This site is just for people making there own thing, a little map here, an epic map here. I have a much grander idea. Lets collaborate and make a forth race for the base game!
I've given this a lot of though over the late few months, and we could probably do it with maybe 6 people. Zerg has 10 combat units, Terran has 12 combat units. About 11 units would work great. Add in the work, and about two non combat units, maybe, and that's just 13-14 to make.
The idea is, make the units, then models will come. If its great others will want to make better and better models. Looking at that awesome WC3 mod, its quite possible to make your own models. Make balanced units first, test them with place markers, then invest in making some models.
The idea of "balance" in SC2 is simple. There are four tiers of interconnected units that have to be balanced. Each race needs a "siege tank". Each race needs an all around solid multi use fighter. They each need two macro abilities. Each race needs one or more early methods for cheese. Each needs at least two casters, and two massive units. Blame balanced.
When I say tiers of interconnected units, they are ling/zealot/marine, roach/stalker/marauder, muta/phoenix/viking, and ultra/colossi/thor. There is some rock paper scissor in there, but with good micro each race can crush the others unit.
Each race needs a "siege tank". This is a unit that's extremely powerful, almost broken. The Infestor and the Void Ray are the others. They all serve different functions, and excel at them, but can be easily destroyed without support. I think everything else explains itself well enough.
Right, so more or less I've come up with about half of the units, and the general theme of the army. I wouldn't want to yawn on about it, but if interested I'll set out all my ideas. I reckon I'll get mostly replys about how hard or worthless this is, so why waste my fingers typing it all out. But I'd be delighted to either way.
Even if none of you are interested in this idea, I think brainstorming about the theme of the army might be fun. Right now the three races basically cover every single type of sci-fi stereotype. The only others I can think of, are a collective of a few races working together, Federation like, and native race like the Fremen, and an ancient android race. My concept is the latter, a race of robots made my the Xel'naga long before the Protoss and Zerg. They were forgotten, and awaken to find there masters long dead, and find no one to blame but the other races, and attack them. They don't have a hive mind like the zerg, each bot has its own personality. Because of how ancient they are, some of their bodies are randomly destroyed, and now patched up with much newer looking bits.
So, what do you dudes think? Is this do'able? Want to make a race!!!
Well... Definitely this is something that has been of interest to most players.
I was thinking awhile ago of doing this, and i made a crude race thing that had a third resource, which was collected by building an refinery like building on minerals.
@EternalWraith: Go
Thanks for the complement! I'm apparently skilled and experienced!
EternalWraith: How hard could it be. Take the current units, use them as place holder, make up new abilities for them all, use the rule of 8 to get health and damage values, something something, profit.
grenegg: Thanks for the welcome. Be lurking here for quite some time. Rodrigo got me interested. My post really was more of a challenge to every one here, to collectively make a race. That would really get this site on the map, if it made a race as balanced as the others!! Also, in the long term, for esports, I think craft should have more options, much like the insane number of hero's in dota, or all the weapons in tf2.
Putting in a third resource would be awesome. Maybe only one source on the map. So the game might be centered on controlling the map. Maybe buy mercs with it? I hope they do that with terrazine gas sometime in the expos.
Never the less, what type of race do you think would fit story wise?
EternalWraith: How hard could it be. Take the current units, use them as place holder, make up new abilities for them all, use the rule of 8 to get health and damage values, something something, profit.
Artists, Modellers, Data editors, Balance/QA control, Story writers. How do you plan to acquire and manage those aspects?;p
My post really was more of a challenge to every one here, to collectively make a race
Believe me, a collective approach will not work without a central and dedicated leader managing everything. Ive seen this happen all too often, over the many of months of being on Sc2mapster.
Im not saying dont do it. Just know exactly what you are getting into, and be prepared for it.
Besides the visual theme each of the SC-races has a gameplay gimmick: Protoss have shields, teleportation and powerful units. Zerg combat in masses, spread creep and spawn all units from larvae. Terran have flying buildings and a good mix between static defense and powerful offense.
If you know Warcraft 3. The undead brought a very unique gameplay idea with corpses. Units died on the battlefield, the more died the more powerful the undead army became. I'm wondering if something similar can be done for a fourth/robot race in SC2 without coming off as too much fantasy.
Examples: Big mech units don't disappear after being destroyed but can be repaired (actually an old Thor-ability). Small units resurrect like Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. A gimmick could be that the robot race has only 2-3 standard units but upgrades add more diversity to each unit. Imagine a combination of zerg-metamorphosis and Battlecruiser weapon modes from early alpha builds. Back then each Battlecruiser could be equipped with either a Yamato Cannon, a Matrix or a Multiple-Weapons System.
