Just played it and have to say the terraining is breathtaking. If someone asked: how would it be to live in the prehistoric days i would say: Just play this map. The ancient pools, the sand... aah. When someone can make terrain alive like this its...art.
he managed to slip through the cracks but later i havent seen any ash worm^^. i think he got scared^^
What do you think about the idea of adding like a corrupted terrain (around the egg areas)? Like dehaka could say: this terrain u cant build here. It would avoid commanders like karax just building canons and ignoring the ashworm. It would force u to use units and get rid of it.
Thanks. Only the areas for the last two bosses remain. I like the terrain but I fear it's too detailed. Some people might have performance issues. There are actually some rules in the co-op guideline I simply ignored: Not too have too many complex doodads within another. Not add any tall doodads which require Air Path Blockers. Not add too much water.
I made it so the Ash Worm destroys any buildings when first created, but I must admit I don't know what happens when he just burrows to a different location. Will check.
I was thinking about making the terrain unbuildable around the Ash Worm but didn't for two reasons: 1. simply a lack of proper terrain textures or doodads. Just adding water would look stupid with the fire-based Ash Worm. 2. I don't have a problem with people just building static defenses for the Ash Worm. It's still a form of commitment and the Ash Worm unburrows between far away locations that you would have to build more than just a few defenses.
If I can make it so the Ash Worm destroys buildings when burrowing to a new location we should have a compromise we can both agree on: Static defenses won't be as effective, but still will still be an option.
Adding voice acting by a different person also means a commitment to certain choices I have made now. I can no longer change the gameplay in a way that would require Dehaka to explain things. I don't want to bother the voice actor, since he's doing it for free, there are a lot of lines, and Dehaka's voice is difficult to mimic.
I don't know if you saw, but there was a version where I tried some of the models you recommended. The Primal Hive model looked cool, but adding another 1,5MB to the map was a bit much in my opinion. Eventually I decided to just use the editor to apply some color effects. I think the Ravager looks cool now, and the other bosses were fine anyway.
Terrain is now complete. I've also added a new loading screen. Tonight (5-6 hours from now) I will add screenshots and create the thread on battle.net. Discussion should be moved there then. Voice over is still missing, and there are still a few bugs to be squashed and some polishing to be done, but nothing that can't be done after creating the thread.
I know I've kinda hijacked this thread with my own project, but since Mapster doesn't have that many active people anymore I thought "why not?"
edit: if you are looking for the map on bnet. I've reuploaded it under "RTC 2017: Primal Ascension"
Wow u even put my name as tester. Makes me look like a professional, even thought my name makes me look like a moron ^^.
I cant post feedback on battle.net since im sharing account with bro and he dosnt want me to write on his "precious" account, so i leave feedback here. But not often since i believe there isn't much to leave feedback about, except waves(and i dont want to spam this thread)
So i was wondering will you include easy,hard,brutal? I would love to test this on harder because i like a challenge. Would be nice to see bosses spawn earlier and face tougher bosses.
I've seen some people play now, thanks to the power of Replay! It was more difficult for them than intended so there is a chance I might create an easier difficulty as the new Normal.
I'm currently working on making the map smaller (from 208x208 to 176x192 (-22%)), decreasing enemy waves and number of static enemies, so all in all it should actually become easier in the next few updates.
I'm also reworking how the Void Crystals work. You now have to damage a boss a bit before a Void Crystals is summoned.
I'Ve also removed the second bonus objective. Mainly to save some space, but because also I thought it was a bit redundant.
Due to the amount of changes I've now made it so the NA Server now always has the last stable version and the EU Server has the version I am currently testing.
