Get rid of the Sh**

[M0RT]

At first the idea was to provoke and point out the absurd censorship, but I though about it and it developed into quite an interesting concept (so please don't stop reading after first two lines, thinking this map is shit)

Setting

Small terran city. Each player controls "police" (or something like that) in one district. Now one day an Ultralisk appears, takes a shit in the middle of the city and then runs away. The players have to keep the city clean, so they have to deal with this situation. And the easiest way to dispose of the "biological waste", is to put it in someone else's district.

Game Concept

Your goal will be to transport piles of excrements to other parts of the city than your own, without the owner knowing. You will have a set of unit at your disposal, starting with common maintenance vehicles (policeman, trucks) up to decommissioned military equipment (with limited functionality, of course).

Technical details

Most of units you'll use can carry the piles, however will be marked. If someone notices marked unit inside his territory and clicks it, the owner can't admit the unit was acting at his command, so he loses the unit permanentely. New units are bough at the auction. Units appear randomly, you can't buy anywhere else.

Example units

Some of the units I have so far: Monorail - you'll be able to buy monorail cars and use them to transport the piles around the city. Btw. the monorail system is, so far, created completely though data editor. Prisoners - Protoss prisoners designated for community service. Prisoners need to be in range of Wardens, or they will run away (every player will start with 3 Marines, which are wardens) Auto-turret - since there are no attacks in this entire map, auto-turrets have their weapons removed and replaced with an alarm that launches every time a unit moves to it's vicinity

Despite the entire map can look like a big joke, I want to create a serious map with good playability. I don't want the point of the map to be the "shit" in name - I don't think that just saying "shit" is funny and if YOU do, this is not a map for you.

EDIT: I am not a good terrainer, so if you wanted to help me with terrain, I'll be really glad. (the terrain has a huge influence on the map, LOS is basically the key element of gameplay)

Screenshots

Auction, monorail car in background

Cargo Truck full of Sh** (the green smoke is how your opponents will recognize it)

Intro cinematic:

Raven (serves only as detector, can't fly anymore)

Zealot prisoner (the ranges are warden ranges of all your units, which are only displayed as long as you have some prisoner selected)

 

[The World Is Flat]

This is both a funny and fun map concept, (Which is very good.)

I could see this as being very competitive, and if the concept advanced upon, very very tactically intense, with traps, sneak attacks, ect. (Attacks as in shit dumps)

Good luck, I definetly look forward to seeing this map through!

(My dev team has a good terrainer who might just have time to do your terrain, i'll ask.

 

[Orly_YaRly]

MORT....i think you just made the most fun map ever

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Wow.... that seems both entertaining and dumb at the same time

Unfortunately I can see Blizz pulling a dick move with censure ship on this though

 

[The World Is Flat]

I dont see this being featured.

 

[M0RT]

Unfortunately I can see Blizz pulling a dick move with censure ship on this though

I am actually afraid of that, but consider this: Shooting people is OK, but cleaning your dog's shit in the park is "offensive"?

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

I am actually afraid of that, but consider this: Shooting people is OK, but cleaning your dog's shit in the park is "offensive"?

As long as shooting people is "fantasy violence" apparently

 

[M0RT]

Well I am prepared for the situation. I can change the story, that the ultralisk appears, army kills him with siege tank, but the explosion tears his flesh apart and throws blood and gore all over the city streets. You'll have to clean that up instead. No one can seriously censore this one!

 

[Orly_YaRly]

Well I am prepared for the situation. I can change the story, that the ultralisk appears, army kills him with siege tank, but the explosion tears his flesh apart and throws blood and gore all over the city streets. You'll have to clean that up instead. No one can seriously censore this one!

I think that would have been bigger reason for censore....but not in SC II, where is blood everywhere.
Everyone needs a back up plan.

 

[The World Is Flat]

It is a brilliant backup plan.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

lol if number 1 fails, move to number 2

 

[X-OMG-X]

Lol i love the concept. and your second concept.

 

[Grey Nightmare]

Can you make it so you can store sh** in a nuke silo and then "sh** strike" enemy territory?

That would be for win the win, literally.