Base the race on the Cylons! Sentient machines who try to copy and understand emotions of living races, trying to force them into living in harmony with them but utterly destroying them :p 95% machines. 5% living organisms. Who created them? Maybe a splinter group of the Xel'Naga.
Ok my basic idea is, about half of the units and buildings are made, by other units and building. So you only construct a few core building, and the rest are made by other buildings. Lets say there are three tech paths, your work makes the first building, and that building builds the next, down the line. Of course, this would make it harder to hide tech, the cost for that mechanic. Also your defense structure can only be build around a certain structure, but then could be build super quick, to throw up a little wall if needed. Only a few units train at building. Each tech path has one big "mother" unit, that's required to birth the rest of the units. Like a walking factory, or a better carrier. I do really like the idea of rebuilding dead units, thanks, so all the mother units can be rebuild, if they don't take x damage after death, and are rebuild with in so many seconds. So I think the theme of the whole army would be, ability to quick expand and make units very quickly, and being able to resupply anywhere, but at the risk of losing important units. I've thought a load of idea for units, here's a quick one: the supply building is called Replicator. After a upgrade, it can cast Replicate. For 100 minerals and 8 supply, it makes 8 units almost instantly. Replicates (see the theme) are really crappy, worse then lings, melee units. Their purpose is just fodder, or to stop a random attack and/or make a wall. Ok that's what I got
Don't hurt me for making a Star Trek reference, but my dad sometimes watches it. Anyway, it sounds quite a bit like the Borg right? Humans that get infested with a virus of some kind that turns them into zombie robots. They aren't all that bright but they can adapt and "learn" new skills quickly (aka, killing 2 robots then the third and 4th become blaster proof). Info from 1 is transferred throughout the rest of them. Zergy, but also robotic.
Welcome to mapster :D Feel free to send me a PM if you need something or have any questions!
Actually making a 4th race- really not that hard. Just making the units themselves, with a few cool abilities, really is no big deal. Making it balanced and fun to play- that is hard. Getting the custom models- that is hard. Somebody already created an idea for a 4th race. It was space pirates, I believe. Definitely go for it. I always think making a new race is one of the best ways to get acclimated with the data editor, because you can look and see how blizzard did it for the others.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Or why not make a race called "Xel'Naga".
I do believe this is doable by us, SC2mapsters. How so? Because this community has a LOT of talented and skilled modelers. The team can be done, but by whom? ;P
This would be a task that would take a very long time.
Lets just say, Blizzard Entertainment has some of the best Game Deveopers in the world, and to make a game as balanced as, lets say, Starcraft. It would take an extreme amount of testing and hard work to be able to get close to making it a Balanced race. Not to mention, getting the Models to look as if they came with the game would be another hard thing to do. But, Good Luck.
Nothing at all. Some people get sick of hearing nerds mention it. I forgot for a moment that we are all nerds here :) Ok well if that idea is too zergy for you then how about this. You have VERY few units, but they are each really super strong. All units come from 2 or 3 basic units and you must evolve them to where you want them to end up. Here is an example. Take a warpig merc that is a machine as your basic unit. It can become either a merc marauder, a goliath, or a weak air unit. From there a goliath can become a thor, an air unit can become a more specialized air unit. However, it takes more than 1 unit to create a better unit. In order to have all the parts, you would need 4 vikings to make 1 battlecruiser. You can't blend units in just any place either. You need to build special refitting centers designed for specific jobs. You can't merge air units in a biology refitting center.
Just some idea I was toying with when was writing. It probably isn't that good either.
Actually....This would be a great idea for the next community project. The last once died prematurely because nev (the mod who was running it) had to leave for a long time. But he's back now so...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
Yea, I think this would be a good community project :) Also, I like Reaper's idea of combining units into more powerful ones. Make 1 basic machinery unit (Sort of like "larva", it'll have all the merge spells) which is needed for each upgrade and is dirt cheap (Possibly even the worker), and then make a bunch of merge abilities for the different units. I think that would definitely be a unique race.
Anyway, if we do turn this into a community project, I want in ;)
This site is just for people making there own thing, a little map here, an epic map here. I have a much grander idea. Lets collaborate and make a forth race for the base game!
I've given this a lot of though over the late few months, and we could probably do it with maybe 6 people. Zerg has 10 combat units, Terran has 12 combat units. About 11 units would work great. Add in the work, and about two non combat units, maybe, and that's just 13-14 to make.
