If you do not want to hear me harping on about who I am, please skip to the "The concept..." section, thank you.
I am in the gold 1v1 ladder but I also play a lot of custom maps. I am partial to a few rounds of TD, a couple of tug maps and I am a big fan of the Special Forces genre. I also play some marine arena and whilst I like the base defense genre, I have not yet found a map I am satisfied with.
I played brood war all those years ago and, being fairly young, I was more into UMS maps than ladder play back then. I was fairly profficient in the use of StarEdit and made a small campaign plus attempting a TD map.
Over the last few weeks I have been playing with the Galaxy Editor, I've made a melee map and worked through a couple of tutorials on the use of triggers and functions. I would like to say that I'm loving it: the publishing system, the complex trigger editor and the versitility of the data editor. However, I still feel quite daunted by the scripting and I need to learn more, my main problem being understanding the programming jagen. (if anyone knows of a glossary, please post below)
Despite my lack of knowledge when it comes to scripting triggers, I am keen to take a leap into this esoterical world and try my hand at creating a nicely polished custom map.
The concept...
I would like to create an epic base defence map and I believe I have a winning formula. The first draft of my plan so far breaks down like this.
The basic premice of the map is a large battle beginning (for the human players) with a little more than the standard melee default, and having alot more to it than a standard melee game, while not moving far away from the type of play StarCraft 2 players are familiar with.
I would like this map to look natural and pretty, there is not need for a base defence map to look minimilist and boring.
Why it's going to be addictive and successful?
(excuse me while I digress for a moment)
Let's look at Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Yeah, it's a pretty good FPS but why did I waste hundreds of hours of my life playing it? Because whilst I'm playing the same levels over and over again I'm playing for experience, that experience gets me better weapons so I play all night because I want my ACR with fall camo and extended mags god damn it!
Back to starcraft and looking at the ladder, the pretty emblems we get to show our leage, the cool avatars we are awarded for winning 200,000,000 games as protoss, these acheivements that we can parade on our customised profiles for all the world to envy. They are all here to make us want to play more games, and play better. So what about custom games?
Night Special Forces has been the top featured custom map for a good while now and it is still popular. It can take 3-5 hours to complete and the vast majority of that is taken up by farming huge, identical waves of units until your Reaper has 25,000 kills and is basically an omnipotent being. Each difficuly level you complete on NSF gets you two new protoss units FTW and so with each set of units, you have a slight advantage with which to complete the next difficulty level. Personally, as soon as I saw someone swanning around with a Stalker, I said to myself "there is nothing more important to me right now than playing this game until my eyes bleed so I can have that Stalker!
It is this principle from NSF that I am really inspired by. But what can we gain from completing this epic base defence on 'easy mode'? I'm thinking things like static defence upgrades at first (bunker turrets, low hp lurkers, parhaps the good old sheild battery) maybe the automated Refinery tech. (assuming auto Assimilator/Extractor can be created in the data editor) Perhaps eventually you can spawn a leviathon from your hatchery, call in an Odin-dropship from the command center and...erm...I'll lock the mothership until then. In fact why not gain an achievement for things like taking out the first three bases within the first half an hour? Why should completing every difficulty be the sole goal?
If you've ever played NSF you'll be familiar with this conversation.
Noobster92: 0-o OMFG how do I build Leviathon!?!?!?
TotalPrO: Beat insane difficuly ^^
Noobster92: xD ok!
The details...
4 players sharing one base
The base will have two main chokes plus one at the rear. Resources will be well stocked but not infinite and definately not in straight lines at a right angle. I have devised terrain pattern whereby the players can expand to a natural and effectively take thier choke with them, this will be aparrent when I draw up a slightly neater plan than the scribblings I am currently working from. I will need to script the initialisation trigger in a way that enables players to select a race in the game lobby, while still spawning on the map with a few extra buildings and a simple defence.
