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Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

kotaku.com

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Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#31

Post by scrollaway »

justicezyx wrote: post #4
devwastaken wrote: post #3

In other news, Blizzard pays less than $1000 to make sure modders can't make starcraft better than they can.

I am particularly confused by Blz's rationale. Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. While Blz seems always intended to disallow any modder involvement at all. Most Tower Defense games own their popularity to the early days of SC and warcrfatIII. And Dota is basically just a warcraft III…

They did capitalize on the modder community in World of Warcraft (almost by accident, thank you Sam Lantinga! and what a success it turned out to be).

But what you need to understand about Blizzard is they are extremely conservative about the game experience. They're proud of their work and while they never consider it perfect, they want the one experience for all their players to be consistent and to have the consistent feel of Blizzard polish (which lacks with mods). They're the Apple of game design.

It's also a bit of a different question when you're talking about pre-wow and post-wow Blizzard. Pre-wow it's also a matter of "it's hard". Nowadays it's easier, and their philosophy is I believe slowly changing.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#34

Post by ajmurmann »

taurath wrote: post #14
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Valve basically own a significant fraction of its success to community: CS (based on modder produce) Dota2 (bought from a modder); these 2 are their big revenue sources. I simply do not understand this. Moders created an entirely new genre and basically brought Competitive Gaming to the masses, yet Blz won't allow modding on Overwatch. I've had discussions with people who support this and their rationale basically b…

I'm not so sure. Skin sales are the entire business model of Dota2 and LoL - the difference is who develops the skins. Valve has shown they rarely want to be involved in dlc and skin creation, they've always been community first in that sense. An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.

> An RTS or an RPG lends itself to modding tools better than an FPS in general.

We got some awesome FPS mods in the past though. Team Fortress and Counter Strike stick out as the most prominent examples.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#35

Post by takeda »

sparaker wrote: post #13
failrate wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have returned it after I made a personal copy... maybe.

Who is to say this guy didn't do the same :)

At that point that would be really stupid of him, since now they know who he is.

Instead creating posts and teasing other people (for karma?) he should just leak it. People are saying that it would be wrong etc. For goodness sake this thing is older than half of people on HN. Everything there is outdated and piracy-wise is not much worth.

Instead, preserving it to study and learn things about game development at that time would be far more valuable for the common good.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#36

Post by ajmurmann »

Sabinus wrote: post #23
duskwuff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The site linked is much larger and busier than HN. It's in no danger of going down.

Possibly so Kotaku doesn't get the ad revenue/page hits.

If they wrote the article why would we want to not allow them to get the revenue? First time I've seen this practice on HN.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#37

Post by ajmurmann »

scrollaway wrote: post #28
ilugaslifg wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus christ. They successfully bought him off with $20 worth of flimsy plastic crap and company scrip. What a miserable shame.

BlizzCon all expenses paid is several grands alone. Whether they should have shelled out for more is another question, but it's certainly not "$20 worth of flimsy plastic crap".

BlizzCon tickets are practically free to Blizzard though, aren't they?

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#38

Post by eropple »

derefr wrote: post #27
eropple wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the contrary, they always want to redo what community did to drive off their creations... While they've missed a few here and there, their development strategy has served to make them approximately a hojillion dollars. As a fan (I built tower defense, RPG, and Diplomacy maps as a kid--MAN do I miss Diplomacy maps, those were great), I kinda wish they would return to encouraging that stuff and push it to the fore…

What is/was a Diplomacy map? Anything to do with the strategy board game of the same name?

Inspired by and vaguely similar to. Widgets (usually those gray domes) would be placed on a map that may or may not look like, say, Europe, and you'd have N players whose goal was to possess (own structures by) as many of them as they could manage. Structures were usually super expensive, and resources (or, in some versions, units themselves) were acquired only by owning those control points. No allied victories.

Once the balance was dialed in (lots of maps had nation-specific special units and stuff, which made it tough), it could create some of the most interesting, dynamic UMS games I ever played. Sometimes they'd go literally hours. Early land grabs followed by huge back-and-forths, usually only limited by the sprite limit (my own maps avoided sprite-y units like Carriers, Goliaths, and Valkyries because of it; lots of Marines and Firebats, trying to make them feel like Diplomacy "armies" that could plausibly bounce off one another).

The only games I can recall that were more fun were Last Man Standing Regicide ("Shimo-style") games in Age of Empires II.

Re: Guy Finds StarCraft Source Code and Returns It to Blizzard

#39

Post by detaro »

ajmurmann wrote: post #37
scrollaway wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BlizzCon all expenses paid is several grands alone. Whether they should have shelled out for more is another question, but it's certainly not "$20 worth of flimsy plastic crap".

BlizzCon tickets are practically free to Blizzard though, aren't they?

Since tickets are "only" $199 normally anyways, the ticket is clearly not the expensive part of "going to BlizzCon all expenses paid".
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