
Even if they put something else, more than half the space will be unused imo. It's a fucking shame, because a multiplayer UI isn't supposed to feel empty. It must feel alive.
On May 13 2012 07:46 brokenLoL wrote: The streaming thing kinda sucks. What I someone is downloading something on my router at my house?
It caches it, once you've downloaded it once you don't need to download it again it just acts like the normal client, it's more for people who just started so they don't need to download like the 5-10 gig up front, they can get started right away and it will stream aspects of say the campaign data, or multiplayer maps.
I managed to get it and it's quite marvelous. Though, I think they should make some changes to the chat system. At the moment, if you read something at the top of the chat and somebody types a message, it will scroll you to bottom to the last message. You have to scroll back up every time and it gets annoying like hell. Also the copy-paste system is awful, there are no spaces when you paste a b.net copied message.
Also, the feeling is the same. I think they should work on making B.net more flexible. At the moment, you have to fight with every window to make them move or resize. Feels like there are 15 fps or so. Also, the chat windows should be bigger somewhat and reorganized.
At the end of it, I think everybody should have a little window with recommended chat rooms based on your nationality (if you are from sweeden, you will be recommended to the sweeden chat room), on your skill (there could be league based chat rooms, bronze, silver...masters, so people can find common topics and close skilled opponents).
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
On May 13 2012 07:46 Dingobloo wrote: They're kind of burying starcraft multiplayer in order to give this arcade mode top billing, that makes me pretty uncomfortable... They've already announced their intentions to make the custom game section more of a market place such that they can have some ongoing revenue, they're also banking on it drawing a more casual player base than just those interested in sc2 multi but... seems bad. My only hope is that with the combination of the streaming client and new custom games hopefully available in the free version I'll be able to convince my friends to play.
How stupid is it to have a category for "Starcraft" INSIDE of the starcraft 2 application, surely I want to play starcraft.
How is it buried?
The kneejerk reactions on TL these days are sickening
I managed to get it and it's quite marvelous. Though, I think they should make some changes to the chat system. At the moment, if you read something at the top of the chat and somebody types a message, it will scroll you to bottom to the last message. You have to scroll back up every time and it gets annoying like hell. Also the copy-paste system is awful, there are no spaces when you paste a b.net copied message.
Also, the feeling is the same. I think they should work on making B.net more flexible. At the moment, you have to fight with every window to make them move or resize. Feels like there are 15 fps or so. Also, the chat windows should be bigger somewhat and reorganized.
At the end of it, I think everybody should have a little window with recommended chat rooms based on your nationality (if you are from sweeden, you will be recommended to the sweeden chat room), on your skill (there could be league based chat rooms, bronze, silver...masters, so people can find common topics and close skilled opponents).
As a Starcraft 2 map maker, this is AMAZING. Sure, it's not perfect. There is no trace of an open lobby system, but frankly, I'm not too upset.
The fact that we get a personal "page" for our maps with information, patch notes, reviews, etc, is great. Combined with all the new fancy editor stuff, this is my most anticipated starcraft patch ever.
Also, to the people complaining about lack of chat rooms and the feeling of loneliness, I feel like that is going to improve at hots launch around the same time as the clan support and multiplayer replay viewing and such.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
dota 2 hon and lol all have spectator modes, dota 2 delays spectators although it doesn't prevent ghosting, hon only allows you to see your friends perspective, ionno about lol. I think in part spectator modes are available because unlike sc2 those games are server hosted games also makes map hacking impossible although exploits have been well exploited at times to get things like detect invised units etc.
On May 13 2012 07:46 Dingobloo wrote: They're kind of burying starcraft multiplayer in order to give this arcade mode top billing, that makes me pretty uncomfortable... They've already announced their intentions to make the custom game section more of a market place such that they can have some ongoing revenue, they're also banking on it drawing a more casual player base than just those interested in sc2 multi but... seems bad. My only hope is that with the combination of the streaming client and new custom games hopefully available in the free version I'll be able to convince my friends to play.
How stupid is it to have a category for "Starcraft" INSIDE of the starcraft 2 application, surely I want to play starcraft.
How is it buried?
Currently to play a ladder match you 1) press 'multiplayer' and then 2) 'find match'.
To play a ladder match in the future system you 1) press 'starcraft', 2) find and press 'Versus' (I presume) from multiplayer section and then from third screen 3) press 'find match' (based on the alpha pictures).
On May 13 2012 08:05 NukeD wrote: This looks really fucking terrible rofl
Exactly. Blizzard is spitting in our face. ''Hahaha, look what we do after all the constructive criticism you have given us for 2 years!''
On May 13 2012 08:09 thezanursic wrote: Nothing on lobbies and the UI is still horrible soo much wasted space just put something there.
On May 13 2012 08:10 Lyter wrote: Yea looks awful, same old same old crap really
So much constructive criticism. "That's just fucking terrible, crappy, horrible".
Nope.
That's just way better than the current UI, and will probably be a lot more user friendly. And I suppose that the main page will have something new like community contente/news or maybe even stream in the future, not just Tychus face.
Don't just criticise for the sake of it (I maybe expect to much from the internet).
This looks pretty neat, especially since this is still alpha so they still have lots of time to shift things around. As far as a spectator mode goes, iunno if that's the greatest idea in a 1v1 game, esp. one like sc2 where information can give you a huge advantage.
Okay, I just skimmed through most of it, but does this mean that we can now create games with names and make public lobbies where we can kick people and start when we want?
On May 13 2012 08:18 lightsentry wrote: This looks pretty neat, especially since this is still alpha so they still have lots of time to shift things around. As far as a spectator mode goes, iunno if that's the greatest idea in a 1v1 game, esp. one like sc2 where information can give you a huge advantage.
Because of the fact that the data needed by the client to "play"/"view" the game is so small compared to a video/stream, you could imagine a build-in 2 or 3 minutes delay without problem.
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
It's a new technology that Blizzard has been using with WOW for quite a while. Basically you don't need to download the entire game before you can play it. Once you reached a certain % of download you will be able to play the game and while you are playing it keeps downloading the game in the background. It's yet on of those features that no one really wants or gives a damn about really.
EDIT: And yes, these so called features or improvements are bullshit compared to what other games, like Dota 2 has. Freaking terrible Blizzard.
My biggest problem is that there still doesn't seem to be any games list - the "join game" button from BW battle.net, or w/e WC3 had (never played much, don't remember). The simplicity of that for playing games (join nr1/1 now guys) for arranged games simply has nothing to match it in b.net 2.0 - and it can't be that hard to put in the new one, can it?
All the features are nifty, but that is literally the only one I want (now that channels exist more or less). Am I the only one and that's why Blizzard just doesn't realize this? That seems like it would be a major convenience to the "casual gamer" who just wants to play with friends, doesn't care about ladder, etc., which makes it even more unbelieveable.
TL;DR: Blizzard is putting a bunch of work into SC2, but a lot of it just doesn't seem very thought out, at all.
I'll be totally content with this update if they just fill all that negative space that occupies the screen at login with a chat lobby like in virtually ever other one of their Blizzard games. As far as neutralizing the deserted feeling goes, this would do wonders. As odd as it sounds, if people are just thrown into chat in the middle of an on-going conversation they're more likely to join in as opposed to the system in place now. This is because 1) One might not necessarily be logging into chat, and thus not be motivated to open a channel up, but if it's there anyway one might be more inclined to socialize and 2) If I open chat and see 4 people in there, I'm going to close it and not bother. If other people have had the same thought, chat is going to remain barren even if it is in the game.
tl;dr Just throw everyone into a chat lobby at login. (=
On May 13 2012 08:27 VGhost wrote: My biggest problem is that there still doesn't seem to be any games list - the "join game" button from BW battle.net, or w/e WC3 had (never played much, don't remember). The simplicity of that for playing games (join nr1/1 now guys) for arranged games simply has nothing to match it in b.net 2.0 - and it can't be that hard to put in the new one, can it?
All the features are nifty, but that is literally the only one I want (now that channels exist more or less). Am I the only one and that's why Blizzard just doesn't realize this? That seems like it would be a major convenience to the "casual gamer" who just wants to play with friends, doesn't care about ladder, etc., which makes it even more unbelieveable.
TL;DR: Blizzard is putting a bunch of work into SC2, but a lot of it just doesn't seem very thought out, at all.
I'm pretty sure Blizzard knows all these issues we have, but they don't want to fix it because of the supposed "bots" and "spam" that took over the previous Battle.nets in their games. It's complete bullshit, but what can we do when all Blizzard does is sidestep the actual issue to satisfy us until HotS?
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
It's a new technology that Blizzard has been using with WOW for quite a while. Basically you don't need to download the entire game before you can play it. Once you reached a certain % of download you will be able to play the game and while you are playing it keeps downloading the game in the background. It's yet on of those features that no one really wants or gives a damn about really.
EDIT: And yes, these so called features or improvements are bullshit compared to what other games, like Dota 2 has. Freaking terrible Blizzard.
Yes these pale in comparison to Dota 2's custom game features..... Which are non existant.
Hell you can't even take your party into a custom lobby in dota 2 they have to join manually
Back on topic: these are the custom game UI changes, not the HotS feature changes, calm down, And I care a whole lot about the streaming client, because it's currently something like 6 gigs just to get people to try the Starter edition which features 3 maps, and 2 single player missions.
On May 13 2012 08:27 VGhost wrote: My biggest problem is that there still doesn't seem to be any games list - the "join game" button from BW battle.net, or w/e WC3 had (never played much, don't remember). The simplicity of that for playing games (join nr1/1 now guys) for arranged games simply has nothing to match it in b.net 2.0 - and it can't be that hard to put in the new one, can it?
All the features are nifty, but that is literally the only one I want (now that channels exist more or less). Am I the only one and that's why Blizzard just doesn't realize this? That seems like it would be a major convenience to the "casual gamer" who just wants to play with friends, doesn't care about ladder, etc., which makes it even more unbelieveable.
TL;DR: Blizzard is putting a bunch of work into SC2, but a lot of it just doesn't seem very thought out, at all.
Playing with friends is already super easy. Make a game on whatever map you want, open your friends list, right click people and hit "Invite to game"
I really don't know what more people want in that regard.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by some of the vitriolic replies in this thread, but it's still disappointing. Would you rather Blizz not even TRY to fix and improve stuff? Keep giving real feedback instead of "Wow, this sucks, you are fucking terrible, Blizzard." Stop being such entitled assholes all the time, Christ.
This looks pretty awesome, actually. Navigation for custom games right now is pretty poor and the UI feels outdated. Feels like they are switching to the more user-friendly Kongregate/apple store/etc style of letting people find games.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
Yes, LoL cum suis have spectator modes. You can just watch a "clan war" and spectate anyone/anything you want. There's also hltv in cs, although a little bit buggy. And it was possible in quake3.
This is an alpha, I would expect that the ui appearance is not final its more likely a test for back end. to much of this looks like a hack job to be final in any way.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Try to imagine that you work for Blizzard and you have the job to work on the UI.