The idea is, make the units, then models will come. If its great others will want to make better and better models. Looking at that awesome WC3 mod, its quite possible to make your own models. Make balanced units first, test them with place markers, then invest in making some models.
The idea of "balance" in SC2 is simple. There are four tiers of interconnected units that have to be balanced. Each race needs a "siege tank". Each race needs an all around solid multi use fighter. They each need two macro abilities. Each race needs one or more early methods for cheese. Each needs at least two casters, and two massive units. Blame balanced.
When I say tiers of interconnected units, they are ling/zealot/marine, roach/stalker/marauder, muta/phoenix/viking, and ultra/colossi/thor. There is some rock paper scissor in there, but with good micro each race can crush the others unit.
Each race needs a "siege tank". This is a unit that's extremely powerful, almost broken. The Infestor and the Void Ray are the others. They all serve different functions, and excel at them, but can be easily destroyed without support. I think everything else explains itself well enough.
Right, so more or less I've come up with about half of the units, and the general theme of the army. I wouldn't want to yawn on about it, but if interested I'll set out all my ideas. I reckon I'll get mostly replys about how hard or worthless this is, so why waste my fingers typing it all out. But I'd be delighted to either way.
Even if none of you are interested in this idea, I think brainstorming about the theme of the army might be fun. Right now the three races basically cover every single type of sci-fi stereotype. The only others I can think of, are a collective of a few races working together, Federation like, and native race like the Fremen, and an ancient android race. My concept is the latter, a race of robots made my the Xel'naga long before the Protoss and Zerg. They were forgotten, and awaken to find there masters long dead, and find no one to blame but the other races, and attack them. They don't have a hive mind like the zerg, each bot has its own personality. Because of how ancient they are, some of their bodies are randomly destroyed, and now patched up with much newer looking bits.
So, what do you dudes think? Is this do'able? Want to make a race!!!
I posted a whole robotic-race in someone else's thread to give him some ideas. Will try to recover it and repost it here :).
Unless attempted by a skilled, experienced and dedicated team. No, Its not really possible.
That is the unfortunate truth.
@overmancer: Go
Welcome to sc2mapster :D
Well... Definitely this is something that has been of interest to most players.
I was thinking awhile ago of doing this, and i made a crude race thing that had a third resource, which was collected by building an refinery like building on minerals.
@EternalWraith: Go Thanks for the complement! I'm apparently skilled and experienced!
EternalWraith: How hard could it be. Take the current units, use them as place holder, make up new abilities for them all, use the rule of 8 to get health and damage values, something something, profit.
grenegg: Thanks for the welcome. Be lurking here for quite some time. Rodrigo got me interested. My post really was more of a challenge to every one here, to collectively make a race. That would really get this site on the map, if it made a race as balanced as the others!! Also, in the long term, for esports, I think craft should have more options, much like the insane number of hero's in dota, or all the weapons in tf2.
Putting in a third resource would be awesome. Maybe only one source on the map. So the game might be centered on controlling the map. Maybe buy mercs with it? I hope they do that with terrazine gas sometime in the expos.
Never the less, what type of race do you think would fit story wise?
Artists, Modellers, Data editors, Balance/QA control, Story writers. How do you plan to acquire and manage those aspects?;p
Believe me, a collective approach will not work without a central and dedicated leader managing everything. Ive seen this happen all too often, over the many of months of being on Sc2mapster.
Im not saying dont do it. Just know exactly what you are getting into, and be prepared for it.
Besides the visual theme each of the SC-races has a gameplay gimmick: Protoss have shields, teleportation and powerful units. Zerg combat in masses, spread creep and spawn all units from larvae. Terran have flying buildings and a good mix between static defense and powerful offense.
If you know Warcraft 3. The undead brought a very unique gameplay idea with corpses. Units died on the battlefield, the more died the more powerful the undead army became. I'm wondering if something similar can be done for a fourth/robot race in SC2 without coming off as too much fantasy. Examples: Big mech units don't disappear after being destroyed but can be repaired (actually an old Thor-ability). Small units resurrect like Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. A gimmick could be that the robot race has only 2-3 standard units but upgrades add more diversity to each unit. Imagine a combination of zerg-metamorphosis and Battlecruiser weapon modes from early alpha builds. Back then each Battlecruiser could be equipped with either a Yamato Cannon, a Matrix or a Multiple-Weapons System.
