So the StarCraft world is abuzz after some videos showing the Arbiter "total recall", and some people are keen to get our read on the situation, so here's what we think:
What took you guys so long?
Given the current trajectory, we estimate all features of StarCraft will be discovered by the year 2114 (although we expect the final 7 discoveries will be made by super intelligent AI).
OK, OK, more seriously:
Speaking from the dev team's perspective, this is our view at this time:
Since its release, a fine line has existed in BW between exploits and glitches. Some glitches we all accept and they become a part of the core experience. Indeed, you could argue that these glitches define SC. Others become exploits and they are banned from tournaments.
It can take time (sometimes years) to truly understand whether something is a glitch or an exploit - and ultimately that decision needs to be made by the entire community.
We've undertaken to largely take a "hands off" approach to the gameplay of SC.
With all of the above in mind, we see no reason to take immediate action on this issue. It will of course be a decision that individual tournament organizers make as to whether it's permissible in that particular tournament.
From a personal perspective, I think it's amazing that a video game 20 years on can still deliver these kinds of exciting discoveries! StarCraft truly is the game that keeps on giving. Bring on the next 20 years of StarCraft!
On May 10 2018 12:54 prosatan wrote: I've tried in 1 16 and I cannot do it
Maybe you do not understand how it actually works. The trick is to create unit collision first. As Protoss this can be done by drilling Probes, morphing (Dark) Archons next to other units or sometimes with Reavers and Scarabs (possibilities for other races include burrow-stacking, morphing (Lurker) Eggs, laying Spider Mines or sometimes stop -drilling Vultures).
On May 10 2018 20:06 [[Starlight]] wrote: It's a bug. An imbalancing one... as bugs often are, since the designers didn't/can't account for them.
On "normal land maps" where carriers are bad terran has quite the advantage lategame once 2/1 or 3/2 uppgrades hit usually. I think this glitch might bring back more "normal maps" to the ASL and balance out lategame PvT. If we're lucky that is hehe.
excellent example of how knowledge (science) can be forgotten / lost by humanity if not widespread enough. just imagine how many innovations and ideas went to smoke when books were burned.
On May 10 2018 20:06 [[Starlight]] wrote: It's a bug. An imbalancing one... as bugs often are, since the designers didn't/can't account for them.
It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug. It's more of an abuse (not necessarily with a bad connotation), as it is a player-side thing. An abuse of what? Could call it a bug, a feature or a glitch (which is essentially just a bug, ascended to feature). It really depends which criteria you apply to determine whether something's a bug.
Lurkers doing double damage when dying during an attack: Definitely a bug, as in: unintended behaviour that was never intentionally programmed and just escaped attention of early game testers. Can't change it now, though, as it would upset balance.
Vortex bugs: Also definitely bugs, because they are malicious engine behaviour that's doing nothing but screw players over.
Air unit stacking: Not a bug but a feature abuse. It's all intentionally programmed into the game.
Worker Drilling: Also just an abuse, as this behaviour is intentional, though originally intended for the purpose of enabling fluent mineral collection only.
Given the above two examples. it's hard to argue that any other unit-collision related issues (like this one or mineral hopping) would constitute bugs. They are only insofar as you consider the unit collision handling routines of the game engine badly designed.
Same with pathfinding and unit behaviour (Scourge not hitting, units wandering off when encountering a blocked passage, Reavers not being able to fire at enemies right in front of them, units taking weird paths around the map, units walking across cliffs or other unwalkable terrain, workers doing crazy things and mining inefficiently). It is by design, though arguably by bad design (which has become probably the most defining feature of the game, though!)
You also wouldn't complain about Siege Tank range being a bug, just because, given the right (or rather wrong) kind of map it is completely gamebreaking. It is an intentional feature, after all, and you would call that bad map design (or, if it could not be balanced by maps alone, bad game design).
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there is such a thing as a benign bug (aka harmless to the game/gameplay) and even beneficial bugs (rare, but they happen), and one can indeed debate whether this bug is or is not one of those.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there are such things as beneficial bugs, and one can debate whether this bug is or is not that.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
I know that that is the literal definition. My point is that it is a lot more fuzzy than you make it out to be. If you really take it literally, most build orders, unit compositions, really anything that players regularly do that makes up the very game they are playing, would have to be considered a bug as it could not have been predicted with any degree of certainty by the original designers of the game.
I find it hard to really pinpoint the thing that is "unintended" behaviour in this case. Unpredicted maybe (or that it could be used this way), which is one of the reasons for a design that you could call bad and/or incomplete for good reasons.
On May 10 2018 21:08 Freakling wrote: It's debatable whether this kind of thing really fulfills the criteria for a bug.
Not really. I used to work as a game tester for Sony and Atari... the very definition of a bug is "anything not intended by the game designer". Which fits this to a T.
Now, there are such things as beneficial bugs, and one can debate whether this bug is or is not that.
But, it is definitely a bug. Anyone in the industry worth their salt would tell you same.
I know that that is the literal definition. My point is that it is a lot more fuzzy than you make it out to be. If you really take it literally, most build orders, unit compositions, really anything that players regularly do that makes up the very game they are playing, would have to be considered a bug as it could not have been predicted with any degree of certainty by the original designers of the game.
I find it hard to really pinpoint the thing that is "unintended" behaviour in this case. Unpredicted maybe (or that it could be used this way), which is one of the reasons for a design that you could call bad and/or incomplete for good reasons.
I'm just telling you how we do it in the game industry. If you want to have a personal alternate definition, that is your right.
It's not about alternate definitions but about how to apply the generally agreed on one, which you have already given (which is officially not "anything players whine about", thought effectively it might as well be). So what, in your opinion, constitutes the "unintentional behaviour" in this case?
This question is more a purely theoretically one, by the way, because for the more important issue of whether it is bad for gameplay/balance, its classification as a bug or not means bugger all.