StarCraft 2 to Support Priced Maps, Mods

Errrm Nick Breckon forgot to mention that ALL of the money that those mods make is ENTIRELY GIVEN TO THE CREATOR OF THE MAP, blizzard doesn't get a penny out of that.

And the MAP CREATORS are who mark their map as Regular or Premium.

They are just giving the map creators a chance to make a mini market out of their custom maps.

And i don't see this a crazy idea, seeing that they even showed a video from a plane game using protoss flying units lol (you know, those where you control a plane, move it in 2D, and other planes come from the sides, from the top, all shooting, and you have to evade the shots and kill the planes, with bosses, pickups and these things), they showed a 3º person shooter too, in wich you control a ghost, or they showed too a turret... SHOOTING UNITS to enemies (not just an added skin to the shot, they were actual units that can be targeted, and fired, even in mid air, in this case those were banelings, that were killed in mid air by an "ubralisk" a custom ultralisk that they modified in the editor that had spine crawler turrets on his back, and well this thing could deform the terrain too with 1 custom skill they added) so, we will probably see games inside the game, like in warcraft 3 but some maps could make that difference extreme, even considering the diversity of maps that war 3 had, and how different they were from the original game.

As long as the map creators doesn't start beeing too greedy, in wich case their map will just not be downloaded and he/she will have to put it for free anyway, it will be all ok.

Dont over react without knowing the full story :), that i do because i saw the direct tv stream ;).

Can someone nuke every post in this story? This is one of the worst cases of misdirected nerd rage I've ever seen.

How can you possibly interpret this as ANYTHING but positive since Blizzard has stated that it is up to the map creators to set a price or not?

I mean, it's not even shipping with the game. There will obviously be a vibrant community built around free maps, just like there has always been. And maybe we will also see paid premium mods, like full-on RPGs or turn-based tactical games with custom models and sounds.

And if some people charge too much for their maps, then boo-hoo, I guess you will have to go without. Or wait for someone who isn't sitting around whining to make something similar, but free.

Some things in life cost money, pay and get them or don't pay and don't get them. That's between you and the creators. Get used to it. It's not like Blizzard isn't shipping a full game with free mod support. I cannot think of a valid reason to complain about the existence of a premium market.

I'm guessing 'premium' maps will not be editable. I don't see any other way to keep players from just duplicating and re-releasing them as free maps.

People are focusing too much on the (possible) fee part.

Ignore the money bit and focus on the fact that they will be (hopefully) offering a way for people to browse custom maps and download them in-game, it'll be freaking awesome.

RTS games are not my cup of tea. This, however, makes me much more interested in buying Starcraft 2. I'm excited about the possibilities of getting my hands on decent little RPGs. It can be cool.

Another terrible idea. What has happened to Blizzard?

Looks like Sean Malstrom's article was spot on, especially with the bnet 2.0 platform angle:

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/the-destruction-of-blizzard/

If everybody had paid .99 for DoTA? I'd be all for it. Money going to people who create the content, who come out with the brilliant ideas, not just the service (engine) provides.

I personally think this is an awesome development and something I've been waiting for a while. It may attract the people who want to make a quick buck with shit content, but if managed well, and if some level of protection is available, could just reward people who deserve it.

Worst idea in Starcraft history.

Starcraft mapping community has given so many custom game types to itself and the gaming industry. Before Battlefield's capture and hold, there was zone defense. Before Defense of the Ancient, we made Aeon of Strife. We invented Tower Defense (aka turret defense, multi defense, individual defense...). Bound, Blood, Scream, Impossible maps, Dodge maps, Phantom maps, so on and so on. We recreated other games in SC like chess, worms, bomberman, etc. etc. We created multitudes of campaigns superior in every way compare to the stock ones in SC, BW.

We made all of it cus everybody could learn from one another, and everybody was invited to play. Even when people started protecting their maps it was cus of thieves stealing the credit, and then we wrote mapping guides to make up for it. Now people are gonna be less prone to share mapping know-hows cus they can strike at profits. Not all, but many will. No doubt Blizzard will take their "as of undetermined" percentage.

I'm get on-board for this for the fan-made campaigns, cus I was there since the beginning of SC and have seen how hard the guys worked to put out full blown, voice-acted, multi-missioned campaigns. But definitely not for single maps, not even the likes of DOTA.

I say this as the creator of Aeon of Strife, the inspiration for DOTA.

If this would help something like the next Open Rebellion come out faster, I'd be all for it

paying for mods, if they're highly polished then fine. maps, stupid idea.

what Pardo is really saying.............we dont care to make any freely available content for SC2 so we rather pay minimum wage to amateurs to do the work for us while we fatten up our pockets!

Hear that? That's the sound of EA only before they cleaned up their act. They're now called Blizzard.

BS people when everyone knows all they're after is more money. It's just a small outcry here, but the common people will find out. Everything filters down from the top geeks in social circles as far as gaming goes. All the circles have them, I'm sure you do too. Fanbois will be set fire to and word of mouth will travel.

Blizzard is fricking retarded. Ever since WoW they've just been practicing the same thing. Even now they're pushing more expansion packs out by only allowing 5 levels per expansion pack instead of 10. It's no longer about making a good game or a good community, its about making a huge profit.

What's worse is they try to play it off as pure innocence. We wanna make sure they're making good quality maps and not being shilled by the big conglomerates. Oh, here, you can put this up on our site and we'll take a small portion of the proceedings just to ensure quality of services.

It's getting worse and worse with every headline. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hope Google make a game divison and kicks their ass. Since Relic sorta fell down with DoW2, Stardock isn't doing anything special as of right yet (in terms of publishing good content), and I haven't heard much of Big Huge Games in awhile.

This could lead to very good stuff. I think a way for it to work best is if Blizzard have to give the "ok" for the map or mod to be sold and you have to release for free unless you have their approval.

Insanely good idea to let people sell their maps and mods, this will only bring more quality content to the platform.

Translation: We want to make money on your ideas.

I've been making Elements of War for a few years now. Sounds fantastic to me (:

I think most people are missing the point, this being that custom maps will receive GREAT support and the SC2 map editor will be an amazing tool and be updated and improved for years to come.

SC2 is really starting to sound weak... first no lan, now some of the mods will be fee based.
I don't know bout you guys, but thats all I ever played in SC.. at lans and hectic mods which I'm sure will be turned into a fee based game.
This is so discouraging, this almost cements the idea that you're never gonna get the entire experience of a game if you just buy it retail with no DLC or whatnot.
I'm so glad there are lots of awesome games coming out right now that don't have any monthly or transaction-based fees because they are getting all of my sales *HINT* *HINT*

This is a great idea, but what's with the jab at Steam?

It's would be like Valve saying, "When making the Source engine so moddable we really tried to make it better than any other so we could suck the life out of the mod community from other games."

I don't even seen how the Valve mod community is at all competing with the Blizzard mod community. RTS/RPG titles are completely different from the multiplayer FPS mods and maps we see on the Source engine.

This sounds really exciting. It's sort of like Xbox Live's indie marketplace. There will be a bunch of high quality free maps, but there will also be pro-quality maps made by dev teams that will have a lot of custom and unique content (textures, models, animations, etc.) that will cost fifty cents to two dollars (hopefully -- anything more like five dollars would be way too much for a map or even series of maps).

couldnt some dude just duplicate a premium map and put it out for free

Horrible idea. Pandora's box will be opened.

Genius move on their part.

Now if they'll just give us a map editor to play with while they finish up the game...