StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[WB]

@Isk

Wc3 melee, ie the GAME that wc3 was, had to have mines, and trees to be playable on a map. It also needed the standard triggers on the map. So it needed user-placed data on a map and game-mode specific triggers. If you could load all the data as normal WC3 data (replace the standard set) and modify the default map triggers to be the default Dota triggers, then all that is left is placing regions on a map, right?

And yea, like I said, nobody cares about different Dota maps, nullifying the need for it to be done. But it IS possible, it is possible for the part of Dota that makes it DOTA to exist outside a map and be loaded into a map. It might require crazy JASS and so on, but it is possible. As it exists in WC3, its just a map, because there is no NEED to make it a mod.

[IskatuMesk]

You're right, there's no need to make dota a mod. There's no need to make most projects a mod. As far as I'm concerned, fuck maps. Me? I make mods.


You know, starcraft had to have minerals and vespene geysers, too.

[Falchion]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/battle-net-preview-blizzard-entertainment/61756

Alot said and nothing talked...  Typical. 

[UntamedLoli]

WB: The part about maps flew clean over your head.

Mods replace assets used by the game already in place (gold mines turned into pies, trees into goats) they don't need anything added to the map to become functional or a specific terrain design (DotA is an AoS hurr), there is no replacing the default map triggers nor any need to.

You run the mod, select a random melee map and click start, done.

The correct meaning would be noone cares about other "DotA" maps not other AoS maps that use entirely different data, triggers and usually terrain design that you aren't going to on-the-fly trigger onto a melee map no matter how hard you try without editing the map itself.

[Lavarinth]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/battle-net-preview-blizzard-entertainment/61756

Alot said and nothing talked...  Typical. 

Err..

http://www.starcraft2.com/features/misc/battlenet.xml

Still no chat rooms, though. Wtf?

[Hercanic]

If I can make my own game atop the SC2 engine, and fans can easily make custom maps for my game, then I'm satisfied. If the entirety of my game can be seemlessly transmitted to new players across Battlenet, all the better for its popularity.

As for the difference between a custom map and a mod, there is one; but if Blizzard can handle both by default, then that's fantastic.

[WB]

WB: The part about maps flew clean over your head.

Mods replace assets used by the game already in place (gold mines turned into pies, trees into goats) they don't need anything added to the map to become functional or a specific terrain design (DotA is an AoS hurr), there is no replacing the default map triggers nor any need to.

You run the mod, select a random melee map and click start, done.

The correct meaning would be noone cares about other "DotA" maps not other AoS maps that use entirely different data, triggers and usually terrain design that you aren't going to on-the-fly trigger onto a melee map no matter how hard you try without editing the map itself.

By that logic, counterstrike is not a mod, i guess? Because you cant just select a HL1 map and play CS on it, it won't work. There are elements introduced in CS that are not in HL. Just like there are elements introduced in DotA that aren't in WC3.

[IskatuMesk]

... k

[UntamedLoli]

I don't have to remodel the entire map from HL2 to make it work in CSS either, you were were the one claiming DotA could be a mod it just doesn't need to be.

Better yet was saying you could get DotA gameplay in any map by just overlaying its trigger/unit data onto anything and adding regions which would just be a complete disaster with the terrain an AoS requires.

[WB]

It just seems like you are limiting the definition of a mod to applying a universal change on standard gameplay, which is a pretty narrow scope. DoTa invents its own gameplay using existing mechanics but unique entities and different style of terrain, which is just like any HL mod like Day of Defeat, Team Fortress or even counterstrike. Yes you can adapt HL1 maps to use entities from those mods, but just like using a WC3 melee map and layering DotA entities everywhere, its gonna be shitty.

Again, why are we arguing this? If Dota can be made into its own game then of course it can be made into a mod of an existing game, theres just never been any reason to. Why are you defining mod in such a narrow scope? if I made a WC3 mod that introduced OIL as a resource and changed nothing else, I would have to make special maps for that, by your definition that wouldn't be a mod anymore because it can't simply load and work on an existing map, default WC3 map. Seriously, what the hell?

[UntamedLoli]

if all the elements that make DoTa what it is (all item/unit/spell + trigger data) were loaded into an executable, and could be launched on any map with the correct region configuration, then it would be a mod, right?

