First and foremost, mac is an operating system, as is windows. You can build a PC, and then install the mac OS if you really enjoy the OS. Right now, and every few months, the editor does not work on mac. Don't get a mac.
If you are looking for performance, Passmark does testing on all components. https://www.passmark.com/index.html
You can go to the "Benchmark" tab at the top, and select which thing to see benchmarks on.
For example: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ bring up every CPU ever made, and how they compare to each other, and their average price range.
It pretty much doesnt matter your goals, the higher the numbers on those lists; the more performance you are getting.
FACT ABOVE, OPINION BELOW
Honestly, as someone who has built quite a few PCs over the years, you should not be spending more than 1000 on your computer (not including monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, OS). a 2000 dollar computer today, will be worth 1000 next year. If you just want to waste 1000 dollars a year, you can do that.
Price breakdown:
TOWER: 100-150
MOBO: 100-150
RAM: 150 (can get 32 GB for this price)
CPU: 150-200
GPU: 200-250
POWER: 75-100
HDD: 100
Disk Drives? Who still uses them? $40
Be smart when building a computer. You can get a 500GB SSD as your primary, and then when it get full, you can get a 4 TB external/slave for storing the media you will never actually touch. 32 GB of RAM is super nice; but barely any better performance than 16 GB. You may be inclined to do liquid cooling, and get a kickass tower for your build; but that is only taking years off the life of your rig. You are better off spending that 200 dollars on a better CPU and GPU and just not overclocking it, removing the need for added cooling.
OOORRRRRR (MY opinion again) You can spend 4k on a mac, and get lower specs than the above for 1k. You will look super cool setting up shop at the local coffee house though.
Man, I cant get a video file that isn't huge in size (Like 500mb). And... I am terrible at sc2. TChosenOne's video does a lot better of a job than mine did, so I will type up my review.
From the viewpoint of an absolute sc2 noob:
The Briefing Screen:
Goods
Looked really good, 8/10 on aesthetics.
I really liked the "Intelligence Report" in the top right. I almost skipped over it though; I only knew it was there because it lit up when I moused over it.
The short camera work at the beginning was also nice!
Not Goods
The text goes too fast. Since you have a "Skip" button, I think you can slow the text speed down, without forcing people to sit through it if they don't want to.
I cannot click a difficulty level in the briefing screen? Does the game know I suck? I keep being put on normal, and i keep losing cuz I suck.
Gameplay:
Keep in mind here, that I do not play sc2, like.. at all. IDK what micro is. I stand and fight until I die, then try it again.
The Good
I was able to beat it!
I feel I improved my marine-using capabilities, between the start and finish.
I had a giant army of marines, thinking I would need them; and a well defended base. "I was sad to win, because I wanted to keep playing."
Amazing terrain work!
After I finally beat it (playing on bnet, so i couldnt save/load when I lost) you showed me that there were various achievements, and that I failed all of them. I wanted to play again to do them, because I still felt like a loser, struggling just to finish.
The Not Good
In the intro walk of shame, can marines aggro something farther away? It feels like then have a range of 5, and an aggro range of 4, so stuff gets a lot closer to me than I'd like (Remember, I am a noob)
Text flies a little fast here too. I don't think I had the time to read an entire line.
A handful of grammar and text mistakes, but I believe TChosenOne found all the ones I found, and a bunch more.
It is an intro mission, sure, but it would be nice if the zerg army slowly got larger or attacked. Or put a cap on food for me. I am a turtle, and when I had 40 marines to attack with, it was too easy.
8 years have transcurred since the Brood War. Terran civilization is back on its feet, but there have been reports in the last years about Zerg presence in the fringe worlds.
Intelligence reveals that Kerrigan isn't in Char. She's travelling through other worlds in a frontier sector. The Dominion uses it, and starts a great campaign of retaliation. The plan is to build Psi disrupters in the planets that are on the road from the Terran colonized space to Char: Sorona, Timul IV and Maltair IV. After hammering the Zerg communications, the intention is to burn every single one of them.
You Were a Captain in the war against the UED. You've been recently promoted to Lieteunant by recomendation of Horace Warfield. He was your superior when you were serving the Confederates, and saw potential in you after the Dominion triumph. You're at the moment his favourite pupil, and he's preparing you to replace him in his shortcoming retirement.
Feedback
Leave feedback for the project here. Negative feedback is welcome, as well as positive feedback. Refrain from flaming. Attempt to offer solutions to problems you find. You know, good feedback -The goal of this thread.
