EPTI guess it's about time I contribute something small...
This was a project that I started working on in late 2004 but haven't noticeably touched in about a year or so. Basically when I was making the move in 2004 from UMS to melee in starcraft, I felt the need to organize all the maps that I had collected over the years I had played UMS only (since 2001 or so) which then numbered a little over 2000. I realized that if I made it a little bit better then I could present it to people and contribute to the community that entertains me so much. Over the course of a few months I went through every single map that I had, testing for duplicates and updated versions, playing EVERY SINGLE map that I did not 100% specifically remember how it was. I debated a lot over the quality of the maps that I should be including and in the end went for a very encompassing view of maps. For the people that are interested in my thoughts on the maps (I warn you that this has very likely changed over the course of another year being exposed to the beauty of true starcraft <3) I also wrote a small readme in which I collected my thoughts on all the maps and listed particular ones that I liked. Of course the maps are sorted into numerous categories which I decided on myself.
Aside from sheer procrastination and laziness the reason this map pack took so long to get out (you can ask the people who often hear me complain about how I should release my ums map pack) is that I had a set of maybe... 30 or so maps that were unreadable and also required very specific numbers of players to test. I actually still have not done it but they are included anyhow, it's just that I decided it was time to release it now or else it looked like I would never post it.
These days I'm not nearly as attached to UMS any more after discovering progaming through tl.net and in fact don't enjoy playing them nearly as much now and so barely play them. In the past year there were a few maps I added but not many and they're not included in the comments (for example a couple versions of Team Micro Melee which is a great map by Bill).
As for technical details about the pack, to open it you should use a program such as winRAR and then extract the folder into your starcraft maps directory or wherever else you want it. It is 71.3 MB, containing approximately 930 maps sorted into about 21 main categories. There are both .scm and .scx maps intermixed, I didn't pay much attention to which was which.
There is a readme file which i have not updated since last year but I am including it here:
Locked's wonderful world of ums; a map pack!.txt
Version 0.9
ReadMe.txt for UMS map pack of Locked (@TL.net)
I have had about 2000 maps in my download folder since early 2004 and decided
that it was time to sort through them, but I also thought some other people
might be interested in it so I would organize it a little more in depth and release it.
Notes on the maps:
>>>>>>>>>>I cannot guarantee the quality of these maps as I created none of them.<<<<<<<<<<
HOWEVER I did attempt to remove as many low quality maps as possible.
As an avid starcraft UMS player for several years prior to trying melee I will attempt to talk about each section in this pack
7v1: very simple really... its split into vs "Hard Computer" and vs a "Godzilla" type... this is not that interesting but I felt it should be included in the pack
Action Fighting: For games like Special Forces, and Smash TV, interesting games if you like those types.
Altered Melee: I am partial to Kings+Knights and StarCraft MiNi,
however I would recommend looking also at Macro Micro (substitute for team melee), Hunters 8x, SC Tourney, Altered SC, Phantom, the Turbo maps, and of course Blood Bath Obs version.
BattleCraft + Tug O War: Battlecraft is worth a try atleast, TugOWar is there for completeness.
Bounding+Dodging: Ah so many similar Bound maps, the pure generic bounds are in the "Bounds" folder, which has some classics such as Cipher2002 series and Monopoly Bound.
For the other maps I would try Frogger, Spider Mines FINAL, Larva Dodge, Observer Lovely, Laser Fences (one of the very first and most popular of this type) and the puzzles.
Builders Fighters, Buyers Sellers: Just some classic games that required their own folder.
Bunker Wars: I think I prefer Snowball wars for this type of game
Defense, Protect, Survive: I used to enjoy just about every single one
of these a lot but not so much now. I'm sure there are defense fans out there still though. I do have to add that there are some actual creative, innovative, and quality maps here beyond the mindless infinite cash defense games. For untraditional defense I would look at Poker TD (it is the korean one), maybe trigger happy D, turret wars for competitiveness, and even Defend Your Castle or Random Defenders.
Korean: As the name suggests these are Korean maps heh, I tried to put a short english definition for each one by placing them in their own folders.
Large War: Initially there were many crap ones... I have filtered out many.
I would encourage UMS players to try BraveHeart (a castle assault version).
Some others are well made though, or atleast interesting.
Mass, Madness, Ranchers, ZC, etc.: I would recommend a good oldschool EVOLVES, also fun to play is Xelda, Golems, Simpsons. The others are o.k.
Don't overlook Zone Control either.
Micro Arenas: For those interested heavily in micro I would strongly recommend 8882's micro mappack and it has most of the ones that I include plus more.
I have tried to pick the micro maps I find most fun though, while 8882's is more for completion.
NOTE: Team Macro Arena is incorrectly named I think... it feels basically like Team Micro Arena although it's fairly well made in that respect.
Micro Problems: Different from Arena, most of these are about doing a specific task, and many require a team of people.
Enjoyable are TrapD APM Trainer and some of the team-micro vs computer maps.
