haven’t seen anyone do this before:
In no way I am paying for maps. Yarr, a pirate is free
I wish they allowed it back in Wc3 modding days. I pretty much cancelled a lot of mods after a lot of work because of dying community and basically seeing no gain out of the end result (I got into modding after I saw how Quake 2 mods and expansions were coming out, all done by small teams and actually being sold thanks to id Software).
Some of my work with Wc3. 
It would have to be a very awesome map for me to pay a few bucks for it. It was fairly easy to create content in Starcraft 1, so I would assume it would also be fairly easy to create in Starcraft 2.
thats a massive step forward …
So far all content created was defacto owned by Blizzard, it was not only “not allowed to sell it” (as it is commonly with mods)
Might give a sign to other developers of heavily moddable games too
would easily be willing to pay $2 for a good made dota map for example.
And for a fullscale campaign, much more. after all we fork out $45 here for game addons …
I’m definitely looking forward even more now because if the modding goes as far as it sounds this engine might be of good use for more than just simple rts mods
@discord: it was even easier in WC3
the main problem with SC and WC3 was and still is the lack of documentation on the scripted functionality … with the interest in really supporting moders I guess we can assume that they finally add at least basic documentation, so its no longer a hack guess game
@ johan, i think i should have just written your post for you.
@ dreamora, lets see what they give us. I’d be game for some collab on it…
Nice post there, supporting piracy on a forum filled with game developers 
*of a MOD. Hell, not even a mod. A MAP. This is not xbox live where brainless sheep pay for 4 new mp maps, this is PC where people want FREE mods. I paid for a game. Why do I need to pay more to enjoy it for the max? Either make it only 20-30$ so I can spend rest of the money on mods, OR make them free for game’s 50$ price
Hit a nerve there
Welcome to the world of Johans dreams.
If a modding team is investing hundreds of hours and more (I don’t want to know how many thousand hours went into Counter Strike) its just fair to expect something in trade and lets face it: the majority of gamers can at best be classified as parasites, at worst as a virus.
There might be many who try to missuse this and really sell crap, but also it opens up SC2 as a game for serious mod developers and I’m pretty confident that we will see many great new campaigns that otherwise never would happen.
Just because it’s a mod doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the price people are asking. There are a great many mods which far better than iPhone games which cost something.
Mod vs. Game.
To be honest, both are collaborative creative efforts and if they are of appropriate quality, deserve compensation. You paid for a game, but now someone had put many hours into more content for you to play. You’re getting a full game for the full price, and a system to get endless content, most of which will be worthless, but some will be excellent.
Pirating creative works is pirating creative works. Mod or game, doesn’t matter. Today’s most popular games were actually mods.
How many people have said, “Unity can make a web version of Counter Strike!” That’s a mod.
The entire Tower defense genre? mod from Warcraft III.
In closing, I just think it’s silly that people are getting touchy here. We’re developers using the Unity engine, which allows individuals or small teams to put out fully polished games. Here is Blizzard, offering modders to do likewise. You wouldn’t tell a graphic artist that his model/texture should be ‘free’ because it’s not a ‘full game’. Creative effort is creative effort, and should be appropriately rewarded.
I think people are confusing “mods”, which are usually… actually, they are always a bunch of modifications, minor changes using existing or some random “free” new content created by community members themselves.
No one in their right mind will pay for such thing, no matter how many billions of hours were spent on making minor changes.
On the other hand, TC’s or Total Conversions, or even mods which pretty much come close to TC (even though they will be mods) will sell the most online. These are almost always new campaigns created by modders, basically expansions but free. Well, now they can get paid for them and most of the campaign creators (for a lot of games) deserve to be paid for the amount of work they put into creating new worlds and stories for players.
Either way, if anyone feels like pirating anything, even a crappy mod that doesn’t deserve to be making any money, well, you probably then pirate AAA and Indie games out there as well. Mods are nothing but another branch of Indie development.
Do you know what you’re talking about?
If you make, for example, web version of cs it is DIFFERENT game. A mod is a modification of already existing game, and to play this mod you need original game, hence the modification, not a standalone game.
And genre can’t be a mod. There is a difference between stand alone game and a mod that requires the game to run. If you are serious, go make your own game and ask money. If you make a mod, either release it for free or don’t release it at all. I am not full of gold so I can spend money on some mods for a game. But I know majority won’t mind and will spend their money anyway. Kinda sad, but not my problem since that’s not my money.
