SC2Mapster

Update: The popularity listing has been parsed. However there are some bugs left (region flag not appearing, statistics not being shown ...). Meanwhile you can already add the published version of your map. Go into your map administration, look for "Battle.net / Manage published version" and add them :)

New featured maps

Blizzard finally updated their featured maps, they also resetted the popularity at the same time :)

Corruption ORPG by JakeCake26

Ask someone that never played Starcraft 2 to look at this video and I am pretty sure that they could not tell that's a fan based game. It really looks like some Korean MMOs. I hope it's going to be in beta soon so we can play it :)

Bounty Hunters Tournament by Tenshi

The Bounty Hunters tournament was really fun. Sadly I did not win :( Here's the final result and a video of the final frapsed by aTTari (the 2nd) to show you the map and great skill!

1. StormDelay (11 points)
2. aTTari (10 points)
3. Rommsteinz (7 points)
4. Trubadidudei
5. Yaos
6. Yrael
7. Vjeux
8. Keriz
9. Wolrek
10. Tanaroth
11. Meldterren (apologizes for mistake...)
12. BuuGhost
13. Morgrim

Song: Play like a Toss by The609Productions

If you jauge the popularity of a product by the fan derivated work then Blizzard must be really well ranked. Here's a song called "Play like a Toss" for your pleasure!

Blizzcon Program

The Blizzcon program is out. Friday 3pm to 4pm there will be a talk on "Starcraft 2 Custom Maps and Editor" on main stage. They will probably announce the Contest Winners with a demo. Also we may hear something about the Market Place! (Thanks to Lascero for fixing my blindness :X)

progammer Interview

Quote:

Hello progammer, can you present yourself in a few words?

I don't support the realID thing :P. So my name is progammer, currently a sophomore in software engineering. Actually I'm an international students reside in US.

I'm a true fan of Blizard but just recently took up the galaxy editor for Starcraft 2, enjoyed custom map in Warcraft 3 a lot.

What was the first map that you worked on with the Galaxy Editor?

Well the first one I tried was to remake an AOS for Warcraft 3 called DDay: Judgement. Huge thanks for Bifuu for his hero tutorial, then I just abandoned it for so much work. Then ChessCraft is right after it :)

Basically I heard people talking so much about Starcraft 2 being a chess and chessing is so popular at the same time, so there goes ChessCraft.

The input system using beacon and mouse was my creative idea to that make sure the map stand out. There's couple of chess map being made on mapster at that time. I was the first to finish all the rule.

It was also a good experience for me to learn some basic coding logics and such. Don't look at ChessCraft's messy code and evaluate me now :) I might redo all of them for a major update for that map in the future.

I see that you also entered the minigame contest at sc2mapster. You seem to like more small projects involving advanced logic rather than long RPGs.

I find RPG grinding and boring (but I do play them sometimes). I'm more of a coder guy so I love doing these kind of thing. Also I have zero artistic skill so such big project is not in my interest.

Depot Snake in the minigame contest was made in about 4-5 hours, with some additional time to make video/document it.

Baneling Burstout was another map made based on the Breakout type of game. Its collision detection system is quite unaplicable at the moment though.

This one is the entry to the UI design contest. Its called Battlenet 0.2 as an attempt to mock the current state of battlenet and custom game. Just so you know how much you can do with just the editor's dialog capabilities. :) The whole video is made from one map only.

I believe that you entered the Blizzard Contest and I'm ready to bet it's another map like this!

Yep I tried to brainstorm for a while without much idea. Suddenly I only have more than a week to make a bomberman map in which the bomb is banelings (they're always cute). So the name is Bomberling Arena (it was Super BomberQueen before I wanted to avoid copyright thingy). Other than traditional bomberman gameplay, I twisted some gameplay element such as how bombs travel, upgrade and HP. Super Bomberman 4 in NES was really fun at the time. Find my map now and play on EU or US. :)

For the users that don't know yet, you are a sc2mapster moderator. Can you tell us what it means to you and what you are doing as a moderator?

You guys did a really good job promoting and building this community. It is awesome being a moderator here :) The first thing I noticed when I'm a moderator is that people started to notice that my name is pro-gammer instead of programmer. :D

I started to make the Cinematic Player when Xaragoth discovered how to make cinematic scene, even though these model animation was very limited to actually do something.