DotA has all the working of a mod, its just contained in a single map. Theres just no reason to make it into a independent mod because there is only 1 map anyone cares about anyway, and there is no good mod support in WC3 from Blizzard.

I'm not the one running myself around in circles over it, we make RTS mods on an RTS game that replace existing gameplay.

DotA is a map copying another map that migrated its way into a game.

[Maglok]

Yeah.. uhm beta this month. Confirmed in Conference Call.

[IskatuMesk]

Who gives a fuck about some shitty aos clone like dota. If you want to argue about some project, why not a map or a mod that is at least decent? We don't make mods to fuck the game into some stupid cliche format that loses its value after a few playthroughs, we mod RTS' to make a new RTS that plays across everything. A map cannot deliver that.

Man are you off tangent bucko. We've been through this before, and you always go completely off course. So I'll steer you back. If you still can't understand... well, too bad. I'm through trying to explain this simple shit to people who claim to be modders and have some semblance of experience. I'm through with these tireless arguments about semantics people who aren't even involved with mod work try to pick apart.

A mod refers to a mod environment.

A map refers to a map environment.

The map environment is custom content whose functionality is restricted and/or intended to be used in one specific map. In vanilla starcraft, the difference between maps and mods is easy to define. A map will be UMS, a melee map will not be UMS. An UMS map contains triggers using locations and some extremely complex hypertrigger shit all these new fangled kiddies are abusing. Anyways, these map elements won't work on a global scale because;

1.) Unit positioning on the map.
2.) Locations.
3.) Geometry.

These elements are all variable. You can make triggers global in stargraft with editors. But these triggers cannot do what you can do in the map environment.

Some mods will utilize customize melee maps or even ums maps, but these mods will also usually function outside of those maps without much problem (example: PEAI).

The mod environment from the perspective of starcraft is something even you has to be able to define. It requires external exes. It needs a program called winmpq to manage external archives. This is a mod. When you run the mod, it changes everything about the game that a map cannot. Iscript, sounds, main menu, intro CGI, menu SMK's, so on so forth. The mod opens up access to the game. More importantly, it does so on a global scale.

Yes, you can choose to design a mod around a set of maps. Then the mod becomes a front-end for the maps because as the mod doesn't function properly for every melee map, usually not at all, it isn't a real mod, it's an extension of the game that allows the maps, which are the focus of the project, to achieve greater functionality. Your ridiculous off-tangent attempt at recovering face by claiming that because you can't play hl1 maps on CS is rendered mute by the following facts,

- It is in fact fairly basic to port the maps if you want.
- Counter-strike is both a mod and a stand-alone game that utterly rips apart the engine. When it was first built by two college students, it was not at the point where it needed its own entirely new map system and accompanying engine attributes. It was very much just a mod. But even now, as an "independent" game, it is still a mod. You are attempting to twist my words to smokescreen your inability to provide any kind of a tangible argument for my previous posts and instead try to bullshit your way into some feigned sense of "HAH, I GOT YEW NOW YEW FAT CANUCKISTANI FAGGET"

Well, guess what, my sublime hardhat-wearing trunk-dweller? This bitch ain't gotta let you do that. I'm going to entertain your demented ego and twist outside of the entire parsector my original topic was in just to end this once and for all. Ready? Pucker up!

Porting a map from Half-Life 2 Deathmatch to Counter-Strike source is like, a 5-10 minute job. For someone who doesn't know how to use hammer. How do I know this? Because we did it.

Garry's mod just hotloads maps out of CS:S, whatever. Models, characters, shit included. Because these are mods of a primary engine. But they are also technically independent games and modify the core code of the game, something beyond the possibility of mere mods to do for 99% of games out there, except for games like UT3, Supreme Commander, and probably a few others I don't know about.

This was my original statement,

In Counter-strike, which is a mod of the half-life engine, there are maps. But there are also mods within the mod, that mod the mod, thus modding a mod. These are introduced through server plugins and mechanics such as that. Alternate damage values, announcements, leaderboards, stats, these are server mods that function across any map. But then there is also maps that change the game independently and are restricted to that map - like those hilarious maps mucky and co were playing. The server mods are powerful, like the data system will be, but there's things they can't do that you still need a custom map for.

