The Future of Warcraft

[Skyflash]

Blizzard should have asked us if we have room for 150 MB maps before doing this. I guess it's time to begin using cloud storage .

I think People Must Start Donating now

 

[MiniMage]

Blizzard should have asked us if we have room for 150 MB maps before doing this. I guess it's time to begin using cloud storage .

The probability of such a large map being approved is unlikely. I'd basically just use 15mb, tops. (If I use custom soundsets).
The new large maps will basically be dealt with how you deal with singleplayer mods, if it's big but sucks, it'll still be rejected and removed. If it's good, you'll reserve a spot for it.

 

[A Void]

I wonder if it would be possible for them to ensure that you could add sound effects in ".ogg" format instead of ".wav", because ".wav" is unncessarily huge.

This. I guess it's too late to add this to the list? We need new import formats supported in Warcraft 3.

 

[Ralle]

The probability of such a large map being approved is unlikely. I'd basically just use 15mb, tops. (If I use custom soundsets).
The new large maps will basically be dealt with how you deal with singleplayer mods, if it's big but sucks, it'll still be rejected and removed. If it's good, you'll reserve a spot for it.

Right, but rejected maps take up the same amount of space as they don't get deleted currently .

 

[A Void]

Right, but rejected maps take up the same amount of space as they don't get deleted currently .

Why not delete them?

 

[Jaina Proudless]

a bigger file-size limit sounds nice but i think it may have the unintentional consequence of reducing map makers' skills of making their maps smaller using simple tricks. I learned the hard way how to condense maps to the smallest size possible because I had too. Will be sad to see 20 mb maps with about 10 mb wasted on things that could have been easily saved on like icon and skin quality or .wav sounds which are better as semi-low quality mp3s.

Also model and skin makers may also feel like reducing filesize of their resources is not a big deal anymore.

 

[Wasabee]

This post made my day!!!

 

[Sclammerz]

Ooh, an exciting news indeed.

 

[DracoL1ch]

a bigger file-size limit sounds nice but i think it may have the unintentional consequence of reducing map makers' skills of making their maps smaller using simple tricks. I learned the hard way how to condense maps to the smallest size possible because I had too. Will be sad to see 20 mb maps with about 10 mb wasted on things that could have been easily saved on like icon and skin quality or .wav sounds which are better as semi-low quality mp3s.

Also model and skin makers may also feel like reducing filesize of their resources is not a big deal anymore.

bullshit. artificial complexity and restrictions should be totally removed. there are no reasons for them to exists at all.

 

[Chaosy]

bullshit. artificial complexity and restrictions should be totally removed. there are no reasons for them to exists at all.

One reason is not having maps of the size of 300 mb which people download through battle.net

Have fun waiting for some slow-ass fucker from Nigeria with a internet connnection which equals the speed of a handicapped 100 year old on the track field, downloading that shit.
And have fun trying to get people to remain in the lobby while waiting for his slow ass.

Maybe I went a bit too hard on the language to prove a point, oh well I had a laugh.

 

[Heinvers]

No need to be a rude fuck, okay?

 

[Chaosy]

This is how I usually am you know.

You gotta admit that the message seem stronger with rude language

 

[Radicool]

Guys don't forget you can rename .mp3 to .wav. Yes this works. You can basically use .mp3 for unit soundsets.

The only limitation is this trick isn't ideal for looping sounds like ambience. When a sound is converted to .mp3, about half a second of silence is added to both the start and end file, causing a "gap" in the looping sound when repeated. This may or may not be a problem depending on what your looping sound is for.

I've used this trick for all my maps. No other problems that I know of. What would be cool is being able to create custom soundsets. I don't like having to replace existing soundsets, because there may not be the right amount of certain classes of sounds (what, yes, yes attack, birth, etc).

Also after playing a game with custom soundsets, playing a new game with the same soundest plays the custom sound from the previous game. Anybody else experience this problem? Maybe it was in an old version...?

 

[Shar Dundred]

Also after playing a game with custom soundsets, playing a new game with the same soundest plays the custom sound from the previous game. Anybody else experience this problem? Maybe it was in an old version...?

Yes, it happens if:
1) You overwrite an ingame sound in the first map (like replacing sound sets)
2) a file imported in the first map happens to have been imported with same name and path as a sound in the second map

In order to fix this, restarting the game is the only option atm.

 

[Deleted member 238226]

god bless warcraft!

