[2]Pawn by monitor

Wow, very nice. Excellent use of space in particular.

The natural is pretty secure despite having 2 entrances, seeing as enemies are funneled pretty well by the extended chokes.

LOS is going to be a bitch in the middle :/ Air is pretty important. And colossus can't abuse those cliffs in the center - ehh... not sure how I feel about that.

I'll have to play on it to be sure, but that super-choked area just looks really awkward

Very nice Monitor, this is the most original map I think I've seen for SCII.

At first, I thought Match Point, but that was wrong. This map is very original and I cannot tell what inspired this magnificent work of art. It's like its own map, and I love it!

The middle works very well, acting as a funnel and clearly shows the RvR of using it. Like iGrok said, the natural is easy to defend considering it has two chokes. This is a really good feature to have, because most maps that have two chokes to a natural make the natural hard to control. Nice job doing that (this may be a problem on Industry, not sure, just thought of it)! I really like the watchtower placement as well. That and the natural + third layout make this map amazing and really original, something I haven't seen before! Is there any chance this will become an iCCup map? It should be.

Out of curiosity, why are there only 7 mineral fields at the thirds?

On December 26 2010 15:03 danson wrote:
holy crap this is a nice map.

Im normally VERY critical of peoples maps (tbh i think 90% of the TL maps on here are complete garbage), but this one... very nice.

Im still sceptical about the ability of the community to get ANY customs used anytime soon, no matter how good they may be. I think you guys need to crank out at least 5 of this level of map... not including any of the ones you already have (unless they are tweaked to absolute perfection), and then have 1 major ass tourney use ONLY your map pool. and it has to be big enough where you can get the TOP players (at least multiple code A+) to have to practice on your maps.

Good luck tho, awesome job

On December 26 2010 15:09 monitor wrote:


Thanks! You have a good idea to get 5 or so top maps, then use them in a tournament.

While you're hear, what do you think of Starlight Breaker by neobowman?
+ Show Spoiler +

I personally love it, it has a perfect size (same as Pawn, 128x96), perfect distances, and great balance. Do you think its good enough, or does it need perfecting? Or do you not like the layout?

On December 26 2010 15:33 Antares777 wrote:


Ah, yes, Starlight Breaker is also an example of a unique map, sorry I forgot about that one. this and that map are really unique.

On December 26 2010 15:53 danson wrote:
Ill preface this by saying im not that great. ~2kish, So take this for what its worth, but I appreciate you asking me.

I think the layout could use some major overhaul

I think the 5ths are a complete waste of space, and should be rethought. I cant picture a game in my head where they are being used so close to the obvious choice for your opps third (if a game lasted that long.

I dont like the 3rd's minerals facing in, or at least i think the whole base could be shifted to the out side (or further away if you removed/moved the 5ths)

I think this map is so open, and linear (if you think the majority of games would be 2/3 base, which is most likely), that Air play would be heavily discouraged. as would drops/warpins/nydus (lol)

===============

this seems harsh, but i still think its better than all but shakuras on bnet, ill toss a few not very well thought out suggestions

maybe move the LOS/drop ledge to oversee the gold instead of natural, then move the natrual, and third away from the opponents fifth. This serves 3 purposes. Makes taking a third less risky, improves the chances of the fifth being used, and it would encourage harrasment of both the gold and the main by drops.

also, maybe some more segmentation overall, but especially more division from the 5ths and thirds,

Hope these make sense to you, who knows if im right or wrong, since ive never seem games played on them, but i hope to soon!

On December 26 2010 16:07 monitor wrote:


Thanks for the in-depth feedback, I'll make sure neobowman sees it.

I totally agree on making the best 5 and getting top players to do it. That is sort of what were doing with the monthly map pool, but I don't have any say in what goes into that. But anything we can do to promote custom maps is going to be better than Blizz maps....

On December 26 2010 16:15 danson wrote:



I think you guys just lost a valuable timing window between the GSLs, where there was enough downtime from major tourneys that you could have pulled some big names (and viewers!!) to practice/play on your maps because there is just nothing else going on right now. 5K people a night are doing nothing but f5ing to watch huk and idra ladder...