To elaborate on what it is I wanted to demonstrate, Counter-strike's maps always function on Counter-strike. But the map elements of the various maps are restricted to the maps, just like in Starcraft. But mods also exist for this game in the form of server and administrative tools that can dramatically change the game. These are independent of maps.

Somehow you thought it was a great idea to try to twist my words and dig around for a pole to spin around on without a shaft in sight. So, you took a huge shit and formed it together with your toes and used that, instead. Brilliant! Even better, you used HKS' post as some kind of reacharound to attack me instead. Great work there, bucko. You totally gave me a revelation with that. Here's the revelation:

Don't post when you're tired as shit and drunk as hell. Because every time we talk you say how exhausted you are, how you can't think straight, or how drunk you are.

And then you post this stupid shit.

Let's move on, shall we?

Warcraft 3 altered what we thought of mods and maps from the very beginning with a very core change:

The abolishment of UMS.

Suddenly, there wasn't melee maps and UMS maps anymore. There was just UMS.

Also, without the intervention of third party tools, Worldedit was the single and sole focus of both modding and mapping. Remembering that Blizzard has never acknowledged modders or their existence as per their policy, Worldedit presented its features in a manner which totally brought modding to its knees through alienation.

No, I don't blame you for thinking that mods and maps are one in the same. Because that's what wc3 taught you to think, and you're experience only with wc3. You were brought up as a mapper, but you have made mods, right? I forget what it was called. No More Heroes and such. The one with the custom races? Yeah.

If you are so happy with sticking to maps, why did you bother to make a mod? Oh, I've got a good guess for ya! It's because you wanted to play it on a map of your choosing, right?

If I wanted to make a dota mod, which is a stupid and retarded idea and using dota as a basis for this argument is full of so many retarded fundamental flaws that offer you no hope of crawling out of the hole you've dug yourself in, I'd be setting myself up for pain. Why? First, let's consider what makes maps and mods different in wc3.

Maps -

Maps are much more powerful in wc3. All those things you wanted to do in Starcraft in maps but couldn't, except for modifying elements of the main ui, cinematics, ready rooms, race selection dialogues, so on so forth, was at your fingertips. Maps in wc3 are incredibly powerful thanks to JASS despite how shitty it is. Dota is a really poor example of a complex map - try Map Tong Hop, or Mad Ballz or whatever the hell it was called. Something that uses really significant triggering but isn't completely dependent on the fucking terrain to function! Christ. How can you even try to rationalize that? It won't work. How are you going to trigger Lost Temple to work as an AOS? "Oh, I'll just modify the map-" No, you can't fucking do that. You'll be redistributing every fucking melee map every made under the false pretense that you're making some kind of advancement when all you're doing is;

A.) Restricting your aos by trying some stupid shit like making it globally compatable. It won't work. It's an AOS. Mods are for the same genre the game was built in. If you want an aos, make a fucking map. That's what maps are GOOD at. That's what makes a map BETTER than a mod.

Mods -

Regions are a killer for mods. You still can't make regions, preplaced units, locations, ect. ect. in a map that you cannot predict the geometry of. Every map is different. The mechanics of an AOS, or any heavily triggered ultra-crazy gametype conversion for that matter, will be totally fucking different on Turtle Rock than it is on Lost Temple.

What makes mods the most strong is when they stick to their guns, what they're good at - changing the game, not trying to make a new one. The inherent limits of the global format prevent certain map-specific features, like custom terrain, regions, and a controllable environment in terms of triggering and memory, from entering a mod, or at least entering it and working right.

Wc3 triggers are hugely inefficient, as is JASS. You know this. I know this. Blizzard damn well knows this, too - otherwise they wouldn't be bragging about garbage collection in Galaxy. In a map like dota, you have total control what's going on. In a mod environment, you have very little control.

Actually, let's just step away from the whole dota thing now.

Again, why are we arguing this? If Dota can be made into its own game then of course it can be made into a mod of an existing game, theres just never been any reason to.

