The end of Warcraft III is comming... in theory...

[Dr Super Good]

This ominous sounding thread is actually to notify people of the latest addition to StarCraft II currently available on the PTR. Yes this is the right section for you see Blizzard is adding not just all 16 melee heroes from Warcraft III The Frozen Throne, but also everything else.

We’re excited to announce the models and assets that made Warcraft III an amazing universe to explore are now available in the StarCraft II PTR.

This brings over three thousand new materials for the amazing Arcade development community to work with, including new hero models for the 4 primary races, all of the original Warcraft III models including neutral creatures and their sounds as well as doodads, structures, spell effects, ambient sounds, music and custom user interfaces for each race.

StarCraft II is now going to be both StarCraft II and Warcraft III as far as assets goes. Sure the assets might look a bit dated next to their more recent space traveling friends however the possibilities this will open up will be staggering.

The best part? Remember that StarCraft II Arcade is completely free. This makes it even cheaper to play fantastic custom maps than WarCraft III which still requires a licence purchase (for how long is another question).

So what do you hardened Warcraft III developers think? Tempted to move over to StarCraft II? Or is classic Warcraft III just too good to beat?

 

[Cherrymage]

Well, a lot of custom models used in my project aren't in StarCraft II format, but WarCraft III format instead... In addition, I can't get used to the complex Galaxy Editor and it will take me lots of time to convert the War3 custom models to Sc2 models...

P.S. I remember that mapmaking requires the full version of StarCraft 2, but playing is free...

EDIT: This thread. Many posts states that a CONSTANT internet connection is required to play StarCraft II, and unlike WarCraft III (about only 1 GB), it takes a goddammit 10 GB!

EDIT 2: I also found out that a fully retailed version is needed to play in offline mode. According to Blizzard, Starter Edition users may not use offline mode.

 

[Dr Super Good]

P.S. I remember that mapmaking requires the full version of StarCraft 2, but playing is free...

So? That is the same requirement as WC3. However in WC3 you also needed to buy a licence to play the custom maps where as in SC2 you can do so completely for free simply by making a BattleNet 2.0 account.

EDIT: This thread. Many posts states that a CONSTANT internet connection is required to play StarCraft II, and unlike WarCraft III (about only 1 GB), it takes a goddammit 10 GB!

Warcraft III also needed a constant internet connection to play online (same as SC2). In fact all online games do for quite an obvious reasons. SC2 also supports offline play (via editor test or cached maps from online).

You should really not be referencing material that is 5 years old as the game has changed a lot since then. It is like telling people to "not play Diablo III because of the Real Money Auction House is like gambling". Quite a strong argument at the time of release however complete nonsense now (there is no more RMAH).

If the 10-16 GB installation is too large for you in the year 2015 you really should consider getting a new computer from at least the last decade. Even small format mechanical drives are 1TB in size now.

EDIT 2: I also found out that a fully retailed version is needed to play in offline mode. According to Blizzard, Starter Edition users may not use offline mode.

So? At least it is better than Warcraft III where you needed to buy the full game to play anything at all. Most people only play multiplayer anyway and doing so for free should really appeal to them.

 

[Cherrymage]

1) Yeah, its almost the same, but its only online play and custom maps free.
2) I mean, offline play, dude... P.S. although my harddrive is 464 GB, but to me, its still a large amount...
3) Yeah, most people only play multiplayer, but sometimes people want to play singleplayer and some arcade maps are designed for singleplayer only.

 

[Dr Super Good]

3) Yeah, most people only play multiplayer, but sometimes people want to play singleplayer and some arcade maps are designed for singleplayer only.

So? Nothing stops you playing them singleplayer offline after you login to download them and have purchased the game.

 

[Nestharus]

Galaxy doesn't let you spam parallel arrays like wc3, meaning that you need to use a central allocator with huge arrays. This can be problematic as there is no way to typecast between types. You also need a heap for your recycler, meaning that your memory requirements are double. You actually need 1 heap per *type*, which is annoying. Plus you need a heap for pointers. For any given value, you must allocate an int array of size 3 (type, size, data), and then stuff for your data (like a unit array of size "size"). This increases memory requirements for ints to be even higher.

Events take place long after they are started. The delay between an event transpiring and the event code being run is staggering. This means things like unit indexers are much more difficult to do. Why would we want a unit indexer? It sure would be nice to have something like GetHandleId, no?

That brings me to my next point. There is no way to typecast a given type to an integer. Warcraft 3 has GetHandleId. Starcraft 2? Nothing. This means that if we want to be able to handle things like units as integers, we have to have something like a unit indexer. Why is this useful? How do you get a pointer to data on the unit with only the unit reference? You don't. Also, with the lack of parallel arrays, we have to more tightly integrate Starcraft 2 types with OO stuff. If you want to access data from a unit, or an item, or whatever else, the only way to do this is to somehow index that stuff and then allocate an array large enough for the data.