Author asking to invest time into their creation and then being defensive about anything sends the message that author really isn't open about what they want to hear. From feedback providers point of view - if you don't want to hear something - fine, you needed it more than me, I simply won't invest further time into this communication. It grinds my gears to see people shoot themselves in the foot because they don't realize concepts of demographics, personal preferences and the randomness of circumstances.
I agree, but you and I also must understand that authors may have spend hundreds-thousands of hours on their project. I assume, when giving feedback, that the author will be defensive; especially when it comes to game design. I think a very common reply (and I have said this) is "this game is for a target audience, if you are too stupid to understand how to play it, you aren't the audience." That is a poor attitude to have, and both tester and editor need to overcome it. You are absolutely correct that the mapmaker needs the feedback far more than the person giving it needs to give it. really, I feel it is much more difficult for the mapmaker to remain calm than the player. but this is why I am strongly against insults. It is fine to dislike something. refrain from calling it stupid is all. "I had no clue what I needed to do to win the game." might piss a mapmaker off, but is also good feedback. "There are too many words, I'm not gonna read all that!" might inspire a mapmaker to shout "WELL THEN YOU WONT KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME!" again, good feedback, bad mapmaker.
It is a giant crapshoot to know who will be offended by what. If I feel someone has offered very rude advice, I will send them a PM about it. It really isn't a major concern. For how small of a community is left here, most of the members are reasonably professional. That is why we have this initiative. a 1 star review on the arcade "boring" is not very good feedback; and anyone can publish their map to get a simple review. People here know the work that goes into the editor, and can offer possible solutions, without that entitled opinion that you owe them something (found in many game critics these days).
The "Don't be an asshole" rule, is slightly annoying. I mean, even if someone is an asshole in their feedback - someone else can go clarify the points and go in more detail, catch and elaborate the train of thought. Discussion at the expense of hurting someones feels is more beneficial than nothing at all, no?
I guess everyone has their own thoughts about being an asshole, and what that entails. I do not think that negative feedback is a bad thing; but personal attacks are. Everyone is entitled to not like a game. Calling a project "stupid" or saying the mapmaker "doesn't know anything" isn't helping anyone. Saying that the game is entirely too confusing, or is horribly balance, or that it simply isn't fun; well, that is all opinion.
Just avoid personal attacks; and try not to take things as a personal attack. "Person A: I hated the intro, it wasted my time" "Person B: unlike person A, i liked the intro" (Now person A and B do not start to argue about the intro, they respect each others opinions and leave it at that)
As I mentioned via PM (might as well let everyone know) The power behind the initiative is not in (me/the organizers) but in the people who takes the time to test the projects and leave feedback. I have a project lined up to start on the 1st, and will be making a new thread for it on the 1st. Hopefully the calm between holidays will mean that people have a little extra time they can spare to test out a project.
To all the potential testers out there: Rather than 1 more game of DOTA, an episode of south park, 30 minutes of sleep... Whatever part of your personal life you are busy with (Everyone is busy, it cannot be helped) try to pitch in to support the mapmaking community, and hopefully the good deed will come back around to you.
Terrain deformations can be a problem, if you have a lot of deformation. Not sure it could ever be enough to cause noticeable lag.
Anything that plays an animation. Creep adds to lag (again, not enough to notice a drop) What doodads do you have left? what units? Have you tried to preload the models?
Do the FPS drops happen in the editor, or only in-game, or only in battle.net?
nothing exists for this. After building my hero AI; I learned that it is pretty map specific, but there are always some general things to keep in mind. The best way to go about it, is to start with the very basic.
Example
Telling your unit that it needs to go heal if it is low on life.
Then you want it to do whatever the basic concept of your game is. For me, that is going to kill creeps in camps.
Now the AI is playing the game on a very basic level. Lets call this the "crawling phase"
In my game, items are pretty important, so I created a variable list for each AI, so it will buy specific items in a specific order, and sell old items to make space.
Skills are also very important; unlocking and leveling them. I created a list for each hero on which skills to prioritize leveling.
Making them use skills was tricky. You need to set up "sets" of validators. You dont want to cast a big AoE on a single creep; you want to make sure there are many, ect.
Now the AI goes to creep camps, and uses and levels skills to kill creeps. It uses the gold it earns to buy new items. Lets call this the walking phase.
After this, it got technical. In my game, there are bosses you try to kill. So I have to give a chance to evaluate the situation and see if the AI can beat the boss; or if an ally needs help with a boss; or if an enemy is attempting a boss.
