[Mapping] Have a big project? Read me first.

[Kazeon]

Part I - Opening

Many of us have a big dream of our own game that we want to realize someday. But also sometimes, we are inspired from another great game that we want to replicate it into Warcraft III version. Don't get it wrong, but having dream is not enough. Don't be too hurried to start something big. You have to know that your spirit, effort, and dream are not enough.

This tutorial is made to guide you how to successfully develop any map with lower chance of failing. This tutorial will show you how to manage your project so that you will have lower chance to fail. This tutorial will show you how to work on your project step by step until you finish your project and realize your dream. But first you need to follow the tutorial and read every single line carefully.​

Part II - Getting started

What do we need to do to get started with our project? Do we need to surf the Hive and download all possibly necessary models, icons, skins, etc.? Do we need to assemble our team first? Do we need to simply start to form the basic terrain? Do we need to finish all basic mechanisms (code/trigger) of our game? No. Assembling team to get started is not really a bad idea, but I'm not sure that other people will be interested to join your team if they don't know that your project is going to be cool. So let me show you the easiest and safest way to get started.

No one can develop any game flawlessly without a perfect preparation. You can probably get stuck in an unsolve-able problem in the mid way of your project. If you encounter too many problems in the progress, you will have a greater chance to get bored and stop the project (failed). So how can we avoid it? The answer is don't touch your World Editor before doing this.

First, you need a book, pencil, and eraser. Yes, you are going to write the whole concept of your game upon a paper. Do you think Honda, the creator of Asimo (humanoid robot), can reach their current level without this step? No. At first, they draw a very simple sketch of the model of their robots with every possible part. So what we have to write in our sketch-book? It's the same, write down every single possible partition of your game. It's up to your creativity and ability of management actually. But I can recommend some important things:

• Genre, of course. Is it RPG, AoS, FPS, Action, etc.
• Map size. First you need to imagine how big your game would be. And no, you are just going to write this on a paper, not to create new map in WE.
• Backgrounds. Includes times (medieval, modern, etc.), places (mountain, forest, space, etc.), or even concept (realistic, fiction, etc.). Based on this then you can determine all needed doodads/units models, skins, etc. for your game.
• Mechanisms. Trigger/code is the heart and soul of any game, you need to imagine how will you code things. You need to list the features of your game, and measure your skill with those features. Can you deal with those alone? Or do you need help? Is there somebody who can help? You need to think about those from the beginning.
• You can also add some other things like, for RPG, number of possible town, maximum level, etc.

Pretend we have finished with our books. Can we start now? Not yet. This the most important step in your progress: evaluate your sketch-book. Read again every single line of your concepts. Then, analyze every possible problems, troubles, obstacles, etc. Make a list out of them, sure you can't make a perfect list at this point, it's okay, just go on. After you are done with the list, read it again. Can you deal with them? Can you solve them? Is that possible to trick those problems in wc3? Can you do it alone? Do you have enough experience and knowledge to solve them all? No? Try to search around Tutorial sub-forum if this site. Still find no solution and you are having too much problems that you can't handle? Then, skip this tutorial, close your book, save it in your bookshelf for later use, then try to learn more about wc3 modding a bit further. Why? I can't guarantee that somebody will help you even if you are begging so hard. Mostly, you will have to deal with everything by yourself. And how to deal with them alone? Is by improving your knowledge and experience. And the best way to improve your knowledge is to deal with wc3 modding directly (modeling, triggering, texturing, etc.), reading tutorials is not enough.

Why is it so important to do it (preparation)? I understand you very well how great do you intrigued to start off with your project, everything is so easy at the beginning. But everything is going to be harder and more complex as your game grown bigger and more troubles will come. By preparing everything (listing possible problems and solving them from the beginning, etc.) will makes it much more easier. And without a preparation, sometimes we want to do a lot of "reconstructions" in our game due to inconsistency of our concept. As example, "Heck, I played that game and the battle scene is super cool. I think I will change my game's mechanisms to mimic that game". Yeah, it looks pretty easy to change it. But it takes too much effort to do so. Sometimes, you will think, "Why on earth I change the concept bla bla bla..? It's wasting too much times. " Then you begin to feel lazy and get bored, a.k.a failed. But by writing a final and mature concept will help you to avoid those kind of problem. But how can you deal with new concepts in the middle way of your progress? It will be discussed in the next setp.​