Next is an attempt to both learn the data editor and make a WASD system with hope of getting less lag (its really negligible for now sadly).

http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/10104-tutorial-lagless-wasd-system-using-data-editor/

Just recently, I polished OneTwo's workaround to track mouse position in realtime. This should be the most useful library I have ever done :)

Other than developing library, i moderate the forum, collecting things to news, usually hanging around help what I could.

Do you have some secret project going on?

Hint up next, in the next few days you will see my new library that let you play any video file inside your map, whether its tutorial, mapster logo intro, or any thing for single player map (no i'm not talking about porn :D ). Its almost done for now, might need some help with recording a video

I'm also helping on coding ElementTD, the popular TD of Warcraft3, remade with the same Warcraft 3 team.

About my secret map project, it wont be out of the box until its ready to :)

I've made quite a bunch of things from polished map to crappy concept, check out here for anything I missed: http://www.sc2mapster.com/profiles/progammer/maps/

Any last word? :)

Hmm, I would say don't lose faith in Blizzard. They are the most awesome game developer ever. This Galaxy Editor can and already did almost anything you can think of. Don't give up on your project just yet. :)

We already see improvements being made, problem being addressed and bug being fixed by Blizzard. Let's hope our community can expand even more, and be ready to take over the world (or galaxy) at any moment :)

js1k - Tiny Chess by Óscar Toledo G.

This has nothing to do with Starcraft 2 Mapping but I've been shocked yesterday by this. The js1k contest is over, you had to do some awesome things in 1k of Javascript. Óscar Toledo G. did a Chess game that includes the drawing, the Chess rules, the player interactivity and a very strong AI. You realize that I did not manage to beat a 256 characters AI ... This is killing me! He has just become my newest god xD

for(B=i=y=u=b=i=5-5,x=10,I=[],l=[];B++<304;I[B-1]=B%x?B/x%x<2|B%x<2
?7:B/x&4?0:l[i++]="ECDFBDCEAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIMKLNJLKM@G@TSb~?
A6J57IKJT576,+-48HLSUmgukgg OJNMLK  IDHGFE".charCodeAt(y++)-64
:7);function X(c,h,e,s){c^=8;for(var o,S,C,A,R,T,G,d=e&&X(c,0)>1e4,n,N=-
1e8,O=20,K=78-h<<9;++O<99;)if((o=I[T=O])&&(G=o^c)<7){A=G--&2?8:4;C
=o-9?l[61+G]:49;do if(!(R=I[T+=l[C]])&&!!G|A<3||(R+1^c)>9&&G|A>2){if(!(R-
2&7))return K;n=G|(c?T>29:T<91)?o:6^c;S=(R&&l[R&7|32]*2-h-G)+(n-o?110
:!G&&(A<2)+1);if(e>h||1<e&e==h&&S>2|d){I[T]=n;I[O]=0;S-=X(c,h+1,e,S-
N);if(!(h||e-1|B-O|T-b|S<-1e4))return W(),c&&setTimeout("X(8,0,2),X(8,0,1)",
75);I[O]=o;I[T]=R}if(S>N||!h&S==N&&Math.random()<.5)if(N=S,e>1)if(h?s-
S<0:(B=O,b=T,0))break}while(!R&G>2||(T=O,(G||A>2|(c?O>78:O<41)&!R)
&&++C*--A))}return-K+768<N|d&&N}function W(){i="<table>";for(u=18;u<
99;document.body.innerHTML=i+=++u%x-9?"<th width=60 height=60 
onclick='I[b="+u+"]>8?W():X(0,0,1)'style='font-size:50px'bgcolor=#"+
(u-B?u*.9&1||9:"d")+"0f0e0>&#"+(I[u]?9808+l[67+I[u]]:160):u++&&"<tr>")B=b}W()

Update: We have pushed an update to integrate the popularity on sc2mapster. However ... the sc2ranks feed is timing out. We'll update as soon as sc2ranks's owner gets up :) Check out how it'll render.

Also we fixed many annoying bugs such as the image preview being distorted, the update button that didn't work ...

Boss Contest - Votes

The Boss contest is now over and there are 9 great entries. Unlike the other contests this one is about gameplay. So all the bosses are playable: if that's a solo boss just download the attached map and for multiplayers they are published on Battle.net :)

You have 5 days to vote :)

Some bosses could not enter the contest but could still interest you.

Counter Zone by dingoo71

Counter Zone is now released in Europe :) This is a 3v3 map that looks like DotA but that has completly different gameplay mechanisms. You are controlling a small army instead of a hero.