Movies: SC movies... I highly recommend b.net exp and b.net exp 2
HIGHLY RECOMMEND
everyone should watch them
MTG: Just another fun old map... Magus Wars is included here just because it is similar but not really the same, also Naruto battles.
Random: This has some of the most fun maps in this pack.
Included within are Assassinate the President, Random Fighters, The Puzzling, Worms.
Also interesting are the people games, fire fighters, pistol duels,
and if you're bored there is RandomBAN, Russian Roulette, and Bannninated.
WARNING: Hello desktop will crash sc if you're wondering.
RPG: Your standard fare RPGs, some better made than others, I was never really a big RPG fan.
A note... some nonstandard RPGs are here like FFTactics and Aeon of Strife.
Snipers: I was a competitive sniper player "back in the days"...
Out of pure fanboyism, if you are looking for the competitive paintball map I would recommend either SnipB AoD v310 or SnipB NbK v321. Upgrades, Trees, and Locks Only all suck but are included for completeness.
Also some of the others are good, such as Speed Duels, Sniper Arena, Speedball, V-tec, and Laser Tag
Even vs CPU is ok, several versions are included.
Sports + Games party: Another awesome set of maps, just about all of these are extremely fun
I would endorse Teh Seekers, SC Party, Pinata Party, Wallball, Pong, SCV Football, Bomberman.
But once again, all are fairly fun, save perhaps Quidditch which is very lame, but included for completeness.
Tag: An O.K. set of maps, some like it these more than others.
Not really sure what to recommend, all I have to say is if you like one of the types of maps I would try the others as well.
Turn + Diplo + LOTR style: I abhor LOTR style maps, I find them utterly boring, but I do know some people love them so here they are.
Diplomacy can be fun with the right people, the other maps are just here as they are slow paced war games.
The exception is Virtual Battle which is easily the fastest paced map here and can be quite fun and interesting.
Advance Wars is also amazing in the way that it emulates the actual amazing game
Short progress history:
12/19/2005: Started preliminary sorting
12/21/2005: Finished preliminary sorting, still much testing to do
Leaves me with about 700+ maps not thrown out as crap and atleast 200 maps that I must test
12/29/2005: I still have about 5 maps to test because I need other people to start the game, I've tested many maps by myself, and even more with help from others.
I also have about 50 korean maps that I have been unable to test... I'll probably ask Fireblast! or someone.
12/30/2005: Finished testing all the english maps more or less.
1/10/2006: It's been a while since my last edit of this readme; attempts to read Korean have failed, so I have now decided to simply rename the unreadable maps, but this means going through each one and testing them.
Which means I have now about 100 maps to test, I am working my way through them.
1/14/2006: Tested basically everything that I can do alone now, but I still have about 30 maps left that can't be tested with just one person.
Thanks to the following people for helping (mostly help in testing maps):
123bangbang, Ajvanadri, All-Out, FireBlast!, GTR-2-GO, happymanrun, Hobbes., MuShu, NeX-decaf, RancoR(Sphere), sMi.Incubus, Smurg, tlsrl8701, XeNoZ and all the others that helped.
Also thanks to 8882 for making his micromappack; it provided a little inspiration in making this, plus I probably blatantly ripped maybe 1/4 of the good maps in his pack that I didn't already have.
Version 0.9
ReadMe.txt for UMS map pack of Locked (@TL.net)
I have had about 2000 maps in my download folder since early 2004 and decided
that it was time to sort through them, but I also thought some other people
might be interested in it so I would organize it a little more in depth and release it.
Notes on the maps:
>>>>>>>>>>I cannot guarantee the quality of these maps as I created none of them.<<<<<<<<<<
HOWEVER I did attempt to remove as many low quality maps as possible.
As an avid starcraft UMS player for several years prior to trying melee I will attempt to talk about each section in this pack
7v1: very simple really... its split into vs "Hard Computer" and vs a "Godzilla" type... this is not that interesting but I felt it should be included in the pack
Action Fighting: For games like Special Forces, and Smash TV, interesting games if you like those types.
Altered Melee: I am partial to Kings+Knights and StarCraft MiNi,
however I would recommend looking also at Macro Micro (substitute for team melee), Hunters 8x, SC Tourney, Altered SC, Phantom, the Turbo maps, and of course Blood Bath Obs version.
BattleCraft + Tug O War: Battlecraft is worth a try atleast, TugOWar is there for completeness.
Bounding+Dodging: Ah so many similar Bound maps, the pure generic bounds are in the "Bounds" folder, which has some classics such as Cipher2002 series and Monopoly Bound.
For the other maps I would try Frogger, Spider Mines FINAL, Larva Dodge, Observer Lovely, Laser Fences (one of the very first and most popular of this type) and the puzzles.
Builders Fighters, Buyers Sellers: Just some classic games that required their own folder.
Bunker Wars: I think I prefer Snowball wars for this type of game
Defense, Protect, Survive: I used to enjoy just about every single one
of these a lot but not so much now. I'm sure there are defense fans out there still though. I do have to add that there are some actual creative, innovative, and quality maps here beyond the mindless infinite cash defense games. For untraditional defense I would look at Poker TD (it is the korean one), maybe trigger happy D, turret wars for competitiveness, and even Defend Your Castle or Random Defenders.
