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What's the state of SC2 modding?

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It's a VERY good question, I think in a nutshell;

It's actually not so bad, it's just bad here at the hive.
I think too many people view it as a successor to the World Editor, when really Starcraft is a whole different franchise and the way the new engine works is A LOT different, it's not as easy to transition as most people thought it'd be - therefore a lot of people have been put off, if you search on youtube you can find some pretty amazing stuff though, the editor is far from crap, I just think it's not how people expected - and were human, that which we don't understand, we don't like ^^
 
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Support for galaxy scripting sucks, the trigger editor in general lags like all hell, and it's wayyyy too data-editor dependant.

But you can also do so much with the interface using dialogs and stuff, it's kinda cool ^-^
 
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No sane individual that isn't a fanboy has published a map on Battle.net -- the censoring is absolutely ridiculous. The inequity of the situation of course has a solution: boycott StarCraft II and instead revitalize WarCraft III. Of course, offline modding fares better; though there's nothing such as templates (e.g. the developers already made TPSs and the like; why haven't they made a template yet?).
 
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I think it has a lot to do with how difficult it is to get people playing maps that you make as if they are not on the first page or 2 they never get seen.


However there is hope

New patch just released (on SEA anyway)
This includes an overhaul of the custom map system allowing new and interesting map to be found far more easily.
 

Rui

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Custom resources are not the hardest thing to get going. It's mainly the Data Editor that's just really time-consuming. I have been working with it, decided to implement a Dragoon, and it has been taking me a few hours, setting up actors, upgrades, weapons and effects, etc, when, in Warcraft III, this'd take at most 15 minutes. People just don't have that time.
 
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Personally, I think the biggest factor is the (needless) complexity of the object/data editor. Creating a unit is far more tedious and ridiculously complex when compared to WC3's editor where you could just right-click -> Create New Custom Unit et voila! A new custom unit. You're then free to edit its stats easily from the unit. Easy peazy. Same for the rest of the WC3 Object Editor--everything is simple and easily organized: want to create a new ability? Just go to the abilities tab -> right-click -> Create New Ability. Everything is simple: Units, Upgrades, Abilities, Buffs, Items, Doodads, and Destructibles. How could anyone not understand?

SC2's data editor? Units, Buttons (really?), Movers, Beams, Validators, Footprints, Requirements, and a ton of other obscure stuff. All tied to units & actors. Most people don't have the time or intelligence (yes, this goes for me) to understand all those things. 95% of the maps could have been easily made in the WC3 editor without all those useless fields (seriously, requirements can be added to a units/upgrades, etc. And what the hell are Validators?). 5% of maps could have been made with WC3 editor as well, but some things would have to be removed like the Hero Selection screen in Storm of the Sanctum or w/e it's called, but this isn't a dramatic loss.

Honestly, they should just have copied (yes, I said it) the WC3 editor and added new actions, conditions, and events in the trigger editor, like "Unit Takes Damage Event", "A Player Right/Left Clicks", etc. More UI support, and a few new cool objects like Channel & Spellbook (and improve the existing ones).

This would have been far more than sufficient, as most creative people aren't rocket scientists. Not saying current SC2 editor programmers aren't creative, but by making such a complex editor, Blizzard cut off a huge portion of potentially amazing mappers, and therefore maps! (Of course, we would have a ton more junk map, but I think the increase in fun maps would far offset this fact.)

Lastly--and this is just my personal feeling--is that a sci-fie universe is a lot more limited in freedom of creation than a fantasy/magic universe.

My biggest hope is that a simplified version of the editor is released. Hopefully within the next expansion or by a third-party programmer.
 
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I'm waiting for Moonlite. Hopefully it'll be better. However, if it doesn't live up to my expectations, I'm never even going to think about modding SC2 again.

I completely agree with Lightstalker except for the part about copying WC3 editor. There are many improvements that can be made on the WC3 editor, and by the time they finish improving it, it'd be completely different anyhow.

I just want a simple but powerful editor to work in.

They just peppered the SC2 editor with useless complexity.

Not only that, they screwed over any scripters. "It'll be C-like and amazing." It's nothing amazing to me. More like a steaming pile of donkey dung right now.
 