6 opponents, 3 races
The opponents will consist of three large bases, one of each race, with and a unique structure at the back which is to be destroyed and quite possibly one or two heroes to battle along the way. Also, there will be three smaller bases (again one of each race) with similar contents to the large ones, but a little toned down. It may be necessary to use building invulnerability to control the order in which the players battle through the map.
Melee gameplay, with a custom twist
While six enemy bases will be more than enough trouble for four players, I would also like some scripted play from the computer opponents. At a random time (somewhere after the first four minutes and before the ten minute mark) one of several early harass functions will execute. This will most likely be either a nydus worm and some zerglings, a few reapers or even a cannon rush from the protoss. These will be aimed at the mineral lines, of course. Regardless of what has built-in AI scripts and what needs to be scripted from scratch, I would like this to continue throughout the game with psi storm drops, banshees, possibly even the odd thorship. All of these events will be randomly selected and occur at random intervals but with set bounds. (i.e. no mass recall of a huge protoss army straight on to the mineral line in the first few minutes of the game) This way the map can be played multiple times, without the player knowing what is coming.
I believe that, if my vision of this map can be even vaguely realised, it will be a success. I hope that if you are even half as exited about this idea as I am, you have been convinced of it's potential too.
Feedback...
As I said before, I am relatively inexperienced with the galaxy editor which is why I will need you help and constructive criticism.
Can all my ideas be brought to life with the Galaxy Editor?
Is this map way too ambitious?
Should I just give up now and while away my free time cannon rushing in 4v4 ladder instead?
I am aware that all good custom maps have input from multiple creators and testers so anybody who is willing to help, advise, criticise or just tell me that I'm a noob and I'm in way over my head please comment...
All this can absolutely be done. But you say you're new to the editor, so it really seems like a bit too much to start with.
Then again you obviously have the kind of motivation it takes for ANY kind of map in this editor, because let's face it: You won't be done in 10 hours, or even 100 hours. I think you should try and make this map, but don't try to implement everything at once. I'd consider terrain and triggers to be the most intuitive parts of the editor, so you may wanna look into that first. Changing for example the AI is something you should probably do later. ;-)
I found that when I first started mapmaking and wasn't very good with it, I created a design outline dividing everything that needed to be done into smaller parts with the most important listed first. This let me finish core features by themselves first, then add things not ABSOLUTELY necessary to the map.
It seems to me that the map idea is pretty simple, it's basically melee with some triggered events. So I wouldn't say it's too ambitious. My first project I wanted to do with friends was a 4-player 10-map campaign with branching decision-based storyline and 2 completely new systems of gameplay running simultaneously on one map. Now that was far too ambitious for a first project. If your map idea was something like that I would tell you to reconsider, but this seems like a good starting point.
I am now nearing the completion of the Terrain and Units. I also have a "race select" dialogue that spawns a basic opener of the selected race at any of the four spawn points. I have set some simple opening attack waves and drops with increasing numbers of units relative to the selected difficulty.
I will be posting the map when the Terrain and some more attack waves are complete. In the mean time I am beginning to consider what needs to be done with data and more complex trigger editing. I will almost certainly need help with this but I believe that, if I can get this map to where I want it to be, it will be something really special. The following is a list of some things I need to accomplish.
Auto-Thorship hero
Constructable from the command centre max #1.
Auto repair SCVs: 3 small SCVs to follow the Thor at all times with auto repair set. Need to act like deployed cargo units i.e. cannot recieve orders.
Auto Thorship: Special Ops Dropship to follow thor at all times. Needs to act like deployed cargo unit i.e. cannot recieve orders. - Thor to have ability button that, when clicked, orders the Dropship to pick up the thor. Dropship is then selected and when unload button is clicked, Thor is unloaded immediately without any targeting for an unload location.