AI tends to get cramped up at creep spawns, or will steal one from an ally. So I had to make them constantly evaluate if someone was in a creep camp or not, and re-target a new camp if so. If all camps are low on creeps or occupied, they will attempt to "steal" a camp from the other team.
Skills were good for creeping, but they sucked for pvp. I had to create 2-3 "sets" of validators for each skill, depending if there were many or few creeps, if there was an enemy player nearby, if there was a wounded friend nearby, or if it was a boss attempt.
With all that set, the AI was pretty good. Good enough to beat me more than half the time. I had to create a 2nd AI mode which was easier than what I had created. Lets call this stage "running".
A video of the first 5 min of the game with 3 AI and myself. The biggest downside of AI, is that it doesn't kite much (though kiting isn't a great strat in my game). The more advanced you want your AI, the more work you gotta do, and the more it will hurt game performance. I can run 14 AI at once on battle.net without any lag.
if espionage is your goal; then you could lay traps. mirror images. dummy units.
With no idea how your game actually works, it will be difficult for people to leave feedback for you. Make a 5 min video or something. Otherwise, I am left suggesting the 900 abilities that come with the editor, since you have no standards outlined.
Ehh, guess I will just do what I can by myself. It is more of a community effort than anything else anyway. All I gotta do is maybe 30 minutes of organization, and take part in the event. As long as the community is still interested in the initiative, I see no reason why it shouldn't start.
Lol, wargirl, what are YOU getting? A new gaming PC? Another trip to florida?
I have been wanting to find something, but dont know what it is yet. I always make a few big purchases every year. www.slickdeals.net is a pretty good site for finding great deals as the pop up online. Ive been looking for a good bluetooth surround sound system. Saw a good one go up for 3000, but that is more than I am looking for. I will most likely get a new gaming keyboard. Prolly a few flashdrives.
I can suggest my single player map, since I only got feedback from one user :(.
Here's the link to the map page.
I gotta ask; why isn't this just a map players can download and play? or find on battle.net? Rather than downloading and running an installer. I'm genuinely confused! I will see what Trieva thinks!
0
First and foremost, mac is an operating system, as is windows. You can build a PC, and then install the mac OS if you really enjoy the OS. Right now, and every few months, the editor does not work on mac. Don't get a mac.
If you are looking for performance, Passmark does testing on all components.
https://www.passmark.com/index.html
You can go to the "Benchmark" tab at the top, and select which thing to see benchmarks on.
For example: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ bring up every CPU ever made, and how they compare to each other, and their average price range.
It pretty much doesnt matter your goals, the higher the numbers on those lists; the more performance you are getting.
FACT ABOVE, OPINION BELOW
Honestly, as someone who has built quite a few PCs over the years, you should not be spending more than 1000 on your computer (not including monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, OS). a 2000 dollar computer today, will be worth 1000 next year. If you just want to waste 1000 dollars a year, you can do that.
Price breakdown:
TOWER: 100-150
MOBO: 100-150
RAM: 150 (can get 32 GB for this price)
CPU: 150-200
GPU: 200-250
POWER: 75-100
HDD: 100
Disk Drives? Who still uses them? $40
Be smart when building a computer. You can get a 500GB SSD as your primary, and then when it get full, you can get a 4 TB external/slave for storing the media you will never actually touch. 32 GB of RAM is super nice; but barely any better performance than 16 GB. You may be inclined to do liquid cooling, and get a kickass tower for your build; but that is only taking years off the life of your rig. You are better off spending that 200 dollars on a better CPU and GPU and just not overclocking it, removing the need for added cooling.
OOORRRRRR (MY opinion again) You can spend 4k on a mac, and get lower specs than the above for 1k. You will look super cool setting up shop at the local coffee house though.
0
There is somewhere to start.
0
Man, I cant get a video file that isn't huge in size (Like 500mb). And... I am terrible at sc2. TChosenOne's video does a lot better of a job than mine did, so I will type up my review.
From the viewpoint of an absolute sc2 noob:
The Briefing Screen:
Goods
Looked really good, 8/10 on aesthetics.
I really liked the "Intelligence Report" in the top right. I almost skipped over it though; I only knew it was there because it lit up when I moused over it.
The short camera work at the beginning was also nice!
Not Goods
The text goes too fast. Since you have a "Skip" button, I think you can slow the text speed down, without forcing people to sit through it if they don't want to.
