I work for Isotx, an indie gaming company. Recently we've introduced CrosuS, which is an uploader and mod/map database for various games. You can find Crosus and download it here.

Anyway, the part where mods (and maps) come into play for Starcraft would be right now. As a long time SC player, I really would like CrosuS to have an impressive selection. I'd like to have some Starcraft players use the program as well, then give feedback. Mods and maps are what we're looking for, and I know this forum has a good base of mod-makers (amirite?).

As an incentive, the person with the most uploads per month receives a $250 voucher from Amazon.com. Last month's winner took it with only twenty or so mods, which is easy to beat. This isn't a gimmicky contest, with fine print or regulation. It's more of us paying for you to expand the Starcraft section of our site. We're also offering an additional $250 voucher to a randomly selected upload, so there's a chance even if you just submitted one, you'll win.

I'd do this myself, but I have several other tasks and no time to upload the best Starcraft maps/mods. So I'm turning to you, and hoping some of you guys will upload your mods or your favorite mods others have created

We're also looking to do interviews with prominent mod-makers of various video games. If you are one for Starcraft, feel free to email me at MONIQUE@ISOTX.COM. These interviews will buy you and your mod 15 minutes of fame on our website in the coming months as we redesign a CrosuS specific website hub.

Seems interesting...

...but I think this directly goes against SEN's advertising rules. Expect this topic either to be deleted or locked soon.
Sorry mate =/

I don't see any real problem with this as it is; this thing seems kinda cool and I don't mind him asking for help. If Moose or someone says otherwise, it'll be closed, but for now I'll leave it be.

EDIT: Although I just noticed it was in the projects forum, so it has been moved accordingly.

I'm really not trying to advertise, so I'm sorry if it comes across as one!

We're not making money from this application at all--in fact, it's cost us too much so far. Not doing this for traffic, either. I really would just appreciate help from people who use mods here and maps that could submit. It's all free, no ads, not spyware; the program has been featured in a lot of gaming sites (Escapist, for one). Our Starcraft base is just really lacking at the moment, and we could use both players and mod-creators to help boost it. People who really get Starcraft in its current state--again, I'd do it, but not much time (and my free time would much rather be spent playing SC or GTAIV or something other than overtime work!). You, of course, get credit and a link to your site if you made the mod (and, so we're not thieves, to upload a mod, you have to submit the author and homepage). The contest is just hopefully to get you guys to do it, because contests, well, encourage people Free money, and all that.

I also was hoping some of you might be mod makers interested in being showcased when we launch our redesign. Interviews are fun, and I'd like to know why certain people made certain maps or mods.

Sorry for posting it in the wrong place. I'm notoriously bad with forums.

Also, just because you both called me a guy, I'm actually not. I'm a chick.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 11 2008, 1:38 am by Monique.

All this sounds really, really interesting.
Frankly, we're the only community that actually churns out decent mods for Starcraft.
This iz a hidden message. >_>

So, just to clarify, CrosuS is basically a client that lets you upload and download game content from a database and is powered by the community?

Guys, isn't Monique a girl's name obviously? Well, it's just that girls don'r come across these forums so often...
Well, what she says does make sense, she isn't exactly "advertising", but we should let Moose choose. In my opinion, what she offers is a good chance...

Unfortunately, simply saying you want mods is kind of vague. Different communities have different definitions of what constitutes a mod, what's allowed in mods (I hear that Starcraft.org, for example, abhors grafting work), and general standards of judging. So, what kind of mods are you looking for? Any? Non-grafted, which can run on any version of Starcraft, or grafted too, which have edits to the tech trees and abilities? Mostly we do grafting work here, but some people don't like that sort of thing...

I might look into this, though...sounds somewhat interesting. Maybe I'll even submit a couple of my SC mods--once I know what you're looking for, that is. Although I'm kind of retired now, I think people would agree I made some pretty damn good mods back in the day. Back in the day being up to about a month ago

Guys, stop being so overprotective and distribute our mods! Let's get SeN and Stacraft some promo
Sounds rather interesting, I'll see how I can help.

