On April 09 2015 05:19 Meavis wrote: for those that want to participate but don't have much of a clue on how to make a map, I just finished a video guide on how to get started on making maps in sc2 http://www.twitch.tv/meavissc2/c/6500957 it's about an hour long and covers pretty much all of the basic stuff
oh wow cool thanks always wanted to mess around and make maps but didnt know how to start this looks awesome thanks again.
Why does Blizzard care about these map competitions if they always destroy the aesthetics of the map. Remember how they destroyed Yeonsu? And now they've destroyed Echo. I don't know why they do that. >.<
On April 13 2015 13:37 zelevin wrote: Why does Blizzard care about these map competitions if they always destroy the aesthetics of the map. Remember how they destroyed Yeonsu? And now they've destroyed Echo. I don't know why they do that. >.<
How is Echo "destroyed"? Are you talking about the LotV beta version where they screwed up the cliffs in a couple places? Because the current HotS ladder version is extremely similar to the original - sure they removed a bunch of pipes, but the overall aesthetics are the same. It's not like they completely retextured the map like on Yeonsu, now that was a legitimate map molestation.
I think them editing aesthetics is a big who-cares for the most part, as long as the map's functionality stays the same (i.e. they don't go editing terrain and such.. which they somewhat did with the painted pathing stuff on a couple maps :-\).
Aesthetics are there mostly just for readability and to make the map a bit more pleasant than looking at plain terrain. Of course it's nice when the mapmaker can go above and beyond and make amazing aesthetics, but the layout is 99% of the equation.
Anyway @ the pace, I think it's a little bit of a barrier of entry to newer mappers (older mappers who are really pro at the editor will have no problems getting maps out in 3 weeks, whereas new people it will take a little longer) which is a little unfortunate, it would be cool to have someone who is completely new have an awesome layout idea and win or place highly, but cest la vie and honestly contests more often means more chances to replace blizz maps with community maps, so how can you complain :-P
Posting my three map submissions. I'm not going to send them into the email just yet because I want to do a few more tests and tweak maps if needed. Just thought I'd post these up & a couple aesthetic shots for some TLMC hypeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
Paradisia A brand new 2 player map I created for TLMC 6. 2 spawn, 3 gold bases, 3 watch towers, beach theme!
Korhal Killzone A 2 player map I made for TLMC5, did some feedback on it, opened up the map a bit, changed up the middle a bit, changed up the middle base a bit, more zerg friendly now while still being a smaller aggressive map.
So I was feeling pretty confident about my maps thus far. Time to feel slightly less confident.. at least aesthetics-wise, lol. The pretty.. :-O
Theyre all pretty cool, I think Journey Overgrown is the weakest link of the 3, but others may disagree. I want to hate Paradisia cuz I hate gold bases (and holy crap @ 15 bases in a HotS map) and getting to 4 bases seems a little too easy, but a lot of the terrain is really smartly done and even though there aren't a lot of super open areas there's plenty of paths to make up for it. Looks fun. Korhal is a nice cutthroat map, the first thing that struck me was how impactful and cool those rocks are despite being that far from the main/nat. I do think more smallish maps would be cool for the map pool.
Moonlight Madness Decided to get rid of Journey Overgrown, after messing around with it a ton I decided I didn't really like it as my final submission. Decided to bring back Moonlight as I feel it's a stronger map then Journey was, removed the gold base and replaced it with a regular base, also moved around a few of the d-rocks, now no matter what you have to break rocks down to get into the backdoor, which definitely helps out protoss/terran early game.
It occurred to me when I attempted to publish a map (as usual, I must remove one to add one), that a really, actually awesome (and yet simple) prize other than the money prize pool would simply be more map slots (for winning the TLMC). So rather than having a limit of 20, the winner (or top 3) might get 30 or even 40 map slots - that way they can host almost every good map they have made. Is that perhaps a possibility in future contests?