I know I'm quite a bit of a noob around here, and with competitive SC in general, but I hope I have a good idea here:
I thought of this while reading NastyMarine's topic about his map (Spinel Valley), and I figured it was important enough to warrant it's own thread. I also was influenced by reading the interview with Rose.Of.Dream (of the OGN mapmaking team) earlier today. Some of the maps in TSL were less-than-interesting (Longinus mainly). I felt this way since the round of 16. Other games I felt like were rehashes of games I'd already seen in OSL and MSL just with less good mechanics and cooler players and a much better event... but a rehash nonetheless.
I think we need is some foreigner-made maps instead of just Korean maps. I don't mean to say throw out all the Korean maps, I just mean introducing 1-2 foreigner maps per season alongside Korean maps in TSL. I am modeling this idea on how OSL and MSL introduce new maps. If TSL has it's own maps that would help it be more than just an imitation of Korean Starleagues. Don't take me wrong, I love TSL. It's a damn GOOD event and it made me extremely happy. My emotions could not be contained as I watched games of IdrA, Brat, JF, Nony, HoRRoR. Now that we (foreigners) have our own Starleague, we should have our own maps.
It'd force new strategies, players wouldn't be able to rely on copying that of Korean progamers. Also, some balance factors are different for foreigners than koreans, foreigner maps could be more tailored to foreigner play.
These maps I think would be best made by having a TeamLiquid mapmaking team consisting of 3-5 already known mapmakers (chosen by TL staff) much like the way OGN seems to do it, and these mapmakers making several maps and then being sent around internally, modified, ideas added and removed, testing with both some kind of testing team and with high-level foreigners and then the mapmakers finally cutting out several maps, leaving only 1-3 per season. While others might suggest a public poll or somesuch with maps to be honest i think that would cause a lot of badly thought out and gimmicky maps to be put through. If some map was that great and made by somebody not on that mapmaking team then I'm sure there could be some way to communicate with the team or something, and maybe consider it. We just need a foreigner Othello, not a foreigner DMZ or Demon's Forest. People who were in TSL RO16 and various clans could be asked to test the maps for balance and various issues. And already existing TSL admins would review the mapmaking team's choices and narrow it down further. Considering TSL's relationship with ICCUP this would probably need to be connected with ICCUP admins as well. Then you'd have the 1-3 maps you'd need, and you could reveal them in time for TSL2 by about a week or so. I believe I heard a rumor somewhere that TSL2 is aimed for August. Well, to get maps going I suggest quick organization of a mapmaking team (if my idea is any good, which it may not be)
Part of increasing the size of the foreign starcraft scene is the need to do something to the slowly dying foreign melee mapmaking scene. This is from someone who several times started working on maps, but never did very much with it, because only 2 people at most would ever play the map (not implying that I would be up to the task of making maps for TSL, there are much better mapmakers on here and on other sites that should be contacted).
I hope that I'm not out of line with this post or just that it's a bad idea.... but I hope that it's a good idea and I would rather see new and interesting games on foreigner maps rather than just games, while beautiful and interesting, that are still people trying to imitate Korean strategies on Korean maps.
This is from someone who absolutely loved TSL, and wants to see TSL2 succeed and TSL become a repeating thing, not just a few times and then fade away into forgottenness.
Again, sorry if I'm out of line with my postcount that is less than some people's APM.
(05:56:16) heavenpanda: anotak (05:56:28) heavenpanda: it must be (05:56:32) heavenpanda: incredibly hard (05:56:37) heavenpanda: to introduce balanced custom maps (05:56:18) anotak: yes? (05:56:57) anotak: of course it's incredibly hard (05:57:06) anotak: koreans don't do it right either (05:57:51) anotak: heavenpanda: we shouldn't give up though if it's hard (05:58:40) heavenpanda: anotak: just saying if players lose because of imbalance found on an amateur map, we'll be in a whole new world of drama (05:59:45) anotak: heavenpanda: that's definitely true (06:00:11) anotak: however... shit like Katrina PvT has been going on with Korean mapmakers (06:00:23) anotak: the maps should be tested with all TSL players from ro16 (06:00:29) anotak: or ro32 (06:00:37) anotak: and then their opinions LISTENED to (06:00:52) Puosu: why the fuck should amateur maps be used anyway (06:00:57) Puosu: in a serious tournament (06:01:01) anotak: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=72894 (06:01:16) heavenpanda: anotak: if we get to tsl finals and in practice, one player finds a positional imbalance or something (06:01:18) anotak: why the fuck should amateur foreigners have a tournament Puosu (06:01:21) heavenpanda: the other player will contest it forever (06:02:19) anotak: I don't see why, if they don't contest shit like Longinus or Wuthering or Blue Storm (06:02:37) heavenpanda: those maps have been vetted and all their positional oddities are well known (06:03:00) anotak: so it's okay to have complete imbalance if the OGN mapmaking team makes it? (06:03:40) heavenpanda: no, its okay when a battalion of korean progamers have studied it intensely and found no major advantage one way or the other (06:04:05) anotak: korean progamers are balanced differently than foreigners anyway (06:04:16) anotak: we have the word of people like Nony and Artosis on that (06:04:28) anotak: who presumably know what they're talking about (06:06:02) anotak: the first maps should be symmetrical if positional imbalance is a fear (06:06:14) heavenpanda: well (06:06:19) heavenpanda: the problem i see is (06:06:22) heavenpanda: for 5000$ (06:06:24) anotak: i mean some OSL maps have some pretty obvious positional imbalances (ex. othello) (06:06:28) heavenpanda: these players dont want to have to worry (06:06:31) heavenpanda: about the maps (06:06:51) anotak: I love Othello... but the rotational symmetry makes the drop spot imbalanced based on whether it's facing the opponent (06:07:38) anotak: and in pretty much all the positions, one player will have that drop spot facing towards and the other player will have his drop spot in a safer position (06:09:29) anotak: I mean I can understand if I don't get listened to (06:09:37) anotak: and we keep using korean maps (06:09:40) anotak: but... (06:09:58) anotak: I feel like this could be pretty important and good for both the foreigner scene and for future TSLs (06:10:12) heavenpanda: if its handled perfectly, yes (06:10:24) anotak: the TSL itself was handled pretty well (06:10:46) anotak: given your points, I'd suggest aiming for only 1 map for the next TSL (06:11:06) anotak: another point is that if it's used in the ladder stages (06:11:18) heavenpanda: what i see hapening is, with 5000$ on the line, some player is gonna get harrassed or cheesed or slip up somehow and say 'bullshit this wouldntve happened on a real map' and then the drama begins.. (06:11:26) anotak: statistics of a LOT of players can be gathered about maps beforehand (06:12:07) anotak: i mean, i don't know what to say to that except 'bullshit you helped test it' (06:12:12) heavenpanda: lol (06:13:44) anotak: heavenpanda: has anyone ever tried to say that in korean leagues? (06:13:52) anotak: blame it on the map? (06:13:59) heavenpanda: ya (06:14:04) anotak: how did it go (06:14:04) heavenpanda: light paused a game v bisu (06:14:15) heavenpanda: because the vers of the map that he practiced on (06:14:18) heavenpanda: had a spot for a turret (06:14:19) anotak: oh (06:14:20) anotak: Light (06:14:22) heavenpanda: that the 'official map' didnt have (06:14:25) anotak: yeah i remember this (06:14:31) anotak: and he paused yeah (06:15:02) anotak: heavenpanda: that wouldn't occur though, with the ladder stage of TSL (06:15:15) heavenpanda: lets hope not (06:15:23) heavenpanda: weve already seen some (06:15:27) heavenpanda: pretty wild accusations in tsl1 (06:15:42) anotak: well, there will always be accusations and BM, that's unavoidable (06:15:51) anotak: especially in an online environment (06:17:38) anotak: do you see where I'm coming from though? (06:17:45) heavenpanda: yeah (06:17:52) heavenpanda: itd be a cool thing (06:18:01) heavenpanda: but its treading in untested, possibly shark-infested waters (06:20:52) anotak: I think it could be made quite clear that if people don't play the map in the ladder stage and speak up about any sort of imbalance early on that in the end it'd be their fault for imbalance i think (06:23:04) anotak: heavenpanda: do you mind if i take this conversation and paste it in the thread? (with the other people's random stuff edited out of course) (06:23:30) heavenpanda: i dont mind (06:23:36) anotak: thx
I would definitely support this. As long as maps are tested and added "offically" through the TSL admins it would be great to watch. I agree that sometimes watching games on the korean maps are sorta boring because we've already seen tons of battles on them by more talented korean pros.
However it can't be some stupid "we'll just pick a random map at the end and tag it onto the tournament"... it needs to be tested and through TL staff. That adds to the legitimation of the map(s)
On June 07 2008 20:37 Vasoline73 wrote: I would definitely support this. As long as maps are tested and added "offically" through the TSL admins it would be great to watch. I agree that sometimes watching games on the korean maps are sorta boring because we've already seen tons of battles on them by more talented korean pros.
However it can't be some stupid "we'll just pick a random map at the end and tag it onto the tournament"... it needs to be tested and through TL staff. That adds to the legitimation of the map(s)
Yeah, definitely. I had the idea just now that perhaps some preexisting foreigner maps that were relatively popular for foreigner maps (approximately meaning they got about 10 downloads instead of 5) should be tested more thoroughly as well and considered/modified.
I think a good process would go something like this: 1) brainstorming, map ideas thrown around within mapmaking team 2) some prototyping, sketches, internal testing of map ideas 3) short questions with TSL and ICCUP admins in what they'd like, and TSL1 ro32 players in what they would like to see in a map 4) several maps get put together in a very sketchy form, are immediately given to internal testing team for feedback 5) several ideas get cut 6) repeat 4 and 5 a few times 7) should be about 4-5 ideas at this point available, testing with internal teams, shown to TSL and ICCUP admins, they may or may not choose to cut some of these ideas. 8) showing remaining maps to TSL ro48 players, get feedback and further balance testing, testing should be LISTENED to 9) cut 1-2 maps. modify remaining maps as TSL ro48 players suggest, further testing with internal team. 10) show to admins and players again, possibly hold a poll with TSL ro48 players "Which map do you want to cut/get rid of". 11) 2-3 maps remaining. Have mapmaking team decide to cut a map. 12) 1-2 maps are released preferably 2 weeks or more before TSL2 ladder stage. public testing can begin, and then in TSL ladder stage hundreds of games will be played on the maps. statistics can be gathered as well as complaints. At ro48 time, if needed TSL2 ro48 can vote to cut one or BOTH maps if they so want, along with consensus with TL admins.
At this point any failure of balance with the map would partially exist with the players I'd say. I don't know what kind of testing the OGN and MBC teams do but it must be pretty shitty for gems like Demon's Forest and Katrina to get through to be honest.
Faoi gogogogo!! I also want a different map mix up if the TSL just had current Korean maps it would be boring already seeing as how we've already seen them being played on.
On June 07 2008 20:56 BlackStar wrote: Can't see this happening.
There is no reason to think that foreigner maps would be as good as Korean ones. Also, the players in the TSL will need to learn many more maps.
Also, they need a team of players to really test the maps.
There is not much space for foreign maps.
Why wouldn't foreigner maps be as good? Besides which, foreigner players aren't as good, it isn't stopping us from having TSL. Korean mapmakers make horrid mistakes or simply just boring and tasteless choices all the time anyway (Demon's Forest, Katrina, DMZ, etc), I doubt foreigners could fuck it up even close to than those 3, especially with the type of testing I described.
Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
And teams of players to test wouldn't be that hard to find. If this was implemented I'd sure as hell be up for it (I can't make maps worth a shit to be honest). As would probably many others.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
It's not that foreign map makers are worse than the korean ones. It's that the korean maps get tested out by progamers and we get to see them play out in the proleagues before they are picked. So they are infinitely better tested than maps internally tested by the TSL staff and helpers. I think also the best foreign players would prefer to play on promaps in general.
On June 07 2008 20:56 BlackStar wrote: Can't see this happening.
There is no reason to think that foreigner maps would be as good as Korean ones. Also, the players in the TSL will need to learn many more maps.
Also, they need a team of players to really test the maps.
There is not much space for foreign maps.
Why wouldn't foreigner maps be as good? Besides which, foreigner players aren't as good, it isn't stopping us from having TSL. Korean mapmakers make horrid mistakes or simply just boring and tasteless choices all the time anyway (Demon's Forest, Katrina, DMZ, etc), I doubt foreigners could fuck it up even close to than those 3, especially with the type of testing I described.
Everyone though Demon's forest would be badass, Katrina would be T weighted, and the rush distances too longs for DMZ. I think that if the foreign community stuck to making macro maps instead of strategic maps (like Monty Hall or Persona for instance) before moving on, it foreign intrusion on the map pool could be interesting.
One of the difficulties in balancing maps is that usually some players are better than the others. For instance, if you had a bunch of junk Protoss testing the maps, all the maps are going to be more Protoss weighted (which is what I think is going on now; they had all the maps tested and set and then the Bisu build came into effect).
At least Draco would then be required to practice a smidgen.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
If your playing to win 5000 dollars then you should be playing more than casually. Some of the people in the top 48 of the TSL played hundreds of games to get there. If they know a certain map is going to be in the final TSL map pool they will practice on it or suffer not knowing the map and being at a disadvantage.
If the TSL is supposed to be a "real starleague" and not just a gimmick, I think at least ONE map can be used from the foreign community.
I agree completely with this, I'm sick of seeing games on bluestorm, katrina, ect ect all turn out the exact same way. New maps would bring more "pizaz" back into the map pool, and it would be even more like a korean starleague, where the tournament has their own map makers and maps.
The best way to get something to happen is to talk to Chill. I said something to this extent to him several times, and his biggest concern was balance i think. If you can win him over, you might get something haha
It's a great idea and if it's implemented it would make TSL all the better just because as the op said, I feel it's too much the same as the MSL/OSL - which is good for the players but introducing 1-2 maps makes observing a bit more fun because not all the strategies are set in stone and people don't have to watch the map over and over again.
theres a lot of problems with foreigner made maps.
1) you cant practice them: - koreans wont play you on them - if you are in TSL and need to practice them then you are too good to practice vs foreigners who are not in the TSL also
2) they wont be balanced. there are tons of tiny things that balance or unbalance a map in HUGE ways. very few top foreigner players even understand this and i doubt any map makers do. for instance, as a map maker why dont you open up the map WCG Gaia. it is an incredibly imbalanced map. how many things can you point out that make it so bad? i bet not all of them. and without that knowledge, any map made could include tons of tiny things that are imbalanced.
I really like the idea of having some foreign maps along side the korean ones. Some people say that foreigners can't make as good as maps, that might or might not be true, but let them try, and if it is found that they produce good maps after testing, then they can be used, if not oh wells, just fall back and use all korean maps.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
If your playing to win 5000 dollars then you should be playing more than casually
I agree with BlackStar here. Asking foreigners to learn more maps would be stretching us pretty thin. Right now, most foreigners will be practicing WCG maps amongst themselves and will, as usual, be practicing Courage maps with Koreans. That's enough maps for an amateur player.
Ideally, an unexpected chance at $5000 would raise practicing rates, but there are priorities for amateur players that do not budge. The organizers did such an excellent and professional job that the participants and spectators get their heads in the clouds thinking this is a professional event, but there are still hard amateur limits that cannot be overcome.
I hate to introduce a negative perspective, but people should think of TSL and OSL/MSL in terms of sports that they watch. If you were to follow the biggest soccer/basketball/football/hockey league and also follow a local amateur league consisting entirely of volunteers, then you'd be level-headed enough to assign the appropriate expectations on the amateur league. Great as they are, the organizers cannot offer the participants incentive enough to give anything more than an amateur effort.
On a sidenote, I do thing amateur mapmakers are capable of making worthy maps. It's a shame the amateur competitive scene isn't equipped to make use of them.
I like the idea. Maybe 1 or 2 maps at the time. TL people could test it, iccup could test it after (if they agree). I'm all in for new interesting maps.
On June 08 2008 01:02 Artosis wrote: theres a lot of problems with foreigner made maps.
1) you cant practice them: - koreans wont play you on them - if you are in TSL and need to practice them then you are too good to practice vs foreigners who are not in the TSL also
2) they wont be balanced. there are tons of tiny things that balance or unbalance a map in HUGE ways. very few top foreigner players even understand this and i doubt any map makers do. for instance, as a map maker why dont you open up the map WCG Gaia. it is an incredibly imbalanced map. how many things can you point out that make it so bad? i bet not all of them. and without that knowledge, any map made could include tons of tiny things that are imbalanced.
1) Well, I can't say much to that, but in all the TSL interviews the players mentioned playing practice games with many foreigners rather than Koreans. 2) That's why I suggested massive testing and consulting with the TSL players. You'd also have the long ladder stage that would most likely reveal statistically any imbalances as well. Again, I really doubt it'd be the next Katrina TvP. The few first maps should be pretty basic macro map just to get in the feel of mapmaking, no weird ideas.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
If your playing to win 5000 dollars then you should be playing more than casually
I agree with BlackStar here. Asking foreigners to learn more maps would be stretching us pretty thin. Right now, most foreigners will be practicing WCG maps amongst themselves and will, as usual, be practicing Courage maps with Koreans. That's enough maps for an amateur player.
Ideally, an unexpected chance at $5000 would raise practicing rates, but there are priorities for amateur players that do not budge. The organizers did such an excellent and professional job that the participants and spectators get their heads in the clouds thinking this is a professional event, but there are still hard amateur limits that cannot be overcome.
I hate to introduce a negative perspective, but people should think of TSL and OSL/MSL in terms of sports that they watch. If you were to follow the biggest soccer/basketball/football/hockey league and also follow a local amateur league consisting entirely of volunteers, then you'd be level-headed enough to assign the appropriate expectations on the amateur league. Great as they are, the organizers cannot offer the participants incentive enough to give anything more than an amateur effort.
On a sidenote, I do thing amateur mapmakers are capable of making worthy maps. It's a shame the amateur competitive scene isn't equipped to make use of them.
Would 1 new map hurt you that much? All your opponents would be under the same problem of having to learn new maps too... And, well, I don't expect more than an amateur effort, considering that the people playing in TSL are amateurs. They're damn good amateurs though and I really enjoy watching you guys play, I just would rather see something different and hopefully better. Part of the skill of Starcraft is learning and adapting to new maps. And 12 new maps every three months was a horrible exaggeration, I was never suggesting anything of the sort.
On June 07 2008 20:56 BlackStar wrote: Can't see this happening.
There is no reason to think that foreigner maps would be as good as Korean ones. Also, the players in the TSL will need to learn many more maps.
Also, they need a team of players to really test the maps.
There is not much space for foreign maps.
Why wouldn't foreigner maps be as good? Besides which, foreigner players aren't as good, it isn't stopping us from having TSL. Korean mapmakers make horrid mistakes or simply just boring and tasteless choices all the time anyway (Demon's Forest, Katrina, DMZ, etc), I doubt foreigners could fuck it up even close to than those 3, especially with the type of testing I described.
Everyone though Demon's forest would be badass, Katrina would be T weighted, and the rush distances too longs for DMZ. I think that if the foreign community stuck to making macro maps instead of strategic maps (like Monty Hall or Persona for instance) before moving on, it foreign intrusion on the map pool could be interesting.
DMZ is pretty obviously stupid just with the dwebs, they should've been shot for thinking that up. Same for Demon's Forest. It's quite obvious that they did not test either map anywhere NEAR as much as they should've.
Doubt it will happen but you could have it as a map contest top x (say 3) is taken. Of course the contest would have to have been evaluated with balance in mind. Then in a BO 3/5, one of the 3 maps is used for 1 game which is agreed upon by the 2 contestants like that vetoing thing you guys did for the map that was played twice. And as usual the other maps are the familiar maps.
The pro of this I think would be if a map is obviously imbalanced race wise then the contestant could veto it, there'd be some hype to draw attention, and theres more "adaptability" factor.
Of course there's many cons to this such as having 3 new maps rather than one. That a CONTEST of all things would create creative AND balanced map which I personally doubt as well.
I'll be the first to admit that foreign map makers in general don't care that much about balance, like to use retarded ideas, and generally can't even judge balance objectively in their own maps.
If you wanna have a tournament for 10 grand, it's nice to know that there aren't maps in the tourney completely giving away games in certain match ups. Foreigners don't have the ability to properly test their maps, and as Artosis said, it's hard to find Koreans who'll care.
Foreigner maps would be cool for retarded unprestigious tournaments, where viewers just want to see some silly games, but this is quite simply a bad idea for TSL.
I'm afraid the days of Blade Storm and Jungle Story are long gone, and the idea of foreign map makers being able to compete with Koreans is a lost cause.
On June 08 2008 05:34 PsycHOTemplar wrote: I'll be the first to admit that foreign map makers in general don't care that much about balance, like to use retarded ideas, and generally can't even judge balance objectively in their own maps.
If you wanna have a tournament for 10 grand, it's nice to know that there aren't maps in the tourney completely giving away games in certain match ups. Foreigners don't have the ability to properly test their maps, and as Artosis said, it's hard to find Koreans who'll care.
Foreigner maps would be cool for retarded unprestigious tournaments, where viewers just want to see some silly games, but this is quite simply a bad idea for TSL.
This is because there is no team working hard on balanced maps and nobody tests foreign maps. Again, with a process like the one I suggested, why is it so difficult to imagine a decently balanced map coming out of it? Korean mapmakers make pretty bullshit maps that they obviously haven't tested anywhere near enough. I found the vulture mine-laying bug on Demon's Forest the FIRST TIME I played on it. Why are people defending korean mapmaking "skills"? Sure, they've made some genius things like Othello, but even that has some balance issues. The only thing stopping foreigners from testing their maps is time and effort.
First season and probably for many seasons after that, maps should follow a pretty strict no-gimmicks rule. Standard mineral placement, few neutral buildings, no neutral darktemplar blocking paths, none of that stuff. With this and a very strict testing system like the one I mentioned... things could go pretty well.
Maybe in the 3rd TSL they could try to experiment, for example, allowing a new foreign map to be used in the ladder. If its imbalanced then people simply wouldn't play it. Then maybe if its successful enough it could be included in the elimination rounds by mutual agreement of the players.
I don't have a problem with korean maps, and don't think are a rehash. First of all, none of those games are in english. And you don't want to use untested maps in a tournament anyways.
This is a great idea. Yes, gamers will have to take time to learn the new maps - that's a good thing. We will see the gamers that are willing to devote more time to the TSL emerge on top by using innovative strategies built for the specific maps.
Also, if you introduced these maps in the ladder stage, all the players would be quite familiar with them by the time elimination stages began.
If we want TSL to play like a major Korean tournament, we have to include new, foreigner-made maps - the new strategies and game styles that result from new maps are half the reason I look forward to new Starleagues!
On June 08 2008 06:00 fight_or_flight wrote: Maybe in the 3rd TSL they could try to experiment, for example, allowing a new foreign map to be used in the ladder. If its imbalanced then people simply wouldn't play it. Then maybe if its successful enough it could be included in the elimination rounds by mutual agreement of the players.
I don't have a problem with korean maps, and don't think are a rehash. First of all, none of those games are in english. And you don't want to use untested maps in a tournament anyways.
lol whats that bout english?? didnt get that point anyway the thing that anotak has repeatedly said is to test the maps through a strict procedure anyway so if that's successful there'll be no problems! :D yayy
On June 08 2008 08:32 thedeadhaji wrote: if balance can be ensured.
but that's impossible. even in the hevaily tested kor maps.
Balance isn't even close to ensured on the Korean maps, exactly.. But to be honest I don't think the koreans tested their maps very thoroughly at all, Demon's Forest for example was blatantly bad from the start. I don't know why everyone is regarding their testing procedures so highly.
This is a brilliant idea, CUDOS! to the op. Could be done. We can find the best map makers in the foreign community, and they can get working on the maps. Of course, organizing balance testers would be needed, from fairly good foreign players, and then submit the results and so forth to the admins, and they decide on the maps. Could be done. The balance and quality may not equal Korean, but fuck, it will be our maps!
Edit: Remember everyone, the op only suggested one, maybe two new additions every season. Who knows what the intervals between seasons will even be? Three months? Six? A year? It all depends on timing and funding. Its not like you have to practice shittons new maps, strong Foreign players can volunteer their time to practice the maps, slowly they will be weeded down to one or two, and the most balanced will be picked. They don't have to be complex maps, they can follow the same general pattern of simplistic [but successful] maps of the past. The difference of course, is that they will be our maps. It will add some uniqueness and pride to the community. Besides, gaming on a professional level is not possible outside of Korea-now- but the process of taking yourselves seriously has to start somewhere, if that is to ever happen.
