I can never stick with an idea

[andreasaspenberg]

dont be discouraged, just do the work again. i lost parts of a map because i forgot to save it but it didnt stop me from continuing.

 

[Ham Ham]

dont be discouraged, just do the work again. i lost parts of a map because i forgot to save it but it didnt stop me from continuing.

Keep auto-saving on.
I remember when I was making an awesome terrain for a contest back in 2007, and power was shut down. I lost 3 or 4 hours of mapping progress and it made me abandon the contest.

 

[Map Designer]

Keep auto-saving on.
I remember when I was making an awesome terrain for a contest back in 2007, and power was shut down. I lost 3 or 4 hours of mapping progress and it made me abandon the contest.

or do as many versions of your map. I make many versions for my map, and, in each version, there is a little addition, and a little fix to a bug.

I think your cure lies within the wisdom of sonofjay

Mostly, I dedicate my maps to myself and not to others, that keeps me motivated.

If you like your map, you will play it, and you will make it to the better, and you will get new ideas. between, I really love playing my map, really!! that I sometimes...dream of it, and it sometimes inspire me with good ideas.

Well if you wanna be motivated:
1. Announce your project
2. You get many people who likes in and they will pressure you to finish it, since nobody wants to disappoint fans.
3. ???
4. PROFIT!

that means you should be fan number 1 in your fan list.

 

[Vizel]

I have self-motivation issues...

I can't trick my brain into...anything. Period.

I can't even do it in my dreams. If it's impossible I wake up....stupid literal brain.

But if self-motivation doesn't work, outside motivation can help a lot

 

[frostloh]

Triggers.

I hate it when I spend hours working on triggers, only to find some bug or unforeseen function of a line that renders the whole bunch obsolete. The learning process is like History taught with algebraic formulae...and that's only for GUI. And most custom spells require trigger knowledge nowadays, with dummy units and whatnot. I literally can't make a map that requires the players to do something more complicated than unit 1 kills unit 2 without getting down and dirty with those forked up lines of code.

 

[Kam]

I have one project. I've worked on it since this game was released.

 

[Deleted member 177737]

I have a few maps that I could finish, but when people stop posting on the map threads and I start only seeing my posts 3-4 times in a row then I just quit due to lack of intrest. If I know that at least one person is following my map and will play it when it is complete then I will get the map done.

Its just like my campaign Dreamscape that I've been 'working' on since a month or so after I joined THW. The first time there were about 3-4 people following it and the thread had a post a day which kept me going, then after awhile people just stoped then I thought the idea was bad and scrapped it all and re-started. That has happened 3 times already =.=

 

[andreasaspenberg]

people stop responding to my map projects as well but it doesnt stop me.

 

[deepstrasz]

Imagine how satisfied you'll be after your triggers work properly and the time has paid off.

 

[sonofjay]

Imagine how satisfied you'll be after your triggers work properly and the time has paid off.

True, but no just on triggers, if you done well on terraining and object editor and you see the result, it feels like heaven.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

You mean it fells like Nutella


And what I do to prevent my maps from corrupting is I make 3 backups, each saved at a significant part of the development.

 

[WaterKnight]

So you would still lose a significant part of the development. I always create a new file when some work is done and keep the old as archive. Does not matter anyway when the project folder becomes a few hundred megabyte, on the other hand it turns into a treasure. Or you could use some automatic backup software, store it online/externally etc.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Well not really significant.
What I do is, I save 1 save before the current save.

 

[LuckyLegend07]

Ahaha, it is probably because the triggers are a lot to learn. many complex combinations available until it renders you spoilt for choice. But yes.. start with something small and learn the basics and eventually you will venture out to Youtube tutorials to advance further.

 

[Wareditor]

*sigh*
It's time to face it, guys.
You should have expected it before. Warcraft 3 is an old game, and it's becoming a cult game. One kind of game that is not played by 12 year old boys that think graphics should be the most important thing on any game, but played by real gamers. It's happening the same thing with Warcraft 3 that happened with many other games like Doom, Quake, Age of Empires, Starcraft 1, Mechwarrior, and many others: it's becoming a classic game.
This doesn't means in any way that Wc3 modding scene will die. Things will get a bid slower, but change for the better,with more mature players and modders, with people that care more about gameplay than awsum grapikx!
Fear not! In the Doomworld Forums (the Doom equivalent of The Hive Workshop) there are still hundreds of people working on levels, gameplay enhancement mods, and updating source-ports at full steam like if we still were in the late 90s, and I am talking about an almost 20 year-old game. What makes you think that Warcraft 3 modding will disappear if Doom modding didn't disappeared?

Warcraft 3 will never fade away. It's a classic, and it will live forever. Don't hesitate to start a brand new map right now, because there WILL be people to play your map. There will ALWAYS be.



About people having problems to do it's first map, all you need is focus. Get ANYTHING done. When I started mapping back on 2006, I made at least 5 or 6 small maps in a single year. It helped me to get enough experience to start with bigger maps.

