StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[chris]

Well what can I say? Its been eons since that website has shown any new units

[Marine]

Going along with out monthly discussion topic about map making requests, we've sought to get more answers to help direct these upcoming discussions.

Chat with Devs: Brett Woods is back with us to answer our community map making questions. We cant stress enough that StarCraft II is going to have immense potential in the UMS (User Map Settings) area, where we hope to seriously empower the community with the tools you need, to create some awesome gaming additions to StarCraft II.

As always, feel free to give the Devs and I a w00t if you are enjoying these batches!

---StarCraft II Q&A Batch 30: Map Maker Series 3---

1. Will it be possible to code the game so map makers can make maps where people can stop incoming spell/missile?

This should be possible through customized ability data and/or triggers.

2. Will we have selectable male/female of every unit?

No, we don't have plans to include male and female versions of each unit.

3. Will we have the option to give players the option to change weapons in-game?

While we don't have any plans for a specialized interface for this, it would be possible using the highly flexible ability system.

4. Will you guys link multiplayer maps, so mapmakers can make multiplayer campaigns?

Yes, we do plan to support multiplayer campaigns and linked maps.

5. Will all buildings stand alone and also can we have the ability to disable tech trees?

The tech tree will be fully configurable through customized data and/or triggers.

6. Will research or firing a skill in a certain location be part of the tech tree enabling, for example Stim Packs could be researched to enable a Factory?

Yes, the tech tree and upgrade system will be fully configurable from the editor.


7. Will it be possible for AI to be commanded to research a skill, perform an upgrade, build a building at a location, build a unit at a location, retreat from a location?

Yes, there will be extensive AI scripting support.

8. Will mapmakers have the ability to set weather that can change the terrain and interrupt gameplay for players? Is this for anywhere or in a specific location?

Weather effect technology has not yet been finalized. However, even if weather effects do not affect gameplay normally, it would be possible to drive both the desired weather effects and associated gameplay effects through triggers. --- (Source)

---End of Transmission---

Karune - RTS Community Manager
Blizzard Entertainment

[IskatuMesk]

Half the questions could have been answered by glancing at wc3, as usual.

[Lavarinth]

Just goes to show how annoying it is to half people who are clueless ask pointless questions. They need to ask questions to the source: CC!

[Meta]

Half the questions could have been answered by glancing at wc3, as usual.

Yeah. Makes this Q&A sort of pointless.

I like the news about multiplayer campaigns, though. 

[WB]

I think that is the worst batch of questions ever.

[Marco]

There really isn't much to ask about the editor when you think about it.  You know you're working with an RTS.  You know that the WC3 editor was extremely versatile and offered a wide range of things to script.  You know they won't release an editor that is any less sophisticated then their previous one.  At this point, the best thing they can probably do its try to dumb it down a bit to attract more potential map makers. 

I guess if it was me I'd probably ask questions about editing the briefing rooms, since that is the aspect of editing the game that would be new to me.  How many different units would be available in the briefing rooms?  Could you import units into the briefing rooms, custom units, custom animations?  Without knowing the technical limitations of these new 'briefing rooms', the few of us who actually are writing our campaigns before the game comes out are just forced to guess at the limitations based on what little we've seen.  It's a trivial concern though, and one that probably wouldn't be of interest to the mainstream crowd.

[WB]

I'd like to know if modding and not just mapping the game will be possible without 3rd party tools like MPQdraft. I'd like to know how much of their stuff is written in the modified-C scripting language, how much control will it give you, ie, can you add races/spells/units, i mean brand new not  wc3-style to the game? Are there any hardcoded limits?

Blizzard won't answer these.

[Anonymous]

Desler> You make it sound as if wc3 wasn't gimped, inefficient, and likely to explode if you so much as pass wind in its general direction. There are literally thousands of things one could inquire that are likely to never make it into the game. One of the largest and most important is, of course, softcoding AI actions. In wc3/sc you could change the build order scripts but were completely at the mercy of hardcoded everything.

SC2 is being built with maps in mind, not mods. A mod and a map are two very different things. You can change stats and things in a map, and it's still a map.

Blizzard doesn't even know what a real mod is.

[Marco]

Modding doesn't interest me at all.  Their reasoning is probably that implementing such tools undoubtedly would add some development time, and usually the community fills in the blanks anyways, so you'd probably get your modding ability one way or another.  But, if they didn't answer the question at all, take it as a sign that maybe they are giving it serious consideration and want to wait to see if its feasible for them to include tools.

