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I have decided to make a map for BW. I have tried, in the past, and eventually lost interest in continuing, so I hope that this blog will keep me motivated.
Also, I would like some input, critique, and just help in general. Since I am a pretty crappy player, I may overlook something very important.
October 1, 2009 - (4)Fountain+ Show Spoiler +I started making this yesterday, after an idea that has been brewing in my head for a couple of days, and this is VERY beta at the moment. I have only spent 2 hours on it so far, but I think it has potential. So, the mains can be blocked, ling tight (with marines spawning inside) with a single depot and a single rax (I believe, I have not tested this yet). The naturals are blockable with 2 depots and a rax, with marines spawning inside (yet again, I have not tested for sure yet). All of them appear to have a good forge fe building placements as well, but since I am not a Protoss player, I do not know for sure. I have not yet tested for tank holes, that will come shortly. My plan for this map is to have 4 mains (obviously), using rotational symmetry, and eliminate any early-game advantages caused by positional imbalances. There will be 3 gas and 4 mineral patches per player. I am not completely sure what I am going to do in the middle yet, however, I do want to make some parts of it unbuildable, and I want to tighten the map just a little. I do not want something directly obstructing the middle of the map. My plans for the resources are as follows Mains - 9 minerals x 1500 + 1 gas x 5000 Naturals - 8 minerals x 1200 + 1 gas x 4000 Min only - 8 minerals x 1000 Second gas expo - 7 minerals x 1500 + 1 gas x 5000 The min only expansions will be along the slight concavity on all of the mains, at the bottom of the cliff. The third gasses will be a 12, 3, 6, and 9. Mains will be in the corners, and naturals should be pretty obvious..... I know there is not really a good overlord spot, but I am going to try to make a few in the middle of the map, rather than a single one to watch the natural, and then a completely open map.....
October 2, 2009 - (4)Fountain+ Show Spoiler +Small update. I placed the mineral formations. Due to some technical difficulties, that's it. I have not tested them yet, but I believe that they will be out of a tanks maximum range, once I add the minerals at the min-only expansions.
October 10, 2009 - (4)Fountain+ Show Spoiler +There is the sketch what I pan on doing in the middle. Currently my editing program is fucking up. I have been trying to fix it, but it has been futile so far. The beige colour is high ground. The light brown is rocky ground. The blue is water. Light blue/grey is going to be a custom bridge. And if you can't guess where I want to put the mineral lines, and the vespene geysers based on the picture, then you don't deserve to every play Starcraft again..... Note - this is just a general idea. It is far from being finished. But I think it achieves what I want to accomplish. It is a bit tighter, yet there is still a lot of room to maneuver. There is no obstruction in the direct middle of the line, nor directly between the bases. And I have moved the mineral lines in the mains away from the edge of the map. Also, I have done some preliminary testing of the rates that they mine, and they are all surprisingly good. I will have to wait until the doodads are in place to be sure however.
November 17, 2009 - (4)Fountain+ Show Spoiler +I've done a bit of work, which has been hindered by my inability to use Scmdraft to it's potential..... About 3/4 of the time, it will shut down without saving properly, so any progress is very slow..... It is really, really freaking annoying at this point. I've done some testing, I have ensured that the mains and naturals have similar mining speeds (played as Z, with the same BO for the first 5 minutes, and the averages for 3 trials for all of the mains were very close, as were the naturals (note, the naturals do mine slower than the mains, but that should be pretty obvious.....). I adjusted one of the mains so that it was the same as the others. I have also ensured that the 3rd expansions are not tankable from the mains. I have not tested for tank holes, and I am sure there are some that need fixing. The middle is still very WIP. I'm still going to do something similar to my sketch in the previous update, but I don't know how I'm going to do the 60 degree bridges. I might do something else instead. It's going to need a lot of tile editing still, as well as decoration, and it's still not playable yet. I tested - the mains are ling-tight with a single depot and rax, and the naturals are ling-tight with 2 depots and a rax. All of them spawn marines on the inside. As Z, it looks really, really easy to make a good sim city to defend the natural.
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Map looks pretty well thought out, can't wait to see the finished version.
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is that andromeda ?
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theres gonna be a huge fountain in the middle right?
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Well, any artist typically names his work after its done or starts by doing the main idea that the title entails.