Part III - Making progress

<Being constructed>​

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I think the two biggest problems new map makers have to deal with are the following:
1) excess of scope
2) lack of defined direction

While the latter can be fixed more or less by proper planning, the first is directly caused by being 'a gamer'. You play all these awesome maps and then the first thought you have is "how can I improve on this?".
By this thought, you immediately put yourself in the awkward position of being a competitor. And as such, you judge your project based on your competitor constantly. What most mappers fail to see at this point, is that it took the 'competitor' months, if not years to reach the current state.
If you go in this direction, you will most likely end up increasing the scope of your map beyond your own ability, trying to do everything at once. This actually hurts the quality of your map big time, because feature overflow usually results in the lack of impact of any given feature.


I think the biggest hurdle any new mapper has to overcome, is to accept that "my map will suck.", initially. Many new mappers fail to realize that you need to start small in order to get big.
The best way to overcome this barrier of thinking, is making a project that is a 'one trick pony'. After finishing the initial planning select one single feature of your map as the biggest draw and make it awesome. Concentrate only on this one feature until you brought it to the point, that it is not only competitive, but actually better than in other maps you played. The point of this is to create a map that is playable as fast as possible.
This should be your main goal! Do not create a map full of systems or features that are incomplete and only contain one or two example pieces. It doesn't help to put a map up here on hive for others to play if there is no actual content to play. People will get bored super fast and leave. This is highly discouraging for any mapper.

I see many RPG or AoS projects fail because of this. They start out with all the supposedly cool systems like full screen inventories or talent trees, but fail to create actual content to feed those system. In an RPG, this means that an inventory system is only good if you have a large database of items to support it. In an AoS, this means that you have playable and balanced heroes (it's totally fine if you only have a small number of heroes at this point, as long as they are decently balanced) before putting in an awesome talent system.

Again; start with the basic map and one feature and make it good. Then you can progressively add more features over time.


When I started to create Gaias Retaliation, I started with only three classes to select from, initially. Warrior, cleric, mage. That was enough to support the basic principle of "tank, healer, damage" based group encounters. I didn't add fancy inventory systems, I didn't add talent systems or anything that I couldn't feed with enough content at that time. I wanted to get the basic game down as fast as possible, so that people could play the map and actually enjoy it before anything else.
For the primary feature of this map, I selected the aggro system. I concentrated on this, writing a highly optimized and robust algorithm that I based all combat on. In early version of Gaias, fighting was all you could do. But due to focusing on this mechanic at first, I was able to create some cool boss designs that people enjoyed, which made the map popular long before I ever actually released this map in a state that I considered a "1.0 version".
Most of the features the map has now has been added long after the initial "playable" release of the map. In fact, almost 80% of features had not been there at 1.0 release. Bag system, talent system, advanced classes, visual representation of your weapons and armor ... all this has been added "post release".

 

[Kazeon]

I think the two biggest problems new map makers have to deal with are the following:
1) excess of scope
2) lack of defined direction

While the latter can be fixed more or less by proper planning, the first is directly caused by being 'a gamer'. You play all these awesome maps and then the first thought you have is "how can I improve on this?".
By this thought, you immediately put yourself in the awkward position of being a competitor. And as such, you judge your project based on your competitor constantly. What most mappers fail to see at this point, is that it took the 'competitor' months, if not years to reach the current state.
If you go in this direction, you will most likely end up increasing the scope of your map beyond your own ability, trying to do everything at once. This actually hurts the quality of your map big time, because feature overflow usually results in the lack of impact of any given feature.


I think the biggest hurdle any new mapper has to overcome, is to accept that "my map will suck.", initially. Many new mappers fail to realize that you need to start small in order to get big.
The best way to overcome this barrier of thinking, is making a project that is a 'one trick pony'. After finishing the initial planning select one single feature of your map as the biggest draw and make it awesome. Concentrate only on this one feature until you brought it to the point, that it is not only competitive, but actually better than in other maps you played. The point of this is to create a map that is playable as fast as possible.
This should be your main goal! Do not create a map full of systems or features that are incomplete and only contain one or two example pieces. It doesn't help to put a map up here on hive for others to play if there is no actual content to play. People will get bored super fast and leave. This is highly discouraging for any mapper.

