SC2Mapster

Update: Happy New Years, everybody!

It's that time of year again! We here at sc2mapster wish you all happy holidays. Stay safe, have a lot of fun, and don't forget to enjoy the StarCrafts Christmas special. ;)

WDE Contest Winners

The entries submitted to the Weekly Data Exercise were quite impressive. The contest had no restrictions- contestants were simply asked to create anything data-related. The winners are SpoolofWhool's mighty Zerg King, 1ATEM4P5's trio of abilties, and hobbidude's alternate xel'naga tower. Thank you to everybody who submitted an entry, and congratulations to our winners!

Triggering Contest Winners

We received tons of great submissions for our latest triggering contest. The task was to make something with triggers that was "awesome", and boy did we receive lots of awesome stuff. You can check out the winners here, or all of the submissions here. If you haven't won a beta key yet, don't fret! There's still more keys available, and Preordering HotS will now earn you a key.

Update: For those of you still anxious to get your hands on the HotS beta, DiabloFans is giving away keys for the next two weeks.

BarCraft by sc2modders

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of Blizzard Heroes walked in to a bar? Well now you can find out- sc2modder's BarCraft is a unique card game in which every player picks a unique hero to fight and has their own secret role. Check out the trailer below!

Make sure you check out the project thread here and leave your feedback!

StarTools Beta

Many of you might remember the so called "Star Tools" that were intended to be released alongside the new editor to help 3D modelers streamline and improve their work. The beta for the toolset has finally started! If you are experienced in modeling, make sure you apply in the official thread (US thread here, EU thread here), or join our discussion here!

3D City Defense by StRoNgFoE and Zarltok

StRoNgFoE and Zarltok have been working on a map by the name of 3D City Defense. Players fight in 3rd person to defend the city against the zerg threat. The map just launched today, so make sure to check it out if you're on the US servers! Make sure to leave your thoughts and feedback in the thread here!

For those of you who still need beta keys, participate in the Weekly Data Exercise, the Weekly Terraining Exercise, or the Monthly Triggering Exercise for a chance at earning one!

HotS- Now with talking AI's!

That's right- a recent update to Heart of the Swarm just added AI's that communicate with you when you're on the same team. You can set your AI's build order using an in-game build-order-picker to choose from a few different opening and late-game strategies. The higher the AI's difficulty setting, the more advanced build orders or strategies it can be ordered to use. And for those who are concerned, you can still let the AI do it's own thing without orders from you, if you'd like. You can also give the AI orders like Attack, defend, scout, get detection, and expand.

Perhaps the most interesting feature is that the AI's will now actually talk to you. You'll hear the AI's voice say "I'm going to expand here" and see it ping the map- you might here it say "I've spotted some enemy mutalisks here". The AI will also let you know what it's building and when.

You can check out the full post here or join the discussion here!

HotS Groups Feature

HotS recently added a clan and groups feature- you can read the full article here if you're interested. We've created a sc2mapster group for Heart of the Swarm- if you're in the beta, make sure to join! The groups feature will be coming to Wings of Liberty in the future, at which point we'll open the same group there. This should provide a quick and easy way to round up some fellow mappers to test out your new game, or just play the newest arcade releases.

MechCraft by Bommes

Many of you know that some powerful new physics tools have been added to the HotS editor. Bommes has recently created a few videos to showcase how he's added physics into his own map, MechCraft. You can check out the videos below, or visit the thread here.

And speaking of super awesome editing skills- the latest monthly triggering excercise has started. Make sure to check it out here if you want to stretch those triggering skills!

Power Level Overwhelming Re-Release by Ultimaswc3

Some of you might remember Ultimaswc3's project "Power Level Overwhelming". He's been working on a brand new version with lots of new features, including new 'power' resource mechanics, team battles, a new Diablo-Style interface (including hotkeys), and a brand new skill system. You can check out the new video below:

Make sure to check out the thread here and leave your thoughts!

Gnolls VS Trolls by Bounty_98

Bounty has recently revealed his latest map, Gnolls Vs Trolls. Two teams of players must work together to steal their dinner from the opposing team's castle, while at the same time protecting their own team's prisoner. Players can play as one of five classes, each with unique abilities and skills.

Bounty has published some alpha footage below!

The map is currently in closed alpha testing. If you're interested in being a tester, hang out in the chat channel "Gnolls VS Trolls" and you will be first in line for an invite! Bounty is also looking for an Artist to help with the project- make sure to send him a PM if you're interested. You can check out the thread here.

Global Play Coming to StarCraft

As many of you likely know, starcraft 2 is region-locked, meaning you cannot play with people who live in different areas. A Global Play option, similar the one in Diablo 3, will be added to Starcraft 2 in a future patch. With global play, you will be able to switch which region you are playing on, allowing you to battle with friends from across the world. You can read the full article here, or join the discussion here.

HotS 2.0.1 Update

Heart of the Swarm recently received a big update from patch 2.0.1. In addition to the new features for the game itself, the editor has received quite a few awesome updates. Renee2islga has written up a list of the new editor features for patch 2.0.1 here.

Renee2islga also created a few demo videos to test the brand new physics system!

You can check out the rest of the videos here.

Update: Blizzard has announced some new details on the new clans and groups system. You can check out the full article here or join the discussion here!

Lootify by BasharTeg

Ever wanted to create a Diablo-style randomized loot system? Then Lootify is the library for you! Lootify is an add-on for inventory systems that allows a designer to apply "enchantments" to base items, easily creating an unlimited number of combinations which can be set or randomized, depending on preference.

Make sure to check out the thread here!

Heart of the Swarm UI Update

Blizzard has recently posted an update for Heart of the Swarm, this time announcing a new battle net interface. The entire UI has been streamlined to offer easy access to every menu, and many new statistics have been made available for melee players.

Quote from Blizzard:

The 1.5 patch we released a couple months ago was a major update that included several changes to the menus and the addition of the new Arcade experience. What you might not know is that many of the changes in 1.5 were actually slated to be a part of the Heart of the Swarm expansion. We felt that several features, including Arcade, would be of immediate benefit to players, and decided to release them earlier in the 1.5 patch. Since we weren’t done with the rest of Heart of the Swarm yet, we had to compromise in some areas of the menus to support these features. We weren’t really happy with how this added additional complexity to the menus.

Since then, we’ve continued to work on Heart of the Swarm, and we’ve made some big changes to improve the overall user experience. With the release of the next major Heart of the Swarm beta patch, we'd like to give you an advance look at those changes. These updates will become available to both Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm players once the expansion is live.

Source

You can check out the full article here, or join the discussion here.

Weather by DarlD

Weather is a .SC2Mod file containing a library which gives the user the capability to create weather systems in their maps. Let's say you have an RPG which is situated in a forest... Wouldn't it be nice if it rained once in a while? Weather comes equipped with four different "Weather Types" as follows: Forest (Rainy), Desert (Windy dust), Snow, Heat Wave (Sun/winds). In addition, each type can be set at different intensities (Light, Medium, Heavy).

3D City Defense by zarltok

3D City Defense is a 3rd person coop & defense game using WASD movement. You and your allies will need to protect the City against the Zerg. The game contains 9 different heroes as well as random and specific events all around the city to maximize the action. You will need to defend each area to maintain your current buffs. Check out the video below!

Make sure to leave your feedback in the project thread here!