I signed up, hopefuly i can be of some use. Site looks nice but the forum layout isnt my cup of tea.

I'll sign up there, maybe finish and publish a pair of mods I had abandoned. Hoping this to increase modding productivity!

Ok I'm going to just answer every question real quick:

- Right now CrosuS is a relatively new client that's exactly what FlyingHat said. It's basically a place where you can upload a mod, download a mod, find a map for games, etc, with a community aspect. It's free, because we want it to become a community where people go. Charging money rarely helps communities grow and the mods are not ours to profit from--only to expose, and hopefully expose our company in the same way since we make HL2 mods

- I joined the Isotx team as a community manager a while ago, and because I play video games way too much, wanted them to expand and open up to subsets of a gaming community. Since CrosuS is new, they needed someone to haggle them into this because a lot of the people coding were clueless about what games have great mods and what games don't. I'm choosing Starcraft and Warcraft III as well as Half-life 2 to be my areas of focus; they're just my personal favorite games, and from my experience, have some of the best add-ons.

- To Lord: We're looking for all types of mods. I can probably talk to the lead developer and ask him to even make a check box for non-grafted vs. grafted in options, so people know what they're downloading and such if you think it'd help Right now CrosuS is in a very basic stage and I'm required to evaluate it daily, giving feedback. That being said, if you have feedback that's negative, let me know and I can probably help fix it within the week. I have the team's numbers and emails, and they listen. I'm not 100% pleased with CrosuS myself, so I've been working with people to hopefully make it more gamer friendly. I think it suffers from a team that never were hardcore gamers, or never pulled all-nighters on Lost Temple (sorry, favorite SC map of all time for me, had to drop a reference), or never played Counter-strike. Most of them, at best, played through the storyline of games mentioned and never did multiplayer.

- Excalibur: I don't like the forums at ALL, either. This is something I have been thinking about asking them to change, but haven't had inspiration to totally rearrange as a proposition... They're busy because we have random products, like mods and an upcoming game, but CrosuS' forums in particular are a muddled mess. Definitely not highlighted enough. The community is so weak there, and I really don't troll anything but Halflife2.net forums so I have no idea how they should tackle it. If you have any ideas at the front of your head, or if you could tell me why exactly they aren't your cup of tea (betting same reason as me), please lemme know either here or monique@isotx.com.

Okay, with that omgwalloftext out of the way, I was thinking that perhaps working with this community in particular would be a great way to go. You know more about SC modding than I do, and probably modding in general (I'm just a gamer who works with databases and php). Our site gets a significant amount of traffic (several thousand uniques per day) and when the CrosuS site goes live, I could get an affiliate section.

Lots of things to think about. Thanks so much for your help--and if this thread does get nuked, thanks for the help anyway. It gave me some ideas for CrosuS.

Just a quick update... because this is going to really suck for now...

Apparently CrosuS is now rejecting Starcraft mods as "not mods." I've contacted the devs about this, because I think they just copied the map format into requirements for mod uploads as well. I'm asking them to make it .exe or .rar/.zip compatible, which I assume is the format most mods will be in. Is MPQ needed too?

This will be fixed today, or the following day, I imagine. As (what is becoming) usual, let me know if you have any insight into CrosuS or input.

Just for the record, no one has my permission to distribute any of my mods unless I make such an announcement public and I will take action if I find any of my projects on your site/client.

This includes my AI mods, RequiemD/C and ZONS/TGA.

While I don't imagine you will go around just jacking whatever you find and uploading them (At least, I'd hope not), but this goes out primarily to members of this forum seeking fame and glory with your prize thing. Don't even think about putting my mods up there.

A bit touchy Mesk. May i ask why your so against it?

I'm against anyone disturbing my mods anywhere without my permission for many reasons, not the least of which desiring some degree of control over such distribution and keeping my fanbase, however large or small it may be, in one place. Throwing anything onto moddb-wannabe downloaded clients does nothing to help me. I don't make mods for download counters.

IskatuMesk, I don't plan on "jacking" any mods. That's namely why I posted here, to get permission and hopefully people uploading their own mods (or mods they use and consequently know are free distribution).

