From watching your hero videos, the spells themselves are very impressive.
However, it looks to me like most spells are just different ways to do AoE damage. In terms of gameplay, how is it much different to kill 10 units with a spell that goes in a line compared to killing 10 units with a spell that has an area-effect target radius? Do you make decisions in your hero design that would force the player to consider which skills they want to use, or is it mostly about players picking their preferred spells for mass slaughter?
The epic WC3 maps did not come over night. Also, if you made a successful and polished map for WC3, you and everyone expects your SC2 map to be epic as well, making you reluctant to release a version, before you think, it is perfect (I had to push myself hard to release my beta version, I am quite a perfectionist usually ;) )
We will see in 2-3 years, how the SC2 custom map scene has developed.
I have hundreds of hours of WC3 mapping experience and several years of practice. I started working on my SC2 map the first day the beta of the editor was available, and I'm still only 50% done a year later. I think custom mapping will start to hit its stride shortly after Heart of the Swarm.
I took someone else's idea for an RPG in Warcraft 3 and it took me 5 years to make it. We're about making some fun games and having fun doing it, I just don't think anyone else could possibly be dedicated enough to take your ideas, make the best map ever, and not even contact you about it.
Here's a more important point. If all you're doing is supplying an idea, isn't it a best-case scenario that someone "steals" the idea to actually make it?
Post some bullet points for us about what makes your idea special and muster up some excitement.
Also, maybe you shouldn't open the thread by saying:
Gatling Tower - Each attack speeds it up by x% up to a maximum of +y% attack speed. If the tower stops attacking for 2 seconds, it will lose all of its attack speed boost. (good for early in the maze where there are lots of units)
Blink Tower - Can teleport between two points, preferably automatically, so you can get almost 2 towers for the price of 1.
Timejumper Tower - Sends the unit ahead 3 seconds into the future (disappears and reappears). Can do any kind of other effects on return, such as removing a percentage of hit points.
Execution Tower - Gains a 50% damage bonus for 2 seconds when it attacks a unit that has less than 50% life.
I have a unit with an instant ability that toggles between two passive modes (switches between passive movement speed or passive damage boost), and I want the command card to show a different passive button depending on the toggle mode. When I first conceived of this, I was planning to use the trigger to show/hide abilities. Unfortunately, a passive button on the command card is not an ability.
Is there any way to show/hide a passive button?
Any given unit can be using either mode A or mode B at any given time, so is it possible to make a requirement that only affects a single individual unit? I think if this were somehow possible I could use "show" requirements to hide the passive button until the toggle mode is changed.
Here's my experience. I finished college with a Comp Sci degree at a time just before game development majors were becoming common (8 years ago). Overall I just love programming, but I love mapping so much that I a career in the game industry would really be a dream job. However, I never really pursued it, and I got a job just programming stuff for phones.
My job is mostly satisfying at a professional level, I get to program non-game related things and I make a lot of money doing it. I spend my evenings mapping in SC2 to get my game dev satisfaction. Some day I think it would be fun to have a job at a game company, but I know that there will be less job security, less money, and to be honest there are a LOT of terrible games being made right now and I'm not sure I want to work at a company to make grade C games. I really think that less than 10% of major releases are even worth my time to play for more than half an hour. Try walking into a Gamestop and look at the hundreds of crappy titles you've never even heard of before.
The one thing I truly miss from working at a normal company is the people. At a normal company you'll be surrounded by lots of boring people who are into boring stuff. A game company is filled with excited gamers who are all into the same stuff as you. You'll be surrounded by younger people and it will be easier to make friends with your coworkers. I have a friend who works as an hourly tester for a games company and it sounds like a ton of fun, even though he only gets paid $10 an hour and has minimal job security.
Maybe I'll just go on mapping and I'll never get to experience that dream job at a games company. Who knows, the same thing could happen to you if you go just for comp sci. Or maybe you'll do level design and make it big, or end up disappointed forever at a normal job. It's a hard life decision to make.
So what happened? From your previous post it looks like you have a huge list of things you want in your game. Maybe the concept was simply way beyond a reasonable scope?
Are you working on anything else instead or did you just put everything on hold?
I've been wishing they would add a rating system so people could score a map, not just a "popularity" meter. Fun and Not Fun as well as the total bookmarks are close to that. I'm excited!
With custom maps, you have just a few seconds to teach a player how to play the game. If you don't use the loading screen to highlight critical info about the game, you're really wasting a good opportunity to teach players about how to play.
Looks absolutely amazing! This is in fact the very first map that made me: Ok, I want to play this NOW.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Often these project preview vids show off something technically amazing but not very fun. This game looks like it has a huge potential for fun.
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Yeah you forgot that. You should totally put that in your map.
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From watching your hero videos, the spells themselves are very impressive.
