StarCraft II Editor Answers - February 09 2011

Starcraft 2 Galaxy Editor Question and Answer (02-09-2011)

1) Do you plan to integrate add event functions for the gui? At the moment you have to use ugly custom script code in a gui trigger to make dynamic events for triggers - that's something you could improve for the galaxy gui. Are there any plans that you will add features to make variable array lengths dependent on constant integer variables?

Blizzard: We would like to support adding dynamic events through the GUI as well as array sizes based on constant variables.

2) Is it possible that in the future you will add a trigger, which will able to tell what time did the map started (year month day hour). It will enable map makers to make "real real time" maps. It would enable to make a whole new type of maps, kind of like those browser based mmorpgs, which are really popular now days.

Blizzard: We will look into exposing real time to map makers if it's a simple change that could allow many new types of gameplay.


3) Question about timer windows: Will Blizzard add the option to set the point where you put the Timer window. like we have with dialogues. atm we can change the position of the dialogue window relative to the centre, top left, top right, etc. but we don't have this option for timer windows. atm we can only change the location relative to the top left of the screen. this creates problems with different screen resolutions and makes the timer window kinda unstable to use.

Blizzard: We are aware of the limitations of the current Timer and Leaderboard windows and would like to improve this in the future.


4) Do you guys recognize the lobby teams not matching in-game as a problem? And if so, is there any time frame for a fix? For instance, if I have four teams of two in the lobby, and the host shuffles players around, then the game will assign player numbers according to the order they joined instead of what shows in the lobby.

Blizzard: In a future patch we will be adding a map option that causes the player slot to match the lobby slot, similar to how it worked in Warcraft 3.


5) Are actors required to be named after the unit which they are attached to, or is it merely convention?

Blizzard: Unit actors are generally associated with a unit through the Unit Name token, but we do follow a naming convention that simplifies this relationship. We may be able to expose new triggers that will help determine which actors could be created for a unit since the game already caches this information.


6) Are there any plans to improve the debugger's output for errors?

Blizzard: We are adding many new features to the trigger debugger in the long term. In the short term we will be exposing additional debugging tools that we use internally.