Actually I do agree with the opinion that the maps Blizzard expects are of complete custom content, making full use of the engine, and a large amount of content with creative gameplay. DotA is just a simple AoS -.-, and it is also lacking in the content department. Also, it's gameplay is terrible, it requires virtually no skill, and the most you do in it is memorize all those damn recipes. Yes, I hated the game ever since I tried it for about a minute ; D.
Final Fantasy games would probably be above the bar required for premium map. Think more along the lines of Toadcop.
http://tcx.xgm.ru/
I believe that that would qualify as a premium map if it had custom models and icons. It's pretty much an entire interface, combat system, etc all coded from scratch. It's hard to believe that it's actually wc3 and playing it reminds you of a 3rd person shooter mode of Unreal Tournament or something to that nature.
But that is in respect to wc3... the actual games necessary for SC2 will be higher as what i just linked is much easier to do in SC2 than it is to do in wc3.
Now, if I was seriously going to put that much effort to making a map like that... number one, I'd probably need a team because it'd be a lot of work... sure, you can possibly pull it off solo, but think of an indie game in comparison to a high end commercial game. Number two, I would most def sell it, lol...
Other people who continue to push the envelopes are Azlier, Defiance, jesus4lyf, and well, yea =). I do it too, but I spend so much time optimizing crap and developing frameworks to make maps that I never actually release anything =P.
Now, rather than going up in arms at capitalism, you need to compare this scenario with the current status of the internet. There are a lot of free things and there are a lot of not free things. What's the big deal? Some of the free things are also a lot better than the not free things, lol.
Also, as these would probably be indie game quality, the prices would be pretty cheap... probably $2.50 to $10.00 a map. The prices you guys are expecting are a lot lower than what will probably happen. They aren't going to be as cheap as iphone apps because the market is going to be quite a lot smaller than iphone market and a lot more time and effort has to go into these maps to make them premium quality =). Again, refer to toadcop's map x5.
The prices I just mentioned are a bit less than those typical of indie games that are running on cheapo to medium game engines as well (affordable for an individual, like $100 to $3,500.00 or free).
Guys just need to face the reality =). The maps you guys are probably thinking of right now don't compare to the maps Blizzard is actually expecting. Again refer to the scale of toadcop's map in relation to being done on wc3 x5.
And how many of your regular map makers are even capable of making a map like that? Not many... only people capable in the community are in the very top branches: the regular coders or the old pros. Guess what... most of them don't even make maps or have wc3, lol. They spend their time coding for fun, heh, or they code a billion things in preparation for making a map. A prime example is jesus4lyf coding around 17 systems I think for a map and never getting to the actual map, haha.
The reason for this is because the quality of the maps get so high that finishing them takes forever, so the map maker never gets to it : P. Again, you are probably always looking at team projects until we get some high grade resources out there for SC2 =). Also, keep in mind capitalist market... it could be possible that those high grade resources start costing $$. Also, the next preprocessor might cost $$ as well. You never know =). Also yes, there will be another preprocessor as blizzard once again failed to make the language OO -.-, lol.
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