This is if nothing else, a unique concept ^^

Best of luck!

 

[M0RT]

OK thanks for your support. The map is almost in beta stage, now I need some ideas from you. I have two problems I don't know how to solve:
1. Leaver - when someone leaves, it would be pretty easy to just put everything in his area, where no one can catch you.
2. Borders - if you know where exactly the border between two district is, you can easily put the piles in opponents district without even entering it.

 

[The World Is Flat]

For leavers:

Make that area traversible, but Sh**-Free (The police installed specialist Sh** transfer units, that automatically teleport the Sh** out of a leavers area to the nearest other player owned area, but alerting them, and pinging. (to prevent players from going into a leaver's spot, and dumping it from a safe location?
For borders:

have a Sh** free zone around the borders where it can not be placed? or have special Sh** zones as the only places to place sh**? (numerous and only visible to enemies, not your self, and randomized each game from a number of possible locations.)

 

[Grey Nightmare]

@ 1. Could you lockdown the area with fencing or something? I don't know the terrain layout so I dunno...

@ 2. Have shifting or expandable (by playing well, works as a nice handicap to, keeping the game balanced) borders.

 

[M0RT]

1. Teleport: possible, however it could be hard to detect the closest border (I use bit tree to detect district)
Fence: Possible for ground, but it would be impossible for air, since fly pathing is terrible in starcraft (one of the things that are actually worse than in warcraft). I would have to push fly units out with triggers, which would look terrible (well the no-fly zones basically do the same)
I actually had two ideas: First, if technically possible, to block dropping piles of ... in leavers are using some buff or something (I don't know if it possible to block unloading units), OR enable everyone to "catch" units in the are and somehow grant vision over that area (for example some units with limited or random movement, that only stay in the area)

2. No-drop zones: that would be good, with 2 technical problems, one same as in 1, whether it's possible to block dropping somehow and how to detect border distance in bit tree.
Changing border: Currently the terrain is designed so that districts are separated by main road. That I could change, but still there is a problem that I would have to somehow generate bit tree (since I will be doing a LOT of district checking, I shouldn't use regions. Also regions aren't any easy to generate)

So basically solution of all my problems depends on whether I can block dropping units. Also, is there a way to create custom error messages (like if I wanted it to say "You can't drop it so close to the border")

EDIT: Well it seems that Transport has only one unload validator, so I would have to create TWO abilities, one for unloading units from unit panel and other one, that validates the area.

EDIT2: Possible solutions table (trigger, data) (same line are always solutions that are so connected that it would be smart to use the together)

Leaver	Border area
teleport out units	teleport out piles
no-drop zones	no-drop zones
lockdown	--
--	changing borders
dropping only in special zones	(would solve both)
expand guarded area	(could solve both)

I personally like most expanded guard area (however it is not a final solution, it would still be possible to drop it there, although very risky), second best are no-drop zones, these require quite a lot of work.

 

[masterofra]

Make the player's areas have an inner and outer zone, and the outer zone cannot have Sh** placed in it, but the outer zone is considered part of that players area. That way, they have to go farther in to drop off the Sh**

 

[M0RT]

Yes, that is basically what no-drop zones were meant to be. They are going to be a lot of work, hopefully worth it.

EDIT: Awesome, battle.net is down and as a result, I can't use editor! That is really great, another awesome addition.

EDIT2: I see another problem with 2 players leaving, in case that the remaining two have districts opposite to each other. (There are four, basically in four corners) Then I guess each player would have his district expanded.

EDIT3: Can't get the unload validator to work, anyone ever tried it? (I haven't seen it used ever, I don't even know if it valides the unit or the command)
EDIT4: Seems like the "unload validator" is either bugged or uses some other parameters, when I use the same validator for a normal ability, it works fine, but here it just does nothing.

EDIT5: New screenshots in first post.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Sh** acts as a transported unit or somthing?

why not make use of the brilliant custom UI and make the Sh** a variable stored in a unit? might solve some issues? idk.

 

[M0RT]

Well that would be possible, but as long as I use transport ability, it works perfectly for example with UI. It is shown in unit panel and status bar, and command card buttons change automatically. I would have to script all of that, which would be a lot of work. I am trying to do most of the map through data editor.