Night Time in Korhal by Darkyvm

You can do some really beautiful screenshots with the editor. Please let me know if you've done a nice picture, I'll news it :)

Blue Posts

Another round of questions related to the Starcraft 2 Editor is out :) As usual, if you have some please post them here.

Quote:

(Benoit) - Also, is there any way to tint a unit with a color, and also to make it bigger?

A. You can change the tint and scale of a unit by modifying the Actor's Events field and adding a new event that will send Set Tint Color or Set Scale.

(Mak) - Is there a way to order units to go into the Nydus Worm and then come back out again?

You can order the Nydus Canal to load and unload units through triggers:

Issue Order
Unit: Nydus Worm (Canal) [28.50, 32.50]
Order: Order Targeting Unit
Ability Command: Load (Nydus Network)
Unit: Marine [28.61, 29.45]
Queue: Replace Existing Orders

(Wraith) - How do you assign priority of minimap icons (i.e. so my watchtower will be on top of, not below, my units)??

Currently there is no way to change the rendering priority of minimap icons, but we'll consider adding a priority field in a future patch.

(molster) - A trigger sending an actor message has a character limit in its field! If I try to type "<s val="Kicker_Refinery">+5</s><IMG path="Assets\Textures\icon-gas-terran.dds" height="32" width="32"/>" Then only the following would actually be sent to the actor "<s val="Kicker_Refinery">+5</s><IMG pat"

There was a bug preventing the SetText message from accepting strings larger than 40 characters. This will be fixed in 1.2.0.

(DHo) - Is it possible to turn a dialog box in a text box for players to type in? I reckon that Dialog- Edit Box is what I need however doesn't seem to work at all...

Trigger edit boxes were temporarily disabled for the editor's initial release, but should be functional in 1.2.0.

The WoW Boss Contest is ending tonight. Polish your boss, strip out your map, make the video ... And win :)

Also, Curse won a sexy trophy for the Startup Craft :)

Terrain - Many Hands by Mozared

Mozared latest idea is to make a community based terrain as an exercize. The idea is simple: at the beginning a nearly empty map is submitted, then someone say that he takes the map and has 30 minutes to add things.

In 24 hours there have been 20 successive iterations and the terrain starts looking great :) If you are a complete beginner or an advanced terrainer, you probably want to give it a try!

Changing Texts by progammer

Did you know that you could change all the strings that appear ingame? progammer made a tutorial to tell you how to do it. I am pretty sure some useful things can be done using this.

Phantom Shoutcast by Husky

I often news some crazy maps that looks completly different than the normal game. However it's possible to enhance ladder maps using the Galaxy Editor. Here's the map Phantom that is a FFA map with added rules. You've got phantoms, paladins that each have their own roles. And obviously no one knows who's who :)

Sentry Reaver by k10forgotten

The reaver was one really loved unit in Starcraft 1 that didn't make it into Starcraft 2. There have been many attempts to remodel it for Starcraft 2 and here's a new one. A notable fact is that it is a combination of Sentry parts and Colossus Head.

Curse got first on the 4v4 of StartupCraft SF and therefore collecting many $$$ for Child's Play :)

The Last Swarm by jerberson12

jerberson12 is launching the beta of his map The Last Swarm, a 3 person TPS. Your goal is to escape from a swarm of enemies using many of the 20 available weapons. He is looking for beta testers :)

Reckoning by AzothHyjal

AzothHyjal is working on the map Reckoning which a vague remake of Advanced Wars. He shows us some elements he developed for the game that are really cool. Note: he is using Andromeda to do it.

The Happy Ultralisk by 적당새

There aren't many comics based on Starcraft 2. Here's one excellent made by 적당새 with a unique way of drawing :)

If you are participating the Bounty Hunters tournament, please check out the informations on the forums.

Razer has got a 133,337 fans on their facebook page. They are doing a free giveaway of 1337 gears. You just have to register here. Thanks Bibendus for the tip ;)

We are soon going to spotlight a map of the week on sc2mapster. If you know some awesome maps please tell us :)

There's a Starcraft 2 Tournament called Startupcraft. Unlike the other ones it's organized to raise money for Child's Play Charity. We are participating at Curse by sending some of our best Starcraft 2 players: Hubert Thieblot (CEO), Kevin Van Ness (World of Raids), Nathan Lindberg (Sales Manager) and Whalen Rozelle (Project Manager).

