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Rough transcription of the video for those who prefer to read or otherwise can't watch the video (highlighted sections related to mapmaking/UMS):
Quote
Hey guys, Grant here from Classic Games, here to give you a dev update on everything that's happening in the world of StarCraft: Remastered. Now I know my last dev update video was around Christmas last year, so it's taken a little longer than we expected to get this one to you, and I'm sorry it's taken so long.
Something that I definitely need to call out that's happened since that video is the 20th anniversary of StarCraft, and who would have imagined that two decades on, we'd have still so many people playing this game so passionately all around the world. And it was a great opportunity for us all to reflect on what StarCraft has meant to us over the years. And for me, it was a game that I started playing on release. It's always been a part of my life: I've always been a terrible StarCraft player, but I've loved every minute of it, and of course it was the game that brought me to Blizzard. So I certainly very much enjoyed the 20th anniversary celebrations, and I hope that you guys did, too.
Since the last dev update video, we have also been hard at work on the 1.21 release of StarCraft: Remastered. That's the live build at the moment. We've been been patching that over the months, and some of the big items that we've been able to deliver since the initial release of 1.21 include connectivity improvements. A major part of that was our STUN server rollout. So STUN servers is something that will find the best port between two players. So we no longer need to worry about port 6112 anymore. We no longer need to worry about port forwarding or router settings or any of that stuff: STUN will solve those problems for us. So it's meant that we've seen a much lower reliance on our proxy servers, and that's meant better latency games overall.
We also did some major work on our matchmaker, again based on feedback from you guys. What we'd noticed and what you guys had noticed is that the matchmaker was matching people from—at times—opposite ends of the earth, and that enormous physical distance was something that we couldn't overcome with software, and it was introducing some—in some cases—some very large latency into games. So what we tried to do with the new matchmaker was favor lower distance of / less distance between two players. And as a result of that, we saw a marked improvement in the latency of matchmaking games. And again, through our feedback from you guys we've continued to tweak that, and now I think it's moving to a really good place for the global matchmaker.
We've also rolled out the dynamic turn rate solution for custom games. So of course it was always part of matchmaking games: now we're rolling it out for custom games as well. As a result of those improvements, we also were able to rollout turn rate 20 and 24, and turn rate 24 of course is the best possible turn rate that StarCraft is able to support: it's the turn rate that LAN is played on, and now it's available in Battle.net as well (so custom games and matchmaking games). And we've seen a very high number of games, actually, in the matchmaker being played in turn rate 24, so that's awesome.
So, aside from 1.21, we've also been hard at work with 1.22, and the release of 1.22 is right around the corner. So let me just talk about some of the big ticket items that we can expect from 1.22.
First of all, we will be releasing new ramp art for mapmakers. So as you guys are well aware, mapmakers have been able to kind of hack in these north-facing and double-wide ramps, stitching together some tiles from here and there, and even though it plays great, it doesn't look so great. So what we now have is a toolset for mapmakers to be able to go in and create ramps that are north-facing and double-wide that not only play great, but also look great as well.
We will be exiting the Frontier League, and I know this is something that you guys have asked us about for a very long time, so this is something that we're we're very much looking forward to. We will move out of the Frontier League, roll the season, move into a new season. And with a new rank season comes new stats, so we will retire the old stats, we'll archive the old stats, and we'll move into some fresh new stats for the new season. We'll also with the new season be rolling out a new ladder tier system, and again this is something that you guys have been asking about for a long time, so I'm sure a lot of you will be very happy to see this. It'll be a familiar letter-grade system; we've collaborated and talked to a number of people who have been around Brood War and StarCraft for a number of years, so hopefully this will be something that will be very natural to you guys, and something that you'll really enjoy. And last but not least, with the new ladder system—with the new season—comes a new map pool, so we'll also be rolling out a new map pool. And now that we have this framework in place, we'll be in a position to be able to roll seasons much more frequently in the future.
So, further afield, further down the track: we have a number of things we want to work on, but something I just want to quickly touch on—and I think it's important to touch on—is group matchmaking. I know this is something that a lot of you are looking forward to; we're looking forward to it as well. I've always talked about how it is further afield in the dev update videos. The good news is it's getting closer, but I think the important thing is that I want to mention that it is still very much on our roadmap. I've always said that I wanted to get 1v1 into a good position before we complicate things with 2v2 and 3v3 and 4v4. I think 1v1 is getting into a very good position at the moment, so that allows us to commence work on that group matchmaking in the near future.
So that's all I've really got time for today guys. Thanks very much for listening, and I'll try to make sure we do the next dev update video without so much delay in-between it, but until then, I'll see you guys online.