Besides, the brilliant UI has a big disadvantage, you can't disable the bottom panel (well you can, but only as whole, not piece by piece, which I would need for any custom control UI. I really need minimap (and I really don't need the middle panel already) )

 

[The World Is Flat]

Isnt it not that hard to remake the bottom panel the way you want it? it might be nicer to have your own unique control scheme, but its really up to you.

 

[M0RT]

Well the thing is that you can't really remake it. For example, you can't do anything like the command pannel, which would make using abilities really unpleasant (I would have to validate the effect, so no custom cursor). Custom minimap would be useful, since it would allow me to create some special effects normal minimap can't (for example units that show up on minimap through fog of war)
After all, it wouldn't be so hard (except I would have to somehow save settings for different UI in the standard unit data fields). However, I originally left it same for a purpose, I thought that using standard UI will make the game more understandable (fail again)

First test: I run first test couple days ago, it failed epicly. First, most of the players didn't get the key gameplay element - the catching units - so it was just a random clickfest. Second, most of the players didn't get how to use auction (I thought they would notice a new dialog). Unfortunatelly, thanks to the fact that the game is using a lot of standard-game control, it didn't become unplayable (like most of my other maps would have), it just became boring. So I am going to improve the guide a LOT.


...
Dammit the custom UI is tempting, I just don't know if it is possible. Replacing the command panel seems like a lot of work.

 

[The World Is Flat]

I know for a fact it is possible, its difficult, but for my mod, we planned on a completley new one, and our coder said it was totally possible.

The command panel and minimap can be remade singally, and a custom command panel can aswell, i've seen some lovely UIs...

Not that i know how to make one either, and you might want to allow ppl to 'vote' on a ingame intro/tutorial.


Well whenever you want, I will localize/publish the alpha/beta in NA.

 

[M0RT]

Well there are multiple levels of "possible". I can create custom panel that loads Command Card of unit and creates custom buttons for them. The thing I can't do is actually link them to abilities (I can't anyway get to the point between clicking the button and ordering the unit - where you got cursor that shows available targets. I can only simulate that through click detection and then issuing order)
Could you give me some contact on your coder? Maybe he knows something I don't

Intro: Ofc there is going to be a way to skip it, but so far there is no one who would do it, so I can add it later

EDIT: Custom UI would be possible if I used layouts instead of custom dialogs. I'll try to find out something about it

 

[The World Is Flat]

I hope this works out

 

[Dark Hunter1357]

This map will be epic. GL HF!

 

[lightning brigade]

What a ridiculous but amazing idea! This beats the mainstream by a LONG shot.

 

[M0RT]

It has been pointed out by Tleno that the current name isn't quite that good, so I am looking for some ideas (I so far I coud think of "Ultralisk cleanup")
Also I am looking for a replacement for the word sh**, I don't know the correct technical term.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Fecal Matter
Defication
Excriment
Dung
Gong
Poo
Shit
Crap

...

 

[M0RT]

Woah that's a load of crap...
No, srsly, thanks. I mean, you don't find these word in a dictionary.
I think I am going to use "excriment", that is a very technical, non-offensive word, right?

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Guano could always work (worth a try)

 

[The World Is Flat]

I don't think its too offensive... It basically means excretions... which as far as i know doesent mean specifically dung.. so ya..

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Everything shits, why bother tabooing it?

 

[M0RT]

Well because starcraft is 12+, so it has to follow some stupid rules someone randomly wrote down (when violence is OK, then why bother censoring anything else?).
But OK, censor american servers, but we don't have any age rating in europe so far I know (well it exists, but it's just a recommendation), the only age restriction is 18+ for porn, and that's it. So why censor in europe?
Also, mapmakers are working for blizzard for free, so maybe they should be grateful, not screw with us.

 

[The World Is Flat]

Sc2 Is rated T for Teen here in the good 'ould US of A.

Basically means that all kids under 13 need their parents to buy the game for them...
And hell, parents don't give a shit unless your one of those wierdoes...

Idk why they censor the game, seeing as its definetly not little kid material.