Yes. I do know what I’m talking about.
My point was that Counter Strike was a Mod. And yes, the Tower Defense genre was created from a Warcraft III mod.
Perhaps my definition of ‘mod’ might be incorrect. People used an editor to create maps and level scripts. Whether they were small changes, “blue armor instead of red armor”, or ‘total conversions’, it doesn’t matter to me.
Whether they used a Game Editor, like the Starcraft or Warcraft level editors, or a Game Engine like Unity, again, doesn’t matter.
It saddens me to hear that people wouldn’t even consider paying money for someone’s work. I think it’s sad you would only pay for a standalone game. I think it’s that kind of thinking which could slow this trend from growing. Companies release expansions all the time. These expansions have a few new units, some more story, maybe some more art. Sounds a lot like what a good modder would be able to deliver.
Its actually also this attitude that has brought the industry to the point where it is.
Addons cost 3-year back fulltime prices here now ($45 per addon), content that originally was meant to be a DLC or Addon result in distinct games (the upcomming Halo 3 “addon”, Life4Dead 2 …)
And the more people follow this sick attitude the more the gamers as whole will suffer as less and less people are willing to invest any time into it without directly asking for $10 - $30 for it, which would be a step back to stone age, not a step forward
I rarely buy addons/dlc. Why? Because they have not enough stuff in them. Well if you make a mod that’s like full game, and sell for 10 bucks, I might consider. But if you add some new maps, 3 new units, off to the booty.
Sad but truth. Some people need to see what’s worth the money and what’s not.
I’m not saying that every hour put in to any mod needs to be charged for.
There will be plenty of people who develop mods and distribute them for free. Some people release free iPhone games, while other people charge. It’s up to you. Whether or not people buy your products will depend on their quality and the audience demand.
I don’t think this trend is doing harm to the industry. I think it could actually lead to something more beneficial (for all). If content is being developed by the players, then the actual work done by the studio is less.
The studio has to put less time in to the game, so the overall price is reduced. Players who want to create their own content for sale can now earn some money from their efforts. Players who bought the ‘game’ for $25-$30 can now justify spending $15 on player generated content. Why have a few level designers when you could have hundreds? (Yes, most will be terrible, but some will be good. So good, they’d be worth a dollar or two).
However, there will always be distribution for free, just like software. Just because someone doesn’t want to spend their money on someone else’s efforts doesn’t mean that the game/mod/content isn’t worth money.
So do I, I only buy addons that are worth it.
But expecting fullscale addons at $10 is just as unrealistic for a HD game. Its not 1024x768 age anymore.
On the other hand, I commonly don’t support EAs yearly “brand trash throwout”
Why not? Gmod born as mod, and still is a mod. Sells for 10$, is awesome. And how is resolution related? Have you seen sc2 graphics? They aren’t that HD
how is it resolution dependent: 1024x768 age games didn’t have normal maps, specular maps, displacement maps nor anything.
The texture resolutions where <= 1024x1024
Today, the effort to create the visual side is 3 - 5 times as high but the development time is commonly even shorter, so the staff size required is several times larger.
As for the visuals: yes I’ve seen them and the visuals look much better than what most other RTS games currently offer, especially it is very consistent and smooth.
Neither SupCom nor the C&C can offer that.
Additionally, Blizzard RTS are dominant in their sector for story and mp balance reasons, not for visuals. Blizzard never was, power / feature wise, the top end of the currently possible, as blizzard unlike most EA and Ubisoft studios has some intelligent lead and senior designers that understand the fundamentals of successful game development.
One of those very base things you have to understand is that the larger the base of users you support is, the more licenses you can and will sell.
Top end visuals are great but you waste far too much time on making it nice for high end only, frustrating lower end users or you take far longer / have to invest far more money to support them (The 400k crysis sells shows that, just as well as WoW massiv success does which supports down to pre shader DX8 hardware)
I prefer a smooth consistent visual style that attracts a large amount of users.
Also, I don’t see how the visuals of the base game is related to mods.
Lets take the most successful mod ever, Counter Strike and how it drove the HL technology further as an example. Without it, the technology would likely not have gained the possibilities it has gotten during that time.