- Decreased map size from 208x208 to 176x192 (-22%) - Changed terrain art in various areas - Removed second bonus objective - First objective will now start 1 minute earlier - Void Crystals are now summoned after dealing enough damage to a Boss - Void Crystals will no longer stand still for long periods of time - Decreased life of most Void Crystals and bosses - Increased starting distance of Void Crystals at most bosses - Changed minimap ping of Void Crystals to a circle - Bosses will now wake up faster - Bosses will no longer try to target invulnerable units - Decreased tech and army size of Terran forces - Removed many pre-placed Primal Zerg and Terran forces - Terran forces will no longer use Cloak - Improved pathing of Terran forces - First attack wave now appears after 4.2 minutes - Fixed color and text of objectives when failed - Improved appearance of loading screen - Structures within a radius of 4 are now destroyed when the Ash Worm unburrows - Decreased life of Ash Worms from 4000 to 3200 - Carnozor can now be attacked by anti-air weapons - Decreased size of Carnozor from 2.3 to 2.0 - Uldra and Carnozor now push back stationary air units they are colliding with - Increased minimap radius of Uldra and Carnozor - Structures within a radius of 6 are now destroyed when Uldra unburrows - Uldra will now always burrow regardless of what might block his path - Will no longer deny bosses the creation of eggs if too many structures or Void Crystals are nearby
You'll be interested to know that I've added multiple abilities to the Void Crystals. Basically each group of Crystals is given a single ability in addition to their healing. These abilities are chosen randomly at map start and shuffle, so no other Voud Crystal group has the same abiliy. The abilities are:
Psi Storm Aura: Damages player units around a Void Crystal Slow Aura: Slows player units around a Void Crystal Cloak: Cloaks a Void Crystal (never used with Devastator) - will tweak it so the VC uncloaks from time to time. Speed: Increases movement speed of a Void Crystal Twin: Creates duplicate of a Void Crystal
Might add more in the future (e.g. spawn corrupted Marines)
Yes that was really a good call u made. I thought: wait how will he deal with the fact that i can ignore some of these crystals? but your idea to include heal as well was quite good thinking there.
I have 1 idea. Corruption: Void crystal can places a dot on one unit. If u dont kill that unit while it transforms it will turn into amons minion. Unit will glow red and have increased stats. The corruption will spread once a unit is corrupted to another nearby unit.
One thing i noticed that u wrote what each crystal does and so far i faced slow and cloak. But i think it would be good if u just wrote it beneath the heal info: http://imgur.com/a/vefWi
Would it be to much work if u also changed each crystal into a specific color? The crystal ball and the crystal beam? The players could react faster when they see a familiar color.
And this one has been bothering me since the map has been published. Every time i play my ally never attacks the crystals, 9/10 times they go for the boss for 3 minutes. I tried to explain but sometimes i would get russians and polish.
It would be great if the voice-actor could emphasize the importance of the crystals ability to heal.
I want to be careful to not make the Void Crystal abilities too complicated:
a) Boss fights on macro maps are a bit different than micro maps. People get distracted easily by things that happen in other areas, e.g. having to tend to your base. This is actually one of the reasons why you often see people go for the boss and not the Crystals; they just don't see it.
b) I know the ability you wrote was just a quick idea, but let me walk you through my thinking process: Having to single out a unit might be really hard when so much is going on; having to kill it might be frustrating too, because players didn't really make a mistake, other than bringing units to the battlefield. Also, what happens if players built a really expensive unit and lose it? Zerg would be at an advantage.
Unless it was a bug you should have faced four different types of Crystals. Could be that you saw Speed (has a brighter color) and Twin (twice as many Crystals), or Psi Storm (which might be a bit hard to spot with its red/black color).
I can't change the color of units directly. I can "add" colors and HDR but the darker the original color is, the harder it gets to have a natural-looking color. I was hoping that the effects themselves (area effects or multiple crystals) would be enough. I will think about changing the beam color, but will probably just add some text on the unit. Initially the effects were visible before the Crystals became active, but that was overkill of effects.
Some people might have life bars turned off, so they don't realize they can't damage a boss. Will try to add special life bars which always show.
Crazy as it sounds, but today I started working on a new boss. My plan was to have the first three bosses switch randomly at map start. I wanted to have two movers/burrowers, two stationary, and two flyers. No plans to change the last one. I realize now that even one boss ist still a lot of work, so I will just finish the one I started, and then continue polishing.