I tried messing with Starcraft 2 for awhile. I even wrote a global memory manager thing. However, after all of the above, I just got fed up with it and quit.

 

[Cherrymage]

Galaxy doesn't let you spam parallel arrays like wc3, meaning that you need to use a central allocator with huge arrays. This can be problematic as there is no way to typecast between types. You also need a heap for your recycler, meaning that your memory requirements are double. You actually need 1 heap per *type*, which is annoying. Plus you need a heap for pointers. For any given value, you must allocate an int array of size 3 (type, size, data), and then stuff for your data (like a unit array of size "size"). This increases memory requirements for ints to be even higher.

Events take place long after they are started. The delay between an event transpiring and the event code being run is staggering. This means things like unit indexers are much more difficult to do. Why would we want a unit indexer? It sure would be nice to have something like GetHandleId, no?

That brings me to my next point. There is no way to typecast a given type to an integer. Warcraft 3 has GetHandleId. Starcraft 2? Nothing. This means that if we want to be able to handle things like units as integers, we have to have something like a unit indexer. Why is this useful? How do you get a pointer to data on the unit with only the unit reference? You don't. Also, with the lack of parallel arrays, we have to more tightly integrate Starcraft 2 types with OO stuff. If you want to access data from a unit, or an item, or whatever else, the only way to do this is to somehow index that stuff and then allocate an array large enough for the data.



I tried messing with Starcraft 2 for awhile. I even wrote a global memory manager thing. However, after all of the above, I just got fed up with it and quit.

Agreed.

 

[Radicool]

So what do you hardened Warcraft III developers think? Tempted to move over to StarCraft II? Or is classic Warcraft III just too good to beat?

Although this may bring about some more interesting maps, it doesn't entice me in any way to create new Starcraft 2 maps. The Starcraft 2 editor is dreadful. Argue all you want about how its more advanced and allows you to do more, blah blah blah. It has a harder learning curb and over complicates things. Tedious platform.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Galaxy doesn't let you spam parallel arrays like wc3, meaning that you need to use a central allocator with huge arrays. This can be problematic as there is no way to typecast between types. You also need a heap for your recycler, meaning that your memory requirements are double. You actually need 1 heap per *type*, which is annoying. Plus you need a heap for pointers. For any given value, you must allocate an int array of size 3 (type, size, data), and then stuff for your data (like a unit array of size "size"). This increases memory requirements for ints to be even higher.

Events take place long after they are started. The delay between an event transpiring and the event code being run is staggering. This means things like unit indexers are much more difficult to do. Why would we want a unit indexer? It sure would be nice to have something like GetHandleId, no?

That brings me to my next point. There is no way to typecast a given type to an integer. Warcraft 3 has GetHandleId. Starcraft 2? Nothing. This means that if we want to be able to handle things like units as integers, we have to have something like a unit indexer. Why is this useful? How do you get a pointer to data on the unit with only the unit reference? You don't. Also, with the lack of parallel arrays, we have to more tightly integrate Starcraft 2 types with OO stuff. If you want to access data from a unit, or an item, or whatever else, the only way to do this is to somehow index that stuff and then allocate an array large enough for the data.

Or you could just try to not do all the unnecessary stuff above?

The use cases of the described JASS features largely no longer exists. Ability instances can be tracked fully or partly with data completely removing the need for "instancing" systems, the main use of massive parallel arrays in WC3.

Affects that still require instances can use a trigger thread to represent the instance object allocating all required structs to the thread stack. Timing is not an issue in SC2 as unlike WC3, the wait native is accurate (as accurate as timers). There is a thread limit which this approach can run into however if you use it sparingly for reasonably short lived objects the chance of hitting the limit ever even under abnormal loads is minimal.

I have no idea what you are referring to by "event delay". As far as I can tell events fire instantly as part of the deterministic frame update. Some events created by a trigger's actions might only fire on the next deterministic frame for logical reasons (as the event will only occur next frame).

What throws a lot of people off is that SC2 runs at 16 FPS (modified by game speed) with interpolation brining it to smooth 60 FPS. Since you have access to the interpolation functionality there is no need to run stuff faster than each deterministic frame (16 times per game second).

I wrote fully functional AES encryption and SHA-1 hashing in SC2 with an object orientated approach with no problems. You do not need malloc or type casting to do most things.

It has a harder learning curb and over complicates things. Tedious platform.

Well at least it is easier than Warcraft III to map with. I mean where as SC2 everything is highly logical and structured, in WC3 everything was a total mess. I have been modding WC3 for nearly a decade now and still probably know less than half of the huge list of hidden... "features"... that WC3 has.

