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Alright folks, the beta is down and every sensible nerd is already tasting the bitter fruit of withdrawal symptoms. Obviously, increased social activity, exercise or just about any activity that does not take place in front of a screen and relates somehow to Starcraft is just not acceptable and clearly out of the question. But I have the solution to your despair! During the downtime between now and the launch of the second phase of the beta I am opening a friendly contest for all of those who will be killing some of the downtime in the Galaxy Editor.
Is Desert Oasis inviting cheese? Is Incineration Zone a massive tankfest? Is it a bit too suspicious that zerg players always pick Metalopolis when they get to choose map in a tournament? This will be your chance to prove that you are smarter than the Blizzard designers, and more insightful into what make a great competitive map. This is your chance to show the community how you think that the existing Starcraft 2 melee maps should look.
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The rules are simple, you pick a map from the starcraft 2 map pool that you wish to redesign, perhaps it is a map that you feel desperately need a tweak or balance change *cough* Incineration Zone *cough*, or maybe you just want to make an alternate version of your favorite map.
Open it up in the Galaxy Editor and go wild with it and then send me a PM containing a screenshot of the entire map, as well as a download link for the map itself. You may make as few or as many changes as you wish as long as the original map is recognizable with the following restrictions and rules.
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Rules and Restrictions
You MAY:
- You may pick any standard 1v1 map, mods of the following are allowed; Blistering Sands, Desert Oasis, Incineration Zone, Kulas Ravine, Lost Temple, Metalopolis, Scrap Station and Steppes of war.
- Do complete changes to terrain and textures, create and remove cliffs, add ramps, make islands, add water etc.
- Add and remove expansions or change normal expansions into rich and vice versa.
- Add and remove Xel'Naga watchtowers and destructible rocks.
You may NOT:
- Pick any of the team maps, mods of the following maps are not allowed in the contest; Arid Wastes, Coalition, Decena or Scorched Haven.
- Alter the map size or the boundaries.
- Alter the number of players.
- Move starting locations. (You can however lower or raise the starting position's cliff height and moving them a few hexes to either side is accepted if necessary.)
- Add, remove or swap textures in the tileset.
- Add any custom triggers or mechanics that are not available in a standard melee map.
Where do I get the maps so I can start modifying?
Thanks to some gifted people all of the Blizzard standard maps are available in a mappack here:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/official-melee-maps/
DO NOTE THAT NOT ALL OF THE MAPS IN THE MAPPACK ARE ELIGABLE FOR THIS CONTEST.
Check the rules and regulations to see which maps you can and cannot submit redesigns for.
When does the contest end?
The contest will end on the same day as the second phase of the beta test begins, when Blizzard lets us know precisely which date that is, I will add it into this thread.
How are the winners chosen?
A committee consisting of myself, and and a handful of select members of the community will select the best maps from all the submitted ones. Then a poll will be opened here on the Team Liquid Forum where you will all be able to vote on the nominees. (If you are a high level player or commentator and interested in being on the committee please contact me)
Maps will be judged on how creative the redesign is and on how balanced the map is for competitive play. Eye candy with a badrillion doodads will not be key however beauty could be a tie breaking factor if two maps are even on the previous two aspects.
Is there a prize?
Just honor and glory, at least for the moment. This contest is mainly just a friendly way to pass the time when the beta is down.
Showmatch Event
If we get enough submissions and there is a solid interest in this contest then my hope is that before the game goes retail we will be able to convince one or two of the amazingly skilled casters we have here in the community as well as two or more well known competitive players to show off the winning maps in a live showmatch series/tournament.
I cannot make any guarantees that this can be arranged obviously but if any of the casters and top players are interested in potentially helping out with this, feel free to PM me and let me know.
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I have checked if there are any similar contests running and I have not found any but if there are and I missed it feel free to let me know, also please post suggestions and feedback in this thread to let me get an idea of whether or not there is any interest in this.
(I don't know if this post should be in the Starcraft 2 section or in the Tournament section. Feel free to move it if I picked the wrong one of the two).
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I am a bit confused about the "you may not change the terrain theme" rule. First of all, why? And also, would this mean that modifying the tileset to add say.. grass to incineration zone but keeping everything else in the tileset intact would be against the rules and get you disqualified?
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dezi
Germany1536 Posts
Do i have to send per PM or are i also allowed to just post my pictures with changes here in this thread?
//
Just recognized you didn't count Desert Oasis as Standard 1v1 Map. So here would be my changes to DO.
![[image loading]](http://image-upload.de/image/dRogQ0/f40bab2b2d.jpg)
Removed the old ramp.
Added two new ramps (one blocked with a stone). Unblocked ramp is closer to the the small choke at the natural.
Added a new small passage to the natural (blocked with a stone).
Added more gaps around the main (makes it harder for reapers/... to get in).