Changelog: - Added new boss Skiver which can burrow, impale and leap on units - Game now randomly picks Devastator or Skiver at start - Added Marines to enemy player bases - Added new bonus objective transmissions - Game now randomly picks appropriate transmissions for the bonus objective - Removed weapon and attack indicator of Mothmam - Added aura for Mothmam which damages nearby player units - Increased movement speed of Devastator from 2 to 5 when not burrowed - Increased Devastator Shockwave bonus damage to heroic targets from 0 to 30 - Decreased height of progress bar for Devastator from 5.0 to 4.5 - New custom status bars for bosses - Status bars of bosses are now always turned on - Added visual hint to the first Void Crystals - New Void Crystal ability Spawner: Void Crystal frequently spawns Zerglings and Hydralisks - Decreased wait time until a pathing-blocked Void Crystal moves from 20 to 15 seconds - Cloaked Void Crystals will now uncloak for 10 seconds every 30 seconds - Added subtips to Void Crystals about their abilities - Will no longer play Attack Single/Multiple Crystal" transmissions right after each other - Replaced Huge Crystals with Large Crystals at the Mothmam boss area - Removed No Fly Zones at the Mothmam boss area - Fixed damage display of Collect Essence - Increased Collect Essence damage for Carnozor from 15 to 20 - Increased Collect Essence Damage for Mothmam from 15 to 25 - Increased Collect Essence damage for Uldra from 15 to 30 - Added a secret - New map preview image - Changed battle.net tip to "Destroy active Void Crystals..." - Added How To Play screenshots
The voice acting is perfect! Doing dehaka must have been quite hard but pronogo managed to almost fool me into thinking its dehaka voiceactor himself!
a) Void crystal idea "Dance with me": There are 2 crystals. 1 white beam other dark beam. Dark beam casts a dot on either player 1 or 2. The dark beam dot can only affect 1 player and will effect all units of affected player.
This dot will deplete few hp each seconds. Light beam will cast a dot on either player 1 or 2 (all units) that offers immunity to dark beam. Players need to keep each unit together to cancel the dot effect. Players also need to evade the boss spells,circles but have to do so in unison. Every time they go apart the dot will take effect and damage player.
White beam is neutral and cant be killed unless dark beam is slayed.
U could make player 1 have like a dark aura and player 2 white aura on units. I would write something simple like: White negates dark in the crystal description. I think ability could be a fun way to make ally cop-orate. Or maybe make this crystal not heal the boss and make it invulnerable? so we can dance with the boss till the night.
b) Bonus: One thing that has been bothering me is the bonus timing. In blizzard co-op maps all bonus have 2 parts in them except hold out missions. You put 1 objective because it would take to much away from fighting the bosses but creating 1 is to easy. So i would either put the bonus around after 2nd boss- killing 3d boss. And since its so late in game i would tighten the bonus area defense.
c) Boss: Another thing that has been bothering me is that the boss dont attack u when u move in their vicinity, unless off course u either attack them or the timer runs down. It dosnt make sense story wise that the boss will just ignore you. So i thought why not put all the bosses in egg form.
This way they dont "see you" and cant attack u "story wise". Once the timer runs down they hatch from the giant egg.
d) I tested this map a lot and its hard to test it when u have to play it with teammate. Im running out of test ideas^^, so if u have some area that u are concerned let me know!
PS: So the map "primal ascension" has gone huge changes! Unfortunately we haven't been able to post them, they where valid as of april 1.
Outsider has transferred the ownership of this map and all of his maps to me. Also any map he makes in the future will belong to me.
The cool thing about these Void Crystals abilities is that they work like their own mutators. You always add more and more abilities and it will never be too much. Unfortunately I won't be having much time working on the map anymore, which is why I'm handing it over to you^^, so the map is now feature-complete. I'll only be assisting you with some bugfixing and polishing until the release date. I wish you good luck and I am sure it will perform well! If you win the tickets and visit Blizzcon please tell us about your journey and the convention!
Just played it and have to say the terraining is breathtaking. If someone asked: how would it be to live in the prehistoric days i would say: Just play this map. The ancient pools, the sand... aah. When someone can make terrain alive like this its...art.
The ash worm managed to go through my building: http://imgur.com/a/7kkVx
Which made me curious and i asked myself what happens if i do this? http://imgur.com/a/n7ui9 http://imgur.com/a/tPAqX
he managed to slip through the cracks but later i havent seen any ash worm^^. i think he got scared^^
What do you think about the idea of adding like a corrupted terrain (around the egg areas)? Like dehaka could say: this terrain u cant build here. It would avoid commanders like karax just building canons and ignoring the ashworm. It would force u to use units and get rid of it.