The only thing stopping foreigners from testing their maps is time and effort.
And money, and excellent players to test our maps extensively for us. Yes, exactly. There's not exactly a real solution to that.
First season and probably for many seasons after that, maps should follow a pretty strict no-gimmicks rule. Standard mineral placement, few neutral buildings, no neutral darktemplar blocking paths, none of that stuff. With this and a very strict testing system like the one I mentioned... things could go pretty well.
That's retarded =/ You want to play maps like Faoi? If we're not going to make unique maps, why make our own maps at all?
Demon's Forest for example was blatantly bad from the start.
Not true. Obviously they knew about the bugging of units in the middle of the map, but they wanted players to overcome that like they overcame maps with bad pathing. It was a risk that ended up being received badly. Also, when we saying testing, we're including the games played in leagues too. All the maps in TSL 1 were proven to give entertaining and interesting games, even if they did sometimes slightly favour one race over another in certain matchups.
That said, we should try something like this with a league less prestigious, maybe a charity league. I'd rather see an idea like this prove it won't crash and burn there than in something as valuable as TSL.
On June 08 2008 06:00 fight_or_flight wrote: Maybe in the 3rd TSL they could try to experiment, for example, allowing a new foreign map to be used in the ladder. If its imbalanced then people simply wouldn't play it. Then maybe if its successful enough it could be included in the elimination rounds by mutual agreement of the players.
I don't have a problem with korean maps, and don't think are a rehash. First of all, none of those games are in english. And you don't want to use untested maps in a tournament anyways.
lol whats that bout english?? didnt get that point anyway the thing that anotak has repeatedly said is to test the maps through a strict procedure anyway so if that's successful there'll be no problems! :D yayy
i'm all for the foreigner maps!
I think he meant that pro-gaming is in korean, therefore, the matches that we would see in the TSL are still interesting even on these often used maps as the commentary is in English.
Well here's a thread where I can be useful, I think.
TSL has several things to consider here. I'll say now, that Faoi ALMOST got into THIS tsl. It was at the last minute rejected, because there was no way to prove it was "balanced". TSL also removed Troy from the mappool, making the mappool in general solid and it showed a big legitimate and more importantly credible effort to ensure a mappool both comfortable and familiar for the players, and that was the most free from weirdness. On one hand, this may have created less "interesting" games, but also allowed players to better adapt to the mapppol. Having the progamers to look after, this allowed our gamers to prepare builds fairly easily, allowed the gamers to be well prepared, well practiced. It allowed the gamers to be most like the progamers in quality. Then to ensure more interesting stuff, they added Wuthering Heights and Othello. On these maps the players were less comfortable, but it added more randomness to the competition. They had less to work with from progamers at the time, but the maps were still heavily tested by the koreans and were fairly ensured to be solid/balanced maps. Who cares if the mapppol was not completely racially balanced, it was close enough.
Faoi I assume didn't make it into the pool not because it was a bad map, or because someone didn't like it, but because there was a lot more risk and chance involved in throwing a map with MUCH less testing. Sure the map is in iccup, but the quality of iccup games can vary so much, and many iccup games are just "cheese" or rushing games, because the players aren't familiar with it. Having a map the players are afraid of for not knowing it or being used to it, resulting in a bunch of rushing games, would destroy the credibility and quality of TSL. Testing a map is a very robotic activity, testing all aspects, rush distance, mineral timing, which builds and openings are strong or weak, how to layout your base, for standard play: who will be ahead, will the game be massive turtling, etc.
For a future TSL, I think including foreign maps is very possible, if the top gamers are willing to help test the maps. I think if our gamers learned Wuthering Heights and Othello they can learn a foreign map no problem. Psychotemplar said some bullshit earlier about foreign mappers making lots of stupid maps not caring about balance, but that's not true. In mapping in general, korean or foreign, there's both efforts at making brand new concepts, "weird" and experimental maps, and standard maps with a different layout or something.
"Foreigners don't have the ability to properly test their maps" absolute bullshit. "Foreigner maps would be cool for retarded unprestigious tournaments, where viewers just want to see some silly games, but this is quite simply a bad idea for TSL" The first part is complete bullshit, foreigner maps have been in tournaments and ladders forever, pgt, wgt, avaton, showmatches, blizzcon, and other things. The second part, about foreign maps being a bad idea for TSL is possibly valid though. It depends solely on what direction TSL wants to go, if it wants to copy and mimic the korean leagues to try and get that same or similar quality and success, or if it wants to truely make its own league with its own maps. TSL could create unique games, by using more experimental maps like Waiting To Panic, seen in this forum, or go for more standard games, using more standard maps, like Memory Cell, The Artist, Nazca, Nightlight, etc.
The thing that holds foreign mapping back, the thing that seperates korean maps from foreign maps, is the level of testing they can get. Go to intothemap.com or mapdori.net. Most maps there are complete shit. They have gems too, but even their really great maps don't go on to the big leagues. The famous mappers or mappers with good connections are the ones who get their maps into the leagues, the ones who get their maps tested. With massive testing by good players, any mapper can modify their map into the great maps you see in OSL and MSL. The mapping process can easily take a month or longer, after your own "final" version is done. Mappers themselves will look at a map, do some basic testing, bounce ideas off fellow mappers, and work on the map until they have a "final" version. But that map isn't proleague quality, but it CAN be Avaton quality. That "final" map won't be TSL quality, but give the mappers players to bounce ideas off of, to try and get a map which has certain gameplay different from some other map, but still comfortable and/or somewhat familiar to the players, is not at all hard.
Mappers at broodwarmaps.net work together all the time to put together a good map. These maps have been in all sorts of foreign ladders and tournaments, so it's bullshit to say that foreigners are incapable of making quality maps. We just need testers. It's just so hard to get even low level gamers to test maps, let alone top gamers.
Making unique but not experimental maps is not a problem. Making experimental but playable maps with unique concepts and unique gameplays, is not a problem either. Making standard but unique maps is not hard, making maps both balanced and unique is not hard. Anyone can do it. Take any bwm mapper and you can get a unique, great map. Get a bunch of mappers together to work on that map, and you can make it pretty, you can adjust locations, sizes, distances, amounts, etc. Throw those mappers alone on the map itself, and you can learn tons about the map and edit it even more. But after that point we, the foreign mapping community needs essentially massgaming on the maps to uncover every nook and cranny about the map.
I learned a lot about editing maps from working on Faoi and getting it into iccup. The first version of the map I churned out really sucked. Then, my friend and fellow mapper Testbug took the map and worked on it himself, and created a much better structured, but fundamentally the same, map. After that, I showed the map to iccup admin Yello-Ant, who happened to like the map. At this point though, time became an issue, we were like a couple days before the start of the new iccup season. He got a Lyra team member to come quickly play the map, and grabbed Strelok for a moment too. We (me, yello-ant, and strelok) looked over the map, didn't play it, just looked over it and played with units, and looked at things which should be looked into, changed, removed, etc. When we were done I went and worked on the map more until yello-ant was satisfied, and the map went into iccup. Through the season I found things I disliked about the map, and began working on an edit. Then Plexa contacted me about interest in the map for TSL, and I began working with him on the map. Together, without any solid gamers, we created by bouncing ideas off eachother the current version of the map, which now replaces the old version in iccup, with many things corrected. The point of this anecdote, is all of that was done without massive testing, without koreans, and without a lot of time. With time, with solid gamers and massgaming, a real GOOD and playable, and unique map, can be created without doubt.
Specifically on op's post, making a competent mapping team isn't a problem, but I don't see how TL can do a good job assembling it. I think those kind of logistics are better in the hands of broodwarmaps.net itself. It comes down to though, what kind of map TSL wants.
Also, would you rather our top gamers kept copying the progamers? Or tried doing these kind of things on their own, making their own builds for the map? It'll be hard for our gamers for sure, they don't have the kind of practice time or availability of players to do as good a job as the progamers, possibly reducing the quality of the games in TSL. However, this I think would add more credibility to foreign gaming in general. Our best gamers are just mimicking the progamers, TSL itself is just a copy of a korean league. It's ours, but at the same time it's not really unique or special. I don't mean to downplay how fucking awesome TSL is though.
I spose it comes to what direction TSL wants to go, and what direction the foreign starcraft scene in general wants to go. I can say now, that for sure bwm mappers would be willing to cooperate with TL and TSL to create such a map. I guarantee we could come up with a cooperative and skilled mapping team. I can show you the great maps we've made without the community's help, or even support, so I can guarantee solid maps for TSL if TL gives us support and help. Adding foreign maps though, even with time, testing, cooperation, and a good team of TL members/admins and bwm members/admins/mappers, is still a big gamble on TL/TSL's part though.
I like the idea of more map variety. I hope this isn't a stupid idea, but perhaps a different way of addressing the balance issue: what about using a couple of throwback maps? After enough time has passed, an old map would be almost as good as a new one. (I don't know about everyone else, but to me, it would be kind of cool to see a modern game on Lost Temple.)
We actually had quite an extensive discussion about whether to include foreign maps or not. As nightmarjoo said Faoi was almost included in the TSL. Obviously, after a heated debate, we decided it was best not to. The majority of the arguments presented here were discussed in depth, and i'd like to talk about them a bit.
First of all this idea of balance. There is no reason amateur maps are inherently imbalanced. Koreans have made some pretty crap maps too, like PA for WCG. The maps are of comparable quality to the amateur korean scene (yes there is such a thing, check out mapdori). There are excellent maps at both levels, the difference is, the mapper who continually makes good maps gets hired by OGN/MBC to map maps such as earthattack. I guess you could say starparty would be the foreign equivalent. So this whole notion of debatable balance really fails. No matter which set of maps you're going to pick you'll always end up with imbalances.
Secondly, and really importantly, is this idea of testing the map. This is much more difficult than you would expect. The idealistic solution is to stick it on a Ladder with MoTW or something. Sadly in reality that solution just doesn't work. It will get maybe a 100 charity games if you are lucky- when idealistically you want 1000+. Testing can only be done with high level gamers, and unlike OGN/MBC we can't pay top clans to play test the maps for us. It's just not an option. So this was another area where it was better not to do foreign maps.
The last issue is whether the maps will actually get used, and i think just quoting nony sums up what we thought.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
If your playing to win 5000 dollars then you should be playing more than casually
I agree with BlackStar here. Asking foreigners to learn more maps would be stretching us pretty thin. Right now, most foreigners will be practicing WCG maps amongst themselves and will, as usual, be practicing Courage maps with Koreans. That's enough maps for an amateur player.
Ideally, an unexpected chance at $5000 would raise practicing rates, but there are priorities for amateur players that do not budge. The organizers did such an excellent and professional job that the participants and spectators get their heads in the clouds thinking this is a professional event, but there are still hard amateur limits that cannot be overcome.
... ...
On a sidenote, I do thing amateur mapmakers are capable of making worthy maps. It's a shame the amateur competitive scene isn't equipped to make use of them.
We haven't ruled out the possibility of including foreign maps if there are more TSLs. But given the number of events happening soon, don't hold your breath.
On June 08 2008 22:26 Plexa wrote: We actually had quite an extensive discussion about whether to include foreign maps or not. As nightmarjoo said Faoi was almost included in the TSL. Obviously, after a heated debate, we decided it was best not to. The majority of the arguments presented here were discussed in depth, and i'd like to talk about them a bit.
First of all this idea of balance. There is no reason amateur maps are inherently imbalanced. Koreans have made some pretty crap maps too, like PA for WCG. The maps are of comparable quality to the amateur korean scene (yes there is such a thing, check out mapdori). There are excellent maps at both levels, the difference is, the mapper who continually makes good maps gets hired by OGN/MBC to map maps such as earthattack. I guess you could say starparty would be the foreign equivalent. So this whole notion of debatable balance really fails. No matter which set of maps you're going to pick you'll always end up with imbalances.
Secondly, and really importantly, is this idea of testing the map. This is much more difficult than you would expect. The idealistic solution is to stick it on a Ladder with MoTW or something. Sadly in reality that solution just doesn't work. It will get maybe a 100 charity games if you are lucky- when idealistically you want 1000+. Testing can only be done with high level gamers, and unlike OGN/MBC we can't pay top clans to play test the maps for us. It's just not an option. So this was another area where it was better not to do foreign maps.
The last issue is whether the maps will actually get used, and i think just quoting nony sums up what we thought.
On June 07 2008 21:07 anotak wrote: Players learning new maps was the exact reason I suggested it. Do you want to see players play the same maps over and over again?
They played on new maps.
Many foreigners are casual players. They don't have time to learn 12 new maps every 3 months.
If your playing to win 5000 dollars then you should be playing more than casually
I agree with BlackStar here. Asking foreigners to learn more maps would be stretching us pretty thin. Right now, most foreigners will be practicing WCG maps amongst themselves and will, as usual, be practicing Courage maps with Koreans. That's enough maps for an amateur player.
Ideally, an unexpected chance at $5000 would raise practicing rates, but there are priorities for amateur players that do not budge. The organizers did such an excellent and professional job that the participants and spectators get their heads in the clouds thinking this is a professional event, but there are still hard amateur limits that cannot be overcome.
... ...
On a sidenote, I do thing amateur mapmakers are capable of making worthy maps. It's a shame the amateur competitive scene isn't equipped to make use of them.
We haven't ruled out the possibility of including foreign maps if there are more TSLs. But given the number of events happening soon, don't hold your breath.
Thanks for considering it, I'm glad this got a response from y'all.
This one might a bit much to ask: but if/when TSL gets further sponsors (beyond TSL2) due to success, and you're capable of asking for more money than previously, hopefully paying a high level team will be possible?
I think the biggest reason TSL had relatively low views though was simply a lack of promotion. I suspect that it was mainly people who already view TL.net + gosugamers and then maybe a few of the other bw sites.
Again, Thanks for considering it. You've made an excellent event.
Also as a spectator, i prefer maps that i know very well, too and play on my own. I don't play much right now, so i stick to the maps that are used in the big leagues and tournaments, and not even every of those maps. Even if a map like faoi is included as motw on iccup, i will more likely choose another motw that is used in other leagues and events.
I like this Idea, and think it is definitely worth further investigation at the least.
I might favor a series of map making contests where the primary focus is the balance of the maps, just because it is possible to get something innovative, and balanced at the same time, and the odds of that happening with the number of people involved.
At the same time though an internal team of map developers and testers could work just as well assuming the talent is there.
The point is that by having fresh maps that haven't already been tested by hundreds of Korean pro-gamers, in every possible scenario, the possibility for the more creative player to be rewarded exists in the TSL
To be fair Motiva, we explored Wuthering Heights in the TSL which proved to be a very entertaining map (i for one enjoyed all the games on it, as did Chill) and we also used Othello which had similar success. Although there is no set date for the next TSL if it were to be held before WCG there would be no way we would include foreign maps as there is already number of maps that foreigners need to practice for this - and to further subdivide their time is not fair.
On June 10 2008 04:36 Chill wrote: What benefit does a spectator get?
And yes, there's like 20 pages arguing about maps and another 20 arguing about format.
Spectator gets to see something they can't get from the korean leagues? Just something different. The games in TSL could easily have occured (presumably in better quality/with higher skill) in the korean leagues, just different names playing.
Adding a subpar map to a tournament can only weaken it. At most it'd be somewhat of a PR stunt to appeal to masses that we have already covered. Only speaking from my point of view and from the my thoughts about foreign maps in the first TSL as by the time TSL2 starts the world could be upside down.
When maps were chosen for TSL, there was no foreign maps available with the data and support backing it to be able to support fair and high quality games. Additionally there was no clear expert to be able to approach for considering foreign maps, because at the time, the only ambassador was Nightmarjoo who was creating the worst possible image for the foreign map scene with his highly annoying and unprofessional promotion of Faoi in both the TeamLiquid broadcasts and forums.
If a new map was needed to challenge the stale game play of old, we already had a completely new set of Korean maps that would be more popular with the masses to play on. If we had introduced a foreign map to TSL, assuming that it was balanced in game play and races, it still lacked the support of the community.
The Ladder stage is not favorable to new maps as it's easier to just learn one map and mass that map, leading to a lack of opportunity and motivation to play the new map. The qualifier and bracket stages are not favorable to new maps as the players would have no one to practice with.
As a premier tournament, I don't think TSL with its aim being quality is the avenue to revive the popularity of foreign maps. Maybe a ladder with only foreign maps, or a tournament series. For example, Australian Rules Football (a sport popular in only a tiny corner of Australia) trials its rules changes in the preseason as not risk damage to their premier / normal season.
edit: map discussion thread was retarded. it was a bigger issue than mbs
To be fair pachi, even Korean maps don't receive significant playtime on a ladder unless they are Luna, Rush Hour, Tau Cross, Longinus, or most recently Python. Only a standard macro map backed by the support of Courage will ever get significant playtime.
And on the count of Nightmarjoo he really let himself go after we decided Faoi would not be in the TSL; he just went about promoting his map like crazy to get some testing on it to show that it was a valid map. Sadly he did go overboard and hurt his own image - but i think people have forgiven him for it now.
On June 10 2008 04:36 Chill wrote: What benefit does a spectator get?
And yes, there's like 20 pages arguing about maps and another 20 arguing about format.
Spectator gets to see something they can't get from the korean leagues? Just something different. The games in TSL could easily have occured (presumably in better quality/with higher skill) in the korean leagues, just different names playing.
This isn't an issue for a lot of the viewers, who are casual StarCraft fans. Watching subpar games with a single dominant strategy is a huge issue, however.
On June 10 2008 04:36 Chill wrote: What benefit does a spectator get?
And yes, there's like 20 pages arguing about maps and another 20 arguing about format.
Spectator gets to see something they can't get from the korean leagues? Just something different. The games in TSL could easily have occured (presumably in better quality/with higher skill) in the korean leagues, just different names playing.
This isn't an issue for a lot of the viewers, who are casual StarCraft fans. Watching subpar games with a single dominant strategy is a huge issue, however.
to add onto nightmarjoo's point, they would get a sense that the TSL isn't just the little leagues of the korean tournaments but is truly a competition of its own.
We did do extensive investigation into a few foreigner maps for the first season. The overwhelming feeling from top level foreigners we spoke to was great concern over balance, practice, games availible etc. We'll definitely approach the issue for the next season and see if things have changed.
On June 10 2008 04:36 Chill wrote: What benefit does a spectator get?
Lim Yo Hwan was the reason I got interested in Starcraft, particularly as a specator event and ever since the first time i saw him play last summer I have been rather hoplelessly hooked watching practically every game from proleague and the starleagues and the reason was that I could often count on him to do something fantastic that I had never seen before. I will always be a Boxer fan because I get a fantastic amount of excitement during/before his games where I am sitting on edge, waiting and wondering "what is he going to do this time, what new, exciting thing will i see?".
This is why I would like to see a foreigner map in TSL. I'd even go as far as to say (sorry nony) that having a map where the players maybe dont know every single nook and cranny and timing and proxy spot and buildable pixel might not be a bad thing (so long as I cant do something stupid like get the first lings from a 12 pool into a toss main before forge finishes, or can have my nexus shelled from the terran main or something) as it would create more possibility for the unexpected. I liked bluestorm more when i could see something like proxies ( hatches, robos, facs) at 6 and 12 for the first time. I think a little bit of the excitement of the map went away after players started regularly checking that spot and/or I didnt have to wonder about the timing or how the game would play out because i had seen it before.
New maps, and players adapting to them, charging boldly into uncharted waters, is good for the game and keeps this 10 year old game interesting instead of stagnant.
Sufficient testing could solve balance issues and provide quality control.
Again, I think many of you are greatly overestimating Korean mappers, the fellows that brought us gems like Demon's Forest, DMZ, Katrina, etc. 99% of maps in Starcraft suck, whether made by the foreign scene, the koreans, or by Blizzard.
Blue Storm especially and the other Korean maps have been played to death by koreans, in events like the GOMTV classic that casual SC gamers watch. And the casual gamers generally are not going to be as interested in watching the same games with mechanically worse players.
Foreign maps would make foreign Starcraft a lot more fun to watch. Watching people copy the same macro builds over and over from the koreans gets old. It would be great to see my favorite players on new maps, where they had to dream up their own builds from scratch.
I'm sure map imbalance won't be an insurmountable obstacle. But there is one imbalance I look forward to seeing in action - one that will almost certainly follow from bringing foreign maps into the mix. It's the imbalance towards creative players with a good eye for the game, over the uncreative player with good execution who can copy build orders.
Agreed that as mostly a casual starcraft watcher (never really played it just picked up following the pro scene instead, play warcraft 3 still) watching foreign tourneys with all the same maps the koreans play on and half the time (eh probably more then that) just copying builds and placements and such from the koreans is just relatively not as entertaining to watch.
I feel like since it is such a major tournament ($5000 is a lot of money after all) it's worthy of having a few maps people need to practice on for it if they want to advance in order to make the league stand out more so. I know in PGL WC3 added some new maps which made me actually watch it instead of not giving a shit because its the same maps over and over (and while wc3 reuses the same maps 10x more than SC, its the same idea.)
It would be nice to see new maps and watch the foreign scene make their own unique strategies on it and having to do research on the maps themselves if they wish to advance far in the tourney instead of copying koreans.
I thought the games on Wuthering Heights, and especially Othello were good in TSL. The players only really had a few weeks at most to prepare for them, and had only a few proleague games to watch to get ideas of how to play. I wouldn't call the TSL games on those maps subpar, and if TL decided to put a foreign map or two into the competition and warned the players ahead of time and maybe made it MOTW in iccup or something, it would give players time and some motivation to practice on the maps. As for ensuring the map was of quality, I'm sure TL or iccup could throw some weight around to get players to help test the map, and get a variety of opinions to see if people both liked the map, and thought it was solidly balanced.
I support the idea of placing foreign maps into TSL2, and I think it could be done successfully, to make and test a map in the months before TSL2, give players in the ladder period time and a place to play on the map to learn it, and to then finalize the map based on any issues which came up during the ladder (ladder = mass games, which can bring up issues unseen in even rigourous testing) before the actual tournament started.
It's definitely a gamble though, but I feel that TL could easily just abandon the project towards the end if it doesn't look like it's balanced well enough + interesting enough. The involved mappers and testers may be disapointed, but at no cost to TL or TSL's reputation. At worst, the map could possibly just become a regular iccup map, which any mapper would be satisfied with. It's not like iccup tries to have the most balanced mappool, just a pool of popular maps.
I haven't seen too much on the player's opinions of having to quickly learn Othello and Wuthering Heights, maybe TL can try and do some more interviews to see if the players felt like they had enough time to learn those maps, etc? $5000 is I think a good motivation for people to learn a single map or two, especially given an environment like iccup to practice and experiment on the map(s).
This idea sounds great on paper, but is terrible in practice.
1. Koreans won't play you. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but to the top foreigners, it's a HUGE deal. There are probably 500 Koreans as good or better than the top 20 foreigners. These days, basically all the top foreigners have Korean friends. We don't have those resources or that kind of player power at our disposal.
2. It won't help you get ready for Courage if taking SC to the next level is right for you. Courage maps are all recycled from major league competition and tend to be reasonably standard, heavily played maps even before being used in Courage.
3. Even if it's a map that has okay balance, unless it changes the game in a meaningful way, the good players will just look at it briefly, maybe a run a few dry tests vs the computer to check building placements and such, and then go into the games with basically no practice and get similar results. The players who devote a lot of time to learning the maps probably won't be able to get enough meaningful practice on them to make a difference.
On June 12 2008 06:55 anotak wrote: Sufficient testing could solve balance issues and provide quality control.
Again, I think many of you are greatly overestimating Korean mappers, the fellows that brought us gems like Demon's Forest, DMZ, Katrina, etc. 99% of maps in Starcraft suck, whether made by the foreign scene, the koreans, or by Blizzard.
Blue Storm especially and the other Korean maps have been played to death by koreans, in events like the GOMTV classic that casual SC gamers watch. And the casual gamers generally are not going to be as interested in watching the same games with mechanically worse players.
I do not put korean map makers on a pedestal, however with the exposure of their maps in the professional tournaments in Korea, the maps get a lot more credibility and a certain brand-name type respect which makes the map more marketable and increases the chance of player support for the map.