 

[DracoL1ch]

One reason is not having maps of the size of 300 mb which people download through battle.net

Have fun waiting for some slow-ass fucker from Nigeria with a internet connnection which equals the speed of a handicapped 100 year old on the track field, downloading that shit.
And have fun trying to get people to remain in the lobby while waiting for his slow ass.

Maybe I went a bit too hard on the language to prove a point, oh well I had a laugh.

host should take care about people who gonna play with him. not like you gonna allow to play with you some random guy who don't even know this map, especially if it's complex RPG or something.

there are non backdraws of unlimited mapsize. Any given example regarding "ass long dl time" is out of global picture - host can always drop them OR populate the map somehow else. There are web 2.0 around, every decent project has it's own webpage, it perfectly doable. If your map isn't known well, and you put tons of imported content into it right away - you doing it wrong in the first place, not the engine.

limitations are bad

 

[WhiteFang]

limitations are bad

Limitations are needed.

 

[Deleted member 238226]

everything with moderation i guess?

 

[Remixer]

Now I am jealous to Kam and PurgeandFire. Gratz for the cool trip guys =)

Now this is pretty wonderful news, Blizzard taking Hive somewhat very seriously

 

[DracoL1ch]

Limitations are needed.

examples are needed, limitations aren't

 

[Wasabee]

Too much of a something is bad.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

bullshit. artificial complexity and restrictions should be totally removed. there are no reasons for them to exists at all.

I do get where he is coming from, though.

I already fear the wave of thousands of mediocre maps with hundreds of taxing WoW imports incoming, causing users to clean up their map folder every week if they don't want their WC3 directory to burst in size.

And while you might not see that, there is a benefit in limits and restrictions. Psychologists actually acknowledge the creativity benefits of having restraints.

The map size limit forced the community to get creative about pushing the boundary of what is technically possible in maps, as you could not simply crush every problem by throwing resources at it (example: you want upgradable items? I could probably use item charges for that but ... nah, it's easier to just import multiple variations of the same icon with a counter added in photoshop).
It also served as a great equalizer in terms of visual quality; maps could not simply mask terrible gameplay in amazing visuals, like it is so common in the triple A game industry right now.
I fear that people who have access to unlimited freedom might lead to a certain reduced approval of newer, fresher maps, that can not keep up with the established infrastructure of these older maps and fall short on players as the result.
"Nah, this map looks ugly, not gonna play it!"

Also, it was a good thing that modellers were forced to keep the filesize of their creations low. Attachment models with 50+kb in size were frowned upon for simply not being optimized enough (useless geosets, too many polys, etc.). Now everyone wouldn't care anymore, leading to less and less expertize in the section and less teaching of valuable optimization skills for new modellers.


Don't get me wrong: I think pushing the limit is neccesary and healthy for the community, but pushing it too far might end up being counter-productive. At least I wouldn't want to download 100MB for playing a quick game of an unknown tower defense map just to find out that it sucked.


I could imagine 64MB being the sweet spot between allowing more freedom without everyone going apeshit crazy with (probably illegal) imports.


...
Then again, with the community being as small as it is today, who really cares anyway? It's not like we have thousands of maps submitted every day.

 

[LordDz]

For years the community has wanted larger multiplayer maps, now when you're about to get it.. You don't want it?

I want a 1mb multiplayer. Imagine the amazing creations we're going to have!

 

[karaulov]

Limitations are needed.

Then you needed to downgrade warcraft to 1.07 version.

In new version need to remove all possible limitations for map developers.!!!!! All possibled!! Map size, map file size, unit speed, and other.

 

[A Void]

This is going off topic fast..

 

[Chaosy]

Well wouldn't be that much of a useful thread feedback wise if everyone went "OMG AWESOME"

 

[neven1]

This file map size increasing might revive some maps.

I guess we will have to wait to see the real pros and cons of this new feature!

 

[Jaina Proudless]

My point was though that without a limit there is less of an incentive to look for method to reduce size without reducing map quality. If you have 150 mb limit you wouldn't bother converting sounds to mp3 that still sound good you would just import that wav and call it a day. Or compress the quality of needlessly large skins...

In mapping i constantly hit hte 8 mb limit and have to do insanely creative things to reduce the map filesize. Either way regardless the limit i don't think a high filesize will ever be viewed as a positive quality for a map to have here on the hive.

 

[karaulov]

limitation file size - main problem. If it will be removed it will be possible to do even better things. New models of the characters, textures, sounds and so on.