Vector TPS by malu05 and TheKC

The following video is from a Starcraft 2 map. Yeah ... I can't believe it either :) malu05 teamed with TheKC to work on an impressive 3rd person campaign. Here's a trailer to make you say "Omg I want to play this map now!"

Outranged by anteevy

anteevy is not using the Galaxy Editor to do another DotA or Defense game. Instead he decided to invent a new gameplay concept called Outranged. I really like how innovative he his both for his map and the presentation videos. If you missed his pen and paper presentation it's worth watching.

Gesture Based Casting by ChromiumBoy

The mouse tracking trick gave many ideas to people. Here's a nice gesture based spell casting by ChromiumBoy.

Blues

A quick note from Blizzard that will make you happy if you are using custom dependencies :)

Quote:

Custom Dependencies Desync Maps in 1.1+

Using a map with custom dependencies defined in the Battle.net Publishing System creates an issue where, in multiplayer, a significant number of players can get a "desync" error message and drop from the game.

Hey Motive. Thanks for the report. We have developed a fix for this issue which will be implemented in the next patch. (Source)

Due to a popular demand, the WoW Boss Contest has a 3 days extension. It now ends monday at midnight so that you have all the weekend to polish your boss :)

It's friday, a lot of things are happening during the weekend, here's a recap

• Today Friday 6 PM (Paris time): Custom Live by Tinman
• Tomorrow Saturday 3 PM (Paris time): Bounty Hunters Tournament by Tenshi
• Tomorrow Saturday 7 PM (Paris time): ModCraft by Xaragoth and Otixa

Note: I give Paris time because it's clearer than some weird things like CET, PST ... Basically if you are in europe there are great chances you are in the same timezone as Paris. If you are in US West coast is -9 and East coast is -6.

NotD: Night of the Dead by Ability and Earendil

NotD is one of the few maps that provides several hours of content. It's a 8 player coop survival featuring 3 chapters, 8 unique classes with their own sets of talents and a really nice implementation of items (probably the best one I saw so far).

It is published on Europe and really deserve to be played :)

Mama They Gonna Eat My Base by PinkyBlue

If you want to promote your map I would tell you that making a video is a great way to do it. And I would add that making a fun video is even better! Look at this video by PinkyBlue to show off his map Mama They Gonna Eat My Base :)

Quick note: it's only published on RU realms, he is looking for someone to publish it on other realms.

Demon Hunters by Triceron

The Demon Hunter was one of the most loved Warcraft 3 units. Triceron decided to struggle with the mdx importers and to fully import it on Starcraft 2. The result is really great :)

Blues

Quote:

New Battle.net Privacy Settings

We'd like to make you aware of the new Real ID-related privacy options we've introduced to Battle.net. These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences, enabling the ability to opt in or out of the Real ID "Friends of Friends" and "Add Facebook Friends" features or to turn off Real ID altogether.

To access these settings, log in to your Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net/account. From there, click on the "Settings" tab located at the center of the Account Management menu and select "Communication Preferences" from the dropdown list. The new settings can be found in the "Privacy" section of the Communication Preferences page. (Source)

5,000 Players Banned

We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed. (Source)

If you are US you may be going to the BlizzCon this year. You will be able to meet Sixen and Molsterr from the sc2mapster staff. Also most of the Curse staff will be there and we are going to organize a VIP Party :) Tell us if you come to Blizzcon!

Quote:

Curse BlizzCon 2010 VIP Party

That's only part of the fun in store for BlizzCon, though! Curse is also hosting an exclusive, VIP party on Friday October 22nd, 2010 from 8PM PDT to 12AM PDT. While the party is invite-only, we'll be handing out invites that day during BlizzCon, so keep an eye out for a member of the Curse team while roaming the show floor on October 22nd. Each member of the Curse staff will only have 10 invites to hand out (though there will be a lot of us there!), so keep your eyes peeled and pull us aside early!

Mark it down on your calendars before you forget!

• October 22nd, 2010 @ 8PM PDT: Curse BlizzCon VIP Party

Reminder: The Bounty Hunters tournament is this saturday, there are still open slots :)

Power Overwhelming Galactic Gladiators by Creation

Power Overwhelming Galactic Gladiators is a multiplayer Final Fantasy-like game under construction. It's no-where near release but it's already awesome. I hope it'll be playable soon :)

Island Terrain in 30 Minutes by ZeroAme

The Galaxy Editor lets you make quite amazing things in no time. Here's a small example: a detailed island made in no more than 30 minutes by ZeroAme :)

College Humor Video

College Humor is known for making fun videos. This time they made one on Starcraft and it's actually not bad :)

We are currently in the process of moving to more powerful servers. There may be some downtime. Follow the process.