You have put in lots of energy and effort and now have finally a little alpha going. You are curious to see what people think so you check out this very thread here on teamliquid and you have to read what folks is posting here. I would find that very disheartening and in my opinion some here should feel ashamed by their deconstructive criticism.
We all want the SC experience to be as cool as possible and while the progress can be frustrating there is a progress. I would advise a little more patience and well... everyone just try to be a little less of a dick in the internet. Anger wont make any difference, a positive attitude quite possibly will.
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
It's a new technology that Blizzard has been using with WOW for quite a while. Basically you don't need to download the entire game before you can play it. Once you reached a certain % of download you will be able to play the game and while you are playing it keeps downloading the game in the background. It's yet on of those features that no one really wants or gives a damn about really.
EDIT: And yes, these so called features or improvements are bullshit compared to what other games, like Dota 2 has. Freaking terrible Blizzard.
Yes these pale in comparison to Dota 2's custom game features..... Which are non existant.
Hell you can't even take your party into a custom lobby in dota 2 they have to join manually
Back on topic: these are the custom game UI changes, not the HotS feature changes, calm down, And I care a whole lot about the streaming client, because it's currently something like 6 gigs just to get people to try the Starter edition which features 3 maps, and 2 single player missions.
Yeah I don't get it, seems some of this people haven't even played DotA2..... I mean it(DOTA2) does some pretty cool things but some of the criticisims here seem so inane.
I still Lol when people seem to think LoL actually has the Stream embedded into the client.
On May 13 2012 08:49 Dahlian wrote: Try to imagine that you work for Blizzard and you have the job to work on the UI.
You have put in lots of energy and effort and now have finally a little alpha going. You are curious to see what people think so you check out this very thread here on teamliquid and you have to read what folks is posting here. I would find that very disheartening and in my opinion some here should feel ashamed by their deconstructive criticism.
We all want the SC experience to be as cool as possible and while the progress can be frustrating there is a progress. I would advise a little more patience and well... everyone just try to be a little less of a dick in the internet. Anger wont make any difference, a positive attitude quite possibly will.
Well as much as some of the criticisms in this thread seem so petty to be fair the guys at Blizzard probably don't get their feelings hurt over this. They kinda get paid to do this
This is still crap, what if I want to host a public game on Shakuras Plateau and put "TvT Masters Only" in the game name? Well I can't, because no such thing is possible with this "new" UI, which is just as bad.
Why can't they restart from scratch and implement something similar to WC3 (or even BW)?
o We’re making our internal art tools available to the public.
o StarTools is a set of plugins for Discreet®'s 3ds max®, these tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in StarCraft II custom maps.
This seems pretty cool for mappers as well. I heard that it's kinda hard to get custom models into SC2 currently, and this might help. The Blizzcon panel had a very interesting preview of some of these changes:
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast.
Yay! Though I wonder how much smaller? (will it be more convenient if you're on the go and want to play sc2 but don't have it installed? :D)
Also, i like the changes. The custom map improvement stuff is really nice and I'm sure creators will be so happy! Though some things like changing the create party or find match button will be weird. I don't like the new look; the look now pops out but in the new look, it looks like the buttons are flat or pop in due to the borderlines they have. Meh.
Will take getting used to the single/multi player tabs being replaced with starcraft and arcade as well xD The co-op and custom-game boxes in the multiplayer screen being removed is nice though, I guess. More space for background pictures! :D
o We’re making our internal art tools available to the public.
o StarTools is a set of plugins for Discreet®'s 3ds max®, these tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in StarCraft II custom maps.
This seems pretty cool for mappers as well. I heard that it's kinda hard to get custom models into SC2 currently, and this might help. The Blizzcon panel had a very interesting preview of some of these changes:
Okay, so I've played some 1v1s and all I can say is: It's awful!!!
The colors are terrible, it basically got asleep during the game. They have edited some animations (like cooldown is a little different), but they also edited the textures drastically. They look different and, I'd say, worse. Also I get like 50 less FPS on 1.4.5 due to this.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Why the fuck do you want a spectator mode in sc2?Just because dota2 and LoL has it automatically means sc2 should also have it.
It's unnecessary and very exploitable
hon's implementation actually isn't exploitable, you can spectate/mentor only friends and you can only see their pov still get mouse etc but no more information is given then who are you suspecting already knows which also allows for real time spectating which is great if you want to comment with your friends etc, only downside is they limit it to 1 spectator to a person to prevent server crashing
On May 13 2012 08:49 Dahlian wrote: Try to imagine that you work for Blizzard and you have the job to work on the UI.
You have put in lots of energy and effort and now have finally a little alpha going. You are curious to see what people think so you check out this very thread here on teamliquid and you have to read what folks is posting here. I would find that very disheartening and in my opinion some here should feel ashamed by their deconstructive criticism.
We all want the SC experience to be as cool as possible and while the progress can be frustrating there is a progress. I would advise a little more patience and well... everyone just try to be a little less of a dick in the internet. Anger wont make any difference, a positive attitude quite possibly will.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Why the fuck do you want a spectator mode in sc2?Just because dota2 and LoL has it automatically means sc2 should also have it.
It's unnecessary and very exploitable
hon's implementation actually isn't exploitable, you can spectate/mentor only friends and you can only see their pov still get mouse etc but no more information is given then who are you suspecting already knows which also allows for real time spectating which is great if you want to comment with your friends etc, only downside is they limit it to 1 spectator to a person to prevent server crashing
That sounds really awesome. Wouldn't that mean people with bad computers and internet like me that can't stream let their friends watch their fpv?
On May 13 2012 09:04 nucLeaRTV wrote: Okay, so I've played some 1v1s and all I can say is: It's awful!!!
The colors are terrible, it basically got asleep during the game. They have edited some animations (like cooldown is a little different), but they also edited the textures drastically. They look different and, I'd say, worse. Also I get like 50 less FPS on 1.4.5 due to this.
That seems a bit weird, I don't see the texture changes but the color change is definitely noticeable, the transparency of the fog of war seems to be noticeable too.
What's with the gigantic heaps of malcontent in this thread?
How could a better lay out for custom maps and map making possibly be a BAD thing?
Sure, it has nothing to do with progaming... and that it doesn't really change some very pivotal points, but it's stepping in the right direction, right?
I tried to play when the installation was at "playable" but not at "optimal." I couldn't really play any custom games or multiplayer games, but the campaign worked.
I tried to play when the installation was at "playable" but not at "optimal." I couldn't really play any custom games or multiplayer games, but the campaign worked.
That's a little disappointing to hear, what prevented you from playing the custom or multiplayer games?
On May 13 2012 09:21 ShatterZer0 wrote: What's with the gigantic heaps of malcontent in this thread?
How could a better lay out for custom maps and map making possibly be a BAD thing?
Sure, it has nothing to do with progaming... and that it doesn't really change some very pivotal points, but it's stepping in the right direction, right?
->
On May 13 2012 08:53 Tuthur wrote: This is still crap, what if I want to host a public game on Shakuras Plateau and put "TvT Masters Only" in the game name? Well I can't, because no such thing is possible with this "new" UI, which is just as bad.
i dont quite get what's actually 'changed' in this new ui. the dumb custom game system is now called ARCADE heuheuheu; what is this, xbl arcade (oh right, bnet designer was lead xbla dev). the custom game system now has pictures ,,, and i guess you can sort by newest.
also instead of just clicking multiplayer -> find game, i now have to click startcraft -> versus - > find game?
I tried to play when the installation was at "playable" but not at "optimal." I couldn't really play any custom games or multiplayer games, but the campaign worked.
That's a little disappointing to hear, what prevented you from playing the custom or multiplayer games?
Dunno. Maybe the game is still streaming in data. The buttons are faded out and unselectable, and sometimes when the buttons are bugged to be selectable, they don't do anything.
It's definitely a really rough alpha from what I've seen, so I do expect a lot of changes.
Based of the screenshots, I do like the general look of it more than it currently is. The pictures / rating layout for the custom games looks nice too.
There seems to be tons more options for map makers now too. A lot of I don't understand fully but they still sound awesome, like this: "o Ragdoll deaths and support for combat driven physics impulses"
On May 13 2012 09:21 ShatterZer0 wrote: What's with the gigantic heaps of malcontent in this thread?
How could a better lay out for custom maps and map making possibly be a BAD thing?
Sure, it has nothing to do with progaming... and that it doesn't really change some very pivotal points, but it's stepping in the right direction, right?
On May 13 2012 08:53 Tuthur wrote: This is still crap, what if I want to host a public game on Shakuras Plateau and put "TvT Masters Only" in the game name? Well I can't, because no such thing is possible with this "new" UI, which is just as bad.
i dont quite get what's actually 'changed' in this new ui. the dumb custom game system is now called ARCADE heuheuheu; what is this, xbl arcade (oh right, bnet designer was lead xbla dev). the custom game system now has pictures ,,, and i guess you can sort by newest.
also instead of just clicking multiplayer -> find game, i now have to click startcraft -> versus - > find game?
Each custom map has a dedicated page for updates/reviews/screenshots + a chat channel if you want to make games of that type. It's a lot improved. I also think a lot of editor stuff has changed such that map makers can get a head start on making custom games prior to Heart of the Swarm so the Arcade section launches with some decent stuff, things like model exporters for 3ds max, improved physics/rag dolls, a cinematic editor.
I still don't like their decision to put the arcade on the main menu, but it's clearly a decision they've been going with ever since blizzcon last year if that video is anything go by. They've been thinking of the arcade as a core part of HotS ever since the started developing blizzard allstars (dota) mentioning it with the same importance as the actual expansion aspect.
To put it simply, if there still is not a true open games lobby, then Blizzard has done nothing but waste time and money. Nothing else in this update matters.
This picture is just a nice representation of what's wrong with the UI. It's just full of nothing.
You realise that UI designers don't actually fill all of the screen with everything the UI will actually support when doing mockup tests, right? There's a reason why a lot of the screens have HUGE white space with little pieces of text saying "currently under development". Because those features are currently being worked on. Consider these screenshots and the "alpha" build of 1.5 a prototype of what the real UI would look like.
As for my own opinion on the actual UI visuals, the only thing I dislike about the whole thing is the top part of the screen, that seems just tacked on compared to the new improved section. If they update the top bar of the UI, overall it's a fantastic improvement over what we have now, and that most of the people around here are just NEVER happy with what blizzard does. -.-
They give us community wanted changes - "yeah it's not enough" They give us a brand new fricken' UI, cos this one is bad - "well I don't like it"
Just appreciate the fact they're giving you all of these features for FREE, assuming you own the game, of course. (and yes, from the reactions in the HOTS features thread, it seems like they'll release all the updates for HOTS into WOL as well)
I've played around with it some now and in general, it is a step in the right direction but far from finished. That's really all that there is to say on the matter, until further development it is impossible to say how it'll end up.
You can choose whether to keep HP bars like the old, or like this one where enemies are always red and you are always green (presumably in team games allies would be yellow). There are a couple other graphical tweaks too.