 

[MiniMage]

People keep misunderstand things. Limitations are not needed, self control is.

 

[DracoL1ch]

I do get where he is coming from, though.

I already fear the wave of thousands of mediocre maps with hundreds of taxing WoW imports incoming, causing users to clean up their map folder every week if they don't want their WC3 directory to burst in size.

And while you might not see that, there is a benefit in limits and restrictions. Psychologists actually acknowledge the creativity benefits of having restraints.

from your link:
{
Yet constraints alone can stifle and kill creativity. While we need them to spur passion and insight, we also need a sense of hopefulness to keep us engaged and unwavering in our search for the right idea. Innovation is born from the interaction between constraint and vision.
}

not to speak it's mostly talks about company's view: time is money. Artists put restrictions by themselves ON themselves. Some of them draw only some games, other - only anime-style. Nothing stops them from doing any other kind of art.

The map size limit forced the community to get creative about pushing the boundary of what is technically possible in maps, as you could not simply crush every problem by throwing resources at it (example: you want upgradable items? I could probably use item charges for that but ... nah, it's easier to just import multiple variations of the same icon with a counter added in photoshop).

as from player's perspective, I have nothing against that. did you ever saw dota's code? this game has been made on GUI and took millions players around the world. nobody cares about your code. at all. especially talking about non-opensource non-live-updating wc3.

the way you took to make something doesn't matter for any of players involved.

It also served as a great equalizer in terms of visual quality; maps could not simply mask terrible gameplay in amazing visuals, like it is so common in the triple A game industry right now.

Im not gonna buy CoD regardless how beauty it is. Not any other map gonna buy players by that!! Oh wait, dota2 actually killed dota1 not just because it's interface better, but, guess what, graphics! Show both games to any PC player, who aren't bound to any of those titles, and ask him. Why should he chose wc3 instead?

I fear that people who have access to unlimited freedom might lead to a certain reduced approval of newer, fresher maps, that can not keep up with the established infrastructure of these older maps and fall short on players as the result.
"Nah, this map looks ugly, not gonna play it!"

you gonna release win95-like platform on the market in 2016 and curse every other company for following aero-design. "damn, your products mess with my perfect program! I had no time for design, but do you know how wonderful it is?!".

DId you heard about Age of Myths custom map? It was created before DotA's era, and contained a lot of import content. It was beatiful. All skills were triggered, none of them were default in any way, simply perfection. And it lost to dota, which barely contains any imported models and mostly based on default skills. So, how is that even possible by your vision?

Also, it was a good thing that modellers were forced to keep the filesize of their creations low. Attachment models with 50+kb in size were frowned upon for simply not being optimized enough (useless geosets, too many polys, etc.). Now everyone wouldn't care anymore, leading to less and less expertize in the section and less teaching of valuable optimization skills for new modellers.

Those who wants to learn, will learn, no matter what boundaries are. At least you'll have to consider people not gonna dl 100mb maps/models for fun. It have to be really perfect and useful. Therefore you gonna polish your content and it's size as well, but not sacrifice one of those.

Don't get me wrong: I think pushing the limit is neccesary and healthy for the community, but pushing it too far might end up being counter-productive. At least I wouldn't want to download 100MB for playing a quick game of an unknown tower defense map just to find out that it sucked.

I could imagine 64MB being the sweet spot between allowing more freedom without everyone going apeshit crazy with (probably illegal) imports.


...
Then again, with the community being as small as it is today, who really cares anyway? It's not like we have thousands of maps submitted every day.

That's a thing I'd like to point out. lobby desgin supposed to fit melee maps, not custom. It can take only 2-3 lines of text, and picture could be bad as well. Good maps could put more efforts in the description, to specify more about map's idea. We need to remake this window from scratch, giving more info to any player.

But, again, thats not a cure. Right now there are dozens of bad maps, hacked maps and other stuff. 8 or 100 mb - doesnt really matter. You still wasting your time.

by the way, you have to note at the wishlist:
ms over 522: you have to add game constant for that, else tons of maps may be broken. all those things which are limited by no reason should be covered the same way. sight range, fog update time, etc etc.

if mapmaker would use it, he will check a field. and no backward compat issues

 

[MiniMage]

Please don't double post. This is not an argument. I repeat my previous comment; Limitations are not needed, self control is. People who take too long to download can be kicked. There is no issue with improving WC3. The only thing the hive needs is a permanent delete function for maps and then there's nothing to worry about anymore. You guys stop fighting now.

