Yeah yeah, my sense of date and time is legendarly bad :P I meant this weekend, 6 of OCTOBER, not september ^^
I was wondering if there was something I was completely misunderstanding about the European calendar. I know you guys do power outlets differently, so maybe you're also a month behind for all I know.
I've noticed that the Element TD popularity and rating has gone way up since it got featured. That's just awesome! Do you have any long-term plans for Element TD?
BTW I sent you an e-mail about ETD earlier this week. Hope you got it.
Holy moly, you have a portfolio! This is some good work, and it crosses so many game types.
Star Screamers reminds me a lot of the original Smash TV game (NES/SNES). I wonder if that perspective/controls could be adapted for a Smash TV mod, given that I think the original project isn't being worked on anymore.
So you have so many different projects and many are unpublished, why not focus on just one or two and really polish the f^#! out of them?
It's simple. Do you want to make games as a hobby? Mapping is the easiest possible way to cut past the technical hurdles and dive right in to making a game.
-Has a well built API that is easy to learn
-All art and sound assets have been made for you
-Has a distribution system to deliver your work to other people
I don't know of any other way to create games as a hobby that doesn't cover all of these. The trigger programming is so easy to learn, a kid can figure it out. I don't have any art skills and I'm not about to render models or create textures for a 2D mobile game. And the last one is the big one: the distribution system. You could make a 3D mod for any game, but without a site or community to distribute your work, no one will play it.
In the SC2 editor, you can have a vision in your mind for the game that you want to make. With enough skill and dedication your vision can come to life, and it makes you feel ten feet tall. I don't know how else to get that without a assembling a dev team, artists, or a community to fill in the gaps.
I'm glad they're going in this direction, and I really hope they do more of it. There are plenty of "popular" games and "highly played" games that are, in fact, nearly unplayable.
On NA, they've still got their Star Jeweled, Aiur Chef, and Left 2 Die games featured on the main Arcade page. I can only assume that EU is under different management, or maybe it's that Europe is just more progressive!
I have a feeling the 1.5 editor is the HotS editor, minus the new mods/dependencies of course. I hope I'm wrong though :P
I bet this is correct. I think the only reason that 1.5 came out this far in advance of HOTS is because they believe that they'll be getting a ton of returning players with the expansion. A good way to impress the returning players is to have a well established arcade system in place that shows off the maps that are doing well.
If the arcade came out with HOTS, it wouldn't have "settled" yet by the time the serious players finish the campaign and go looking for custom maps, thinking "what cool games have people made since release?".
I think it's a good guess that 1.5 was about the editor, and HOTS won't really add anything significant to the editor other than models.
I understand that the recent 1.5 Arcade patch makes it so that published maps are deployed globally, but I'm not really clear on how this works because the global publishing is kind of "invisible" to me. I developed my map as en-US and deployed it to North America, and I have made one update since the patch to add the new Arcade features. I haven't yet performed any localization for other languages, but the game would still be in English on any localization (not doing any translation).
Is my map available to people from EU? Do I have to localize it first so that EU can see the map on the games list? What localisations do I have to account for to have the game appear for EU or even Asia players?
In my opinion, just becuase a map does not have a tutorial, and you have difficutly learning it, doesn't mean you should give it a bad rating. If you play a game twice, and don't get it, then either try to understand it before playing, play it some more, or don't play it. If you don't understand the game, then how are you supposed to rate it? Sure, you could say it's difficult to learn, but that gives you no reason to give it a low rating. Basically, when you give it a low rating becuase your confused, you're actually rating it out of rage.
This is unquestionably true, but there's no changing the way people are. I found low score with the comment "was pretty fun for a few games but there's no point in playing anymore after you've beaten it 3 times" - Really?? You've played the game for 5-6 hours and now you give it a bad rating?
Most people rate it 1 star or 5 stars, I'm not sure if I've seen a 2 star rating at all. This is why youtube/facebook have adopted a binary thumbs up/down.
Your solution of using a database (or bank w/e it is) to identify a new player and put abunch of tooltips and hints in is interesting but seemingly way to much work because the player cant take 30 seconds to read something.
Yeah, it's a ton of work. I put in dozens of hours into planning, designing, implementing, and testing the dynamic hint system that I use in my map. The results have really paid off, but I could have saved myself so much time if my map were being played by these fantasy make-believe players who actually read instructions. You have find ways to give players the bare minimum instructions of what they need to do, and only tell them when they need to do it. If you can get them started by looking at the right buildings at the right times, the rest of the learning is more intuitive.