Man this argument is just so HORRIBLE AND ILLOGICAL. DERP DERP IF I CAN MAKE A GAME BASED ON A MOD I CAN DEFINITELY FIT ANOTHER GAME INTO THAT MOD IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT DERP DERP BECAUSE I HAVE ACCESS TO THE SOURCE CODE AND EVERYTHING HURP A DERP DERP HURR HURR DERP DERP HURR HURR DERP DERP DERPA DERP DERP HURR LOOK AT ME I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOU-

No. Just fuck right off.

You've got me all riled up, now. I'm gonna piss all over your shoes and give you a cleaveland steamer in your sleep. But you asked for it with stupid logic like the above.

Let's think about something a little more reasonable.

No, I'm not going to mod wc3 and turn it into an AOS. If I want a AOS that takes advantage of both aspects, I do what I did with LoL - I make the map, and I make a mod exe. So now I have a mod exe that changes the game in a global format. But, what's this? IT DOESN'T WORK WITH MELEE! Oh goodness gracious what the FUCK have I made?

Oh, wait, don't panic brother!

Of course it doesn't work on other maps! It's for my map. My one map. It's a front-end for my map, of course! It holds all some 200 megabytes of data I can't store on the map. Is it a mod? Well, I guess. It changes the game, right? But you'll crash the game or see nothing or can't do anything if you load another map.

Yes you can adapt HL1 maps to use entities from those mods, but just like using a WC3 melee map and layering DotA entities everywhere, its gonna be shitty.

Okay, no, it's not going to be shitty. It's not going to function. Why? Let's assume that a map, a complex map with deeply entrenched gameplay elements like Dota, is indeed successfully ported to a mod. Let's ignore all of the stupid rules and bullshit that breaks with blizzard's wretched warcraft 3 engine and just look at this from a cock's eye perspective.

It won't function.

Why?

Dota is terrain-dependent. It's not designed to function on Lost Temple. It won't function on BGH. And you're just FUCKED if you try to put it on an island map.

BUT WHY?!

Shops.
Respawn points.
Powerups.
Lanes.
Towers.
Creep pathing.
Neutral creep spawns.
Gank lanes.

This is just considering terrain ALONE.

It won't play like shit. It won't play at all. It just won't work. Well, it'll work in the sense the game will load, right? Score one for Warbringer! He got a broken piece of shit to load! But it's totally unplayable! Yes, you have your dota mod. Congratulations. No one's going to fucking care because it's unplayable.

Lavarinth's information about external data is new to me. I have heard nothing about this before. I presumed sc2 to be just like wc3. Does this new information, if correct, change my stance?

No.

And here we are. At the veiny, steamy, sweaty, throbbing, floppy, hard, black, juicy meat of my concept. My perspective.

My fucking perspective. I don't give a fuck what you, Blizzard, or some ten-year old who downloaded an open source version of dota off of XGM fucking thinks. It's a map. It's a fucking map. Okay, yes. You can make it into a mod if you want to. Will it work? Nope! For the reasons aforementioned above, you cannot intersect what makes mods and maps different from each other. That's because of the game engines themselves.

Are there games in which mods and maps are totally the same? Hell yes!

X3: Terran Conflict
Diablo
Diablo 2
Torchlight
NWN
NWN2

The list fucking goes on and on, brother. But. With these two games, Starcraft and Warcraft 3, there are differences whether you refuse to accept them as significant or not.

Starcraft 2 blurrs this line even further. But it still exists. It will exist until I fucking say it doesn't exist.

This is why.

Karune mentioned at some point that the game had a mod loader and this is used to add NEW FUCKING RACES.

- Point 1.

Suddenly, Blizzard has done the UNTHINKABLE. They ACKNOWLEDGED THAT MODDING EXISTS.

Starcraft 2 will have maps, and then it will have mods.

'Course, this info is old. Maybe that's changed. Do I have the editor and beta in my hands? Hell naw, nigga! I go off by what I see, what I experience. All I have are these words by Karune. Never before, never after, has a Blizzard employee even hinted that they knew there was a difference even in games as archaic and blunt as Starcraft itself.

But now they have. Until proven otherwise, this fact alone tells us that there are things you'll need the mod loader for that the maps can't do. New races in a melee-styled mod, for example? Suddenly, it all makes sense!

