|
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kV2zM.jpg)
Winner of the Map of the Month #2!
Map of the Month #2 Finalist!
+ Show Spoiler [Score] +
Balance: 7.5
Originality: 7.6
Fun: 6.5
Aesthetics: 7.2
For a total of 28.8.
Quoting iGrok: "Congrats! This was an easy pick."
Published on: EU, US
Current version: 1.7
+ Show Spoiler [Change Log] +
1.7:
- Reduced playable map size to 160x160
1.6:
- Removed ally rules on 2v2 play. Because Blizzard made 2v2 play default on 4 spawn maps a few patches ago, I cannot have any specific rules on 2v2 play as if you play 1v1 in 2v2 mode you will always spawn cross.
So this change removed that.
1.5:
- Added "lakes" next to high-ground thirds, to narrow the two "lanes" a bit and also make the rush distance a tiny bit longer when going in the open area
- Minor doodads and texturing
1.4:
- Reshaped 3rds in the middle and also changed the single ramp to two ramps which are closer to the natural ramps
- Textures and doodads changed to accommodate ramp changes
1.3:
- Fixed problem with mineral placement on the expansions between the rocks
1.2:
- Changed the ramp to the middle thirds: moved it towards the third and made it a bit more narrow
- Doodads
- Texturing
1.1:
- Added a few doodads
- Added two critters
- Texture work
- Added water which I had forgot to add
So, I was one of the "losers" of MotM #1 with my last map Beneath the Ice, and that made me want to try again.
This time I went with reflective symmetry instead of rotational, but kept the 45 degree rotation of the map from Beneath the Ice (hard to copy and paste, but that just makes you put more thought into things before you copy  )
I had a few concepts which I thought were good, and I threw together a quick map and then posted the map analyzer summary in the Map Collaboration Thread because I was unsure if it was a good layout. I got great feedback (thanks to Samro255am, iGrok and dezi for feedback!) and scrapped that variant to make a new layout which had better flow to it and also didn't have the same "blockyness" as I didn't want to make it a city/space station.
And I thought I should return to the Haven tileset which was the first I worked with, so, here you have it; a four player woodland map with marsh in the middle!
Basic Information:
Name: Marshlands
Author: NullCurrent
Type: Melee
Players: 4
Playable size: 160x160 (it is rotated 45 degrees, which makes this inaccurate because of corners)
Tileset: Haven, with some Aiur mixed in
Xel'Naga Watchtowers: 2 around center
Bases: 12 bases with 8 minerals and 2 geysers each
Trees used: 5 462
+ Show Spoiler [Map Analyzer] +
Overview
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IvMmU.jpg)
HQ Overview | HQ Top-down Overview
Features:
- Expansions allowing you to expand both towards your enemy or from him
- Backdoor to natural, which when opened results in an additional attack path, as well as expansion path
- LoS blockers to the side outside natural ramp, creating opportunities for surprise attacks or proxies
- Two Xel'naga Watchtowers which cover the middle, but not the 3rds, so scouting is still important even if you still control both watchtowers
- Only 1 creep tumour needed to connect main and natural.
Rush Distances:
+ Show Spoiler [Rush Distances] +
Main to main:
Short: 148 (close air distance, 72)
Mid: 153 (air distance 116)
Cross: 172
Natural to natural:
Short: 93
Mid: 97
Cross: 116
Other images:
+ Show Spoiler [Natural with backdoor] +
+ Show Spoiler [Details around natural] +
+ Show Spoiler [Watchtower coverage] +
+ Show Spoiler [3rd and LoS blockers next to natural] +
+ Show Spoiler [Zerg creep spread] +
+ Show Spoiler [Example terran main] +
Comments, critique, criticism and appraisal welcome! 
|
Seems to be very good playable regardless where your enemy starts.
|
On January 20 2011 07:59 dezi wrote:
Seems to be very good playable regardless where your enemy starts.
That was the point
According to the analyzer, the positional imbalance is only +-0.1% (which is due to some kind of bug which makes it think that a single cell on one part of the map is unpathable, even though it is pathable), no matter where you start compared to your enemy!
|
This is a really good map.