If you think you can just open up World Edit and make a WC3 map you clearly have been miss informed. If you plan to do anything with triggers you need to learn to write JASS script and about leaks and all the hidden leaks WC3 has such as "local declared local handles" and strings. You need to learn all the rubbish about what abilities do what and what their hidden and unclear limitations are (such as some abilities not working on some targets for no apparent reason at all). You then need to find out that your map desynchronizes because the game is not deterministic between clients when using GetLocationZ which makes you start an entirely new map as what you had planned is actually impossible. Let us not forget about all the random crashes the game can throw at you, most of which the chances of you ever finding the cause is probably the same as winning the lottery.

On the other hand in SC2 all the above is no issue at all.

 

[LordDz]

Well fuck. Another reason to not finish ma wc3 campaign then

(I will still do it)

 

[Tanasren]

wow thanks for the information dr supergood

 

[moyackx]

What I really appreciate in WC3 is all the wonders you do with a limited resource (WC3 engine), is valuable for us when something new is done with the limited jass and object editor features. Besides but you can't deny you can play on a local network, which is a big plus for me.

BTW, if you compare the $9.99 of WC3 versus the $34.99 of SC2.... I really prefer the lovely and old fashioned WC3.


Just a personal opinion....

 

[Dr Super Good]

BTW, if you compare the $9.99 of WC3 versus the $34.99 of SC2.... I really prefer the lovely and old fashioned WC3.

Except to simply play SC2 it costs you 0.00£ unlike WC3 where you have to pay something.

 

[Napoqe]

No. Blizzard created a fantastic editor, I think even revolutionized the concept of creating games, DotA is an example (already was easy to do). And in Starcraft 2 Blizzard did not put the same concept, making the editor to use be boring and complicated. And I try suggested the Valve for not make the same mistake.

Cool aspects of the World Editor:

- No need to know programming to make a map, think fun and competitive, and without strategy (PG).

- Object Editor, is simple and with good resources.

- Triggers has logic, but think that is easy to learn.

I have more expectations on Warcraft 3 HD, of that Starcraft 2. Remembering that I and others people do not like depend of furistas games.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Starcraft 2 has also another problem, BlinkBoy explained it http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/modeling-animation-276/starcraft-2-modeling-why-failing-215026/

 

[Tal'Rarity]

As long as the SC2 editor isn't fixed, WC3's end will never arrive.
Sure there's lots of "hidden" stuff in wc3, but remember how old it is and code back then wasn't as great as now however it's rather sad how easy it was that time ago and how hard it got even though it was suppose to be easier with automatic garbage cleaners and whatever?

Just restart your game after you play an intense map/game, to fix anything left behind such as unit leaks. That'll fix most errors as well desync's. Take castle fight for example, you have to restart otherwise you d/c in the next game. Sure some stuff seems impossible, but there is always workarounds while SC2 does not offer this kind of versatility and sure it doesn't need too, but your better off going straight to game making with unity by that logic.

Also technically you can play WC3 for free and mapmake for free, though you would be breaking the terms of agreement, not like anyone has to know though.

SC2 currently has so many problems its amazing its still going, it needs to become more user friendly then next it needs to have options to let worse computers run it.
I don't think you've been seriously modding for over a decade DSG, maybe helping people with problems. However you don't have much besides posts to show. Helping someone with a problem and making your own mod is quite different. Though I am likely wrong and you just never decided to submit stuff. So my apologies if that's the case.

Also you can actually just open up the editor and whip out a map just like that. It might not be any good, but at least it can/could be custom in a matter of hours unlike SC2's system where it'd take days to get to the same amount of progress you can make in WC3.

It's up to the mapmaker to organize the map/game/mod they're making their way, its not the editor's fault that its kept messy.... Not entirely.

 

[darwin]

I've often wanted to move to SC2, but everything is so buggy (or more likely, I don't understand it). I ignored the object editor and just did everything in triggers.

The only real problem I had that I couldn't find a work around was that my .03 periodic triggers only fire every .07 seconds or so. Granted, SC2 allows me to move a unit smoothly over that .07 seconds so my custom projectile systems work; but I have a very hard time detecting collision between two units with momentum. Over that .07 seconds they could be all over the place.

I'll go back to it at some point, but in another year or two I might actually be finished with my campaign!

 

[Dr Super Good]

- No need to know programming to make a map, think fun and competitive, and without strategy (PG).

To be honest no one in 2015 should not know at least some aspects of programming. You use computers so at least bother to understand the basics of how they work.

- Object Editor, is simple and with good resources.

The Object editor is not simple. In fact it is excessively complicated as there are no clear boundaries between what type of object offers the same or different functionality with most ability objects having unique functionality. There is nothing simple about abusing multiple level item abilities to permanently modify unit properties and chances are it only works because of a bug.

- Triggers has logic, but think that is easy to learn.

SC2 triggers are even more logical as they do not hide as much functionality. In SC2E you can use local variables in GUI without custom script.

