2012 Restrospective

[Vengeancekael]

Art by Toby Lewin

Greetings, fellow hivers!

Tomorrow shall mark the end of an eventful year and welcome an even better year, 2013!
2012 has had its hiccups, but also some amazing highlights...

» 2011	A year full of activity and great works being published, but a very lacking news section with low quality posts. _______________________________________
» 2012 [January]	A significant improvement to the news section: Original content was written and published instead of news copied from Battle.net. The monthly news batches, initially made by Bob27 (+Rui) back in 2008, made a comeback! Based on the original concept, it received a few additions, including more content, more details and even more spotlights. [January News Batch] (Technically the news batch was published in February due to some needed moderation) The Diablo Franchise turned 15 Starcraft II: WoL's price was cut down to €39.99 from €59.99 WoW: Wrath of the Lich King's price was cut down to €19.99 and Cataclysm's to €29.99 Pharaoh_ received the User of the Year 2011 award _______________________________________
» 2012 [February]	4 new sections were added to news batches: Skin & Spell spotlights, Hypercomments and the well known corner, Caught! [February News Batch] Diablo III's cinematic Black Soulstone received the award 'Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Commercial or Video Game Trailer' The Diablo III team also teased the fandom with a new gameplay video, 'You Will Die. We Promise.', boasting the game's extreme difficulty World of Warcraft celebrated its seventh European anniversary (NA - 2004, EU - 2005) Starcraft II players received a free character name change Starcraft II's developers published a tutorial on Actor Cheats _______________________________________
» 2012 [March]	The Project Recruitment forum was closed, due to the main forum, Map Development, rendering it obsolete. The Hive Quiz also made its grand entrance to news batches! [March News Batch] Blizzard released its own Starcraft II custom map 'Starcraft Master', allowing players to practice their micro-management with the help of different scenarios WoW: Mists of Pandaria's 'Female Pandaren' was revealed World of Warcraft's Italian Community Site launched WoW: Mists of Pandaria's Beta Testing started The Diablo III Beta Testing spread out to Europe Blizzard announced Diablo III's release date (15 May) _______________________________________
» 2012 [April]	The Diablo Franchise forums were created, containing 2 subforums -- Diablo III Gameplay & Diablo Discussion. 2 new segments were added to news batches: Starcraft News & Diablo III News. Not only that, but its layout also received a complete rework. [April News Batch] The Hive's Rules page was also updated. Diablo III's release site was launched, with unlockables and contests Battle.net users received a free 'BattleTag' change Diablo III's Facebook page hit 2.000.000 followers (Gifts from Blizzard: Banner 1 ver. A/B & Banner 2 ver. A/B) Diablo III's 3-days-long Open Beta Testing commenced (April 20>April 23) Diablo III's TV Spot 'Evil Is Back' was released on Youtube _______________________________________
» 2012 [May]	Diablo III's Closed Beta Testing came to an end Global Play support was announced for Diablo III (Change your online playing region at any time) Diablo III's short animation 'Wrath' was released Diablo III was released worldwide Diablo III became the fastest-selling PC game with 3.5 million copies sold on release day _______________________________________
» 2012 [June]	A User spotlight was added to news batches, spotlighting the most active users in a section, but also another Blizzard news corner, World of Warcraft News. [June News Batch] Starcraft II's Arcade Beta began (1.5.0) Starcraft II fans were updated with a video showcasing Heart of the Swarm's Multiplayer Units along with 2 Battle Reports featuring Day[9] (PvZ & TvZ) Blizzard announced that WoW: Mists of Pandaria's Cinematic would be unveiled at Gamescom 2012 Diablo III's Real-Money Auction House became available in EU The Diablo III team released a transcript of their reddit AMAA discussion _______________________________________
» 2012 [July]	Blizzard revealed its timeline, ranging from 1991 to 2012 World of Warcraft's Guild Mentoring Program was announced WoW: Mists of Pandaria's release date was announced (September 25) _______________________________________