There are 3 days left before the end of the WoW Boss Contest. For those who don't want to enter because they are doing a boss inside your map, I'd tell you that it takes really few time to copy & paste only the Boss into a dedicated map for the contest :)

OneTwo's TD by OneTwo

If you are a fan of Tower Defenses or a fan of OneTwo's tutorials, I would recommend you to play OneTwo's TD. I really like the unit pathing represented with small glowing lights. It is available both in Europe and US :)

WTE #8 - Mar Sara Blues

The Weekly Terraining Exercises are a fantastic way to improve your terraining skills. And yet again there are some amazing pictures being made. If you want to participate this week is about Canyon Ambush.

Terrain Trix #2 - Replicating Warcraft 3 DNC Colouration by obliviron

After the Trix "How to create a sun" obliviron is sharing how to use lighting to create a dungeon-like effect that en-shadows units not under the influence of an omnilight. This works for every widget in the game . It'll help for your RPGs :)

SCLegacy Machinima

Update: The video has been removed from youtube ... It has been there for months and just been removed after it got news on sc2mapster ... You can get informations on the video here ... Better than nothing I guess.

SCLegacy is working on a machinima and released few months ago two excellent trailers. I have no idea where the project is at but even without it being complete those 2 videos are amazing!

Survivors vs Swarm by Mephs

Survivor vs Swarm is a remake of Left 4 Dead. Mephs has been working really hard on this map for 3 months and is now releasing a beta version on the US realms. I wish I had an US account to play it :)

Xel'Naga Turret by kailniris

If you have played the campaign you probably saw the Xel'Naga Turret, however this is a plain doodad. kailniris added bones and animations to it so that it can be used as a real turret. This shows that the model im/exporters are starting to work nicely :)

Golems Advanced Commentary by ApolloStarcraft

I'm not usually a big fan of Starcraft 1 remakes because they tend to usually suck when ported on Starcraft 2. However the map Golems Advanced on US is quite impressive. That's probably one of the few maps that looks easy to learn but hard to master :) Thanks ApolloStarcraft for the shoutcast :)

Blue Posts

Quote:

Patch 1.1.1

We are in the process of deploying patch 1.1.1 in other regions and plan to release this patch in North America tomorrow, Tuesday, September 28 starting at 10:00 a.m. PDT. As we prepare to get things underway, we'd like to provide you with the patch notes. So, we're going to go ahead and do that now.

• Fixed an issue where Ultralisk cleave range was being unintentionally extended by larger targets.
• Fixed an issue where the Phoenix's Graviton Beam was automatically canceled if you used it just after the Phoenix reached 50 energy.
• Fixed an issue where queuing Return Cargo on a worker would cause it to ignore the built-in delay after it finished gathering.
• Fixed an issue where players watching older replays or saved games would experience stuttering.
• Fixed an issue where some Mac users were unable to join games properly. (Source)

Featured Maps Update

We'll be updating the featured maps before much longer. As always, we will be keeping an eye out for your recommendations of great maps to feature as well. (That aren't already at the top of the lists.) (Source)

Fan Arts

4 new Starcraft 2 fan arts :)

Bounty Hunters is a really fun and competitive map. Tenshi is organizing a fun tournament for it this Saturday on Europe. Come on if you want to beat me :)

PCGamer - Patch 1.2

PC Gamer got an interview with Chris Sigaty, Starcraft II’s lead producer. He announced what were the plans for the patch 1.2 and it's great to see that he mentioned the Galaxy Editor :) Also, there will be Chat Channel!!!!!

Quote:

Chris said to PC Gamer that the next patch is “largely our e-sport patch. A couple of big things that will be in there are support for the season rolling, so players can look at the history of how they did in past seasons. There will be bugfixes, balance changes and tweaks, too. Chat is the other major thing we want to get in there next patch. We’ll also add more significant features to the editor.”