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konadora
Singapore66063 Posts
Hoping for a Health fountain in middle of map :p
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im scared of the 1 supply 1 rax block... bit imba imo
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Looks very nice! Could you upload what you have so far?
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i really really like those kind of open maps. plz dont clutter it up with doodads everywhere now.
On October 02 2009 02:58 StorrZerg wrote: im scared of the 1 supply 1 rax block... bit imba imo
so wallins are imbalanced now? lol
although pushing in tvp as long as its not crosspositions looks really easy since one always has a wall in the back and the distances seem sort of short.. if terran just slowpushes and takes one of the thirds at 12,3,6 or 9 he got those easily covered and practically has the toss contained.
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map looks pretty generic, sorry to say.
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looks promising keep it up (just dont add tons of neutral buildings and minable patches and backdoors etc that shits really annoying)
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On October 02 2009 01:33 kOre wrote:Map looks pretty well thought out, can't wait to see the finished version. Thanks
On October 02 2009 01:34 FaCE_1 wrote:is that andromeda ? Is Andromeda a bad map?
On October 02 2009 02:14 Polar_Nada wrote:theres gonna be a huge fountain in the middle right? My first idea was to draw a fountain in the middle. That idea is still very debatable. In fact, I dunno if I will still do that.
On October 02 2009 02:58 StorrZerg wrote: im scared of the 1 supply 1 rax block... bit imba imo Well, I needed to do something to make it worthwhile to not go for the 2 depot and rax block including the nat.....
On October 02 2009 04:16 Tooplark wrote: Looks very nice! Could you upload what you have so far? Once I get it further, to the point where it is playable, I will make it downloadable.
On October 02 2009 04:37 Wurzelbrumpft wrote: although pushing in tvp as long as its not crosspositions looks really easy since one always has a wall in the back and the distances seem sort of short.. if terran just slowpushes and takes one of the thirds at 12,3,6 or 9 he got those easily covered and practically has the toss contained. I know this is a problem, but this exists in most 4 player maps..... Andromeda and Python are no different. Yet, overall, there is no significant imbalance.....
On October 02 2009 06:46 CharlieMurphy wrote: map looks pretty generic, sorry to say. I know it looks bland. I'm not trying to make a radically new style of map here..... Battle Royale showed why that can be a very bad idea..... this is just something I want to spend some time on, over the next month or so.
On October 02 2009 07:48 FyRe_DragOn wrote: looks promising keep it up (just dont add tons of neutral buildings and minable patches and backdoors etc that shits really annoying) Agreed. I want to keep this simple. I want to make it so that anyone could download it and play it, feeling comfortable on the map (assuming they have played maps like Python or Andromeda).
Thanks for the comments guys. And the 1 star it has been rated
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Well, I've made a small update, and I figured I should update this accordingly.
I have run into some technical difficulties with SCMDraft 2.0. Every time I try to save now, the program crashes, and will not save anything that I have done. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program, as well as restarted my computer (among other obvious potential fixes), but I have not had any success.
I have googled for a solution, but I have not found any. Any suggestions? This used to be a rare occurrence, as in less than 10% of the time. Now it is happening way too often.
Anyways, I'm too tired to do more, especially when it is not saving any changes I have made.....
Also - I'm now going to be using ImageShack, rather than Photobucket. Photobucket is fucking up right now for me.....
Maybe it's just bad luck or something.....
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you can try another mapmaking program that isn't quite as powerful as SCMDraft
comment on the map: the mineral lines look too close to the edge of the map for turret placement, unless that's what you're going for
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They are. That's one of the things I wanted to change when SCMDraft started fucking up for me. I'm going to move them a couple of squares inwards on my next edit.
Also - I am going to be doing some major tile editing (since I have figured out what I am going to do in the middle, I will post a pic of it later, when some of that starts to take shape), so I need a program capable of that. I am already familiar with SCMDraft, but are there any comparable programs that have a similar style of controls?
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Update - actually, this update has been a couple of weeks in the making. I have spent much more time trying to get Scmdraft or Starforge to run on my comp than actually working on any maps.....
So, I got a few things done. Progress has been slowed considerably by Scmdraft not working properly. I've also done some basic testing.
I'd like some comments from Protoss players. It's the race I know least about.....
And I got a 1 star rating. Awesome!
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