Thanks. Only the areas for the last two bosses remain. I like the terrain but I fear it's too detailed. Some people might have performance issues. There are actually some rules in the co-op guideline I simply ignored: Not too have too many complex doodads within another. Not add any tall doodads which require Air Path Blockers. Not add too much water.
I made it so the Ash Worm destroys any buildings when first created, but I must admit I don't know what happens when he just burrows to a different location. Will check.
I was thinking about making the terrain unbuildable around the Ash Worm but didn't for two reasons: 1. simply a lack of proper terrain textures or doodads. Just adding water would look stupid with the fire-based Ash Worm. 2. I don't have a problem with people just building static defenses for the Ash Worm. It's still a form of commitment and the Ash Worm unburrows between far away locations that you would have to build more than just a few defenses.
If I can make it so the Ash Worm destroys buildings when burrowing to a new location we should have a compromise we can both agree on: Static defenses won't be as effective, but still will still be an option.
Adding voice acting by a different person also means a commitment to certain choices I have made now. I can no longer change the gameplay in a way that would require Dehaka to explain things. I don't want to bother the voice actor, since he's doing it for free, there are a lot of lines, and Dehaka's voice is difficult to mimic.
I don't know if you saw, but there was a version where I tried some of the models you recommended. The Primal Hive model looked cool, but adding another 1,5MB to the map was a bit much in my opinion. Eventually I decided to just use the editor to apply some color effects. I think the Ravager looks cool now, and the other bosses were fine anyway.
Terrain is now complete. I've also added a new loading screen. Tonight (5-6 hours from now) I will add screenshots and create the thread on battle.net. Discussion should be moved there then. Voice over is still missing, and there are still a few bugs to be squashed and some polishing to be done, but nothing that can't be done after creating the thread.
I know I've kinda hijacked this thread with my own project, but since Mapster doesn't have that many active people anymore I thought "why not?"
edit: if you are looking for the map on bnet. I've reuploaded it under "RTC 2017: Primal Ascension"
It's done: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/20753885202
Time to spam a different forum^^
Wow u even put my name as tester. Makes me look like a professional, even thought my name makes me look like a moron ^^.
I cant post feedback on battle.net since im sharing account with bro and he dosnt want me to write on his "precious" account, so i leave feedback here. But not often since i believe there isn't much to leave feedback about, except waves(and i dont want to spam this thread)
So i was wondering will you include easy,hard,brutal? I would love to test this on harder because i like a challenge. Would be nice to see bosses spawn earlier and face tougher bosses.
I've seen some people play now, thanks to the power of Replay! It was more difficult for them than intended so there is a chance I might create an easier difficulty as the new Normal.
I'm currently working on making the map smaller (from 208x208 to 176x192 (-22%)), decreasing enemy waves and number of static enemies, so all in all it should actually become easier in the next few updates.
I'm also reworking how the Void Crystals work. You now have to damage a boss a bit before a Void Crystals is summoned.
I'Ve also removed the second bonus objective. Mainly to save some space, but because also I thought it was a bit redundant.
Due to the amount of changes I've now made it so the NA Server now always has the last stable version and the EU Server has the version I am currently testing.
I can change your name if you want.
