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Overall quality of published maps

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First of all I want to say that I havent played the game for some time so i havent exactly seen every map out there.
Does anyone else feel so far it's been sort of a let down?
Despite the potential of the editor it seems that nobody has made full use of the potential thus far.
Some maps had a good concept, i.e. third person shooter maps, but eventually were poorly executed, for example there was a third person shooter where you just gotta fight off waves, which obviously isnt very exciting, even though the UI of the map is well made and would allow the creation of something good it never happened.

The sc2 DotA version is just a putrid abomination, I am pretty sure that everyone who has played dota can agree with me on this one.

I am not going to rip off every single map here but do let me know what you think. Do you share the thought that so far there havent really been any particularly good maps published or do you in fact think the contrary.
 

INP

INP

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In my opinion the date editor is just ridiculous. It is way too granular, things that took a minute in war3 now are taking days. I’m trying to make a simple passive ability for a hero that increases the range of the hero by one with each level (7levels). I already lost two days figuring out how to crate it and even if I know how, it will still take me hours to make it. There are abilities on top of other abilities on top of behaviors on top of effects on top of other effects on top of weapons on top of other behaviors and I even can’t begin to grasp from were I should start. Blizzard need to make some new gui or wizard that hides all of this and makes it efficient. Now is like programming a game on assembler – it maybe powerful but it is too complicated and time-consuming.
 

Dr Super Good

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"Chrono Agents" is a good map. Voice acting, save/load (using banks), items, different classes, good terran and score. Yes it has bugs but it still shows perfectly the potential of SC2. Although boring after being played umpteen times, it is apparently only the first chapter of a longish story.

Some of the TDs are also getting prety good. I played one yesterday that was hard as hell but showed everything from creeps spawning smaller creeps to towers that can move and do stuff at the same time.

A lot of the maps you see published are made by unskilled people with far too much time on their hands. If they were not selfish to protect the maps, someone like me could actually fix them up for them.
 
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"Chrono Agents" is a good map. Voice acting, save/load (using banks), items, different classes, good terran and score. Yes it has bugs but it still shows perfectly the potential of SC2. Although boring after being played umpteen times, it is apparently only the first chapter of a longish story.

I predict there are at least two more episodes comming for us. Maybe four, but I doubt creator will have enough motivation to make so many chapters.

And it doesn't get so booring after time, you just have to try different tactics and try to master all the classes...

What do you think will be the next chapter? I'm pretty sure classes won't change, but surroundings, main objective and enemies will change drastically.
 

Dr Super Good

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A new class should be added (or the selection rearranged) as 7 over 2 lines in a grid does not look too good. There should be no tutorial, that is very annoying in the first one. Extra skills to reward more determined people would also be useful (currently 3*10 (30) but 6*10 (60) would be nice for the next chapter (so that people who grinded the first have to grind some more for perfect skills)).

However this is not the place to discuss that.
 
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NOTD and The Final Frontier are good maps.

Nexus Word Wars was pretty fun for a while but it got old pretty fast.

It will take a while for good maps to really come out, especially since decent FPS support and the ability to make functional custom UIs w/ hotkeys is just now coming out in patch 1.2.0.
 
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The quality of sc2 maps is way ahead of the quality of wc3 maps 4 months after released. To me it seems like people just took off from where they left in wc3, but obviously testing around with many of the new mechanics.

Of course there is also a fight to rush out things as quickly as possible in order to get the first good impressions but that's something you'll always have.

For wc3-experienced mappers it's easy to create stuff akin to wc3. But keep in mind that the new editor has way bigger and more complex features than the wc3 editor. I am sure many promising projects are currently experimenting with all these cool things.

I see videos and screenshots posted on the main page of sc2mapster.com almost daily. They show things I would've never dreamed of.
 
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I did a RPG for War3 called "Corruption RPG", and I started a RPG for "SC2" called.. well, "Corruption RPG". The Wc3 one was decent I guess, but now, every time I test my RPG for SC2, people are just amazed of what I have done so far. Some things takes longer to do in Sc2 editor, like creating items(the system is way more advanced as well), but other things such as creating spells does not take that much longer, if any, to do, and some of the new trigger-actions really helps out speeding up progress :)

Here is a a video of my map. There is a long way to release, but maybe it'll change your mind a little.
 
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I did a RPG for War3 called "Corruption RPG", and I started a RPG for "SC2" called.. well, "Corruption RPG". The Wc3 one was decent I guess, but now, every time I test my RPG for SC2, people are just amazed of what I have done so far. Some things takes longer to do in Sc2 editor, like creating items(the system is way more advanced as well), but other things such as creating spells does not take that much longer, if any, to do, and some of the new trigger-actions really helps out speeding up progress :)

Here is a a video of my map. There is a long way to release, but maybe it'll change your mind a little.
Doesnt look bad but I seriously suggest you implement a third person camera it adds a LOT to the RPG feel imo.
 