@ sci-fie being less creative:
well it prettymuch covers most of the 'modern' base aswell... but still... i would have to agree warcraft just tends to be less restricted when it comes to idea flow than starcraft... although if you want to get 'technical' you could use anything from warcraft in starcraft, with 1 simple lore change.. (a new dymension, where magic actually works? lol) although likely any marines to travel to a warcraft world would just demolish the local inhabitants.. i mean siege tank vs well... siege tank :p, marine vs rifleman you do the math

@editor: i dont think they should have copied the editor either, but should have retained more of the features from it...
 
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The biggest problem is that with the new editor Blizzard forced us to use the data editor more and removed much of the stuff you could do with triggers.

The way it should have gone is that Blizzard let us use their 3D engine and their lobby system and parts of their engine and then code the rest of the game ourselves, rather than being forced to use their data editor for everything. Even better, they could've gave us real scripting tools that aren't terrible and constrained in stupid ways.

The data editor is cool, but really, it can't do everything, plus most complex things take massive amounts of time to do anyways. Giving us better coding support would've eliminated the need for such a complex data editor, taken a tiny portion of the time to make, and drastically increased the capabilities of what mods could do.

The complexity of the data editor is because Blizzard is trying to make it something its not - a tool which you can do anything with. The only tool that is capable of that is programming. :C
 
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The data editor is cool, but really, it can't do everything, plus most complex things take massive amounts of time to do anyways. Giving us better coding support would've eliminated the need for such a complex data editor, taken a tiny portion of the time to make, and drastically increased the capabilities of what mods could do.
Nailed it.

One of the first things I did with the editor was a chain forked lightning ability. It's an incredibly trivial thing to script, something like 50 lines minus braces and white space, and can be arbitrarily extended in terms of forks, targets, etc. just by changing some constants at the top of the script.

Then I recreated it purely in the Data Editor to compare the workflows. Holy hell was that a bad idea. Blizzard, unfortunately, just doesn't "get" modding.
 
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The greatest problem is the custom map management: to test or play any map you need to upload it to Battle.net. And you have limited space, so you can keep online just 10-15 maps.

The editor itself is REALLY good, I know the data editor is really complex but it allows you to make everything. For example, those who criticize the useless sections, the requirement data are useful because you can create tech tree conditions based on full boolean expressions. This can't be done in the World Editor, because you can only create AND and OR requirements, but NOT requirements aren't allowed.

Besides you can also add multiple weapons to a unit, while in Warcraft III every unit has a maximum of three attacks.

The real problem of Starcraft II modding is the terrible Battle.net 2.0 system, because you can't play map if they are hosted on another continent, there is no support for SINGLEPLAYER scenarios, no CAMPAIGN EDITOR (Starcraft I allowed to connect maps to form a campaign) and so on. But I imagine that Activision played a role in this, you just need to think about what they did to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 removing dedicated server, mod SDK because they wanted to sell DLC's.
 

Rui

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Well, DSG just told me that there is no validator to check for specific players. My idea was to have player A have High Templar warpable at the Gateway while player B has Dark Templar, both in the same button position, but that's apparently impossible and I bet, knowing Blizzard on these things, that there's no trigger action to change button positions for specific players. With an editor this complex, they didn't think of that?The map crossing (multiplayer campaign) feature is, for what I've been told, not working yet, and they promised it'd be available.I also found out that the maximum terrain textures is 8 and there's apparently no way to even circumvent this limitation this time, when there are games a dozen years older than StarCraft II, like, off the top of my head, Age of Mythology, where you can use all the terrain textures available on the game. So, the makers of RP and RPG maps, among a few other maps like Azeroth Wars Strategy, have fought this limitation for so long and now StarCraft II arrives with this limitation even more tied around our necks? Seriously? The map sizes, come on, 256x256 is still the maximum? Not to mention that, looking at the dimension, the size of the map is ridiculously small compared with WC3.Yeah, I've seen a few videos like that multicolored Archon and a few other effects, but honestly, they let me and many more of the mapping community down on a few very serious things. Gameplay has always been the most important aspect of maps, and it's been let down, something that I just can't bear with.
EDIT: And yeah, Battle.Net 2's popularity-based system was a terrible concept, it would have taken just a little thinking to know it wouldn't work out well. Then the complete usurped control of the map system that doesn't allow Single Player maps to be played in Single Player... it all makes you sigh.
 