I personally think your gripe of using overplayed maps is exaggerated and your expectation of new maps to be a tad greedy. Some of the maps chosen at the time were not even released during the discussion of maps. None of the maps used in broadcast are over a year old, and we did not fall into the use of older favorite maps like Python, Tau Cross or Longinus. Some of the maps were and are still active in the Korean progaming scene and thus they get a lot of playing time on TV, however even pop songs have a longer shelf life than the month or so you've taken to get tired of the maps.
I also think that you downplay the difficulty of testing foreign maps. Sufficient testing requires time and manpower more suited to a community than a couple TSL staff more concerned with running a tournament. However, personally I don't see very much community support between the dropouts in Lemonwalrus' TLCAMMC tournament and the lack of replays and tester for maps on broodwarmaps.net. With Korean maps, we have the korean scene and the competitive foreign scene to draw racial statistics and possible imbalances from, with foreign maps at most we have the occasional thread full of theorycraft or casual tournament.
On June 12 2008 06:55 anotak wrote: Sufficient testing could solve balance issues and provide quality control.
Again, I think many of you are greatly overestimating Korean mappers, the fellows that brought us gems like Demon's Forest, DMZ, Katrina, etc. 99% of maps in Starcraft suck, whether made by the foreign scene, the koreans, or by Blizzard.
Blue Storm especially and the other Korean maps have been played to death by koreans, in events like the GOMTV classic that casual SC gamers watch. And the casual gamers generally are not going to be as interested in watching the same games with mechanically worse players.
I do not put korean map makers on a pedestal, however with the exposure of their maps in the professional tournaments in Korea, the maps get a lot more credibility and a certain brand-name type respect which makes the map more marketable and increases the chance of player support for the map.
I personally think your gripe of using overplayed maps is exaggerated and your expectation of new maps to be a tad greedy. Some of the maps chosen at the time were not even released during the discussion of maps. None of the maps used in broadcast are over a year old, and we did not fall into the use of older favorite maps like Python, Tau Cross or Longinus. Some of the maps were and are still active in the Korean progaming scene and thus they get a lot of playing time on TV, however even pop songs have a longer shelf life than the month or so you've taken to get tired of the maps.
I also think that you downplay the difficulty of testing foreign maps. Sufficient testing requires time and manpower more suited to a community than a couple TSL staff more concerned with running a tournament. However, personally I don't see very much community support between the dropouts in Lemonwalrus' TLCAMMC tournament and the lack of replays and tester for maps on broodwarmaps.net. With Korean maps, we have the korean scene and the competitive foreign scene to draw racial statistics and possible imbalances from, with foreign maps at most we have the occasional thread full of theorycraft or casual tournament.
To add to your argument, sufficient testing really cannot be done by having a few low level players play a few games, but getting guys who are at least B rank to play a lot of games on those maps is difficult. If it's just C or D rank players, the level of understanding is pretty low. Even if they have a grasp of the basics (which many of them don't, not until you starting getting closer to B anyway), the sense of timing and the ability to read and predict opponents is low. It's not that C and D rank players can't figure out how to use the map and do well, it's just that it will take them much longer to piece things together and you need a lot more of them to cover different perspectives because they are each lacking more. And even then, things could get missed entirely.
Didn't TL.netters think that Katrina would be a Terran map? What's the avg rank for a TL.netter... high C? Low B? Well it's definitely Flash's map, but every map is Flash's map right now, so that's pretty meaningless.
The only way a foreign map will ever take off is it is so fucking cool that it makes you want to dust off your CD case and rip of BW for the first time in 5 years.
they typically give them to a proteam to test the alpha map.. not sure if its paid or not (it might be.. although the advertising is pretty good coming up every time the map is played)
There aren't going to be any major-tournament-worthy foreign maps until the high- and top-level foreign players themselves support the idea.
You guys should be appealing to that player base, not to the TSL staff or anyone else. Your maps aren't going to go anywhere until your target audience wants to play them.
I think the players will play the maps if they are worthy of high-level, competitive play. I haven't seen a map like this in a long time, at least on TL.
I say give the TSL a few seasons, see how things go, and if the top players were to support it, then start testing some foreign maps. I don't see the need to jump into something potentially risky to the tournament's credibility so soon. Even though a lot of testing can be done, it's just not as reliable as the Korean standard (and as the OP noted, even they can turn out poor quality maps sometimes).
But at the very least, I would like to see a better variety of tile sets for maps. IMO, Having every map blue/twilight (or whatever it's called) is a bit annoying from a spectator's point of view. We had: Blue storm, Othello, Wuthering Heights, and just Zodiac as the sole non-twilight map. I think having a space map, a twilight map, a desert map, and a forest map would be a good mix. Good, balanced maps of all tile sets are definitely available, and the variety should make the spectator happy. For example, my current favorite mix of maps to see would be Colosseum, Andromeda, Othello, and one more.
Just my two cents on the maps. Overall I was quite pleased to see new maps from PL instead of older maps.
On June 13 2008 06:29 Chill wrote: I think the players will play the maps if they are worthy of high-level, competitive play. I haven't seen a map like this in a long time, at least on TL.
On June 13 2008 09:17 Ryot wrote: I say give the TSL a few seasons, see how things go, and if the top players were to support it, then start testing some foreign maps. I don't see the need to jump into something potentially risky to the tournament's credibility so soon. Even though a lot of testing can be done, it's just not as reliable as the Korean standard (and as the OP noted, even they can turn out poor quality maps sometimes).
But at the very least, I would like to see a better variety of tile sets for maps. IMO, Having every map blue/twilight (or whatever it's called) is a bit annoying from a spectator's point of view. We had: Blue storm, Othello, Wuthering Heights, and just Zodiac as the sole non-twilight map. I think having a space map, a twilight map, a desert map, and a forest map would be a good mix. Good, balanced maps of all tile sets are definitely available, and the variety should make the spectator happy. For example, my current favorite mix of maps to see would be Colosseum, Andromeda, Othello, and one more.
Just my two cents on the maps. Overall I was quite pleased to see new maps from PL instead of older maps.
On June 08 2008 01:02 Artosis wrote: theres a lot of problems with foreigner made maps.
1) you cant practice them: - koreans wont play you on them - if you are in TSL and need to practice them then you are too good to practice vs foreigners who are not in the TSL also
The thread should have stopped here. Nice idea, but wouldn't work in practice.
If it's the people who chooses which korean maps to use in TSL, are the same people who choose which foreign maps to use in TSL2. Then the maps will be about as balanced. Just use the same criteria, judge the foreign maps and test them like you would with korean maps. I'm pretty sure "it's korean" was not the only criteria to choose TSL1 maps. They thought they were balanced for some reason and TSL2 maps will be balanced for the same reason regardless who created them. If all foreign maps looks imba, then don't use them. But I vote give them a try.
I'm sure TL.net staff has enough competent people to judge maps on rather they're balanced or not. Just as competent as Kespa's. All submitted maps could go through review by specific TL staff to get a "TL approved map" label to it. Before they even get a chance to get played officially. I have enough trust in TL staff that any maps they approve would be Kespa+ quality. No bad maps would pass and get to be played in the TSL. If the community can't make any maps that would get approved by TL staff, then I'm sure map-makers would just adapt to TL's standards after a couple of thumbs downs.
Hey, even better idea. Why don't you give this idea a chance even before TSL2?
Make a TL.net 4fun tournament. No money prize, nothing serious. Just for laughs. But use foreign maps only. We go through a series of testing. We set some very solid rules on how maps are judged and approved. Then we pick a couple and make a TSL-like 4fun tournament on those maps.
If the end result is some ridiculously imbalanced match-ups, joke cheese builds and weirdo non-standard gameplay, then we forget about it. But if after the tournament, players are like "yea wasn't that bad". Then we consider it more seriously
On June 13 2008 18:14 VIB wrote: If it's the people who chooses which korean maps to use in TSL, are the same people who choose which foreign maps to use in TSL2. Then the maps will be about as balanced. Just use the same criteria, judge the foreign maps and test them like you would with korean maps. I'm pretty sure "it's korean" was not the only criteria to choose TSL1 maps. They thought they were balanced for some reason and TSL2 maps will be balanced for the same reason regardless who created them. If all foreign maps looks imba, then don't use them. But I vote give them a try.
On June 13 2008 18:23 VIB wrote: Hey, even better idea. Why don't you give this idea a chance even before TSL2?
Make a TL.net 4fun tournament. No money prize, nothing serious. Just for laughs. But use foreign maps only. We go through a series of testing. We set some very solid rules on how maps are judged and approved. Then we pick a couple and make a TSL-like 4fun tournament on those maps.
If the end result is some ridiculously imbalanced match-ups, joke cheese builds and weirdo non-standard gameplay, then we forget about it. But if after the tournament, players are like "yea wasn't that bad". Then we consider it more seriously
What do you think?
The thing you're not realizing is there are levels of balance. The same map can be balanced at the D- level, slightly imbalanced for one race at the A- level, and completely imbalanced for another race at the progamer level. So getting some D-/D TL players to play in a foreigner tournament proves nothing. In the end, you can try hard to determine balance by studying a map, but it will never be 100%. There will always be some dominant strategies that slip by, which is what we have to be very worried about. With Korean maps, you already have a safety net, a team of professional gamers have already assured you there is no dominant strategy.
On June 13 2008 09:17 Ryot wrote:But at the very least, I would like to see a better variety of tile sets for maps. IMO, Having every map blue/twilight (or whatever it's called) is a bit annoying from a spectator's point of view.
Not all tilesets are created equally, Twilight is the tileset that has the most decoration and function (ramps, low, mid, high ground etc). You know how Blue Storm has that double sloaping effect? Thats because it has the assets which other maps don't have.
It's also why there are very few ice and ash world maps. With the only 2 notable ones being Tau Cross and Reqium respectively.
On June 13 2008 09:17 Ryot wrote:But at the very least, I would like to see a better variety of tile sets for maps. IMO, Having every map blue/twilight (or whatever it's called) is a bit annoying from a spectator's point of view.
Not all tilesets are created equally, Twilight is the tileset that has the most decoration and function (ramps, low, mid, high ground etc). You know how Blue Storm has that double sloaping effect? Thats because it has the assets which other maps don't have.
It's also why there are very few ice and ash world maps. With the only 2 notable ones being Tau Cross and Reqium respectively.
Generally speaking, yes although Jungle has the same capacity for decoration.. However it seems that Proleague has boycotted cool jungle maps and thus we were forced to pick the two maps which seemed the most balanced from the lot - wuthering and othello
Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
Ok, we'll give the map to Idra to have eSTRO play on, they don't need to practice anyway, everyone knows they can't win the proleague
On June 14 2008 03:21 Mx.DeeP wrote: Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
What I dislike about what they're saying, is that it somehow applies only to foreign-made maps, and not brand new korean they don't know (Othello, Wuthering Heights). Sure, you can perhaps feel safer knowing koreans already mass-tested the map, but that doesn't ensure balance at all, because the maps are selected often to offset the previous season's imbalances (like python being made while savior was raping everyone and their mothers, or protoss sucking ass and then katrina and baekmoji being put in). Katrina is 73% p>t, Andromeda is 72% p>t, I somehow doubt the korean mappers are stupid enough to make a map that imbalanced on accident. Foreigners are atleast trying to make balanced maps, not to rig the proleague results based on what kespa wants. My point is, the korean maps are by no means balanced, despite having mass-testing, so why be afraid of imbalances in foreign maps if you accept their imbalances? You already are fine watching and playing games on imbalanced maps, but the fact that an imbalanced map might be made by a foreigner is just unacceptable? Mondragon, the zvp foreign master said, zvp on Wuthering Heights was ridiculously hard. Look at TSL, the RO8 had what, 6 protoss, 1 zerg and 1 terran, and of those 3 protoss and 1 terran advanced to the RO4? Wouldn't you expect there to be more terran players and zerg players on a balanced mappool? Or are you guys all protoss and don't care? I'm not blaming the results of TSL on the mappool, and I think the maps chosen were in fact that best, but I'm just saying you guys are putting down the idea of foreign maps due to practice time and imbalances, and the TSL1 players already had to work through that, with two new and not yet popular maps to have to learn, with a fairly statistically protoss favouring mappool, so we've already got down 2 of the problems involved. That just leaves, construction of the map itself. For 5k players WILL learn a new map, they did it this TSL, they'll do it again. I think the way construction would work, if it happened, is that you'd get a couple of mappers who'd make maps, they'd be looked at by other mappers, maybe we'd have a mapping team as op suggested, then we'd refine the best maps made and show TL. If the admins, players, members etc generally thought the map(s) was/were solid, then we could go work on testing. It's the summer, I'm sure some high up players can give the community a little bit of their time and help test the maps a little bit, express their concerns, have some of the things they were concerned with looked into and tested, have the map(s) edited, and do it again a couple times. Throw the map(s) into iccup and see what players think of the map. Make a money tournament with the maps in it, players won't just cheese through the maps I think if there's money involved. There's lots of ways to get testing done in the maps, even without a proteam. No maps are perfectly balanced, and even the most balanced can easily become imbalanced by a change in style or gameplay, so to ask for foreigners to make a perfectly balanced map is just absurd, and if you're not looking for a perfectly balanced map, then we can get you a great, solid map no problem. You act like the old foreign maps were any different from the current foreign maps. They had if anything, less testing and less gameplay/balance consideration than maps do now, but you keep glorifying the "old foreign maps", probably because you don't rememeber them or never really played them lol. We can make maps better now than we ever could in the past, so if you've ever liked our maps, you'll still like them now. Can we make TSL quality maps? imo yes, but I think only time and some motivation will tell.
On June 13 2008 18:23 VIB wrote: Hey, even better idea. Why don't you give this idea a chance even before TSL2?
Make a TL.net 4fun tournament. No money prize, nothing serious. Just for laughs. But use foreign maps only. We go through a series of testing. We set some very solid rules on how maps are judged and approved. Then we pick a couple and make a TSL-like 4fun tournament on those maps.
If the end result is some ridiculously imbalanced match-ups, joke cheese builds and weirdo non-standard gameplay, then we forget about it. But if after the tournament, players are like "yea wasn't that bad". Then we consider it more seriously
yeah I agree basically, Korean maps have a better CHANCE to be balanced, but to say they actually are even 50% of the time is patently false. Very few maps get within a 50-60% win ratio for all Match ups, its usually grossly imbalanced in certain areas. This comes with the territory. Sometimes imbalance pushes people to play harder and makes even better games- ala flash in the gsi. But hell, we all know the 'formula' to a balanced map, and if it means pulling down the complexity compared to Korean maps-which could and often are imbalanced as well- but still have the pride that is OUR map, then fuck yes.
Agreed. But the whole thing admittedly is much easier said than done, and whether or not players and/or iccup will want to help is basically down to luck =/ Probably it'll come down to, asking friends who know people who knows someone who does a B terran, or something like that.
On June 13 2008 18:23 VIB wrote: Hey, even better idea. Why don't you give this idea a chance even before TSL2?
Make a TL.net 4fun tournament. No money prize, nothing serious. Just for laughs. But use foreign maps only. We go through a series of testing. We set some very solid rules on how maps are judged and approved. Then we pick a couple and make a TSL-like 4fun tournament on those maps.
If the end result is some ridiculously imbalanced match-ups, joke cheese builds and weirdo non-standard gameplay, then we forget about it. But if after the tournament, players are like "yea wasn't that bad". Then we consider it more seriously
We also have cookies, porn, and advance copies of the next Batman movie! Sign up now!
no offense but the maps in that are some of the worst i've seen in the entire foreign mapmaking scene and i think that's one reason why people have been dropping out of that
No, people always sign up to Clan Art stuff and then mysteriously die, it's one of life's little constants like death and taxes. I get your point though.
On June 14 2008 04:36 Nightmarjoo wrote: Ok, we'll give the map to Idra to have eSTRO play on, they don't need to practice anyway, everyone knows they can't win the proleague
On June 14 2008 03:21 Mx.DeeP wrote: Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
What I dislike about what they're saying, is that it somehow applies only to foreign-made maps, and not brand new korean they don't know (Othello, Wuthering Heights). Sure, you can perhaps feel safer knowing koreans already mass-tested the map, but that doesn't ensure balance at all, because the maps are selected often to offset the previous season's imbalances (like python being made while savior was raping everyone and their mothers, or protoss sucking ass and then katrina and baekmoji being put in). Katrina is 73% p>t, Andromeda is 72% p>t, I somehow doubt the korean mappers are stupid enough to make a map that imbalanced on accident. Foreigners are atleast trying to make balanced maps, not to rig the proleague results based on what kespa wants. My point is, the korean maps are by no means balanced, despite having mass-testing, so why be afraid of imbalances in foreign maps if you accept their imbalances? You already are fine watching and playing games on imbalanced maps, but the fact that an imbalanced map might be made by a foreigner is just unacceptable? Mondragon, the zvp foreign master said, zvp on Wuthering Heights was ridiculously hard. Look at TSL, the RO8 had what, 6 protoss, 1 zerg and 1 terran, and of those 3 protoss and 1 terran advanced to the RO4? Wouldn't you expect there to be more terran players and zerg players on a balanced mappool? Or are you guys all protoss and don't care? I'm not blaming the results of TSL on the mappool, and I think the maps chosen were in fact that best, but I'm just saying you guys are putting down the idea of foreign maps due to practice time and imbalances, and the TSL1 players already had to work through that, with two new and not yet popular maps to have to learn, with a fairly statistically protoss favouring mappool, so we've already got down 2 of the problems involved. That just leaves, construction of the map itself. For 5k players WILL learn a new map, they did it this TSL, they'll do it again. I think the way construction would work, if it happened, is that you'd get a couple of mappers who'd make maps, they'd be looked at by other mappers, maybe we'd have a mapping team as op suggested, then we'd refine the best maps made and show TL. If the admins, players, members etc generally thought the map(s) was/were solid, then we could go work on testing. It's the summer, I'm sure some high up players can give the community a little bit of their time and help test the maps a little bit, express their concerns, have some of the things they were concerned with looked into and tested, have the map(s) edited, and do it again a couple times. Throw the map(s) into iccup and see what players think of the map. Make a money tournament with the maps in it, players won't just cheese through the maps I think if there's money involved. There's lots of ways to get testing done in the maps, even without a proteam. No maps are perfectly balanced, and even the most balanced can easily become imbalanced by a change in style or gameplay, so to ask for foreigners to make a perfectly balanced map is just absurd, and if you're not looking for a perfectly balanced map, then we can get you a great, solid map no problem. You act like the old foreign maps were any different from the current foreign maps. They had if anything, less testing and less gameplay/balance consideration than maps do now, but you keep glorifying the "old foreign maps", probably because you don't rememeber them or never really played them lol. We can make maps better now than we ever could in the past, so if you've ever liked our maps, you'll still like them now. Can we make TSL quality maps? imo yes, but I think only time and some motivation will tell.
You're retarded if you think that the top gamers wouldn't have to learn Othello and Wuthering anyway.
It always goes like this: First progamers start playing a map. Then top amatuers start playing it because it's Courage or because it's one of the more balanced and/or standard pro maps on the circuit. Top foreigners start playing the map with Korean friends. 2nd and 3rd tier foreigners start playing the maps since the top foreigners now are playing them. Finally, months later, your every day D ranker plays the map.
The top foreigners would learn Othello and Wuthering anyway. Why would they bother learning a foreign map that will never EVER be used by Koreans unless it's just that damn good. And don't say the maps are, because the admins are telling you right now: they tested the foreign maps and the maps just were not up to shape. They were at best no better than the Korean maps and probably worse.
Why are you so bent on shoving shit down the throats of the top foreigners? You're saying "let's use the money to force them to play our maps." But even if you do that, you won't be able to force them to get practice because the Koreans won't play them and everyone worth using as a practice partner is competing against you. And as Korean SC continues to produce absolute perfection, your plan forces isolationism. For anyone with WCG or progamer dreams, do you think they will like being forced into your plan? I can tell you which maps people will opt out of.
Before you come trying to force people to play foreign made maps, why don't you make something that people will simply WANT to play. If you aren't even there, then what's the point?
Either I way I support a different map pool, perhaps of maps from a few years ago, old enough so they arent stale any more. As someone said earlier in the thread [I think...] the tsl was like watching programmers but with worse mechanics. Anything to differentiate it from the current/last years OSL and MSL is a good thing, really.
On June 14 2008 04:36 Nightmarjoo wrote: Ok, we'll give the map to Idra to have eSTRO play on, they don't need to practice anyway, everyone knows they can't win the proleague
On June 14 2008 03:21 Mx.DeeP wrote: Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
What I dislike about what they're saying, is that it somehow applies only to foreign-made maps, and not brand new korean they don't know (Othello, Wuthering Heights). Sure, you can perhaps feel safer knowing koreans already mass-tested the map, but that doesn't ensure balance at all, because the maps are selected often to offset the previous season's imbalances (like python being made while savior was raping everyone and their mothers, or protoss sucking ass and then katrina and baekmoji being put in). Katrina is 73% p>t, Andromeda is 72% p>t, I somehow doubt the korean mappers are stupid enough to make a map that imbalanced on accident. Foreigners are atleast trying to make balanced maps, not to rig the proleague results based on what kespa wants. My point is, the korean maps are by no means balanced, despite having mass-testing, so why be afraid of imbalances in foreign maps if you accept their imbalances? You already are fine watching and playing games on imbalanced maps, but the fact that an imbalanced map might be made by a foreigner is just unacceptable? Mondragon, the zvp foreign master said, zvp on Wuthering Heights was ridiculously hard. Look at TSL, the RO8 had what, 6 protoss, 1 zerg and 1 terran, and of those 3 protoss and 1 terran advanced to the RO4? Wouldn't you expect there to be more terran players and zerg players on a balanced mappool? Or are you guys all protoss and don't care? I'm not blaming the results of TSL on the mappool, and I think the maps chosen were in fact that best, but I'm just saying you guys are putting down the idea of foreign maps due to practice time and imbalances, and the TSL1 players already had to work through that, with two new and not yet popular maps to have to learn, with a fairly statistically protoss favouring mappool, so we've already got down 2 of the problems involved. That just leaves, construction of the map itself. For 5k players WILL learn a new map, they did it this TSL, they'll do it again. I think the way construction would work, if it happened, is that you'd get a couple of mappers who'd make maps, they'd be looked at by other mappers, maybe we'd have a mapping team as op suggested, then we'd refine the best maps made and show TL. If the admins, players, members etc generally thought the map(s) was/were solid, then we could go work on testing. It's the summer, I'm sure some high up players can give the community a little bit of their time and help test the maps a little bit, express their concerns, have some of the things they were concerned with looked into and tested, have the map(s) edited, and do it again a couple times. Throw the map(s) into iccup and see what players think of the map. Make a money tournament with the maps in it, players won't just cheese through the maps I think if there's money involved. There's lots of ways to get testing done in the maps, even without a proteam. No maps are perfectly balanced, and even the most balanced can easily become imbalanced by a change in style or gameplay, so to ask for foreigners to make a perfectly balanced map is just absurd, and if you're not looking for a perfectly balanced map, then we can get you a great, solid map no problem. You act like the old foreign maps were any different from the current foreign maps. They had if anything, less testing and less gameplay/balance consideration than maps do now, but you keep glorifying the "old foreign maps", probably because you don't rememeber them or never really played them lol. We can make maps better now than we ever could in the past, so if you've ever liked our maps, you'll still like them now. Can we make TSL quality maps? imo yes, but I think only time and some motivation will tell.
You're retarded if you think that the top gamers wouldn't have to learn Othello and Wuthering anyway.
It always goes like this: First progamers start playing a map. Then top amatuers start playing it because it's Courage or because it's one of the more balanced and/or standard pro maps on the circuit. Top foreigners start playing the map with Korean friends. 2nd and 3rd tier foreigners start playing the maps since the top foreigners now are playing them. Finally, months later, your every day D ranker plays the map.
The top foreigners would learn Othello and Wuthering anyway. Why would they bother learning a foreign map that will never EVER be used by Koreans unless it's just that damn good. And don't say the maps are, because the admins are telling you right now: they tested the foreign maps and the maps just were not up to shape. They were at best no better than the Korean maps and probably worse.
Why are you so bent on shoving shit down the throats of the top foreigners? You're saying "let's use the money to force them to play our maps." But even if you do that, you won't be able to force them to get practice because the Koreans won't play them and everyone worth using as a practice partner is competing against you. And as Korean SC continues to produce absolute perfection, your plan forces isolationism. For anyone with WCG or progamer dreams, do you think they will like being forced into your plan? I can tell you which maps people will opt out of.
Before you come trying to force people to play foreign made maps, why don't you make something that people will simply WANT to play. If you aren't even there, then what's the point?