The rush distances aren't too long so you can rush if you want to. The choke at the natural can be walled off for a Forge fast expand, your third isn't too easy to take so the map doesn't necessarily favor a macro game. The proxy zones by the high ground thirds are going to provide some interesting games. Seriously this is an amazing map, nice job on it, even the aesthetics look great! It really gives the feel that your in a marshland (at least the overview does)!
The only thing that I'd say is it's size is large, but I'm not sure if that's just because it's tilted 45 degrees, it's a really large map, or both.
|
Good map. I like the style, the name and the layout as well. Looks like a good macro map - like Shakura's plateau for instance. I could imagine this one too be great.
|
On January 20 2011 08:12 Antares777 wrote:
This is a really good map.
The rush distances aren't too long so you can rush if you want to. The choke at the natural can be walled off for a Forge fast expand, your third isn't too easy to take so the map doesn't necessarily favor a macro game. The proxy zones by the high ground thirds are going to provide some interesting games. Seriously this is an amazing map, nice job on it, even the aesthetics look great! It really gives the feel that your in a marshland (at least the overview does)!
On January 20 2011 08:13 Iamyournoob wrote:
Good map. I like the style, the name and the layout as well. Looks like a good macro map - like Shakura's plateau for instance. I could imagine this one too be great.
Thanks!
On January 20 2011 08:12 Antares777 wrote:
The only thing that I'd say is it's size is large, but I'm not sure if that's just because it's tilted 45 degrees, it's a really large map, or both.
The thing which forces the map size to be so large are the spaces between the naturals and the center, I think.
They have to be quite big, to prevent Siege Tanks from shelling the natural expansions, currently sieging of the natural's minerals or gas is impossible unless you either move to the natural ramp, or break down the rocks (I haven't managed any proper testing of this, but the range circle cannot reach. But it can reach buildings behind the minerals, so turrets; watch out! ).
Also, the positioning of the 3rds are necessary to prevent them from being shelled from the mains, and also to avoid too short air distances between mains.
EDIT: This will soon be uploaded to the US, I've sent the mail containing the map file, so it will hopefully be a couple of hours at most before it is online
|
omg i love this map xox, you can always expand away from your oppoment, sometimes requires knocking your own rocks down but it's not that harsh.
|
The map is now published on US!
Thanks TheMonkeyMon!
|
i love the map. I love how it looks, how it feels when playing. Awesome layout.
But I gonna need a new rig to play fluent on it with my current settings. :< - Maybe you can chop some trees where noone will miss them? Anyone else got framerate issues (mainly the forrest areas force my frames to drop from 50 to 15)?
edit: nvm, just watched the replay. I'd rather pimp my pc than asking you to destroy this masterpiece of art. OMG, it's so beautyful - doesn't look like a sc2 map - looks better. :D
|
On January 20 2011 09:02 HaRuHi wrote:
i love the map. I love how it looks, how it feels when playing. Awesome layout.
But I gonna need a new rig to play fluent on it with my current settings. :< - Maybe you can chop some trees where noone will miss them? Anyone else got framerate issues (mainly the forrest areas force my frames to drop from 50 to 15)?
edit: nvm, just watched the replay. I'd rather pimp my pc than asking you to destroy this masterpiece of art. OMG, it's so beautyful - doesn't look like a sc2 map - looks better. :D
I might be able to remove "some" (read: a few hundred) trees from this map, but I don't think it is the trees, and the trees I remove will be mostly "outside" the map (next to mains etc.).
What might be the cause of the lag for you can be the fog I placed around the thicket behind the natural (3 fog doodads per natural, is that too much?), but removing that will probably ruin some of the atmosphere.
Which settings are you running on? (are you seeing the fog? because if not, it won't affect the performance).
I will switch graphics card (MacBook pro 17" early 2009, so it has a powerful and power-hungry card, and one weak but efficient one) and test with low graphics (the only thing I can use when running on 1920x1200 with the power saving graphics) to see if it runs smooth or not (medium on the more powerful card runs smooth without any problem) before I start removing things.
|
Feels like the map can use a few more expansion possibilities. Compared to size , theres not alot of expansions
|
On January 20 2011 18:17 ihasaKAROT wrote:
Feels like the map can use a few more expansion possibilities. Compared to size , theres not alot of expansions
I count the same amount as on LT.
|
I might be able to remove "some" (read: a few hundred) trees from this map, but I don't think it is the trees, and the trees I remove will be mostly "outside" the map (next to mains etc.).