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Still waitin on that Jake :p
I think the problem is it's powerful... but it takes so long to do stuff you may as well use a proper engine (UDK, Source etc..).

But some guys like Jake and others have whipped some pretty neat stuff up, shame it's the ones that take their time that often don't 'finish'/release but make some awesome shiz' :(

This looks promising:

More FF music :)D)
 
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Still waitin on that Jake :p
I think the problem is it's powerful... but it takes so long to do stuff you may as well use a proper engine (UDK, Source etc..).

But some guys like Jake and others have whipped some pretty neat stuff up, shame it's the ones that take their time that often don't 'finish'/release but make some awesome shiz' :(

This looks promising:

More FF music :)D)

To be honest i'd rather play pokemon on the gameboy, but as im in my twenties i dont really see that happening ^_^
 
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But the delay would suck, you could make it for single player with keyboard events :D ANd then two palyer on one pc :)
 

Dr Super Good

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It is getting reduced. Blizzard is unable to raise the speed of light.

It will hopefully be as close to the transmission time between players as possible (no unknown delay like currently) but it will still be limited to that. When people from US are playing in EU, that delay can be 100s of mili seconds.
 
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By fixed, I meant that blizzard is fixing the problems on their end that caused the delay to be excessively high.

There will always be some degree of delay from latency, but at least it won't be like 500 ms on average.
 
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NOTD and The Final Frontier are good maps.

Nexus Word Wars was pretty fun for a while but it got old pretty fast.

It will take a while for good maps to really come out, especially since decent FPS support and the ability to make functional custom UIs w/ hotkeys is just now coming out in patch 1.2.0.

What exactly will this fps support as you mention it entail?
 

Dr Super Good

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Cause SC2 is a RTS while those are FPS/RPG?

RTS games require all players calculating the same outputs for everything. Orders are only carried out once everyone receives them and on the same game frame for everyone playing. You get dropped if for any reason your game instance no longer matches the other player's who you are with (a split in WC3 but actually an OOS Out Of Sync error).

In FPS and RPGs a server computes the results for the game. Instead you just send to the server data on how you are performing and the server sends to you what is happening in the game. Thus why in older FPS games people jumped around when lag was present and why lag is so deadly in FPS games. RPGs like diablo II also exibit this behaviour when people suddenly move around due to lag on the server.

The whole difference is in FPS your movements are run locally while only your position and aiming is transfered to the server allowing near lagless play for you where as in RTS games all movements and keyboard buttons have to be syncronized with all players before any code for them can execute.

Blizzard could easilly fix this problem by allowing local keyboard events and local mouse events and giving good structures to syncronize maps. However this will generate much net traffic which they want to avoid and 99% of people will be unable to use it properly.
 
97% of this thread is tl;dr
But based off what I read you all need to realize this:
The game was released July 27th, 2010.
Some really amazing games for WC3 didn't come out until last year.
Considering WC3 was made in 2004, I think it's safe to say that it will take some time before any half decent games are released for SC2.
I personally have a few on the go, but just from personal experience I can tell you if you want a map-maker to make his stuff not suck ass, he needs to drop hours upon hours upon hours into it.
Have patience.
 
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Going back to OP it will definetly take a while for everything to come together, people will have to learn the editor fully and the awesome projects can take years to create. Right now the only good stuff you'd expect to find are some cool systems thrown in to make a decent map or some really HQ minigames.
 
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Going back to OP it will definetly take a while for everything to come together, people will have to learn the editor fully and the awesome projects can take years to create. Right now the only good stuff you'd expect to find are some cool systems thrown in to make a decent map or some really HQ minigames.

I think saying that it takes years to create something worthy is really over the top. If you would assume that the author works 30 minutes/week on the map then perhaps this is the case. But within a timespan of several years its possible to create a game from scratch, and im not talking about drag and drop editors like starcraft's but actually program your own game.
If the author would work 2-3 hours daily on his/her map then within a month or two the result could be fantastic.
 
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I think saying that it takes years to create something worthy is really over the top. If you would assume that the author works 30 minutes/week on the map then perhaps this is the case. But within a timespan of several years its possible to create a game from scratch, and im not talking about drag and drop editors like starcraft's but actually program your own game.
If the author would work 2-3 hours daily on his/her map then within a month or two the result could be fantastic.

Well if we assume the quality is the same of the campaign then it will take a year or two.

It just depends on the scale, a high quality minigame can take a couple of months whereas a high quality RPG can take years.
 