I'm installing it right now, but I'll tell you guys if I accidentally a virus.
It's definitely a working client. Campaign works during the "playable" stage of installation, but not multiplayer or custom games or vs AI.
Does custom games include Arcade stuff?
Bit disappointing if they added all that streaming side of it and all you can play is campaign which is the part that I would assume is taking up all the space.
I'm installing it right now, but I'll tell you guys if I accidentally a virus.
It's definitely a working client. Campaign works during the "playable" stage of installation, but not multiplayer or custom games or vs AI.
Does custom games include Arcade stuff?
Bit disappointing if they added all that streaming side of it and all you can play is campaign which is the part that I would assume is taking up all the space.
Looks like other people can get multiplayer games to work. I can't, for some reason.
Challenges work, however. The new Creep texture looks pretty good.
On May 13 2012 09:54 Nabes wrote: Max selection size increased from 255 to 500
catering to the casuals, this will ruin esports as we know it
Yeah, dude. 200/200 supply of Zerglings will be terrible to deal with now that I can just 1a instead of 1a2a.
On May 13 2012 09:39 ejac wrote: I've played around with it some now and in general, it is a step in the right direction but far from finished. That's really all that there is to say on the matter, until further development it is impossible to say how it'll end up.
You can choose whether to keep HP bars like the old, or like this one where enemies are red now. There are a couple other graphical tweaks too. + Show Spoiler +
Look great !
On May 13 2012 09:54 Nabes wrote: Max selection size increased from 255 to 500
catering to the casuals, this will ruin esports as we know it
No. Not at all. There are only a handful of situations where it will change something (more than 200 zergling, that's it).
A step in the right direction. Custom Games will be more profoundly varied and also more profoundly communal. Save for the lack of big ass chat channels and a named custom game list, this is very good, and really should get close to if not at the endless replayability of Warcraft 3..
I'm diggin it, and you receive none of my negativity for your efforts.
Edit: OMIGOD I scrolled up. I literally shouldn't read teamliquid until warcraft 3 is installed into starcraft 2, lest my mind be clouded by condescending negativity.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
In the current system, it is nigh impossible to get a custom map played if it is not on the first 3 pages of the popular games list.
You can thus understand why people want the game list system back, as map creators wouldn't mind being able to actually play the map they spent so long working on.
(As a point of reference, with the popular games system SC2 has I've only been able to play my custom map 3 or 4 times with half of a full house in the year or so since I made it. In BW, I made several custom maps and was able to get them all played dozens of times with full houses, usually immediately after I finished. You can, I hope, understand why it frustrates me to spend 20 hours building a custom map and then not ever get to see it in action because of the popular games system)
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
In the current system, it is nigh impossible to get a custom map played if it is not on the first 3 pages of the popular games list.
You can thus understand why people want the game list system back, as map creators wouldn't mind being able to actually play the map they spent so long working on.
(As a point of reference, with the popular games system SC2 has I've only been able to play my custom map 3 or 4 times with half of a full house in the year or so since I made it. In BW, I made several custom maps and was able to get them all played dozens of times with full houses. You can, I hope, understand why it frustrates me to spend 20 hours building a custom map and then not ever get to see it in action because of the popular games system)
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
I'll add a personal anecdote to your point.
There was a game called "Are you a retard?" In warcraft 3. Regardless of all the intolerance in the name, the game was basically a series of obstacles that needed a few friends. It was fun, engaging, and had secrets that could only really be discovered by veterans passing it on to the new players. I hosted it for 8 days, and everyday I would have the best conversations, do something really cool in the game, and stuff like that. On the 8th day, I got people I had added on my friends list from previous days together and played it. We beat it! Gosh it's so hard. But yeah, Sc2 doesn't quite have this, though that "Run Zergling Run" game that floats from the 3rd-10th page is pretty good.
Does anyone else miss being able to "create" a custom map and giving it its own title like back in broodwar? Is there something WRONG with that formula? Now that every game is automatched.. it just doesnt feel the same. You can't say "rm same name" to people anymore when youre playing a good map with a good group of guys.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
If you could host (as I could) you could basically get any map you wanted played in wc3 (in my long, long experience), and so I have to disagree with you. My hundreds (as my old xfire account can attest to) of hours in WC3 say otherwise.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
This, I don´t know if people played another version of W3 or BW but it was like you said, popular maps would usually bury less known maps in the old system. Especially since later in the life of those games bots started hosting maps.DotA oh god DotA filled the custom games list
On May 13 2012 07:09 MorroW wrote: "StarCraft II is now a streaming game.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast. " could someone explain to me what this is? is it what i think it is?
It means that you will be able to play the game w/o having it fully installed similar to d3 or WOW. When the game discovers it needs an asset it will DL it on the spot. Now obviously it won't be like ohhh I just mad ea marine let me get that now. Many things will still need to be loaded before you start playing. It will just make it faster if you have to reinstall or install for the first time.
On May 13 2012 10:12 spectreusmc wrote: Does anyone else miss being able to "create" a custom map and giving it its own title like back in broodwar? Is there something WRONG with that formula? Now that every game is automatched.. it just doesnt feel the same. You can't say "rm same name" to people anymore when youre playing a good map with a good group of guys.
Also wheres all the good TD maps?
basically I miss broodwar
You can always friend them and try to party. The party should be allowed to accept more than 6 people though. However I agree it is a somewhat more of a hassel
They should incorporate a streams into a section, for big tournaments (like the one announced by Blizzard) :O That should help get more interest in Starcraft 2 Tournaments, when theres more accessibility for people. Dunno how hard that will be though.
The streaming is... interesting, I started it as soon as it hit playable, but then it made me wait for a little while longer.
I couldn't launch anything, but then I played a single campaign mission and quit back out and I was able to go into stuff, but for an arcade map, you get the normal downloading animation as you do currently, then a Streaming Data animation, then on the loading screen you'll have a downloading progress bar and then once you're IN the game, you have another red icon that indicates that data is still streaming while you're playing.
It says it's playable at 3.46 GB, but It doesn't feel like I downloaded anywhere close to that much.
it would be nice if they could add a little note next to friends' names that says if they're in a bnet game or custom game and what the name of the game is, i miss that
So did anyone else see this, think they FINALLY got chat right, only to find out it was something for this Arcade junk? Seriously disappointed myself there.. I should never expect to see the things we want by now.
What bothers me is that the two things that people want most out of the UI (proper chat channels and WC3 custom lobby system) are also the two things that Blizzard is absolutely hell-bent on NOT putting into the game.
I mean really, they could take that giant picture of Tychus' mug and turn it into a big chat channel that people can hang out in. And the custom game system really needs to go back to the way it was in older games. Literally the only thing the WC3 custom game UI needed was a way to filter out unwanted maps. I'll take a simple yet elegant solution over whatever convoluted crap Blizzard is doing anyday.
The bright side is that a lot of the improvements we ARE getting are nice, but the lack of those two heavily requested features dampers a lot of my excitement.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
Is UI functionality actually going to change in this patch? It looks like the exact same custom lobby as before except now games have pictures like the app store?
As far as I can see the arcade does not actually solve any problems? Games are still organized page by page by popularity... games on the first page will still get played, games on the last page will still never get played?
EDIT : Can I kick people from games I host yet? Every time I'm about to play mafia and there's some guy spamming ethnic slanders I sort of wish there was SOMETHING that could be done about it?
Although I do agree that there are huge empty spaces that could be used - ie. Tychus face that really should be a chat channel - I'm glad they are actually taking the time to test it on a closed-Alpha before throwing it into the PTR. Well, I surely hope they will try it on the PTR at least.
Also, SC2 as a streaming game like WoW/D3 is awesome. That means I don't have to DL useless stuff when playing, like the campaign.
Oh, and I think there should be an easier way to simply find your multiplayer game. There is no need to go tab-into-tab for that; add a small group of icons in one of the corners or w/e that has your race and game type(1v1/2v2/3v3/4v4/ffa) as well as a small "find match"(or an icon that represents that) and right-clicking would open the map options. nothing hard.
I mean, what I did was really ugly but using the Z/P/T/R icons would make a really cool small tab for quick match finding without having to go into section-inside-section.
Plz bring back WC3 custom maps, I want there to be actual lobby w real people so I can join... New maps will just die out cause they aren't on the first few pages let us name our own lobbies?
Someone actually HAS to ask why this isn't the case and what can be done in an interview. I'd like to see the blizz guys come up with an answer to that
Why can't they just put two options, their system on one hand and then a box you could click like "live games being hosted" with a list similar to BW or WC3
Can't stand only playing 2 pages of customs, so annoying...
It doesn't even have to named though that would be cool. If they don't want people writing profantiy in map names or whatever then do it without naming. It would still be better to have an 'open lobbies' tab that shows a list of maps (not lobbies per map, but maps) with at least player waiting. Then if I pick an unpopular map it at least shows up SOMEWHERE and I have a chance of finding players.
On May 13 2012 06:52 coolguy7676 wrote: o We’re making our internal art tools available to the public.
o StarTools is a set of plugins for Discreet®'s 3ds max®, these tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in StarCraft II custom maps.
On May 13 2012 13:24 Zaqwert wrote: The ability to CREATE A NAMED GAME is something SC2 (and Diablo 3) deserately need.
Seriously, I don't understand why they feel the need to try to make BNET 2 so "revolutionary" and instead it's just awful.
WC3 BNET is still vastly superior in every way to SC2.
Heck even D2's BNET, which had a ton of major issues, is superior to D3's.
They've basically tried to simplify and streamline things too much and taken way too many powerful and useful tools away from the users.
Blizzard builds their games for the lowest common denominator these days, not gamers.
While I do agree with the "games for non gamers part" I cannot understand why would you want the obscene "insert random characters + DOTA- AP NO NOOBS+ insert random characters" list ofr the doom back.
To be honest, that was horrible, not to say the current system is necessarily better, but I cannot see how bringing back that would be helpful.
A chat channel for every custom map is pretty decent though, and the matchmaker spams the refresh button for you, instead of having to manually filter through thousands of dota games, to find a single element td.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
I thought they wont change the balance heavily anymore. Is this some kind of mistake?
On May 13 2012 13:24 Zaqwert wrote: The ability to CREATE A NAMED GAME is something SC2 (and Diablo 3) deserately need.
Seriously, I don't understand why they feel the need to try to make BNET 2 so "revolutionary" and instead it's just awful.
WC3 BNET is still vastly superior in every way to SC2.
Heck even D2's BNET, which had a ton of major issues, is superior to D3's.
They've basically tried to simplify and streamline things too much and taken way too many powerful and useful tools away from the users.
Blizzard builds their games for the lowest common denominator these days, not gamers.
While I do agree with the "games for non gamers part" I cannot understand why would you want the obscene "insert random characters + DOTA- AP NO NOOBS+ insert random characters" list ofr the doom back.
To be honest, that was horrible, not to say the current system is necessarily better, but I cannot see how bringing back that would be helpful.
