- Joined
- Aug 22, 2009
- Messages
- 27
Hi guys. Before I begin, I would like to say a brief history about me concerning map making in War3, so as to help you guys better understand what I need. It's long, so I put it in the Spoilers section named 'BACKGROUND'. Feel free to just skip the spoiler to get to the topic of the topic.
So what should I be using, really? I've heard that the SC2 Galaxy editor has a steep learning curve as compared to WC3 World Editor, and has more advanced features, but much harder to create mods. On one hand, I still remember how to use the World Editor, on the other hand, SC2 has an advanced engine. There's Warcraft: Armies of Azeroth as evidence of this versatility. What I'm looking forward to create is a melee. SC2's melee-style doesn't really match what I'm looking for (War3), but I guess with some dedicated time learning how to modify certain things, I can get something close to what I need, but there's already War3. Also, Campaign implementation appears to be much easier with the World Editor. Actually, everything in the World Editors appears much easier, but maybe I'm just speaking from prior biased experienced, with lots of months playing with the World Editor, and neigh close to 10 hours on the Galaxy Editor.
EDIT: On the other side, there's more players on SC2, hmm....
What are your suggestions, guys?
I first played Warcraft 3 early-mid 2000s, back when the Custom Map modding community and quantity were at an all time high. I've played the game for years before stopping on and off just to check back in on the game's community in general. By that time it was about 2013 or 2014. During my long time of playing, I've also created a number of small maps. My first one was a simple linear quest-style map (is that the term?), something like having a single character and using it to talk to neutral NPCs on the map, and depending on whether you get the question/quest right or wrong, might just mean you'll be stuck figuring out what to do, or even get killed by the map triggers. That was really fun to make, and I played it online with a few people.
A while later, there was this thing called Tree Tag, and I took an unprotected map and modified on it, calling it 'Modern Tree Tag', I think. The modifications to that map allowed Wisp players to build an army easier, like what you would do in a melee-styled map. So this now tipped the combat capabilities ratio of Tree:Wisp to 3:2. It made for some interesting and fun times, but I stopped working on it shortly after, mainly because I didn't really fully create the map which made me feel kinda bad.
After a long period, I decided to make a map again, and this time it was a straightforward 'defend-the-objective', with a map timer for the defending team. The objective was to defend a vault, and each player starts the game with an army set. The players were positioned just in front of the enemy spawn entrance, so this made for a quick beginning of a 30-minutes long defense (haha). And when the timer reaches zero, Red player will receive a big reinforcements army to destroy the enemy AI base. I ran a few updates with it, but eventually stopped working on it due to some heavy negative feedback.
Then I made another one, with the same concept, but a different layout. The map was now split into three lanes, and players could get more troops from pre-built Barracks in the base. Players pick from a pool of heroes (custom made) at the start of the game, and defend the objective for 30 minutes (again). I can't remember the rest of the details for this map, but feedback was generally unfavorable, again, and I started to realise that I was creating a 'niche' kind of game. Was it because Hero Arenas and TDs were the more popular option? EDIT: I just tried searching up the map on epicwar, since I remebered the name. It's "The Town's Defense" by an Arthaspaladin. I'm sorry for the bad player name. Anyway, I don't think I can open it anyway. Last I remembered, I lost the unprotected version.
Many years later, I still have the desire to make games, so I started making another map, with the same concept, but a different layout. This map had two player teams, and the defending team has more player slots (9) than the attacking team (3). Every player picks a faction at the start of the game and spawns with that faction's workers at a gold mine to build a base, with each faction being unique from one another. The map was consistently split into three lanes. The idea was to have a bit of an asymmetrical battle with one team having lesser players but with better units in general. I really liked how the map turned out and I continuously hosted online (by the way, for the many years of playing this game online, I was using Garena, back when they had a LAN support feature which allowed people across a region server to play together without having to really be in a LAN setting. Basically, Garena's feature made the game's LAN feature an online multiplayer feature, which allowed people to host in it, and people can connect from that menu to play). Feedback for this map was slightly better, but still generally unfavourable. But I wasn't deterred as much this time, and ran about 10 or so updates for the map. After that,
I used the map's data to create another map. This time with a melee-map focus. The defend-the-objective was still used, and there was also two teams, this time evenly numbered. 5v5, a map, pick a faction, build your base, your army, destroy the enemy team's vault. It was melee-map focused, so there was also neutral monster camps, and neutral passive item shops. This one I really liked, as I loved seeing the faction I created fight against each other. So I ran about 10 or so more updates for it. There was a few people who liked the map, but as the same results as I knew, not many people wanted, or liked to play, a map which was melee. It was always either people asking for Heroes Line Wars, or the next popular TD, or an anime-based map, but if someone was asking for melee-style, they would ask for something like a RISK map or something that has an in-bult diplomacy/nation system. Basically, a map that replicates grand strategy, or a LOTR map. Still, I cherish the time I spent making these maps, as I moved on to trying out Game Creation Systems like Game Maker: Studio (at the time it was not Studio). About this time came the advent of Starcraft 2 and Dota 2, which attracted most of Warcraft III's community away, mostly because most of the players only installed Warcraft III for Dota. I'm not saying that this hasn't happened to the game's community before, but just that this was the period I saw a MASSIVE amount of players leaving the game in a quick, short span of time, with Dota 2 being the bigger magnet. But I digressed, let's go back to the main topic.