I see many RPG or AoS projects fail because of this. They start out with all the supposedly cool systems like full screen inventories or talent trees, but fail to create actual content to feed those system. In an RPG, this means that an inventory system is only good if you have a large database of items to support it. In an AoS, this means that you have playable and balanced heroes (it's totally fine if you only have a small number of heroes at this point, as long as they are decently balanced) before putting in an awesome talent system.

Again; start with the basic map and one feature and make it good. Then you can progressively add more features over time.


When I started to create Gaias Retaliation, I started with only three classes to select from, initially. Warrior, cleric, mage. That was enough to support the basic principle of "tank, healer, damage" based group encounters. I didn't add fancy inventory systems, I didn't add talent systems or anything that I couldn't feed with enough content at that time. I wanted to get the basic game down as fast as possible, so that people could play the map and actually enjoy it before anything else.
For the primary feature of this map, I selected the aggro system. I concentrated on this, writing a highly optimized and robust algorithm that I based all combat on. In early version of Gaias, fighting was all you could do. But due to focusing on this mechanic at first, I was able to create some cool boss designs that people enjoyed, which made the map popular long before I ever actually released this map in a state that I considered a "1.0 version".
Most of the features the map has now has been added long after the initial "playable" release of the map. In fact, almost 80% of features had not been there at 1.0 release. Bag system, talent system, advanced classes, visual representation of your weapons and armor ... all this has been added "post release".

That's not how you develop a game in the future. If that's how you do things, people wont be interested in your game from the first place. Then they will just uninstall/remove it that instant => your game is dead. Who on earth want to follow solitaire's updates?

But starting from something easier is prefered tho.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Let me know if/when you develop part III or whether you've discontinued the tutorial. It'd be best for me to give a review on the piece as a whole.

 

[Flux]

That's not how you develop a game in the future. If that's how you do things, people wont be interested in your game from the first place. Then they will just uninstall/remove it that instant => your game is dead. Who on earth want to follow solitaire's updates?

But starting from something easier is prefered tho.

Not if your map has potential, fun initially and has a lot of room for improvent, then people will stay updated. The idea is to start small and release it if it is in a good and playable state then just greatly improved it each update. Just look at DotA for example, it started out with just basic AoS and after a lot of updates, it now has its own independent platform.

 

[Kazeon]

Not if your map has potential, fun initially and has a lot of room for improvent, then people will stay updated. The idea is to start small and release it if it is in a good and playable state then just greatly improved it each update. Just look at DotA for example, it started out with just basic AoS and after a lot of updates, it now has its own independent platform.

That's a good idea too.

I didn't remember I wrote this. May be just GY this will do as I have another thread to work on.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

That's not how you develop a game in the future. If that's how you do things, people wont be interested in your game from the first place. Then they will just uninstall/remove it that instant => your game is dead. Who on earth want to follow solitaire's updates?

But starting from something easier is prefered tho.

Believe me, it works far better than the opposite.

Not only will it keep a constant and steady amount of hype for your map like "Wow, just released a new update and it's AWESOME!" (note that this is also the reason why more and more games released these days have episodic content), but it will also generate valuable criticism and feedback.

If you have one exceptional feature, people will remember that: "Hey, wasn't that the map with this super incredible [feature]?"
If you have lots of half-assed features, players will just remember your map for being mediocre in every possible way: "Yeah... I think I played that before... but it felt totally generic."


Do one thing and make it great. Then you can add more.

 

[Kino]

If you have one exceptional feature, people will remember that: "Hey, wasn't that the map with this super incredible [feature]?"
If you have lots of half-assed features, players will just remember your map for being mediocre in every possible way: "Yeah... I think I played that before... but it felt totally generic."

I second this.
Also, in many maps that have large quantities of half-assed systems, those said systems rarely gel together meaningfully anyway.

 

[IcemanBo]

This seems still in progress. What's your state?

 

[Kazeon]

Woo.. I kind of love this idea! I forgot I started something like this.
I will improve it little by little.

 

[IcemanBo]

Will send to graveyard for now, ping us when it's more completed.

Zwiebelchen seems also have a good point that can be considered.