Why are you being so fucking hostile? Go fuck yourself wtf. The point of this thread is to explore the possibility of adding foreign maps to TSL, my posts are both in support of the idea, and explaining how I think we could make it possible. The fact that they would've learned Othello and Wuthering Heights eventually is irrelevant, the point is that they had to learn a map they didn't know for a prestegious event (TSL). If a foreign map actually made it to TSL, it would definitely atleast also go into iccup, possibly the wgt pool as well, so it's possible they'd want to or have to learn the map in the future anyway.
You really think adding one map to TSL is going ruin every top foreigner's life? Yes I can see that koreans won't play them on that one map (I can't see more than one map being added), but from the sounds of it a lot of the players dodged koreans during the ladder stage anyway, so I can't see that making such a big difference as you make it out to be. They can practice vs koreans on every other map in the pool, who cares?
I thought the point of TSL was to give foreigners a chance to play at a similar competetive level as the koreans, to give foreigners their own experience, not to just copy the Korean stuff. That's why the idea of bringing a foreign map came up, because it's a foreign league. I think that in the last several years, that there's only been two foreigners who actually went to korea to join a team shows that the foreign starcraft community is already quite in isolation, so I fail to see how adding one map to one league is going make a difference there. Nor do I see how just copying the korean maps is going to fix that either, we've been playing on the korean maps for years with very few people actually making it to korea.
Bare in mind, TSL is an event not just for the players, but for the foreign spectators who can someone they can possibly better relate to to cheer for, not the enigmatic korean progamers. A foreign map would give the spectators a different experience than they can get from just watching the korean leagues. I don't know if it ultimately would be a better or worse experience, but it would be different. I'd say that in general TSL is a worse experience for foreigners because the players aren't as good as the koreans, and ergo can't pull off as spectacular and exciting games. The fact that it's foreign players, from our own countries, helps counter this a lot, it really is OUR experience, not the korean experience that we're just watching. Adding a foreign map would add legitimacy to the league as being OUR league, because it would have OUR map.
Some korean dude should help you get contacts with the pro-mappers. I remember that someone told me RoV was taken from some foreigner guy and made into a pro-map right?
In theory adding a foreign map to TSL would be good for separating our league from the koreans. A definitely should be considered for any future TSL. However the chances of a map of sufficient quality emerging from our foreign mapping scene is just under miracle.
This isn't TSL's issue, this is an issue with the foreign map scene and how much the foreign community cares about them. For consideration of a map pool, it's much easier to refer to the korean professional scene for maps as their maps will have guaranteed support / statistics / data. From the foreign scene, all we have is low level theorycraft.
The point of TSL was to create an environment for foreign players to play quality games in front of an audience. A single bad map can ruin an entire tournament, there is a gigantic risk in using a unfamiliar map. In the event of an oversight in the evaluation of a foreign map (or any map), it would ruin TSL and any future opportunities for TSL.
Agreed, pachi. Personally I think it's a risk worth taking, coming from the mapping point of view but I definitely see what you're saying. I think though, that such a miracle map can't occur with TSL giving mappers the go, without TSL saying "yes, there is a CHANCE we will use your map". I think with that kind of motivation such a miracle map is possible, but impossible as long as TL and TSL says no, fuck foreign maps in such a high level, important event. If TL is willing to consider the idea, we can make the best maps we can, and see if any impress you. Just because we make a map doesn't mean TL has to comit, but we'd need TL to tell us it's possible first =/
New maps sound like a great idea. How about intoducing EXPERIMENTAL games to try out these maps? Let me explain: Lets say the TSL will stream two players playing. Well before these two players start to play, let's have 2 other players, who were eliminated earlier, play on an experimental/new/fun/goofy/random map. This would provide the audience with some entertainment before the actual match begins and would also help decide whether the experimental map should be included as an official map in TSL THREEEE!!!
Also maybe TL could take a poll on which players they want to see play on the experimental map. Your favorite player gets eliminated? No problem, have them come back
I personally don't like really experimental maps though. They're impossible to theory-craft balance, and really hard to balance with testing. It depends on the level of experimentation though.
On June 14 2008 12:49 ._. wrote: Some korean dude should help you get contacts with the pro-mappers. I remember that someone told me RoV was taken from some foreigner guy and made into a pro-map right?
If all you were bout it then we wouldnt be having this discussion. But 90% could prolly give a shit :o If anyone likes the idea then start testing maps and show them off if they end up being solid. Its not that hard. You gotta take step one and two if you want to make it to step 3. So fuck just talking about maps when we're not even sure which maps would be added anyway. Assemble a real team to test out the maps then this would be a discussion.
Really? I think Requiem would be sick to see again. Progamers from the 2005 era are comparable to the foreigners now and time tested strategies of all sorts were exhibited on it.
And whatever small imbalances there were, map makers now could just modify it for the tournament.
On June 14 2008 04:36 Nightmarjoo wrote: Ok, we'll give the map to Idra to have eSTRO play on, they don't need to practice anyway, everyone knows they can't win the proleague
On June 14 2008 03:21 Mx.DeeP wrote: Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
What I dislike about what they're saying, is that it somehow applies only to foreign-made maps, and not brand new korean they don't know (Othello, Wuthering Heights). Sure, you can perhaps feel safer knowing koreans already mass-tested the map, but that doesn't ensure balance at all, because the maps are selected often to offset the previous season's imbalances (like python being made while savior was raping everyone and their mothers, or protoss sucking ass and then katrina and baekmoji being put in). Katrina is 73% p>t, Andromeda is 72% p>t, I somehow doubt the korean mappers are stupid enough to make a map that imbalanced on accident. Foreigners are atleast trying to make balanced maps, not to rig the proleague results based on what kespa wants. My point is, the korean maps are by no means balanced, despite having mass-testing, so why be afraid of imbalances in foreign maps if you accept their imbalances? You already are fine watching and playing games on imbalanced maps, but the fact that an imbalanced map might be made by a foreigner is just unacceptable? Mondragon, the zvp foreign master said, zvp on Wuthering Heights was ridiculously hard. Look at TSL, the RO8 had what, 6 protoss, 1 zerg and 1 terran, and of those 3 protoss and 1 terran advanced to the RO4? Wouldn't you expect there to be more terran players and zerg players on a balanced mappool? Or are you guys all protoss and don't care? I'm not blaming the results of TSL on the mappool, and I think the maps chosen were in fact that best, but I'm just saying you guys are putting down the idea of foreign maps due to practice time and imbalances, and the TSL1 players already had to work through that, with two new and not yet popular maps to have to learn, with a fairly statistically protoss favouring mappool, so we've already got down 2 of the problems involved. That just leaves, construction of the map itself. For 5k players WILL learn a new map, they did it this TSL, they'll do it again. I think the way construction would work, if it happened, is that you'd get a couple of mappers who'd make maps, they'd be looked at by other mappers, maybe we'd have a mapping team as op suggested, then we'd refine the best maps made and show TL. If the admins, players, members etc generally thought the map(s) was/were solid, then we could go work on testing. It's the summer, I'm sure some high up players can give the community a little bit of their time and help test the maps a little bit, express their concerns, have some of the things they were concerned with looked into and tested, have the map(s) edited, and do it again a couple times. Throw the map(s) into iccup and see what players think of the map. Make a money tournament with the maps in it, players won't just cheese through the maps I think if there's money involved. There's lots of ways to get testing done in the maps, even without a proteam. No maps are perfectly balanced, and even the most balanced can easily become imbalanced by a change in style or gameplay, so to ask for foreigners to make a perfectly balanced map is just absurd, and if you're not looking for a perfectly balanced map, then we can get you a great, solid map no problem. You act like the old foreign maps were any different from the current foreign maps. They had if anything, less testing and less gameplay/balance consideration than maps do now, but you keep glorifying the "old foreign maps", probably because you don't rememeber them or never really played them lol. We can make maps better now than we ever could in the past, so if you've ever liked our maps, you'll still like them now. Can we make TSL quality maps? imo yes, but I think only time and some motivation will tell.
You're retarded if you think that the top gamers wouldn't have to learn Othello and Wuthering anyway.
It always goes like this: First progamers start playing a map. Then top amatuers start playing it because it's Courage or because it's one of the more balanced and/or standard pro maps on the circuit. Top foreigners start playing the map with Korean friends. 2nd and 3rd tier foreigners start playing the maps since the top foreigners now are playing them. Finally, months later, your every day D ranker plays the map.
The top foreigners would learn Othello and Wuthering anyway. Why would they bother learning a foreign map that will never EVER be used by Koreans unless it's just that damn good. And don't say the maps are, because the admins are telling you right now: they tested the foreign maps and the maps just were not up to shape. They were at best no better than the Korean maps and probably worse.
Why are you so bent on shoving shit down the throats of the top foreigners? You're saying "let's use the money to force them to play our maps." But even if you do that, you won't be able to force them to get practice because the Koreans won't play them and everyone worth using as a practice partner is competing against you. And as Korean SC continues to produce absolute perfection, your plan forces isolationism. For anyone with WCG or progamer dreams, do you think they will like being forced into your plan? I can tell you which maps people will opt out of.
Before you come trying to force people to play foreign made maps, why don't you make something that people will simply WANT to play. If you aren't even there, then what's the point?
Why are you being so fucking hostile? Go fuck yourself wtf. The point of this thread is to explore the possibility of adding foreign maps to TSL, my posts are both in support of the idea, and explaining how I think we could make it possible. The fact that they would've learned Othello and Wuthering Heights eventually is irrelevant, the point is that they had to learn a map they didn't know for a prestegious event (TSL). If a foreign map actually made it to TSL, it would definitely atleast also go into iccup, possibly the wgt pool as well, so it's possible they'd want to or have to learn the map in the future anyway.
You really think adding one map to TSL is going ruin every top foreigner's life? Yes I can see that koreans won't play them on that one map (I can't see more than one map being added), but from the sounds of it a lot of the players dodged koreans during the ladder stage anyway, so I can't see that making such a big difference as you make it out to be. They can practice vs koreans on every other map in the pool, who cares?
I thought the point of TSL was to give foreigners a chance to play at a similar competetive level as the koreans, to give foreigners their own experience, not to just copy the Korean stuff. That's why the idea of bringing a foreign map came up, because it's a foreign league. I think that in the last several years, that there's only been two foreigners who actually went to korea to join a team shows that the foreign starcraft community is already quite in isolation, so I fail to see how adding one map to one league is going make a difference there. Nor do I see how just copying the korean maps is going to fix that either, we've been playing on the korean maps for years with very few people actually making it to korea.
Bare in mind, TSL is an event not just for the players, but for the foreign spectators who can someone they can possibly better relate to to cheer for, not the enigmatic korean progamers. A foreign map would give the spectators a different experience than they can get from just watching the korean leagues. I don't know if it ultimately would be a better or worse experience, but it would be different. I'd say that in general TSL is a worse experience for foreigners because the players aren't as good as the koreans, and ergo can't pull off as spectacular and exciting games. The fact that it's foreign players, from our own countries, helps counter this a lot, it really is OUR experience, not the korean experience that we're just watching. Adding a foreign map would add legitimacy to the league as being OUR league, because it would have OUR map.
What point is there in trying to define a foreign scene? The only reason we exclude Koreans from our tournaments is so that we have a chance. You seem to think that we should have a foreign map just because there are only foreign players. That's not a valid justification.
Certainly very few players go to Korea. It's a difficult transition, having to rise to the top in a FAR more competitive environment while dealing with language and cultural barriers. All the while, you won't get paid terribly much. This is clearly not a life for everyone.
However, even if we want to distinguish ourselves with our own tournaments, to maximize competitive play, the top foreigners MUST practice with Koreans and MUST borrow strategies thought of by Koreans. It is simply unavoidable.
On June 14 2008 04:36 Nightmarjoo wrote: Ok, we'll give the map to Idra to have eSTRO play on, they don't need to practice anyway, everyone knows they can't win the proleague
On June 14 2008 03:21 Mx.DeeP wrote: Out of all the comments here, only 2 are from people who made it reasonably far in TSL1, and both Nony and Artosis pretty much just shot the idea down. Until you can convince the people who will actually need to practice these maps if it comes up, it's not going to get anywhere. If you're not a top foreigner player, it might not seem like a big deal if you can't play Koreans, but it's a HUGE deal. The top guys play hundreds of games to practice and if you take away Koreans, the number of people you can practice with goes down dramatically, especially since there's the chance you'll face a given foreigner player in the tournament itself, making you less likely to practice with him.
Also, in terms of map testing, it takes time and effort on a level most people don't seem to realize. Getting a couple of C, or even B, level iccup players to play a few dozen games on it is not even close to enough. You would need A level players to play thousands of games, testing every possibility and running through macro builds, cheese builds, and every other build you can think of over and over. Does the foreigner community really have those resources? Even if you were to pay a top foreigner clan like MYM to do this, it still wouldn't be enough, none of us have all day to play starcraft like the Korean pros do.
In terms of mapmaking, I don't think even top foreigner players really know the ins and outs of exactly what makes a map balanced or imbalanced. Of course, the good players have a pretty solid idea, but going back and forth between mapmakers and top players alone would be hard enough, even if you don't count the testing. Why go through all this, when you already have maps that have passed the test? Of course, the Korean maps aren't perfect, but they have sort of a minimum quality assurance that you wouldn't get with foreigner maps.
What I dislike about what they're saying, is that it somehow applies only to foreign-made maps, and not brand new korean they don't know (Othello, Wuthering Heights). Sure, you can perhaps feel safer knowing koreans already mass-tested the map, but that doesn't ensure balance at all, because the maps are selected often to offset the previous season's imbalances (like python being made while savior was raping everyone and their mothers, or protoss sucking ass and then katrina and baekmoji being put in). Katrina is 73% p>t, Andromeda is 72% p>t, I somehow doubt the korean mappers are stupid enough to make a map that imbalanced on accident. Foreigners are atleast trying to make balanced maps, not to rig the proleague results based on what kespa wants. My point is, the korean maps are by no means balanced, despite having mass-testing, so why be afraid of imbalances in foreign maps if you accept their imbalances? You already are fine watching and playing games on imbalanced maps, but the fact that an imbalanced map might be made by a foreigner is just unacceptable? Mondragon, the zvp foreign master said, zvp on Wuthering Heights was ridiculously hard. Look at TSL, the RO8 had what, 6 protoss, 1 zerg and 1 terran, and of those 3 protoss and 1 terran advanced to the RO4? Wouldn't you expect there to be more terran players and zerg players on a balanced mappool? Or are you guys all protoss and don't care? I'm not blaming the results of TSL on the mappool, and I think the maps chosen were in fact that best, but I'm just saying you guys are putting down the idea of foreign maps due to practice time and imbalances, and the TSL1 players already had to work through that, with two new and not yet popular maps to have to learn, with a fairly statistically protoss favouring mappool, so we've already got down 2 of the problems involved. That just leaves, construction of the map itself. For 5k players WILL learn a new map, they did it this TSL, they'll do it again. I think the way construction would work, if it happened, is that you'd get a couple of mappers who'd make maps, they'd be looked at by other mappers, maybe we'd have a mapping team as op suggested, then we'd refine the best maps made and show TL. If the admins, players, members etc generally thought the map(s) was/were solid, then we could go work on testing. It's the summer, I'm sure some high up players can give the community a little bit of their time and help test the maps a little bit, express their concerns, have some of the things they were concerned with looked into and tested, have the map(s) edited, and do it again a couple times. Throw the map(s) into iccup and see what players think of the map. Make a money tournament with the maps in it, players won't just cheese through the maps I think if there's money involved. There's lots of ways to get testing done in the maps, even without a proteam. No maps are perfectly balanced, and even the most balanced can easily become imbalanced by a change in style or gameplay, so to ask for foreigners to make a perfectly balanced map is just absurd, and if you're not looking for a perfectly balanced map, then we can get you a great, solid map no problem. You act like the old foreign maps were any different from the current foreign maps. They had if anything, less testing and less gameplay/balance consideration than maps do now, but you keep glorifying the "old foreign maps", probably because you don't rememeber them or never really played them lol. We can make maps better now than we ever could in the past, so if you've ever liked our maps, you'll still like them now. Can we make TSL quality maps? imo yes, but I think only time and some motivation will tell.
You're retarded if you think that the top gamers wouldn't have to learn Othello and Wuthering anyway.
It always goes like this: First progamers start playing a map. Then top amatuers start playing it because it's Courage or because it's one of the more balanced and/or standard pro maps on the circuit. Top foreigners start playing the map with Korean friends. 2nd and 3rd tier foreigners start playing the maps since the top foreigners now are playing them. Finally, months later, your every day D ranker plays the map.
The top foreigners would learn Othello and Wuthering anyway. Why would they bother learning a foreign map that will never EVER be used by Koreans unless it's just that damn good. And don't say the maps are, because the admins are telling you right now: they tested the foreign maps and the maps just were not up to shape. They were at best no better than the Korean maps and probably worse.
Why are you so bent on shoving shit down the throats of the top foreigners? You're saying "let's use the money to force them to play our maps." But even if you do that, you won't be able to force them to get practice because the Koreans won't play them and everyone worth using as a practice partner is competing against you. And as Korean SC continues to produce absolute perfection, your plan forces isolationism. For anyone with WCG or progamer dreams, do you think they will like being forced into your plan? I can tell you which maps people will opt out of.
Before you come trying to force people to play foreign made maps, why don't you make something that people will simply WANT to play. If you aren't even there, then what's the point?
Why are you being so fucking hostile? Go fuck yourself wtf. The point of this thread is to explore the possibility of adding foreign maps to TSL, my posts are both in support of the idea, and explaining how I think we could make it possible. The fact that they would've learned Othello and Wuthering Heights eventually is irrelevant, the point is that they had to learn a map they didn't know for a prestegious event (TSL). If a foreign map actually made it to TSL, it would definitely atleast also go into iccup, possibly the wgt pool as well, so it's possible they'd want to or have to learn the map in the future anyway.
You really think adding one map to TSL is going ruin every top foreigner's life? Yes I can see that koreans won't play them on that one map (I can't see more than one map being added), but from the sounds of it a lot of the players dodged koreans during the ladder stage anyway, so I can't see that making such a big difference as you make it out to be. They can practice vs koreans on every other map in the pool, who cares?
I thought the point of TSL was to give foreigners a chance to play at a similar competetive level as the koreans, to give foreigners their own experience, not to just copy the Korean stuff. That's why the idea of bringing a foreign map came up, because it's a foreign league. I think that in the last several years, that there's only been two foreigners who actually went to korea to join a team shows that the foreign starcraft community is already quite in isolation, so I fail to see how adding one map to one league is going make a difference there. Nor do I see how just copying the korean maps is going to fix that either, we've been playing on the korean maps for years with very few people actually making it to korea.
Bare in mind, TSL is an event not just for the players, but for the foreign spectators who can someone they can possibly better relate to to cheer for, not the enigmatic korean progamers. A foreign map would give the spectators a different experience than they can get from just watching the korean leagues. I don't know if it ultimately would be a better or worse experience, but it would be different. I'd say that in general TSL is a worse experience for foreigners because the players aren't as good as the koreans, and ergo can't pull off as spectacular and exciting games. The fact that it's foreign players, from our own countries, helps counter this a lot, it really is OUR experience, not the korean experience that we're just watching. Adding a foreign map would add legitimacy to the league as being OUR league, because it would have OUR map.
What point is there in trying to define a foreign scene? The only reason we exclude Koreans from our tournaments is so that we have a chance. You seem to think that we should have a foreign map just because there are only foreign players. That's not a valid justification.
Certainly very few players go to Korea. It's a difficult transition, having to rise to the top in a FAR more competitive environment while dealing with language and cultural barriers. All the while, you won't get paid terribly much. This is clearly not a life for everyone.
However, even if we want to distinguish ourselves with our own tournaments, to maximize competitive play, the top foreigners MUST practice with Koreans and MUST borrow strategies thought of by Koreans. It is simply unavoidable.
Just because you have to train with koreans and use similar build styles doesnt mean the tsl just has to be a carbon copy of the osl and or msl with lower quality games. Why should we NOT define the foreign scene? If Starcraft wants to grow outside of Korea, we are going have to do it OURSELVES. If we want to grow the Foreign scene, not only in popularity amongst everyone, but get better as a whole population, to get more sponsors and coverage, to move esports forward outside of korea WE HAVE TO DEFINE OURSELVES. EVERYTHING RESTS ON THIS.
im all for different maps, but i think it should be pro maps and maps that will produce the most entertaining games. Doesn't matter when its from, just entertaining maps.
well generally the most entertaining maps to a lot of people are more micro oriented maps rather than the typical Luna-esque take 3 bases max out sit around wait for 200/200 fight kinda map
On June 17 2008 02:46 NastyMarine wrote: Thats not the point. Cooperation would be nice though
? If you asked for help with your map, I'd be with you. But you said "TSL can test this map and this map." No.
Actually looking back at his post he said "you guys" which I interpreted as the people reading this thread, but he may have intended TSL, idk
In any case... could both of you calm down, please?
Spinel Valley instinctively looks imbalanced, not sure towards who though. Though, perhaps with proper testing someone could prove me wrong.
Korhal Pride is interesting, I wouldn't mind playing it or watching it. Same with Nightmarjoo's Radiance, if he fixed more obvious imbalances that were mentioned in the thread. Both maps with some testing could have some pretty good potential.
The tough part is getting that testing. It's not as easy as "this map is so badass people will just play it on their own". I've seen many perfectly good maps pass by here and broodwarmaps and other places with getting the testing of like 4 ICCUP D+s playing it and that's it. There are no maps that badass, especially not the first version. If the first beta version of Othello was made by a foreigner and posted on TL.net then nobody would play it, just like any other foreigner map.
On June 17 2008 06:25 Nightmarjoo wrote: Firebathero vs Much was actually incredibly boring (to me atleast), the only reason imo that game got any attention was because of Much's pylon heart.
I like Othello too for the most-part, but I don't see how it's particularly more interesting than say, python.
For some basic attention/testing for foreign maps, I'm considering running daily 16man tournaments, please see this thread.
Really? You're a map maker and you truly can't see the difference in potential for excitement between these two maps?
Well I'm not thinking like a mapper at the moment, thinking like a gamer. Othello definitely increases harass potential in every game, but I don't see how that makes it much more interesting. I see that as making players play a little more cautious than usual, coupled by the easy 3rd expo and 3rd gas makes it turtly imo. You can say it's more interesting in that it adds strategies because of that greatly increased harass potential, but at the same time you lose other strategies python had, the spread expo layout of python pushed different gameplay styles and expo choices among other things, so to me the maps are interesting-wise the same.
If you can't see that games on Python and games on Othello are totally different because of how the map works, you should quit trying to make maps for competitive play. There is really no excuse.
Or you have a real strange idea of what is interesting.
Ok you can keep telling me that, but made my point about specifically why I don't see the difference, so instead of continuing to hint at it and tell me I'm a moron, how about educating me and actually specifically explaining it?
I agree with Nightmarejoo. Just because the maps play differently doesn't make them too different in terms of excitement. Especially when considering that for instance "harassment" is not the same as "exciting" and "turtling" is not the same as "boring". But meh, why do I try. People who disagree with me are usually too ignorant to think about it even for a second.
I think balance is the most important thing and that's where korean progaming maps come into play since they've been tested in- and outside of televised games.
I'm curious as to how you know a map will rival the existing Korean maps. Does it require some prelinimary testing or can you tell just by looking at it? Essentially, what criterion must be met for the map to be good?
Note: This is just a question not some crazy rawwwwwwrrr~ whats a good map?! How do you know? anger post...thing.
On June 17 2008 23:27 Chill wrote: I feel like we're stuck in theory mode. Yes, if a map came out that rivaled Korean maps we would test it. No, one hasn't.
On June 17 2008 23:27 Chill wrote: I feel like we're stuck in theory mode. Yes, if a map came out that rivaled Korean maps we would test it. No, one hasn't.
While this is somewhat true, no foreign map will ever "rival" Korean maps without backing of a major tournament, or even ladder at the very least.
On June 18 2008 00:38 Chill wrote: If it's a standard map, you can imagine gameplay on it.
I don't understand why the honess it on us. They're your maps, you test them and tell us it rivals Korean maps.
What do you mean honess? Do you mean onus? Even if it was better than the Korean maps it'd still be hard to convince someone to play on it. Especially coming from a map maker.
It's circular logic. You want people to play new maps so we should use them in our league. We want tested maps in our league so you should get people to play on them.