Very well said !
Keep Mapping

 

[deepstrasz]

Someone should make some statistics about how many maps appeared shortly before 2003 and how many are coming now to see if the W3 community has or hasn't gone too low.
Same for models, skins etc.

 

[Vizel]

Actually, that would be really interesting if someone could indeed put together such a statistical report. Would be worth a read.

 

[sonofjay]

Hmmmm, if we're talking only on hive, then I'll do some research about it, but as a user who review maps when have time, map pending section is always crowded.

 

[Hodge-Podge]

Personally, the first map that I actually felt passionate about making was the map that I still haven't finished. I must have spent a good nine or two months on it, solo but eventually got to a point where I couldn't do anything anymore because I didn't have the skill and know-how. Get a team. They help

 

[bamq]

I always start making a new campaign but then I usually quit after awhile...

 

[andreasaspenberg]

i dont create campaigns, i create multiplayer maps.

 

[Vizel]

Both are good, but both campaigns and multiplayer maps require quite a different mindset.

With campaigns, making spells and such is easier as it won't have to be MPI and most spells wouldn't need to be MUI, so yu don't have to worry about that sort of thing, but you have to deal with game caches, and balancing is a lot harder with campaigns than multiplayer maps (in my opinion). Furthermore, in a campaign, you want a lot of cinematics and such to move the story along.

In Multiplayer maps you have to make sure you get in everything you want within the 8MB filesize limit, you have to make it have replay value, you have to make sure everything applicable is MUI/MPI. You want to maximize gameplay potential but you need to balance it with playtime. People aren't going to want to play a map for 6 hours to beat it unless there's a save/load system. You have to take these sorts of things into account.

 

[WaterKnight]

Dunno what's the problem with making abilities and other things MI. Even if there was only one caster with this spell, I would assign the data to this unit and account for MI because it makes sense and is not hard. Code-wise, it would be more confusing not to and you might easily change your mind later on.

 

[ThisPOT]

This is the problem:

Games that Devs are passionate about (like the diablo series) are NEVER good enough!
And unless you have people forcing you to finish/release it you will stall on ever5y single detail trying to improve everything, untill you get so tired of it you quit =/...

I have been working on this map for a week or so but have started this project like 15 times, but this time I promised myself I would finish, even if it isn't perfect, and it's a hella good map already because of that ... Finishing is extremely important and I think the quality bar for maps would be raised if people simply finished their maps, as so many people have awesome/unique ideas that have never been applied in WC3.

Another major problem of course, lack of model makers.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

there is model makers here but the problem is that they usually refuse to take requests.

 

[Kam]

My largest issue as it pertains to models is the incredible lack of building models. Even when there are they rarely conform to the standard vanilla race animations.

 

[Brambleclaw]

My old routine

2008 (Wohoo I finally learn full yhow to make a working map) _ Makes a working map with quite basic gameplay -- Spawn Build kinda style
(Hosts map Wohoo people joining now i can test it and get the bugs fixed)
(adds a bunch of stuff0= Gets bored of it a few weeks laters. And takes a 2 week break.)

Comes back to it Wow this is total bullshit i will have to redo all triggers properly and all units - Half way through gets an idea.
Next map wohoo


2010

Now that i am experianced I make a decent map instead of basic gameplay i implement newer systems and once i get work out the kinks etc etc i finally get a playable map.

Hosts on Wc3= WTF 5 hours later no one joins.
I am lucky to even get 4 people and thats only if using a Bot manual hosting = 0 Joiners 1 if lucky, for a 11 player map after extreme waiting periods.

2012

okay Hosts map after making, even with Haxxor bot doing what all bots doing hacking the auto refresh list -.- 0 joiners since No one wants to join new games or try something.


So what the point of making a multiplayer map. If you can't even get one person to play it with you....

 

[Deleted member 177737]

I've been asking that question for months now Brambleclaw, still haven't gotten a good awnser. =/

 

[Vizel]

Simple answer: BNet is only for a small range of maps. Try other services like Garena or GameRanger. When playing TDs on garena, I sometimes get a handful of random people in my games. I'm all for it most of the time (and if I'm not, I just politely let them know, let them dl and kick em).

 

[andreasaspenberg]

i manage to play my maps on battle.net. as for model makers, they should be encouraged to take requests somehow.

 

[dookiebox]

Map Making is a hard life, especially if you're in school full time and maybe working on the side. I've never got to finish a map, let alone enjoy any game to it's full potential. My friends and I had to call in sick as teachers at a Local High School just to play Diablo III when it first came out.

 

[Vizel]

Teachers call in sick to play games? I never knew cuz I did the same as a student, lol.

There's a model workshop up at the moment, and the poor guy is swamped with requests (to be expected since most of the modellers won't like doing requests). He does a pretty good job of it as well.

 

[Allain55X]

Maybe....

That happens to me too! Maybe because when you got some wrong in your game and you think you can't solve the problem... it will lead you too being lazy on creating the map! OR... when you see games in Hive that are good you feel lazy and just play the maps in your WC3!