» 2012 [August]	"Project of the Month" was started, an event where each month the community would nominate the best Warcraft 3 project in development and afterwards vote for it in a poll. The winning project would receive a rep reward along with an interview and promotional help. A normal user's rank was also changed: Users with less than 100 posts would have the peon icon, while the others would have the grunt icon. Mini-Contests were also announced by Pharaoh_, where short contests would be held in the appropriate forum. (Mini-Mapping contest in Map Development) The Resource Moderation forums were closed and Staff Contact replaced them. [August News Batch] Starcraft II 1.5.0 was released, bringing with itself graphical improvements, the new streaming launcher/downloader along with a revamped Battle.net UI Blizzard released a batch of tips for Starcraft II modders Gamespot published a video showcasing Starcraft II's history WoW: Mists of Pandaria's cinematic was published on Youtube An Italian version of WoW was made available, along with Italian realms Character Profiles could finally be viewed on the official Diablo III community site Diablo III's Free Starter Edition was released (similar to SCII's&WoW's) Blizzard revealed the Paragon System for Diablo III, advancing end-game play (1.0.4 was released with this system along with other changes) _______________________________________
» 2012 [September]	New BBcode tags were added: [tabs][/tabs]. [September News Batch] The SCII resources submitted received a preview image. The Hive also celebrated 'International Talk like a Pirate Day' with new theme icons. Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm's Beta Testing began The new unit dances coming with SCII: Heart of the Swarm were shown in a Youtube video (Credits: Huskystarcraft) WoW: Mists of Pandaria was released 2 TV spots (#1 / #2) were published for WoW: Mists of Pandaria Challenge Mode Leaderboards were made available on the official World of Warcraft community site Blizzard revealed the voices behind Tyrael, Azmodan and Covetous Shen _______________________________________
» 2012 [October]	The Hive started hosting its own Minecraft server. Blizzard revealed SCII: Heart of the Swarm's new UI and also Clans system Blizzard revealed that WoW: Mists of Pandaria had sold 2.7 million copies during its first week and that WoW once again had over 10 million global players Diablo III's Patch 1.0.5 was released, containing a new event along with the new Monster Power system _______________________________________
» 2012 [November]	The new award, Merit Badge, was introduced. The community would nominate and later on vote for the most active users who had contributed to the Hive the most in some way. [Winners & Info] Ralle also revealed to the community that he was working on a 3D Model Viewer for the Hive's Models section. Finally, a social group was started, called "The Mad King's Realm". The group organized multiple contests, such as a terraining/writing contest and the winners would get rep rewards. Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm's release date was announced (March 12, 2013) SCII: Heart of the Swarm's Patch 2.0.1 was released, bringing players the Clan system, etc. Blizzard celebrated World of Warcraft's 8th anniversary World of Warcraft's Patch 5.0.1 came out on PTR, containing the beginning of the Pandaren campaign _______________________________________
» 2012 [December]	JASS Class was announced and started. Jass Class is basically a class with multiple lessons, where users read tutorials and afterwards do assignments and hand them in for grading. There were formally observers and a limited number of enrolled students, but now anyone can be an enrolled student and hand in his assignment for grading. The Hive released a preview of some of the features coming with Patch 2.0.2 for the Heart of the Swarm BETA. Blizzard finally announced the Beta testing for its Starcraft II StarTools Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm's Beta Patch 2.0.2 was released, containing the new groups system, AI communication, etc. Blizzard expanded SCII: Heart of the Swarm's Beta Testing, allowing people who have pre-ordered the game digitally to try out the beta World of Warcraft's Guild Mentoring Program was closed World of Warcraft's Patch 5.1 was released, containing the new Pandaren campaign and more The World of Warcraft team also revealed an early version of the patch notes for Patch 5.2 Diablo III's team published 2 polls, one asking the community which Follower they use most of the time and the other asking which Infernal Machine encounter is the best Blizzard revealed that Team Deathmatch had been shelved for now due it becoming relatively boring after a few hours of gameplay. They have promised to add the standard dueling with Patch 1.0.7 early next year

