[M] (2) Dread Wastes

On February 05 2013 08:09 iamcaustic wrote:
First thing I'd say is that the texturing needs work. While I really dig the concept, it is very hard to read the map. For a comparison of what I mean by this, Ohana saw some changes to its texturing when it became a ladder map for the sake of improved clarity:

+ Show Spoiler [Original] +
+ Show Spoiler [LE version] +

On February 05 2013 09:53 Insomni7 wrote:
I CANT SEE THE MINERALZ

Maybe make them gold patches for aesthetics but with the properties of normal minerals?

On February 05 2013 09:58 iamcaustic wrote:

Not really a fan of that idea, as it would cause quite a bit of confusion. Rich mineral fields function quite differently from regular mineral fields and everyone is familiar with this difference. Adding clarity to the map textures solves the issue without doing weird changes like that.

On February 05 2013 11:13 EatThePath wrote:

If you really want to you can make them purple, which won't be confused for high yield, but will make them show up better. Or cyan, or whatever cool color.

On February 05 2013 11:27 lorestarcraft wrote:

Or red??

On February 05 2013 11:41 Unsane wrote:
I really like the colour scheme and if it only creates problems when viewing the map like this as opposed to in game Id suggest just releasing a version merely for the sake of overview, if possible. (i admit i am no way familiar with the editor and have no idea how difficult this might be).

EDIT: cyan mineral patches might work nicely

On February 05 2013 11:41 Unsane wrote:
I really like the colour scheme and if it only creates problems when viewing the map like this as opposed to in game Id suggest just releasing a version merely for the sake of overview, if possible. (i admit i am no way familiar with the editor and have no idea how difficult this might be).

EDIT: cyan mineral patches might work nicely

On February 05 2013 12:54 iamcaustic wrote:

It's also a matter of reading the minimap while in game. That one is critically important when considering map aesthetics.

On February 05 2013 13:34 Unsane wrote:


While i do agree with you, even if you were to reduce how visible minerals were on maps (making them completely invisible) a player should know where a base is, simply by layout. Leaving alone how you can turn off terrain on the minimap in game, Im going to go ahead and claim that if this map made it into the blizzard ladder pool, and a player did not even briefly view the map in either the load screen or in the map preferences screen, then let him be punished (if at all) for not taking even a single moment to consider the layout.

EDIT: There should simply be a colour option for significant doodads on the minimap. Say for a very white map you'd make the mineral patches and geysers black or purple. On this blue map you could make them orange or black or something other than blue. but im not sure if this exists in editor, i only assume it doesnt because no one has used it.

EDIT2: Remember, we are in this subforum essentially trying to produce functional works of art that sometimes breaks rules that we feel are arbitrary but the policing staff (blizzard) has imposed.
-Say someone bought a piece of art and liked it so much they wanted to open a gallery or museum where they could collect and show off the works they've found that are similar to the claimed 'first masterpiece'. Very quickly would all the paintings look identical if you forced the rules X, Y, and Z simply because they liked number1 so much. Obviously people would lose interest in the gallery if these rules forced too many similarities, and the 8 or so currently presented options all look (and function) the same.

If there are 2 hurdles blue minerals on blue grounds creates, the first is visibility and the second is stupidity. Id much rather put forward more effort to combat stupidity than to lazily combat visibility. This is maybe too much 'ideals' and not enough 'practicality' but perhaps blizz needs to increase their editors array of functions or have a greater faith in humanity. (even if all they see on their own forums would destroy anyone's faith in humanity)

On February 05 2013 17:23 Unsane wrote:
I was sort of eluding that maybe we need to petition blizzard to add this feature to the editor, an option -'which colours represent mineral patches on this map's minimap?' instead of changing the maps :S This option could be handy for many maps

EDIT: in your example of Ohana, i think that was more for two differnt reasons, A) Attack paths may be difficult to discern, B) thats a lot of doodads. As opposed to be able to discern where mineral patches are and therefore potential base locations.

On February 05 2013 19:36 iamcaustic wrote:

There's nothing wrong with identifying resources on the minimap, no matter the texturing work. o_O The aesthetic issue with this map is the same as the issue with Ohana -- being able to cleanly identify cliffs, ramps, and attack paths at a glance.

On February 06 2013 03:45 lorestarcraft wrote:

There no issue when playing like there is on the overview, I had several people play on it. Also, the minerals are the regular blue if you are playing, but black if you are spectating, which is really odd...