 

[kellym0]

for those who think increasing the map size is a bad idea, take note that back in 2003-4 we had computers. and now in 2016 we also have computers, its just the difference is my computer in 04 had 1 gigabyte of ram, and now in 2016 my current computer has 32 gigs of ram. which is literally 32 times better. if I can run sc2 and diablo 3 both on max graphics at-the-same-time then we should be able to handle a few 35-40 mb maps without too much concern.

map size has needed an increase for years. 8mb is an incredibly low amount. so i say bring on the massive maps!

 

[neven1]

I wonder how will all this effect the performance..

 

[MiniMage]

I wonder how will all this effect the performance..

That's probably something that blizzard needs to account for.

 

[neven1]

That's probably something that blizzard needs to account for.

Do you think they might end up making WC3 as a game use multiple cores?

 

[MiniMage]

Do you think they might end up making WC3 as a game use multiple cores?

I don't know enough about how the game works currently to give an answer to that question. I can only assume that they wont completely overhaul wc3, because then they might as well make wc4.

 

[Meatmuffin]

-snip- in 04 had 1 gigabyte of ram, and now in 2016 my current computer has 32 gigs of ram. which is literally 32 times better. -snip-

..Yeah, the computer is more complex than you think.

 

[DracoL1ch]

Please don't double post. This is not an argument. I repeat my previous comment; Limitations are not needed, self control is. People who take too long to download can be kicked. There is no issue with improving WC3. The only thing the hive needs is a permanent delete function for maps and then there's nothing to worry about anymore. You guys stop fighting now.

just fighting for teh great justice

 

[neven1]

just fighting for teh great justice

Very funny if i might add

 

[LordDz]

My point was though that without a limit there is less of an incentive to look for method to reduce size without reducing map quality. If you have 150 mb limit you wouldn't bother converting sounds to mp3 that still sound good you would just import that wav and call it a day. Or compress the quality of needlessly large skins...

In mapping i constantly hit hte 8 mb limit and have to do insanely creative things to reduce the map filesize. Either way regardless the limit i don't think a high filesize will ever be viewed as a positive quality for a map to have here on the hive.

A neat thing Blizzard could add is a size description to Battle.net displaying how large a map is.

+ I'm pretty sure that in the Starcraft 2 Battle.net system, people download the map before they join. So.. If they move Warcraft 3 to the new Battle.net system (and change it to use the old lobby system). This will not be a problem at all.

 

[WaterKnight]

I Hope not. I never like the automated map making system. Rather I would prefer the current system improved. Seeing the games real people have hosted gives a better sense of community.

+1 but as you said in the same post further below, the botting in existence destroys this as well. And it should be noted that the hoster carries crucial functions: creating a proper player setup, giving instructions, being an arbiter and lots of maps assign special functions to the host ingame. A native function to determine the host is missing, too, btw.

One plus of a central map market/hosting system would be the versioning of maps if they were authenticated.

bullshit. artificial complexity and restrictions should be totally removed. there are no reasons for them to exists at all.

Unnecessary traffic, potential copyright infringement, malware, bad practice. I think back in the day the file size was an indicator that a map had some elaborated content but now there is a lot of garbage and improvidence.

If Blizz lifted limitations on executing system calls, it would spark our possibilities, yet be exploited and jeopardize our experience in general.


@main topic: Surely it sounds good but again, a lot of it is vague promises. Blizz always claimed they value their customers and wanted to maximize the gameplay experience, yet it did not mean it would manifest in observable improvements or that they would reply to the individual points in detail. They emit political correct phrases and have no stance against misbehavior or how they want us to act. So let me point out my scepticism and ask the questions that popped out to me while reading this, even if you cannot answer them.

Surely their company building is nicely decorated, as seen many times before. It may motivate them or attract more staff. However, I see no reason this would lead to more love for Warcraft III at this point other than that they still have that game on their shelves.

Why did they invite you to a date when they had little spare time? Why did they have to release the patch just at this moment? Because they announced it a week prior? Why did they announce it in the first place (and with a short deadline) when they are not ready (as seen by the immediately visible new bugs anyway)? The Wc3 community has been waiting for years, there is no rush. What stakeholders are there besides us players for these legacy game? The company itself? But it is supposed to be the legacy team, not available for more current projects, especially not for an extended period. Moreover, why did they let you "test" the new patch and even try out the compatibility with JNGP exactly as they are in need of releasing? There would not have been any time for adjustments. Since it was a compatibility patch, what information would playing one game on their specs gain? We do not know what you discussed in detail, the remainder reads like an adventure day.