It may not be cheap, or easy, to get a big (at least 5k) tourney to use your maps, but I think if you timed it right, the maps were good, and it led to an amazing/exciting tourney (luck required), then the desire by players and the community for good maps would shoot through the roof.

On December 26 2010 16:31 monitor wrote:


Yeah that'd be great. iCCup.Diamond (CEO of iCCup) has some big announcement coming mid-January that has something to do with making custom maps popular. My older map iCCup Neo Avalanche:

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/ICCup_Neo_Avalanche

Has been used in a lot of small tournaments, I think the biggest was $50..heh. We have looked into getting them into bigger tournaments, and I'm sure we will continue to- but tourneys are just so hard right now because of ladder. If only blizzard would hand off ladder map pool to iCCup control... what would they lose from something like limiting us, but giving us certain control like:

*3 Blizzard maps at all times
*5 custom maps at all times
*0-2 Map changes per month, on first day of month

I'm considering writing on official Blizzard forums asking for this gift... what do you think?

On December 26 2010 17:12 danson wrote:


would be nice.. but it wont happen : /

On December 27 2010 03:49 2-_-n wrote:
You guys on iccup should make all of your maps downloadable for all of us who aren't on the us server

On December 27 2010 04:50 Samro225am wrote:
very, very nice map. i totally like the layout of the possible expansions.
on the visual side I love the way you created something individual with simple cliff-"brushwork".

some spots look too tight though - I cannot play the map, i try to understand it just from looking - nat to third is quite a long and narrow choke. also the central highground could be more open with only one tower. also i am unsure about the gold being so difficult to hold once you do not have complete control over centre. it looks like only one player can have it actually, but I guess you guys tested the map well and it works

On December 27 2010 07:16 baskerville wrote:
no angled pictures...?

On December 27 2010 07:42 MavercK wrote:
i really like it.
really really like it.

great work

On December 27 2010 07:56 BoomStevo wrote:
I don't quite understand the 1-gas expansion. I think the 1-gas expo is somewhat equivalent to a mineral-only expo in BW, but a mineral-only expo usually represented a low-risk, low-reward base. With that said, the placement of your 1-gas expo doesn't feel low-risk to me. It is close to the center, near the main attack path, and spotted by a watchtower. I feel as if the corner base would be taken as a third and for a fourth I would most likely take the gold expansion outside of my third. The gold represents nearly the same risks but gives a higher reward while protecting the entrance to my third.

The center is tight. I'm glad you removed the extraneous LOS blockers.

Aesthetically, I think it could use some work. From the top-down view my biggest concern is the sameness of each space. The same textures are used throughout which makes it difficult to distinguish the different spaces. Upon closer inspection I think you could tighten up the 'jigsaw' effect of the textures better by making them line up more naturally. And while I'm nitpicking, you have asteroids placed around the edges which are high up. With air units in these areas they can fly through or below the asteroids.

On December 27 2010 10:29 WniO wrote:
the design looks really good monitor. i think the texturing needs more contrast to make the map really shine though. too much of the same imo.

On December 30 2010 07:47 SpoR wrote:
very nice, If i had to make one change it would be to spread the bases a little more out. If you look at the pathing lines, you can see there are too many bases on it, or just off the beaten path. Giving zerg really only 1 safe place for a third base.
I'd at the least move the 13k bases North and South respectively, into that open space behind them.

On December 30 2010 07:26 MadZ wrote:
the map looks really fucking amazing im gonna play on right now.. if only blizzard would try using theese maps..


i cant find this on eu ?

On December 30 2010 08:03 iGrok wrote:
that choke into the HY looks better open.

On December 30 2010 07:26 MadZ wrote:
the map looks really fucking amazing im gonna play on right now.. if only blizzard would try using theese maps..


i cant find this on eu ?

On December 30 2010 10:18 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
a seige tank on the watch tower demolishes the gold, thats not bad though, seems more like an awesome feature (i assume, havent actually played it yet)

On January 16 2011 08:14 baskerville wrote:
blatant MotMT bump