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Art by Toby Lewin

The Hive's Evolution The Hive Workshop is a well known and really popular modding site not only because of its amazing community, but also because of its simple and attracting layout and theme. The Hive was not even a full Warcraft 3 modding site in the beginning, but a site for Ralle's Warhammer 40k map. And thus, its theme constantly changed, until in 2007-08 it retained today's concept. Below you can take a look at some of the Hive's banners, all of them could not be found. Also something that can be interesting for some, the searches that have the most impact on the Hive Workshop are 'hiveworkshop', 'workshop' and 'warcraft 3'. You can thus confirm the Hive's stable position as a top modding site, since most people simply search for the Hive Workshop and not for some random Warcraft III modding site. Other stats include that 33% of Hive's visitors reside in the US, coming in second place with 6% being Indonesia and that 15% of visitors open up Google after closing down the Hive.

2006
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2007
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2011 (by Dentothor)
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2012

Final Note

2012 has been an exceptional year and we can only hope that 2013 will bring us even better results.
Some things to look out for would definitely be Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, coming out in March 12, which will hopefully expand the modding community.
Ralle has also stated that Hive 2 will come out sooner than previously thought.
And finally, Blizzard Dota:
A custom map that Blizzard announced and revealed not too long ago, however nothing has been said about it since then and its trailer on the official Starcraft YouTube channel has been mysteriously marked as private.
The chance of it being canned would be slim, since it's something that would certainly attract a large audience to Starcraft, so perhaps Blizzard has completely revamped Blizzard Dota and changed the main concept.
We can only wait and hope, but until then, on to another great year!

 

[Orcnet]

the 2007 image looks very vintage-like

 

[SA Dashie]

Yeh hopefully 2013 would be alot more better year for me and not just developing my skills, although representing what I have learnt to the community.

 

[Statharas]

Cataclysm's price has dropped way too low now.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

The basic concept and the idea is great. I love to read these news but here is some criticsm to make things better. I think...

Instead of telling us how Blizzard and its games are doing, more should have been told about us. This community and its resources. How we are? How is our staff? What about our resources are they doing fine? What competitions were held this year? Who won? What about hosted projects? What are the best resources of this year? What things were are the most memorable things of the year? And so on...

2012 has had its hiccups, but also some amazing highlights...

Why not then tell about these hiccups and highlists?

Also perhaps one or more interviews would make this more enjoyable. To see actually what people right now think about Hive.

Also the forever 'Hive 2.0 is soon to come' starts to be more annoying than exciting. Mostly because it has been said now for years and only a few things has been told. And even those new shiny things has been far from amazing.

 

[I3lackDeath]

@ Aeroblyctos
We, the community, receive /monthly/ news batches with that kind of information, having that as the 2012 retrospective would have been highly repetitive.
Having a resumé over the course of Blizzard creations fits our position as a figurehead of a site for this company.

Interviews would be interesting indeed. Maybe that can be included in the future.

Regarding Hive 2.0: Our chieftain is working hard on this, and let me tell you, it's an incredible amount of work to do.
He discloses as much as he wants people to know about it, until it is actually released.
It's like people working on a map project: you don't want to release lacking versions, you want them to be as stable and completed as possible.

 

[Rao Dao Zao]

@ Aeroblyctos
We, the community, receive /monthly/ news batches with that kind of information, having that as the 2012 retrospective would have been highly repetitive.

Retrospectives are inherently repetitive -- that's the whole point of them. You use them to highlight and dwell upon the successes.

Also, we get regular news batches of Blizzard updates when they happen, so that's not exactly a counterpoint!

 

[fladdermasken]

Interviews would be interesting indeed. Maybe that can be included in the future.

Please don't. Journalism like that was always people who can't write, interviewing people who aren't interesting, for people who can't read. For your own sake, spare yourself that trainwreck.

NEED I REMIND YOU? http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/off-topic-478/hives-times-volume-1-1-14-2011-a-187307/

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Please don't. Journalism like that was always people who can't write, interviewing people who aren't interesting, for people who can't read. For your own sake, spare yourself that trainwreck.

