SC2Mapster

Hi again! I've been toying with various ideas for maps, and after a while I came up with the following one. I planned it out and decided that it was small enough to pull off over a few hours worth of work, so I just went ahead and made it. The point was to build a bare-bones DOTA that focused on a unique mechanic for gameplay, and I think i pulled it off pretty well.

Short blurb: Squad-based 2v2 MOBA with emphasis on unit positioning and LoS mechanics Mechanics:

• Camouflage: Unit is invisible and untargetable while camouflage is active, but camouflaged units can be found via a unit with Keen Eye or Spotter
• Cross-fire weaponry: Units with these types of weapons will hit all targets in a line in the direction being fired, even if these units are allies. Thus, it's important to make sure they're well positioned and none of your units are in their line of fire.

Unit Types:

• Commando: Versatile direct-fire unit with Stimpack ability and a Cross-fire weapon
• Sniper: Stealthy burst damage unit with Active Camouflage ability and a Cross-fire weapon
• Humvee: fast, armored unit that is camouflaged when not moving or attacking. Can fire while moving.
• Cannon: Fragile unit that deploys into powerful emplacement weapon and can spot camouflaged units on lower cliff levels while deployed.

I also made a trailer video:

So go ahead, try it and tell me what you think!

It's actually really easy to do cinematics via triggers; adjusting camera angles is easy via the camera layer in the terrain editor...

Quote from zeropoints: Go

hmm but is rcix map like green td or you gonna get peoples hops up by calling it green td and serve them something different

Not like green TD and I never said it was :P

Quote from nevjmac: Go

@zeldarules28: Go

So according to you, the beginning good TD's that were made in war3, would never have been replaced by the better designed ones 1-5 years later? I don't think so. TD's are one of those things that go in and out you play them for a bit they are addicting for a while they go out. New ones catch you attention you play them for a while then a new one comes out you play it. Its a cycle. Its not a case of a favourite one. I'm going to agree with karawasa on this one....

@RCIX: Go Allright having just attempted to play this. here are my concerns.

1. First of all I would classify this as a TD war not a TD. you aren't fighting waves of creeps, you have to send creeps to each other, I got the wrong impression of the game before even starting, and because nobody was in the lobby to play with I didn't really "play"
2. Popularity and TD war games are even harder to start, as I said in my last post you have to have people to play with, which sucks....
3. TD war's are generally very newb unfriendly, and being beaten quickly by someone that knows what they are doing can put people off playing again very quickly.
4. It took me ages to realise I had a creep sending sub-menu, there is no explanation of how the game works other than someones realisation its a TD war game.

Your game looks like it may have potential to climb the popularity lists but, you may want to look at building an AI for computer so that people don't have to wait for a lobby to fill to play the game, because that is not likely going to happen. Advertising will help, but your going to have to put a fair bit of work into it to get it recognized, ideally I can't comment on the gameplay itself as I didn't get a chance to really play it.

1. Will a rename to Maelstrom Tower Wars help?
2. I'm also considering maybe making a special "TD" mode where it actually is a TD and the goal is to get the most amount of kills before you die or something. I may not be able to do that (see below), but i might be able to get someone to help me there.
3. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about that, as that's the case with most competitive games. I have an idea for a mechanic though that might give newer players a bit of a chance (plus i need a way for players to eventually be able to beat each other, which would be my main reason for adding it).
4. The tips (and not only do i put up tips, a slap up a chat message asking new players to read them) mention building towers plus sending creeps from your builder. Is this not clear enough?

I fully understand that the TD and tower wars genre is pretty saturated. I figure that if I make a decent enough map and put effort into advertising it though, then people might start to regularly play it.

So overall here are the suggestions I got:
1. Make a video and ask for it to be front-paged(?)
2. Come up with a concise description of what makes your map special
3. Make sure you have good, short tutorials for people to learn

I'd add bots if I could, but 2 problems are in the way:
1. I don't even know where to start
2. I'm hitting a pretty solid wall in terms of time spent on this project; I really need to move on soon (though I'll still be able to do "maintenance" stuff).

Aww man, now i want to play that :/

:)

Maybe you're right, I should try my hand at it. I'll start looking into some sort of dev system to trigger things without actually needing other players on hand.

