I'll start this blog with some introduction. For those of you who know who I am, you know that I am a mapmaker famous for maps like Fighting Spirit in the beta, Neo Enigma in the ESL cups and Ithaca in the ESV Korean Weeklies amongst other things. About six months ago I was getting very burned out. Making maps, commentating, watching the same shit play on the same shit maps, etc. I was frustrated and becoming increasingly strapped for time and my priorities needed changing. After awhile I came to the conclusion to retire from mapmaking, take a break from SC2 as a whole and maybe try commentating again a little later.
Fast forward to about two months ago. OverKlocked is a LAN center in Edmonton that had finally opened up and it's first event was (you guessed it) a StarCraft 2 tournament that I was invited to commentate. The day went very well, I became acquainted with a lot of people and had a great time. As the weeks passed, more and more SC2 events happened in the community. MLG viewings at Overklocked, tournaments, group practice sessions, barcraft, etc - my love for the game and that spark for lack of a less cheesy term was starting to come back.
One of the people I met in the community is Jacqueline "Versailles" Geller. You might recognize the name from one of the billions of eSports pieces she writes. She had asked me to teach her how to make maps and I can't say no to a pretty face~ Every time her and I met she would ask me the same thing - teach me how to make maps. This proceeded for a few weeks and during that period I found myself spending more and more time looking at and analyzing maps and becoming more and more inspired.
Eventually, I caved (hence why I'm writing this TL blog now) - I agreed to teach Jacq how to make maps which we turned into an educational show for not only her but the viewers as well called "MapCraft - State of the Terrain" (4th episode this sunday! :D) and I began working on my first original design since my retirement (not counting the 2v2 maps I was contracted to make for the Prodigy Team Starleague).
I spent at least a dozen hours trying to find the right way to execute the concept I had in mind - a map with a relatively ambiguous expansion path and a backdoor leading to the main base that is somewhat out of the way, similar to Crossfire/Peaks of Beakdu. I axed design after design, sketch after sketch and I recently finally hit a personal milestone: I'm finally content with the design and started working on aesthetics. (Huge shoutout to Monitor and the rest of the ESV Mapmaking team for helping me out a TON with this - mapmaking without more than one brain is not possible IMO as well as Lokgar for the man cuddling and emotional support)
I wanted to share with everyone the progress I made. Unfortunately I don't have screenshots of every single design I made between then and now but I'll post everything I do have. I hope you enjoy and maybe even learn something I know I did
13th attempt (Adding in more suggestions/changes form the map team & base to test for blink stalkers getting over the gaps) + Show Spoiler [13th attempt] +
14th attempt (Monitor cracked the map open and made some changes, huge props to him for helping me out a ton) + Show Spoiler [14th attempt] +
I was finally happy with that design. The team and I discussed some potential changes but ultimately decided on leaving it as is. Time to texture stuff~
I should note that although this thread isn't really for feedback, the map is published on NA as "Edge of Oblivion - prodiG" if you want to check it out further
This blog brought me back to my days as a WC3 map maker, remembering how many versions of some of the custom games I made was unbelievable.
A lot of work goes into map making, and peopel that do it derserve mad props. Even to those of you think a melee map isnt as work intensive as a custom game. The amount of scaling to make sure things are even for both players is unfathomable at times..
Glad to see you back man, you were always the best at this, was nice to see other people in SC see the wonders that is the FGC though, but definitely hope to see maps like these set into map pools and stuff.
Damn. That backdoor entrance into the main is such a goddamn intresting idea. Look to see how it works out. EDIT: Also like the visuals, with water in space and all.
Very, very happy to see you back at mapmaking. You and the mapmaking community is what made Broodwar great, and the same is (very) needed for SC2. Keep up the good work ^__^
It's great to have you back in the mapmaking scene, I always loved to play on your maps. Your 2v2 maps made 2v2's fun again and your 1v1 maps where always first choise if someone asked for a costum game or even to train on my own! I hope you can get an own EU account so everybody here can enjoy all you recent and comming maps!
Have you got this map on the EU servers yet? I like how this map looks macro orientated but with the small distances it should force engagements more than larger ones.
This map has the right idea, but I particularly would be worried about zvp. I dont think you would be able to trade cost effectibly as zerg with so many corridors. gj though!
On October 19 2011 18:40 Bswhunter wrote: Damn. That backdoor entrance into the main is such a goddamn intresting idea. Look to see how it works out. EDIT: Also like the visuals, with water in space and all.
Lol, when blizzard makes backdoor entrances they get flamed. When someone else does it, it's "interesting".
On October 19 2011 18:40 Bswhunter wrote: Damn. That backdoor entrance into the main is such a goddamn intresting idea. Look to see how it works out. EDIT: Also like the visuals, with water in space and all.
Lol, when blizzard makes backdoor entrances they get flamed. When someone else does it, it's "interesting".
It's interesting because it doesn't take 2 seconds for your enemy to move from the front --> backdoor
On October 19 2011 18:40 Bswhunter wrote: Damn. That backdoor entrance into the main is such a goddamn intresting idea. Look to see how it works out. EDIT: Also like the visuals, with water in space and all.
Lol, when blizzard makes backdoor entrances they get flamed. When someone else does it, it's "interesting".
Look at blistering sands = a map that was flamed all day every day until it got removed.
Then take a look at Crossfire (admittedly a bw port but still a "blizz map") = I don't even remember one mention of that backdoor here on tl.
You can play the latter map all day and not even notice that there are actually two ramps into your main. The backdoor is still there but when it comes to function it's all about the execution.
EPT
I know I did![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xHBba.jpg)
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Neo Enigma is still my favorite map you made but this one looks great though.