ModCraft Episode 3: Machettes and Farting Swamp Sharks

Episode 3 of ModCraft recording is now available in case you missed it yesterday :)

• Modelling a convincing high poly machette: Lowpoly Reverse-engineering, Creating a worn metal texture with blood splats
• Designing a swamp environment: Editing terrain, Placing foliage in a convincing way, Editing lighting, Setting a skybox

Fable Orbs by QMJ3

Orbs is the sexiest way to give resources to the players! QMJ3 you are my hero :) He publishes it as a lib so you can use this amazing system!

Bunker Circuits by xytor

I know that a lot of you are taking (or forced to) electronics classes. You probably had to do some binary adders or things like that. It's really boring to do it on paper so why not using Starcraft 2 to help you :) Look for Bunker Circuits on US.

This is a custom map in which you can create electronic circuits. Essentially, electrons (marines) travel through wires (bunkers). However, there are also some flow-control components like AND, OR and NOT gates. The map starts out with a pre-made circuit: a binary half-adder.

Blue Posts

Another batch of blue posts :) As usual, if you have questions post them on the official forums

Quote:

(chriscisso) - We should be able to rename any Id on duplicated or copied units.

There was a bug preventing ID changes on duplicated units until the Editor was reloaded, but that should now be fixed in 1.1.0.

(chriscisso) - We should be bale to edit data on any unit regardless of were it came from, I cannot seem to edit the liberty units, if I am missing a setting let me know.

You should be able to edit Liberty data, except for certain cases where you have the "Display All Object Sources" option enabled (it's the second button next to Data Source dropdown). Basically, you can't edit data except for the top-most source, which is not obvious to the user and we are looking at ways of improving this feature.

(chriscisso) - When we go into a property menu there should be a filter option for lists of items so we can just display custom items and such.

We're looking into adding a way to filter huge dropdowns since they are a bit unwieldy at the moment.

(Mephs) - Is there a validator that can check the number of charges on an ability left?

This sounds useful and we'll look into adding support for this in a future patch.

(Enofel) - So basiccly that basic layout of my map is a huge circle, which I want to be circular perfectly and exactly in the center. How would I make this?

You can turn on the grid in the View -> Show Grid menu to help line it up perfectly. We'll look into increasing the max brush size since it does seem somewhat arbitrary.

Reminder: 5 days left on the WoW Boss Contest.

Legacy of the Confederation by TheOracle67

This is some really awesome project coming in here. Legacy Confederation is a work in progress campaign that features custom models, sounds, ... TheOracle67 wants to tease you with some complete new buildings and 8 minutes of voice recording :)

Nexus Word Wars by Rodrigo

Rodrigo latest map is crazier than ever, since he realized that Debates couldn't get high in popularity he did Nexus Word Wars. The idea is simple, there are units coming in and your goal is to kill them by typing out their name! If you wanted some relaxing game, this may not please you :) It's published both in Europe and US.

Blue Posts

Blizzard answered two critical questions of Bibendus about WASD lag and bank protections. If you have interesting questions please post them there!

Quote:

(Bibendus) - Are you going to fix the keyboard/mouse control lag? 90% of custom games are ruined by this.

We will be improving keyboard and mouse control in a future patch, but we can't match the responsiveness of an FPS game with an authoritative server. Keyboard-based unit movement should be as responsive as issuing move orders with the mouse after these changes.

(Bibendus) - Are you going to add a feature to store banks on server so they can't be viewed/edited/corrupted by users or concurrent maps?

Bank protection will be added in a future patch to allow mapmakers to prevent users from modifying their bank data (optionally).

(Bibendus) - Are you going to add missing triggers that existed in the wc3 editor like change terrain cliff height, change terrain texture, revive unit and tons of other things I don't remember?

Specific missing triggers may be added as needed or as suggested by the community. We can't just copy-paste the code from Warcraft III, so we'll only add triggers that provide a lot of value to mapmakers.

(Bibendus) - Actually it's impossible to make a good custom sound and music looping layers mixing because ingame timers are imprecise. Are you going to fix that?

You should be able to layer different sound files for in-game music using the Soundtrack data. Can't really help more without specific details of the problem.

Due to the number of submissions in the Blizzard Contest, they will be extending the judging deadline to October 8th. The winners will be announced then... As posted by Bashiok.

Also, congrats to Sixen on being one of the first Battle.net MVPs, ;).

There was a bug affecting people sharing their password in order to publish cross regions. You could not update a map if your editor locale was not the same as the one that first published the map. However it is now fixed! People can now update their european maps from my account without bothering me now :)

Poker Defense by Zinatic

Having a game based on random is a really scary idea. But Zinatic did not get afraid and worked on Poker Defense. I really like the concept and for once, this is actually fun to play. You can repick cards 3 times so there are great chances to get a nice combination :) The game is released on EU if you want to give it a try.