Mothership
No cloaking field
usual vortex and mass recall
Deployable cargo units (like carrier) small Void Rays x2, small Phoenix x2, regular interceptors x6
Other abilities in progress (possibly warp in certain gateway units + provide power (like gateway + pilon)
Laviathon
Abilities in progress (possibly launch Baneling (like brood lord) or place static defence)
Nexus
Able to warp in probes slightly faster than regular construction time
Provides power (like pilon)
Has attack similar to stone zealot
Will talk about triggers when I know which I'm using
See any problems with creating the above?
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To the revered artisans of SC2 Mapster.com.
If you do not want to hear me harping on about who I am, please skip to the "The concept..." section, thank you.
I am in the gold 1v1 ladder but I also play a lot of custom maps. I am partial to a few rounds of TD, a couple of tug maps and I am a big fan of the Special Forces genre. I also play some marine arena and whilst I like the base defense genre, I have not yet found a map I am satisfied with.
I played brood war all those years ago and, being fairly young, I was more into UMS maps than ladder play back then. I was fairly profficient in the use of StarEdit and made a small campaign plus attempting a TD map.
Over the last few weeks I have been playing with the Galaxy Editor, I've made a melee map and worked through a couple of tutorials on the use of triggers and functions. I would like to say that I'm loving it: the publishing system, the complex trigger editor and the versitility of the data editor. However, I still feel quite daunted by the scripting and I need to learn more, my main problem being understanding the programming jagen. (if anyone knows of a glossary, please post below)
Despite my lack of knowledge when it comes to scripting triggers, I am keen to take a leap into this esoterical world and try my hand at creating a nicely polished custom map.
The concept...
I would like to create an epic base defence map and I believe I have a winning formula. The first draft of my plan so far breaks down like this. The basic premice of the map is a large battle beginning (for the human players) with a little more than the standard melee default, and having alot more to it than a standard melee game, while not moving far away from the type of play StarCraft 2 players are familiar with.
I would like this map to look natural and pretty, there is not need for a base defence map to look minimilist and boring.
Why it's going to be addictive and successful?
(excuse me while I digress for a moment)
Let's look at Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Yeah, it's a pretty good FPS but why did I waste hundreds of hours of my life playing it? Because whilst I'm playing the same levels over and over again I'm playing for experience, that experience gets me better weapons so I play all night because I want my ACR with fall camo and extended mags god damn it!
Back to starcraft and looking at the ladder, the pretty emblems we get to show our leage, the cool avatars we are awarded for winning 200,000,000 games as protoss, these acheivements that we can parade on our customised profiles for all the world to envy. They are all here to make us want to play more games, and play better. So what about custom games?
Night Special Forces has been the top featured custom map for a good while now and it is still popular. It can take 3-5 hours to complete and the vast majority of that is taken up by farming huge, identical waves of units until your Reaper has 25,000 kills and is basically an omnipotent being. Each difficuly level you complete on NSF gets you two new protoss units FTW and so with each set of units, you have a slight advantage with which to complete the next difficulty level. Personally, as soon as I saw someone swanning around with a Stalker, I said to myself "there is nothing more important to me right now than playing this game until my eyes bleed so I can have that Stalker!
It is this principle from NSF that I am really inspired by. But what can we gain from completing this epic base defence on 'easy mode'? I'm thinking things like static defence upgrades at first (bunker turrets, low hp lurkers, parhaps the good old sheild battery) maybe the automated Refinery tech. (assuming auto Assimilator/Extractor can be created in the data editor) Perhaps eventually you can spawn a leviathon from your hatchery, call in an Odin-dropship from the command center and...erm...I'll lock the mothership until then. In fact why not gain an achievement for things like taking out the first three bases within the first half an hour? Why should completing every difficulty be the sole goal? If you've ever played NSF you'll be familiar with this conversation.
Noobster92: 0-o OMFG how do I build Leviathon!?!?!?
TotalPrO: Beat insane difficuly ^^
Noobster92: xD ok!
The details...