Added a small high ground at the naturals (can be dropped on / used by reapers (makes FE little harder hold).
Added a ramp to the high ground around the expansion top left / bottom right to the main (allows for anti drop there).
Made the gap at this expansions to the watchtowers a little smaller (easier to hold).
Added 2 new ramps to the mid (distance to enemy will keep the same due to new ramps). Units will take this ramp (shortest path). Also changed the terrain there > no more attackable main with tanks from those positions).
Added new sight blockers around the watchtowers and next to the gold expansions.
Hope i didn't forgot anything to mention.
Feedback please 
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On June 08 2010 14:12 Wihl wrote:
I am a bit confused about the "you may not change the terrain theme" rule. First of all, why? And also, would this mean that modifying the tileset to add say.. grass to incineration zone but keeping everything else in the tileset intact would be against the rules and get you disqualified?
The reason is mainly just that the contest is solely focused on how to best refine existing maps to make them better from a gameplay perspective, making changes to the tileset should not be necessary to accomplish this we felt and the rule is pretty much there to avoid getting a lot of "hey I made a lava version of Kulas Ravine" submissions. So you can only work with the textures that are in the tileset of the map already, but you may repaint with those textures all you like.
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I would love to participate but i dont know jack about the editor, could anyone point me to a nice melee map tutorial so that i may be enligthened? x3
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For some reason I expect a whole bunch of "exact" SC:BW LT remakes
Some people can't agree on whether the new map features (watchtowers ea) are balanced. But just removing all the new features is not very creative. It will be a heated poll.
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Something I would like to see is all the SC2 maps on SC:BW 
(Unless this is just that xD)
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pretty illogical that you cant change the starting locations. if someone wanted to move a ramp closer to the mineral line, say on desert oasis then they'd have to move the starting location otherwise it just wouldnt work
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On June 08 2010 23:25 SoMuchBetter wrote:
pretty illogical that you cant change the starting locations. if someone wanted to move a ramp closer to the mineral line, say on desert oasis then they'd have to move the starting location otherwise it just wouldnt work
Remember that you can completely change the actual high ground though on which the starting position is, if you want to have a ramp on another part and you feel it is too close to the minerals you are free to extend the high ground. You can make pretty substantial changes to terrain I mean you could extend the high ground so far that you connect the main to the island expansion etc. Also remember that you can move the resources at the starting position. You can move the mineral line to face the opponent on Desert Oasis rather than towards the corner as it is now. It is just the actual position of the player spawn that you cannot move.
The reasoning is partly that considering how much other stuff you can change, moving starting locations too will end up taking maps closer to being completely new maps rather than mods, but also because the starting positions on the different maps to a huge extent give the maps their character. On Scrap Station the whole core of the map design is that you start close to each other and the map extends away from the players.
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This sounds like fun, I may just have to see what I can do. Already got some ideas floating around.
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alterations are needed to keep the intended balance building and unit sizes aren't the same, also there is cliff walking which really changes some harass points.
So i think most maps need a slight increase in their map boundaries to fit everything in there right.
Also no longinus?!?!?! how am i suppose to play zerg then call imba map aganist my friends.
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Just double checking before i do it, can i move the starting location Resources? as in they will still be there but be faceing a different way.
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On June 09 2010 01:34 Madkipz wrote:
Just double checking before i do it, can i move the starting location Resources? as in they will still be there but be faceing a different way.
Yes, you can also raise the ground or lower the ground under the starting location, the only thing you cannot do is to move the actual spawning position for the CC/Hatchery/Nexus to a different hex.
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dezi
Germany1536 Posts
Still no feedback on my changes? ^^
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I will definitely jump on this when I get home from work. There are some definite modifications I want to make to some of these maps...
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I have created a new version of Steppes of War for the contest, you can check it out here.
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The DO remake looks nice, but I'm not sure about the position of the 2nd ramp. I just don't really see the point of it. The defenders can switch between covering each ramp so quickly that it's not going to matter as a benefit to the attacker.
The only matchup where I can see it making a difference is ZvP where Protoss might block the ramp with zealots and the Zerg is aggressing with lings and they can now attack the ramp to force the zealots out. The thing about that is on DO it's not really the best way to play Zerg since the long rush distances gives you a great expand/macro game plan, especially with your other changes.
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holy shit, dibs on metalopolis!
gg gl hf everyone~
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On June 09 2010 07:03 prodiG wrote:
holy shit, dibs on metalopolis!
gg gl hf everyone~
there arent any dibs ;P
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On June 09 2010 07:19 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2010 07:03 prodiG wrote:
holy shit, dibs on metalopolis!
gg gl hf everyone~ there arent any dibs ;P
i know
...and looking at metal, i'm starting to have second thoughts. the map is so standard!
we'll see~
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EPT
