"Map Workshop"for you, you come to teach Blizzard to play games

"Map Workshop"for you, you come to teach Blizzard to play games

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"Map Workshop" for you, you come to teach Blizzard to play games




Many players have always loved and hated Blizzard. On the On one hand, Blizzard's game quality is excellent so that players are lingering. On the other hand, the control of the game also makes Blizzard bear the "bad name" of "teaching players to play games."

This situation is improving, and as the player base soars, more and more non-core players can benefit from Blizzard's many adjustments. Blizzard also took the initiative to introduce some new features for the core players, so that they can participate in the game in their favorite way -

The "Map Workshop", which started online testing in April this year, allows players to fully customize the gameplay without leaving the "watching pioneer" game elements. For example, some netizens played "Warcraft in Watching Pioneer". The copy "self-going chess" and "eat chicken". There is also a paragraph called laughter: Now you can even play "Watching Pioneer" in "Watching Pioneer"! In this model, the core player finally has the opportunity to achieve the long-cherished wish: "Teach Blizzard to play the game."

Recently, Tiger Sniffs interviewed Dan Reed and Keith Miron, two founders of the Map Workshop, who said that the “Map Workshop” has been accepted and loved by players, and behind this, Blizzard and the players Support, all contributed.

Playing games, what is it playing?


Our first consideration is to let players have fun. Players who want to experience content created by game developers can play fast games and competitive game modes, while those who want to experiment and try new games can choose map workshops. - Dan Reed

The average person's perception of the game will stop at opening a program or app, then click "Start Game", and then complete the set game goals.

However, some of the core players who have been through the battlefield has long been tired of the routines designed by game developers. They are looking forward to adding their ideas to the game, so the "map editor" came into being. Players can make their mods, ie game scripts. To define your gameplay.

If the average player is playing the gameplay made by the game designer, many core players are playing the game itself.

Game developers have long discovered the need for players. In the early years, ID Software's founder, John Carmack, personally developed a map editor for Doom and Quake to encourage players to modify their games. Later, the "Half-Life" series developed from the Quake engine also opened the map editor, and the "Counter-Strike" Mod, which was later famous in the world, was born. After that, the map editor is part of the game.

For example, Blizzard, in the "World of Warcraft 3" with the WE editor (WorldEditor), because of its powerful features, is still a good partner for many game developers to develop and learn.

But the map editor also causes some problems: because it still requires a considerable amount of programming learning, the development difficulty is still relatively high. Moreover, because of the ability to use graphics and various elements that are not part of the game itself, it is forced by the player's level of programming, and some of the mods have a vicious bug, which seriously affects the player's gaming experience. And, from a business perspective, the commercialization of some mods will also affect the interests of the game makers themselves.

The "Map Workshop" of "Watching Pioneer" is not a "map editor", but is more similar to the "level editor". Players can create their own rules based on the elements of the game itself. Compared to most "map editors", the map workshop is simpler (but still requires a certain programming foundation), and will not impact the entire "watching pioneer" game experience.

The "level editor" is not so much a tool as it is gameplay. Based on this gameplay, it is even possible to play the game alone. For example, Nintendo's "Mario Manufacturing" series. The fun is also very easy to understand: the rules of the game you create are shared with friends, or open on the Internet, you can instantly create a countless play scenes and connections between people, which is equivalent to the work of the game production to the netizens, with Double the fun.

It can be said that the map workshop is on the line, so that "Watching Pioneer" has another game mode, enriching the gameplay, which is backed by the unremitting efforts of the two programmers.

Blizzard's attack


Usually, the company will give us a chance to try to develop prototypes of some functions every year, such as map workshops, so we will make full use of this opportunity! During this hackathon, everyone on the game team can make whatever they want. If the team leader likes what we do, sometimes it might be added to Watchman. - Keith Miron

Since 2016, Dan Reed and Keith Miron have been discussing the idea of making a “map workshop”, but the heavy development work at the time kept them from falling into the idea.

Previously, Dan Reed was a senior game mechanic at Blizzard. Most of his work time was spent on developing a scripting system called Statescript, which is simply a Blizzard's own, for non-programmers (such as level design). Visual) game editor. It sounds like this, he later developed a map workshop for players is also a matter of course.

Keith Miron is Blizzard's senior game logic engineer. He has developed the Play of the Game patent, which is the “best of the best” the mechanism in each game. It will playback the system decision after the end of a game. The most exciting shots, and whether you are the other side or the other side will see this playback together - this seemingly simple function, there is complex logic behind it.