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You need to let it mature, there are not alot of resources ready yet and the cooler projects haven't made it that far in terms of developement. The only decent map I've seen so far is Smashcraft.
 

Rui

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It's not so much about the resources (though they could have been kind to include a few Warcraft units since they included a Marine, a Zergling and a Hydralisk in Warcraft III), but the modding possibilities in general. It's just annoying how we've been fighting certain limitations for the entirety of Warcraft III, expect a modding paradise in StarCraft II, and in turn get our already limited bounds double-tied.
 
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The problem is not about resources.

It is just that people THINK they cant do stuff becouse they do not have the resources they want at the moment.

I mean, seriously, you could make warcraft 3 in starcraft 2 with the resources you have if you want to. Just use sc2 models temporarily, then setup a modeling team, etc. if your project gets popular

FoG (a project I am working on that is developed by UDMod) already have a great amount of medieval custom resources, probably the first map to have like 20 custom models, all being medieval themed.

If you want to do something, it is possible, people just do not give it a try, as they are used to the old wc3 days when they had all the models ready to be used here on hive.

Now when Sc2 is in such a young age you will need to organize a team for making proper maps, especially when it comes to resources.

And I do not blame the hosting system.. "Only 10-15 maps". Heh. I bet most people that say such things never, ever created 10 warcraft 3 maps worth releasing. And probably never went close to the size limit of sc2 either.

And yes, if you want to try a map online you have to upload it, so what, it does not really take that much longer than wc3. Maybe like... 1 extra minute? if even that.
 
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Actually im starting to realize a great deal of freedom has been removed along with SC2.

I miss channels, and hosting your own games. How will i now discover a fun map if no people will join because it's on page 5 or whatever. It's really weird.

That is the biggest issue with the entire game.
Almost every single modder has complained about it since the beta.
I still hate it, and I will always do.
But there is nothing we can do about it, because what you see today is blizzards "improved version" what should fix all the problems.
It didn't.
 
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I continued using the Data editor, definitely painful compared to the War3 one, having to add Assets.txt with another path to change the icons of say resources, having to use TextureId method to replace textures, setting and joining elements /unit, actor, etc/. But it is doable - sometimes you just copy a unit and actor leaving all other the same, then joining and connecting these units, abilities, buttons, actors and you're done. Triggers are like war3, will not be hard to use them if you have used war3 triggers. Rest is modeling which of course is also harder, but it's not that scary overall.

What I dislike is they did remove lots of things that could've stayed - mostly bnet, this is the issue

- now they removed wins for under Master (many people want to know their losses even if they don't play for Master unlike me)
- still painful without chat commands to whisper friend frm anywhere, to ignore every person you want while in game
- still the same bad Popularity system
- Why would they not allow you to make a map and play it offline? Why remove the ability to start a map offline you know like a civilized person from the game not by dragging on SC2 icon or clicking 'Test Map'
- I dont know what they found to be 'improvement' in it - many me included call this a STEP BACK from bnet, doesn't matter it has better interface and some eased features... They did take away big part of freedom from it. Who was the one with so bad ideas for bnet? You would say he has no idea what previous bnets have to know simply features > decoration
 
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The thing is tat all those complaints isnt related to battle.net 2. It is how starcraft II makes use of the platform.
The platform itself is great, but the people who designed starcraft 2 did some stupid things.
I am sure that the new platform still can do exactly what the old one could. And that is why the new platform is an improvement.
A good platform does not mean that the game that uses it will be perfect. :/
 

Rui

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Agreed with Imtor. I do not like the fact they removed loss count for people under Master, nor the fact we don't have whisper. The popularity system, being based on time played, is being abused, for example, by "Squadron TD". This... having to drag the map to SC2 startup is also ridiculous.
This whole «total map control» concept screwed up things for modding websites -- I feel clueless about how to structure the website around this «mod» concept, what, are they going to have dozens of mods with repeated resources in them? Not to mention it is malfunctioning for what I've read.
 

