Desler wrote:
It's like we're trying to emerge from the dark ages and you guys keep torching anyone with radical new ideas.
Traditionally the system may of seemed better. But I think over time, change is accepted and ultimately proven good. Unless you guys like the dark ages...
Man, you totally play the role you have in OPERATION: MANCATCHER just
perfectly. That unshakable optimism even in the face of total destruction and lunacy.
Many of those cache files are far too small to be a map. I'm still not even sure how the hell they work, but as it is you need to load the game and host a game on b.net 2.0 in order to generate a file you can actually access and do anything with outside of playing it.
Battle.net 2.0 is a glorified trainwreck of biblical proportions. What has made Battle.net so powerful in the past is its ease of use, accessibility, and straight-forward no-gimmicks prose that allowed any tom and dick to jump in and join FASTEST $$$$ or ZERGLING BLOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 NO NOOBS.
But you can't do that anymore jim. You've got a bloated interface that wastes so much fucking space it's unbelievable it made it past the drawing board at
all much less into alpha, you've got a game hosting lobby where you have to SCROLL DOWN TO SEE HALF OF THE PLAYER LIST, you've got the clunky as balls friends system with the palmface identifier bullshit and if that wasn't enough you LOST chat channels, the most basic and fundamental feature of every online system in
existence. Even westwood online had that! And we know that at the very least that's a feature that won't be in for months, possibly not even until an expansion.
How the fuck is Blizzard, a company that is so massive and once renowned for its will to only release a game when its finished, constantly throwing back simple, basic features like online replays and chat channels to expansion-level distances? What the fuck are they thinking?
I have a love of bashing companies like Relic and Bioware. I bash them because they make stupid decisions. Windows for Live, Neverwinter Nights 2, the list goes on of how these companies have failed to do anything but stroke their oversized cocks. But SC2 is the greatest and most miserable excuse for a sequel I have seen in an extremely long time. It has a few cool points, but what are they?
- The engine is nice.
- You can put HDR values on doodads.
- According to Ricky, the trigger system is much improved.
- 16 player support.
But we are lacking some serious shit here. Amongst them:
- A game designer who actually knows how to design games.
- Layout designers who shouldn't have been fired on day one.
It is as Alevice says - on release day the editor could be much improved. I'm hoping for that or I'm not buying the game. Plain and simple. I'm looking at making the LoL: 2042 RPG-campaign. But in an editor as messy and disorganized as this one there is
no way that would be any fun.
I've played SC1 practically since it was released down to the release of AO. I could play it that long because, hell, I enjoyed it. I grew bored of sc2 a week in. I grew bored because they took out the elements that made Starcraft fun. High risk High reward, overarching strategy, tactical capabilities, positional value, economic strategy, diverse tech trees and units, and
racial diversity. Starcraft is the God of RTS games for many good reasons. Every other company has failed to rival it out of their unwillingness to split away from terrible "LET'S DO IT THIS WAY INSTEAD" philosophies.
Some retards will use the 'IT'S A NEW GAME DAWG' card. Well, guess what? It can still be a new game but still have interesting gameplay and not totally butcher the elements established by the first game which include a high skill ceiling and MU's that don't play out the same way every single time. One could also argue that since the beta is still fairly young that it hasn't had a time to mature.
Well guess what? Hard counters and design like this butcher metagame flow and they butcher evolution. On top of that, the game can't evolve so long as Blizzard hunkers down in their basement with the keys to the map pools. Starcraft evolved largely because of map design - that's how important map design is. Blizzard sucks at map design. Both for campaigns and for multiplayer. But now it's their say and their say alone. You don't see any Destination or Pythons in their map pools, do you? Nay - a map based off of Paranoid Android that is exceptionally difficult to expand on regardless with a back door. They took the map and butchered it just like everything else they've touched so far.
When sc2 was first announced I was put off by the cartoony graphics but was excited deep inside. I was excited for the modding possibilities. I always knew I'd be disappointed with the gameplay simply for the fact that Browder is a C&C designer and there's a reason C&C as a whole is miserable for anything outside of the odd hyuck hyuck with a group of buddies. That's what sc2 has become - I find more amusement watching Bill and Ricky fumble around with bronze-level tards than I do watching pro games because there is no diversity or talent to be forged from pro games. There is few surprising moments and that's only in a 50 minute game when someone thinks it's time to actually make something other than Marauders - a risky business because it usually means they will die.
In beta every game starts off shitty and unbalanced, this is true. I know this well dawg. You don't need to tell me.
But sc2 has started off shitty and gotten shit
tier and the reason for that is Browder's unwillingness to change his designs. He's great at PR, saying they're willing to do whatever it takes, but it's over a month and a half now and Marauders, Roaches, and Immortals remain largely unchanged while Templar tech of all things has seen repeated nerfs and buffs in totally random directions. Then there's the Infestor and Spawn Infested Terrans that somehow snuck its way back in, in an internal build. How the fuck is that still in the game? Seriously?
Yeah, Mesk is pissed. Mesk is pissed because he waited 3 years for a game to mod whose editor turned out to be amongst the worst editors he's ever had the displeasure of trying to use - and he's used
many editors bro. Many editors.
So one asks, well what can be done?
We can do nothing because Blizzard just doesn't give a flying fuck what we think. I know this because I tarried those forums for months, years, sent e-mails, and even used my special connections to get words through. Yet despite all my efforts, despite all my hopes and dreams, Blizzard made the critical errors anyway and just went with it. I don't know who the fuck thought that battle.net 2.0 and the editor could be passed off as even remotely finished in their current state, but the big content patch is here - beta is over halfway over. If they are skipping out key features like this it's also probably partly because they are crunched for time - this stuff is not going to change much, if at all. Not until... OH AN EXPANSION?
Yeah fuck this. I've just been told all these years of planning and patiently waiting and posting and shit have all been for nothing. For
nothing. There's even a guy working on a m2 to m3 converter! My fucking achille's heel could be totally gone on release day but it means shit all if the editor is such a bitch to use that I find zero enjoyment in modding a game for a project that could easily be a 3-4 year investment.
If Blizzard reads this forum, here's a message specifically for you -
Get your act together, kids.
IMO people are far too ready to defend Blizzard despite terrible decisions staring them straight in the face. I hold allegiance to no man - if my favorite company makes a bad decision I
will flat out tell them that. If someone fucks up, I'll let them know. The wrong decision is to foolishly take up the shining white armor and settling for half-assed tomfoolery.