I cannot click a difficulty level in the briefing screen? Does the game know I suck? I keep being put on normal, and i keep losing cuz I suck.
Gameplay:
Keep in mind here, that I do not play sc2, like.. at all. IDK what micro is. I stand and fight until I die, then try it again.
The Good
I was able to beat it!
I feel I improved my marine-using capabilities, between the start and finish.
I had a giant army of marines, thinking I would need them; and a well defended base. "I was sad to win, because I wanted to keep playing."
Amazing terrain work!
After I finally beat it (playing on bnet, so i couldnt save/load when I lost) you showed me that there were various achievements, and that I failed all of them. I wanted to play again to do them, because I still felt like a loser, struggling just to finish.
The Not Good
In the intro walk of shame, can marines aggro something farther away? It feels like then have a range of 5, and an aggro range of 4, so stuff gets a lot closer to me than I'd like (Remember, I am a noob)
Text flies a little fast here too. I don't think I had the time to read an entire line.
A handful of grammar and text mistakes, but I believe TChosenOne found all the ones I found, and a bunch more.
It is an intro mission, sure, but it would be nice if the zerg army slowly got larger or attacked. Or put a cap on food for me. I am a turtle, and when I had 40 marines to attack with, it was too easy.
0
Picking up an initiative by Mozared and JayborinoPlays, I will be hosting a project every month for the community to focus it's attention and feedback towards (Thread found here: https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/player-zone/map-review/131020-monthly-community-project-testing-continued/#posts). Anyone interested in having their project hosted should PM me, do not inquire here.
SCBis
By Cacho56
Project Page: https://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/sc2bis/
Direct Links: US: starcraft://map/1/280893 EU: starcraft://map/2/196442
Battle.net: Search "Bottleneck" you'll find it.
Game Type: Single-Player Campaign Alternative
Game Info
8 years have transcurred since the Brood War. Terran civilization is back on its feet, but there have been reports in the last years about Zerg presence in the fringe worlds.
Intelligence reveals that Kerrigan isn't in Char. She's travelling through other worlds in a frontier sector. The Dominion uses it, and starts a great campaign of retaliation. The plan is to build Psi disrupters in the planets that are on the road from the Terran colonized space to Char: Sorona, Timul IV and Maltair IV. After hammering the Zerg communications, the intention is to burn every single one of them.
You Were a Captain in the war against the UED. You've been recently promoted to Lieteunant by recomendation of Horace Warfield. He was your superior when you were serving the Confederates, and saw potential in you after the Dominion triumph. You're at the moment his favourite pupil, and he's preparing you to replace him in his shortcoming retirement.
Feedback
Leave feedback for the project here. Negative feedback is welcome, as well as positive feedback. Refrain from flaming. Attempt to offer solutions to problems you find. You know, good feedback -The goal of this thread.
0
From the land of the rising sun I guess. I'll get on it!
EDIT: https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/player-zone/map-review/131403-monthly-test-december-scbis-by-cacho56/
0
I agree, but you and I also must understand that authors may have spend hundreds-thousands of hours on their project. I assume, when giving feedback, that the author will be defensive; especially when it comes to game design. I think a very common reply (and I have said this) is "this game is for a target audience, if you are too stupid to understand how to play it, you aren't the audience." That is a poor attitude to have, and both tester and editor need to overcome it. You are absolutely correct that the mapmaker needs the feedback far more than the person giving it needs to give it. really, I feel it is much more difficult for the mapmaker to remain calm than the player. but this is why I am strongly against insults. It is fine to dislike something. refrain from calling it stupid is all. "I had no clue what I needed to do to win the game." might piss a mapmaker off, but is also good feedback. "There are too many words, I'm not gonna read all that!" might inspire a mapmaker to shout "WELL THEN YOU WONT KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE GAME!" again, good feedback, bad mapmaker.
It is a giant crapshoot to know who will be offended by what. If I feel someone has offered very rude advice, I will send them a PM about it. It really isn't a major concern. For how small of a community is left here, most of the members are reasonably professional. That is why we have this initiative. a 1 star review on the arcade "boring" is not very good feedback; and anyone can publish their map to get a simple review. People here know the work that goes into the editor, and can offer possible solutions, without that entitled opinion that you owe them something (found in many game critics these days).
0
I guess everyone has their own thoughts about being an asshole, and what that entails. I do not think that negative feedback is a bad thing; but personal attacks are. Everyone is entitled to not like a game. Calling a project "stupid" or saying the mapmaker "doesn't know anything" isn't helping anyone. Saying that the game is entirely too confusing, or is horribly balance, or that it simply isn't fun; well, that is all opinion.