Dr Super Good

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I do not like the fact they removed loss count for people under Master
This is to make people play more. People used to rage over every individual loss as they were recorded publicilly and acted as awards of degredation.

nor the fact we don't have whisper
But you do... Just you need a link to the persons name. They should let you /w a certain user name from any text chatable field to open a conversation with the target. The target is choosen first by name (as some names are unique) and then by friends list if not (as you mostly want to wisper your friends). /R should also be added so you can quick reponse people from ingame without opening the conversation window.

The popularity system, being based on time played, is being abused, for example, by "Squadron TD".
How is that map abusing it? Anyway, nothing is wrong with that system as popular maps usually are popular for a reason. The problem is there is no "games needing players" view so you can not find players for unpopular maps. It is basically a lottery to get a player to join a map that is not on the first 4 pages odd as nobody has any idea of what games people are waiting for players with.

This whole «total map control» concept screwed up things for modding websites -- I feel clueless about how to structure the website around this «mod» concept, what, are they going to have dozens of mods with repeated resources in them? Not to mention it is malfunctioning for what I've read.
Yeh the mod system is currently broken. The idea was to get public resources into mods which a map then depends on resulting in are shared between maps and map version only having to be downloaded once. The problem is the editor bugs for multiple dependencies and that you just lack the ability to depend on someone else's mod (you can not see public mods). The result is that every map maker has to upload a mod with all art he uses downloaded from a site like this which might remove the version parallelisim WC3 has but still keeps the map parallelisim.
 

Rui

Rui

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Well, then people under Master need to grow out of it, or do Masters get to whine about every individual loss and act like they're awards of degradation?

As for whisper, I've tried and failed, is it in-game only?

In the example I referred, the mapper sets things to the longest wait time possible so that people spend more time in the game. I'm not saying the map wouldn't get popular -- it is a nice concept --, but it would certainly not be as popular.

And yes, the mod concept could have worked if it had been implemented right. I'm only wondering if they're looking into fixing it. Still, assuming they worked, the need to download those mods only once would kinda screw the modding sites.
But I'd be happy if it just worked. Plus, I'd be thankful if they removed the need to connect to the Internet to access the mods. Or, at least, to access their mods. It's their stuff after all.
 
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Dr Super Good

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In the example I referred, the mapper sets things to the longest wait time possible so that people spend more time in the game. I'm not saying the map wouldn't get popular -- it is a nice concept --, but it would certainly not be as popular.

Longest wait time? What wait time? As far as I know you can have trigger waits in the lengths of over a day so I do not see how that is at all helpful as people would leave long before.

the need to download those mods only once would kinda screw the modding sites.
The idea is modding sites advertise them. You are only given 100 letters odd to label a mod in the editor so external resources would be needed.
 

Rui

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You are being too literal. «Longest wait time» was, figuratively, meant to say: a long time, while not being out of the tolerable (by other people's standards). Supply depots take 15 seconds to upgrade while they could be instant, other upgrades take long to research, corridors are enormous, the majority of the creeps move slowly, and turns do take long. I can go to lunch for almost 20 minutes and come back without having lost the game, so you see.

Do they have a database accessible by Internet browser for mods?
 
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I have to disagree with most of what's being said about the editor. The "lull" in custom content has more to do with user impatience than anything. I have no experience with modding prior to the SC2 Beta. That means I had to learn everything from scratch and had no past knowledge to draw upon. Ironically, I have become one of the foremost experts on the Data Editor because of this.

Most people are too impatient too actually learn the Data Editor which is where the majority of complaints come from. When people say "ZOMG IT TAKES SO LONG TO MAKE A UNIT" it takes me <5mins to make a unit with custom everything. It's not difficult at all, it just requires you to be more aware of what you are doing. This editor is not as forgiving of mistakes because it gives you a considerable amount of power that the previous editors just don't have. That, right there, is the real problem.

Modders, in general, are finding that they actually have to develop good habits when creating custom content in SC2 or the editor will massacre them. The most obvious example would be the fact that people try to duplicate objects rather than making them from scratch. It is honestly better AND faster to create a new object and link it to your other custom objects. You avoid more bugs, develop good habits and actually learn the editor.