Also technically you can play WC3 for free and mapmake for free, though you would be breaking the terms of agreement, not like anyone has to know though.

In theory you can do the same with SC2 except you cannot play the map in multiplayer (just like WC3).

I don't think you've been seriously modding for over a decade DSG, maybe helping people with problems. However you don't have much besides posts to show. Helping someone with a problem and making your own mod is quite different. Though I am likely wrong and you just never decided to submit stuff. So my apologies if that's the case.

In reality most people do not have much to show. People work their entire lives in what ends up becoming an insignificant part of something considerably bigger. It is all great having something complete that you can entirely call your own however it is no less great being a small part in lots of big things. Over the decade you will find that I have contributed to countless maps in some way or another, even if it was something stupid like flagging up a leak all the way to solving a bug.

Also you can actually just open up the editor and whip out a map just like that. It might not be any good, but at least it can/could be custom in a matter of hours unlike SC2's system where it'd take days to get to the same amount of progress you can make in WC3.

Except in SC2 you can easily take the map in new directions that were not possible in WC3. For example you could completely re-organize the user interface (not just change the artwork). You could also make units attacks do mechanically strange things such as push units around (not possible in WC3 without complicated knockback system which needs advanced trigger knowledge to make, especially due to hidden leaks and even then would still be buggy). You can even change a unit's model without having to change its type or use an ability.

The only real problem I had that I couldn't find a work around was that my .03 periodic triggers only fire every .07 seconds or so. Granted, SC2 allows me to move a unit smoothly over that .07 seconds so my custom projectile systems work; but I have a very hard time detecting collision between two units with momentum. Over that .07 seconds they could be all over the place.

The minimum period in SC2 is exactly 0.0625 game seconds (so real time meaning varies with game speed). Both periodic events and thread blocking wait have this same precision. As such unlike WC3 where you needed complex timer or trigger systems to manage time accurately, in SC2 it is a completely viable and clean solution to simply block the trigger for the appropriate time.

Your collision problem sounds like inexperience more than an actual problem. You could simply advance the missiles multiple times per frame (how SC2 missile movers work internally). In your case this would mean cycling through all missiles twice per game frame to give a collision accuracy of exactly 0.03125 seconds which is near enough to the standard WC3 value of 0.03 that no one would spot any differences with collision accuracy. Sure it might have problem colliding with high speed units but seeing how WC3's fastest unit speed was only a SC2 speed of 4.078125 (which was not enabled by default) you should be lucky speeds faster than that are supported.

 

[Ezekiel12]

lalalalalala I can't hear you!

For me the reason is simple. I don't want to learn something new and like the oddities of wc3. They are the big reason I got so interested in the game and it's mechanics. I bet many more cool things will be found (or "my" 1.27 comes out and leads us to heaven).

 

[Tal'Rarity]

In theory you can do the same with SC2 except you cannot play the map in multiplayer (just like WC3).

Nope, unlike SC2. WC3 can be played in multiplayer. After all, hundreds of people are doing it nowadays. Sure they can't play "B.Net", but not like they care. Their private servers have more people. Where as bots just have to connect to those servers to host for them so they can join.

I'll agree on one thing, they really should of gave us the ability to change the UI/interface. Otherwise everything else is fine, knockback still lags in SC2 like you said in a different post.

 

[Rui]

I believe that article is already linked in the news thread. You could have used that for this discussion or "The Future of the Hive" thread. IMO someone should merge a few threads as this topic is clearly recurring.

People abandoning wc3 hardly translates in a gain for SC2. Including all wc3 resources in SC2 sure helps, but the lack of medieval models was only one of the problems. It's been enumerated countless times, but I'm summing up what I'm thinking below.

As soon as you open the editor, you are met with the limitation that most mappers in wc3 wanted gone for ages: the 256x256 and 8 texture limits — being the latter the most annoying, as games as old as Age of Empires 1 allow you to use all ground textures in the game. If someone's explained to me why Blizzard recurrently enforces this stupid limitation, please feel free to refresh my memory.

So, OK, let's keep exploring, maybe it ain't so bad. The Data Editor is complex and at least you feel a bit more in control than with wc3's. Unfortunately, you run into more annoying stuff, such as: creating some object that refuses to appear on listings; having to create new folders in XML mode because there's no option in regular mode for that; a demoralizing lack of documentation for half the fields; copies of actors malfunctioning for no apparent reason and, on top of that, a sluggish editor if your computer isn't so good. All of this on top of having to spend ages to get anything done.

For the average, somewhat ambitious creator, this is no deal: we'll get to the bottom of it and understand this editor eventually, but for the more ambitious creator, it quickly drains to «I'm better off making my own game in Unity». Sure, I'll have to create my own art, but that task isn't simpler for my plans in SC2, because SC2 model format isn't simple (refer to this, as Mechanical Man mentioned, though making wc3 models available diminishes this problem, as I said). I'll have to do my own engine, but, hey, Unity simplifies that and I get experience anyway. Lastly, my creation won't be devoured by the bigotry in the EULA that states Blizzard can yank your creations off your own hands and say «It's mine». I don't think so.