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I think saying that it takes years to create something worthy is really over the top. If you would assume that the author works 30 minutes/week on the map then perhaps this is the case. But within a timespan of several years its possible to create a game from scratch, and im not talking about drag and drop editors like starcraft's but actually program your own game.
If the author would work 2-3 hours daily on his/her map then within a month or two the result could be fantastic.
But we're not professionals, not by a long shot. Almost everyone who mods are highschool/college students who like to make maps. Not everyone has the time to work 2-3 hours daily, and even if you are working on it that much, it doesn't mean the mod will be great, it just means that it will be... worked on a lot. Not everyone has the skill/talent/brilliance to create something awesome (or even something great), and even fewer have the work ethic or time.

Point is that good maps will start popping up rather soon; some maps are already up to the standards of those from WC3. Plus, you could always just work 2-3 hours a day and make a high quality map yourself if you really wanted to. Its not as easy to have that kind of dedication as you make it sound.
 
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But we're not professionals, not by a long shot. Almost everyone who mods are highschool/college students who like to make maps. Not everyone has the time to work 2-3 hours daily, and even if you are working on it that much, it doesn't mean the mod will be great, it just means that it will be... worked on a lot. Not everyone has the skill/talent/brilliance to create something awesome (or even something great), and even fewer have the work ethic or time.

Point is that good maps will start popping up rather soon; some maps are already up to the standards of those from WC3. Plus, you could always just work 2-3 hours a day and make a high quality map yourself if you really wanted to. Its not as easy to have that kind of dedication as you make it sound.
I have considered to create a map some time ago but unfortunately I dont even have time/interest to play the game anymore, let alone create a quality map. Also if i'd devote much time to the creation of a map i'd rather just create my own game instead of making a mod for an existing game.
My mapping days are over im afraid :<
 
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So far, one of the best maps I've seen is Roach Snake, the worm war ripoff.... Not really creative, but its nice to see something done passably well... My only gripe with that map is not being able to activate abilities when you want.

I'm thinking of attempting to ressurect some old starcraft favorites like Golem Madness, and maybe "Legends" just for practice, and to see how well they do.... My only roadblock is the lack of retro zerg and protoss units. I thought blizzard would have included them.
 
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So far, one of the best maps I've seen is Roach Snake, the worm war ripoff.... Not really creative, but its nice to see something done passably well... My only gripe with that map is not being able to activate abilities when you want.

I'm thinking of attempting to ressurect some old starcraft favorites like Golem Madness, and maybe "Legends" just for practice, and to see how well they do.... My only roadblock is the lack of retro zerg and protoss units. I thought blizzard would have included them.

I think every single letter in that post was a Q.
 
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Long post disclaimer (scroll down for tl;dr version if you want).

The quality of sc2 maps is way ahead of the quality of wc3 maps 4 months after released. To me it seems like people just took off from where they left in wc3, but obviously testing around with many of the new mechanics.

Have you digged through every WC3 map (well not every of them but most of the highly rated ones on the site and some good ones like Dark Deeds) ?

Now don't get me wrong, SC2 maps are fine; however to say that the current quality SC2 maps are "way ahead" of WC3 of the quality of WC3 maps is just not right to the WC3 community[old map makers especially] IMO.

Few reasons:
1. Now I may be pulling "double standard" by not looking through all the SC2 maps but the current (at least "popular system popular") SC2 maps are not "way ahead" of the WC3's maps. Star Battle is just like Battle Ships for example (except with no vehicle switching and no "traders"). Even then you can't just look at Battleships alone, see Naval Battle for example, which has "manual firing". Naval Battle (for example) is one of those neat maps which is really unknown to most WC3 players.

There are just tons of WC3 maps which had a lot of effort into it.

2. In general, there a lot of good WC3 maps, most of them are unknown due to DotA and hosting bots plaguing the map list (Before anyone says anything, DotA is a well made map. Though Icefrog could list more of authors all the imported icons and models in the map...).
_________________________________

tl;dr - The "current" quality of SC2 maps is not "way ahead" of WC3 maps; there are plenty of good WC3 maps that are not as well known due to DotA taking over games in the game list.

Also I'm not denying that the SC2 data editor is very powerful (it makes things less "trigger/script" reliant) but the editor still cannot do everything WC3 can do (there are less height options in SC2, bigger maps, hero inventory does not have the "WC3" style with 6 slots for ease of access[SC2 only has Diablo style inventory], and water).

Finally I'm not against SC2 mapping or SC2 in general; all I am saying is people should not forget all the work put into the WC3 maps throughout the years.

I'm definitely not against SC2 at all (take note, I made a topic defending Blizzard when they announced the SC2 "trilogy" >.>),.
 
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