In general, the modding community is used to the WC3 environment where things are known, widely used and predictable. Rather than understand that a new editor means starting over, people just assume that SC2 should pick up where WC3 left off and instantly have a vast array of awesomeness that everyone can use. This is laziness and the ultimate reason why the community is uneasy.

This will eventually pass as the dedicated modders begin to churn out content more consistently.
 

Dr Super Good

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Ironically, I have become one of the foremost experts on the Data Editor because of this.
So you basically spent a lot of time learning what fields do? The data system in SC2 follows simple rules of database systems. The only problem is finding what all the fields do as a lot of crutial documentation from blizzard is missing. If they wrote an indepth guide like what intel did for the x86 architecture then using the editor is prety easy. Sadly we have to rely on a lot of trial an error to find how exactly the fields work (especially actor events where no documentation was provided).

A true expert must be master of both data and triggering inorder to interface the two systems in a flawless and efficent manner.

Modders, in general, are finding that they actually have to develop good habits when creating custom content in SC2 or the editor will massacre them. The most obvious example would be the fact that people try to duplicate objects rather than making them from scratch. It is honestly better AND faster to create a new object and link it to your other custom objects. You avoid more bugs, develop good habits and actually learn the editor.
I have been telling this to people for ages. The problem with duplication in SC2 is some default value fields break their references and references to the object are not also duplicated meaning a lot of references get lost. You can also take advantage of inhertance with making your own data elements which saves space, improves maintainability and allows for some clever triggering.

In general, the modding community is used to the WC3 environment where things are known, widely used and predictable. Rather than understand that a new editor means starting over, people just assume that SC2 should pick up where WC3 left off and instantly have a vast array of awesomeness that everyone can use. This is laziness and the ultimate reason why the community is uneasy.
Most people do not know much about WC3 at all. 90% of the remaining moders for it still use GUI. A lot of people do not even realise there is an attack rate limit in WC3. The fact is not very good modders could still make a working WC3 map (which no one plays because it is not very good) while SC2 actually needs an element of skill above that inorder to even make a functional map.
 
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This is to make people play more. People used to rage over every individual loss as they were recorded publicilly and acted as awards of degredation.

No. The reason why they made it is because if you are under Master you are around 50% and that doesn't matter anymore as you will always stay around it. You will make lots of losses, then lots of wins and this is true - I know it because I know my losses from Season 1, counted my losses so far, so I keep track where I am and indeed - around 50%, a little above it which when u have 600 games will be like 51.09% or similar for the many games made.

In Masters where anything can happen this matters more, you can lose a lot more without getting back to 50%, or you can get much higher than 50%, as you kind of reach the ceiling.

I guess they are right... but those who play seriously start from the high diamonds and up, so basically the only ones affected are high diams. Cause lower than high diam is casual, some struggle to get high but in most cases it is casual.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2267580240?page=3#57 (official explanation)

I have to agree though... if you are serious going to play sc2 and for that need losses stats, you want to get master. Except Masters are 2% only and some high DIams are also good but yes, they should get to master if so good, so again leaves it as reasonable to start from there.

But you do... Just you need a link to the persons name. They should let you /w a certain user name from any text chatable field to open a conversation with the target. The target is choosen first by name (as some names are unique) and then by friends list if not (as you mostly want to wisper your friends). /R should also be added so you can quick reponse people from ingame without opening the conversation window.

Have you tried it when you say? /w does not exist at all. The only command is /r and /r only works and only if you have had chat with a friend, you can absolutely not chat with a friend or choose him with a /r if you haven't talked to him from the beginning of your logging.

Also sometimes I recently got a moron who after winning started spamming me and guess - I was in next game I had no way to block him from ingame? The only way match history - see where he is etc but not ingame .. this is a fail feature.

And chat commands eased that. As for /stats i.e to know what league they are in advance since Blizz remove things, I will not even think about it xD
 
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So you basically spent a lot of time learning what fields do? The data system in SC2 follows simple rules of database systems. The only problem is finding what all the fields do as a lot of crutial documentation from blizzard is missing. If they wrote an indepth guide like what intel did for the x86 architecture then using the editor is prety easy. Sadly we have to rely on a lot of trial an error to find how exactly the fields work (especially actor events where no documentation was provided).