Something that I definitely need to call out that's happened since that video is the 20th anniversary of StarCraft, and who would have imagined that two decades on, we'd have still so many people playing this game so passionately all around the world. And it was a great opportunity for us all to reflect on what StarCraft has meant to us over the years. And for me, it was a game that I started playing on release. It's always been a part of my life: I've always been a terrible StarCraft player, but I've loved every minute of it, and of course it was the game that brought me to Blizzard. So I certainly very much enjoyed the 20th anniversary celebrations, and I hope that you guys did, too.
Since the last dev update video, we have also been hard at work on the 1.21 release of StarCraft: Remastered. That's the live build at the moment. We've been been patching that over the months, and some of the big items that we've been able to deliver since the initial release of 1.21 include connectivity improvements. A major part of that was our STUN server rollout. So STUN servers is something that will find the best port between two players. So we no longer need to worry about port 6112 anymore. We no longer need to worry about port forwarding or router settings or any of that stuff: STUN will solve those problems for us. So it's meant that we've seen a much lower reliance on our proxy servers, and that's meant better latency games overall.
We also did some major work on our matchmaker, again based on feedback from you guys. What we'd noticed and what you guys had noticed is that the matchmaker was matching people from—at times—opposite ends of the earth, and that enormous physical distance was something that we couldn't overcome with software, and it was introducing some—in some cases—some very large latency into games. So what we tried to do with the new matchmaker was favor lower distance of / less distance between two players. And as a result of that, we saw a marked improvement in the latency of matchmaking games. And again, through our feedback from you guys we've continued to tweak that, and now I think it's moving to a really good place for the global matchmaker.
We've also rolled out the dynamic turn rate solution for custom games. So of course it was always part of matchmaking games: now we're rolling it out for custom games as well. As a result of those improvements, we also were able to rollout turn rate 20 and 24, and turn rate 24 of course is the best possible turn rate that StarCraft is able to support: it's the turn rate that LAN is played on, and now it's available in Battle.net as well (so custom games and matchmaking games). And we've seen a very high number of games, actually, in the matchmaker being played in turn rate 24, so that's awesome.
So, aside from 1.21, we've also been hard at work with 1.22, and the release of 1.22 is right around the corner. So let me just talk about some of the big ticket items that we can expect from 1.22.
First of all, we will be releasing new ramp art for mapmakers. So as you guys are well aware, mapmakers have been able to kind of hack in these north-facing and double-wide ramps, stitching together some tiles from here and there, and even though it plays great, it doesn't look so great. So what we now have is a toolset for mapmakers to be able to go in and create ramps that are north-facing and double-wide that not only play great, but also look great as well.
We will be exiting the Frontier League, and I know this is something that you guys have asked us about for a very long time, so this is something that we're we're very much looking forward to. We will move out of the Frontier League, roll the season, move into a new season. And with a new rank season comes new stats, so we will retire the old stats, we'll archive the old stats, and we'll move into some fresh new stats for the new season. We'll also with the new season be rolling out a new ladder tier system, and again this is something that you guys have been asking about for a long time, so I'm sure a lot of you will be very happy to see this. It'll be a familiar letter-grade system; we've collaborated and talked to a number of people who have been around Brood War and StarCraft for a number of years, so hopefully this will be something that will be very natural to you guys, and something that you'll really enjoy. And last but not least, with the new ladder system—with the new season—comes a new map pool, so we'll also be rolling out a new map pool. And now that we have this framework in place, we'll be in a position to be able to roll seasons much more frequently in the future.
So, further afield, further down the track: we have a number of things we want to work on, but something I just want to quickly touch on—and I think it's important to touch on—is group matchmaking. I know this is something that a lot of you are looking forward to; we're looking forward to it as well. I've always talked about how it is further afield in the dev update videos. The good news is it's getting closer, but I think the important thing is that I want to mention that it is still very much on our roadmap. I've always said that I wanted to get 1v1 into a good position before we complicate things with 2v2 and 3v3 and 4v4. I think 1v1 is getting into a very good position at the moment, so that allows us to commence work on that group matchmaking in the near future.
So that's all I've really got time for today guys. Thanks very much for listening, and I'll try to make sure we do the next dev update video without so much delay in-between it, but until then, I'll see you guys online.
Helpful links and references:
- Official SC forums: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/
- STUN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN
- Turn rate: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/topic/20755736565#post-5
Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 3 2019, 10:17 pm by Roy.
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Don't like learning?: EUDGen 2
Other stuff: Farlap Bound Maker
Dash: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X
Jog: Original Warp
Other: Super Mario SC Fireball Guard Your Civilian Strength Contest