Korean: As the name suggests these are Korean maps heh, I tried to put a short english definition for each one by placing them in their own folders.
Large War: Initially there were many crap ones... I have filtered out many.
I would encourage UMS players to try BraveHeart (a castle assault version).
Some others are well made though, or atleast interesting.
Mass, Madness, Ranchers, ZC, etc.: I would recommend a good oldschool EVOLVES, also fun to play is Xelda, Golems, Simpsons. The others are o.k.
Don't overlook Zone Control either.
Micro Arenas: For those interested heavily in micro I would strongly recommend 8882's micro mappack and it has most of the ones that I include plus more.
I have tried to pick the micro maps I find most fun though, while 8882's is more for completion.
NOTE: Team Macro Arena is incorrectly named I think... it feels basically like Team Micro Arena although it's fairly well made in that respect.
Micro Problems: Different from Arena, most of these are about doing a specific task, and many require a team of people.
Enjoyable are TrapD APM Trainer and some of the team-micro vs computer maps.
Movies: SC movies... I highly recommend b.net exp and b.net exp 2
HIGHLY RECOMMEND
everyone should watch them
MTG: Just another fun old map... Magus Wars is included here just because it is similar but not really the same, also Naruto battles.
Random: This has some of the most fun maps in this pack.
Included within are Assassinate the President, Random Fighters, The Puzzling, Worms.
Also interesting are the people games, fire fighters, pistol duels,
and if you're bored there is RandomBAN, Russian Roulette, and Bannninated.
WARNING: Hello desktop will crash sc if you're wondering.
RPG: Your standard fare RPGs, some better made than others, I was never really a big RPG fan.
A note... some nonstandard RPGs are here like FFTactics and Aeon of Strife.
Snipers: I was a competitive sniper player "back in the days"...
Out of pure fanboyism, if you are looking for the competitive paintball map I would recommend either SnipB AoD v310 or SnipB NbK v321. Upgrades, Trees, and Locks Only all suck but are included for completeness.
Also some of the others are good, such as Speed Duels, Sniper Arena, Speedball, V-tec, and Laser Tag
Even vs CPU is ok, several versions are included.
Sports + Games party: Another awesome set of maps, just about all of these are extremely fun
I would endorse Teh Seekers, SC Party, Pinata Party, Wallball, Pong, SCV Football, Bomberman.
But once again, all are fairly fun, save perhaps Quidditch which is very lame, but included for completeness.
Tag: An O.K. set of maps, some like it these more than others.
Not really sure what to recommend, all I have to say is if you like one of the types of maps I would try the others as well.
Turn + Diplo + LOTR style: I abhor LOTR style maps, I find them utterly boring, but I do know some people love them so here they are.
Diplomacy can be fun with the right people, the other maps are just here as they are slow paced war games.
The exception is Virtual Battle which is easily the fastest paced map here and can be quite fun and interesting.
Advance Wars is also amazing in the way that it emulates the actual amazing game
Short progress history:
12/19/2005: Started preliminary sorting
12/21/2005: Finished preliminary sorting, still much testing to do
Leaves me with about 700+ maps not thrown out as crap and atleast 200 maps that I must test
12/29/2005: I still have about 5 maps to test because I need other people to start the game, I've tested many maps by myself, and even more with help from others.
I also have about 50 korean maps that I have been unable to test... I'll probably ask Fireblast! or someone.
12/30/2005: Finished testing all the english maps more or less.
1/10/2006: It's been a while since my last edit of this readme; attempts to read Korean have failed, so I have now decided to simply rename the unreadable maps, but this means going through each one and testing them.
Which means I have now about 100 maps to test, I am working my way through them.
1/14/2006: Tested basically everything that I can do alone now, but I still have about 30 maps left that can't be tested with just one person.
Thanks to the following people for helping (mostly help in testing maps):
123bangbang, Ajvanadri, All-Out, FireBlast!, GTR-2-GO, happymanrun, Hobbes., MuShu, NeX-decaf, RancoR(Sphere), sMi.Incubus, Smurg, tlsrl8701, XeNoZ and all the others that helped.
Also thanks to 8882 for making his micromappack; it provided a little inspiration in making this, plus I probably blatantly ripped maybe 1/4 of the good maps in his pack that I didn't already have.
ANYHOW, if you managed to read through that wall of text or just skipped to the bottom like many lazy readers, here is the link to download it:
[url blocked]
6/29/2007 EDIT:
R1CH has been nice enough to give my mappack a semi-permanent upload place which can be found here:
http://r-1.ch/Locked's Wonderful World of UMS.7z
thanks!
I'll also see what I can do about updating this pack in the future... I'll probably want to make at least one more "final" version before SC2 comes out.
Oh and one more thing, it's fine by me if you share this map pack with other communities or people just I'd like you to let me know if you post this on another forum or w/e and also it would be good if you would refer them to this thread. Remember that link does not have unlimited bandwidth so be careful.
)