A true expert must be master of both data and triggering inorder to interface the two systems in a flawless and efficent manner.

Not exactly. You don't have to master both Data and Triggers to make amazing things in the editor. One significant difference between SC2 and past editors is that you can make an entire map through Data or Triggers and publish it. That's not to say that you shouldn't know a lil' about Triggers or a lil' about Data Editing, but saying that you must master both is almost like saying, "you must know everything about this editor" which is going to take years. The bottom line is, it is far better to specialize in one part of the editor and then co-op with others than it is to attempt to do everything on your own. SC2 really doesn't lend itself to the solo modder. If you are attempting to make a superbly polished mod/map on your own you are going to be spending a great deal of time more than you should need to and you will almost always lag behind modding pairs/teams.

As for me simply learning what the fields do, that's only half of it. In order to use the Data Editor you must understand what the fields do, but in order to use it well you must also understand what the fields DON'T need to do. It is very easy to make an ability that has 2-3x the number of objects it needs to. You can achieve the same effect through multiple venues and knowing the most efficient method of doing this is the majority of work in the Data Editor. It also isn't true to assume that documentation would fix the problem. The Data Editor has a large number of complex tools that are completely understood in what they're s'posed to do, but aren't utilized because they expect you to have knowledge of math or aviation or some other skillset that is related to the mechanics of that tool.

Essentially, even though we know what 90% of the fields do in certain areas, there are still so many fields there that wondering which combination of fields we should use is the greater challenge. I can't tell you how many maps I've looked through for modders only to realize that they created the exact same ability 4 different ways for 4 different heroes.
 

Dr Super Good

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Not exactly. You don't have to master both Data and Triggers to make amazing things in the editor. One significant difference between SC2 and past editors is that you can make an entire map through Data or Triggers and publish it. That's not to say that you shouldn't know a lil' about Triggers or a lil' about Data Editing, but saying that you must master both is almost like saying, "you must know everything about this editor" which is going to take years. The bottom line is, it is far better to specialize in one part of the editor and then co-op with others than it is to attempt to do everything on your own. SC2 really doesn't lend itself to the solo modder. If you are attempting to make a superbly polished mod/map on your own you are going to be spending a great deal of time more than you should need to and you will almost always lag behind modding pairs/teams.

End result is an inefficent mess as both people do not know how to carry out an efficient interaction between the 2 systems. Possibly using vast data systems where a single small trigger would sufice or using a complex trigger system which could have intigrated flawlessly into the data system.

Fortunatly they are both very easy to master (concepts behind both are taught as fundimentals for all CS degrees).

You can achieve the same effect through multiple venues and knowing the most efficient method of doing this is the majority of work in the Data Editor.
Again, simple CS stuff. Effects with high order of complexity or itteration rate need to be as light weight as possible.

Essentially, even though we know what 90% of the fields do in certain areas, there are still so many fields there that wondering which combination of fields we should use is the greater challenge. I can't tell you how many maps I've looked through for modders only to realize that they created the exact same ability 4 different ways for 4 different heroes.
That sounds like those people were not paying much attention to their map lol.

Having documented behaviour of everything helps immensly as it means you can plan and become aware of all the potential of the system without having to randomly test stuff.
 
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Oh and just to add: They could've made Loss show at least for Diams or high Diams (although rank has no meaning at all) but because high Diamonds have sort of owned a lot of other diams and some start matching Masters, so it could have been at least for the upper half of diamonds being closer to Masters.. (and people would be encouraged to play to get diam just for the sake of this feature)

As for the editor: I agree with ProzaicMuze
'Most people are too impatient too actually learn the Data Editor which is where the majority of complaints come from.' - I would add, are too impatient to learn anything being new...
 
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I have no problem learning new things; the problem I have with the editor is the ugly and inefficient UI, and limited yet bloated data editor. Compared to SDKs like UDK and cryengine, galaxyedit is a sad old beast which could have been done so muh better. With that said, I'll still use galaxyedit because the userbase is fairly large and I enjoy pushing limitations; however, for a more professional project I'll use a proper game engine and editor.
 