That may be deigned to you, I cannot quite take it as a proof of Blizz's seriousness. When you want to achieve something, better keep in touch, which brings me to my main concern: As we know from Software Engineering class, implementing the thing is only a fraction of the work. It was stated Blizz would read the forums. Where exactly? There is too much content, unrelatedness, repetition, rants, lack of knowledge. You created a document internally (which is different from reading the forums). How about we had a section dedicated to build on such requirements specifications where you can discuss the pros and cons of the individual requirement, collect existing bugs, evaluate the priority and direct Blizzard to this subforum, so they see a well-formed and updated concerns list. It would have to be moderated similar to the other content sections.

 

[DracoL1ch]

Unnecessary traffic, potential copyright infringement, malware, bad practice. I think back in the day the file size was an indicator that a map had some elaborated content but now there is a lot of garbage and improvidence.

If Blizz lifted limitations on executing system calls, it would spark our possibilities, yet be exploited and jeopardize our experience in general.

should I remind you about atomic bombs became the ultimate terrific weapon which actually prevented humanity from constant wargames? I could put any mp3 track inside wc3 maps and spread them. Should we lower map size to 1mb? Sorry, your reasons are ridicuolous. For some reason other games gives us almost full access to environment, running it in a sandbox, and here "we can't handle it".

Just like with encryption, there will always be terrorists and just citizens, who would use it. But guess what, it doesn't stop the progress

 

[karaulov]

Unnecessary traffic
potential copyright infringement
malware
bad practice

It is complete nonsense.

BUT:

New special effects.
New models.
Complete freedom from mpq resources limitation.

 

[Rheiko]

How do i put this. In my honest opinion, I do agree that 150 MB+ maps might become troublesome. Why? Because people might stop putting efficiency as priority and lots of junk might rise. If you could make everything with a good quality but low file size then why not? It's just like a high quality goods with low price. I bet there will be people who ignore this and someday in process of creating a map be like "Nah, it's okay. It's not even close to the limitation anyway." which I don't think it's a good thing. Limitation to the lowest isn't a good thing either as it holds back mapper's full potential. So, I don't know, increasing the file size is probably fine but not too high either. A question arises though, how do we define the size which isn't too high or too low? Considering how great the maps we've played even though the size is only 8 MB or less, it makes me think that 150 MB+ is way too big.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Map limit was there to stop peer to peer file sharing. Nothing would otherwise stop you bundling a 600 MB Iso (which were common when WC3 was released) into a map archive and then sharing it on BattleNet turning BattleNet into a version of pirate bay. The limit is being raised because content has generally inflated over the past decade. A modern game is multiple gigabytes so even 150MB maps would be impractical to share it.

 

[karaulov]

Need just remove limit. And write file size in game list. Who has a bad internet connection or not enough memory on the disk — will not download.

And to solve other problems in process of their receipt.

 

[WhiteFang]

Who has a bad internet connection or not enough memory on the disk — will not download.

This could destroy the community instead of keeping it alive in my opinion.

 

[A Void]

Map limit was there to stop peer to peer file sharing. Nothing would otherwise stop you bundling a 600 MB Iso (which were common when WC3 was released) into a map archive and then sharing it on BattleNet turning BattleNet into a version of pirate bay. The limit is being raised because content has generally inflated over the past decade. A modern game is multiple gigabytes so even 150MB maps would be impractical to share it.

You can still do that with limit bypasser hack..

 

[DracoL1ch]

Map limit was there to stop peer to peer file sharing. Nothing would otherwise stop you bundling a 600 MB Iso (which were common when WC3 was released) into a map archive and then sharing it on BattleNet turning BattleNet into a version of pirate bay. The limit is being raised because content has generally inflated over the past decade. A modern game is multiple gigabytes so even 150MB maps would be impractical to share it.

damn. whose those people who ever used it? are we out of torrents, emules, stronghold, protected messengers with file sharing? pointing about any copyright issues is bullshit, why CD were allowed to exists if anyone could rip WC3 onto them and spread around!?!?!?

nah, I tired to talk about that.

like the possibility to create virus with H2I casting: sure, theoretically it's bad, but practice wise did anyone ever successed with it?