Then there's that imbecile religious word filtering in Battle.Net...

The solution, I believe, is not to hide stuff from the map maker. I just agree with Dat-C3 that the editor needs to be more user-friendly. Starting by something as simple as adding documentation for fields as you add them during the making of the Editor.

 

[Napoqe]

The Object editor is not simple. In fact it is excessively complicated as there are no clear boundaries between what type of object offers the same or different functionality with most ability objects having unique functionality. There is nothing simple about abusing multiple level item abilities to permanently modify unit properties and chances are it only works because of a bug.

Haha. Object Editor compared to the Data Editor, is much simpler. It was first tool that I learned (Got it easy) at the World Editor, before the terrain editor, with simple map (ramp, bridge, etc).

 

[Dr Super Good]

I believe that article is already linked in the news thread. You could have used that for this discussion or "The Future of the Hive" thread. IMO someone should merge a few threads as this topic is clearly recurring.

The end of Warcraft III is comming... in theory...
02-02-2015, 03:13 AM

Blizzard releases WarCraft 3 assets for StarCraft 2 modding
02-03-2015, 04:49 PM

This thread was posted before the news one.

As soon as you open the editor, you are met with the limitation that most mappers in wc3 wanted gone for ages: the 256x256 and 8 texture limits — being the latter the most annoying, as games as old as Age of Empires 1 allow you to use all ground textures in the game. If someone's explained to me why Blizzard recurrently enforces this stupid limitation, please feel free to refresh my memory.

You cannot compare SC2 to Age of Empires 1. Age of Empires 1 used software rendering of graphics (as did practically everything at the time). To speed up the rendering of the terrain a ludicrously complicated approach was used that was only recently (last few years) revealed.

Age of Empires 1/2 terrain blending was done using machine code. There were no terrain "images" as the images were compiled into a form of object file that would be linked and optimized some time during the game. This gave it unprecedented performance over normal tile based implementations and is what allowed them to perform the "3D" effect on the terrain without resulting in all kinds of texture distortions (no affine issues as were common in games of the time). It also meant there were technically no limits (other than memory) to how many you could use at once since it would compute the blending for all of them as required.

SC2 Terrain blending is done using some rendering pipeline using the GPU. It is possible that the elements used by this pipeline are only capable of support at most 8 textures as specified by their API (otherwise some performance intensive work around is required).

For the most part the limit is no issue. Since maps are a smallish area developers will generally want a limited number of tile types to blend as there will be no major change in climate. Additional ground details can be added via other means to be rendered on top of the terrain texture to add more complexity.

The time it is a problem is if you want the map to represent a large area scaled down. In such a case many climates could exist which the limited tile choice will struggle to provide for.

creating some object that refuses to appear on listings;

I think these were editor bugs. Over the years and patches most seem to have been fixed.

a demoralizing lack of documentation for half the fields;

There is speculation that they are working on a comprehensive user manual for the editor which will cover all data types and what you can do with them.

copies of actors malfunctioning for no apparent reason

That is due to linking errors. When you make a copy some of the fields copied use macros for the current entry ID which becomes different from the copy source. As such the links become invalid (since the entry they linked to had the same id as the copy source) so it breaks. You should avoid copying and instead use inheritance as that way you know where all the field values come from.

a sluggish editor if your computer isn't so good

That is mostly due to all the data it needs to manage. WC3 was just like that when it was released however unlike WC3 which benefited from clock and memory inflation, SC2 has not really got that much extra performance to use over the years.

Lastly, my creation won't be devoured by the bigotry in the EULA that states Blizzard can yank your creations off your own hands and say «It's mine». I don't think so.

People shroud too much negativity towards that. I do not know of a single reported case where ownership disputes occurred over a SC2 map. I also think WC3 had something similar. They only put it in to cover themselves legally. It is not like they make money from your creations seeing how SC2 is completely free to play the Arcade and all maps published to it.

Then there's that imbecile religious word filtering in Battle.Net...

I do not think that is Blizzard's fault. It just seems to be a general trend in todays society where publishing anything religious can ultimately result in madmen gunning you down with automatic weapons. One could argue about freedom of speech however I do not think Blizzard wants any such thing to possibly occur over an Arcade game, both for the safety of content publisher but also of their own staff who could become targets for supporting it.

 

[Napoqe]

Religion is a the concept of something that does not exist, I think, however have to respect (as all people). But could use some aspects of Religion for use in maps, modes and games (no offense). Who in theory need preoccupy with security is the government and not so much the company. And suspect that some of the US rulers, discriminate against people with ethnic and religions, ancestry Middle East (majority).

And decreases evasion of the subject please (try come back the speak about the subject of the topic).