Tutorial: Metal Gear Solid Codec by Pshyched

I'm a real fan of Metal Gear Solid and when I saw that Pshyched developped the Codec interface on Starcraft 2 I was all excited! He did a full tutorial on how he did it and is providing the map :) [Skip the first 25s of the video they are useless!]

Tutorial: Update Libraries by Doubotis

You probably want to use the Library feature of Starcraft 2 for your triggers, and then release it to the public. However there's a big problem: when you update it, if people use your updated version it'll brake ALL of their triggers. This is really annoying and Doubotis found a quite hacky solution to solve this.

I really hope that we will be able to automate this process in order to make a greater use of libraries :)

Blue Posts

Another round of blue posts. If you have a question do not hesitate to ask it there. If it's good enough i'm pretty sure Blizzard will answer it :)

Quote:

(Pan) - I got a question that I've been trying to figure out since the beta: does anybody know how to change cliff heights mid-game (triggers, actors, abilities, etc.)?

Changing cliff levels during run-time would require significant changes and we would only add support for this if there was a strong need for it.

(gamecreator) - What's the proper way to load one published map from another after victory?

This is currently not supported, but we are planning on adding features for multi-map campaigns in future patches.

(gamecreator) - I meant to also ask: how do you transfer data between two maps (like which upgrades you took or who lived or died)?

You should be able to use the Bank system to transfer data as long as the maps are published by the same author.

(Mak) - As well, why is it so buggy? It crashes a LOT, and if it doesn't crash, the maps created make SC2 crash.

Please file bug reports for reproducible crashes. Fixing these type of issues is very important to us.

(Tyde) - Is there a way to change the requirements of an ability with triggers? Say the Overlord's Generate Creep ability?

You can't change the requirements directly, but you could create a separate ability and control which was shown on the command card. Requirements have both a Show and Use section, allowing you to set up different conditions for whether it's shown and whether it can be used.

The WoW Boss Contest is getting a lot of hype! I really hope you are going to make cool bosses :)

Undocumented Changes

Some Undocumented Changes has been discovered.

• You can get a diff of all the text files if you want to dig yourself!
• SEA players can now play on NA servers. It should help you play more maps :) Source

Bank Size Limit Increased

Mille25 made some tests with the bank limits and he has been able to successfully load 30 000 characters (was previously about 400). This is really awesome! If you are breaking this new limit, you can still use StarCode to store even more things :)

New Natives

+native void     GameSetMissionTimePaused (bool inPaused);
+native bool     GameIsMissionTimePaused ();
+native fixed    GameGetMissionTime ();
+native playergroup  GameAttributePlayersForTeam (int team);
+native bool     GameCheatIsAllowed (int cheat);
+native fixed Floor (fixed x);
+native fixed Ceiling (fixed x);
+native fixed Trunc (fixed x);
+native fixed Round (fixed x);
+native fixed Pow2 (fixed x);
+native fixed Log2 (fixed x);
+native int FloorI (fixed x);
+native int CeilingI (fixed x);
+native int TruncI (fixed x);
+native int RoundI (fixed x);
+native int SquareRootI (fixed x);
+native int Pow2I (fixed x);
+native int Log2I (fixed x);
+native int PowI (fixed x, fixed power);
+native void TriggerAddEventPlayerEffectUsed (trigger t, int player, string inEffect);
+native int      EventPlayerPropertyChangeInt ();
+native fixed    EventPlayerPropertyChangeFixed ();
+native string   EventPlayerEffectUsed ();
+native point    EventPlayerEffectUsedPoint (int inLocation);
+native unit     EventPlayerEffectUsedUnit (int inLocation);
+native int      EventPlayerEffectUsedUnitOwner (int inLocation);
+native string   EventPlayerEffectUsedUnitType (int inLocation);
+native int      EventPlayerEffectUsedAmountInt (int inAmount, bool total);
+native fixed    EventPlayerEffectUsedAmountFixed (int inAmount, bool total);
+native void     UnitDamage (unit inAttacker, string inEffect, unit inVictim, fixed inBonus);
+native int      EventUnitProperty ();
+native int      EventUnitPropertyChangeInt ();
+native fixed    EventUnitPropertyChangeFixed ();
+native void     TriggerAddEventUnitChangeOwner (trigger t, unitref u);
+native int      EventUnitOwnerOld ();
+native int      EventUnitOwnerNew ();

