Just got back from BlizzCon, and here's all I could muster up for SEN:

The Custom Map Community

• Item system available for map makers.
  
• Map publishing makes it easy to share maps. Can download maps without joining games. Can choose to play any maps available on Battle.net, all will be published maps.
  

SC2 Marketplace

• Easy to find and browse maps (think DLDB).
  
• Maps can be commented and rated.
  
• Free and premium maps. Premium maps have to be bought, and the profit goes to map makers.
  

BlizzCon SC2 Development Panel:

• Lead designer on SC2 is talking about how the RTS games have changed in focus over the years. Now SC2 is supposed to be more story based with deeper characters and actual heroes. More available choices for each mission and paths you can take. Similar to Dawn of War 2, you choose what items to use and such.
  
• Desgner talking about the lava world. Two distinct cliff types (metal and rock). New water tools (ability to make lava overflow). Built in lighting effects for maps.
  
• Agra level (the truck mission from the demo vid) has alpha texture blending. No two parts of the
  map will looks the same due to alpha textures. Hard tiles available (road). Custom terrain foliage, and you can generate doodads.
  
• SC2 editor trumps WC3's. They're talking about how common it is for Blizzard to hire map makers.
  
• Custom map with an Uberlisk with units attached to his back, and he gets swarmed by 100 zerglings, explodes and kills everything.
  
• Custom map of a third person perspective shooter map. Use keyboard to move and mouse to aim. Uses custom UI to talk to other characters. All on 3rd person, great for RPGs or sniper/shooters. Ability to travel underground if desired.
  
• Last custom map is a Galaga-type map with a ship on the bottom of the screen shooting oncoming units like the arcade game.
  

SC2 Development Q&A:

• Guy asks them to clarify the term mod (they call WC3 maps "mods"). They consider all custom maps to be "mods," including SC maps - they love all types of mods.
  
• They're looking into the possibility of shareable libraries, since all maps are ultimately openly published.
  
• Tauren Marine will be in SC2 editor. Won't say about any other units.
  
• Someone asked about adding custom units (similar to what we deem "modding" for SC1). They say that they may allow it in the future, but wont be available at ship.
  
• Some guy asked about map stealing. They said it's a huge issue that they really dislike and they think publishing will fix it.
  
• Ability to adjust armor as a percentage like Warcraft 3 rather than a set value like Starcraft.
  
• They say it is pushed into 2010 and not only because of battle.net. They just aren't done with the game.
  
• Someone asked about saving heroes from a map to use in another game of the same map (like RPGs). They say you can save data from specific maps, but I don't think it's the same concept.
  
• Someone asking about character customization like having a ghost use a marine's gun. That is possible, and should be a "30 second change."
  
• They look at battle.net and monitor popular maps. If they love maps they have in the past offered jobs to map makers. Battle.net 2.0 will make this easier theoretically.
  
• Editor will be available with beta release.
  
• Map makers may be able to release betas of maps with friends.
  

BlizzCon Vids and Images:


BETA WILL START BY THE END OF 2009
(Says one of the lead developers in an interview with the DirecTV commentators)

What? TFT World Editor has this ability.. if this is true I am shocked they are not shipping it, unless I am misunderstanding..

I just think they were misunderstanding

What the hell ball shit that is so damn cool. Makes draft (respectively) look like shit.

/boner

This is so good couldn't have hoped for better engine to continue my Hells Awakening story.

So basically, they decided to let us make "Starcraft: Ghost" for them.

It's a preview inside a preview!

No wait. It's a preview we've already seen?
I assume that map has something to do with Ghost though.

They said that one of their level designers made it, and I think it was supposed to be a joke (for obvious reasons). My assumption is that all the example maps will be included in the game, so we may see StarCraft: Ghost unofficially in that form.

What I want to know is how easy the mapping/modding tools will be to use. I love the degree of customisation they're describing, though I expect maps will have to be set in a somewhat more rigid framework due to the new game engine.

Haha, couldn't agree more.
And I'm sure the engine is just like anything else, very complicated, but becomes second nature as time goes on. Such as draft/forge/edit when they first came out. LOOKS AWeSOMe THOUGH

Question I have if I was at that event, can you do both third person and RTS for different players in same map?

What I'm thinking is the Helms Deep maps. If you play as Rohan, Haldir, or the Orcs you play in the usual RTS mode. But if you play Gimli, Aragorn, Legolas (heroes) can you play third person, in the thick of the battle. I really hope this is possible, cause thats gonna be fucking amazing!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I'm actually more excited to play (and create) the UMS thats gonna be spawned from this rather then the game itself!

It should definitely be possible, they're just triggers running on players.

They don't use triggers anymore. They use code similar to C called Galaxy.

You're in for a rude awakening.

O_O so amazing
now imagine all the popular bnet maps in SC2 xD

lol, I can only imagine what they're thinking when they look at the game list and see all those maps named like - Strip Miley, I will NOT press start, Temple dl=ban.
Nah, they probably only monitor TFT. *Sigh* DotA whores
Thanks Deviln for the info. I hope blizzard won't push the release date again. Might as well be saving for Diablo III instead

Diablo 3 still doesn't have all 5 classes yet, so I think it is safe to say that StarCraft 2 will definitely come out before it.

This is a welcome change. JASS always seemed sort of... odd. But now it seems it will be something familiar (hopefully)!

Aw. They should have used Javascript with one of those high speed engines like V8 or Tracemonkey or some such to get high performance script processing.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 16 2009, 10:11 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.