 

[darwin]

People work their entire lives in what ends up becoming an insignificant part of something considerably bigger. It is all great having something complete that you can entirely call your own however it is no less great being a small part in lots of big things.

I just wanted to bold and underlie that. Truer words were never said. It was rather rude of me to overlook you by name when I released my Battle for Tatooine map. I certainly couldn't have finished it without help from you (and others like you).

Your collision problem sounds like inexperience more than an actual problem. You could simply advance the missiles multiple times per frame (how SC2 missile movers work internally). In your case this would mean cycling through all missiles twice per game frame to give a collision accuracy of exactly 0.03125 seconds which is near enough to the standard WC3 value of 0.03 that no one would spot any differences with collision accuracy. Sure it might have problem colliding with high speed units but seeing how WC3's fastest unit speed was only a SC2 speed of 4.078125 (which was not enabled by default) you should be lucky speeds faster than that are supported.

I hope you're right. When I'm done with my campaign I'll get back to my SC2 car game and see if I can get the collision correct. It must be "inexperience" because I'm lost on your explanation. I was told that triggers only fire every .0625 seconds, so I can't tell how to advance the car every .03125 seconds or check for collision around it. I still think that might not be the problem. I could never the get the physics that I wanted in my trigger (not SC2's fault). Factoring in speed, weight, terrain height, wheel traction, and elasticity were too much for me. Someday I'll hit it again, and hopefully there will be very helpful people like you to assist me!

 

[rulerofiron99]

^ You could just interpolate in your trigger (check several smaller steps every iteration) for better collision detection. You could make the resolution/accuracy as high as you want, at the cost of performance.

I really quite like the SC2 trigger editor, but haven't touched it much the last few years because:
- Learning object editor feels like a mountain to climb. If I just want to make something without being hampered by lack of skill, I simply open war3 editor and make it.
- Custom game/arcade implementation, even with the various improvements, still feels inferior to war3's system. In war 3, when I'm busy rapidly prototyping something, I can just save and host on lan, have my tester/s join and download it right then and there, with no need to first publish it or any such. I haven't checked, but is it even possible to play sc2 multiplayer offline? LAN has better performance and works even if the telecoms company is having issues, which unfortunately for me is very often.

This will definitely accelerate war3's decline, but I think Dota 2's editor (when properly released) will capture a much larger share of modders and gamers, and over time become the "next warcraft 3".

 

[Rui]

You cannot compare SC2 to Age of Empires 1. Age of Empires 1 used software rendering of graphics (as did practically everything at the time). To speed up the rendering of the terrain a ludicrously complicated approach was used that was only recently (last few years) revealed.

Age of Empires 1/2 terrain blending was done using machine code. There were no terrain "images" as the images were compiled into a form of object file that would be linked and optimized some time during the game. This gave it unprecedented performance over normal tile based implementations and is what allowed them to perform the "3D" effect on the terrain without resulting in all kinds of texture distortions (no affine issues as were common in games of the time). It also meant there were technically no limits (other than memory) to how many you could use at once since it would compute the blending for all of them as required.

SC2 Terrain blending is done using some rendering pipeline using the GPU. It is possible that the elements used by this pipeline are only capable of support at most 8 textures as specified by their API (otherwise some performance intensive work around is required).

Woot how do you know all of this? I'm not sure I grab all the concepts in play.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Woot how do you know all of this? I'm not sure I grab all the concepts in play.

About 2 years ago one of the software engineers for Age of Empires and Age of Empires 2 did a big question and answer disclosure on Heaven Games. Although being a massive troll is always a possibility his answers did seem plausible and also did explain many issues modders ran into.

For example the castle and units on the box art of AoE2 (which never appeared in game) was in-fact the original castle art for one of the cultures. They had to submit the images for it to the publisher extremely early, to such an extent that what was shown was pretty much all they had at the time. Around midway through development they revised the artwork of a lot of buildings and that castle was one of the few that got completely new art (which was what the game shipped with).

He also mentioned how to keep patches small they hard-wired balance changes into the executable. This explained to many modders why it was impossible for them to change certain properties of certain unit types with no apparent pattern.

As well as dumping an internal template for the terrain blender system which was used by the artists to draw the blend textures (but not the required converter tool, he did not have that) he also dropped that patch notes for what would have been "the next patch" if it were not that maintenance for AoE2 was dropped.

There are many such stories being leaked on the internet for various games now. Whole websites are devoted to them and I think the game developer communities like them as they provide an insight into experience for new developers to learn from.

