S2 employee talks about how awesome EotA is

[kwaththeraven]

http://s2nome.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/denying/

In case anyone was interested

[Dekar]

You still rock Yak!

Start working on EotA2 already.

[Kalrithus]

It's kind of funny, most of the people who responded either have no idea what EotA was or had good or impartial memories of it. Then you get to the response by Pablo! a little over halfway down and he's bashing Nome about how he's "obsessed" with EotA and that EotA has no balance at all. Sounds bitter.

[DarnYak]

Then you get to the response by Pablo! a little over halfway down and he's bashing Nome about how he's "obsessed" with EotA and that EotA has no balance at all. Sounds bitter.

Eh, I can't entirely disagree with him. While many people were fond of EotA, it never had a mass enduring appeal that these other games have created. There are reasons for this, some the fault of design while others are just circumstance, but he's correct in that you don't want a developer trying to turn this game from DotA into EotA which are intentionally different games. Not that I believe Nome/Casval is doing that.

He's also right EotA has balance issues (significant, although not critical), although that's a seperate issue as to whether the balance issues were a product of the design itself rather than poor implimentation. In this case, I can't actually identify which it is, particularly because I believe much of EotA's balance really couldn't sort itself out without a larger consistent playerbase. Many of the "imbalances" weren't so significant against anyone with some experience, but players with that experience were few and far inbetween (this also ignores the gross imbalance of experience vs new players, which is inherent in all games but particullarly so in EotA). A related problem was it was hard to get consistently balanced teams to have a fair game to even begin discussing balance. And, of course, I am also largely individually responsible for both not playing nearly enough and releasing frequently/timely updates.

You still rock Yak!

Start working on EotA2 already.

So here's my plan. I take the bar at the end of July. I might squeeze in some things before then, but not much. After that, I currently have no job lined up, so I will have a lot of free time that I haven't had in the past few years. Even if I get a job, I shouldn't be in a position where I have shit to do every day once I get home, so I should have time to work on EotA2.

Oh, and there's a huge chance I'll release a bugfix for EotA sometime before then, both to get back into mapmaking a little bit and because it bothers me leaving EotA without a bit more finalized conclusion. I believe at that time I will also make the map publically available to those wanting to do whatever the hell they want with it (with various conditions).

DarnYak

[FlyingFridge]

Somehow, I'm not surprised that this article was already posted. Came here looking to see if it was, oh look, it was!
Damn I miss playing obsessive amounts of EoTA and this article only reminds me of that. Honestly, I'm excited to see EoTA get updated sometime in the future. (Like fixing those damn RCFM's that GtGW kept using to rape our bases)
Anyway, good luck to ya Yak.
I think I'll host a few games and see if I can lure anyone who might have read that article.
Edit: I love it. EoTA get's mentioned.
Community begins small flutters of activity.

[Kalrithus]

Really looking forward to the public release if it ever happens. Been getting back into mapmaking since I quit WoW again and I'm eager to see how you implemented certain spells.

[DarnYak]

Really looking forward to the public release if it ever happens. Been getting back into mapmaking since I quit WoW again and I'm eager to see how you implemented certain spells.

It's kind of funny because it really depends on when I created it. Originally, I thought "I'm only doing this as a small project so I want to avoid learning JASS," so all the older stuff is in GUI (with a few exceptions). A ways down the road it became "Ok this has gotten too complicated to maintain in GUI, I'll give in and take the time to learn JASS" and so new stuff is in JASS, but still pretty reckless coding assuming one time use. Then I eventually decided to use the type cast address bug because blizz didn't seem to ever intendt of ix it, so I went through a major overhaul to update lots (but not everything) for that. Then blizzard fixed it a short time later, in a way that my function wrappers weren't sufficient, so I had go back and redo all of that again. And at various points in time I would identify common complex behaviors that I decided should have thier own mini-engine, so some things use that where other spots have their own triggers that do the same exact thing.

My point is, EotA's code is a embarrassing clusterfuck. Anything I do in SC2 will be designed for long term reusability and updating.

(Like fixing those damn RCFM's that GtGW kept using to rape our bases)

I was about to ask wtf this meant untill I realized its' Remote Controlled Flying Machines. Haven't figured out GtGW yet.

DarnYak

[Kalrithus]

Yea I can understand not wanting to learn JASS or vJASS, it seems tedious as opposed to the GUI at first anyway. I'm actually in the process of recreating the game Z in Warcraft 3 so I'm trying to figure out the best way to code the squad based infantry units, I'll try it in GUI and if I can't make it work I'll go to JASS kicking and screaming.

For those that don't know what Z is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_%28video_game%29

[DarnYak]

GUI is far more tedious. I don't exactly remember why I was so reluctant to just go with JASS. Actually, maybe i intended to release EotA open source and wanted it to be easier for people to reuse..

DarnYak

[FlyingFridge]

(Like fixing those damn RCFM's that GtGW kept using to rape our bases)

I was about to ask wtf this meant untill I realized its' Remote Controlled Flying Machines. Haven't figured out GtGW yet.

DarnYak

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=664
This guy! Lurked on forums, but played a helluva lot of EoTA. I played quite a few games with him. He world roll assassin, stealth, then destroy our bases with the Remote Controlled Flying Machines sometimes. Also was just generally pretty good. Sorry about the abbreviations. Bad habit

[Cokemonkey11]

Oh, and there's a huge chance I'll release a bugfix for EotA sometime before then, both to get back into mapmaking a little bit and because it bothers me leaving EotA without a bit more finalized conclusion. I believe at that time I will also make the map publically available to those wanting to do whatever the hell they want with it (with various conditions).

I'm looking forward to this. I want to do some general performance updates without changing game-play and release publicly if possible.

I'm just not ready for this game to die =/