I can't be the only one. I looked at the game back then when it was released, and the horror it was. The popularity system, and all that. But fine, they can fix it later. Right?
Here is what is happening with the community now, in March:
Quite frankly, its a disgrace. Blizzard never cares. Never will. The fact that the editor is so hard to use is excusable and understandable. The fact that wasting my life on it wouldn't even guarantee that I'd be able to get any match on it is a disgrace.
It doesn't matter how powerful the editor is. What we can get is nothing, and the custom map community is just slowly dying. All the crazy things this editor could bring? Doesn't matter. You'll rarely ever see anything special or new here. It wouldn't survive the popularity test.
I don't have much to say. That was enough to convince me never to buy the following SC games. Or any games at all, except D3 just because I can't skip that one. I bought SC2 mainly for custom games, and look what it got me.
I just wanted to say this out loud. I find this so unacceptable and sad.
If only it didn't just destroy casual maps. Like the topic I pointed to says, some people have been in pretty hardcore development of their maps for months. Some have their maps in battle.net. One guy only needs you to click Show More 2 times to see his map, but almost nobody will play it.
He can update it and maintain it constantly, who cares. Nobody will truly notice it. And so, even those dedicated folks end up leaving their map alone and will not touch SC2 again. At least, until this changes.
Any filter would be great, but the old system would be a good start. Just so any random guy with any map of his doing can make a game and get people to play it.
I know I only have a few posts here, but I'm actually a website moderator at sc2mapster.com (for those who don't know, its sixens other site) and I use the galaxy editor tons. The newest patch is a major improvement to the custom games system, (search bar means pop system has very little effect now. we can play whatever we want) and the editor is the most powerful tool I've come across. The only problem is people who don't want to put some time into their maps say "its way to hard! Blizzard is so mean for making us an editor thats so complicated!". I can assure anybody who thinks the editor is confusing that with a few tutorials and some work, you will begin to understand the editor, stop struggling with it, and genuinely enjoy making maps. With the search bar added, people can advertise their map on the internet ( sc2mapster ftw!!) and people can play it right away.
An important point being missed here is also that there are communities (like Sc2mapster), where you can advertise your maps. As the time of writing this the custom map system has been improved vastly with the addition of many new different ways of finding custom maps, but even before that, tournament for specifics maps were organised, and maps were advertised for, independently of the blizzard pop system.
I personally took part in several custom map tournaments for the maps bounty hunters and smashcraft, tournaments who I found through the Sc2mapster community and then advertised it to my friends.
This was pretty much how it was done before Sc2 as well. Amidst a large list of custom games with unfamiliar names, I personally also turned to other websites to find cool maps. Heck, there was no way to advertise any single player maps before other than doing so through other channels then the main game itself.
The point Im making here is not that the popularity system was a good idea, as it turned out to make the most popular maps too visible, and it being too hard to find obscure ones, but this is not really a new thing. The point is that the mapmakers have always turned to other sources than an ingame tool to advertise their maps, and those channels remain open. I would propose that what would lead one to say that the map making community is "slowly dying off", is in fact that in the influx of people wanting to jump on this whole map making thing , alot of them found that it was just not their thing, and proceeded to whine about what they perceived to be the problem. The popularity system was never good, but it was never a mapmaking community killer, at worst it just limited its growth.
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Here is what is happening with the community now, in March:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2030063492?page=1
Quite frankly, its a disgrace. Blizzard never cares. Never will. The fact that the editor is so hard to use is excusable and understandable. The fact that wasting my life on it wouldn't even guarantee that I'd be able to get any match on it is a disgrace.
It doesn't matter how powerful the editor is. What we can get is nothing, and the custom map community is just slowly dying. All the crazy things this editor could bring? Doesn't matter. You'll rarely ever see anything special or new here. It wouldn't survive the popularity test.
I don't have much to say. That was enough to convince me never to buy the following SC games. Or any games at all, except D3 just because I can't skip that one. I bought SC2 mainly for custom games, and look what it got me.
I just wanted to say this out loud. I find this so unacceptable and sad.
He can update it and maintain it constantly, who cares. Nobody will truly notice it. And so, even those dedicated folks end up leaving their map alone and will not touch SC2 again. At least, until this changes.
Any filter would be great, but the old system would be a good start. Just so any random guy with any map of his doing can make a game and get people to play it.
I personally took part in several custom map tournaments for the maps bounty hunters and smashcraft, tournaments who I found through the Sc2mapster community and then advertised it to my friends.
This was pretty much how it was done before Sc2 as well. Amidst a large list of custom games with unfamiliar names, I personally also turned to other websites to find cool maps. Heck, there was no way to advertise any single player maps before other than doing so through other channels then the main game itself.
The point Im making here is not that the popularity system was a good idea, as it turned out to make the most popular maps too visible, and it being too hard to find obscure ones, but this is not really a new thing. The point is that the mapmakers have always turned to other sources than an ingame tool to advertise their maps, and those channels remain open. I would propose that what would lead one to say that the map making community is "slowly dying off", is in fact that in the influx of people wanting to jump on this whole map making thing , alot of them found that it was just not their thing, and proceeded to whine about what they perceived to be the problem. The popularity system was never good, but it was never a mapmaking community killer, at worst it just limited its growth.