A chat channel for every custom map is pretty decent though, and the matchmaker spams the refresh button for you, instead of having to manually filter through thousands of dota games, to find a single element td.
Put WC3 custom game UI in SC2. Add a filter so you don't have to see maps you don't want.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
those aren't balance changes. the beta simply isn't loading all the multiplayer balance patches. im sure you'll find khaydarin amulet and other stuff in there aswell. siege tanks probably do 60 damage? the game is basically 1.0 in the 1.5 beta.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
It is a alpha build, dont give much into balance stuff just yet. They might have just been playing around with random balance changes.
On May 13 2012 13:24 Zaqwert wrote: The ability to CREATE A NAMED GAME is something SC2 (and Diablo 3) deserately need.
Seriously, I don't understand why they feel the need to try to make BNET 2 so "revolutionary" and instead it's just awful.
Posts like these make me think people haven't used Bnet 1.0 in a while. Most people on Bnet didn't name their maps "1v1 Destination D- Zerg only please". They named them "xXViagr@ WarzXx".
This is also the same reason there's no big default chat channel any more. ICCUP's D board is all angry spanish people, and Diablo II's chat is literally 1000+ spambots. It's terrible.
I think that some of the new SCII Editor Tools are absolutely awesome. There are tools in there (Managing 3D Models, Particle and Physics engines, etc.) that people pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have available in other programs. Making your own Custom Cinematics!? Jesus this makes me want to pick apart the Editor and make some awesome stuff.
The UI is so... Unfinished. And people are criticizing the living hell out of it. Why are people treating it like it's a finished product and jumping on the hate wagon when it's in its alpha stage of development? Blizzard releases information on work they're doing and then gets completely jumped by the same people the requested that information. It's disheartening to see. Yeah, this stuff should have been available at release. But Blizzard is listening to feedback from us and trying to realistically integrate all of it into a single, epic update. What more couod we want than... Everything we've been asking for? Between their stated plans for 1.5 and HotS, the only feature I can think of that's been ignored is lack of LAN, which we all know is not going to be included in SCII for probably years, if ever. But every other concern the community has raised hell over is actively being worked on. And the second Blizzard says "Hey this is the first look at a completely Unfinished idea of what we want to give all of you" they get bashed on endlessly.
And then we wonder and bitch when Blizzard leaves us in the dark about stuff. This bothers me a lot.
New features look fantastic to me. My only concern is relearning the UI because it looks like a lot of things have moved around. But that's small compared to finally getting features we've all been wanting integrated.
I'm not saying replace all the existing functionality with the old named game system, I'm saying give us the ability to use the name game system if we want, it should be there as another option.
I hope that they can implement a lobby of games like in WC3. For instance I would really want to try BGH in SC2 but nobody is playing it so I can't. With the browser you can..
There no longer appears to be a public lobby option at all for arcade games, you either click Join Game similar to psuedo matchmaking but it just waits for opponents, or you do private lobby, but it doesn't have the option to "open to public". This is a little bit worrying, because at least before you could get an idea about how many people were waiting by joining the lobby, now it just waits until you have enough, or don't as is usually the case in the beta right now.
The Starcraft2 custom games can still be opened to public as normal, just not the arcade games.
On May 13 2012 13:24 Zaqwert wrote: The ability to CREATE A NAMED GAME is something SC2 (and Diablo 3) deserately need.
Seriously, I don't understand why they feel the need to try to make BNET 2 so "revolutionary" and instead it's just awful.
WC3 BNET is still vastly superior in every way to SC2.
Heck even D2's BNET, which had a ton of major issues, is superior to D3's.
They've basically tried to simplify and streamline things too much and taken way too many powerful and useful tools away from the users.
Blizzard builds their games for the lowest common denominator these days, not gamers.
While I do agree with the "games for non gamers part" I cannot understand why would you want the obscene "insert random characters + DOTA- AP NO NOOBS+ insert random characters" list ofr the doom back.
To be honest, that was horrible, not to say the current system is necessarily better, but I cannot see how bringing back that would be helpful.
A chat channel for every custom map is pretty decent though, and the matchmaker spams the refresh button for you, instead of having to manually filter through thousands of dota games, to find a single element td.
Put WC3 custom game UI in SC2. Add a filter so you don't have to see maps you don't want.
Problem solved.
While it is frustrating to deal with a lot off the UI aspects of SC2, BW's UMS sections could get pretty creepy and x-rated depending on the maps being played. Could lead to a lot of bad PR if some overzealous soccer mom goings on a rampage to the news and lawyers.
On May 13 2012 15:22 dextrin303 wrote: I hope that they can implement a lobby of games like in WC3. For instance I would really want to try BGH in SC2 but nobody is playing it so I can't. With the browser you can..
Their current plan was detailed in a blog post a while ago:
To help players find games more easily in patch 1.5, we intend to include an “open games list.” To be clear, this will not be every open game that is on the service. Instead, the open games list will deliver to you a selection of games from the many hundreds or thousands that are currently open. We are currently working on different ways to determine how the list you’ll see is generated.
The only thing I don't like is that the 1v1 play button is 'hidden' which is for me the most important part of the game. I'd like a button somewhere else saying 'Play 1v1 now like a boss' and I would gladly click it.
Wait....what....where's the "open games list"/b.net 1.0 lobby system? This stuff is just an aesthetic overhaul, it feels more like a flash games website like kongregate than a community-based gaming experience than sc1/wc3 ums/customs...
Wow, what is with all the cynicism. I come home to see this massive list of improvements and streamlining to the UI, things that the community has been bitching about for many many months, and all I see is negativity. Blizzard is listening to exactly what you have been saying and giving us all these amazing tools to create a massive custom game community on top of everything they already provide and all we can do is complain?
We really need to re-examine our mentality of entitlement. When we get a patch like this, which is a lot of what we were already asking for we should at least give some creative criticism instead of "this patch is garbage," which is what a majority of these responses have been. You don't like it? Let Blizzard know what they could do to improve their changes, like they outlined in the post, " Your input can help us refine it even further." Add some worthwhile commentary to the situation.
Personally I think it's an amazing patch. The custom game community was oft times larger than the competitive community in wc3 and this had to do almost entirely with the custom map editor and what came out of it. Dota would not exist without it. The custom maps in sc2 have been underwhelming to say the least. This could be a potential goldmine.
And for the serious competitive players, these patch notes (not set in stone) come on the heels of balance change and with promises of more to come. Such a quick turnaround is practically unheard of. The least we can do bite our tongues and digest the information here before regurgitating our opinions. Think before you speak and craft a meaningful post. No one gains anything with a substance less complaint and dead end criticisms.
Please lets help improve our game rather than shitting on it constantly.
All the ranting based on leaked ALPHA (not even beta) pictures of the UI. Wait for the final version and then make a statement about it. It may, hell I bet it will, change 500 times from the screens you saw atm. Until then its pointless to discuss something which can be scrapped entirely at developers whim.
For me there's no way around an optional Warcraft 3 like custom map system where you can find newly hosted and named games.
Like with the normal game you don't want to match good and bad players together in custom maps. But currently there is no way to host public and prevent just that. In Warcraft 3 you'd just name your game "DotA -ap -pro" and at least way fewer beginners joined and if they did, you felt justified to put them on your banlist.
It is true though, that there is some abyssal naming going on within Wc3, where the hosted title is a porn url, hacker url etc. But put that Wc3 like custom map search on a second tab so that the game names aren't initial visible (but don't hide the option itself!). That together with the fact that you can ban accounts more effectively now and we're in for a treat :>
On May 13 2012 16:01 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote: For me there's no way around an optional Warcraft 3 like custom map system where you can find newly hosted and named games.
Like with the normal game you don't want to match good and bad players together in custom maps. But currently there is no way to host public and prevent just that. In Warcraft 3 you'd just name your game "DotA -ap -pro" and at least way fewer beginners joined and if they did, you felt justified to put them on your banlist.
It is true though, that there is some abyssal naming going on within Wc3, where the hosted title is a porn url, hacker url etc. But put that Wc3 like custom map search on a second tab so that the game names aren't initial visible (but don't hide the option itself!). That together with the fact that you can ban accounts more effectively now and we're in for a treat :>
I would not be surprised if they let map developers opt into matchmaking for arcade games judging by the interface as it is at the moment and the kinds of solutions they're going need for blizzard all stars.
On May 13 2012 16:06 Belisarius wrote: How can they introduce all this junk in a patch, but make us wait for HotS to get clan support?
Baffles me.
The client as it looks in this preview is very similar to how it looked when they showed it at blizzcon last year during the HOTS preview, this is likely been in development for a while. Other than that, development of stuff takes time and they likely share the battle.net and engineering team between Sc2 and Diablo, they likely started this, got put onto finishing diablo and now that diablo is done they're finishing this, THEN working on HotS features. Just a guess, I have no inside information in that regard.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
WTF? these balance changes are weird; i wonder if these weren't supposed to be in this test 1.5 build or what? Why not make a public map like they did for the recent changes? it also means it'll probably be a while til 1.5 comes out or else they would have released these changes with the last balance changes
I was about to say that it seems that those "changes" weren't changes but how it was back in the beta. But not all those changes are so.
Nerfing the ultralisk? Why? 100 more hp doesn't make up for all the other stuff o.o
The infestor changes are interesting and I'm not really against it. I always thought they moved quite fast while burrowed. No more IT from burrowed is interesting... perhaps it's because they feel baneling mines are good enough already, especially now that people use them a lot more? The fungal change is weird, but maybe they feel that cloaked units (namely, banshees) are stopped too easily by fungals since it's hard to keep banshees spread out enough to make fungals not worth it? (Against DTs or ghost nuke, should have a spore anyway or an overseer).
The IT change I like; moving so slow sorta sucked, and this makes it harder for the IT to snipe things like they can now (I don't like tactics that allow you to gain such a big advantage in such a small amount of time, such as looking away for a few seconds then realizing it's too late and you're going to lose your third base vs a 4 base zerg), while the movement speed buffs their abilities in other things like killing multiple buildings instead of just sniping 1 or just fighting in battles. Perhaps it would help deal with air harassment as well (Banshees, etc.), without having to burn so many fungals to keep them in place.
The NP change I like and sounds really fun haha. Hurray for stealing units and remaking their race's units/buildings.
On May 13 2012 15:45 fire_brand wrote: Wow, what is with all the cynicism. I come home to see this massive list of improvements and streamlining to the UI, things that the community has been bitching about for many many months, and all I see is negativity. Blizzard is listening to exactly what you have been saying and giving us all these amazing tools to create a massive custom game community on top of everything they already provide and all we can do is complain?
We really need to re-examine our mentality of entitlement. When we get a patch like this, which is a lot of what we were already asking for we should at least give some creative criticism instead of "this patch is garbage," which is what a majority of these responses have been. You don't like it? Let Blizzard know what they could do to improve their changes, like they outlined in the post, " Your input can help us refine it even further." Add some worthwhile commentary to the situation.
