Blizzard dev chat on Twitter

[Nicol Bolas]

Why the fuck not?

Because it takes too much work.

OK, take the Soul Hunter. This is an old unit that was cut from the game over 2.5 years ago. This means that the last time anyone opened the source file in Maya/Max/XSI/etc was probably 2.5 years ago.

Oh, they still have it around; don't worry about that. Game developers almost never throw anything away. At least not while they're still making the game.

However, that was 2.5 years ago. Your Maya/Max/XSI/etc exporters have changed. The way you communicate with those tools has changed. The shaders you're using have changed; the model may be talking to shaders that don't exist anymore. The animation system may have changed without updating any of the source animations, so you'll need to fix those. And so on.

Now, Blizzard could spend time to get a 2.5 year old model up-and-running in the game, just so they can slap it into a map editor. Or they could be doing anything else.

This isn't WC3. It's not like there's going to be thousands of creep models for us to work with. We need every unit model we can get.

For what? Blizzard is big on modding, but they're not going to spend precious artist time that could be reskinning the Carrier or fixing the Extractor production animation just so that modders can have a few more units to play with.

Furthermore, I think you're ignoring the fact that the campaign will have a lot of campaign specific units. Firebats, Vultures, Goliaths, etc. It will also have some unique units (Omegalisk). Not to mention the ability to build Frankensteinian monstrosities (like the giant Ultralisk with Spine Crawlers on its back).

So exactly what is the problem?

[SlickR]

cool questions and cool answers!

[pure.Wasted]

So exactly what is the problem?

The first part of your post is a good point... I'm not aware of the technical side of things, so maybe it does indeed pose a problem in the way you suggest. Although that said, there ought to be plenty of newer-esque models that should have no problems at all being ported in.

As for what the problem is... there's a lot of goodies that are in danger of never being seen again -- and these are just the very obvious ones that I can recall, that we've seen; I'm sure there's hundreds more that we never saw:

-Archons with legs
-Military Hellions with 3 wheels
-pre-Beta Thors
-pre-Medivac Dropship
-Immortals with big guns
-golden Void Ray

They might seem trivial, but you can never anticipate how a model could come in handy (and not every good map-maker also happens to know good skinners). For instance, a player might "outfit" Void Rays with different weapons (think pre-beta BC) and this would be visually demonstrated via the gold/silver color scheme. Same for the Thor, which has carried many different weapons throughout its run.

Let alone stuff like the Nomad (which, at this point, I sincerely hope made it into the campaign somehow), or the 10+ models the Sentry went through when it was still the Stasis Orb or the Star Relic or what have you.

Is it a huge deal? Probably not. But at the same time, I don't think it's that unreasonable a request, either.

[Maul]

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Why the fuck not? This isn't WC3. It's not like there's going to be thousands of creep models for us to work with. We need every unit model we can get. If they're worried about releasing the same unit again in an expansion.... may I introduce to Blizzard the WC3 Dragonhawk which exists in two versions, as a campaign unit and as a Human unit for TFT. The world didn't implode or anything.

This is such bullshit my laptop is starting to stink up. Who's with me?

I'm fairly certain he's referring to the beta editor.

[pure.Wasted]

I'm fairly certain he's referring to the beta editor.

Sure, guys. Just keep on bringing up logical arguments and making me look like an idiot. Hey, sure. Great idea.



I actually considered that he might be, but saw nothing in his language to suggest that he's speaking specifically about this one, as opposed to any others. If he is, that would certainly... erm... alleviate my concerns.

If I missed something and overreacted, I blame the time, lack of caffeine in my system, and Toyota.

[Perfecttear]

I was realy sadened by the static defense answer
I mean realy, they are not meant for defending your base or stoping enemy units, and are only meant to stop an ocasional harass, are they joking?
That is so stupid. And i was building them to actualy stop an enemy atack to my base, like in sc1 with canons at your expo, oh was i wrong.
Currently the only way to stop an atack in sc2 is to defend with your whole army, and the one who wins the battle, basicly has won the game.

And they should just remove the Archon fro the game, no need to have units with no real purpose im the game. As blizzard sees it Archon = Broodling , something you don't build since you don't realy need it, but use it anyways since you get it for free.

And them posiblle not having people able to play other people from different regions at the game release has just shocked me. They can just forget about E- sport and competition without that.
They are bether of not even releasing tha game , if they don't have that.

[Triceron]

-Archons with legs
-Military Hellions with 3 wheels
-pre-Beta Thors
-pre-Medivac Dropship
-Immortals with big guns
-golden Void Ray

I'm a modder and I see no problems with accomplishing this with the editor whatsoever.

http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/s...al-add-160847/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiZByrXwfkM

Case in point, this is modified and is playable without the Galaxy Editor. When we do have the Galaxy editor, we will be able to modify units to look like however we wish, given a little spit and elbow grease.

Modders have cracked the .m3 code and they work in most 3D platforms. This plus Galaxy editor, and you can add custom model bits as addons for existing units. This means you can have legs on your Archon.

Stuff like old Thor, old Voidray, old Tempest are pretty minor modifications. Even then, unique models will be available and abundant once people start making up their own creations by swapping pieces and parts of different models.

[Skyze]

Is there any word on when the next Blizzchat on twitter will be? I missed it and didnt get to ask questions =/

basically I just want to know if there will be any contests, maybe on twitter again for beta keys to people who ACTUALLY want them, not newbs getting 6 keys and selling them all on ebay =/ They really need to do beta's on a $20 per key basis from blizzard, weed out all the assholes who dont want to play and just gonna sell them off anyways.. And weed out all the idiots who cant even build a probe while old Blizzard Friends list/high competitive esports people like me are stuck without a key.. Its bullshit really.

[Hav0x]

Is there any word on when the next Blizzchat on twitter will be? I missed it and didnt get to ask questions =/

basically I just want to know if there will be any contests, maybe on twitter again for beta keys to people who ACTUALLY want them, not newbs getting 6 keys and selling them all on ebay =/ They really need to do beta's on a $20 per key basis from blizzard, weed out all the assholes who dont want to play and just gonna sell them off anyways.. And weed out all the idiots who cant even build a probe while old Blizzard Friends list/high competitive esports people like me are stuck without a key.. Its bullshit really.

Just because someone may be new to starcraft it doesn't make them any less deserving of a key than you. If you really wanted one that bad you should have gone to Blizzcon.

[SinsWage]

They said they'd be looking at the issue of connection with people on other gateways in the long term, but from an e-sports standpoint this is a non issue. No one who is extremely serious about the game is going to play versus people on another continent. The possibility for serious lag increases exponentially. For people who are more casual it sucks because you can't play with your friends, but e-sports isn't about that.