Insofar as taking action, I hope it would just be an email and you aren't implying legal action. People uploading to a website is very hectic and out of control; the most from an administrative view you can rely on is credit where it's due insofar as screening (e.g., we won't post a mod without a legitimate link to the website and author). But again, I hope you're implying email. Though we get hundreds of emails a day, your mod--if uploaded unknowingly by a fan--would be down within a few days time and the account name would be given to you of the person who uploaded it in case you happened to know. Legal action seems a bit extreme especially since we're reasonable people who are making an effort to talk to everyone

Although I haven't looked at your mods, I also advise you make this very clear in your mod readmes and/or website. A lot of people will upload content or submit it to databases web=wide, and not just to our small scale work-in-progress. It's very hard to keep content exclusively in your hands if it's distributed anywhere; it quickly becomes out of your hands. I know this from experience.

Also we're not a ModDB wannabe, as you put it, and are probably affiliating with them in the future since we have contacts there and have worked with them. Our sites, aside from having some of the same focus, really aren't alike. Theirs is great, but it's their own market, and not one we're aiming to skim off of. It's also a client, not a website aside from forums and the regular about pages.

I would only take legal action if the devs refused to acknowledge e-mails. This is something I take very seriously because I do nothing else in my life other than try to mod. I do not work, I do not step outside. I simply try to fabricate my dreams. I don't create them so they can be thrown on some random location without my know/say, especially when the majority of things I have made available are incomplete.

I generally only post my projects here, or at CC/SA. The projects are always on my webspace; either samods.org or campaigncreations.org. At CC my AKA is Doctor Doack. I've already had to contact several sites (including Filefront) whose webcrawlers lifted my music off of one of my moddb profiles without giving credit.

I will keep watch.

Additionally, yes you are pretty much a moddb-wannabe/clone/whatever. Their site provides everything your client boasts - while providing much more - and not needing the end-user to download a client which is unnecessary effort. If any of you are serious about making your effort successful, let alone comparable, you're going to have to change how it works.

I wish you luck with your mods It sounds like you take it very seriously, and when things are labors of love, they generally turn out great. I'll make a note to reject any content which cites you as an author since you're really against us for your own reasons...

And if you really want to say we're a ModDB wannabe, that's fine. You're wrong, but that's fine--to each their own. The client is wholly optional, if you had looked and read the site you would have seen that, but was developed because some people like chat interfaces and clients. Again, to each their own.

I'm not against you. It's not a matter of being against anyone. It's a matter of keeping control of distribution. That is all.

I hope you consider what I have said in any case and strive to better yourselves. Because through my experience, I cannot foretell you being nearly as successful as moddb's much more simpler and user-friendly approach. Everyone wants to make a hub of modding activity. Everyone wants to be #1. But they're all doing it wrong. Moddb, even though I would definitely not consider them near perfect, have been doing it right. (Except for their new layout, jesus christ what were they thinking?)

edit - As a starter, you can make the site more clearer and informative and make it dedicated to your project instead of being a mishmash of company efforts and then your mod distro system. Or, perhaps, make a new site dedicated to such an effort. I cannot find much on the website related to this.

I never really said I, or Isotx, wished to be #1. Not really about e-peen, or marketing my product to everyone like spam. I want to help a product reach potential I believe it has. I would like some SC modders to take interest, give feedback, and help out because Starcraft's a pretty great game with some cool mods and maps. This does not mean I plan to take over ModDB, imitate their website, or take people's mods who don't wish them to be distributed. I'd really just be happy seeing this product evolve and find a niche somewhere, because I know that is possible over time and with coding perfection.

As for calling our success before we've really debuted, it's not worth it. If you're right, no one really cares since no one knows us. And I mean, I still got my paycheck and got time learning how to do a job in the industry I love (video gaming). Things fail all the time. If you're wrong, you look arrogant. Just not worth it imo.

Also, again, I think if you're read, I mentioned something about us redoing the CrosuS website. It's been in development for a few weeks, and is much cleaner as well as uniform. Critique is great, though, so thanks for it. I definitely agree with you. It's a hideous mishmash of information, but y'know, you don't start out perfect.