No the name is fine, u just focus on making the best map possible ^^
Today was a busy day:
- Decreased map size from 208x208 to 176x192 (-22%)
- Changed terrain art in various areas
- Removed second bonus objective
- First objective will now start 1 minute earlier
- Void Crystals are now summoned after dealing enough damage to a Boss
- Void Crystals will no longer stand still for long periods of time
- Decreased life of most Void Crystals and bosses
- Increased starting distance of Void Crystals at most bosses
- Changed minimap ping of Void Crystals to a circle
- Bosses will now wake up faster
- Bosses will no longer try to target invulnerable units
- Decreased tech and army size of Terran forces
- Removed many pre-placed Primal Zerg and Terran forces
- Terran forces will no longer use Cloak
- Improved pathing of Terran forces
- First attack wave now appears after 4.2 minutes
- Fixed color and text of objectives when failed
- Improved appearance of loading screen
- Structures within a radius of 4 are now destroyed when the Ash Worm unburrows
- Decreased life of Ash Worms from 4000 to 3200
- Carnozor can now be attacked by anti-air weapons
- Decreased size of Carnozor from 2.3 to 2.0
- Uldra and Carnozor now push back stationary air units they are colliding with
- Increased minimap radius of Uldra and Carnozor
- Structures within a radius of 6 are now destroyed when Uldra unburrows
- Uldra will now always burrow regardless of what might block his path
- Will no longer deny bosses the creation of eggs if too many structures or Void Crystals are nearby
You'll be interested to know that I've added multiple abilities to the Void Crystals. Basically each group of Crystals is given a single ability in addition to their healing. These abilities are chosen randomly at map start and shuffle, so no other Voud Crystal group has the same abiliy. The abilities are:
Psi Storm Aura: Damages player units around a Void Crystal
Slow Aura: Slows player units around a Void Crystal
Cloak: Cloaks a Void Crystal (never used with Devastator) - will tweak it so the VC uncloaks from time to time.
Speed: Increases movement speed of a Void Crystal
Twin: Creates duplicate of a Void Crystal
Might add more in the future (e.g. spawn corrupted Marines)
Yes that was really a good call u made. I thought: wait how will he deal with the fact that i can ignore some of these crystals? but your idea to include heal as well was quite good thinking there.
I have 1 idea. Corruption: Void crystal can places a dot on one unit. If u dont kill that unit while it transforms it will turn into amons minion. Unit will glow red and have increased stats. The corruption will spread once a unit is corrupted to another nearby unit.
One thing i noticed that u wrote what each crystal does and so far i faced slow and cloak. But i think it would be good if u just wrote it beneath the heal info: http://imgur.com/a/vefWi
Would it be to much work if u also changed each crystal into a specific color? The crystal ball and the crystal beam? The players could react faster when they see a familiar color.
And this one has been bothering me since the map has been published. Every time i play my ally never attacks the crystals, 9/10 times they go for the boss for 3 minutes. I tried to explain but sometimes i would get russians and polish.
It would be great if the voice-actor could emphasize the importance of the crystals ability to heal.
I want to be careful to not make the Void Crystal abilities too complicated:
a) Boss fights on macro maps are a bit different than micro maps. People get distracted easily by things that happen in other areas, e.g. having to tend to your base. This is actually one of the reasons why you often see people go for the boss and not the Crystals; they just don't see it.
b) I know the ability you wrote was just a quick idea, but let me walk you through my thinking process: Having to single out a unit might be really hard when so much is going on; having to kill it might be frustrating too, because players didn't really make a mistake, other than bringing units to the battlefield. Also, what happens if players built a really expensive unit and lose it? Zerg would be at an advantage.
Unless it was a bug you should have faced four different types of Crystals. Could be that you saw Speed (has a brighter color) and Twin (twice as many Crystals), or Psi Storm (which might be a bit hard to spot with its red/black color).
I can't change the color of units directly. I can "add" colors and HDR but the darker the original color is, the harder it gets to have a natural-looking color. I was hoping that the effects themselves (area effects or multiple crystals) would be enough. I will think about changing the beam color, but will probably just add some text on the unit. Initially the effects were visible before the Crystals became active, but that was overkill of effects.
Some people might have life bars turned off, so they don't realize they can't damage a boss. Will try to add special life bars which always show.
Crazy as it sounds, but today I started working on a new boss. My plan was to have the first three bosses switch randomly at map start. I wanted to have two movers/burrowers, two stationary, and two flyers. No plans to change the last one. I realize now that even one boss ist still a lot of work, so I will just finish the one I started, and then continue polishing.