 

[Sham]

My problem is I spend so much time testing out everything that I end up getting bored of, say, the heroes I made or the story I created. I start changing things up, like playing a mage-hero instead of an assassin, and then change the story bit here, and then adjust this town and then....

Until it becomes a big loop of me re-fixing everything until I eithers scrap the idea or just get bored of WC3 altogether and take a break for awhile.

Currently I'm working on a campaign map involving demonic invasions (SO ORIGINAL) and necromancy running rampant around the world (okay, that's a bit better) but I need an awesome mage model. I've yet to find one.

 

[Vizel]

@Sham - As for mage models, have you seen the one used in Dreamlord? I can't recall the name of it, but it is here on hive. Based off the Blood Mage model, looks amazing.

 

[daverave1212]

don't work alone.Might sometimes be boring .I would love to work with someone that helped me in creating my sprpg.Like,when i get bored,i'd tell him what to do,give him the map ,and then give it back to me with updates .I'd add him to map creator credits ofc.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Well having a partner also has his downfalls. Sometimes if the said partner has little or even no input at the maps ideas, they tend to lose motivation. You know where that goes.
Also, it can be the case of a sort of jealousy. Since the leader gets to upload and mostly gets their names on discussions about the map, other project members tend to be left behind. Think of it as a band. What happens to the vocalist and lead guitarist? Famous if the band hits stardom. The others? Not so sure.

 

[sonofjay]

Well it depends on the leader, if he advertise his self more or his members.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

i have to work alone because people dont want to work with me.(people offer to help but pull out at the last minute, then leave battle.net permanently.)

 

[Vizel]

I'd help people out, but my own knowledge of how to use the editor isn't enough for most people it seems. Everyone's worried about nanoseconds in regards to performance, whereas as far as I'm concerned, as long as it doesn't visibly lag, I don't care.

 

[EtikS]

well i was like you but then i gather friends that are intrested to the game and start making maps one of my maps called Hereos of Newerth (we changed a lot of names to that map) you can find it in epicwar . com i stop working in it because one of my friends that knew a lot of triggering spells died .. I lost it in the start.After some months we try to update the map with some more things and that would be the final version. the whole progress was bad the triggered spells of the hero were terrible..we did release it thought it's still a mistery how it has 3000+ downloads xD.anyway after 2 years i gather the other members and start making another map "Battle of Chronicle" it's still in beta thought in v0.3b we made a new hero that have triggered spells in it i think it's really epic a lot of help from Hive and others .Well that's all.

 

[Vizel]

I've got friends interested. I just don't have friends interested who know anything about the editor, sadly.

 

[sonofjay]

Well I also have friends interested on map making, unfortunately they really love making a dota map but they can't terrain, trigger, etc etc.

 

[Sham]

I'd help people out, but my own knowledge of how to use the editor isn't enough for most people it seems. Everyone's worried about nanoseconds in regards to performance, whereas as far as I'm concerned, as long as it doesn't visibly lag, I don't care.

Haha I know what you mean, I don't fix my memory leaks or use super special coding and whatnot, I just use triggers that work and don't lag up the map like crazy.

I'd love to post my maps here on hive because, IMHO, I have some incredibly awesome ideas, but with the amount of memory leaks and small chances for glitches I don't think it would ever get approved or played

 

[Vizel]

Oh, no, don't get me wrong. I try to clean up my leaks as best I can because I've seen good maps that lock up so bad due to memory leaks after 30 mins or so it's unplayable.

What I mean is, I code things in the way I think, which is to say really roundabout. someone would look at my code, comprising likely of like 3-4 triggers and go "You can squeeze that into one, very efficient trigger using this method!" and I don't care, as long as it works.

Not interested in jass or vjass, really. Little late to be concerned with that. At this point I just have 2 maps I want to make and I'm probably done with map making as far as my own stuff is concerned.

One map has one major bug that I haven't been able to fix that if I could fix it I could release a demo version of it after only a couple hours of work and testing.

The other map is more intricate, and is only just started. Got confused with my triggers though cuz I had to take a break, was trying to condense a 5-trigger system into 2, and I look at it now and can't figure out how the hell to finish it. Oh, well. I'll have to do that system from scratch again. No motivation, though.

 

[Map Designer]

it is useful to write what you want to do. my maps directory contains .txt files with
whatToEdit
Credits
The description I will post in hive
changelog (although I usually forget to write anything in it)
BackStory for my map

and just edit these whenever I have idea. I sometimes keep them open.

 

[WaterKnight]

One map has one major bug that I haven't been able to fix that if I could fix it I could release a demo version of it after only a couple hours of work and testing.

If it's just that one bug, search for support in the help forums.

 

[andreasaspenberg]

if you want help with a bug you can ask me. if i cant help there might be someone here that can.

 

[Vizel]

It's just a minigame side project. Not that interested in really finishing it unless I can get some dice models made. D:

 

[Brambleclaw]

Vizel a dice model could be made in a relatively short time. With animations -- Have you asked in one of the many Model workshops?

And http://www.thehelper.net/threads/wc3-monopoly.33665/