I saw a bunch of 1 stars for Squadron Tower Defense (One of my favorites). Their reasoning was you had to learn how to play by asking people, and since people are jerks, it's hard to learn how to play. So since people are jerks, it makes the game bad. :P Some people never seem to think before taking action.
False. Don't hate on the players, hate on the game. Almost every game issue that players complain about can be solved through hard work or clever design changes.
I've played Squadron TD many times and I agree that it's too hard to learn (took me about 3 plays to fully grasp all the concepts). The loading screen is completely wasted - as most loading screens are. It's bloated with version and patch info that nobody cares about, where it could be used to instruct new players about the game's basic rules (I haven't played recently, maybe it's different now). The game could also have hints floating over buildings and units, which would disappear when you successfully complete a task or maybe not appear at all after you've won your first game. I have this hint feature in my map, and I've gotten tons of comments about how easy it is to learn. My point is that I think the STD authors are either lazy and/or uncreative and/or apathetic about teaching the game to new players. I don't the community should settle for less - STD could be a lot better than it is.
And to contribute to this thread, I found this review for my map:
"The best fucking shit that ever ate shit and then shit out the shit which continues the cycle once again. In short this shit is awesome."
It looks to me like you're using a weird programming approach to maybe save time or consolidate functions into a single trigger, but really you're just making things more complicated. Also, why don't you have the event listed for your spawn trigger? Makes it a little harder to troubleshoot.
Do this:
1. Right click your spawn triggers and uncheck "initially on", so it turns the trigger gray. This trigger will NOT FIRE when the map starts.
2. When your timer expires, use an event to turn on spawn region 1 trigger. When a non-player-15 unit enters spawn region 1, use an event to turn on spawn region 2 trigger.
3. Have a spawn trigger just for region 1. How should spawning in region 1 be triggered? I don't know since those details aren't clear to me, so maybe you could better describe the mechanics you want to have for spawning.
Your problem is a little confusing, maybe you could post an updated version of the trigger you're working with. But, if when you say "the beginning" you mean at the start of your map, you should know that the Unit Enters Region triggers will fire for all units that are pre-placed on the map when the game starts. You can circumvent this by turning your trigger off, waiting like 1 second from map initialization, and then turning your trigger on.
Also, I never use "triggering unit is in region" to check which region is entered. Unfortunately the region code is just a little bit fallible, so you want to stick with functions and conditions that are very discrete and robust, so there is never room for error. Checking the triggering region is a better way to do this, as mentioned above.
0
Tower Defense Tycoon is finally published in EU!
0
I was wondering if there was something I was completely misunderstanding about the European calendar. I know you guys do power outlets differently, so maybe you're also a month behind for all I know.
0
Does this mean TOFU will be ready before HOTS? I really hope so! That would be my
1 priority if I were you.0
@Karawasa: Go
I've noticed that the Element TD popularity and rating has gone way up since it got featured. That's just awesome! Do you have any long-term plans for Element TD?
BTW I sent you an e-mail about ETD earlier this week. Hope you got it.
0
@Dustin374: Go
Holy moly, you have a portfolio! This is some good work, and it crosses so many game types.
Star Screamers reminds me a lot of the original Smash TV game (NES/SNES). I wonder if that perspective/controls could be adapted for a Smash TV mod, given that I think the original project isn't being worked on anymore.
So you have so many different projects and many are unpublished, why not focus on just one or two and really polish the f^#! out of them?
0
Booooo
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Map editing has always been my staple activity for when the internet is out.
0
It's simple. Do you want to make games as a hobby? Mapping is the easiest possible way to cut past the technical hurdles and dive right in to making a game.
-Has a well built API that is easy to learn
-All art and sound assets have been made for you
-Has a distribution system to deliver your work to other people
I don't know of any other way to create games as a hobby that doesn't cover all of these. The trigger programming is so easy to learn, a kid can figure it out. I don't have any art skills and I'm not about to render models or create textures for a 2D mobile game. And the last one is the big one: the distribution system. You could make a 3D mod for any game, but without a site or community to distribute your work, no one will play it.
In the SC2 editor, you can have a vision in your mind for the game that you want to make. With enough skill and dedication your vision can come to life, and it makes you feel ten feet tall. I don't know how else to get that without a assembling a dev team, artists, or a community to fill in the gaps.
