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Battle.net 2.0's Custom Game System

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A repost of something I said on the Battle.net forums.

There are merits to the stacking system, and there are merits to being able to select specific games as opposed to the maps. It's essentially a trade-off. With the individually hosted maps, you can specify certain rules, or tell people that you're doing something different, like advertising for a clan or stating the theme for a Roleplaying map. With the stacking system, you'll never have to see a system flooded with the same map over and over again like WC3 is currently experiencing (and always has been). The best solution would be to simply include both, and allow us to choose, but that's understandably a lot to ask for.

Chatroom and other withheld features aside, B.net 2 didn't necessarily do anything wrong. Just different. Uploading your maps to Battle.net allows users to download them much more efficiently, despite you being barred from keeping the map like some kind of pseudo-DRM. Automatically hosting the games means that there would never have to be a host, though like before, it severely limits hosting customization. Basing the map system on popularity means you'd never have to sift through clunky, dysfunctional maps, but the diamonds in the rough may never have a chance to shine.

It's all a trade-off geared towards streamlining the experience. The best and undeniably most greedy way to resolve all the problems this entails is to simply add more options to Battle.net. Allow us to search for a specific map or organize maps by something besides popularity. Allow us to see either individual games or categorized by map.

Better yet, here's an idea: Create two sections of Battle.net. One is hosted by Battle.net and features every uploaded map, like Starcraft 2's current system. The other section is where all the user-hosted games go, and the hosts get all the privileges to name their games and etc. that the users of classic Starcraft and Warcraft 3 enjoy. This way, anyone can join a game like Retribution TD without having to search for someone to host it, but people who want to play Cortex RP with a Nuclear Wasteland Theme can host it themselves with that name. People who just want to play Nexus Wars will play it on the Blizzard-hosted section, eliminating the DotA problem from Warcraft 3 while keeping its customizability. Everyone's happy.

More complex map filters or perhaps even a keyword/search system might do wonders too.
 
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I've seen all sorts of parody with this but 'Must build a Pylon near their brain' hahahah that was a good one. Well, the newer is with Patch 1.1 but I guess this is another opinion that confirms Blizzard Must Construct Additional Pylons near their brains then go on with bnet 2.0. >_<
 
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I personally never really had much of a problem with DotA blocking out everything else and such, but eh.

Anyways, I would vote for a WC3-esque system with a similar custom game list, only with the option to filter out maps with certain words in their game name (eg, filter blocking *dota*) or of certain map types. Potentially, the publishing system could be reserved for truly awesome maps, allowing for super fast download and that shit. This would allow for us to make more maps than the current system would allow and such.
 
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It was lag, but thanks for the -Rep anyways -.-'
I don't have any moderator power, nor did I report your post. I meant post it twice as in post it in two different threads, and I dislike that you're throwing the thread off in a tangent in the first place.

Whatever. I make my threads more than one paragraph long, and so people are naturally driven away from large, intelligent discussions despite being readily open to reading the equivalent in smaller, more pointless posts. But I still expect you to fuck off if you have nothing to contribute to this thread. Even moreso if you already posted this video in another thread.

Hence,
Did you really have to post that twice?
 
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On a side note, what the hell happened to Nexus Wars?

It's currently sitting at 38 games per hour now, compared to 1500 games per hour a few days ago. Seems pretty odd that a map could change position that drastically that quickly.
 
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Then why does it seem that only the very top maps were affected at all?

Seems kinda strange to me that the first couple maps get dropped down multiple pages, while the maps directly after them are in about the same position relative to each other.
 
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Haha, perhaps the map organization could function like Youtube, letting users decide on what basis (one week, all time, etc.) the maps are most popular. xD
 

Rui

Rui

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I have a very clear idea of how the map hosting system should be like. I might even end up posting it here.
I will have to concur on how crappy the current system is. Reset does little. It gives a few maps a place on a ground higher than usual for a day or two, but the list ends up just like it was before the reset and stagnates again. I can do without chat rooms, but this popularity system is highly flawed.
 
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I won't go into detail about how I think the custom game system should be (as I already have several times on the battle.net forums), but one of the things that particularly gets me is that to get "+1" popularity you only need 1 player to stay in a game for five minutes. So any fair representation of long/large games is out the window for now.
 