Looking back at all these things, I decided to re-install Warcraft III, and open up the only copy of maps that I have left, the most recent map that I made. I lost the others but not this one. In fact, having it opened in the game now is making me feel really nostalgic. As far as I can tell, the map is far from completion. The factions are at their rudimentary level at best, for playtesting purposes, and a lot of the units could use a good refresh.
A while later, there was this thing called Tree Tag, and I took an unprotected map and modified on it, calling it 'Modern Tree Tag', I think. The modifications to that map allowed Wisp players to build an army easier, like what you would do in a melee-styled map. So this now tipped the combat capabilities ratio of Tree:Wisp to 3:2. It made for some interesting and fun times, but I stopped working on it shortly after, mainly because I didn't really fully create the map which made me feel kinda bad.
After a long period, I decided to make a map again, and this time it was a straightforward 'defend-the-objective', with a map timer for the defending team. The objective was to defend a vault, and each player starts the game with an army set. The players were positioned just in front of the enemy spawn entrance, so this made for a quick beginning of a 30-minutes long defense (haha). And when the timer reaches zero, Red player will receive a big reinforcements army to destroy the enemy AI base. I ran a few updates with it, but eventually stopped working on it due to some heavy negative feedback.
Then I made another one, with the same concept, but a different layout. The map was now split into three lanes, and players could get more troops from pre-built Barracks in the base. Players pick from a pool of heroes (custom made) at the start of the game, and defend the objective for 30 minutes (again). I can't remember the rest of the details for this map, but feedback was generally unfavorable, again, and I started to realise that I was creating a 'niche' kind of game. Was it because Hero Arenas and TDs were the more popular option? EDIT: I just tried searching up the map on epicwar, since I remebered the name. It's "The Town's Defense" by an Arthaspaladin. I'm sorry for the bad player name. Anyway, I don't think I can open it anyway. Last I remembered, I lost the unprotected version.
Many years later, I still have the desire to make games, so I started making another map, with the same concept, but a different layout. This map had two player teams, and the defending team has more player slots (9) than the attacking team (3). Every player picks a faction at the start of the game and spawns with that faction's workers at a gold mine to build a base, with each faction being unique from one another. The map was consistently split into three lanes. The idea was to have a bit of an asymmetrical battle with one team having lesser players but with better units in general. I really liked how the map turned out and I continuously hosted online (by the way, for the many years of playing this game online, I was using Garena, back when they had a LAN support feature which allowed people across a region server to play together without having to really be in a LAN setting. Basically, Garena's feature made the game's LAN feature an online multiplayer feature, which allowed people to host in it, and people can connect from that menu to play). Feedback for this map was slightly better, but still generally unfavourable. But I wasn't deterred as much this time, and ran about 10 or so updates for the map. After that,
I used the map's data to create another map. This time with a melee-map focus. The defend-the-objective was still used, and there was also two teams, this time evenly numbered. 5v5, a map, pick a faction, build your base, your army, destroy the enemy team's vault. It was melee-map focused, so there was also neutral monster camps, and neutral passive item shops. This one I really liked, as I loved seeing the faction I created fight against each other. So I ran about 10 or so more updates for it. There was a few people who liked the map, but as the same results as I knew, not many people wanted, or liked to play, a map which was melee. It was always either people asking for Heroes Line Wars, or the next popular TD, or an anime-based map, but if someone was asking for melee-style, they would ask for something like a RISK map or something that has an in-bult diplomacy/nation system. Basically, a map that replicates grand strategy, or a LOTR map. Still, I cherish the time I spent making these maps, as I moved on to trying out Game Creation Systems like Game Maker: Studio (at the time it was not Studio). About this time came the advent of Starcraft 2 and Dota 2, which attracted most of Warcraft III's community away, mostly because most of the players only installed Warcraft III for Dota. I'm not saying that this hasn't happened to the game's community before, but just that this was the period I saw a MASSIVE amount of players leaving the game in a quick, short span of time, with Dota 2 being the bigger magnet. But I digressed, let's go back to the main topic.
Looking back at all these things, I decided to re-install Warcraft III, and open up the only copy of maps that I have left, the most recent map that I made. I lost the others but not this one. In fact, having it opened in the game now is making me feel really nostalgic. As far as I can tell, the map is far from completion. The factions are at their rudimentary level at best, for playtesting purposes, and a lot of the units could use a good refresh.
So what should I be using, really? I've heard that the SC2 Galaxy editor has a steep learning curve as compared to WC3 World Editor, and has more advanced features, but much harder to create mods. On one hand, I still remember how to use the World Editor, on the other hand, SC2 has an advanced engine. There's Warcraft: Armies of Azeroth as evidence of this versatility. What I'm looking forward to create is a melee. SC2's melee-style doesn't really match what I'm looking for (War3), but I guess with some dedicated time learning how to modify certain things, I can get something close to what I need, but there's already War3. Also, Campaign implementation appears to be much easier with the World Editor. Actually, everything in the World Editors appears much easier, but maybe I'm just speaking from prior biased experienced, with lots of months playing with the World Editor, and neigh close to 10 hours on the Galaxy Editor.
EDIT: On the other side, there's more players on SC2, hmm....
What are your suggestions, guys?
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