Beta 4 is up.. No news on the voice over yet :(
Changelog:
- Added new boss Skiver which can burrow, impale and leap on units
- Game now randomly picks Devastator or Skiver at start
- Added Marines to enemy player bases
- Added new bonus objective transmissions
- Game now randomly picks appropriate transmissions for the bonus objective
- Removed weapon and attack indicator of Mothmam
- Added aura for Mothmam which damages nearby player units
- Increased movement speed of Devastator from 2 to 5 when not burrowed
- Increased Devastator Shockwave bonus damage to heroic targets from 0 to 30
- Decreased height of progress bar for Devastator from 5.0 to 4.5
- New custom status bars for bosses
- Status bars of bosses are now always turned on
- Added visual hint to the first Void Crystals
- New Void Crystal ability Spawner: Void Crystal frequently spawns Zerglings and Hydralisks
- Decreased wait time until a pathing-blocked Void Crystal moves from 20 to 15 seconds
- Cloaked Void Crystals will now uncloak for 10 seconds every 30 seconds
- Added subtips to Void Crystals about their abilities
- Will no longer play Attack Single/Multiple Crystal" transmissions right after each other
- Replaced Huge Crystals with Large Crystals at the Mothmam boss area
- Removed No Fly Zones at the Mothmam boss area
- Fixed damage display of Collect Essence
- Increased Collect Essence damage for Carnozor from 15 to 20
- Increased Collect Essence Damage for Mothmam from 15 to 25
- Increased Collect Essence damage for Uldra from 15 to 30
- Added a secret
- New map preview image
- Changed battle.net tip to "Destroy active Void Crystals..."
- Added How To Play screenshots
The voice acting is perfect! Doing dehaka must have been quite hard but pronogo managed to almost fool me into thinking its dehaka voiceactor himself!
a) Void crystal idea "Dance with me": There are 2 crystals. 1 white beam other dark beam. Dark beam casts a dot on either player 1 or 2. The dark beam dot can only affect 1 player and will effect all units of affected player.
This dot will deplete few hp each seconds. Light beam will cast a dot on either player 1 or 2 (all units) that offers immunity to dark beam. Players need to keep each unit together to cancel the dot effect. Players also need to evade the boss spells,circles but have to do so in unison. Every time they go apart the dot will take effect and damage player.
White beam is neutral and cant be killed unless dark beam is slayed.
U could make player 1 have like a dark aura and player 2 white aura on units. I would write something simple like: White negates dark in the crystal description. I think ability could be a fun way to make ally cop-orate. Or maybe make this crystal not heal the boss and make it invulnerable? so we can dance with the boss till the night.
b) Bonus: One thing that has been bothering me is the bonus timing. In blizzard co-op maps all bonus have 2 parts in them except hold out missions. You put 1 objective because it would take to much away from fighting the bosses but creating 1 is to easy. So i would either put the bonus around after 2nd boss- killing 3d boss. And since its so late in game i would tighten the bonus area defense.
c) Boss: Another thing that has been bothering me is that the boss dont attack u when u move in their vicinity, unless off course u either attack them or the timer runs down. It dosnt make sense story wise that the boss will just ignore you. So i thought why not put all the bosses in egg form.
This way they dont "see you" and cant attack u "story wise". Once the timer runs down they hatch from the giant egg.
d) I tested this map a lot and its hard to test it when u have to play it with teammate. Im running out of test ideas^^, so if u have some area that u are concerned let me know!
PS: So the map "primal ascension" has gone huge changes! Unfortunately we haven't been able to post them, they where valid as of april 1.
Outsider has transferred the ownership of this map and all of his maps to me. Also any map he makes in the future will belong to me.
I was so so so so generous as to give him credits: http://imgur.com/a/wnhiO
Good work chap! keep testing my map
No it wasn't Pronogo (unless he is this guy: https://www.georgeexley.com/)!
The cool thing about these Void Crystals abilities is that they work like their own mutators. You always add more and more abilities and it will never be too much. Unfortunately I won't be having much time working on the map anymore, which is why I'm handing it over to you^^, so the map is now feature-complete. I'll only be assisting you with some bugfixing and polishing until the release date. I wish you good luck and I am sure it will perform well! If you win the tickets and visit Blizzcon please tell us about your journey and the convention!
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Curse PremiumWasn't me, though I do a mean Dehaka impression.
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In reply to Forge_User_87697641:
Did you really think the best map in this contest is being made by a single person??
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Curse PremiumSorry Outsider...But i am working alone...and you see..its possible ^^
I had presumed that he was being tongue-in-cheek, I think a lot of the maps were made by only one person excluding voice-acting.