Personally I think it's an amazing patch. The custom game community was oft times larger than the competitive community in wc3 and this had to do almost entirely with the custom map editor and what came out of it. Dota would not exist without it. The custom maps in sc2 have been underwhelming to say the least. This could be a potential goldmine.
And for the serious competitive players, these patch notes (not set in stone) come on the heels of balance change and with promises of more to come. Such a quick turnaround is practically unheard of. The least we can do bite our tongues and digest the information here before regurgitating our opinions. Think before you speak and craft a meaningful post. No one gains anything with a substance less complaint and dead end criticisms.
Please lets help improve our game rather than shitting on it constantly.
On May 13 2012 16:08 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: WTF? these balance changes are weird; i wonder if these weren't supposed to be in this test 1.5 build or what? Why not make a public map like they did for the recent changes? it also means it'll probably be a while til 1.5 comes out or else they would have released these changes with the last balance changes
I was about to say that it seems that those "changes" weren't changes but how it was back in the beta. But not all those changes are so.
Nerfing the ultralisk? Why? 100 more hp doesn't make up for all the other stuff o.o
The infestor changes are interesting and I'm not really against it. I always thought they moved quite fast while burrowed. No more IT from burrowed is interesting... perhaps it's because they feel baneling mines are good enough already, especially now that people use them a lot more? The fungal change is weird, but maybe they feel that cloaked units (namely, banshees) are stopped too easily by fungals since it's hard to keep banshees spread out enough to make fungals not worth it? (Against DTs or ghost nuke, should have a spore anyway or an overseer).
The beta for 1.5 runs without ANY balance patches. It is the Sc2 Beta (0.x) but with Patch 1.5 UI and stuff.
On May 13 2012 16:08 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: WTF? these balance changes are weird; i wonder if these weren't supposed to be in this test 1.5 build or what? Why not make a public map like they did for the recent changes? it also means it'll probably be a while til 1.5 comes out or else they would have released these changes with the last balance changes
I was about to say that it seems that those "changes" weren't changes but how it was back in the beta. But not all those changes are so.
Nerfing the ultralisk? Why? 100 more hp doesn't make up for all the other stuff o.o
The infestor changes are interesting and I'm not really against it. I always thought they moved quite fast while burrowed. No more IT from burrowed is interesting... perhaps it's because they feel baneling mines are good enough already, especially now that people use them a lot more? The fungal change is weird, but maybe they feel that cloaked units (namely, banshees) are stopped too easily by fungals since it's hard to keep banshees spread out enough to make fungals not worth it? (Against DTs or ghost nuke, should have a spore anyway or an overseer).
The beta for 1.5 runs without ANY balance patches. It is the Sc2 Beta (0.x) but with Patch 1.5 UI and stuff.
Why are they focusing so hard on the arcade players and not the ones who play the actual game? I have some friends who are "arcade/casual players" and they rarely even start the game more than once every week.
Focus on improving the UI for all the people who want a more social experience and still play StarCraft 2.
I found some more balance changes in the 1.5 Alpha.
Queen still has 3 range instead of 5 range. Observers still build in 40 seconds. I assume that the new patch has not been implemented in this Alpha.
Morph to Overseer cost changed to 50/100, up from 50/50.
Spawn Changeling cost changed to 75 energy, up from 50 energy.
Pneumatized Carapace (Overlord/Overseer speed upgrade) cost changed to 50/50, down from 100/100.
Broodlord HP/armor increased to 275 hp and 2 armor, up from 225 hp and 1 armor.
Hatchery health changed to 1250, down from 1500.
Lair health changed to 1800, down from 2000.
Spawning Pool health changed to 750, down from 1000.
Spine Crawler root time changed to 6 seconds, down from 12 seconds. (The animation for one of my Spine Crawlers was bugged so that it showed a rooted Spine Crawler when the unrooted Spine Crawler was stationary. lmao).
Corruptor attack changed to 12 (22 vs massive), changed from 14 (20 vs massive).
Corruptors have energy again with 200 max energy, with Corruption costing 75 energy.
Spire health changed to to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk Cavern health changed to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk build time changed to 70 seconds, increased from 55 seconds.
Roach range changed to 3, decreased from 4.
ROACHES COST 1 SUPPLY LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
And of course, the Infestor and Ultralisk changes as described earlier in the thread.
IU is a fantastic singer.
I have not found any other obvious changes with Terran or Protoss, however. Maybe there might have been a few changed that slipped through my notice, however.
edit: I doubt this is a build from the beta or 1.0. Phoenix Range, the Ghost snipe nerf, KA removal, no warp-in on ramp, and Reaper speed upgrade requiring a Factory are all still in effect.
On May 13 2012 17:01 eviltomahawk wrote: I found some more balance changes in the 1.5 Alpha.
Queen still has 3 range instead of 5 range. Observers still build in 40 seconds. I assume that the new patch has not been implemented in this Alpha.
Morph to Overseer cost changed to 50/100, up from 50/50.
Spawn Changeling cost changed to 75 energy, up from 50 energy.
Pneumatized Carapace (Overlord/Overseer speed upgrade) cost changed to 50/50, down from 100/100.
Broodlord HP/armor increased to 275 hp and 2 armor, up from 225 hp and 1 armor.
Hatchery health changed to 1250, down from 1500.
Lair health changed to 1800, down from 2000.
Spawning Pool health changed to 750, down from 1000.
Spine Crawler root time changed to 6 seconds, down from 12 seconds. (The animation for one of my Spine Crawlers was bugged so that it showed a rooted Spine Crawler when the unrooted Spine Crawler was stationary. lmao).
Corruptor attack changed to 12 (22 vs massive), changed from 14 (20 vs massive).
Corruptors have energy again with 200 max energy, with Corruption costing 75 energy.
Spire health changed to to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk Cavern health changed to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk build time changed to 70 seconds, increased from 55 seconds.
Roach range changed to 3, decreased from 4.
ROACHES COST 1 SUPPLY LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
And of course, the Infestor and Ultralisk changes as described earlier in the thread.
IU is a fantastic singer.
I have not found any other obvious changes with Terran or Protoss, however. Maybe there might have been a few changed that slipped through my notice, however.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I don't know man, blizzard has done some really really stupid shit lately (ghost nerf could have been done so much better)
But yeah it's probably an old build, the buff to broodlord reflects their stats in a beta build.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
On May 13 2012 17:22 MugenXBanksy wrote: more dead space in the menus cool :/
Did you just not read the label that says CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT where the dead space is? it will likely be filled by the time this goes live, this is an alpha after all.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
It's just a messed up build because of merging problems most likely, they needed a fully distributable beta to test the map editor differences, the old pylon radius is still in there for instance. It's just not worth getting concerned about the specifics of the balance changes.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
It makes zero sense to nerf ultras, buff broodlords and basically give replicants to Zerg when they just removed them from HotS though.
I like the changes overall, the custom scene has been dead in the water for a long time because of the 'popularity' fiasco, but I like that they're trying to set things right. I remember the beta of SC2 and the outcries of the custom game modders on forums everywhere, and how Bliz just ignored them and seemed to have a policy of not speaking about the custom scene problems for a year. But now it seems that they've finally awaken and are trying to patch things up.
A few things are bothering me tho... First of all, B.net 2 keeps feeling desolate, there's just nothing going on. The chats are there but they feel so half-assed compared to Dota2 and the likes. Bnet 2 still feels like a system that's made to work on consoles, with minimal need to use the keyboard.
Also, I'd like to know what the percentage is of the playerbase that is still playing with a 4:3-screen. Why do we have a UI that's built for 4:3-screens and not widescreen?
I don't understand these changes....BLizzard, if you are reading, plz look at DOTA2 UI and plz learnnnnnnnnnnnn! It could be so sexy with dota2 type menus....IF you don't know what i mean, plz see Husky's youtube video:
Some comments from youtube page:
"What I love about Dota 2 is the possibility of spectate a game while waiting for a match." israellsantos 2 weeks ago 44 "Whoever worked on battlenet 2.0 should watch this video and be ashamed, if they aren't already. If you are listening Blizzard, bnet need a major update. Do it."
On May 13 2012 17:01 eviltomahawk wrote: I found some more balance changes in the 1.5 Alpha.
Queen still has 3 range instead of 5 range. Observers still build in 40 seconds. I assume that the new patch has not been implemented in this Alpha.
Morph to Overseer cost changed to 50/100, up from 50/50.
Spawn Changeling cost changed to 75 energy, up from 50 energy.
Pneumatized Carapace (Overlord/Overseer speed upgrade) cost changed to 50/50, down from 100/100.
Broodlord HP/armor increased to 275 hp and 2 armor, up from 225 hp and 1 armor.
Hatchery health changed to 1250, down from 1500.
Lair health changed to 1800, down from 2000.
Spawning Pool health changed to 750, down from 1000.
Spine Crawler root time changed to 6 seconds, down from 12 seconds. (The animation for one of my Spine Crawlers was bugged so that it showed a rooted Spine Crawler when the unrooted Spine Crawler was stationary. lmao).
Corruptor attack changed to 12 (22 vs massive), changed from 14 (20 vs massive).
Corruptors have energy again with 200 max energy, with Corruption costing 75 energy.
Spire health changed to to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk Cavern health changed to 800, decreased from 850.
Ultralisk build time changed to 70 seconds, increased from 55 seconds.
Roach range changed to 3, decreased from 4.
ROACHES COST 1 SUPPLY LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
And of course, the Infestor and Ultralisk changes as described earlier in the thread.
IU is a fantastic singer.
I have not found any other obvious changes with Terran or Protoss, however. Maybe there might have been a few changed that slipped through my notice, however.
People, this balance build is the "Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty BETA" build. It's the original Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty BETA in like 2009. So, people, no need to list all the "balance changes", just go to check the original BETA build.
Many casuals would have been sticking to the game longer if the awful custom game system had been different from the beginning. I like everthing that improves it.
The UI is still clunky and awkward. It's painful to look at. A button is added that will lead to empty and idle chat rooms because the chat system is still essentially the same. The poster who claimed that these changes are like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic was right.
I can only hope that since this is the alpha, the final product will not look much like what is pictured in these screenshots.
It sure looks promising for an Alpha, i hope the entirity of the UI gets a major overhaul though. I'm sure that wasnt quite on their mind yet with this, they just wanted to test out the functionalities first before they radically alter how everything looks and works.
On May 13 2012 18:02 CrtBalorda wrote: Whats "Added self-cast hotkey support" ?
I'd imagine it let lets you hold down a key and then any ability or item you use gets cast on the currently selected unit in preparation for blizzard all stars.
Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
No matter how it looks, the main thing this change to the UI does is divert attention from the actual game and attract attention to "fun" custom games. I don't want SC2 to get to the state where SC:BW and WC3 were after a couple of years, when all that was played on Bnet were custom games and the very small percentage of people that cared about the actual game could only play on unofficial servers e.g. The Abyss.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
It's limited in distribution, but they haven't limited it on the server side, so you can just log in with your bnet account if you have the client.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
It's limited in distribution, but they haven't limited it on the server side, so you can just log in with your bnet account if you have the client.
