How much have fans helped against SC2 ?

[Nicol Bolas]

In this thread alone youve switched your story from "the Blizz mechanics were made before the community mechanics" to " its different cause its on a different building" to " you just guessed at the mechanics" to " the mechanics are different because yours affects speed."

But those are all still true.

Oh, and I never said that you just guessed at the mechanics; I said you were suggesting a lot of things. How much effort and discussion went into the ideas is irrelevant; you threw a lot of stuff out there. Odds are something not entirely unlike one of your suggestions would show up in the game due to dumb luck.

What I am arguing is that the concepts behind them (AoE energy spells cast from protoss buildings to increase probe mining at the expense of other micro applications) were novel and unique ideas.

If you restate the ideas in the most general form possible, then yes, they're similar, though your idea misses one of Blizzard's key points. Namely that the ability should contend with other useful abilities. Granted, the DP doesn't exactly do this very well, but it was part of their design goals while it wasn't for yours. Even so:

These ideas were all presented to Blizzard (even sent to Dustins desk) and manifest in macro mechanics they developed.

Posts on a forum do not constitute "presented to Blizzard" in any meaningful way. It is arrogance of the highest order to think that Blizzard employees spend their time sifting through forums looking for ideas, and they just happened to find and like yours.

Being sent to Browder's desk does, but as has been previously stated, the Dark Pylon was already there with that ability before the contest was concluded. So there is no evident link between your idea and what Blizzard made besides exactly the kind of similarities that would result from two independent paths of development.

The last common ancestor between Ducks and the Duck-billed Platypus was a reptile that had no bill, feathers, or fur. Yet both of them have bills that upon cursor inspection seem similar. However, upon detailed analysis, one finds a great number of differences that suggest that there is no recent relation between the platypus and the duck. Much like your idea and Blizzard's.

Use Occam's Razor: which is the simplest possibility? That Blizzard sifts through forums for good ideas and they picked up on that one idea out of the thousands upon thousands out there? Or that they independently came up with an idea that shares general similarity with one of the dozens of ideas you have posted about?

We were all mostly pissed at the Tempest in the beginning

I don't remember any particular outcry against the Tempest. I mean, there were people who wanted to see the Carrier return, but that was less about the Tempest and more about wanting Carriers back.

I personally don't think the Tempest was removed due to fan demand for the Carrier. I think that the design of the Tempest wasn't working out, and the fixes to the Tempest's problems all involved creating a "Carrier with a different name." So they just decided to make it a Carrier and get it over with.

Overall, I think Blizzard has managed fan response quite well. They seem to know what they want to create, and they seem to incorporate fan preferences reasonably when it is relevant. I think fans have the most say-so over art matters. It's clear from some of the interviews that the Blizzard guys themselves really liked the old Infestor model (it was originally for a Zerg siege unit, which is why it had an opening on the top), but they decided to change it due to fan outcry.

[ArcherofAiur]

If you restate the ideas in the most general form possible, then yes, they're similar, though your idea misses one of Blizzard's key points.

Thought the proposal did not use shared energy between different abilities it did encourage decision making by having both macro and micro applications. All in all I like Blizzards variation better though.

Posts on a forum do not constitute "presented to Blizzard" in any meaningful way. It is arrogance of the highest order to think that Blizzard employees spend their time sifting through forums looking for ideas,

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...Id=16903638331


Lets try occam's razor again. Blizzard reads the forums several times a day and never sees a single thread about racially unique macro mechanics that foster decision making and multi-tasking OR they see the communities ideas and design SC2s macro system around it.

[mr. peasant]

Lets try occam's razor again. Blizzard reads the forums several times a day and never sees a single thread about racially unique macro mechanics that foster decision making and multi-tasking OR they see the communities ideas and design SC2s macro system around it.

You're treating it as if Blizzard is a single entity or have the Zerg's hive mind and everything one person reads is shared with everyone else. Odds are, the people directly involved in SC2's design and those moderating the forums are entirely different people.

Besides, just because they read the board doesn't mean they actually stop to ponder over the many suggestions being thrown their way and even if they did, it doesn't mean they chose yours.

[ManjiSanji]

Actually, I think for the most part, when it comes to creative suggestions, Blizzard ignores them, because using them could turn in to the whole, "well, they used my idea, so I should get credit for it," that they want to avoid. The greatest extent Blizzard has likely used our feedback for is artistic and flavor concerns, and balance of ideas they've already come up with and presented publicly.