I'll repeat;

I don't fucking mod RTS games to turn them into shooters. If I want to mod a shooter, I break out the UT3 SDK or sit on my ass until Project Offset comes out. If I want to mod an RPG, I suck up my pain and stroll over to Diablo 2 or NWN, whatever suits my fancy. Probably diablo 2. If I want to make a fucking space combat RTS, I'll mod a game like Homeworld 2, or like sins.

[imgwh 640x400]http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5458/s ... ediplo.jpg[/imgwh]

Whoops, finger slipped. It looks like I've accidentally posted a picture of a mod from sins!

Sins has maps, too, y'know. They're made with Galaxy Forge. But a map won't have custom ships, races, voice acting, music, particles, menus...

There is a line that exists within certain engines that separates what someone can do in a certain environment. The map environment places you in a box with your tools. Perhaps these tools are indeed very powerful. Perhaps, as a modder, the only thing you do ultimately gain from stepping outside this box is the global environment you are able to manipulate.

That is my passion.

I don't want my Gameplay Elements Concepts to be limited to maps. I design GEC's in the idea that they will have tremendous replay value. This replay value is provided by a dynamic experience. What makes an RTS dynamic past its base gameplay? Maps! Maps are wonderful tools in shaping your mod or your game. Is it wrong to rely on maps to make your mod strong? No. Are you basing your mod ON the maps? Are the maps your FOCUS? Then the mod is a front-end.

If the mod is a mod, using maps to supplement its prose, that's a mod.

If the mod is a set of features that provided the maps with added features that doesn't function on other maps, it's a front-end.

Maybe it's a mod that takes advantage of custom maps but still works on other maps, e.g. PEAI. Well, that's a mod, too! It works great on melee maps, the UMS maps just give you a little extra blim blam. Right? Good.

If starcraft has a global data library of sometime but still possesses a mod loader (think Supreme Commander, Sins, Dawn of War..) there is a reason for this.

Again, I speak from the experience of an observer, but I still bet you good money that making dynamic, intelligent region adaptions to make a massively complicated UMS-style map setup function across a variety of melee maps with no further modification to such maps that would otherwise make it map-dependent will be extraordinarily difficult if not impossible.

Will my opinion change when I see sc2's editor? Maybe.

But I'll still make a fucking mod if I do anything with the game. I'll make a new RTS that functions on every existing map. Will the mod alter the maps? Probably. AO2 was conceptualized to add weather effects, hellfire crystal shards that fall from the sky to function as a third resource, Hellfire itself that creeps across the map, permanent terrain deformation and obstruction. These change the map dynamically, and they are not relied on locations or regions or whatever that might screw me. ITAS was gonna alpha out every single texture and make some kind of a space panorama instead. But ITAS would probably be a mod that, yes, becomes map-dependent because of anti-matter boundaries (C:FW-styled gameplay).

No, don't even press that fucking reply button. I don't care about your brilliant comeback or whatever fucking logical fallacy I just facerolled over in my fit of rage. I'll just taunt you a second time.

[WB]

You guys don't see it, SC2 wont operate like SC. There will be no need for these hacking necessities like SC. Things such as MPQs, EXEs, data editing, etc will be obselete. The reason Blizzard now defines mods and maps the same is because they are. I spent all BlizzCon alongside Herc and Dread in argument against that possibility until I realized I'm just being stubborn. Maps ARE mods now in SC2. WarCraft 3, no. StarCraft, no. In StarCraft 2 any data used in one map is not in a map, it's in a separate database for the map, to my understanding, which can be called into another map, which is what enables linked maps to be more logical in SC2 for multiplayer. Consider the maps to be levels. Just plain levels, and your evolving characters, custom units, and so on are all stored in a database for your newly crafted game, and you use actions to call them forward into any of your levels.

Basically.. DotA would be a mod in SC2. All information could be stored into one database and any map linked to that database could call that information to load units. Also, any of those race modding maps in WC3 could be played in any map in SC2 as all that information isn't stored in the map itself. It's called from the maps linked database. Keep in mind, it's not called database, I'm just calling it that.

(This includes triggers if my understanding of the process is correct.)

[IskatuMesk]

[imgwh 600x488]http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5093/r ... echaop.jpg[/imgwh]