IDK. We have the download link now (it's not from a blizzard website address) and everyone can log in right now, I'd say it's not an alpha. And from the way it looks and from that it's the 2010.Feb WOL beta build. I'm kinda suspicious.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
It's limited in distribution, but they haven't limited it on the server side, so you can just log in with your bnet account if you have the client.
IDK. We have the download link now (it's not from a blizzard website address) and everyone can log in right now, I'd say it's not an alpha. And from the way it looks and from that it's the 2009 WOL beta build. I'm kinda suspicious.
You have the right to be suspicious, but it would be a very elaborate fraud. Occams razor: it's a limited release alpha test build that they had to merge their current client changes with the old beta in order to get a release out to people that contains the new map editor (PTR patches usually only patch the client).
The melee changes are a combination of an old beta build and some more recent changes, it's really all over the place and likely isn't worth figuring out where they all come from, the main point is they're not intended to be future patch changes.
The URL is from a content network that blizzard likely uses to host static files for load balancing purposes.
The client has a number of features that were shown in the HotS preview at blizzcon last year, and several that were announced to be coming with the 1.5 patch (resizable chat windows etc), but were not present during the 2009 WOL beta, except the melee changes, everything looks pretty much like what you'd expect an alpha build of 1.5 to look like, which is consistent with the fact that they updated the client to their latest build, but messed up when merging the melee settings.
They're also running a server, so I doubt their running a server for the 2009 WOL test build.
So if i understand it correctly, they don't fix the "most played maps are always at the top of the list and we can't find people to play other maps" issue?
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
It's limited in distribution, but they haven't limited it on the server side, so you can just log in with your bnet account if you have the client.
IDK. We have the download link now (it's not from a blizzard website address) and everyone can log in right now, I'd say it's not an alpha. And from the way it looks and from that it's the 2009 WOL beta build. I'm kinda suspicious.
You have the right to be suspicious, but it would be a very elaborate fraud, occams razor, it's a limited release alpha test build that they had to merge their current client changes with the old beta in order to get a release out to people that contains the new map editor (PTR patches usually only patch the client).
The melee changes are a combination of an old beta build and some more recent changes, it's really all over the place and likely isn't worth figuring out where they all come from, the main point is they're not intended to be future patch changes.
The URL is from a content network that blizzard likely uses to host static files for load balancing purposes.
The client has a number of features that were shown in the HotS preview at blizzcon last year, and several that were announced to be coming with the 1.5 patch (resizable chat windows etc), but were not present during the 2009 WOL beta, except the melee changes, everything looks pretty much like what you'd expect an alpha build of 1.5 to look like, which is consistent with the fact that they updated the client to their latest build, but messed up when merging the melee settings.
They're also running a server, so I doubt their running a server for the 2009 WOL test build.
OK. Thx for the explanation. That kinda make sense.
On May 13 2012 18:16 larse wrote: Since they use the first 2009 Wings of Liberty Beta Build with the arcade feature. (So the balance and graphics is the same as the original WOL beta in 2009). I kinda start to doubt the credibility of this "beta" thing.
I'm logged in to it right now and can confirm it is legit, there are live servers with the arcade feature enabled and people are uploading to it and playing games on it, the problems with the melee stuff is likely just a merging issue because they needed to release this as a stand alone client, they just don't have the ability to make a PTR-only map editor I guess.
So, we can log in with our current bn account? Or you need to be invited to the alpha?
If everyone can log into this, then it is not an alpha--it's a freaking open beta.
It's limited in distribution, but they haven't limited it on the server side, so you can just log in with your bnet account if you have the client.
IDK. We have the download link now (it's not from a blizzard website address) and everyone can log in right now, I'd say it's not an alpha. And from the way it looks and from that it's the 2010.Feb WOL beta build. I'm kinda suspicious.
Well, whoever made this client has done a damn good job of emulating every single little feature of Battle.net, even if the interface is rather rough. Plus, it requires a valid Battle.net login, and it will not accept incorrect logins.
Maybe Blizzard should go back to trying to make the actual game better (balance changes, tournament maps for the map pool, lan, chat groups that hold more than 99 people, etc.) instead of trying to turn sc2 into super mario party.
On May 13 2012 19:21 babybell wrote: Maybe Blizzard should go back to trying to make the actual game better (balance changes, tournament maps for the map pool, lan, chat groups that hold more than 99 people, etc.) instead of trying to turn sc2 into super mario party.
On May 13 2012 18:49 Superouman wrote: So if i understand it correctly, they don't fix the "most played maps are always at the top of the list and we can't find people to play other maps" issue?
They have not fixed that, no. The front for finding custom game types is better, you get multiple lists not just popularity, you still have most played, but then there's highest rated and up and coming takes up a lot of the screen space (high rated, but added recently) and that's on top of a featured section.
That said, melee maps have also been separated from the custom game type style maps, so there is a bit less saturation in that regard, you won't be as drowned out by marine arena and the like, but at the same time melee maps do not seem to benefit from some of the newer arcade-game features (like a nice front-page with multiple screen shots, reviews, ratings, patch notes).
They still plan to go ahead with the open lobbies according to the blog they released a few weeks ago, but it's not in this release.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
What we need is a system that merges the two concepts. So instead of showing a seperate result for each lobby hosted, all lobbies of the same game are grouped into one.
I just edited some stuff out because i don't want to link directly to it, but as you can see, it also goes through us.media.battle.net.edgesuit.net/downloads.
On May 13 2012 21:22 paradoxOO9 wrote: The UI still looks bland and empty to me
A lot of the empty space is stuff thats under construction, It's hard to say at this point, you can also just fill with resizable chat windows now at least, the newer parts like the custom game main page seems full enough.
There doesn't appear to be an open lobbies section as Blizzard has promised for 1.5. Also, the UI art is horrible, although the functionality appears to be much improved.
Without open lobbies, there's no point, as there would be no change to the popular maps that can be played. Nobody would know that you or your maps exists.
As long as the smooth it up a bit and that horrible delay, lag and wheel of death after every screen you go to disappears it will be a more friendly and enjoyable experience for me.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
I thought they wont change the balance heavily anymore. Is this some kind of mistake?
You forget that 1.5 is a huge change to the game. (The last of it's kind before HOTS kicks in) So I'm not surprised there are balance changes, so this is a sneak peek at the balance of the patch 1.5 game as well as an alpha of the new UI.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
I thought they wont change the balance heavily anymore. Is this some kind of mistake?
You forget that 1.5 is a huge change to the game. (The last of it's kind before HOTS kicks in) So I'm not surprised there are balance changes, so this is a sneak peek at the balance of the patch 1.5 game as well as an alpha of the new UI.
Probably is true.
Isn't the build a mixture of an old build and some new changes, as someone else said?
Besides, Browder said this less than a month ago: "Assuming nothing drastic changes in the meta game that would shift the win rates further out of balance, there’s a strong likelihood that it won’t be necessary to make balance changes until Heart of the Swarm arrives. Still, if a significant issue arises that is beyond the reach of metagame changes to resolve, then we will react as quickly as possible to make the adjustments necessary to restore balance." Source: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/5202424
I doubt they would make this many major changes in such a short amount of time especially when HotS isn't too far away.
Also a possible severe balance issue. You can no longer Fungal Growth anywhere you want. You must now target a unit, it can be your own as well. (FG wont hurt your units of course) The problem here is that now you can't Fungal undetected invisible units anymore. This could be very bad, because sometimes zerg relies on fungals when Overseers fail them. EDIT: Major and I mean MAJOR balance changes to the Infestor have been made.
-Infestors now start with Neural Parasite no upgrade anymore (range 7 still) and the 15s time limit has been removed. Now you can keep that unit forever. -Infestors can no longer shoot infested terrans while burrowed. HUGE -Infestor move speed while burrowed is now INSANELY SLOW. Move speed is 1, almost as slow as a Queen off creep. And when burrowed on creep is 1.3, still very slow. -Infested Terrans now only last 20 seconds (down from 30s). They now move much faster. Move speed is now 1.5 off creep and 1.95 on creep!
Also ultralisk changes -No frenzied -60 dmg building ram attack -18 dmg to units, no armor bonus atk -600hp (instead of 500) -2.25 move speed (2.92 on creep) slower than current build
On the plus side, range indicators (like the ones for siege tanks) are now shown. It's also shown when you use transfuse on Queens. I don't think creep tumors had it though. :\
Note: First two screenshots had AA on. 3rd screenshot had AA off. The graphics are notably better with anti-aliasing off. Note Note: If anyone wants me to show something specific that they're curious about, just ask! :D
Note Note Note: Not sure but those balance changes do seem legit, as I checked them in game. Infested Terrans were never that fast, it must have been a conscious change. Also the really slow Infestor move speed is excruciating.
I thought they wont change the balance heavily anymore. Is this some kind of mistake?
You forget that 1.5 is a huge change to the game. (The last of it's kind before HOTS kicks in) So I'm not surprised there are balance changes, so this is a sneak peek at the balance of the patch 1.5 game as well as an alpha of the new UI.
Probably is true.
These aren't patch changes. The build being used for testing the Arcade Alpha is the WoL BETA BUILD. This means that the playable game that you can access through the Arcade is the version that was playable in the beta of WoL. These are not patch changes.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Why the fuck do you want a spectator mode in sc2?Just because dota2 and LoL has it automatically means sc2 should also have it.
It's unnecessary and very exploitable
Because it's very fun to spectate matches. It's not surprising that B.net 0.2 doesn't have this or any innovative features at all as it's completely stuck in the past. Although LoL's 3 minute delay won't suffice. For SC2, I would suggest 100% delay, i.e. only allow spectators in completed matches, but probably15 minute delay would be sufficient to prevent abuse.
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Why the fuck do you want a spectator mode in sc2?Just because dota2 and LoL has it automatically means sc2 should also have it.
It's unnecessary and very exploitable
Because it's very fun to spectate matches. It's not surprising that B.net 0.2 doesn't have this or any innovative features at all as it's completely stuck in the past. Although LoL's 3 minute delay won't suffice. For SC2, I would suggest 100% delay, i.e. only allow spectators in completed matches, but probably15 minute delay would be sufficient to prevent abuse.
i don't rly think a information about something that happened 3 minutes ago are relevant anymore. but let say it is,you could just restrict it to one player so you would see it live but only from one perspective.
i pers. would like to spectate my friend playn a ladder game. i hope they do something like this at least for the upcoming no ranked matches in hots.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
What we need is a system that merges the two concepts. So instead of showing a seperate result for each lobby hosted, all lobbies of the same game are grouped into one.
On May 13 2012 09:56 Zorgaz wrote: I just want a custom game list like in wc3 where you can see all the games that are hosted......
Other stuff seems okay i guess
I still don't see why people want this...it was a god damn terrible system and I am glad it didn't come back.
What if i want to play a map that isn't ''popular''. If i don't have a couple of buddies to play it with then i can't play it =/.