Just avoid personal attacks; and try not to take things as a personal attack. "Person A: I hated the intro, it wasted my time" "Person B: unlike person A, i liked the intro" (Now person A and B do not start to argue about the intro, they respect each others opinions and leave it at that)
0
As I mentioned via PM (might as well let everyone know) The power behind the initiative is not in (me/the organizers) but in the people who takes the time to test the projects and leave feedback. I have a project lined up to start on the 1st, and will be making a new thread for it on the 1st. Hopefully the calm between holidays will mean that people have a little extra time they can spare to test out a project.
To all the potential testers out there: Rather than 1 more game of DOTA, an episode of south park, 30 minutes of sleep... Whatever part of your personal life you are busy with (Everyone is busy, it cannot be helped) try to pitch in to support the mapmaking community, and hopefully the good deed will come back around to you.
0
Terrain deformations can be a problem, if you have a lot of deformation. Not sure it could ever be enough to cause noticeable lag.
Anything that plays an animation. Creep adds to lag (again, not enough to notice a drop) What doodads do you have left? what units? Have you tried to preload the models?
Do the FPS drops happen in the editor, or only in-game, or only in battle.net?
0
nothing exists for this. After building my hero AI; I learned that it is pretty map specific, but there are always some general things to keep in mind. The best way to go about it, is to start with the very basic.
Example
Telling your unit that it needs to go heal if it is low on life.
Then you want it to do whatever the basic concept of your game is. For me, that is going to kill creeps in camps.
Now the AI is playing the game on a very basic level. Lets call this the "crawling phase"
In my game, items are pretty important, so I created a variable list for each AI, so it will buy specific items in a specific order, and sell old items to make space.
Skills are also very important; unlocking and leveling them. I created a list for each hero on which skills to prioritize leveling.
Making them use skills was tricky. You need to set up "sets" of validators. You dont want to cast a big AoE on a single creep; you want to make sure there are many, ect.
Now the AI goes to creep camps, and uses and levels skills to kill creeps. It uses the gold it earns to buy new items. Lets call this the walking phase.
After this, it got technical. In my game, there are bosses you try to kill. So I have to give a chance to evaluate the situation and see if the AI can beat the boss; or if an ally needs help with a boss; or if an enemy is attempting a boss.
AI tends to get cramped up at creep spawns, or will steal one from an ally. So I had to make them constantly evaluate if someone was in a creep camp or not, and re-target a new camp if so. If all camps are low on creeps or occupied, they will attempt to "steal" a camp from the other team.
Skills were good for creeping, but they sucked for pvp. I had to create 2-3 "sets" of validators for each skill, depending if there were many or few creeps, if there was an enemy player nearby, if there was a wounded friend nearby, or if it was a boss attempt.
With all that set, the AI was pretty good. Good enough to beat me more than half the time. I had to create a 2nd AI mode which was easier than what I had created. Lets call this stage "running".
A video of the first 5 min of the game with 3 AI and myself. The biggest downside of AI, is that it doesn't kite much (though kiting isn't a great strat in my game). The more advanced you want your AI, the more work you gotta do, and the more it will hurt game performance. I can run 14 AI at once on battle.net without any lag.
Any questions?
0
if espionage is your goal; then you could lay traps. mirror images. dummy units.
With no idea how your game actually works, it will be difficult for people to leave feedback for you. Make a 5 min video or something. Otherwise, I am left suggesting the 900 abilities that come with the editor, since you have no standards outlined.
0
Ehh, guess I will just do what I can by myself. It is more of a community effort than anything else anyway. All I gotta do is maybe 30 minutes of organization, and take part in the event. As long as the community is still interested in the initiative, I see no reason why it shouldn't start.
0
Glad you enjoy watching our American broadcasting up there.
0
Lol, wargirl, what are YOU getting? A new gaming PC? Another trip to florida?
I have been wanting to find something, but dont know what it is yet. I always make a few big purchases every year. www.slickdeals.net is a pretty good site for finding great deals as the pop up online. Ive been looking for a good bluetooth surround sound system. Saw a good one go up for 3000, but that is more than I am looking for. I will most likely get a new gaming keyboard. Prolly a few flashdrives.
0
I gotta ask; why isn't this just a map players can download and play? or find on battle.net? Rather than downloading and running an installer. I'm genuinely confused! I will see what Trieva thinks!