Hey everyone, it's been a long time since I've done one of these. I've been pretty quiet from the SC2 mapmaking scene for a large number of reasons; a new job at a game company (just hit 3 years at this point -- around the time I started to fade away ), becoming a filthy League of Legends casual (I blame peer pressure), and otherwise being disenfranchised with the design and balance direction of SC2 (but I'll shelve the whine for this blog post).
One thing that has been consistent is my level of lurking on TL, and I always love to see the creative new maps coming out of our ever-changing mapmaking community. So, over three years later, I have for you another iteration of Mapmaker Appreciation -- The July 2016 Edition. Format for categorization will remain pretty similar:
Mapmaking Team - Maps that were made by a member of a mapmaking team Polished - Maps made by unaffiliated individuals that showcase a higher level of aesthetic quality Unpolished - Maps made by unaffiliated individuals that are of lower aesthetic quality than polished maps or incomplete (WIP)
These designations are 100% subjective and focus purely on aesthetics, and should not be taken as an indication that a map is necessarily "better" or "worse" than any other. Mapmaking Team maps are in their own category, regardless of aesthetics for the sake of easily locating them. It's impossible to grade by game play/balance quality without extensive play testing, which is outside the scope of this blog series.
If you're interested, take some time to play on some of these maps with your friends and provide feedback to the mapmakers in their respective map threads. It goes a long way in helping them polish up and balance these maps, some of which you may one day find on the SC2 ladder.
On August 17 2016 14:55 Barrin wrote: What do you think about the maps? :>
My favourite out of July would have to be IronManSC's Broken Earth. That being said, there's arguments to be made for or against it in my view:
It's fairly standard
At version 0.4, it's still quite unpolished
Lots of familiarity/nostalgia to his most popular map, Ohana
I didn't make a pro/con because all of these points could be placed in either column, depending on your point of view. A standard map is either praised or panned depending on what a player is looking for in a new map; being unpolished, you could be pessimistic and take the map for what it currently is, or be optimistic and see the potential in it; and finally, the map following a very similar pattern to Ohana could be considered a lack of creativity and/or quality on the part of the mapmaker, or you can consider it a modern LOTV twist on a battle-tested and well received design (plus points for nostalgia).
It's this almost-paradoxical reaction to the map that intrigues me the most, and I can't wait to see the end result once Travis brings it to a nice 1.0 shine.
Cyclotron and Eternium IV make use of custom gimmicks (forcefields and destructible XNTs, respectively) that I've never personally cared for, as I never see any real competitive viability in them in the same way that Brood War saw creative uses of map editor trickery to create new competitive options. However, I do like how mapmakers are constantly looking for ways to spice up the map scene.
I almost put Desert Portal in the "polished" category, but I felt like it couldn't be justified when it feels like no work was done in the out-of-bounds areas, which is in stark contrast to the kind of polished aesthetic work we've seen out of professional ladder maps of the past. In the same line of thinking, I almost had Vis A Vis in the "unpolished", but you can see that the effort was put in to at least do something in all parts of the map and it does so to an acceptable level, even if I personally feel there's opportunity for growth.
Endion Space Station feels like the titular "middle-road" kind of map. Nothing that makes you go "wow that's cool", but nothing that makes you go "ick" either. I'd expect more work would need to go into it if IMTB wants it to become a ladder map, but even if nothing is done it can be considered a competent piece of work and something to be proud of when advancing one's map making ability.
I'd expect ILIOS - Lighthouse to fall into the same "siege push" trap that all previous maps have when offering a fairly choked A->B direct path between naturals, with a base in the middle (and this one being gold, to boot). I think it's a classic case of a newer map maker being unaware of past map making experience, but it's good to try things out for yourself. Aside from that critical weak point, I think the map overall has a solid concept behind its need for some polish.
Finally, there's Tridevi. Probably what I'd consider the lowest quality in terms of both aesthetic and terrain design out of the group, I still give ZigguratOfUr mad props for attempting a 3P map in this day and age. Those are, in my opinion, the hardest maps to design by far and even the best 3Ps in SC2 history (we're talking ladder/tournament worthy) still had critical balance issues that caused them to be rotated out fairly quickly. The man is doing this map making thing on hard mode, and I respect it.
Appreciate (hah!) the post =) I think the more exposure the mapping scene can get the better, so every little bit helps. Any chance you'll get back to doing this one a monthly basis?
Being a mapmaker, I love to get feedback on my maps, but it's also interesting to hear feedback on other maps as well especially ones that might use similar layouts/philosophies as my own because then I can build on that as well.
Broken Earth & Desert Portal are the best imo (well besides Eternium, but I can't vote for my own map eh?). Broken Earth is just super standard and even though it's still in the early stages I think it's getting better with each update. I'd imagine once IronMan is done with it that it'll be a pretty awesome map.
Desert Portal, I just think the portal idea is neat. I think I liked the map before when the portal section was off on it's own but I definitely like the lower section a lot better now then before. It's tricks/gimmickys/ideas like this that keep things refreshing though and I gotta get procs to Fatam for designing maps with gimmicks even though the possibility of Blizzard ever using it is pretty much 0%. Just shows he's doing it for fun and to hopefully appease to the custom game players.
On August 17 2016 22:37 SidianTheBard wrote: Any chance you'll get back to doing this one a monthly basis?
My commitment to SC2 is pretty minimal at this point in time, so it really comes down to whether or not I have some free time on my hands. I think ideally I'd like to keep doing it monthly, but I'm playing it by ear.
Appreciate the positive words and feedback. This is a great post overall and I will say, yes, I am still working on the aesthetics (taking a break right now). It'll be ready near the next TLMC.
Yes, broken earth is similar in base placement when compared to Ohana. Ohana was a great success and I simply pull what I can from the map to create something new. I know it's a bit standard but I want to exhaust my options essentially.
EPT
), becoming a filthy League of Legends casual (I blame peer pressure), and otherwise being disenfranchised with the design and balance direction of SC2 (but I'll shelve the whine for this blog post).![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2sPk0wl.jpg)
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