I had a ton of fun putting together the texture set and combining them. All these textures except tarsonis dirt have detail elements that can be used as accents, overlays, or fine detail. Xil rock and typhon rocky dirt combine really nicely, I didn't even use it that much because typhon was primarily for the sooty fault lines. An interesting dimension to using these is that you have a lot of solid color options that you can use for shading. Mostly I combined the grasses/plants like this, but I barely scratched the surface using combinations of yellow, red, green, black, grey, tan, and pale to get more mileage out of a foundation texture. Btw, auir grass is so refreshing after belshir. ;D
This map started as a sketch of the 4 low ground bases in the center, with ramps oriented to provide maximum walk distance between expansion sites. The position of the main and natural in relation to these went through many versions. Finally I turned the center bases onto the 45 axis and put the mains in the corner to stretch out the distance between naturals, and settled on just one base between naturals around the outside. The towers play an interesting role in this map. They are indispensable in diagonal cross positions because they watch the middle. In adjacent spawns, they don't cover the main route between players so the map feels bigger than it is.
The natural can be walled off by 3 barracks; it's quite easy to defend. To the right is a large choke point that widens towards the righthand 3rd. Hugging the cliff to the left is a miniature common-knowledge hallway that circumvents the large ditch. It's very open but feels choked standing on the far side between the center pathway and the entrance to the lefthand 3rd.
In general it feels very mobile but very dangerous once you leave your natural. The towers are important to help secure your 3rd, be it on the low ground or on the outside.
Thoughts I wanted to take some snapshots, but it's hard to show off the terrain because it flows and blends across different areas. Please check it out in game! Or you can open it in the editor, it's unlocked. I put a lot of time into the texturing, would like to know how it strikes you. Unfortunately I ran out of steam (and time) for the doodads, but I don't think this map needs a whole lot. Test games have been quite a lot of fun with fights at the ditches and all the routes in the lategame. Hit me up if you want to play.
This is definitely the only map so far I'd call anything near finished product, and I could still put a lot of work into the deco. I'm happy with the layout, but let me know what you think!
Updates / changelog
1.1 - Fixed the dark lighting
1.0 - First release
Replays (1) Please let me know if you have some I can add! + Show Spoiler +
Very cool concept and complex map! The ditch idea feels original but I'm not sure I'm getting it exactly - they ar low ground with wide ramps? on the logo-image they seem as they are just made out of sunken non-gameplay-affecting terrain .. aka no real cliffs? Confusing, need to take look in editor .. soon.
My general sense tells me the middle will be tankfest beacuse of the various high grounds with XNT, narrow paths between. What about a tower in the absolute low-grund middle insted of those four?
I woudl also shrink the map and decrease rush-distance by making main smaller (move outer edges of main platform towards map centre) and give the nat some more size to compensate.
Also, what version of mapanalyser are you using? I cant get anything out of the latest version.
Oh, and I must take a look at the texture-work ... gives me good vibes
Saw the pictures on the MotM thread. Thought it looked amazing so I opened up sc2, searched for the map online and checked it out.
I only played against a computer and basically looked around but there is 1 thing I would change and 1 (well, technically 4) things that I'm undecided about.
As you can see I think that the lighting in the map is just waaay too dark. The overview looked amazing but I feel just ingame it's too dark and needs to be brightened up a bit.
Next, being zerg I was spreading creep and noticed this. + Show Spoiler +
I love how you did it like that by checkboarding it so you can still get a creep tumor down there. Good job on remembering to do it like that
My concern is with the LoS blockers and then the high ground chokes around the edges of it. Obviously protoss and terran will most likely always use the tight choke around the low grounds so not only will they have the high ground advantage and the tight choke, they will also have those LoS blockers on the low ground which hurts zerg even more if they are trying to flank around.
The watchtowers are always tough to place in a map and I'm on the border with these. I love them because it helps you take the middle base, but then I feel (as meltage said) that tanks + those xel'nagas will pretty much mean the middle would be off limits for the other races. (again I haven't played at all besides 2 games against computers so maybe this isn't the case)
The use of the textures is amazing, great work on that, just the colors that showed on your overview MADE me want to try this map out. The layout is great (maybe middle is too tank friendly with the towers?) and even though you said you could have added tons more doodads I think it's great how it is.
Definitely one of the better maps I've see on here, keep up the good work!
Whoa....! Thanks Sidian! I play on low settings so I had NO idea it looked so weird, I was really enjoying the dim oblique lighting but that is much too hard to see. Adjusting that ASAP. Would you mind helping me check it so I can verify it's satisfactory?
@Melt: I'm using 1.4.3... I think? It's a couple months old. I have some reservations about tanks and the openness of the middle routes too, but after playing on it I feel like this is totally compensated by the number of routes to get around a tank position. You can't really camp out unless you have a completely maxed army with absurd numbers of tanks, someone can just go around you or hit where your line is weak. For ZvT, the cliffs can help you use mutalisks really well to attack the outlying tanks, and broodlords... don't wanna think about it, lol.
And about the ditches, yes it's a real cliff level down with quite wide ramps on either side, and a few LOSB along the bottom as well.
Thanks for the comments, I'm really glad you guys like it. =)
@mikey: Thanks! I'm a fan of center expansions too, as you can see. =)
Update The lighting has been fixed, to the best of my knowledge. Adjusted the exposure / color and confirm the successful change with a friend. Everything should be plenty bright enough to see the game now, let alone the pretty colors. Huge thanks again to Sidian for letting me know, with screenshots included, wow!
I like the XWT placement, very original and difficult to control them, yet they still reveal a large portion of the map. The map has the potential for macro games and non-macro games, so it'll be interesting to see what unfolds in future games.
No matter who spawns where, you will always have a safe third because of how they are positioned in between the naturals. Nice job on that!
I have a feeling that the bases in the sunken pits should be gold or have some sort of advantage, because they look like they are impossible to hold onto, even with the XWT there to give sight up the hill.
I see a lot of cliffs on the map for Overlords, but none of them are pathable for drops. I'd believe that it would be ok to allow drops on the intended thirds.
@Antares: Lots of good points! I'm glad you like those things, I agree, hehe. I thought about where I might put some drop cliffs. I decided against it by default because it seemed to add complexity that wasn't needed. When I reconsidered as the layout was getting finalized, I still couldn't think of a good reason why they were needed, and couldn't clearly see what they would add. Would they add something? I think they might, but I wasn't sure so I just left it out. If there were more cliffs near the middle (like the ones on Shakuras Plateau) I definitely would have included some.
About the low ground. It was hard to decide. A lot of people have said they should be gold. In principle I agree but 4 so close together worries me. It feels like they should have an extra reward, but I don't think they really need it. At worst, they will be the lategame bases. However, they are actually quite defensible with the tower. What you have to consider (and I didn't understand this until I played it a few times), if someone wants to bring their army down there, you have full warning of it. Typical engagement for me as protoss: they meet a few cannons and a storm or two, then my main army descends on them from the ramp. Now they're sandwiched with no maneuvring room, and I got a lot of free shots while they were damaging easily replaceable infrastructure. In short, it's much easier to harass those bases than to kill them without risking your entire army. I really like how it turned out! I hope to seem some games bear me out. ;D
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