 

[pred1980]

Wc3 forever

 

[Kam]

I don't see this game going away any time soon. Despite being shiny SC2 simply doesn't have the draw WC3 did in the beginning. I do not have an answer as to why that is. The WE to me is intuitive. There are weird bugs like disabling spellbooks that I had to learn about via Google in those early days but overall the editor has been wonderful. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes about WC3:

"As a child, WC3 modding was a godsend. With little money to spend on games, it provided you with a practically limitless flow of free content. This within a community that would otherwise be scattered over dozens of games, but was centralised here. Although not all maps were that great, they were still better than most of the f2p shovelware you see these days."
- Zeuter

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Soo... when is the official release of the WC3 models in SC2? Seems like maybe I can take a look into SC2 modding when Legacy of the Void comes out.

 

[Tierax]

Dr... why does it feel like your only open to your own opinion, there are VERY valid points being made here for various reasons.

Personally im not proficient with either so maybe i will find starcrafts galaxy more accessible (old dog new tricks yadda yadda) but at the same time, nigh on EVERYONE claims the world edit is more user friendly... at the end of the day, it's about what feels comfortable.

your side of the debate seems rather hostile...

 

[VeljkoM]

Because his purpose on Hive is to make the Starcraft 2 modding actually alive. Its been several years and as you can see Wc3 is still being modded here more than SC2 and naturally he gets grumpy after telling people for years that they should move because Starcraft 2 modding is better.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

It's not like there is no incentive to move to SC2 modding... it's just that it isn't very newbie-friendly. You are immediately overwhelmed with the data structure and can not even perform simple tasks without having to dive deeper into the system.

Once you have established a certain workflow, I'm perfectly sure that creating maps in SC2 is way faster than in WC3, but until then, you are forced up a steep hill that not many people have the patience or time to climb.

 

[LordDz]

Because I have a campaign I'm working on that I want to finish before moving on to SC2.

 

[Heinvers]

-DSG stuff-

Oh look, same old shitty thread about 'supposed end' of wc3.

Cool.

 

[StoPCampinGn00b]

Oh look, same old shitty thread about 'supposed end' of wc3.

Cool.

This isn't the 'same old shitty thread.' This is a news thread that shares with the rest of us about things that could grasp the attention of Warcraft 3 players around the world which could equate to less active Warcraft 3 players. The threads you are comparing this this to don't go into detail about a specific topic that could 'end Warcraft 3.'

On-topic

This is a very interesting thing Blizzard is doing, but it's not enough to make me want to try out SC2 any time soon. I'll still be pushing to keep Warcraft 3 populated.

 

[darwin]

The SC2 trigger editor is pretty user friendly, and has some great options like letting you make your own actions (e.g. distance between angle). I loved working in SC2 triggers, but the data editor was really crazy. I would make a change in one area and find changes all over the place. I got the sense that I was just damaging things like a bull in a china shop. Ultimately, I just ignored the dataeditor and worked on my game exclusively with triggers. There was

I also had a very hard time with the leaderboard/multiboard editing. I followed a tutorial that helped, but in the end I wasn't sure what I had done. It worked, but god help me if I need to edit it.

I suppose like anything else there is a steep learning curve, and it takes a while to discover all the things that don't work. For example, I was sad when I learned that you cannot (via trigger) change the units pitch and yaw while it is moving (e.g. roll a car onto its side). There are actions for that, but they don't work unless the units is holding still. That annoyed me, but WC3 has tons of these as well... look at all the variables in the ability editor that just don't work.

Some part of me holds out hope that the Galaxy Editor will be patched into something more user friendly. Recall that the WC3 editor at one time didn't allow you to edit the text of abilities. You had to extract the MPQ and play around with text files.

 

[Rheiko]

not gonna read all the long posts, they only make my head dizzy.
the title already saddens me but this one saddens me even more

EDIT: This thread. Many posts states that a CONSTANT internet connection is required to play StarCraft II, and unlike WarCraft III (about only 1 GB), it takes a goddammit 10 GB!

10 GB, that's amazing. Now, I'm afraid if I couldn't keep up with each technology improvement.

 

[WhiteFang]

EDIT: This thread. Many posts states that a CONSTANT internet connection is required to play StarCraft II, and unlike WarCraft III (about only 1 GB), it takes a goddammit 10 GB!

Holy crap,that is insane!

As i have stated before on the other threads:Warcraft III will never die in my opinion and i refuse to let it die.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Holy crap,that is insane!

Yes it might cost you a couple of pence of storage! You are aware that multi-terabyte hard disks are only like 50£?

We are living in 2015 at the moment, not 2005.

 

[WhiteFang]

Yes it might cost you a couple of pence of storage! You are aware that multi-terabyte hard disks are only like 50£?

We are living in 2015 at the moment, not 2005.

Well,thats almost R1000 here so its quite a amount of money

 

[rulerofiron99]

Yes it might cost you a couple of pence of storage! You are aware that multi-terabyte hard disks are only like 50£?

We are living in 2015 at the moment, not 2005.

The concern for many people around the world is the internet data required for the download, which can be extremely pricey depending on where you are.