NEED I REMIND YOU? http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/off-topic-478/hives-times-volume-1-1-14-2011-a-187307/

Isn't that just bad journalism? I'm sure we can do better than that.

 

[fladdermasken]

I just cited an example of what WE can do. And for reference a ton of users were really convinced Hive's Times was funny as fuck until Pyramidhe@d got there and set them straight.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Why not then tell about these hiccups and highlists?

I am telling you of the highlights :V
And well, I can't really talk about the hiccups, cuz... yeah.

Also perhaps one or more interviews would make this more enjoyable. To see actually what people right now think about Hive.

I'd rather get banned. Interviews are a horrible idea and I will never in my life do such a thing for the hive. Perhaps another staff member would like to, but not me.

Instead of telling us how Blizzard and its games are doing, more should have been told about us.

We are technically a blizzard fansite, so it'd be appropriate to do such a thing.
And please do realize that the bullet-points are blizzard news, while the normal paragraphs are hive news. To be honest there wasn't much going on with the community this year. :V (positive things)

Also do note that a normal news batch will be coming sometime in January. (citing the best resources of the year)

 

[Rui]

(...) a very lacking news section with low quality posts. (...)

You are welcome. Even though I'm not sure exactly what «low quality» is supposed to mean.

 

[Vengeancekael]

I'm actually referring to Bugz' news posts.

 

[Blackhole]

The basic concept and the idea is great. I love to read these news but here is some criticsm to make things better. I think...

Instead of telling us how Blizzard and its games are doing, more should have been told about us. This community and its resources. How we are? How is our staff? What about our resources are they doing fine? What competitions were held this year? Who won? What about hosted projects? What are the best resources of this year? What things were are the most memorable things of the year? And so on...


Why not then tell about these hiccups and highlists?

Also perhaps one or more interviews would make this more enjoyable. To see actually what people right now think about Hive.

Also the forever 'Hive 2.0 is soon to come' starts to be more annoying than exciting. Mostly because it has been said now for years and only a few things has been told. And even those new shiny things has been far from amazing.

And what is that thing that you want to brag about this time? You just love blindly raising yourself and the community even if there is nothing worth bragging about, don't you?

I actually like that the OP is mostly focusing on the Blizzard games and any events around them, especially when as said, there was nothing worth to put in front line and font size 20 regarding the creations. Makes this more objective and as much as it deserves.

 

[Marshmalo]

Nice news batch here! Happy new year everyone, good riddance 2012 and hello 2013!

 

[Aeroblyctos]

We, the community, receive /monthly/ news batches with that kind of information, having that as the 2012 retrospective would have been highly repetitive.

I don't see the 'repetitive' a problem. The Blizzard news are also repetitive so why not other news too? At least you've something write if you can't write anything else.

I am telling you of the highlights :V
And well, I can't really talk about the hiccups, cuz... yeah.

Well, you tell things like when this and that is updated but I really don't see that big highlights. If you can't talk about these hiccups just don't mention them at all. When I was reading I was waiting for these highlights and hiccups but what I got was when Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft has been updated.

And please do realize that the bullet-points are blizzard news, while the normal paragraphs are hive news. To be honest there wasn't much going on with the community this year. :V (positive things)

I'm sure there have to be at least something. Did we get a new hosted projects for example?

And what is that thing that you want to brag about this time?

I'm not here to 'brag' anything.

You just love blindly raising yourself and the community even if there is nothing worth bragging about, don't you?

I'm not here to 'brag' myself. I'm here to give feedback. I like to read what has happened in year 2012.

I actually like that the OP is mostly focusing on the Blizzard games and any events around them, especially when as said, there was nothing worth to put in front line and font size 20 regarding the creations. Makes this more objective and as much as it deserves.

I would like more to be told about this community. It's okay if there are Blizzard news too.

Why such a mean attitude towads me, Blackhole? Feedback is good whether it is positive or negative.

 

[Almia]

Didnt know we celebrated Pirate Day(sorry)
btw,where is December Batch?