I've also wondered if they see an idea on a forum and go, "Oops, can't use that one idea we came up with yesterday because JoeBob on WhateverForums posted about it a week ago."

The number of ideas that one can come up with in a game like this are, of course, finite, and as such, it's likely both fans and developers have come up with the same ideas at some point.

[mr. peasant]

Actually, I think for the most part, when it comes to creative suggestions, Blizzard ignores them, because using them could turn in to the whole, "well, they used my idea, so I should get credit for it," that they want to avoid. The greatest extent Blizzard has likely used our feedback for is artistic and flavor concerns, and balance of ideas they've already come up with and presented publicly.

I've also wondered if they see an idea on a forum and go, "Oops, can't use that one idea we came up with yesterday because JoeBob on WhateverForums posted about it a week ago."

The number of ideas that one can come up with in a game like this are, of course, finite, and as such, it's likely both fans and developers have come up with the same ideas at some point.

I don't think Blizzard has any real concern about similar ideas, or even taking someone else's idea if they wanted to, since it's impossible to prove who came up with it first. There's no paper trail to track these things and would simply be A's word against B's.

That said, I agree that Blizzard's main use of fan feedback has been primarily to reinforce their own opinions and in deciding which models to use (e.g. the Dark Templar debate) and which models need to be changed/polished (e.g. Infestors). Of course, certain issues where the community feels strongly about (e.g. Soul Hunters, ?macro debate?) do occasionally force Blizzard's hand.

[ManjiSanji]

I don't think Blizzard has any real concern about similar ideas, or even taking someone else's idea if they wanted to, since it's impossible to prove who came up with it first. There's no paper trail to track these things and would simply be A's word against B's.

Hmm, that's a fair point. I wonder if there's been any precedent for that?

Or I wonder if any game-producing company has approached a fan who has produced something worthwhile (I've seen a number of ideas, and in particular, artistic concepts that would be fantastic material for some games) and offered to purchase the idea or hire the person.

Seems a good business decision to me, most notably if said artist consistently produces unique and high-quality concepts.

[MattII]

The 'official' reasons for the Soul Hunter being dropped were that it wasn't easily readable, and that it was too focussed against the Zerg (it powred up by kiling a few infantry units, or which the Zerg have many more than the others, and such units are so much weaker), not because of fan feedback.

[ArcherofAiur]

Look all I know is that I started the Thesis almost a year ago with the following 4 goals

1) Increased emphasis on buildings (treat them like stationary units with their own personalities and functions) make the user want to come back to base to do something cool like launch a nuke or cast a global effect.

2) Make resource gathering engaging and interactive by approaching the task of collecting minerals as a "mini-game." In the original starcraft making a unit was a mini-game because you clicked to create the worker and in a little while out popped your prize (the unit!) and you had to go back and look at it in all its workery glory. And then you ordered it to go do something and you got a second prize (some resources!). The big thing was that you witnessed the fruit of your labor and that you willingly devoted some attention to your home base to improve your situation. Whats needed is a game mechanics that plays within the confines of automining and mbs (and maybe secretly mimic traditional resource collection) and is still fun.

3) Use these two things as a way to add innovation to starcraft (which many critics claim is severely lacking).
And now the one that's probably going to upset the most people

4) Use unique resource gathering systems for each race to further diversify and create three different playstyles. I would suggest keep the resources the same so that the core gameplay is the same.

Source: http://www.blizzforums.com/showthread.php?t=19753

To date every single objective has been accomplished. Even if you want to believe that the Blizzard was not influenced by any specific mechanics. Even if you want believe that Blizzard never listened to the communities input on macro. The fact still remains that Project Purification was a success

[ManjiSanji]

The 'official' reasons for the Soul Hunter being dropped were that it wasn't easily readable, and that it was too focussed against the Zerg (it powred up by kiling a few infantry units, or which the Zerg have many more than the others, and such units are so much weaker), not because of fan feedback.

I suppose they're going to say something similar for the old Infestor art too, eh?

And the removal of the Tempest and replacement with the Carrier?

I'm trying to say we should take statements like that with a grain of salt.

[MattII]

Actually they don't mention the change. Besides, why are you adament that Blizzard only dropped it due to fan pressure, their reasons seem perfectly good to me, nothing like the 'too much of an emotional connection with the original unit' that we got with the Tempest.