0
I'm glad they're going in this direction, and I really hope they do more of it. There are plenty of "popular" games and "highly played" games that are, in fact, nearly unplayable.
On NA, they've still got their Star Jeweled, Aiur Chef, and Left 2 Die games featured on the main Arcade page. I can only assume that EU is under different management, or maybe it's that Europe is just more progressive!
0
I bet this is correct. I think the only reason that 1.5 came out this far in advance of HOTS is because they believe that they'll be getting a ton of returning players with the expansion. A good way to impress the returning players is to have a well established arcade system in place that shows off the maps that are doing well.
If the arcade came out with HOTS, it wouldn't have "settled" yet by the time the serious players finish the campaign and go looking for custom maps, thinking "what cool games have people made since release?".
I think it's a good guess that 1.5 was about the editor, and HOTS won't really add anything significant to the editor other than models.
0
I understand that the recent 1.5 Arcade patch makes it so that published maps are deployed globally, but I'm not really clear on how this works because the global publishing is kind of "invisible" to me. I developed my map as en-US and deployed it to North America, and I have made one update since the patch to add the new Arcade features. I haven't yet performed any localization for other languages, but the game would still be in English on any localization (not doing any translation).
Is my map available to people from EU? Do I have to localize it first so that EU can see the map on the games list? What localisations do I have to account for to have the game appear for EU or even Asia players?
Thanks!
0
This is unquestionably true, but there's no changing the way people are. I found low score with the comment "was pretty fun for a few games but there's no point in playing anymore after you've beaten it 3 times" - Really?? You've played the game for 5-6 hours and now you give it a bad rating?
Most people rate it 1 star or 5 stars, I'm not sure if I've seen a 2 star rating at all. This is why youtube/facebook have adopted a binary thumbs up/down.
0
Yeah, it's a ton of work. I put in dozens of hours into planning, designing, implementing, and testing the dynamic hint system that I use in my map. The results have really paid off, but I could have saved myself so much time if my map were being played by these fantasy make-believe players who actually read instructions. You have find ways to give players the bare minimum instructions of what they need to do, and only tell them when they need to do it. If you can get them started by looking at the right buildings at the right times, the rest of the learning is more intuitive.
0
False. Don't hate on the players, hate on the game. Almost every game issue that players complain about can be solved through hard work or clever design changes.
I've played Squadron TD many times and I agree that it's too hard to learn (took me about 3 plays to fully grasp all the concepts). The loading screen is completely wasted - as most loading screens are. It's bloated with version and patch info that nobody cares about, where it could be used to instruct new players about the game's basic rules (I haven't played recently, maybe it's different now). The game could also have hints floating over buildings and units, which would disappear when you successfully complete a task or maybe not appear at all after you've won your first game. I have this hint feature in my map, and I've gotten tons of comments about how easy it is to learn. My point is that I think the STD authors are either lazy and/or uncreative and/or apathetic about teaching the game to new players. I don't the community should settle for less - STD could be a lot better than it is.
And to contribute to this thread, I found this review for my map:
"The best fucking shit that ever ate shit and then shit out the shit which continues the cycle once again. In short this shit is awesome."
0
@fishy77: Go
It looks to me like you're using a weird programming approach to maybe save time or consolidate functions into a single trigger, but really you're just making things more complicated. Also, why don't you have the event listed for your spawn trigger? Makes it a little harder to troubleshoot.
Do this: 1. Right click your spawn triggers and uncheck "initially on", so it turns the trigger gray. This trigger will NOT FIRE when the map starts. 2. When your timer expires, use an event to turn on spawn region 1 trigger. When a non-player-15 unit enters spawn region 1, use an event to turn on spawn region 2 trigger. 3. Have a spawn trigger just for region 1. How should spawning in region 1 be triggered? I don't know since those details aren't clear to me, so maybe you could better describe the mechanics you want to have for spawning.
0
@fishy77: Go
Your problem is a little confusing, maybe you could post an updated version of the trigger you're working with. But, if when you say "the beginning" you mean at the start of your map, you should know that the Unit Enters Region triggers will fire for all units that are pre-placed on the map when the game starts. You can circumvent this by turning your trigger off, waiting like 1 second from map initialization, and then turning your trigger on.
Also, I never use "triggering unit is in region" to check which region is entered. Unfortunately the region code is just a little bit fallible, so you want to stick with functions and conditions that are very discrete and robust, so there is never room for error. Checking the triggering region is a better way to do this, as mentioned above.