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Honestly I think the part that pisses me off the most is the fact that the publishing system, current hosting system, and editor login are all related to their premium market as ways to prevent people from getting the maps without paying for them and then covering their own asses by saying that the fans and mapmakers wanted this when really its just another way for Activision-Blizzard to make money because their is no way in hell that A-B wont be taking a percentage of the money.

Not to mention this paragraph in the EULA:

"User Content" means any communications, images, sounds, and all the material and information that you upload or transmit through a Game client or the Service, or that other users upload or transmit, including without limitation any chat text. You hereby grant Blizzard a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, paid-up, non-exclusive, license, including the right to sublicense to third parties, and right to reproduce, fix, adapt, modify, translate, reformat, create derivative works from, manufacture, introduce into circulation, publish, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, rent, lease, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, or provide access to electronically, broadcast, communicate to the public by telecommunication, display, perform, enter into computer memory, and use and practice such User Content as well as all modified and derivative works thereof. To the extent permitted by applicable laws, you hereby waive any moral rights you may have in any User Content.

which basically allows them to take anything you upload on B.net as their own to release as they see fit.
 
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Not to mention this paragraph in the EULA:

"User Content" means any communications, images, sounds, and all the material and information that you upload or transmit through a Game client or the Service, or that other users upload or transmit, including without limitation any chat text. You hereby grant Blizzard a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, paid-up, non-exclusive, license, including the right to sublicense to third parties, and right to reproduce, fix, adapt, modify, translate, reformat, create derivative works from, manufacture, introduce into circulation, publish, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, transfer, rent, lease, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, or provide access to electronically, broadcast, communicate to the public by telecommunication, display, perform, enter into computer memory, and use and practice such User Content as well as all modified and derivative works thereof. To the extent permitted by applicable laws, you hereby waive any moral rights you may have in any User Content.

which basically allows them to take anything you upload on B.net as their own to release as they see fit.
I really don't think that Blizzard would want to do this; it would pretty much ruin the entire modding community as well as ruining any consumer trust in them.

Also, not sure that would be accepted in a court of law. :|

Premium maps isn't set up yet and as for the editor login, I have definately had to do it more than once.
I haven't ever needed to login to the editor, unless I was going to publish something. :\


Also, one of the things I dislike about the popularity system is that it greatly limits the number of options which you have when playing a game. For example, in WC3, there were "niche" maps, which would only appeal to a small section of the Bnet population. However, the group of people who did like it was large enough that it still was played.

Comparatively, in SC2, if a map doesn't appeal to a significant margin of the Bnet population, it will be pushed down the popularity list, making it less likely for any new players to be introduced to the game, which means that the playerbase is even smaller than it already was, which means that games do not fill, which means that people don't play the map, despite the fact that there are likely more than enough people who would like the map to fill up a game, but said people will never find it.

This issue is further compounded as you add more players to the game, and as you increase the duration of the game. While yes, there are some maps that are very high up on the popularity list and can last for a long time, the reason for this is that more players tends to mean greater variety as well as decreasing the responsibility of each individual player (a noob in a 4v4 game has much less impact than one in a 2v2).

@premium maps, they aren't around yet.


EDIT: at anyone saying "Oh, if your map is good, it will be popular", see SotIS.

This map was high up on the front page of the map list. However, since Blizzard reset its popularity separately from most of the other maps, it has now pretty much vanished. There are even people asking where it is, because they can't find it. I mean, if someone can't even find a map they like amongst the popularity system, then how can you expect anything new to become popular?
 
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I won't go into detail about how I think the custom game system should be (as I already have several times on the battle.net forums), but one of the things that particularly gets me is that to get "+1" popularity you only need 1 player to stay in a game for five minutes. So any fair representation of long/large games is out the window for now.

They should of fixed this by taking into account number of players and how long each play remained in the game via a point system, not a hosts # system.

Premium maps isn't set up yet and as for the editor login, I have definately had to do it more than once.

I've definitely had to do it once. Well actually twice. Once on my laptop and once on my desktop.
 
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