The wc3 system was much better in that regard
lol it's not at all, wc3 popular years were dominated by maps like island defense, dota, various mauls, the sheep wolves one etc very few maps could be made and plaid outside of that unless you joined special channels and found groups, at least with sc2 system it pools all available people to fill the desired map. This was made much worse then game bots were introduced, maps outside of popular maps were pretty much impossible to fill. and the screen was filled with shiz like DoTa GG.net-apcm etc
What we need is a system that merges the two concepts. So instead of showing a seperate result for each lobby hosted, all lobbies of the same game are grouped into one.
Nice. There are lots of ways to avoid the problem of WC3. But most importantly, it must be at least possible to play the least popular map on the server without resorting to spamming chat channels.
WoW, just tested it in a real game and the game is soo much smoother for me, thank you Blizzard, can't wait for this patch and play with better FPS always
On May 13 2012 07:25 MorroW wrote: oh because i thought they implemented some integrated huge streaming tool inside sc2 where you could stream data into a sc2 player rather than streaming the screen with xsplit into a website like twitch.
if they made something like this (if its possible, id imagine it would kinda be like live replays) youd be able to watch actual quality in some kind of sc2 player (or inside sc2 whatever) so it would lag less for everyone (because im assuming uploading sc2 data to sc2 thing takes less information than actual screen pixel frames uploading 25 times per second or whatever into a player like twich). to paint a picture compare the size of a 20min video to a replay thats 20minutes. the difference is ridiculous
im dissapointed because this would been huge in so many ways, why doesnt this exist? does it exist in any game?
It exists in dota 2 in some sense. The spectating mode in that game allows you to see any player's movements down to the cursor movement so it's basically a stream minus the music/commentary.
There is also the league of legends spectator mode that they recently added with lots of cool features. Blizzard is really falling behind by not having this.
Why the fuck do you want a spectator mode in sc2?Just because dota2 and LoL has it automatically means sc2 should also have it.
It's unnecessary and very exploitable
Because it's very fun to spectate matches. It's not surprising that B.net 0.2 doesn't have this or any innovative features at all as it's completely stuck in the past. Although LoL's 3 minute delay won't suffice. For SC2, I would suggest 100% delay, i.e. only allow spectators in completed matches, but probably15 minute delay would be sufficient to prevent abuse.
i don't rly think a information about something that happened 3 minutes ago are relevant anymore. but let say it is,you could just restrict it to one player so you would see it live but only from one perspective.
i pers. would like to spectate my friend playn a ladder game. i hope they do something like this at least for the upcoming no ranked matches in hots.
I don't think Blizzard needed to re-invent the wheel here and I feel like they are in terms of game presentation. They just need to add more options to what they had, not create new menus. Either way it is good.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
well it's certainly not a new one
it's probably a mix somehow
I mean, there's no reason to nerf Ultras even more and 3 range roaches is ridiculous. Same with 1 range roach and such. They wouldn't change/revert that many things.
On May 14 2012 03:11 SDream wrote: WoW, just tested it in a real game and the game is soo much smoother for me, thank you Blizzard, can't wait for this patch and play with better FPS always
There's enough performance improvement that the FPS increase is really noticable? If that's the case, then I'm more excited about this change than all the other changes COMBINED.
On May 14 2012 03:11 SDream wrote: WoW, just tested it in a real game and the game is soo much smoother for me, thank you Blizzard, can't wait for this patch and play with better FPS always
There's enough performance improvement that the FPS increase is really noticable? If that's the case, then I'm more excited about this change than all the other changes COMBINED.
I see absolutely no performance difference at all. O_O
On May 14 2012 03:11 SDream wrote: WoW, just tested it in a real game and the game is soo much smoother for me, thank you Blizzard, can't wait for this patch and play with better FPS always
There's enough performance improvement that the FPS increase is really noticable? If that's the case, then I'm more excited about this change than all the other changes COMBINED.
I see absolutely no performance difference at all. O_O
I don't know if there was an actual FPS difference, someone earlier said his fps almost halved, but to me it feels a lot more snappy the minimap movement zips faster as well as edge of screen scrolling. You kind of have to try it to see how it feels.
Its been noted already probably,but anyway - you can not spawn infested terrans with burrowed infestor anymore. Only in unburrowed state. There is no button for that even when ur infested is burrowed now,
On May 14 2012 08:21 zergporn wrote: Its been noted already probably,but anyway - you can not spawn infested terrans with burrowed infestor anymore. Only in unburrowed state. There is no button for that even when ur infested is burrowed now,
Man, you're playing WoL version 1.0 with 1.5 UI tweaks.
Stop write about that. There are NO BALANCE changes
I think this is what is going to be the perfect solution to visual issues with custom games, BUT they still need to work on the presentation of it all because being a dev is still apparently WAY too fucking hard.
On May 14 2012 08:21 zergporn wrote: Its been noted already probably,but anyway - you can not spawn infested terrans with burrowed infestor anymore. Only in unburrowed state. There is no button for that even when ur infested is burrowed now,
If that's true that's a horrible change... I think being able to throw infestors while burrowed is an insanely strong ability, but not broken and definitely a lot of fun for the zerg.
If they feel it was too strong they should have changed something else...
EDIT: So it's some kind of weird hybrid mix of a build with random stat changes o_O? Can't remember infestors being unable to cast infested terrans while burrowed... like, ever?
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
well it's certainly not a new one
it's probably a mix somehow
I mean, there's no reason to nerf Ultras even more and 3 range roaches is ridiculous. Same with 1 range roach and such. They wouldn't change/revert that many things.
I agree, actually. Looks like a Frankenstein of balance changes that probably was from throwing a stand-alone client together rather haphazardly. I kinda feel bad that I wasted a few hours trying to search for possible balance changes in this 1.5 alpha when actually it doesn't mean anything lol.
But maybe it might be fun to play around with these fucked up balance stats.
On May 13 2012 17:15 windsupernova wrote: The balance changes that you guys are mentioning probably are because they used an old build to do this client. So try not to read much into it.
I mean 1 Supply Roaches?
I doubt it's an old build. Phoenix Range is still in this client. So is the Ghost snipe nerf. And some of these changes aren't listed in any of the patch notes documented on Liquipedia.
well it's certainly not a new one
it's probably a mix somehow
I mean, there's no reason to nerf Ultras even more and 3 range roaches is ridiculous. Same with 1 range roach and such. They wouldn't change/revert that many things.
On May 14 2012 09:17 Liquid`Jinro wrote: If that's true that's a horrible change... I think being able to throw infestors while burrowed is an insanely strong ability, but not broken and definitely a lot of fun for the zerg.
If they feel it was too strong they should have changed something else...
EDIT: So it's some kind of weird hybrid mix of a build with random stat changes o_O? Can't remember infestors being unable to cast infested terrans while burrowed... like, ever?
Beta Patch 16 Infested Terrans can now be cast while burrowed.
This thread needs a mod note, none of the melee map changes are legit, it's just a mishmash of different versions caused by a bad merge, the build is to test the arcade functionality and the map editor changes only. I went into why this might be the case a few pages back, it's just how software development goes sometimes.
They needed to do a stand-alone release rather than a PTR build because they don't have the ability to do a PTR only map editor, so they took all the changes they'd made to WOL and up until 1.5 and merged them with the 2009 beta, then didn't bother to fix any conflicts in the melee map settings because it wasn't necessary for what they were trying to test.
Oh my god, this is absolutely amazing. It's everything I as an old WC3 mapper wanted, and more. (To be fair the editor and custom map support was worse than WC3's before. This is gonna redeem it though.)
The alpha client that you're looking at was only made available so that mapmakers could look at the arcade menu and give feedback. The melee library is not current and not tied to the version of the client in any way other than it's the one packaged with it.
They'd never release the whole alpha melee state anyways. People would constantly complain at what's missing or what's been changed, and when things are changed people would complain about broken promises. When they think it's at a point where that's not something they have to worry about: beta.
why are they so stubborn that they wont just list custom games in the same way they did in wc3
custom games had great community then, ice troll tribes, dota, aos, dark deeds, sheep tag etc... the list is pretty much endless
now there is no custom game community whatsoever, and the amount of maps available has shrunk from near infinite to the 3 most popular when you log in
what kind of idiots does blizzard employ that they can't just fix their mistake. trying something new is fine, but not accepting that it isn't working and forcing it anyway is a different story
Another re-spin of console style UI without any advancement. Just fire those UI guys and hire some real designers with real PC game experience. We play with keyboards and mouse, not those darn game pads. Or just obtain a Dota 2 beta key and look at the UI, even in beta, still by far more better that SC2 UI. Just copy/paste it.
Give some option to people to watch games when not playing, track proper statistics and a real working custom game system just like a real PC RTS game. I don't care Shattered Temple 1v1 fast that appear as one of the most popular maps. It is not as popular as you think. Just it creates its own fame by just standing there.
Finally what the hack is this Arcade button? Is it a preparation of Starcraft Dota? Otherwise it doesn't deserve to be there.
On May 14 2012 23:46 Laserist wrote: Another re-spin of console style UI without any advancement. Just fire those UI guys and hire some real designers with real PC game experience. We play with keyboards and mouse, not those darn game pads. Or just obtain a Dota 2 beta key and look at the UI, even in beta, still by far more better that SC2 UI. Just copy/paste it.
Give some option to people to watch games when not playing, track proper statistics and a real working custom game system just like a real PC RTS game. I don't care Shattered Temple 1v1 fast that appear as one of the most popular maps. It is not as popular as you think. Just it creates its own fame by just standing there.
Finally what the hack is this Arcade button? Is it a preparation of Starcraft Dota? Otherwise it doesn't deserve to be there.
1/10
This patch is spefically for ARCADE, ie. custom games, which DOTA 2 doesn't have.
On May 14 2012 23:46 Laserist wrote: Another re-spin of console style UI without any advancement. Just fire those UI guys and hire some real designers with real PC game experience. We play with keyboards and mouse, not those darn game pads. Or just obtain a Dota 2 beta key and look at the UI, even in beta, still by far more better that SC2 UI. Just copy/paste it.
Give some option to people to watch games when not playing, track proper statistics and a real working custom game system just like a real PC RTS game. I don't care Shattered Temple 1v1 fast that appear as one of the most popular maps. It is not as popular as you think. Just it creates its own fame by just standing there.
Finally what the hack is this Arcade button? Is it a preparation of Starcraft Dota? Otherwise it doesn't deserve to be there.
1/10
This patch is spefically for ARCADE, ie. custom games, which DOTA 2 doesn't have.
So custom game system is still a mess. Changing the layout without implementing any useful improvement? I am still behind my words.
Looks the same for the most part, was hoping it would change to be more like the old battle.net where you were thrown into a chat room. And a clan system would be nice
On May 14 2012 23:46 Laserist wrote: Another re-spin of console style UI without any advancement. Just fire those UI guys and hire some real designers with real PC game experience. We play with keyboards and mouse, not those darn game pads. Or just obtain a Dota 2 beta key and look at the UI, even in beta, still by far more better that SC2 UI. Just copy/paste it.