However, it looks to me like most spells are just different ways to do AoE damage. In terms of gameplay, how is it much different to kill 10 units with a spell that goes in a line compared to killing 10 units with a spell that has an area-effect target radius? Do you make decisions in your hero design that would force the player to consider which skills they want to use, or is it mostly about players picking their preferred spells for mass slaughter?
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I like the Star Drivers much better than GTS. Reminds me of Super Off Road!
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Good luck!
Don't forget about the 10mb map size limit.
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I have hundreds of hours of WC3 mapping experience and several years of practice. I started working on my SC2 map the first day the beta of the editor was available, and I'm still only 50% done a year later. I think custom mapping will start to hit its stride shortly after Heart of the Swarm.
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I took someone else's idea for an RPG in Warcraft 3 and it took me 5 years to make it. We're about making some fun games and having fun doing it, I just don't think anyone else could possibly be dedicated enough to take your ideas, make the best map ever, and not even contact you about it.
Here's a more important point. If all you're doing is supplying an idea, isn't it a best-case scenario that someone "steals" the idea to actually make it?
Post some bullet points for us about what makes your idea special and muster up some excitement.
Also, maybe you shouldn't open the thread by saying:
If you were the leader of a map making clan, but never completed a map, then what are your strengths? Tell us more about yourself.
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Thanks for the advice!
Using the "show" requirement for "Count Behavior - Complete at Unit" allowed me to toggle the passive icon on and off between individual units.
Boom baby!
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Gatling Tower - Each attack speeds it up by x% up to a maximum of +y% attack speed. If the tower stops attacking for 2 seconds, it will lose all of its attack speed boost. (good for early in the maze where there are lots of units)
Blink Tower - Can teleport between two points, preferably automatically, so you can get almost 2 towers for the price of 1.
Timejumper Tower - Sends the unit ahead 3 seconds into the future (disappears and reappears). Can do any kind of other effects on return, such as removing a percentage of hit points.
Execution Tower - Gains a 50% damage bonus for 2 seconds when it attacks a unit that has less than 50% life.
0
I have a unit with an instant ability that toggles between two passive modes (switches between passive movement speed or passive damage boost), and I want the command card to show a different passive button depending on the toggle mode. When I first conceived of this, I was planning to use the trigger to show/hide abilities. Unfortunately, a passive button on the command card is not an ability.
Is there any way to show/hide a passive button?
Any given unit can be using either mode A or mode B at any given time, so is it possible to make a requirement that only affects a single individual unit? I think if this were somehow possible I could use "show" requirements to hide the passive button until the toggle mode is changed.
Thanks!
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Here's my experience. I finished college with a Comp Sci degree at a time just before game development majors were becoming common (8 years ago). Overall I just love programming, but I love mapping so much that I a career in the game industry would really be a dream job. However, I never really pursued it, and I got a job just programming stuff for phones.
My job is mostly satisfying at a professional level, I get to program non-game related things and I make a lot of money doing it. I spend my evenings mapping in SC2 to get my game dev satisfaction. Some day I think it would be fun to have a job at a game company, but I know that there will be less job security, less money, and to be honest there are a LOT of terrible games being made right now and I'm not sure I want to work at a company to make grade C games. I really think that less than 10% of major releases are even worth my time to play for more than half an hour. Try walking into a Gamestop and look at the hundreds of crappy titles you've never even heard of before.
The one thing I truly miss from working at a normal company is the people. At a normal company you'll be surrounded by lots of boring people who are into boring stuff. A game company is filled with excited gamers who are all into the same stuff as you. You'll be surrounded by younger people and it will be easier to make friends with your coworkers. I have a friend who works as an hourly tester for a games company and it sounds like a ton of fun, even though he only gets paid $10 an hour and has minimal job security.
Maybe I'll just go on mapping and I'll never get to experience that dream job at a games company. Who knows, the same thing could happen to you if you go just for comp sci. Or maybe you'll do level design and make it big, or end up disappointed forever at a normal job. It's a hard life decision to make.
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That was like the ending of Inception! What happened to that kid??
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So what happened? From your previous post it looks like you have a huge list of things you want in your game. Maybe the concept was simply way beyond a reasonable scope?
Are you working on anything else instead or did you just put everything on hold?
0
I've been wishing they would add a rating system so people could score a map, not just a "popularity" meter. Fun and Not Fun as well as the total bookmarks are close to that. I'm excited!
0
With custom maps, you have just a few seconds to teach a player how to play the game. If you don't use the loading screen to highlight critical info about the game, you're really wasting a good opportunity to teach players about how to play.
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Couldn't have said it better myself. Often these project preview vids show off something technically amazing but not very fun. This game looks like it has a huge potential for fun.
Also, I just love Zelda games. :D