Dr Super Good

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JackRCDF, it is logical that making your own game is more flexible than modding an existing game. If you wanted to you could make any game engine you want from total scratch using the DX11 SDK, windows SDK and Visual C++ IDE. This however would take a stupid amount of time managing simple stuff but the end result will be much better.

Yes, SC2 can not make the next Mass Effect or Super Smash Brothers game but those are games made with approximatly equal development resources.

SC2 however can make hundreds of thousands of maps of which some are unique and could potentially be worth more to some one than the orignal game.
 
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JackRCDF, it is logical that making your own game is more flexible than modding an existing game. If you wanted to you could make any game engine you want from total scratch using the DX11 SDK, windows SDK and Visual C++ IDE. This however would take a stupid amount of time managing simple stuff but the end result will be much better.

Yes, SC2 can not make the next Mass Effect or Super Smash Brothers game but those are games made with approximatly equal development resources.

SC2 however can make hundreds of thousands of maps of which some are unique and could potentially be worth more to some one than the orignal game.

Sure, but that doesn't excuse blizzard for making a crappy editor. I feel sorry for their inhouse mappers.
 
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I definitely agree with ProzaicMuze, the editor is capable of doing just about anything that you want it to, it's just that learning how to use the data editor is much harder than learning how to use wc3's editor, and a lot of people are repulsed by this.

I have no problem learning new things; the problem I have with the editor is the ugly and inefficient UI, and limited yet bloated data editor. Compared to SDKs like UDK and cryengine, galaxyedit is a sad old beast which could have been done so muh better. With that said, I'll still use galaxyedit because the userbase is fairly large and I enjoy pushing limitations; however, for a more professional project I'll use a proper game engine and editor.

I'm curious about exactly what you think is so limited about the editor, as i personally feel like it has a huge amount of features, with the only problematic thing being navigation, but that's to be expected of something complex (and even this is honestly not much of a problem if you're proficient enough with the editor)

I'd agree that lack of documentation is something that the editor is missing though, but this is yet another problem that is solved by sufficient experience.
 
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The editor still has some very strict rules you must follow. You can not get more than 14 players in a game for example. Where as you can make games with even 32 people in a game at a time if you code it correctly.

That's a good point, although i personally don't think there would be many maps with a huge amount of players if it was possible (due to things like performance issues and the general difficulty of getting that many people to join). But yea, it definitely does limit the possibilities.

I'm still not quite convinced that the editor overall is very limited though, as i've yet to see another game with an editor that can match its capabilities.
 
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The editor still has some very strict rules you must follow. You can not get more than 14 players in a game for example. Where as you can make games with even 32 people in a game at a time if you code it correctly.

It's bad enough to play with more than 8 players,as they lag the heck out of ya, you want more than 14 players? Some people want the editor to be like a free coding program that you can do absolutely everything. Well it is an RTS afterall, while it allows times more things than WorldEditor, it is normal to not have perfect FPS system and such, you should be thankful it has even that.

The idea of SC2 editor is you can do nearly everything in your favorite game, without having to play another game. Ofc if someone makes an engine, cool models and graphics etc, it will be better.. this is an editor not a separate game creator.
 
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Keep in mind the editor is largely incomplete in terms of the typical "SDK" suite you expect from editing tools. Right now we have the foundation and nothing more. Blizzard has already talked about their art tools, sound tools, blahdy blah nifty neato tools etc. not currently included in the editor.

When you think about that, it's easy to realize how powerful the editor is given how much you CAN do with it despite missing some of the collaborative tools Blizzard uses. Furthermore, some of these limitations are not actually related to the editor at all. The only reason FPS games and various WASD genres are limited is because of Battle.net. The editor is fully capable of making FPS and WASD systems (albeit on a smaller scale, again because of Battle.net). If Blizzard modifies their systems to allow for local triggers in specific instances, FPS/WASD games will be entirely feasible.

Sure the editor could use improvement, but it would be more accurate to say that it is limited by the average understanding its users have than to say the editor itself is limited.
 
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I recently got SC2 and I don't think it's that great... The terrain is awesome yeah and graphics are awesome yeah... But the gameplay is a little bit lacking... And as far as hype goes, there's still plenty just not on THW, it seems like THW is still on WC3 at least for another year.
 
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