Give some option to people to watch games when not playing, track proper statistics and a real working custom game system just like a real PC RTS game. I don't care Shattered Temple 1v1 fast that appear as one of the most popular maps. It is not as popular as you think. Just it creates its own fame by just standing there.
Finally what the hack is this Arcade button? Is it a preparation of Starcraft Dota? Otherwise it doesn't deserve to be there.
1/10
This patch is spefically for ARCADE, ie. custom games, which DOTA 2 doesn't have.
So custom game system is still a mess. Changing the layout without implementing any useful improvement? I am still behind my words.
I guess I disagree with you. The layout is the problem, the default should list games that are currently open, like the BNet of olde (if the user's choose, then they can sort the games by popularity, genre, etc.). Arranging the games by which one is currently hosted will literally solve the problems that mapmakers have with the current system.
fail UI is fail. I see alot of changes but nothing addressing the core issues of custom games such as.
- Still no way for a new map to be played , unless they go back to how warcraft 3 maps are presented, this will never be fixed. If they go back to that system of a refreshing game list and actually allow name filtering this time. That would be soooo much better than this piece of crap popularity system they are trying to shove down our throats no matter how much times we tell them we dont like it.
-still no way to name your custom map individually for each game played. For example how do you make a game like DOTA AP , or DOTA AR mode? without having to set up votes in the game and have potentially 30-40% of your playing guys upset that the mode that was majority voted on was not what they wanted to play. By having maps carry there own names in the custom game listing at discretion of the hoster solves issues like these. Once again nothing has been done. They dont even have to go back to the old system where you manually had to host them, All they have to do is set up an open lobby list with self title names after choosing the map from a browsing source.
-LAG Custom games are still held back by the way blizzard handles LAG on this new battlenet 2.0 which should be called battlenet .002 instead. Unlike warcraft 3, sc2 battlenet goes extra distance to make sure your game is spiking as much as possible when somebody is lagging. Even when you dont see the lag screen this fucking retarded battlenet still makes everybody spike massively in the game. This ruins custom maps. You put 12 players in a game, chances are 1 of them is going to make the life of everybody else miserable. Warcraft 3 never did this, When somebody lagged only the lag screen will show up, it never forced every single person in the game to see huge lag spikes 24/7. All you saw was a lag screen counting down when crap like this was happening.
Starcraft 2 battlenet is terrible for team games. I expect blizzard dota to flop so bad if they think they can get away with this.
I have to much bad things to say about battlenet that this post will be followed up by a TLDR response. I will end it here. Blizzard please fire your entire battlenet team, They suck at their jobs
I agree it doesn't look like much of an improvement, but maybe by the time LotV comes out we will have all the changes we need to make Bnet 2.0 an actual improvement to previous versions.
It seems like a lot of people are forgetting that this is an alpha build... they can and probably will change a ton of stuff about this before the patch is actually released.
according to screenshot, looks like they rearranged the layout...not implement something new like game lobbies. what does 1.5 exactly change? (it's still sorted by blizzard's interpretation on whats popular and played, not what is actually being played) ie. there will be no custom tags like "NR20, -AR, -Chaos mode, -expert, etc." which hinders many custom game's full potential.
On May 15 2012 01:16 johnny123 wrote: -still no way to name your custom map individually for each game played. For example how do you make a game like DOTA AP , or DOTA AR mode? without having to set up votes in the game and have potentially 30-40% of your playing guys upset that the mode that was majority voted on was not what they wanted to play. By having maps carry there own names in the custom game listing at discretion of the hoster solves issues like these. Once again nothing has been done. They dont even have to go back to the old system where you manually had to host them, All they have to do is set up an open lobby list with self title names after choosing the map from a browsing source.
This actually has been changed, you now have sub categories, that can be set by the map developer from a drop down, so you can for example do Dota choose AR from the drop down menu, then click Find Match, and you will only get other people looking for Dota AR mode, this also works for things like different sized games (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) but I believe it's up to the map developers discretion.
On May 15 2012 10:08 Glasse wrote: why cant we just have a game list
They're putting one in, though it will likely be different from War 3, it's also not in this build yet because this is an alpha to get the map developers prepared.
On Mar 12 2012 Dustin Browder wrote: To help players find games more easily in patch 1.5, we intend to include an “open games list.” To be clear, this will not be every open game that is on the service. Instead, the open games list will deliver to you a selection of games from the many hundreds or thousands that are currently open. We are currently working on different ways to determine how the list you’ll see is generated.
A large reason why they're hesitant to do full on named lobbies is moderation, they try to keep it to a minimum these days because otherwise they have to massively scale their support staff and then lay them off when the game cools down. They're okay having more static stuff like custom game names and descriptions because people can report it and it's reasonably easy to check and remove from the service.
On May 15 2012 10:09 Bareleon wrote: How is the chat channel font size? Is it still painfully small?
It's exactly the same as it is right now, only now you can scale the actual window to whatever size you want. No idea if there is a setting to change it.
On May 15 2012 10:15 Dingobloo wrote: They're putting one in, though it will likely be different from War 3, it's also not in this build yet because this is an alpha to get the map developers prepared.
Source? Also it's too late anyway, they won't win me back now that they basically ruined what the map making community could've been.
On May 14 2012 14:35 Daxxarri wrote: I know that the matter is pretty much settled in this thread, but I wanted to drop a note here anyway to confirm that yes, the email is real. The Arcade update is pretty unique, and we opted to take an unconventional approach to testing it - one that we’re very unlikely to utilize again in the future. I am glad to note that you guys were cautious about the link though - while this one is legitimate, it’s always a good idea to make sure that you’re not dealing with a phishing attempt of some sort.
After the mod makers have a chance to tool around in there, the wider community will get a chance to experiment with the new interface, play those games, and see what the Arcade is all about in the relatively near future. In reference to the videos and screenshots that are getting passed around, I also want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we’re looking at an alpha build of this project. So, it’s unfinished and should be viewed in that light.
As a side note: for those who are checking out the alpha and want to publish a map, don't forget to delete the “Battle.net” folder from C:\ProgramData, if you've got one. It can cause publishing issues in some cases.
On May 15 2012 10:15 Dingobloo wrote: They're putting one in, though it will likely be different from War 3, it's also not in this build yet because this is an alpha to get the map developers prepared.
Source? Also it's too late anyway, they won't win me back now that they basically ruined what the map making community could've been.
anyone else get an email invite from blizzard for the sc2 arcade beta? it's confirmed to be real on bnet forums.
Greetings!
We’re pleased to invite you to join a special preview alpha phase of the upcoming StarCraft II Arcade Beta. There are numerous improvements in the Arcade beta, including significant changes to the custom game interface, many new ways to describe and uniquely identify your games, as well as substantial editor improvements. You can read the specifics in a separate email.
Because you’ve contributed to the StarCraft II community in the past we feel that you’re uniquely positioned to give us valuable feedback on the coming changes, so we’re offering you early alpha-phase access to the coming Arcade beta! You can expect to see additional polish as we move into the beta phase and beyond (and your feedback will help!)
The alpha is open and available now.
1. Uninstall the StarCraft II Beta, if you’ve installed it previously on your system
2. Delete the “Battle.net” folder from C:\ProgramData, if present
3. Download and run the appropriate Setup file from the link below. Note only the PC StarCraft II Editor is available during the alpha:
5. Log into B.net using your retail SC2 credentials
After you’ve had a chance to check out the new features, we encourage you to provide your feedback via email at arcadefeedback@blizzard.com. Again, please keep in mind that, as this is an alpha build, the patch is a work in progress and that there are likely to be unfinished elements and some bugs as well. We appreciate your patience during the alpha phase of the Arcade beta test and ask that you please keep your feedback constructive.
After the mod makers have a chance to tool around in there, the wider community will get a chance to experiment with the new interface, play those games, and see what the Arcade is all about in the relatively near future. In reference to the videos and screenshots that are getting passed around, I also want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we’re looking at an alpha build of this project. So, it’s unfinished and should be viewed in that light.
Haha, wow, that's even better than SoonTM! Can't wait for all of this stuff to be implemented, but it's only really going to change things if they do put an open lobbies section in, like they said in the developer update.
On May 14 2012 22:58 SDream wrote: There is a new option to display health bars like this: + Show Spoiler +
It's the "team colored" health bars, you can enable it, but I am not sure if it's better, worst, it is different for sure.
I don't think I would use those health bars, kinda got used to green. Will help for observer mode though, especially in ling/bling wars.
I would want health-dependent bar colors with player colored borders, or a played colored blob/square/circle on one or both sides of the bar. That way you get the best of both worlds (without the player color on the bar being particularly intrusive)
Team-colored health bars fixes one issue, but just introduces another (not easily being able to pick out individual low health units when in large clustered-up groups), so it doesn't really help in the long run.
On May 14 2012 23:46 Laserist wrote: Another re-spin of console style UI without any advancement. Just fire those UI guys and hire some real designers with real PC game experience. We play with keyboards and mouse, not those darn game pads. Or just obtain a Dota 2 beta key and look at the UI, even in beta, still by far more better that SC2 UI. Just copy/paste it.
Give some option to people to watch games when not playing, track proper statistics and a real working custom game system just like a real PC RTS game. I don't care Shattered Temple 1v1 fast that appear as one of the most popular maps. It is not as popular as you think. Just it creates its own fame by just standing there.
yeah but that kind of hope seems foregone and lost at this point — at least for me. But that said, that isn't what 1.5 is about. It's about introducing new features to the game, not fixing a problem that they've had for ages which would cost many truckloads of work (money) to completely rectify.
Finally what the hack is this Arcade button? Is it a preparation of Starcraft Dota? Otherwise it doesn't deserve to be there.
Arcade is the new term for the marketplace. They just changed the word because marketplace implied buying stuff, when really much of (most of) the content would be free. I don't know what the exact goals are for arcade, but regardless, I don't like the name either. Some of the features includes things like the fun-or-not system, custom game ladder, etc. I guess it's like a better way to distinguish custom melee games from custom use map settings games, and that is actually something that I'd really appreciate.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast.
They made this with Diablo, and that's the reason it doesnt work for me
The new pictures look odd to me. I really dont like the top where singe/multi-player used to be and it now says Starcraft/Arcade. I hope blizzard doesnt release it looking like that.
o It will only be necessary to download a fraction of game data to get into the action. We expect to bring even more players into StarCraft II worldwide by making access to the game both easy and fast.
They made this with Diablo, and that's the reason it doesnt work for me
There are solutions to the Diablo 3 issues with the streaming client. Basically Blizzard fucked up by releasing a new set of data for the streaming client without telling the client that it needed that data, so people who downloaded it before like... May 10th-ish were screwed.
This has worked flawlessly for World of Warcraft for years.
For those who want in the 1.5 beta, check your battle.net account. I didn't get an email, but its in my account and I am going to check it out shortly(as soon as its playable).
On June 02 2012 04:01 StreetWise wrote: For those who want in the 1.5 beta, check your battle.net account. I didn't get an email, but its in my account and I am going to check it out shortly(as soon as its playable).
EPT
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