New Colored Icons

Tutorial: Sun by obliviron

I've been very impressed by this tutorial. obliviron explains to you how to create a sun in your map. This is a clever use of game mechanisms :)

Tutorial: Frenzy Madness by OneTwo

You are new to the map development but you want to do some great maps? OneTwo just completed a 30 minutes tutorial on how to make a basic Frenzy Madness map. It will guide you through all the triggers involved :)

WTE #7 - A place of Worship by Mozared

The WTE #7 - A place of Worship is over and again some really great stuff were done. WTE #8 - Mar Sara Blues is running :)

Warhammer Models by iWann

iWann just made new models of some Warhammer units. Using marauder animations this makes importing new models easier :) Take a look at those 2 units!

Path of Power Trailer by Klishu

Klishu is still working on the map Path of Power and wants to show off the battleground :)

Patch 1.1 is coming in few hours. We will cover the editor changes when it is available :)

WoW Boss Contest

This contest is about gameplay! I've seen a lot of maps that are based on the concept of "Heroes against waves of enemies". This is a viable solution but sadly most of the monsters are basic. We are going to explore a way to make your map a lot better: creating Bosses!

What to do?

You have 10 days to complete this contest.

• Create a boss fight
• The boss must be scripted (eg: aoe every 1 minute) and the user has to react on it (eg: move out of sight).
• You can use WoW models to help you make it epic :)
• You have to provide a youtube video. If you can't record, post the map and find someone to do it for you
• You have to attach the map used to take the video

Ideas

If you don't understand what the contest is about, just look at that Thaddius fight made by rrowland.

Reward

The main goal of the contest is to further community development within GalaxyEdit. The rewards can be see as follows:

• First: 1-year Curse Premium
• Second: 6-month Curse Premium
• Third: 3-month Curse Premium
• Everyone else: 1-month Curse Premium

Sentry Scramble by RedWraith

I'm hosting the map Sentry Scramble on Europe and I've been congratulated many times about it (that's kinda odd since I am not the author). This is why I decided to feature it :) The map is using special effects very nicely!

Central Review Conglomerate by DarkRevenantX

DarkRevenantX has been reviewing many custom maps the last few weeks. The reviews are very detailed, with screenshots and improvement ideas. If you don't know what to play or want to know some do's and don'ts about map making, this is your chance!

• Debates
• Haunted Temple

• THE Card Game
• Nexus Wars
• Golem Wars Classic
• Level Up Bound

WoW - Pumpkin vs Zombie by TotalBiscuit

When I first saw this video I said myself, this is a nice map but I wonder why the author decided to recreate the WoW minimap. And then I realized this was not Starcraft 2 but World of Warcraft! Blizzard is adding minigames that could easily be custom maps :) For those who wonder, this game is a remake of Plants vs Zombies.

Diablo - The Curse of Tristram by egodbout

egodbout has been working since the beta on his remake of Diablo. The version he has submitted for Blizzcon is really impressive. He has done a lot of work to recreate all the elements from Diablo within Starcraft 2.

As a side note, if you want to get noticed by Blizzard, just recreate one of their other game. WoW remakes have been featured 2 times already and he got a blue response by Bashiok.

Quest Line by Doubotis

If you are making a RPG you probably want to add quests. You probably abandon the idea once you figure out that you have to recode a whole quest system. Doubotis who wants you to create RPGs has been focusing on creating a quest module. It is really customizable as you can see in the video.

Pesik Commentary by PET

PET is shoutcasting maps for the website sc2ro.ro and today he presents the map Pesik. At a first glance it looks really bad with this zergling moving a bit chaotically but it's in fact a Bomb map: you have to give out the bomb just before it explodes in your hand!

After digging through I discovered that it's a remake from Hungry Hungry Felhounds from Warcraft III (props to Chirus on sc2testers.net).

Contest - Epic Battle Cinematic

The votes are finally over! The entries were of a remarkable quality. Sometimes I wonder if Blizzard would have imaged that it was possible to do such things when they were making the editor.

• 4 - Zerged by Victiln - 9 Votes
• 5 - Mapster Epic Cinematic by LordAbyss - 6 Votes
• 6 - Epic Battle by cameroni101 - 5 Votes