On June 18 2008 02:03 Chill wrote: Yea I meant onus
It's circular logic. You want people to play new maps so we should use them in our league. We want tested maps in our league so you should get people to play on them.
Need help to get them played.
Again, I highly doubt if instead of them being tested by the Koreans, a foreigner mapmaker posted an early version of Othello or Python or Tau on TL and asked for help testing that anyone would care.
I mean, sure you can imagine what the play is like on a standard map. And a map like, say Sound Barrier, Looks endlessly more interesting than several Korean maps like Katrina, Hwarangdo, etc
On June 17 2008 23:27 Chill wrote: I feel like we're stuck in theory mode. Yes, if a map came out that rivaled Korean maps we would test it. No, one hasn't.
Though I disagree with that you'd test a map which rivaled korean maps, I also found we were stuck in theory mode, hence this. The idea of these tournaments if I can keep them running is to show the community maps we at bwm feel are good. I think it's a better first step to try and show off our maps than to tell everyone to make "pro quality maps".
I respect the opinions of all of the higher powers who are by now probably frustrated with everyone arguing for this. I am going to make an argument for it as well, but I will understand if its overlooked.
First of all, the only way we the viewers could sway the minds of the tournament administrators is with extremist ideas that if anyone tries, I'll kill 'em myself. You have to realize that is not about us here. Yes, we are brought coverage, but TL.net could just as easily thrive just releasing replays and having a closed door tournament. It is about the gamers. So without anything from them, we have nothing.
Second, we need to be logistical in terms of creators. You can say all day "Let's have a map making contest" or "Let's put together a TSL mapping team". The contest is just a bad idea. Too much time would be wasted sorting through pieces of junk that some idiot thought was a masterpiece. The team, while is great on paper, would most likely end up in a flop, because it would have to be people over the internet who don't truly know each other, conflicts of interest would come into play and a whole slew of other things. What needs to happen for this is the TSL admins have to pick ONE map maker whom they believe would best carry out their intentions. While difficult, this would be doable, and the only way that a true map could be created. The OGN/MBC mapping teams are different, they hire people and move them to their central HQ's in Korea. I'm not saying other mappers couldn't be used to bounce ideas off of, but they would have to work primarily independently.
Third, no offense to Chill, Pachi and Plexa (the admins I notice checking this particular thread), but you have to accept that we probably won't rival a Korean map if we do this, and that if put into effect you would need to chose the next best thing, so long as they don't all have blatant issues. My reasoning as to why we won't have a map that rivals that of a Korean is not competency, not because foreignors "don't have a deep enough understanding", because I think foreign mappers have a pretty good grasp on the game and that they are competent otherwise we wouldn't have players ranking high in iCCup and it would be saturated with Koreans. No knock to the foreign mapping community, but it's motivation. The mappers for OGN and MBC are being paid to create these maps. We are not. However, if there was such motivation that a mapper could dedicate, then we might have an amazing map.
Fourth, as exciting as TSL was, and it was so exciting, I got a complete non-SC player glued to the screen for the finals, for someone who watches a TON of progaming and such, I was slightly bored. I was bored with the same builds. The games themselves were exciting because of JF's possible and eventual comeback, but the build orders were stale and the gameplay wasn't innovative, and for a $5K prize, which is half of the Aerican equivalent of Flash's paycheck for the GSI, I want to see innovation and new builds. They won't happen on Korean maps, because they are played so much. A new map could create this, but it would have to be the right map.
Fifth, with such strong ties to iCCup, who's to say we can't get a map or two incredibly tested. Sure, iCCup would have to put out some pretty lucrative rewards but it could happen. The problem would be getting replays, but again, iCCup can help that. They have level tournaments all season long. Put out an A tournament or 2 and have our map be one of the maps used. Put it in a position where each match must play it at least once. The top players will come out for the tournament and have to play it. Put it in MOTW with several other rarely used maps. iCCup needs to get Longinus, Tau Cross, Python etc out of the MOTW cycles for at least a season. And you ould distribute the maps to a team like ToT or 50CaL for use. the major teams have off time, and most of them as someone said have Korean connections. Use them for something interesting. Hell, the Korean may be more than willing to accept.
I know it sounds like a stretch, but there is a way it can be done.
On June 18 2008 07:16 WorldCommunist8 wrote: Fourth, as exciting as TSL was, and it was so exciting, I got a complete non-SC player glued to the screen for the finals, for someone who watches a TON of progaming and such, I was slightly bored. I was bored with the same builds. The games themselves were exciting because of JF's possible and eventual comeback, but the build orders were stale and the gameplay wasn't innovative, and for a $5K prize, which is half of the Aerican equivalent of Flash's paycheck for the GSI, I want to see innovation and new builds. They won't happen on Korean maps, because they are played so much. A new map could create this, but it would have to be the right map.
The thing about this is that there is a huge mass of thousands of people that tune into gomtv averatec classic every weekend, and they've seen all these strategies on all these maps.
I really honestly believe you guys are overestimating map making a bit. It's not that hard to make maps and it's also not astronomically impossible to ever dream of getting close to match Kespa quality maps in terms of balance. Really, we can do it. We just need to try to. Most foreign maps aren't too balanced because they just didn't try to! They were made in whatever other circumstance that wasn't "I must make a Kespa balanced map for a serious competetive league". Usually ppl just make maps for fun. If we are to make balanced maps, we can. It just never happened before.
You might say "if it's so easy how come even Kespa makes some mistakes?" and the answer is because they take too much chances trying to innovate, and even when they make mistakes they aren't that bad. If we want to play safe, we can just go slow on innovation and make standard maps. We could simply copy/paste every pixel from Python and call it a map. That would be balanced, though wouldn't be exciting. So then we just go sloooowly moving into the direction of "exciting" without leaving "balanced" too far behind, until we're satisfied with a point between.
We can do it. It's not as hard as some of you think. We just need to set on stone some very explicit rules of "balance" is, what "standardization" is, what key features a map must have and exactly what limits can creativity go to. If we have some safe specifics such as "main minerals must be X1 to X2. nat choke must be Y1 to Y2. distance between mains must be Z1 to Z2". Then it can't go wrong. Just set up some very conservative rules that mimic previous balanced maps and I'm 100% sure we can make good enough maps to compete at pro level.
lol you guys act like we don't already do these things when we make maps. We borrow and alter all sorts of aspects from the already made maps, similar mineral formations, distances, sizes, etc. We consider, when we deviate from these norms, what effect it will have on gameplay, etc. Our best mappers are really good at making well made maps. But TSL doesn't want or need just a well-made map, but a well-made map with an interesting concept with reasonably good balance. A map which doesn't force one strategy every game, or create dominant strategies. Many of you I think are underestimating the best bwm mappers -.-
I'm sure many are going to totally disagree with me, but I for one don't think there is a need to run 5000 games or what not on a map to make sure its balanced. Even with that, it doesn't necessary mean that you are able to remove the inbalance without modifying the fundamentals of the map.
As it is, the maps used in the korean leagues aren't totally balanced, there's always talk of this map being terran favored, or protoss favored etc. So there's always going to be implications of playing on a map verses another whither it is korean made or not. With that said, that doesn't mean I don't agree with doing what you can to make the map balanced and using common sense when creating the map, but in a way i believe running a lot of tests on it would REVEAL the flaws of the maps more so than letting the players figure out themselves with limited practice.
On June 18 2008 07:16 WorldCommunist8 wrote: Third, no offense to Chill, Pachi and Plexa (the admins I notice checking this particular thread), but you have to accept that we probably won't rival a Korean map if we do this, and that if put into effect you would need to chose the next best thing, so long as they don't all have blatant issues. My reasoning as to why we won't have a map that rivals that of a Korean is not competency, not because foreignors "don't have a deep enough understanding", because I think foreign mappers have a pretty good grasp on the game and that they are competent otherwise we wouldn't have players ranking high in iCCup and it would be saturated with Koreans. No knock to the foreign mapping community, but it's motivation. The mappers for OGN and MBC are being paid to create these maps. We are not. However, if there was such motivation that a mapper could dedicate, then we might have an amazing map.
>.< im one of the biggest proponents of a foreign map being included ;;
I don't see why this issue should be forced. TSL is about quality - if a foreign map is made that is of top quality then it would be a release candidate for TSL. Putting in a foreign map just so that we have one is ludicrous. Imagine someone made monty hall and we included it and then fucked the tournament over because of balance issues.....yes it would be great to have a foreign map included, but under no circumstances would we put one in JUST to have it there.
Despite the teasing nightmarjoo we actually did have a heated discussing about Faoi and ultimately it came down to the feedback from top players and those in "the know". If you can sway that vote, it would be a different story
On June 18 2008 23:14 Kennigit wrote: I don't see why this issue should be forced. TSL is about quality - if a foreign map is made that is of top quality then it would be a release candidate for TSL. Putting in a foreign map just so that we have one is ludicrous. Imagine someone made monty hall and we included it and then fucked the tournament over because of balance issues.....yes it would be great to have a foreign map included, but under no circumstances would we put one in JUST to have it there.
Despite the teasing nightmarjoo we actually did have a heated discussing about Faoi and ultimately it came down to the feedback from top players and those in "the know". If you can sway that vote, it would be a different story
no one is suggesting monty hall. that is as experimental as it gets. As far as crazy maps, the most experimental map you'd would be spinel valley or something along those lines.
On June 18 2008 23:14 Kennigit wrote: Despite the teasing nightmarjoo we actually did have a heated discussing about Faoi and ultimately it came down to the feedback from top players and those in "the know". If you can sway that vote, it would be a different story
I called it. Get the support of the players behind your map. If it's TSL-worthy then it will get there on its own momentum: you won't even need to ask.
Believe me, everyone already thinks it would be cool to see a successful non-korean map -- just not to the point where they'd push one onto players who don't want it.
Well, what kind of map do the players want? So far the ones in this thread have just said "no foreign maps" because they're foreign / not-korean played/made/tested.
God, do something for yourself. You want us to come up with a map concept, that you then make and we just sweep you off your feet, promote it and test it with top foreigners?
Do you really think there's an answer to "What kind of map do the players want?" I'll answer - there isn't.
On June 19 2008 08:59 Chill wrote: Ok I'm done here. We don't owe you anything and have been more than accommodating. Good luck.
lol wtf? Listen dude, if you think I was trying to come at you with that post (or admins in general) your totally wrong. but so be it.
and to clear things up - I have never expected anything from the community as far as maps go and I speak for myself not for other mappers trying to get their maps into the community
On June 19 2008 07:15 Chill wrote: Do you really think there's an answer to "What kind of map do the players want?" I'll answer - there isn't.
But you do can answer "What kind of map is acceptable"... can't you?
Or at least answer this. Suppose we do get to do all the work of getting a team together, developing balance theories, drawing maps, testing them and assuring a level of quality that we find acceptable for TSL. Would those maps have a chance of ever being considered to be put in the TSL. Or shouldn't we even bother with it all because regardless of good our maps are they're gonna be shot down because they're foreigner?
Thing is, they can't really answer that =/ If they say no, then people who even don't care about mapping or the foreign mapping scene at all get mad because then it's clear TSL is just a foreign gimick to get TL more active. If they say yes, the many players who wouldn't want it, and the spectators who could be disapointed would be upset, and they'd have to say no to any map anyway to keep them happy. If they say yes, and put a map in, then possibly players would boycott it, or the games on the map could end up all cheese/rush games, which would make the spectators unhappy, and reduce TL/TSL credibility and hurt the site. They don't really lose anything by not letting a foreign map in, but they do stand to be hurt by one, but at the same time can't show how little people care about the foreign mapping scene.
However, we're still going to try and make some maps, because TL can't say say yes or no until we actually get a fucking good map made.
My advice for getting your map into the TSL, is aim to have something ready to show after WCG. If there is a TSL before that then there is no way a foreign map will be included, purely because of the number of maps currently in circulation and the proximity of WCG. However, a TSL after WCG does have the possibility of having a foreign map used. TSL will never rule out the possibility of a foreign map and im sure every season it will come up for discussion. Just remember, that if a map did make it - it would be the flagship for the entire foreign scene. If it were a disaster then the chances of another foreign map are severely diminished. People would constantly bring that map up as an example of why foreigners can't make maps. However, should it be a success and there is an increase chance of successive use.
On June 20 2008 12:55 Plexa wrote: My advice for getting your map into the TSL, is aim to have something ready to show after WCG. If there is a TSL before that then there is no way a foreign map will be included, purely because of the number of maps currently in circulation and the proximity of WCG. However, a TSL after WCG does have the possibility of having a foreign map used. TSL will never rule out the possibility of a foreign map and im sure every season it will come up for discussion. Just remember, that if a map did make it - it would be the flagship for the entire foreign scene. If it were a disaster then the chances of another foreign map are severely diminished. People would constantly bring that map up as an example of why foreigners can't make maps. However, should it be a success and there is an increase chance of successive use.
This post definitely has a foreshadowing tone to it, but I don't know why.
why dont you map makers make/gather a few sexy maps and put them forward for consideration? if there is a great map, yay! if the admins smite your maps, try again next season
I fully concur with anotak, the TSL is the most exciting and indeed professional non-Korean event that the foreign community has, and so "we" (not that I personally have an active role, but never the less) should put it upon ourselves to walk that extra mile and not just replicate the "real" proscene. This should very much include creating own material, such as maps, according to the mentioned rituals of testing and balancing. It what the next edition of TSL needs, and it is achievable.
Question about concidering Faio. Did you get top players to play extra games on it before you made your decision or was the evidence clear already by how many games top players had played already, or what?
And I didn't misinturpert that you got top player imput on Faio before making the final decision? (And forgive me for the stupid question either way)
I don't know about their end of the ordeal, but me and Plexa sat down and looked at the map's old version hard for a little while, considered the general complaints of the map and how we could fix them. Then I had to remake the map from scratch because I had lost an unprotected copy, and if you unprotect a map the isometric brush (normal one) doesn't work right anymore. It was easy to fix the problems though by remaking the map altogether, even if it was tedious. We looked at the map until we fixed as many of the positional or racial "imbalances" we could think of until we came up with the final version. After that, there wasn't anything I could do because they didn't involve me in any testing or discussion, so I just kinda had to pray or so
I was miffed at the time, but I really think not including Faoi was the best decision, and especially didn't mind when they threw Troy out. I was kind of put off though when they threw Othello and Wuthering Heights in though, up until putting those two in everything was being done to ensure if not a balanced mappool, a safe one. I kind of feel that at the time there couldn't outside of theory been any proof one way or another that either of those two maps would come out better than Faoi, or perhaps atleast not as bad as Faoi. In hindsite though the two maps played pretty nicely all things considered, but who knows if Faoi would have, just hard to tell really.
As far as I know though, the decision on Faoi was just made through administrative discussion: presumably they'd have given me some kind of feedback or replays otherwise.
Essentially the Faoi debate ran until we got the new promaps and we unanimously agreed upon using the "fresh" maps from korea rather than the fresh map from outside
There was actually a couple pages of discussion on Faoi IIRC; it wasn't summarily dismissed.
There was even further discussion of which new maps to include - I distinctly recall an interesting debate between sirs Plexa and Daigomi about the respective merits of Othello and Wuthering - and in the end we decided to toss Troy and include both.
That map thread was quite lengthy; we did consider a lot of things before finally choosing the map pool that we went with.
Basically, if a map shows merit, we will consider it. A map being from the foreign scene won't get any sort of 'affirmative action' bonus, nor will it receive a 'oh it's foreign, lets throw it out' penalty. Just make good maps, see if players like them, and we'll see if we can use them.
On June 24 2008 17:54 Last Romantic wrote: There was actually a couple pages of discussion on Faoi IIRC; it wasn't summarily dismissed.
There was even further discussion of which new maps to include - I distinctly recall an interesting debate between sirs Daigomi and Plexa(fixed) about the respective merits of Othello and Wuthering - and in the end we decided to toss Troy and include both.
Not quite true LR; based off a number of balance concerns and a number of high level players voicing the said concerns we axed Troy, replacing it with the highly played longinus (which was always going to be cut). Faoi was considered up until we got a hold of the new maps (which would allow the map pool to remain fresh without resorting to using a completely untested map). And yes, the discussion around the map brought out essentially the same views in this thread (which just goes to show that the staff are somewhat of a microcosm of the greater tl)
I have some of the reppacks of the TSL ladder stage. It includes two Faoi replays. One is leg looking at the map with black sheep wall. And one is an actual game.
If TSL includes a foreign map it has to be popular among the mainstream. It should be a map we see in nationwars or clanwars and that is actually popular on iccup. And then probably both WCG and TSL should include that single map.
There is not much hope as long as Korean leagues don't use it. You can't compete with their maps. Just as TSL can't compete with OSL/MSL. Koreans aren't going to watch TSL. Koreans aren't going to play non Korean league maps.
Also, I don't see the problem. New Korean maps are being made often enough. And they aren't bad. Some are imba and interesting, some are, or rather become, boring and balanced.
On June 25 2008 22:57 BlackStar wrote: I have some of the reppacks of the TSL ladder stage. It includes two Faoi replays. One is leg looking at the map with black sheep wall. And one is an actual game.
If TSL includes a foreign map it has to be popular among the mainstream. It should be a map we see in nationwars or clanwars and that is actually popular on iccup. And then probably both WCG and TSL should include that single map.
that makes no sense. are the korean progaming maps popular before they're put into use? NO. they pull new ones out of their asses every few months and those are used in the leagues after the players practice on them for a bit. if they completely suck, they're pulled out. do you really want to see more games on Lost Temple???? half the fun of a new league or a new season is new maps.
There is not much hope as long as Korean leagues don't use it. You can't compete with their maps. Just as TSL can't compete with OSL/MSL. Koreans aren't going to watch TSL. Koreans aren't going to play non Korean league maps.
not much hope for what? we just want good games. are we trying to turn the TSL into a progamer factory or something? and if you've ever seen broodwarmaps.net, you know that there is a large number of very good maps made by non-Koreans. plus, who cares if Koreans don't play our maps? we don't have to be a parasite on the Korean scene. their leagues are by Koreans and for Koreans, so why can't we at least partially do the equivalent?
Also, I don't see the problem. New Korean maps are being made often enough. And they aren't bad. Some are imba and interesting, some are, or rather become, boring and balanced.
ok, there really isn't a problem with the frequency of their updating (although I'd say their last batch of new maps took a little long). but is that a reason for us not to throw in one or two of our own maps? it's our freakin' league, after all.
What does it matter if a map is foreign made or Korean made?
Why split up the Korean and foreign community even more? They should play the same maps. And for a foreign map to be in the TSL it should be in the current map repertoire
Don't force people to play a map they would never play otherwise. Almost no one played Faoi in the ladder phase. Why force them to play that map later on?
the new map that was just posted... the spinel valley, took a look at it, actually played one game on it. boy does that map love terran and hates the other races... its fucking impossible to snag the third gas -.- and siege tanks really fuck me up on it. but that isnt the biggest problem, it is those goddamn tiny ramps that you must get through for every single goddamn part of the map. and you expect this map to be in tsl? lol
On June 26 2008 17:15 kyjori wrote: the new map that was just posted... the spinel valley, took a look at it, actually played one game on it. boy does that map love terran and hates the other races... its fucking impossible to snag the third gas -.- and siege tanks really fuck me up on it. but that isnt the biggest problem, it is those goddamn tiny ramps that you must get through for every single goddamn part of the map. and you expect this map to be in tsl? lol
hey let's take 1 map by 1 mapmaker, that's only been out for barely 19 days, is still being tested... and let's judge the entire foreigner mapmaking community based on that one map.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=74122 This is what Nasty's talking about. There's two lists of maps with their pictures, just a small random assortment of bwmn maps. Some are just plain excellent, others are decent, and some are either just interesting or just really basic but still solid. We're not necessarily pushing any of these maps for TSL2, just showcasing some of our gems along with some other recent maps.
i think you guys should get those testing tourneys out there before pushing your maps. also, some of the shitty maps like rise of teotahikgafdgkadlfkladflkadsflklsflks should be cut and not even shown to us, makes other maps look bad
On June 28 2008 16:38 anotak wrote: i think you guys should get those testing tourneys out there before pushing your maps. also, some of the shitty maps like rise of teotahikgafdgkadlfkladflkadsflklsflks should be cut and not even shown to us, makes other maps look bad
Well the weekly tournament idea I made in the broodwar forum is still go, but we're still editing and testing a couple of the maps, so the whole thing is on pause for that.
Plexa those two maps are some of my favourite maps! I just really liked Mercury when I played on it like forever ago (when I was so noob racial imbalances wouldn't matter), and DMZ is just amazing conceptually, even if it plays horribly
On June 28 2008 16:38 anotak wrote: i think you guys should get those testing tourneys out there before pushing your maps. also, some of the shitty maps like rise of teotahikgafdgkadlfkladflkadsflklsflks should be cut and not even shown to us, makes other maps look bad
I think rise of teosomething is worse than geometry tbh but otherwise yeah, just i think that they should be showcasing their GOOD maps not the bad ones.
On June 28 2008 16:38 anotak wrote: i think you guys should get those testing tourneys out there before pushing your maps. also, some of the shitty maps like rise of teotahikgafdgkadlfkladflkadsflklsflks should be cut and not even shown to us, makes other maps look bad
Mercury looks amazing, tyvm and I played an FFA on DMZ, it was AMAZING getting SCV rushed in 30 seconds. lol. Alchemist looks like a crack trip. Geometry looks like my kind of map with those TvZ numbers, and Peaks, well no comment. It doesn't favor T enough lol.
I highly doubt any map that is accepted from the foreign community is going to be a weird ass experimental map that is hard to learn. It will probably be fairly simple and give the possibility for interesting play.
On June 28 2008 16:38 anotak wrote: i think you guys should get those testing tourneys out there before pushing your maps. also, some of the shitty maps like rise of teotahikgafdgkadlfkladflkadsflklsflks should be cut and not even shown to us, makes other maps look bad
Mercury looks amazing, tyvm and I played an FFA on DMZ, it was AMAZING getting SCV rushed in 30 seconds. lol. Alchemist looks like a crack trip. Geometry looks like my kind of map with those TvZ numbers, and Peaks, well no comment. It doesn't favor T enough lol.
On June 26 2008 17:15 kyjori wrote: the new map that was just posted... the spinel valley, took a look at it, actually played one game on it. boy does that map love terran and hates the other races... its fucking impossible to snag the third gas -.- and siege tanks really fuck me up on it. but that isnt the biggest problem, it is those goddamn tiny ramps that you must get through for every single goddamn part of the map. and you expect this map to be in tsl? lol
hey let's take 1 map by 1 mapmaker, that's only been out for barely 19 days, is still being tested... and let's judge the entire foreigner mapmaking community based on that one map.
when did i judge all mapmakers out there? i judged this map alone; learn to fucking read so you can understand what "you expect this map to be in tsl? lol" does not mean "no foreign maps should be in tsl" fucking dumbass
On June 26 2008 17:15 kyjori wrote: the new map that was just posted... the spinel valley, took a look at it, actually played one game on it. boy does that map love terran and hates the other races... its fucking impossible to snag the third gas -.- and siege tanks really fuck me up on it. but that isnt the biggest problem, it is those goddamn tiny ramps that you must get through for every single goddamn part of the map. and you expect this map to be in tsl? lol
hey let's take 1 map by 1 mapmaker, that's only been out for barely 19 days, is still being tested... and let's judge the entire foreigner mapmaking community based on that one map.
when did i judge all mapmakers out there? i judged this map alone; learn to fucking read so you can understand what "you expect this map to be in tsl? lol" does not mean "no foreign maps should be in tsl" fucking dumbass
On July 01 2008 07:50 kyjori wrote: when did i judge all mapmakers out there? i judged this map alone; learn to fucking read so you can understand what "you expect this map to be in tsl? lol" does not mean "no foreign maps should be in tsl" fucking dumbass
Better than OSL/MSL??? lets not suck each other's dicks, TSL was good, but not THAT good. However, the idea of foreign map is very good, gives more validity to the TSL. but.. how many ppl have experience making maps, and how are you gonna know if its balanced? A symmetrical map does not mean a balanced map. Rmber, maps are what moves starcraft towards different builds and different directions. So i guess the question is, should the foreigns follow and try to catch up to the koreans, or do u want branch off on your own with new maps??