Cost of living and average income also varies greatly around the world, a device that would cost you the equavalent of a meal might cost someone else a week's food.

 

[loxie]

The concern for many people around the world is the internet data required for the download, which can be extremely pricey depending on where you are.

Cost of living and average income also varies greatly around the world, a device that would cost you the equavalent of a meal might cost someone else a week's food.

Very true.

The issue about XP losing support has hurt the international world in general. A lot of wealthier countries simply thought the world should catch up. Instead, the world is switching over to GNU/Linux and other alternatives rather than expensive American products, though the American products tend to be the quality standard. So though some people can't afford to play Starcraft 2, games like Warcraft 3 stay popular because of its international population wanting to play more American games. At least that's partially the reason.

I haven't read this entire thread. I don't know if this argument was already made. But if you spend any amount of time on B.net, you should be able to see the lack of Americans using it.

 

[JaysProjex]

This ominous sounding thread is actually to notify people of the latest addition to StarCraft II currently available on the PTR. Yes this is the right section for you see Blizzard is adding not just all 16 melee heroes from Warcraft III The Frozen Throne, but also everything else.

StarCraft II is now going to be both StarCraft II and Warcraft III as far as assets goes. Sure the assets might look a bit dated next to their more recent space traveling friends however the possibilities this will open up will be staggering.

Sorry but this doesn't change anything & honestly what good does it do for Starcraft 2 just by adding simple models, it already lost it's touch with their Galaxy Editor alone.

The database that hive offers of custom objects for Warcraft 3 is just far superior than what Starcraft 2 has to offer, granted it's been around alot longer.

Always keep this in mind for your (upcoming theorists) Blizzard is not the same developers it once was before. Starcraft II \ Diablo III \ WoW & so on are all new developers who have literally minimal knowledge in game development. This is practically why old generation fans are avoiding or leaving the future generation of Blizzard games.

The best part? Remember that StarCraft II Arcade is completely free. This makes it even cheaper to play fantastic custom maps than WarCraft III which still requires a license purchase (for how long is another question)

Except to simply play SC2 it costs you 0.00£ unlike WC3 where you have to pay something.

Remember this

Warcraft III (non-retail) costs a big flat 0, even if it's against the rules to talk about it I'm just sharing the idea that probably somewhere along the lines of 50% of GARENA USERS do not own a (retail) copy of Warcraft III. In fact you could give/share your own CD-KEY with several users just to play LAN together. This is probably why most gaming companys do not support LAN or implement LAN anymore.

Warcraft III (retail) probably still costs money because Blizzard doesn't want (you) to play the older generation games, it seems they're trying to enforce you into pay wall so that you move to the newer generation.

DOTA 2 is also FREE with it's very own FREE EDITOR.

UNITY is also FREE, in fact I see more developers moving over to UNITY because they can actually gain something out of it. Games that offer free editors is always a nice feature but it's difficult to actually maintain a budget flow or obtain one on the matters, it becomes very time consuming. If someone creates a idea then that company gets the best of it not the person who created it, any map creator can continue their project on their spare time, eventually that time will run out because nobody can work for free.

I mean honestly just let's think about it, if you created a project specifically for Warcraft III or Starcraft 2 with either of the World Editors & got thousands of users to play "your map" who's really the one benefiting from it "Blizzard" or you? This leads to me asking, what's the point in moving to another World Editor which doesn't benefit anyone except Blizzard.

So what do you hardened Warcraft III developers think? Tempted to move over to StarCraft II? Or is classic Warcraft III just too good to beat?

Warcraft III > it's just too good

 

[Napoqe]

Blizzard I think that disappoint most ex fans (including me) in total, of history, unfortunately. Diablo 3 I think worse that the 2 (removing the graphic), change in WoW talent tree (think that reduced variation of the character) and Dungeon Finder with teleport (no need to explore the the places after level 15 for get xp, I think even in this last expansion, removing the obligatory choice of the essence of rpg), I think it will not have Warcraft 4 (I do not like PG, but I think the campaigns nice), Starcraft I have no interest by cause of futuristic concept his, Heroes of the Storm also not has interest by cause of reason of put the units of Starcraft, etc. with medievals, and has accepted the system and I like DotA 2.

I think that Blizzard has to do a study to try to put option to leave the Starcraft 2 Editor similar to Warcraft 3 for the mapmakers, of old game.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

After playing the Blizzard arcade for a week, trying out a couple of popular maps (despite their popularity, it was as hard filling the lobby as it is in WC3), all I can say is this:
Nope, SC2 will never be popular and nope, WC3 will not die from that.

Blizzard failed to support the modding community from the ground-up and failed even harder with the Arcade. The F2P will not save it.

 

[NearbyHermit]

I don´t know if this has been brought up yet, but it´s a good read.

The Arcade RANT !?!

From, strictly, a player's point of view, it sounds terrible, but looks awesome !