Just a little bit of feedback from the first wave of maps that were available on battle.net. I noticed a lot of maps were using custom loading screens with text and press any key to continue. Little bit of a pet peeve you can call it.

I can't force you to, but please, for at least smaller productions, use the "Melee" loading screen type and disable the "press any key to continue". As feedback from someone who was playing quite a few customs games, if you have a small map, or you don't have a whole lot of useful information to add to your custom loading screen, leave it as melee. It adds the progress bars for everyone who is loading the map, which is infinitely more interesting to look at everyone's loading bar then it was to read one paragraph of useless text, usually something like "this is my first creation" and then having their name beside it.

Already as it is the mappers name is viewable from battle.net, and if you really want you can put it inside your map, but it got to the point where I became somewhat annoyed at the amount of mappers who decided to forgo the loading screen, which I'm guilty of it myself. I did that for some of my first productions, a mistake I will not be repeating now that I know how irritating it is. Even if you're putting in patch notes, its sortof cool to read it the first time, but every other time you aren't going to read it again, its especially annoying for a small game you could be playing 30 times in one day. I've seen people utilize the "tips" section in the help, you can use that for patch notes and telling people how to play. It works. This applies as well for introduction screens on maps that seemingly will be played over and over again, the best maps I've played got started immediately, some even setting your control groups for you and selecting the main building to get you started, things like that.

Also I'm not sure what the purpose of "push any key to continue" is. Games are created so fast on battle.net 2.0, there's no point in making everyone wait. Maybe there's something I'm not understanding here but I have no idea why people enable it. I've sometimes joined a game, left briefly to get a drink before the game got started, just to see I was accidentally holding up the game for everyone by not pressing a key after the game loaded.

Just two of my little criticisms... I will love your map so much more and you as a map maker if you leave in the loading bars and remove the "press any key", that is all.

Also, this evidently doesn't apply for single player (or low number of players) maps, I'm mostly talking about those large 12 player custom maps.

Is it possible to do a custom loading screen without needing to push any key to start? I'm really big on RTS mods/maps and in them, you'd typically want to explain things like the economy system. eg. "Energy replaces minerals and gas. Geysers can give any allied structure extra energy." (which describes the economy of my current project).

Press any key to start is an option, disabled by default. If you see it in the map, its because the map maker intentionally turned it on.

I didn't even know you could force people to press any key to continue. I'll be sure to start doing that.

Anyway, it seems like a pretty stupid option to enable, but it seems like it's the same as briefings in SC.

It's probably possible to replace the melee-background with a custom image to have the best of both worlds.

You can, but you can't really put text there.

Any decent image editing program can do it.

For those of you who don't know about the custom loading screens capabilities, I explain a bit here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LLov7xKp3o
There isn't anything really complicated about them.

I agree with mike, having a user hold up the game because he hasn't clicked is pretty annoying. I personally probably won't use the standard melee loading screen because I like having a big fat graphic with text and tips and such.

I used both of the features you hate for every single map I published! XD
I use the custom screen to show the little logo of StarCraft II and let dark spots for my text.
I use text to give credits to makers and advertise StarEdit Network.
I use the "Press any key to continue" because it prevents the game from starting with an afk person (*cough* mikelat *cough*) which would ruin the gameplay of every map I've published. It also gives more time for people to read what I wrote (which they do because they unfortunately do not have anything else to do).

I'm pretty sure your credits and advertising can go elsewhere so that instead just leave in the loading bars. We're talking here about features that will make your players happy.

If your map requires the players immediate attention when the map starts, then you need to design it better.

So SC2 is broken and needs to be designed better?

I leave in the loading screen for melee. No one seems to object.

I can't think can't think of one gametype that required the immediate attention of a player when the game got started unless the mapper made it so. Gametypes like battlecraft and nexus wars you simply gain income while the player is afk, art of defense the player gets started later but that's his own fault and he's not holding up the rest of the players, etc.

I'm pretty sure it's one of the best place for credits and advertising and I do not see the usefulness of seeing the download bars of others: in the end, the game starts once everyone is done.
And like you say, not many maps require attention at the very very very start, but in my game, as soon as one of the players pressed the button, that appears right as the game starts, everyone gets a combo of units and must start micro'ing with them as fast as possible ;o

My SCII clone of probe arena. Which requires immediate attention and about 300 APM since I added combo spells due to building queuing.

So put a damn verification part in the beginning. Make them press a button to begin in-game. Don't stick people where they can't chat and know nothing about the other players. There are plenty of workarounds. You're just being stubborn.

If you're willing to drop the quality of your map just to get a little more advertising in, then it shows your priorities as a map maker.

This. If your map requires instant attention, then at the beginning of the map or every round have a button to press. Also take this into consideration:

Let's say you have a 10 player map. One player is AFK for a good 2 minutes, which is stretching it because realistically when they join a game they have every intention of getting started real soon.

In the case that you have the loading screen "push button to continue":

• AFK Player goes "oh, the game is ready to start". Presses the button and he gets there as the action starts. No penalty.
  
• 9 Other players are getting annoyed with waiting. There's no indication of when the game is going to start and the entire map is being held up. They wish you didn't put it in (my feelings several times). Negative experience when playing your map.

In the case that you get the map started immediately:

• AFK Player is late, every other player gets started. The player is now punished by having a slower economy, etc. Maybe he lost a round. Who knows. Either way he won't make the same mistake next time. I doubt he'd ever think to himself "I wish this map had a press any key screen", as it's his own fault.
  
• 9 Other players get started. There's no delay, results in a positive experience for your map.

Now if you say something like "well that player is absolutely important and the game can lose for everybody if he's not there", we once again go back to the argument of poor map design, as no map with more than 4 people should *require* a full house (and on the 4 person map it's not as big of a deal if you make the push any key, although I still highly recommend it), as we'll get into issues where newbies will make everyone else lose and things like that, which are elements that plagued starcraft 1 maps. Especially since this time around you can't make a "no noobs" lobby, and you can't tell if someone hasn't downloaded the map.