On June 26 2008 17:15 kyjori wrote: the new map that was just posted... the spinel valley, took a look at it, actually played one game on it. boy does that map love terran and hates the other races... its fucking impossible to snag the third gas -.- and siege tanks really fuck me up on it. but that isnt the biggest problem, it is those goddamn tiny ramps that you must get through for every single goddamn part of the map. and you expect this map to be in tsl? lol
there have been edits to spinel valley. check it out
I think it would be fun if the TSL used a mixture of maps for more variation in the games but obviously only the best maps should be used. If the best maps are korean then they should be used, if a foreign map is good enough it should be used. The only thing I don't want is for TSL to be a testing place for new maps, it's up to the mappers if they want their maps included in the TSL to convince good players to test it for balance. If you have a good map and have support from good players that it's balanced and you present it to the TSL staff I'm sure they would look it over and consider it as they would any korean map.
TSL is a competition and not a testing place for new maps
jeez i feel like this thread needs to be over, like the last however many posts have all been people who didn't seem to read the thread... ugh. don't want my thread to devolve into this.
Well, I've mobilized some map making specifically with tsl2 in mind. And, as soon as we get those four maps in the thread on bwm ready I'll announce the weekly mapping tournaments. So we're in a passive mode: everything needed be said has been said, up to the mappers now to make stuff and get them tested.
I think the example of Faoi showed that it's possible to be completely gimmickless without making a unoriginal map. The central high ground dominating the map, too big to prevent mobility around the edges and flanking, but absolutely central to map control makes games on it interesting. Likewise the comparitive weakness of the 3rd to being cliffed forces players to take a gamble. By taking it they improve their position but should they ever lose control of the game they're fucked. I like that kind of thing. It forces players to make long term strategic decisions. And yet the map is pretty standard. All the bases are the same, there are no spells or neutral buildings or blocks anywhere. The average player can adapt to play on Faoi instantly and while he may not immediately grasp the subtlety that better players will start to use he will be relatively comfortable on it.
Luna-esque, basic and yet somehow different. It's a tough order but it'd be awesome if we made the next python.
It's hard to tell from just a few games, but I think it's possible that the middle in Faoi provides too much positive feedback. The guy who's ahead controls the middle, and whoever controls the middle is ahead. Basically, if you control the middle you win. The islands are supposed to help balance this, but I dunno if they do a good enough job or not. The map mostly is structured so that the average player can adapt, but the average player usually isn't very responsive to island play, and that's a big part of Faoi I think. The expo layout was intended to be python-esque in that players would have to choose very carefully where they expo'd, they wouldn't be given a set expo order, but I haven't noticed that players caught much onto that. Again, the lack of adequete testing makes actual conclusions impossible though, and for something like TSL it's better to be safe than sorry.
One thing I thought about doing was inverting the map, making the mains low, the nats and min onlys high, and the middle low, almost katrina-esque. Overall the map would play the same, except that the middle wouldn't be as powerful a feature since they not only would not have the highground advantage, they would have a lowground disadvantage. I never got enough motivation to finish the map though, I figured everyone would auto-hate it anyway since it was still Faoi lol.
Kind of. Low min only area with highground middle with two ramps leading from the min only areas to the middle. Except the middle is bigger and less awkwardly shaped here than Longinus, the min only areas are much smaller, your min only is cliffable from the middle, and there are two islands instead of a double gas expo per player.
All in all I don't think it's a good idea to not go with the flow (which is using only korean maps) because it would split the international competitive scene even more. There are many people who might lose interest in leagues if they don't have the feeling they can learn from progamers. Progamers practice on certain maps and this is reason enough for us to play on them, too. This is one reason why I never played Faoi, the other one being that - even though it might sound like I'm just biased - I think the map is too easy to learn and also uninteresting as a whole. I have the feeling that Faoi is the compressed version of Namja Iyagi or w/e it was called.
When it comes to balancing issues I would never say that Korean maps are better than foreign maps though. We've seen horribly imbalanced maps in the past korean leagues - some being removed almost instantly after being released and played in important matches, quite a shame for the progaming scene, seriously - and I'm very surprised about that, after all they've got teams to test the maps beforehand which us foreigners haven't.
I share the opinion that foreign maps should not be played in important leagues like the TSL because most of us play in their free time which usually isn't much. We should not be forced to split our attention more than neccessary and we shouldn't have to pay extra time to learn new maps. I'm not speaking for myself now, if I don't have enough free time I steal it because I love SC and the competition. I have enough time to practice so many maps which means that I'd have a clear advantage over those who don't yet I don't want that to happen.
On July 13 2008 15:28 ForAdun wrote: All in all I don't think it's a good idea to not go with the flow (which is using only korean maps) because it would split the international competitive scene even more. There are many people who might lose interest in leagues if they don't have the feeling they can learn from progamers. Progamers practice on certain maps and this is reason enough for us to play on them, too. This is one reason why I never played Faoi, the other one being that - even though it might sound like I'm just biased - I think the map is too easy to learn and also uninteresting as a whole. I have the feeling that Faoi is the compressed version of Namja Iyagi or w/e it was called.
When it comes to balancing issues I would never say that Korean maps are better than foreign maps though. We've seen horribly imbalanced maps in the past korean leagues - some being removed almost instantly after being released and played in important matches, quite a shame for the progaming scene, seriously - and I'm very surprised about that, after all they've got teams to test the maps beforehand which us foreigners haven't.
I share the opinion that foreign maps should not be played in important leagues like the TSL because most of us play in their free time which usually isn't much. We should not be forced to split our attention more than neccessary and we shouldn't have to pay extra time to learn new maps. I'm not speaking for myself now, if I don't have enough free time I steal it because I love SC and the competition. I have enough time to practice so many maps which means that I'd have a clear advantage over those who don't yet I don't want that to happen.
Faoi is nothing like Namja Iyagi lol.
Why bother even playing maps other than lt then? I mean come on, why bother splitting your attention and paying extra time to learn new maps, omg! What's with all these crazy koreans, making us learn funny maps like Katrina, Colosseum, Bluestorm, let's just play Lost Temple!
I made this point earlier, but the TSL players still had to learn Othello and Wuthering Heights. These two maps are still not very popular, so they'd have had to go out of their way and make time to learn the new maps. Two whole maps! If balance and testing is put aside, and that just leaves whether or not the players can handle learning presumably a single map, we already put them up to the challenge of learning maps koreans play on. It's a different challenge of course to make them learn a map they can't play vs koreans on, ie on maps where they'd have to figure out on their own the best openings for the map and whatnot. Are our gamers so incompetent that they are unable to theorycraft and test their theories to figure out how to play the maps? Draco literally said he learned the maps by opening them up in the map editor and just looking at them, and thinking. Draco is very skilled at starcraft, but surely any gamer can do the same? Also, if the map in question is announced before/during the ladder stage, they'll have every other TSL hopeful to practice with on the map. It wouldn't be too big a deal to throw that map into the iccup pack and make it motw for the 3 weeks the ladder was open for, further encouraging the TSL hopefuls to play on it.
You're such a martyr, keeping others from having to learn new maps because you'd get an unfair advantage. I'm being rude, but come on lol. Legionnaire, Nazgul, Eriador, and other old-school gamers who gave a shot at TSL, had to learn all of the maps involved or so, right? They're inactive, no? And they all did pretty fucking well all things considered, Legionnaire even got into the top 48 on a bunch of maps he didn't know, while not having played the game in who knows how long. For 5k, it seemed like every player involved was pretty dedicated to the event, as you said, if they didn't have time for SC, they stole it and made sure they had time. If they aren't incompetent, and are dedicated, and the map is already tested and TL-approved, thrown into iccup as motw, I don't see what would stop the gamers from learning a single map. Three weeks is a lot of time, not to mention they'd know ahead of time what maps their matches were on, right? And if someone seriously can't dedicate enough time to the game to learn a single map in 3+ weeks, then why let them in? They might as well all be Testies then.
You're right with most of that, the thing is that neither of us can speak for everyone. I'm saying a great amount of gamers would side with me while many more would side with you and all the rest has a different opinion. So I'm saying there's no ultimate solution, there will always be unhappy people. What I'm saying is that the first TSL was pretty good, people got interested in the maps, they started practicing them (they even played Troy a little bit as long as it was in the map pool). It would work exactly the same way with foreign maps, but you will annoy many gamers that way. It's inevitable either way so I'm saying keep it as it is instead of changing it because it worked well last time, stick to progamer maps.
btw if you only want 1 foreign map to be introduced to the next TSL then I might fully agree to you. I'm still unsure if I'd be very happy with that but at least I'd not say "no" to TSL because of that. So this sounds like a possible solution, the question is just what map should be used and all that.
Yeah. Unfortunately I think far more people would be made unhappy than would be made happy by adding a map. I think the majority of people are indifferent, but that the gamers probably mostly would rather play on korean maps.
I wouldn't push to have more than one foreign map for sure. It'd be awesome enough just to have one foreign map be in such a prestegious tournament.
Hard to say whether that map is balanced or not because I personally don't like the idea of having two outside entries to the natural but it sure looks like an interesting map.
I agree to the OP, i think TSL could mix up korean maps and one map from the community.. I think that would strengthen the position of the non korean mapmaking community and definately increase competition to make the most balanced and entertaining map to watch. I general though, i think just the thing of having "new" maps (even if they are korean but not the usual ones) adds to the entertainmentvalue of watching the event.. The commentators can speak a bit about the map and the interesting aspects of it and players watching can theorycraft together with commentators on how players will utilize this new map... Thats kinda the interesting part about Starcraft, how can players adapt and take advantage of new situations..
I wouldn't knock off Plasma just yet anotak, but I agree that the foreign community would never suggest something as radically different as that, but perhaps that lack of boldness is part of our problem.
Artosis raises two strong points: (1) You can't practice on them because pro koreans won't play you on them, only other TSL players. Therefore, if we are to include foreign maps we need to find an acceptable solution to this problem, providing non-TSL players of enough skill and confidence to provide confidential practice partners. It's hard to find koreans who care? Well then, throw some money at this problem. There are plenty of sub-pro koreans who we could attract in some kind of activity to remedy this issue. Have some kind of anonymous practice ladder with the foreign maps, and offer some moderate prize money that would attract a fuckton of koreans. Make sure to have korean translations of everything and hype on all their sites. Maybe call it TSL Challrenge Leagueu. (2) Only good players can point out all the imbalances with a map, not map makers. Therefore we need an extensive review and revision process, we cannot simply choose existing foreigner maps. But I would say likewise, we should not ignorantly choose pro maps either. We should review every map we use, equally. It's not like pro leagues never use bad maps.
Superiorwolf is right when he says that korean pro maps aren't necessarily balanced and catered to the foreign scene. There could be maps that are good for a pro league but that our zergs simply can't compete on, for instance. We shouldn't use maps that are imbalanced for all the players involved, simply because they are balanced for top koreans. Think of this: if the 1000 best korean zerg players all died tommorow night by some miracle, the ideal map pool would change dramatically. For whatever reason, non-korean skill levels by race does not match up with pro korean skill levels by race. The way they stack up is different, and we should not ignore this. Basically even if pro koreans proved their maps were balanced, they might not be balanced for our league anyways. So we need to have independent balance review of all maps.
Mortality is right in also pointing out Artosis's point: If you're going to include a foreign map you have to make sure everyone is able to practice it meaningfully. This has to be in a ladder or a series of tournaments, for a long enough time for people to play quality games on the map. Using an existing pro map that fills the need described here has an added advantage, so using a truly foreign map must be truly unique--something that no existing pro map does. Otherwise why bother?
Second, Mortality reminds us of the core role of Courage. Courage maps have to be present and unchanged for this reason. However, in response we might point out that the $5000 prize may very well motivate people to play in a world seperate from the chance to play Rekrul. If one of the courage maps is blatantly imbalanced for the TSL player pool, if it leads to shitty games, should we still include it? Or are we free to make the TSL as good as possible?
The money involved should provide all the incentive necessary for people to take your maps seriously. So if they are good, people will find out, and it will be cool.
Why foreign maps?
There are pro maps we are tired of watching games on and tired of playing games on. Let's admit this and take those out as much as we can while keeping the tournament reputable and serious. We should operate under the philosophy that having the best possible games should generate the best possible outcome. There are a number of reasons why having an original map pool may be necessary to do that.
Having different maps than other leagues has a number of benefits. First, we get the possibility of new things to happen, which means more excitement for spectators and players. Conversely, less chance of stale re-plays of games we already watch all the time with just "worse mechanics." Every starleague has made a name for themself and their own character by their way of choosing maps--they keep the best, but they try to mix it up to keep the league fresh. TSL should follow this example ultimately.
The main reason, though, why we need different maps is that the player pool is different. Maps that play well and are balanced for top korean pros might be boring or too difficult for some matchups for our player pool. This isn't a down side, but an opportunity. We can play maps that they can't. A map that is bad for them might be good for us. We can even have attractive, fresh, new games and types of maps that are unthinkable for them.
So all we need to do is figure this out. I suggest we take what appear to be the best maps but then have them edited to meet the demands of an entire panel of good players and other official critics. Don't just wait for the foreign map community to make something good. Pick something yourselves, and demand that they do what is necessary for it. This is the most direct way to meet the needs described above; TSL will be better for it. And of course we will find that many of the top korean maps have a place in the league. And of course maybe the "new maps" we want to use might also be from korea but not currently in use or not ever in use. We could even demand that our own editors edit an existing map specifically for the league. The way we used Wuthering Heights and Othello is an excellent sample of this line of thought--we can be unique simply by how we choose to use existing maps--we can also fix problems that we find with them, regardless of whether pro leagues have the same problem or interest in such maps. We don't need whole new maps, we could make a TSL version of any map with small twists or improvements. Or use former pro maps that have been revised as needed. TSL is in position to legitimize versions of maps. By TSL using a new edit of (whatever--Lost Temple for instance), it will become the de facto standard.
We don't need to include even every good pro map in TSL. You are your own league now, you can do what you want. Listen to what is legitimate for the top players, and if they agree, you can't go wrong. If they want to play on TSL Plains To Hill 2008, then what do you have to lose?
Why not commit to a process like this of putting together a foreign map pool, holding test tournaments on these maps yourselves, and then, if any work out, work them into TSL? If you want to make the best possible TSL these steps should be ones you jump on, not wait for others to make. Obviously existing maps are going to have too many problems when you show them to top players--you need to pick maps that have potential, subject them to intense scrutiny and make the necessary changes. Give several map makers the chance to meet your demands--you have to make your demands first. Tell them what needs to be done to their map, and if any of them have something good in time, then you can use it. So when a map doesn't make the cut, don't stop there--tell them why it doesn't make the cut, give them a chance to improve. Ask yourself if it's a map worth improving--if you wish it would make the cut, or if you don't care. There should be foriegn maps out there that we are wishing for. Get out there and demand that they be improved. This "it's not our job to test your map" misses the point. If you agree it would be nice to have a foreign map, you can meet them half way by picking the ones with the most potential and telling the authors (or anyone else) what changes need to be made.
Other leagues have a big hand in their map process. Maps are made for them, and changes are made for them. TSL should do no less. This whole "do something yourself" and "make your own maps" attitude is very disappointing. When a map shows merit it shouldn't be about dismissing it or keeping it, but about opening a dialogue and seeing if they can make the map as good as possible, to improve the map to meet the demands of the most critical eyes of better players. Having an internal debate doesn't do that.
Maps mentioned in this thread:
Spinel Valley Faoi Waiting To Panic Memory Cell The Artist Nazca Nightlight korhal pride Suggest more!
Pro maps people might want excluded (from this thread):
Okay I'm probably going to close this thread because nothing new is being added while in a TSL survey of all players who participated in the Ro48 onwards had this to say about the inclusion of foreign maps; well they gave it a rating out of 5, and the average rating was 1.5
1.5/5 -> thats a very small mark seeing as 1 is the lowest hence there is no support from the competitive community for such a measure
I'm not sure the results of that question are necessarily accurate. Would it be 1.5/5 if it was a foriegn map edited to their standards, or just existing foreign maps, etc.?
They could be saying that they don't like existing foreign maps. That doesn't mean there is no support from them to take a second and criticize / make demands on map canidates selected by TL staff.
This thread is too large and broad though. I support closing it as long as you don't use this as grounds to close similar topics in the future.
Ask them all "would you be willing to review a couple of maps selected by TSL staff and tell us what needs to change with them?" If you get enough "yes" then there is indeed support for this. Another better question would be "would a good, solid, foreign map be an improvement for TSL, if we were to get one made?"
Besides you only need 3-4 people with sufficient interest to participate. You don't need even 10% of the 48 and they don't have to like it per se, just care enough to throw a few minutes at it at the request of their beloved TSL. Far from impossible.
Nothing new is being discussed because we havent heard from the people who matter the most feedback wise. I dont truly believe you gave the players the right impression. 1.5/5 rating for what exactly? A general idea of using foriegn maps? A list of specific maps? Probably not.
Plexa can you wait on closing the thread until more people get to see/respond to LazarusSpeaks' post?
I didn't want to post any kind of list with the assumption that we had more time to work on these maps (all are under construction), but it appears we're up against the wall, so here goes nothing:
Dread Core by MorroW[MB]
Voices IV by Testbug, Concept by Tktkvroom aka Chopper]i[, and older versions of this map by Nb.Crackling
Moon Tear II by Testbug
Sound Barrier 1.2 by Flothefreak, modified by Nightmarjoo, original concept by RaDiX
Korhal Pride 1.2 by NastyMarine
Spinel Valley III by Testbug, concept by Spinesheath, older versions by NastyMarine
And possibly others. Feel free to go to Broodwarmaps.net, find a map you think is worth working on, and we'll what we can do.
i dont think khoral pride or spinel valley are balanced enough.
dread core, voices seems fairly enough balanced.
moon tear and sound barrier are very interesting looking but it is very hard to judge its balancing. from the looks of moon tear i think it would favour terran.
Nightmarjoo i have to say im pleasantly surprised and already heard some positive reviews from ppl i trust. Particularly voices seemed to get the most positive feed back. We will try get some input from top foreigners to see their input and see if we can develop this fully.
On August 09 2008 11:10 MorroW[MB] wrote: i dont think khoral pride or spinel valley are balanced enough.
dread core, voices seems fairly enough balanced.
moon tear and sound barrier are very interesting looking but it is very hard to judge its balancing. from the looks of moon tear i think it would favour terran.
Yeah basically. I personally think Sound Barrier will turn out alright in the end. Moon Tear is just... too hard to say. I like Spinel Valley 3.0, but tvp dangerously needs competent testing. Mine and Crackling's tvp/pvt is not quite good enough to say anything reasonable about the map
I like Dread Core, but I wish you'd spice it up more
Korhal I like because of the weird main/nat/min-only setup thing, but the 3rd gas might be too close, so there's just too many expos so close, with a wasteland of a middle.
On August 09 2008 13:24 Kennigit wrote: Nightmarjoo i have to say im pleasantly surprised and already heard some positive reviews from ppl i trust. Particularly voices seemed to get the most positive feed back. We will try get some input from top foreigners to see their input and see if we can develop this fully.
Thank you, really.
Voices and Dread Core are probably the most stable maps, but also the least interesting. Atleast, I think they need the least amount of testing. Spinel3 needs tvp testing badly. Broodwarmaps.net has no decent protosses. Sound Barrier is very interesting, there's so much there strategically that I don't even know what lots of testing can show. Korhal lacks a lot of testing overall, but at the worst should play "ok" I'd think. MoonTear2 I think is unfinishable, as Testbug is leaving for 6 months on the 11th, and I don't think I can work on the map, I don't have the patience the map needs, the tile editing alone is just ridiculous.
For testing, I don't have a lot of connections but I can try to pull as many strings as possible and mobilize as many players as possible.
On August 09 2008 13:59 Nightmarjoo wrote: For testing, I don't have a lot of connections but I can try to pull as many strings as possible and mobilize as many players as possible.
On August 09 2008 13:59 Nightmarjoo wrote: For testing, I don't have a lot of connections but I can try to pull as many strings as possible and mobilize as many players as possible.
Yeah don't worry about that part :p
Cool
On August 09 2008 23:05 MorroW[MB] wrote: this is another map from me i like + Show Spoiler +
I think the middle is too tight in this one. You could move the mains and nats towards the edge a bit more, move 12/6 towards the edge more, creating a little more room, but even then I think it's just too small. Maybe move 3/9 towards the edges too? =/
On August 09 2008 03:44 NastyMarine wrote: Nothing new is being discussed because we havent heard from the people who matter the most feedback wise. I dont truly believe you gave the players the right impression. 1.5/5 rating for what exactly? A general idea of using foriegn maps? A list of specific maps? Probably not.
The question was posed as "Would you support the inclusion of a foreign map in the TSL?" The majority of reasons cited had nothing to do with balance rather the difficult in practice and the question of "why do i want to practice this map which isn't going to be used elsewhere?" kind of mentality. On the whole selfish reasons for each player, which is understandable. Keep in mind that these players tended to vote against a more WCG oriented map pool as well for other selfish reasons.
Plexa plenty new is being discussed here, particularly your claim that your data is conclusive in this matter.
When you ask people to mark a number from 1 to 5 in response to "Would you support the inclusion of a foreign map in the TSL?" you are gaining ambiguous information from each respondent and then averaging together those ambiguous answers to tell us "the average was 1.5."
Assumption: 48 players responded (if not, our simulations where we assume this yield relevant talking points anyways--also assumed).
The 1.5 average could mean that 24 players marked 2, and 24 marked 1. You are then assuming that when they mark 1, they mean they are absolutely as opposed as possible to there being foreign maps in TSL. They may actually mean this. They could mean any number of things, for instance, that they simply don't care about supporting anything. Or that they don't support any foreign maps that they can imagine, or know about (but maybe they've never seen the best foreign maps or the best possible foreign maps). Maybe they think you mean taking a map because it's foreign, as opposed to excluding one because it's foreign. You are making similar, and even less plausible assumptions about what all those people who marked 2 instead of 1. Surely in this hypothetical at least some of the people who chose to mark 1 higher than the lowest meant something relatively positive by it, and there's 24 of them, so that means some of them might actually be more willing than you are letting on. You can't exactly say there's no support for foreign maps. And in any other case there are (gasp) people who marked 3, 4, or even 5.
I could elaborate for pedagogical effect but I only am concerned with leaving my mark.
Dude trust me....every foreigner i talked to about this (at least 20) said "OMG NO DONT FUCKING DO IT DONT INCLUDE FORIEGN MAPS". The survey's also had comment sections beside the 1-5 rating and i would say that 90% of the feedback oppossed the inclusion. There weren't any 5s.
That being said, we hold the final call and the looks of the maps nightmarefaoijoo posted definitely are alot of points towards to map making community - i would like to see it successful and included.
Like kennigit said, there were only two respondents that indicated that the would support foreign map inclusion (and those respondents aren't surprising at all ) both indicated 4. One of those specified that as long as the maps were balanced that he had no issues. However they were vastly outnumbered by the rest of the respondents.
As the staff know, I'm one of the biggest proponents for the foreign map scene in the TSL but part of creating a successful tournament is create a successful atmosphere which keeps the players happy while maintaining a competitive atmosphere. Including foreign maps is something that the vast majority do not want. There are workarounds to make foreign maps more a part of the community but that requires co-operation across every BW league. Sadly, at this stage we don't have a glory map to propose with nor the contacts yet. The latter we can solve ourselves really easily, the former is something you guys must do.
I don't think you'll have a glory map unless you run a process yourselves like other leagues. They have been making little maps at their little site, like, forever.
On August 13 2008 00:20 LazarusSpeaks wrote: I don't think you'll have a glory map unless you run a process yourselves like other leagues. They have been making little maps at their little site, like, forever.
i mean wcg maps ... there were like what 3 wcg only maps for the last 2-3 years? PA, Gaia, and that shit map that looked like Arcadia II. Players practiced these maps extensively on ladders and they were basically only going to be used for WCG (and if, IFFFF other events chose to use them). So maps that were "one event only", were being practiced on by a slew of players despite the koreans not wanting to play on them (which was alreayd being heard at the time so).
idk when the need arises, all else goes out the window.
On August 13 2008 00:20 LazarusSpeaks wrote: I don't think you'll have a glory map unless you run a process yourselves like other leagues. They have been making little maps at their little site, like, forever.
When we discuss TSL2 at detail we will go to nightmarjoo and say "impress us". We'll get some maps and debate them around, as we did last season, and we will pick the best 4 maps for the league.
