Hello,
I’m looking at the current state of StarCraft II and issues raised by multiple engaged people from community (mostly youtubers like PiG, WinterStarcraft etc.).
I know that there is no active development team for Starcraft II. However, since there was announcement made for the upcoming Starcraft game, maybe it would be possible to provide a way to transition part of bugfixing / small improvements Starcraft to community under supervision of Blizzard?
I’m not talking about developing completely new things, but for example there is a bug related to ladder and improper placement of players to Master League that lasts for years. Maybe this kind of things could be addressed by some community people with technical expertise on voluntary basis. I believe there are plenty of people that wouldn’t mind spending some of their free time to fix things in the beloved game.
To sum up:
- Small development team from community - all NDAs, fully volunteer
- Goal: bugfixing/improving small things related to the game, putting balance updates
- close collaboration with community personas - those are people that for sure care about the game and would identify most significant issues that game suffers to
- close collaboration with professional players - maybe more frequent balance patches, bugs spotted during the game?
- Everything under strict supervision of Blizzard
Is there any chance to at least consider this kind of approach?
Regards,
EDIT: Or… Have you thought about setting up crowdfunding of additional features/functionalities in Starcraft 2?
I mean something like dashboard with the list of changes that could be done to the game and the potential cost it will need. Then people could crowdfund those changes - that could be done directly inside blizz ecosystem or via some other place like kickstarter, gamefound etc.
Isn’t that what the Balance Council was doing?
Was it? I mean balance changes are actually addition. I meant mainly bugfixes that are reported since long time and clearly not fixed by blizz team.
And regarding crowdfunded features - that could be something more like e.g. modding feature for the lobby/main menu so the community could customize the entry screen on their own.
Or feature called SC1 Battle.net experience.
Modding section is for community map makers to put their ideas into life with the arcade mode. feature are expanded for those making custom campaign, are for balance tweaks and changes, I thought the Balance Council was community and pro-gamers for sc2 coming together collected by Blizzard to keep the sc2 balance alive, I thought someone even did a few COOP updates as well.
The SC2 Balance Council is a group responsible for making decisions about the balance of the game StarCraft II, aiming to address gameplay issues and improve the competitive experience. It includes input from players and aims to create a fair environment for all races in the game.
old article:
But am i able with mods to customize current main menu e.g. like i said to make it more like sc1 battle.net screen? There were on team liquid posts referring to such changes.
they are not gonna let randos mess with the programming. all those changes you want will never ever happen. and most are pointless. and as for blizz fixing bugs, they have been doing a pretty good job with that lately in the last few patchs.
as for fixing the masters border bug. its been well known since before blizz stopped with that side of things. meaning its a most likely a side effect with the bonus pool, prelim mmr and real mmr all being thrown at a new player. this fixs itself after you play long enough anyways.
Not anymore. It was abused so the ability was removed. And for that reason it likely never come back.
That’s what happens when the public at large is allowed to mess with things outside the designated sandboxes.
Ah ok, had no idea. Sad story then 
And what do you think about crowdfunding campaigns so that Blizz will be able to engage some of their teams or outsource this to some external company under strict regulations?
I’m not talking about things like another expansion, but things out of scope of mods but small enough so they could be handled by small size team and would be greatly appreciated by the players and community?
Was this kind of idea ever proposed? Does it sound dumb or there is some grain of win-win when it comes to Blizzard and Community?
They’ve never said one way or another that I’ve seen. But since it’s never been allowed on any of the old games, even older than SC2, I suspect they wouldn’t go for it.
There are talks with a Korean studio to possibly make a successor to SC2, but it’s in the early phases of talks so nothing is for sure.
I’m not sure I understand the topic but I wanted to share a little of what I know.
There are definitely mapmakers/modders who have been assisting with balance changes and bug fixes but only to the extent that can be done through the Galaxy Editor. There have also reportedly been some new Discord servers for patch discussions that community members are overseeing. Meanwhile, the TeamLiquid Map Contests have long been the source of new ladder maps. And for years Blizzard has used freelance artist Nicolas Chaussois for new player portraits. We’ve also had freelance authors do short stories for StarCraft.
As far as external studios go, there has been plenty of artwork done for other franchises externally. But with the Warcraft RTS game Reforge/Remaster work, Playside Studios took over WC3R development for a while after Classic Games stopped working on it and Blackbird Interactive also handled a lot of work on WC1R, WC2R, and the recently announced updates to WC3R. Some mapmakers from Hive Workshop were also brought in for the Forsaken Kingdom WC3R campaign.
It’s also worth mentioning NetEase which handles publishing Blizzard games in China, often with changes to help them comply with the laws there. They also co-developed Diablo Immortal.
So external help has certainly been used for the Blizzard RTS games. It sounds like at least some community help is being provided for upcoming patches and the gathering and summary of feedback. But they wouldn’t have any access or tools to help with the borders bug(which also often gives players Bronze borders as well as Masters) or addressing issues with hackers.
Well… generally i’ve been thinking if there is something possible to be done to provide such improvements that are not possible to be done via Galaxy Editor like the mentioned hackers issues, borders bug or some UI changes that could improve social aspect of SC2 or anything else that community could come up with. I guess this kind of things may require more technical knowledge and effort than balance changes or changing map pool.
Since Blizzard announced no more development of SC2, I’ve been thinking about some community engagement (few people could get access to modify this things) or setting up crowdfunding to develop some new things for the game if community would pay for hiring some company or making it easier for Blizzard to arrange some team inside.
Anyways, thanks for explanations what’s and why’s 