@Vexal: Go

I don't plan to make a hype video, just a trailer describing the unique aspects of the map like you said. :)

Quote from greythepirate: Go

@RCIX: Go

TDs are overdone IMO. no matter how balanced/challenging/inventive/polished you make it- it's still a TD, and there are hundreds

While true, people always seem to be interested in TD maps. Just look at Squadron TD; that one isn't even that good and it's somehow made it to competing with SotIS for #1 on the popularity list. Green TD was high on the pop list at one point, and so was Vexal, ...

I'll definitely consider publishing to EU. I'd like to get the map a bit more polished though first!

I've completed my map, and word on the street is that a video will get more attention for my map (Maelstrom TD). I have relatively little video recording and editing skills, so I'm looking for someone to put together a trailer video for me. It obviously doesn't have to be of super-high quality or anything, just like a minute or so long showcasing some of the unique towers and creeps and gameplay.

Post if you're interested, and I can look into rigging up something in the map for the purpose of making the video.

Quote from Ardnived: Go

Maybe people just don't agree that the gameplay is interesting. Or maybe they think the genre is old and overdone. Or maybe it isn't actually being looked at because the title isn't interesting at all.

What map is this?

But that's the thing, almost no one has tried it. So i don't know :/ Obviously it's interesting to me, and it does have some good components I'd think, but ultimately I'm going to need more feedback than whoever I can beg to play it in the looking for custom games channel...

It's Maelstrom TD by the way. http://forums.sc2mapster.com/player-zone/map-feedback/19657-maelstrom-td/?post=1

Looks like it's to the recruitment boards for me (not that good at video editing and dont have anywhere to put one up :P)

Quote from Keyeszx: Go

I find it funny that you chastised Mephs some time ago over his map not being popular and said something about he should have advertised more. Although, I didn't go too deep into that thread but it seems like you need more advertisement. I'm not saying you're acting like Mephs, he did act immature on the bnet forums. You are going about more civil although it seems like you haven't advertised it enough since some nobody like me never heard of this map you released. You need to get everybody, including the nobodies like me to hear the map name.

Go to every forum, make videos, do everything you can. Ask OneTwo or Husky to play the map or make a vid for it. Husky has made vids of custom games and that would surely give some good publicity. OneTwo has made trailers for other maps and I think they are usually good, I'm not sure if he just uploads or makes them himself but it can't hurt to ask him.

I'm trying to figure out what that "more advertising" entails :P Mephs knew what he had to do, he just wasn't happy with the pace at which his map was getting popular and seemed to think that throwing a mini tantrum would be a good idea.

And it also seems i'll be PMing OneTwo :P

Uh, not quite that simple. You want something more like

private static Random random = new Random();
public static int RandomNumber(int min, int max)
{
    return random.Next(min, max);
}

Otherwise you'll be creating a new Random object every time you call this function. Which is, uh, bad...

I worked hard on making a map. Gave it nice terrain, some interesting gameplay, etc. and now when I go to advertise it, almost *no one* is interested in playing it. The 3 threads I've started on various Starcraft sites got me like 2 replies of people interested in it, and I've gotten no sign of feedback from Map Night or JMan's video review channel. Why? Should I have made a video? Do I need to publish it on EU servers as well? There's got to be SOMETHING i can do :/

If it helps, here's the basics i use to do anti blocking checks:

• Have a trigger on Any Unit Enters Region (with the region being the entire area players can build, and conditions to filter the units that trigger it down to just towers)
  
• Also add a condition of Pathing Cost between [wave launch] and [wave end] points >=65535
  
• Kill triggering tower and display a message saying you can't block towers, and also do w/e else you want (like refund cost

So if you tweak it so you place blockers that block off the long routes of the map for the specific wave location first then do the pathing check, that should basically work (i've also not had any problems with shift queuing, since the event fires on the tower actually being built not on unit using the build tower ability).

Any word on whether you can do my map? I just updated it so you'll want to retry it if you already played.

Sorry for the long delay! I was rebuilding the terrain and didn't feel that it was screenshot-worthy till now. Anyway, feast your eyes on my wonderful masterpiece in the OP! :D