On August 13 2008 06:15 thedeadhaji wrote: i mean wcg maps ... there were like what 3 wcg only maps for the last 2-3 years? PA, Gaia, and that shit map that looked like Arcadia II. Players practiced these maps extensively on ladders and they were basically only going to be used for WCG (and if, IFFFF other events chose to use them). So maps that were "one event only", were being practiced on by a slew of players despite the koreans not wanting to play on them (which was alreayd being heard at the time so).
idk when the need arises, all else goes out the window.
That being said, haji, the maps were made by mapdori.com . The only way a map would get played that extensively is if the qualification round was much longer (thinking TSL qualifiers stage not ladder) or if we kept the same map across 3+ seasons
I don't really care which 4 maps you guys use. I just think it will be great for you to continue to make your tournament unique by mixing in maps that are perfect and interesting for the unique player pool, whether they are particular current pro maps, past maps, or new ones by koreans or foreigners.
But I reiterate that you should do more than go to the foreigner leader and say "impress us." You should pick the maps yourselves and say "this map needs X Y Z to even have a shot. Show us you can do that." That would be more like other star leagues IMO. You can demand they improve any map that you are tempted to use but wish it had X Y Z, whether it's of foreign origin or not.
you do realize that OGN go to mapdori (99% sure they still use mapdori) and get them to show them their top 5~ maps and from there they decide on which of those they want to use in their upcoming league right? Likewise, MBC goto intothemap and get maps from them!
uhjoo: Of course ^^ The next questions are related to pro gaming in general. Of all the maps you design, what percent are actually used in the pro leagues?
Rose.of.Dream: About half and half. I don�t make many maps. Before the start of each league, all the related parties have a meeting and in this meeting they select from among the samples I put out in front of them.
uhjoo: Ah, I see.
Rose.of.Dream: But there aren�t that many sample maps to begin with. In the last meeting, 5 maps were considered. Among these, 2 were used, 1 was chosen for team play, and 2 aren�t being used currently.
With that being said the next map pool will contain maps which encourage a diverse set of playstyles while (hopefully) retaining balance and creativity. It's a tall order, but I think there are enough current maps to chose from to get this.
You saying the leagues don't ask them to fix certain problems they see on a map? I think leagues used to do this. Maybe it was better when they did.
At any rate, TSL does not have all of the advantages of an established korean pro league. It may have to go above and beyond the call of duty to get the job done. One nice goal to shoot for, we all agree, is to have its best map be an original one. This would not only ensure fresh and better games for the spectators and players, but provide prestige to the TSL brand and potentially introduce itself as a source of new maps that may go on to be used at a future WCG or korean league. Now, if TSL has to step in to give this a better chance of it happening, why wouldn't they?
We asked Nightmarjoo to change things on Faoi prior to TSLS1 (thats why it went from V1 -> V3) so in fact we've already done your suggestion
And now we're back into a circular argument which has been spewed over the last few pages. There are pros and cons to adding foreign maps - but anything outside using this map as an integral component of every single foreign league isn't going to get it popular. When we start considering maps we'll judge each map on its merits...
The argument is only going in a circle because you're responding to new, unanswered points with the same ones they were made in response to, IMO.
i.e., Do you disagree that the ideal maps for foreigners will be different than the ideal maps for pro koreans? Why or why not?
Do you believe foreign map makers lack the competence to execute any plans requested of them? IMO they could make any map we can possibly describe.
Do you think it's too hard to tell them what kind of map we need to make TSL unique and specially tailored to foreign gamers? IMO the same effort spent selecting maps could be spent giving them more instructions.
It seems to me like they can make just about anything and the only thing they lack is information from advanced gamers or whoever is deciding their maps aren't up to par. You already must have this information in order to reject their maps, so why not share it with them? Is it the time it takes to type it out that is stopping all this?
So I agree this is going in circles; I've said just about all this several times. But I must be missing something because the only response I see does not address these basic points.
I don't think TSL wants all the politics of having us mappers make maps to force certain imbalances/trends etc. That alone makes it hard to accept a foreign map which won't completely follow the trends of the korean mappers, when most of the players already do. We could do it though, imo, if that's what TSL wants.
This just in: Team Liquid forum found responsible for the creation of crop circles with their circular arguments!
Nightmarjoo what is the difference between balancing a map and "force certain imbalances/trends etc."? I feel like when you "balance" a map you are always "force certain imbalances/trends etc." in a way that is tailored to your opinion of the player pool, their abilities with the races at the current time, etc.
If you find out a map is 70%/30% in a matchup you try to adjust this. Obviously player pool is a big effect on whether this happens or not. For instance in a USA only league the balance between Z and other races is going to be different, and if you insist on using maps that pro gamers use, blindly, you will simply have bad games and lack of zerg.
On August 16 2008 00:08 LazarusSpeaks wrote: The argument is only going in a circle because you're responding to new, unanswered points with the same ones they were made in response to, IMO.
okay let's go through each of your points
i.e., Do you disagree that the ideal maps for foreigners will be different than the ideal maps for pro koreans? Why or why not?
Varies. Maps like bluestorm 1.1 in ZvT favor micro intensive 2hatch mutalisks builds - the likes of which is difficult to pull off outside korea. Whereas everyone can pretty much play a standard game on python. The variety obviously comes from the increase possibilities for korean players (due to greater control/macro/management) and the smaller margins of error they are playing in. In the foreign scene there are larger skill discrepancies and a larger array of strategies that are viable. It's completely map dependent.
Do you believe foreign map makers lack the competence to execute any plans requested of them? IMO they could make any map we can possibly describe.
No - foreigners can make maps at least as good as koreans can. When you examine who exactly is making maps in korea there are a exclusive group of around 2/3 mappers designing everything in circulation. The foreign scene is comparable to the korean amateur scene which a lot of the ideas are taken from and adapted by more "skilled" mappers. I believe that the foreign mappers do have the ability to create maps of at least amateur korean standard, if not pro standard.
Do you think it's too hard to tell them what kind of map we need to make TSL unique and specially tailored to foreign gamers? IMO the same effort spent selecting maps could be spent giving them more instructions.
Yes, it is up to the artist to create art for the art lover to enjoy - not for the art lover to direct the artist while he is creating his masterpiece. Obviously deciding the medium for the given art work can be predetermined (sculture/oil painting etc) just as general directions can be given (island, macro etc).
It seems to me like they can make just about anything and the only thing they lack is information from advanced gamers or whoever is deciding their maps aren't up to par. You already must have this information in order to reject their maps, so why not share it with them? Is it the time it takes to type it out that is stopping all this?
I dont quite understand the question. I think you're asking about the fact that the only limitation is that foreign maps dont get testing? We only tested faoi as including any other foreign map would lead to distasted - atleast faoi was in the iccup map map. We didn't decide against Faoi for purely balance reasons, it encompassed a number of factors including the release of new korean maps (thus voiding the 'fresh concept' argument). I am not going to repeat the discussion here as it is not meant for the public.
So I agree this is going in circles; I've said just about all this several times. But I must be missing something because the only response I see does not address these basic points.
Satisfied?
On August 17 2008 00:06 LazarusSpeaks wrote: Nightmarjoo what is the difference between balancing a map and "force certain imbalances/trends etc."? I feel like when you "balance" a map you are always "force certain imbalances/trends etc." in a way that is tailored to your opinion of the player pool, their abilities with the races at the current time, etc.
If you find out a map is 70%/30% in a matchup you try to adjust this. Obviously player pool is a big effect on whether this happens or not. For instance in a USA only league the balance between Z and other races is going to be different, and if you insist on using maps that pro gamers use, blindly, you will simply have bad games and lack of zerg.
Balance changes across a season - a fact you are ignoring. Maps do undergo a number of revisions across time - but they CANNOT change within a league. Once that version is out - that's it. So when the balance reports start turning up negative for one particular matchup there's nothing you can do despite all the balance testing you've done beforehand. Sure you can fix that after the season - thats why we have up to 3 versions for many maps fixing balance issues.
Do you think it's too hard to tell them what kind of map we need to make TSL unique and specially tailored to foreign gamers? IMO the same effort spent selecting maps could be spent giving them more instructions. Yes, it is up to the artist to create art for the art lover to enjoy - not for the art lover to direct the artist while he is creating his masterpiece. Obviously deciding the medium for the given art work can be predetermined (sculture/oil painting etc) just as general directions can be given (island, macro etc).
It seems to me like they can make just about anything and the only thing they lack is information from advanced gamers or whoever is deciding their maps aren't up to par. You already must have this information in order to reject their maps, so why not share it with them? Is it the time it takes to type it out that is stopping all this? I dont quite understand the question. I think you're asking about the fact that the only limitation is that foreign maps dont get testing? We only tested faoi as including any other foreign map would lead to distasted - atleast faoi was in the iccup map map. We didn't decide against Faoi for purely balance reasons, it encompassed a number of factors including the release of new korean maps (thus voiding the 'fresh concept' argument). I am not going to repeat the discussion here as it is not meant for the public.
While the maps are an integral part of the tournament we have lots of other things to organize and you cannot honestly expect us to babysit you through the map making progress. We can critique - as we have - and ask for changes. But we can't make the maps for you, else we would do them ourselves.
If he clarified his second question he would get a better answer, enough said.
I think he's saying that he feels those answers are perhaps not quite the truth but rather just practical answers to avoid saying the potentially incriminating "truth" which might make TL appear "racist" against foreign maps, though I'm not saying that I personally agree with this.
At this point bwm activity appears to be dropping even more, with Testbug at school and away from home, for 6 months, so I think it's unlikely we'll make any other new maps to propose for TSL2 maps, though it's certainly still possible someone might make a jewel, or edit an older map really nicely, and whatnot. So realistically, for the most part I think it's just up to seeing if people enjoy these 6 maps at all, and if they have any future here. Hopefully the bi-weekly daily tournies have good turnouts and we can collect lots of replays, impressions, and general and/or specific comments on the maps, to try and perfect them.
Kennigit had hinted that he was going to get some people with good sc insight to look at the maps and perhaps get some more indepth-looking / testing done on some of the maps, any updates on that would be greatly appreciated. If any silly little things come up during any form of testing, we can jump on them instantly and give you guys better versions of the maps.
After Plexa approached me about potentially using Faoi in TSL1, he and I started looking over the map and people's complaints with the maps. We started addressing things step by step, just overall fixing little things in the map. I then decided I couldn't work with the current version (2 at the time), and had to literally remake the map from scratch, but the end product followed by subsequent and even some very recent updates made the map much better than the originally released version of the map. It may not be the perfect map, but I think for the most part it's as perfect as it can get without major edits, to essentially make it a different map. I think that for something like TSL2 we'd basically also need to perhaps not perfect the maps, but make them as perfect as possible.
Plexa, first of all, thank you 100%. I am very satisfied now that you have answered my points. I recognize that I may have made it too difficult to do, earlier in the thread. That being said, there may be more meat on the bones if anyone is interested in swimming back there. But anyways, I really appreciate you responding to my post, and I hope you enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed seeing it happen.
Because you have done this, I think I can see that you disagree with one of my premises, so now I can clearly see why I conclude one thing and you something else. From what I can tell, we agree on everything except these points:
On August 17 2008 00:06 LazarusSpeaks wrote: Nightmarjoo what is the difference between balancing a map and "force certain imbalances/trends etc."? I feel like when you "balance" a map you are always "force certain imbalances/trends etc." in a way that is tailored to your opinion of the player pool, their abilities with the races at the current time, etc.
If you find out a map is 70%/30% in a matchup you try to adjust this. Obviously player pool is a big effect on whether this happens or not. For instance in a USA only league the balance between Z and other races is going to be different, and if you insist on using maps that pro gamers use, blindly, you will simply have bad games and lack of zerg.
Balance changes across a season - a fact you are ignoring. Maps do undergo a number of revisions across time - but they CANNOT change within a league. Once that version is out - that's it. So when the balance reports start turning up negative for one particular matchup there's nothing you can do despite all the balance testing you've done beforehand. Sure you can fix that after the season - thats why we have up to 3 versions for many maps fixing balance issues.
I concede that balance changes; it can change at any point, because the players will have new strategies and new expectations. However when I refer to 70%/30% I am referring to stats that are gained across enough games to be fairly certain there is something strongly, unacceptably biased going on--not star league stats like 5-3 or 2-1 or even 25-15. The margin of error in such data pools is simply too large.
Obviously an assessment of balance on a map is an estimate. My only point is that when you decide a map is "fair" it is relative to the players involved. You agreed with this--some maps may be good for pro gamers, and not good for foreigners. Therefore, we have an obligation to tailor the map pool to the foreign gamers (as you have been doing). We have an opportunity, therefore, for foreign map makers to make maps that we have not seen for pro gamers--they have more options, in theory, because they can ignore certain things that would only matter for pro koreans. They do not have to worry about balancing strategies that foreigners can't do. They can tailor the map to make a maximally interesting map for foreigners, because different things are excluded for them, than are for pro maps. It follows that there must be maps better for foreigners than any that currently exist in the pro korean pool. If none of the existent foreigner maps are up to par, the missing step is that we aren't telling them what they need to fix.
Do you think it's too hard to tell them what kind of map we need to make TSL unique and specially tailored to foreign gamers? IMO the same effort spent selecting maps could be spent giving them more instructions.
Yes, it is up to the artist to create art for the art lover to enjoy - not for the art lover to direct the artist while he is creating his masterpiece. Obviously deciding the medium for the given art work can be predetermined (sculture/oil painting etc) just as general directions can be given (island, macro etc).
This is false. A map is not a painting. It's a place where games are played. If there are flaws in it that make it unsuitable, they need to be fixed. This is not merely one way to look at it. It's how the map makers themselves look at it, as you can see on their site. They are pointed out weaknesses in terms of balance, in terms of specific places that are flawed, specific problems matchups may have. You do this yourself when you describe why one map is fine for pro koreans but imba for foreigners. You say yourself that foreign gamers find foreign maps unacceptable--the balance isn't advanced enough. Well then, if we tell them what they need to work on, they will do it. You can't say we shouldn't, because "they are artists" or whatever. That is bogus. They work in teams. They remake eachothers maps, and other peoples. They take instruction from anyone who gives it. That is their art. Not solo blindfolded map making and hoping it emerges from the womb fluent in nine languages. Just no. This is where we aren't agreeing.
It seems to me like they can make just about anything and the only thing they lack is information from advanced gamers or whoever is deciding their maps aren't up to par. You already must have this information in order to reject their maps, so why not share it with them? Is it the time it takes to type it out that is stopping all this?
I dont quite understand the question. I think you're asking about the fact that the only limitation is that foreign maps dont get testing? We only tested faoi as including any other foreign map would lead to distasted - atleast faoi was in the iccup map map. We didn't decide against Faoi for purely balance reasons, it encompassed a number of factors including the release of new korean maps (thus voiding the 'fresh concept' argument). I am not going to repeat the discussion here as it is not meant for the public.
Not testing. Detailed feedback. People look at maps and say "that map's not ready. we won't play that map." In the heads of those people are reasons why, unless they are simply making uninformed judgments in which case their opinion means nothing. All I'm saying is, if those reasons are shared--if some of those people who are rejecting the maps will speak up a little more clearly (and I beg that anyone who can increase the chance of this happenning do their best, up to and including Plexa himself), I am confident (and you are too, according to your post) that the foreign map makers will, as much as possible, meet all demands. The result will be better maps than we have ever seen. So my question is, why isn't this happening? The maps are being rejected and the map makers don't really know what they need to change. They have to aggressively hunt and stalk people to find out what they need to fix, and then the map is still rejected. This has to change if you want TSL to be as good as possible. TSL can get to the point where koreans watch it to find out which maps will be stolen from it for their leagues. If only you want it to.
On August 17 2008 00:06 LazarusSpeaks wrote: Nightmarjoo what is the difference between balancing a map and "force certain imbalances/trends etc."? I feel like when you "balance" a map you are always "force certain imbalances/trends etc." in a way that is tailored to your opinion of the player pool, their abilities with the races at the current time, etc.
If you find out a map is 70%/30% in a matchup you try to adjust this. Obviously player pool is a big effect on whether this happens or not. For instance in a USA only league the balance between Z and other races is going to be different, and if you insist on using maps that pro gamers use, blindly, you will simply have bad games and lack of zerg.
Balance changes across a season - a fact you are ignoring. Maps do undergo a number of revisions across time - but they CANNOT change within a league. Once that version is out - that's it. So when the balance reports start turning up negative for one particular matchup there's nothing you can do despite all the balance testing you've done beforehand. Sure you can fix that after the season - thats why we have up to 3 versions for many maps fixing balance issues.
I concede that balance changes; it can change at any point, because the players will have new strategies and new expectations. However when I refer to 70%/30% I am referring to stats that are gained across enough games to be fairly certain there is something strongly, unacceptably biased going on--not star league stats like 5-3 or 2-1 or even 25-15. The margin of error in such data pools is simply too large.
Obviously an assessment of balance on a map is an estimate. My only point is that when you decide a map is "fair" it is relative to the players involved. You agreed with this--some maps may be good for pro gamers, and not good for foreigners. Therefore, we have an obligation to tailor the map pool to the foreign gamers (as you have been doing). We have an opportunity, therefore, for foreign map makers to make maps that we have not seen for pro gamers--they have more options, in theory, because they can ignore certain things that would only matter for pro koreans. They do not have to worry about balancing strategies that foreigners can't do. They can tailor the map to make a maximally interesting map for foreigners, because different things are excluded for them, than are for pro maps. It follows that there must be maps better for foreigners than any that currently exist in the pro korean pool. If none of the existent foreigner maps are up to par, the missing step is that we aren't telling them what they need to fix.
While this may seem like a short answer, why do you think we removed troy from the map pool? The map fares decently at pro level but is a complete protoss map outside of korea - hence we axed it. We are aware of the differences but with that being said the extreme balances changes between pro and foreign level only happen on a select few maps whereas the majority (read; python clones) play very similarly. Thus the map pool does end up balancing the foreign level aptly. That being said, i can't see how the foreign map making community will do anything exceptional when it comes to balancing it purely for foreigners - at least in the concept development stage. The discrepancies are not as big as you are trying to make out and hence the maps produced will look very similar to the maps that are balanced for both atm (ie most maps). Obviously, in balance testing maps will be altered dramatically - this happens everywhere i mean, does anyone remember longinus 0.9? + Show Spoiler +
Do you think it's too hard to tell them what kind of map we need to make TSL unique and specially tailored to foreign gamers? IMO the same effort spent selecting maps could be spent giving them more instructions.
Yes, it is up to the artist to create art for the art lover to enjoy - not for the art lover to direct the artist while he is creating his masterpiece. Obviously deciding the medium for the given art work can be predetermined (sculture/oil painting etc) just as general directions can be given (island, macro etc).
This is false. A map is not a painting. It's a place where games are played. If there are flaws in it that make it unsuitable, they need to be fixed. This is not merely one way to look at it. It's how the map makers themselves look at it, as you can see on their site. They are pointed out weaknesses in terms of balance, in terms of specific places that are flawed, specific problems matchups may have. You do this yourself when you describe why one map is fine for pro koreans but imba for foreigners. You say yourself that foreign gamers find foreign maps unacceptable--the balance isn't advanced enough. Well then, if we tell them what they need to work on, they will do it. You can't say we shouldn't, because "they are artists" or whatever. That is bogus. They work in teams. They remake eachothers maps, and other peoples. They take instruction from anyone who gives it. That is their art. Not solo blindfolded map making and hoping it emerges from the womb fluent in nine languages. Just no. This is where we aren't agreeing.
I think you misunderstand the point of the metaphor the metaphor refers to the conceptualization and creation of the initial map. As that appeared to be what you were asking about. But it looks like instead you were talking about ongoing refinement of the map? Then the metaphor obviously doesn't apply. Most foreigners don't beleive there is a problem with balance (indeed it is expected of all maps, korean and foreign alike) rather obscurity of the map and the fact they can't practice with koreans on it. Indeed this point is the largest reason why foreigners don't want foreign maps. If we are considering a map we will (and have) give feedback to better the map.
It seems to me like they can make just about anything and the only thing they lack is information from advanced gamers or whoever is deciding their maps aren't up to par. You already must have this information in order to reject their maps, so why not share it with them? Is it the time it takes to type it out that is stopping all this?
I dont quite understand the question. I think you're asking about the fact that the only limitation is that foreign maps dont get testing? We only tested faoi as including any other foreign map would lead to distasted - atleast faoi was in the iccup map map. We didn't decide against Faoi for purely balance reasons, it encompassed a number of factors including the release of new korean maps (thus voiding the 'fresh concept' argument). I am not going to repeat the discussion here as it is not meant for the public.
Not testing. Detailed feedback. People look at maps and say "that map's not ready. we won't play that map." In the heads of those people are reasons why, unless they are simply making uninformed judgments in which case their opinion means nothing. All I'm saying is, if those reasons are shared--if some of those people who are rejecting the maps will speak up a little more clearly (and I beg that anyone who can increase the chance of this happenning do their best, up to and including Plexa himself), I am confident (and you are too, according to your post) that the foreign map makers will, as much as possible, meet all demands. The result will be better maps than we have ever seen.
If those reasons existed we would communicate them, as i've stated before, only the most ignorant argue balance as why they choose not to play, its a practice issue. When conceptualizing the tournament we had to consider whether or not players will practice the maps or not. On the ladder - are players going to have the time/take the time to learn and practice the map? Obviously intensive practicing with other TSL participants its out of the question because your trying to hide your style on the map etc. It's a difficult thing to juggle around - some of the staff argued that if a player was serious about the tournament that they would learn the maps to get the cash, but we also wanted to make the tournament as player friendly and easy to play in as possible. If we have major/minor qualms about makes we will give constructive feedback.
So my question is, why isn't this happening? The maps are being rejected and the map makers don't really know what they need to change. They have to aggressively hunt and stalk people to find out what they need to fix, and then the map is still rejected. This has to change if you want TSL to be as good as possible. TSL can get to the point where koreans watch it to find out which maps will be stolen from it for their leagues. If only you want it to.
btw i can read your edit Nothing is happening yet because we are still in the planning phase of TSL - we're not thinking about maps yet.
Plexa! Once again I am indebted to you greatly for your excellent comments. I feel like you have made further mutual understanding possible where it seemed hopeless, simply by these last two gifts you have delivered here.
On August 19 2008 09:05 Plexa wrote: While this may seem like a short answer, why do you think we removed troy from the map pool? The map fares decently at pro level but is a complete protoss map outside of korea - hence we axed it. We are aware of the differences but with that being said the extreme balances changes between pro and foreign level only happen on a select few maps whereas the majority (read; python clones) play very similarly. Thus the map pool does end up balancing the foreign level aptly. That being said, i can't see how the foreign map making community will do anything exceptional when it comes to balancing it purely for foreigners - at least in the concept development stage. The discrepancies are not as big as you are trying to make out and hence the maps produced will look very similar to the maps that are balanced for both atm (ie most maps). Obviously, in balance testing maps will be altered dramatically - this happens everywhere i mean, does anyone remember longinus 0.9?
Yes it seems again we are in agreement but there were some misunderstandings, for the most part. Your own actions, as you mention, prove that different maps will be acceptable and unacceptable, and therefore also, ideal and less than ideal, for a foreigner tournament as opposed to a pro tournament. Perhaps now that we have narrowed the area of dispute down so specifically--to a concept development stage, now I can perhaps offer my final opinions on the subject--my final plea.
I think you misunderstand the point of the metaphor the metaphor refers to the conceptualization and creation of the initial map. As that appeared to be what you were asking about. But it looks like instead you were talking about ongoing refinement of the map? Then the metaphor obviously doesn't apply. Most foreigners don't beleive there is a problem with balance (indeed it is expected of all maps, korean and foreign alike) rather obscurity of the map and the fact they can't practice with koreans on it. Indeed this point is the largest reason why foreigners don't want foreign maps. If we are considering a map we will (and have) give feedback to better the map.
That is not what I was asking about at all. I believe the foreign map makers are impersinating pro korean maps because that's the only ideal there is to aim for. Problem is, their maps aren't tested by pros--or even top foreigners. The concepts are roughly "pro-like" but "different" only vaguely.
If those reasons existed we would communicate them, as i've stated before, only the most ignorant argue balance as why they choose not to play, its a practice issue. When conceptualizing the tournament we had to consider whether or not players will practice the maps or not. On the ladder - are players going to have the time/take the time to learn and practice the map? Obviously intensive practicing with other TSL participants its out of the question because your trying to hide your style on the map etc. It's a difficult thing to juggle around - some of the staff argued that if a player was serious about the tournament that they would learn the maps to get the cash, but we also wanted to make the tournament as player friendly and easy to play in as possible. If we have major/minor qualms about makes we will give constructive feedback.