[Meta]

I guess if it was me I'd probably ask questions about editing the briefing rooms, since that is the aspect of editing the game that would be new to me.  How many different units would be available in the briefing rooms?  Could you import units into the briefing rooms, custom units, custom animations?  Without knowing the technical limitations of these new 'briefing rooms', the few of us who actually are writing our campaigns before the game comes out are just forced to guess at the limitations based on what little we've seen.  It's a trivial concern though, and one that probably wouldn't be of interest to the mainstream crowd.

I also recall seeing somewhere(in a Blizzcon article, I think) that Protoss and Zerg campaigns will feature completely different "briefing rooms", as in, they'll not feature "starship concourse areas" at all. No, not just different graphics for their briefing rooms: from what I read back then, Protoss and Zerg will feature completely different methods of interacting with campaigns/maps at all. So far, we have no clue at all as to what methods they have in mind.

I bet your questions will be of mainstream interest once Blizzard unveils more campaign-related material.

[Marco]

I also recall seeing somewhere(in a Blizzcon article, I think) that Protoss and Zerg campaigns will feature completely different "briefing rooms", as in, they'll not feature "starship concourse areas" at all. No, not just different graphics for their briefing rooms: from what I read back then, Protoss and Zerg will feature completely different methods of interacting with campaigns/maps at all. So far, we have no clue at all as to what methods they have in mind.

I bet your questions will be of mainstream interest once Blizzard unveils more campaign-related material.

Such revelations make any sort of planning very difficult.  Of course, at least with the editor, there will probably be an option to bypass the briefing room altogether this time, so it shouldn't be a problem in the worst case scenario. 

[Taeradun]

I'd be incredibly surprised if there wasn't an option to bypass briefings altogether. There are a lot of cases where it may be appropriate to just have a Warcraft III-style cutscene briefing; and the advanced options apparently available in the mission briefing thing (buy upgrades/units, or even choose between different missions to play suggesting it doesn't have to be so tied down to the one map) wouldn't be necessary for certain single-map scenarios.

Then again the stuff available in the briefings would be pretty cool for a lot of maps, including multiplayer stuff - for example have an interface to select your player class before the game starts, etc. I'm assuming it'll be customisable enough that you can use a wide range of 3d models or layouts in the briefings, so you could even have something as simple as just have a row of buttons overlayed on a 2D backdrop image to choose your player class before the mission starts. Or have something that resembles an oldskool StarCraft briefing.

But yeah even doing Warcraft III-style briefings works in other instances - the Dark Reign II sprawler campaign had a cutscene map between each playable mission, that operated more or less like a StarCraft briefing, with 4 faction leaders in a meeting sitting around some sort of view screen or something as the camera panned around in 3D.

[Xenon]

I still think the briefing room might be a SC2 map with a heavily modified interface, considering it had the same placeholder loading screen as the mission. Blizzard still hasn't confirmed or denied this though.

[Marco]

I'd be incredibly surprised if there wasn't an option to bypass briefings altogether. There are a lot of cases where it may be appropriate to just have a Warcraft III-style cutscene briefing; and the advanced options apparently available in the mission briefing thing (buy upgrades/units, or even choose between different missions to play suggesting it doesn't have to be so tied down to the one map) wouldn't be necessary for certain single-map scenarios.

Then again the stuff available in the briefings would be pretty cool for a lot of maps, including multiplayer stuff - for example have an interface to select your player class before the game starts, etc. I'm assuming it'll be customisable enough that you can use a wide range of 3d models or layouts in the briefings, so you could even have something as simple as just have a row of buttons overlayed on a 2D backdrop image to choose your player class before the mission starts. Or have something that resembles an oldskool StarCraft briefing.

But yeah even doing Warcraft III-style briefings works in other instances - the Dark Reign II sprawler campaign had a cutscene map between each playable mission, that operated more or less like a StarCraft briefing, with 4 faction leaders in a meeting sitting around some sort of view screen or something as the camera panned around in 3D.

Speaking of which, the only camera angle we've seen, or I have managed to see, besides the top down view, was briefly in the Terran Demo when the Thor changed modes.  If you look, you can briefly see a black backdrop where a 'sky' is supposed to be (like in WC3).  I was terribly unimpressed with the skys in WC3, so I really hope they make them a lot better this time.  Everything else in the camera-mode view was pretty spot on, I watched that part of the Terran demo several times just to glimpse everything, since that mode is where the heart of in-game cutscenes are going to come from, and we've only seen it once (to my knowledge).  I still have a lot of questions, but most are insignificant.  Like asking about different unit animations, how portraits will be handled (you saw the big portraits in the Protoss demo, and most of the Terran portraits were still defaulted to that robot woman who communicates with the magistrate), just little stuff like that, stuff no one but campaign makers really think about.


Nice imitation Taeradun, though I don't know if you'd be the Samods equivilant of 'Desler'.  =)