With the concerted efforts of these two experienced developers, the development of the map workshop was “surprisingly smooth”. But the only obstacle is still time. It was not until 2019 three years later that they realized all the functions and brought the "Map Workshop" online.

After the launch, the player ushered in a warm response:

"PVE is stationed in hope."

"You can eat chicken in your ass."

"Hurry up and make a 2fort."

You can find similar words in every player community. Some players who originally left the "Watching Pioneer" also said they are ready to come back and try this new model.

Keith Miron revealed that the entire map workshop is now thriving. There are currently 290,000 unique game codes in the map workshop. More than 152,000 creators have built games in the subway workshop. There are also, 4.64 million players who have already played map workshops.

Much of this achievement is due to the two people's efforts to balance the “map workshop”. For a limited time, they want to ensure that both novice and old players can have fun:

"We also know that no matter what new system is introduced, we must let the novices get started, so we decided to use the drop-down menu. Players can experiment with their functions. We also want to ensure that experienced players can Fully implement their ideas, so we also provide support for loops and nested values."

And after the feature goes online, they also have a lot of new plans to implement. For example, they recently added a new feature that allows players to export map workshop scripts to text format so that players who prefer text can edit scripts differently. For example, add more script examples to the map workshop to show off the new features on the line.

We tried to put out the homemade gameplay in their favorite map workshops from the two developers. But the two may be "not very biased towards the script developer," and said "I like it very much. We also like to see it." What the players made! They created gameplay that we didn't think of before."

But obviously, the map workshop is just an endpoint from scratch and as a resident function of the game, it will continue to operate. After all, there will be some more popular games. Will Blizzard build a market and even charge for the player's self-built game rules like Bethesda's mod? And will the popular self-built rules be included in the ladder and even OWL ("Watching Pioneer" League)?

This may be something the player cares more about.

Watching the Watching Pioneer


The goal of the map workshop has two aspects. One is to let content creators make the content they like and learn about the game's development process. The second is to let the players of "Watching Pioneer" has a new way to experience this ever-changing game. - Keith Miron

Although most of the time, game companies are happy to see players making their games for the second time. But sometimes the disorder caused by the second creation, as well as the loss of commercial interests, will make them very angry.

In June 2017, the parent company of the GTA series, Take-Two, wrote a paper lawyer's letter, suing the famous GTA Mod tool OpenIV, and considering that many online mode cheating mods were developed using OpenIV. In layman's terms, OpenIV is suspected of being used to develop plugins.

This event finally reflects two phenomena:

First of all, the improper use of mod does damage the game itself, as well as the player's interests, especially for online games.

Second, even if there is a risk, the player is still very fond of a customizable game mode because it offers a lot of different gaming experiences. After the OpenIV incident, a large number of players gave a bad review to the GTA series on Steam to express their dissatisfaction. Eventually ended with the settlement of Take-Two and OpenIV developers.

It can be said that how to provide players with a variety of game experiences within the controllable risk range is the proposition of each game and manufacturer. Well done, the game's playability and longevity are doubled; if you don't do well, the game is quickly overwhelmed by the loss of balance. Players can customize the game mode, mod or map workshop, which becomes an important weight in this balancing process.

In the interview, Dan and Keith have an inclusive expectation for the player's gaming experience in Watchman: "Some players really prefer to play map workshops compared to other game modes, which is great. The outstanding thing about Watching Pioneer is that players can choose what they want to play, and they don't conflict with each other. Players can play competitive games for a while, then play for a while, and then play the map workshop for a night. Players can also concentrate on playing competitive games. There is nothing right or wrong, we want players to enjoy the game in their own way."

In the future, they also hope that the map workshop has more room for expansion, such as the combination with OWL (Watching Pioneer League): "In fact, when watching the All-Star event of the Pioneer League, we discussed recommending some map workshops. Game mode. Maybe if the map workshop has content that requires team competition in the current game mode, we will also, consider recommending."

But many of the current ideas still only remain in the imagination. After all, the development of the entire map workshop was mainly done by Dan and Keith, and several engineers and artists provided assistance. For many of the questions, we asked, such as "Is there a ‘map market?”.

Fortunately, the free box has been opened, and since then the map workshop is no longer only the two of them fighting, many players will learn how to use the map workshop on YouTube or B station, and then make them own game level. They and they are giving more joy and meaning to the "watching" process of "Watching Pioneer."


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