Now we are back to the practice issue. What about the remedies for this situation I have suggested earlier in the thread? What about the argument that they train for WCG just fine and that TSL has the potential to be even more important, therefore more incentive? I think the issue of what to do so that foreigners can all train for a pro league, is a complicated one, but it is not an issue that has no approaches to it. It deserves a hard, detailed, separate look. More than will fit at the bottom of this giant thread. I think if TSL had all new maps it would still do well, and the ladder is the time to get to play them.
Also would it make a difference if TSL came with all new maps--made by top korean map makers, but maps that were not from pro leagues, but for TSL only? Would it make any difference? If so, then there is some other factor at work here that we're not talking about.
btw i can read your edit Nothing is happening yet because we are still in the planning phase of TSL - we're not thinking about maps yet.
Now I will get back to what we were talking about, the design phase vs. the balancing phase of a map.
First of all, TSL can right now be telling available mappers, foreign or not, which designs have potential and which fail, and specifically why. They can whip up a whole new design in response and have a map up that next very day, or at most within two days. They just need the right level of back and forth. Not a one-pass over to see if their maps are good enough. If you are saying they fail at the design level--the maps that aren't even asked to be balanced--I don't think they are being given a chance to respond to the design failures, because if they did you would have new designs perfect for your league right at your fingertips, when obviously right now we don't.
Second, regarding the balance phase--I don't recall you asking anyone to make any changes to any of the maps in TSL1. Is this something you only do with foreign maps? It seems like if these exact maps came out anew from a foreigner you would find faults with them and ask them to make changes. You are missing a chance by not treating all the maps equally in this respect. People will revise any map you want for TSL, just ask them.
In this thread you have made it sound like it's completely up to them to deliver a map to you, and then you can thumbs up or thumbs down it. Or like you're waiting for good maps to appear. I hope I have convinced you that there is more you can do.
But if the main issue is something other than map quality, then let's have a completely separate discussion about those issues, because here I think we have enough just to try to make sure the best possible foreign maps for TSL come into existence, whether TSL finds it appropriate ultimately to use them or not.
WCG is supposed to represent the international scene, no? Get me a wcg map representative and I'll talk to him about perhaps adding a foreign map, there's no reason the World Cyber Games should bow only to Korea, since despite what they think, Korea does not represent the entire starcraft community, TSL, Tasteless, and Artosis being proof of this. If a map goes into WCG koreans and foreigners alike have need to practice the map, and then the question becomes only balance, which can be answered by active and cooperative map testing.
On August 19 2008 11:09 LazarusSpeaks wrote: Plexa! Once again I am indebted to you greatly for your excellent comments. I feel like you have made further mutual understanding possible where it seemed hopeless, simply by these last two gifts you have delivered here.
On August 19 2008 09:05 Plexa wrote: While this may seem like a short answer, why do you think we removed troy from the map pool? The map fares decently at pro level but is a complete protoss map outside of korea - hence we axed it. We are aware of the differences but with that being said the extreme balances changes between pro and foreign level only happen on a select few maps whereas the majority (read; python clones) play very similarly. Thus the map pool does end up balancing the foreign level aptly. That being said, i can't see how the foreign map making community will do anything exceptional when it comes to balancing it purely for foreigners - at least in the concept development stage. The discrepancies are not as big as you are trying to make out and hence the maps produced will look very similar to the maps that are balanced for both atm (ie most maps). Obviously, in balance testing maps will be altered dramatically - this happens everywhere i mean, does anyone remember longinus 0.9?
Yes it seems again we are in agreement but there were some misunderstandings, for the most part. Your own actions, as you mention, prove that different maps will be acceptable and unacceptable, and therefore also, ideal and less than ideal, for a foreigner tournament as opposed to a pro tournament. Perhaps now that we have narrowed the area of dispute down so specifically--to a concept development stage, now I can perhaps offer my final opinions on the subject--my final plea.
I don't believe that the differences between pro balance and amateur balance can be anticipated. Who would have thought that maps like troy would play so differently at a foreign level? It's difficult to foresee and again must be balanced on a case by case basis.
I think you misunderstand the point of the metaphor the metaphor refers to the conceptualization and creation of the initial map. As that appeared to be what you were asking about. But it looks like instead you were talking about ongoing refinement of the map? Then the metaphor obviously doesn't apply. Most foreigners don't beleive there is a problem with balance (indeed it is expected of all maps, korean and foreign alike) rather obscurity of the map and the fact they can't practice with koreans on it. Indeed this point is the largest reason why foreigners don't want foreign maps. If we are considering a map we will (and have) give feedback to better the map.
That is not what I was asking about at all. I believe the foreign map makers are impersinating pro korean maps because that's the only ideal there is to aim for. Problem is, their maps aren't tested by pros--or even top foreigners. The concepts are roughly "pro-like" but "different" only vaguely.[/quote]Oh? The maps i've seen from foreign mappers are not only emulations of the professional maps but also have elements of originality like Avatar and others. I believe that there is a good spectrum of maps within the foreign scene ranging from borderline professional to off the wall crazy.
If those reasons existed we would communicate them, as i've stated before, only the most ignorant argue balance as why they choose not to play, its a practice issue. When conceptualizing the tournament we had to consider whether or not players will practice the maps or not. On the ladder - are players going to have the time/take the time to learn and practice the map? Obviously intensive practicing with other TSL participants its out of the question because your trying to hide your style on the map etc. It's a difficult thing to juggle around - some of the staff argued that if a player was serious about the tournament that they would learn the maps to get the cash, but we also wanted to make the tournament as player friendly and easy to play in as possible. If we have major/minor qualms about makes we will give constructive feedback.
Now we are back to the practice issue. What about the remedies for this situation I have suggested earlier in the thread? What about the argument that they train for WCG just fine and that TSL has the potential to be even more important, therefore more incentive? I think the issue of what to do so that foreigners can all train for a pro league, is a complicated one, but it is not an issue that has no approaches to it. It deserves a hard, detailed, separate look. More than will fit at the bottom of this giant thread. I think if TSL had all new maps it would still do well, and the ladder is the time to get to play them.
Also would it make a difference if TSL came with all new maps--made by top korean map makers, but maps that were not from pro leagues, but for TSL only? Would it make any difference? If so, then there is some other factor at work here that we're not talking about.[/quote]If we got Rose of Dream, for example, to make us a map for the tournament I can almost guarantee that top foreigners would react identically to us introducing a foreign map. Although if we did get a map from roseofdream we would probably use it purely because getting a unique map off a top map maker would be phenomenal in terms of korea recognizing the foreign scene.
btw i can read your edit Nothing is happening yet because we are still in the planning phase of TSL - we're not thinking about maps yet.
Now I will get back to what we were talking about, the design phase vs. the balancing phase of a map.
First of all, TSL can right now be telling available mappers, foreign or not, which designs have potential and which fail, and specifically why. They can whip up a whole new design in response and have a map up that next very day, or at most within two days. They just need the right level of back and forth. Not a one-pass over to see if their maps are good enough. If you are saying they fail at the design level--the maps that aren't even asked to be balanced--I don't think they are being given a chance to respond to the design failures, because if they did you would have new designs perfect for your league right at your fingertips, when obviously right now we don't.[/quote]I've said before that the TSL map pool would be one where contrasting play styles are favored on different maps. e.g how sair/reaver is popular on Andromeda whereas FE is preferred on BlueStorm. In my own opinion, i believe that a diverse map pool which allows every style to be played with success is far better than a balanced map pool (x4 luna clones!!). If you send us alphas we will critique them and give feedback - but we are not going to go looking very hard for maps. If we really like the concept im sure TL will actively go about getting the map balance tested.
Second, regarding the balance phase--I don't recall you asking anyone to make any changes to any of the maps in TSL1. Is this something you only do with foreign maps? It seems like if these exact maps came out anew from a foreigner you would find faults with them and ask them to make changes. You are missing a chance by not treating all the maps equally in this respect. People will revise any map you want for TSL, just ask them.
I dont think any of the korean maps could have been edited from the versions used. I can say with almost 100% certainty that no korean map will be altered for the tournament purely because the map then becomes different and hence we have the same situation. Its like ghemTV LT - who in their right mind would play such a crap version of LT .
In this thread you have made it sound like it's completely up to them to deliver a map to you, and then you can thumbs up or thumbs down it. Or like you're waiting for good maps to appear. I hope I have convinced you that there is more you can do.
But if the main issue is something other than map quality, then let's have a completely separate discussion about those issues, because here I think we have enough just to try to make sure the best possible foreign maps for TSL come into existence, whether TSL finds it appropriate ultimately to use them or not.
This issue is definitely not map quality. Although with that being said the flagship for the foreign scene would have to be outstanding for any subsequent maps to be used.
Despite what you're saying Plexa, I don't think the rest of TL is quite as sensible as you are I think many people, including the players and other TSL admins would probably disagree on many of those points. I definitely lol'd when you said "If we really like the concept im sure TL will actively go about getting the map balance tested". The stark difference from responses to the maps in their own threads and to the concept of actually using the maps alone should show how false this point is. Sure you could say, "oh they didn't really like the map as much as they said", but you could say that forever. So far I've hosted 3 tournaments using maps which almost unanimously got great replies, with the original idea thread in broodwar getting a fair amount of attention, and nearly no negative feedback. In the first tournament 17 showed up. In the second tournament, I had to play just to get 14 people to play. In the third, 4 people showed up. If the problem really was time alone, you guys should've spoken up when I said in the original thread "OK I'M HOSTING THIS AT 3 PM EST 21:00 CET, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU'D WANT CHANGED?". Likewise for any other problem. A few people have said in the tournament itself's thread make it later or on the weekend and they'll show, but for the most part I'm not getting any feedback. Tons of people say, "WOW THESE MAPS ARE AWESOME, LET'S PLAY ON THEM", but they don't show up.
Since people for the most part don't show up when I actually make an event to make it easy for people to play on these maps, apparently people don't care all that much about testing maps they supposedly like. If I have to make a money prize just to get people to come, obviously people don't really want to play on the maps. But I really don't know, getting nearly no turnout with nearly no feedback doesn't really help.
We've given you some maps to look at, and given you a way to play on them with a bunch of other people, yet we're getting nearly no feedback or replays in return. There are of course exceptions to this.
I guess if no one gives a shit there's nothing to do, but so many people have I guess tried to be nice and told us "oh yeah of course you have a shot, just make great maps!" when in fact that's not true. You could say, "oh well it's just not a big part of what we're thinking about since we're not in the planning stage of TSL2", but odds are high that we'll get hit with torrents of "oh later, don't worry!" bullshit.
If we have trouble getting SIXTEEN people to come just to have fun and play on some interesting and new maps, how in hell can we get the entire community play on the maps? When it comes down it though, it just depends on TSL. If TSL uses the maps, even if the players don't like them and complain, they'll still play them. Since they're spoiled and used to being babied they'll whine sure, but they'll still play. You think the best foreigners in the world would boycott TSL2 if it used foreign maps? Even if the maps weren't top notch I doubt this would happen. The progamers I doubt are always happy about playing the maps they're told to play, especially when they're so imbalanced in some matchup, but since money is involved they play anyway. Since of course TSL would much rather baby the players then make them go out of their way, getting a foreign map there just won't happen. The players have already made if pretty clear they would rather not have foreign maps involved, and the people who said they liked the maps and wanted to play them apparently don't actually care that much.
I just wish what people said mirrored what people actually do more -_-
But I dunno the whole thing seems hopeless. I can't beat the argument of having no practice outets for the maps, since it's unlikely I could get the map into wcg or something. I can't beat the balance/map quality thing, since if no one plays/tests the map I have no proof to show. I also thusly can't show that any of the maps are interesting either.
Despite having said all that, I'm gonna keep trying the stupid tournaments, but please give me feedback on what I should change about them to get you to show up. Broodwarmaps.net is here and ready to make any map you want, edit any map you like, etc. We're here, we're ready, and we're willing. Just give us the word.
On August 21 2008 14:34 anotak wrote: if it were up the players back in 2001 in korea i think we'd still be playing LT
huh? those players opted for changes in map pools and indeed LT was removed altogether reletively early on.
On August 21 2008 13:38 Nightmarjoo wrote: ~
Running those tournaments would be frustrating, and we appreciate the fact that you are running it. Obviously no one is really going to turn up without $$ incentive. If we really like a map, there is the possibility of running some $$ tours - but nothing from that list stands out and screams "hey i am the map that is going usher in the new era". Like i said to you earlier, the first foreign map really needs to be something exceptional for obvious reasons.
When you talk about progamers not liking maps you are absolutely correct. Particular maps do not mesh well with various players the most notable being Mercury. But yes, they practice those maps anyway. I don't think we'd see a foreign boycott if we included one lone map, there may be an outcry from the foreign scene that these maps suck or whatever - people would still play due to the cash incentive. But we also want to foster a good gaming environment where players are happy to play because too often tournaments are held which do not reflect the needs of the players and hence makes their experience worse.
We'll talk about things, and see what happens i guess...
Maybe this is just fiction, but I imagined pro leagues when they started out, at first used maps that people already knew. Then they dove in and started having seasons with all original maps made for them. They took the plunge. At first they had some problems, and they still do. But they dare to do it, they got better at it, and now they have what they have today. TSL could take such a plunge. It would result in a lot of good new maps, and some bad ones, but no worse than star leagues typically go through. Or TSL could stay always in the shadows of the pro leagues, a glorified tournament of amateurs.
Leagues these days always try to introduce a couple of completely new maps along with some of the best. It would be cool if you guys tried this eventually too. But I understand if it is too soon. Right now just seeing foreigners compete at this level on these maps is actually quite new, so in a way all the maps are already kind of new.
But maybe, since that's the case, you could replace one of the "new" maps with one that is really new. It would probably work better if you used two, that way if one went bad, people could see the difference.
By the way Plexa, you said they could send you alphas of their maps and they would get feedback. How do they go about doing this?
On August 22 2008 00:53 LazarusSpeaks wrote: Maybe this is just fiction, but I imagined pro leagues when they started out, at first used maps that people already knew. Then they dove in and started having seasons with all original maps made for them. They took the plunge. At first they had some problems, and they still do. But they dare to do it, they got better at it, and now they have what they have today. TSL could take such a plunge. It would result in a lot of good new maps, and some bad ones, but no worse than star leagues typically go through. Or TSL could stay always in the shadows of the pro leagues, a glorified tournament of amateurs.
Somewhat true, the original tournaments used the ladder maps from the blizzard map pack which were, i guess, considered the standard maps of the day. Despite that the maps were only ~year old. But im 80% sure the first OSL had entirely original maps but i could be wrong. But i dont think the situation is entirely analogous since there are standardized tournaments with set maps already in use which most other tournaments emulate to raise participation. TSL could do a break away but there's a number of flow on effects from this move which have been discuss already (or at least i presume so)
Leagues these days always try to introduce a couple of completely new maps along with some of the best. It would be cool if you guys tried this eventually too. But I understand if it is too soon. Right now just seeing foreigners compete at this level on these maps is actually quite new, so in a way all the maps are already kind of new.
If we are talking foreign tournaments then i have no idea. If we are talking Korean they simply have an evolution of the map pool from season to season keeping some, dropping others based on performance, game quality and balance obviously. The initial map pool was picked based on your reasoning there - theyre new korean maps so people won't be too scared to practice them but at the same time they will be fresh games because there had only been 2~4 games played on each (bar zodiac)
By the way Plexa, you said they could send you alphas of their maps and they would get feedback. How do they go about doing this?
You said it right there, send it to me and ill look over it... obviously the level of feedback depends on how good i think the map is or how good it potentially is.
The list of maps you've posted a few times around the site?
I've always liked sound barrier, but i think you can understand why it would never be used as the first foreign map because it is a concept map and an island map to boot. For latter events it would have been considered, but not the first if you understand what i mean.
Conceptually, i think voices is the soundest choice for a map. There may be issues with balance which can be ironed out, and the centered is very reminiscent of othello so may have a conflicting play style - but i think the expansions make the map play slightly differently.
I dont think spinal valley adds anything to any given map pool, and has dubious balance imo, particularly TvP (based on the concept of the map). Really theres nothing wrong with it apart from the balance qualms but i just dont think it adds to a map pool.
Space is a huge issue on korhal pride. I think most people have recognized that. Thus i don't think it would be a very good map for a tournament like this.
Sound Barrier is hardly an island map. In the newest versions I copied the egg/mineral thing from Plasma and used it in the very center, so that you can scout like normal. But, even without this the map was barely an island map, as every single build order was still possible, 2gate, 9pool, etc, because the smaller neutrals break down pretty easily. In the earlier version the map was very strategically interesting in that you had to carefully decide whether to FE or play some more aggressive build, more so than on a normal map since scouting was more difficult than usual (but still possible with depot/pylon hop). Still, the map is incredibly strategically oriented, as you must carefully decide when and where to break down the neutrals. Also, nearly all the bases are easily harassble, encouraging a more aggressive play while still allowing for normal macro builds. While it may be a little slower than other maps, I think the huge strategical diversity here with basically any kind of opening and build viable would fit the mappool very nicely. It's kind of a tactical map, with both macrotastic and micro oriented styles supported, ensuring any player can be comfortable here.
Voices IV is definitely a solid map, but the really only special thing about the map is the min only double entrance thing, but the mineral block had to be made 48 minerals else zvt would be incredibly difficult. While the double path can still be useful and interesting depending on the situation and scenario, it basically in my eyes has been nerfed, making the map barely different from any other map. Gameplay will be entirely normal on it for sure, but overall strategically I don't believe there is a lot there. Alternatively, that might make it a good choice for such a tournament because it's like a different experience of familiar themes, making it still different but comfortable.
Spinel Valley III I really like. While I agree balance is uncertain for sure, I have a feeling that if players adapt correctly to the map balance shouldn't be much of a problem if at all. It offers a very othello-esque theme in my opinion, in having easy to take but even easier to harass expos. Every single expo past the nat is easily harassable, while still being easy to take for being fairly close to one-another. The map has many more paths than Othello does however, helping the mobile races a lot whereas the map might fuck them in the ass otherwise. It being pretty easy to drop the mains basically makes turtling not an option. I think this map more than the others favours a very aggressive and exciting gameplay, which would in my opinion complement any other map choices in the mappool very well, ensuring a very aggressive gameplay which ought to entertain an audience. July himself would probably orgasm instantly if he saw this map.
Whilte Korhal Pride definitely is a far more macro oriented map, it still leaves a lot of room for players to play with any style they're comfortable with, and literally with that abyss of a middle haha. The map does favour more of a macro approach than an aggressive approach, but there is still plenty of strategical room for creative tactics, with more drop oriented forms of harass than anything else. The middle is a wasteland for sure, but it definitely allows players to maneuver a lot, making army positioning a more critical-so aspect than usual, in my opinion. Of the maps in the tourney, this map has actually had the fewest amounts of complaints or things which needed to be modified. It has played very solidy so far, and while I doubt it'd be the most exciting map, it could complement a mappool of more micro-based maps well with its big macro direction. And if by "space" you mean main building space, I have not noticed that it is actually too little, it just requires a slightly different building layout approach, but many maps these days do, so that shouldn't be anything too unfamiliar.
None of them are bad maps per say, but until we able able to get a more concrete idea of how the next map pool will shape up feedback given can only really be generalizations. If you follow what i mean.
I'm im a difficult position due to the divide on the staff about this issue and the fact that we haven't discussed maps at all yet.
Yeah I understand. Hey Plexa, I wouldn't mind if you let me have a more useful and direct position and stance in the TSL map commity thing. Last time I was just on the side-lines rooting, but I think I could be helpful if you gave me the chance, if nothing else than to write long and hopefully convincing paragraphs; I'd like though to have more of a position where I can be directly involved, if that's possible. Even if just means being a messenger boy, or a herald or surveyer etc, if there's a chance I could be directly involved and be helpful, just let me know.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=76865 They're long, but I reccomend you read the two interviews in this thread. The first one can be found in the "after first tourney" spoiler and the second one after "after third tourney". Both are long, but should be easy reads despite that. They give player impressions of the maps, the first one includes feedback from the winner, mTw.AMD-Infernal, formerly ToT)Infernal(.
The map used in the tournament that we didn't talk about above, Morrow's (4)Dread Core 1.1, I played several times today. It's pretty simple/basic, but it feels like its own map when you play it, not a clone of anything, and all-over it's really comfortable. It's a very basic/standard map, but it plays very well. It's less weird than Voices IV and less macro-whorish than Korhal. There are some decent replays of it at broodwarmaps.net in its thread. I haven't noticed any issues in this current version.
lol I'm done I guess, only been responding to what other people been saying, and they stopped saying stuff. You can close it if you want, though I don't see a need to close it when you could just leave it here lol.
ok ill leave it open, but if anyone from the map making community want to talk about something i strongly suggest you pm me rather than use the thread.
Python era was greatest. When Wuthering Heights, Othello, Andromeda came this was not that bad (but still I did not liked some cliffs, gay neutral buildings etc.) but with Plasma etc. I want to play oldschool again!!!1
Still - I think that foreigners doing map for TSL2 is really good thing but these maps must be tested and not be so gay like for example Plasma.
On October 14 2008 02:23 NergalSC wrote: Python era was greatest. When Wuthering Heights, Othello, Andromeda came this was not that bad (but still I did not liked some cliffs, gay neutral buildings etc.) but with Plasma etc. I want to play oldschool again!!!1
Still - I think that foreigners doing map for TSL2 is really good thing but these maps must be tested and not be so gay like for example Plasma.
' agreed, alot of the new maps are so crazy. But well. Just pick maps as in TSL 1. decent maps
On October 14 2008 02:23 NergalSC wrote: Python era was greatest. When Wuthering Heights, Othello, Andromeda came this was not that bad (but still I did not liked some cliffs, gay neutral buildings etc.) but with Plasma etc. I want to play oldschool again!!!1
Still - I think that foreigners doing map for TSL2 is really good thing but these maps must be tested and not be so gay like for example Plasma.
python is oldschool? right...
I like those new maps much more than python because on python, strategy itself was practically not existent, all you could do is macro micro and do variations of few BOs
(2)Spinel Valley is one of my favourite bwm maps ever, but I'm not a big fan of lobotomy. It just feels weird, and the lack of an ovy spot makes me not want to play it.
I er, actually haven't played (4)Yellow yet outside of quickly testing little things for my modification lol, so I dunno how well it plays. I assume it's too bland to be used though.
On December 20 2008 10:47 RoieTRS wrote: Spinel Valley isn't symmetrical, I believe.
Right > left.
I've turned that image over a few times and I'm pretty sure it is more or less exactly symmetrical, I mean possibly not perfect in every tile, but it is the same on both sides.
lol symmetry tool was used, there are slight differences fixing certain things, but otherwise they are as exactly same as you can get using isometric squares
ish, but it can't see units moving out, and to put it out of range of being shot it can't see anything at all. As a zerg player I don't find it acceptable Though maps like Colosseum and Blitzx don't see fit to place ovy spots, so I dunno =/
On November 09 2009 09:30 jalstar wrote: The maps with the most votes in the suggestions thread were Outsider SE, Destination, El Nino, and Heartbreak Ridge.
Really? I was under the impression that people felt El Nino and Outsider are quite similar... I wouldn't mind seeing Destination/HBR, though I don't know if any of these maps are good at all for TvP or PvZ. Since there's another week before any other info we might as well discuss and debate lol
On November 09 2009 15:23 jalstar wrote: i'm guessing 4 maps, like the korean individual leagues.
Heartbreak Ridge Outsider or El Nino Destination Tornado/Fighting Spirit/Python/Eye of the Storm
Not that those maps are bad or anything, but I think it'd be nice to see some maps that don't get played very often. It would be pretty refreshing to see some ICCup maps that nobody ever plays get thrown into the map pool instead of maps that we're seeing in proleague and the OSL/MSL.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/map_thumbnails/(2)whoosh(n).jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/(2)flavors.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll98/Tinithor_photo/OSLMap1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/(4)Dread%20Core%20(p).JPG)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/voices%20iv.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/moon%20tear%20II.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/(2)Sound%20Barrier%201.2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/(4)korhal%20pride1.2(n).jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/valley%20iii.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/Morphling.JPG)
![[image loading]](http://image.fighterforum.com/showImage.asp?realFile=FFNEWS20060629195448002.JPEG)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/ywllow.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/Lobotomy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.panschk.de/mappage/(2)Spinel%20Valley%20III.jpg)