What might be the cause of the lag for you can be the fog I placed around the thicket behind the natural (3 fog doodads per natural, is that too much?), but removing that will probably ruin some of the atmosphere.
Which settings are you running on? (are you seeing the fog? because if not, it won't affect the performance).
I play with custom setting, everything between normal and high, but effect I had set to low. I tested it right now with high effect setting and it doesn't effect the frame rate at all. The fog does not really add much to the scene either, but since it does not effect frames, keep it.
And the sunbeams at the third are there, on low and high - they are awesome.
(I normaly have set effects to low because they have a bad effect on my gameplay, it is much harder to spot observers in rain^^).
Despite this, basicly everywhere where a lot of trees are, my frames drop drasticly ([ctrl]+[alt]+[f] to show ingame).
|
really diggin the look, yet at the same time worried about the one way route into the middle of the map even though there are the back rocks. seems as though contains would be very strong here. gl gl in next motm.
|
On January 20 2011 20:41 HaRuHi wrote:Show nested quote +I might be able to remove "some" (read: a few hundred) trees from this map, but I don't think it is the trees, and the trees I remove will be mostly "outside" the map (next to mains etc.).
What might be the cause of the lag for you can be the fog I placed around the thicket behind the natural (3 fog doodads per natural, is that too much?), but removing that will probably ruin some of the atmosphere.
Which settings are you running on? (are you seeing the fog? because if not, it won't affect the performance). I play with custom setting, everything between normal and high, but effect I had set to low. I tested it right now with high effect setting and it doesn't effect the frame rate at all. The fog does not really add much to the scene either, but since it does not effect frames, keep it. And the sunbeams at the third are there, on low and high - they are awesome. (I normaly have set effects to low because they have a bad effect on my gameplay, it is much harder to spot observers in rain^^). Despite this, basicly everywhere where a lot of trees are, my frames drop drasticly ([ctrl]+[alt]+[f] to show ingame).
Will investigate this further, don't have time until tomorrow. Hope I won't have to remove too many trees.
On January 21 2011 01:22 WniO wrote:
really diggin the look, yet at the same time worried about the one way route into the middle of the map even though there are the back rocks. seems as though contains would be very strong here. gl gl in next motm.
I'm thinking so too, first I thought it wouldn't be much of a problem because of the previously mentioned backdoor, and the fact that you still can sneak units by the towers.
But now when you mention it, I'm starting to doubt my decision of keeping the current watchtower placement.
Any suggestion on how I should move them? (Also, if it requires modifying the middle, fine, as long as it is an improvement )
(This is a general question, so I'm not just asking you WinO  )
The current idea I have is to move the watchtowers a few tiles towards the space between the naturals, and move the ramp to the 3rd towards the edge one or two steps. All this to make for more uncovered space around the 3rds so that it is easier to move out without being spotted. But I'm not sure if this is a good idea, as it might make the watchtowers almost useless mid to late game.
PS. Thanks for the good luck!
|
Really liking it, looks decently balanced!
|
First glance at it. Beautiful! I can picture running my zerglings through the forrest nomnomnomming marines between the trees!
|
really like how tis map developed. simpler layout, better game I guess
concerning the XNWT placement and the contain: do you remember my super ugly drawing with the third turned around, sothat the ramp is pointing to the NW/SE corners? than you would have a second way out, when contained infront of third and you would have a nice place for the watchtower, too, to help attacking third.
edit: just saw the image in the other thread where you actualy tried this. you would have to move the base a bit more to outside to keep general layout of centre, imo
|
I've made some more experimentation, and I think I've created a good solution to the contain problem:
+ Show Spoiler [Analyser image] +
+ Show Spoiler [Overview] +
HQ Overview
What do you think?
(this is not yet published)
My current concerns are: close positions, and sigeing of the minerals from the middle.
Also, should I replace them with a gold or not? (Not sure)
|
I hate this change. I never would gonna take this new third early on. Just seems so vulnerable (that's why i also voted against this in the Map Collaboration thread). The space in front of the nat was absolutely fine - watch at LT. Nobody complains at a contain there and there even isn't a backdoor that allows you to go around.
Long story short: undo this change.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0L1fK.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bRTMf.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IHO5p.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QiWgf.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HKzGo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/A8yWk.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fS948.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X0JYG.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hprdB.jpg)