4 players sharing one base
The base will have two main chokes plus one at the rear. Resources will be well stocked but not infinite and definately not in straight lines at a right angle. I have devised terrain pattern whereby the players can expand to a natural and effectively take thier choke with them, this will be aparrent when I draw up a slightly neater plan than the scribblings I am currently working from. I will need to script the initialisation trigger in a way that enables players to select a race in the game lobby, while still spawning on the map with a few extra buildings and a simple defence.
6 opponents, 3 races
The opponents will consist of three large bases, one of each race, with and a unique structure at the back which is to be destroyed and quite possibly one or two heroes to battle along the way. Also, there will be three smaller bases (again one of each race) with similar contents to the large ones, but a little toned down. It may be necessary to use building invulnerability to control the order in which the players battle through the map.
Melee gameplay, with a custom twist
While six enemy bases will be more than enough trouble for four players, I would also like some scripted play from the computer opponents. At a random time (somewhere after the first four minutes and before the ten minute mark) one of several early harass functions will execute. This will most likely be either a nydus worm and some zerglings, a few reapers or even a cannon rush from the protoss. These will be aimed at the mineral lines, of course. Regardless of what has built-in AI scripts and what needs to be scripted from scratch, I would like this to continue throughout the game with psi storm drops, banshees, possibly even the odd thorship. All of these events will be randomly selected and occur at random intervals but with set bounds. (i.e. no mass recall of a huge protoss army straight on to the mineral line in the first few minutes of the game) This way the map can be played multiple times, without the player knowing what is coming.
I believe that, if my vision of this map can be even vaguely realised, it will be a success. I hope that if you are even half as exited about this idea as I am, you have been convinced of it's potential too.
Feedback...
As I said before, I am relatively inexperienced with the galaxy editor which is why I will need you help and constructive criticism.
Can all my ideas be brought to life with the Galaxy Editor?
Is this map way too ambitious?
Should I just give up now and while away my free time cannon rushing in 4v4 ladder instead?
I am aware that all good custom maps have input from multiple creators and testers so anybody who is willing to help, advise, criticise or just tell me that I'm a noob and I'm in way over my head please comment...
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
All this can absolutely be done. But you say you're new to the editor, so it really seems like a bit too much to start with.
Then again you obviously have the kind of motivation it takes for ANY kind of map in this editor, because let's face it: You won't be done in 10 hours, or even 100 hours. I think you should try and make this map, but don't try to implement everything at once. I'd consider terrain and triggers to be the most intuitive parts of the editor, so you may wanna look into that first. Changing for example the AI is something you should probably do later. ;-)
I found that when I first started mapmaking and wasn't very good with it, I created a design outline dividing everything that needed to be done into smaller parts with the most important listed first. This let me finish core features by themselves first, then add things not ABSOLUTELY necessary to the map.
It seems to me that the map idea is pretty simple, it's basically melee with some triggered events. So I wouldn't say it's too ambitious. My first project I wanted to do with friends was a 4-player 10-map campaign with branching decision-based storyline and 2 completely new systems of gameplay running simultaneously on one map. Now that was far too ambitious for a first project. If your map idea was something like that I would tell you to reconsider, but this seems like a good starting point.
From: Nike To: saltydog87
Just do it.
I am now nearing the completion of the Terrain and Units. I also have a "race select" dialogue that spawns a basic opener of the selected race at any of the four spawn points. I have set some simple opening attack waves and drops with increasing numbers of units relative to the selected difficulty.
I will be posting the map when the Terrain and some more attack waves are complete. In the mean time I am beginning to consider what needs to be done with data and more complex trigger editing. I will almost certainly need help with this but I believe that, if I can get this map to where I want it to be, it will be something really special. The following is a list of some things I need to accomplish.
Auto-Thorship hero
Mothership
Laviathon
Nexus
Will talk about triggers when I know which I'm using
See any problems with creating the above?