Base the race on the Cylons! Sentient machines who try to copy and understand emotions of living races, trying to force them into living in harmony with them but utterly destroying them :p 95% machines. 5% living organisms. Who created them? Maybe a splinter group of the Xel'Naga.
Ok my basic idea is, about half of the units and buildings are made, by other units and building. So you only construct a few core building, and the rest are made by other buildings. Lets say there are three tech paths, your work makes the first building, and that building builds the next, down the line. Of course, this would make it harder to hide tech, the cost for that mechanic. Also your defense structure can only be build around a certain structure, but then could be build super quick, to throw up a little wall if needed. Only a few units train at building. Each tech path has one big "mother" unit, that's required to birth the rest of the units. Like a walking factory, or a better carrier. I do really like the idea of rebuilding dead units, thanks, so all the mother units can be rebuild, if they don't take x damage after death, and are rebuild with in so many seconds. So I think the theme of the whole army would be, ability to quick expand and make units very quickly, and being able to resupply anywhere, but at the risk of losing important units. I've thought a load of idea for units, here's a quick one: the supply building is called Replicator. After a upgrade, it can cast Replicate. For 100 minerals and 8 supply, it makes 8 units almost instantly. Replicates (see the theme) are really crappy, worse then lings, melee units. Their purpose is just fodder, or to stop a random attack and/or make a wall. Ok that's what I got
Don't hurt me for making a Star Trek reference, but my dad sometimes watches it. Anyway, it sounds quite a bit like the Borg right? Humans that get infested with a virus of some kind that turns them into zombie robots. They aren't all that bright but they can adapt and "learn" new skills quickly (aka, killing 2 robots then the third and 4th become blaster proof). Info from 1 is transferred throughout the rest of them. Zergy, but also robotic.
I hope this 'forth' race can spell.
Nothing at all like Borg. Zerg are a bio rip off of Borg. I was going for some very un-borg and un-zerg like. And what is wrong with Star Trek?
Welcome to mapster :D Feel free to send me a PM if you need something or have any questions!
Actually making a 4th race- really not that hard. Just making the units themselves, with a few cool abilities, really is no big deal. Making it balanced and fun to play- that is hard. Getting the custom models- that is hard. Somebody already created an idea for a 4th race. It was space pirates, I believe. Definitely go for it. I always think making a new race is one of the best ways to get acclimated with the data editor, because you can look and see how blizzard did it for the others.
Why not make a race based off the hybrids? Stalker mixed with a hydralisk or maybe a zealot mixed with a queen. The possibilities are endless.
Or why not make a race called "Xel'Naga". I do believe this is doable by us, SC2mapsters. How so? Because this community has a LOT of talented and skilled modelers. The team can be done, but by whom? ;P
This would be a task that would take a very long time.
Lets just say, Blizzard Entertainment has some of the best Game Deveopers in the world, and to make a game as balanced as, lets say, Starcraft. It would take an extreme amount of testing and hard work to be able to get close to making it a Balanced race. Not to mention, getting the Models to look as if they came with the game would be another hard thing to do. But, Good Luck.
@overmancer: Go
Nothing at all. Some people get sick of hearing nerds mention it. I forgot for a moment that we are all nerds here :) Ok well if that idea is too zergy for you then how about this. You have VERY few units, but they are each really super strong. All units come from 2 or 3 basic units and you must evolve them to where you want them to end up. Here is an example. Take a warpig merc that is a machine as your basic unit. It can become either a merc marauder, a goliath, or a weak air unit. From there a goliath can become a thor, an air unit can become a more specialized air unit. However, it takes more than 1 unit to create a better unit. In order to have all the parts, you would need 4 vikings to make 1 battlecruiser. You can't blend units in just any place either. You need to build special refitting centers designed for specific jobs. You can't merge air units in a biology refitting center.
Just some idea I was toying with when was writing. It probably isn't that good either.
Actually....This would be a great idea for the next community project. The last once died prematurely because nev (the mod who was running it) had to leave for a long time. But he's back now so...
Yea, I think this would be a good community project :) Also, I like Reaper's idea of combining units into more powerful ones. Make 1 basic machinery unit (Sort of like "larva", it'll have all the merge spells) which is needed for each upgrade and is dirt cheap (Possibly even the worker), and then make a bunch of merge abilities for the different units. I think that would definitely be a unique race.
Anyway, if we do turn this into a community project, I want in ;)
i think i'll get 3ds max just for this
To be fair, I'd be more interested in making the Xel'Naga as a race.