Well after working for a while on my map, it seems to be impossible for anyone to enjoy it after the time spent making it. I am considering not making any more maps because no one will play them. Any suggestions would be cool, The game is a CTF game, with 2 bases and 2 players per team, you pick 3 units to micro. Basicly you have 1 tele in your base that your team can only use that gets you out in the middle of the map. You can only score when your flag is at your base, you gain vision on the player with the flag as well. The units you can choose are all with customized abilities. All units are given 100 energy and thats what all abilites cost. Its Called CTF Capture the Flag Teams! If anyone is interested in trying out a CTF game that is fully working and still in the begining stages then check it out!
No one said its easy getting your map played or even popular. If you really want it to be either of the two, then you`ll just have to make it happen. If you take this "oh well, no one is gonna play, guess I might as well quit mapping" then you aren`t giving it your all.
yes i understand that im ok with dealing with it, i enjoy making maps, but i just dont know how to get games played outside of my friends. my post was more me asking for a suggestion on how to get a game started to be played?
Aggressive advertising. You know, Posting vids/screenshots, building hype. That kinda thing.
Not just here but on the b.net forums too.
Keep in mind that the standard of quality in getting your map noticed and excited about is relatively high. So if it stands out in someway/looks fun, It`ll be cool.
[ ] Gotten your map newsed on sc2mapster.com?
[ ] Asked various livecasters (like the Custom Live guys) to play your map?
[ ] Asked people to review it in the Map Review forum?
[ ] Posted a thread in the Project Workplace
[ ] Posted a thread on the official battle.net forums.
If you haven't done all of those things you haven't really tried to publicize your map. And that's just scratching the surface.
Aggressive advertising. You know, Posting vids/screenshots, building hype. That kinda thing.
Not just here but on the b.net forums too.
Keep in mind that the standard of quality in getting your map noticed and excited about is relatively high. So if it stands out in someway/looks fun, It`ll be cool.
I agree with this.
When I released Catalyst, I newsed it on 3 different sites. Vjeux was kind enough to front page it too. It went from 0 to front page in a day.
As the people said, make some vids and talk about your map. However on Battle.net, here are some keys
Make it low numbers of player, 4 or 6
Make it last no more than 10 minutes
Find a way to make it replayable: different heroes, different items ...
Once you have a map that fits best the popularity scheme.
Bump it!
During 12 consecutive hours during the night
Create a game
Launch the map
Stay 5 min and 1 second
Leave
Restart the process
This will give you about 150 popularity + the players that will test it you should be around 300. The first maps during the night are at 600 so you basically are on first page on the morning.
Then you just have to wait for people to play the map. If that stays on page 1-2 then your map was good. If not, you have to work more on it and retry later on :)
I noticed that the outrage at this system has dropped off significantly since release. I suspect people are just 'dealing with it' by doing exactly what vjeux suggested.
Which means all you can create is short minigames...
Tip: automate the create/leave process. Make it so if only one player is in the game, anything that could cause an afk to lose before the time is up is disabled and the game automatically ends after 5 minutes and 1 second. This allows you to go afk and just remake every 5 minutes instead of being forced to replay the first 5 minutes for 12 hours like groundhog day.
Somehow I think there's no formula to get your map popular, just good luck.
We posted our map Outranged on Team Liquid as well as here and so far we've got 1 reply in two weeks in two huge communities (with multiple update posts a week), which seems quite laughable. Maybe it's really a gameplay video that's missing, but we planned on doing that when reaching the final release and not for the alpha as the screenshots and infos should suffice for testing...
Or maybe it's because we developed a fresh gameplay style you need to play a few games first to get into, but the standard player just wants more DotA and TD ripoffs. I think my next mod will be something really basic, with tons of upgrades and explosions - seems the only way to get a mod played.
I dont even think its luck... Its blizzard deciding if they like your map or not. They have nothing better to do with their zillion dollars than to make your maping life hell.
Nobody would ever accuse you of not trying to popularize Debates. :)
But that raises a good point. Sometimes a map is just not going to be popular no matter how hard you work on it. Maybe it's just not very good, or maybe it's simply not something that most people are interested in. The currently popularity system is not kind to niche maps, so something like Debates is simply not going to do well. At some point you have to accept that and move on with a new project.
Nobody would ever accuse you of not trying to popularize Debates. :)
But that raises a good point. Sometimes a map is just not going to be popular no matter how hard you work on it. Maybe it's just not very good, or maybe it's simply not something that most people are interested in. The currently popularity system is not kind to niche maps, so something like Debates is simply not going to do well. At some point you have to accept that and move on with a new project.
I've already accepted that and moved to a new project. My next map is already 90% done, and it will be released this weekend or in the next one:
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/nww/
Well after working for a while on my map, it seems to be impossible for anyone to enjoy it after the time spent making it. I am considering not making any more maps because no one will play them. Any suggestions would be cool, The game is a CTF game, with 2 bases and 2 players per team, you pick 3 units to micro. Basicly you have 1 tele in your base that your team can only use that gets you out in the middle of the map. You can only score when your flag is at your base, you gain vision on the player with the flag as well. The units you can choose are all with customized abilities. All units are given 100 energy and thats what all abilites cost. Its Called CTF Capture the Flag Teams! If anyone is interested in trying out a CTF game that is fully working and still in the begining stages then check it out!
@tm8six: Go
No one said its easy getting your map played or even popular. If you really want it to be either of the two, then you`ll just have to make it happen. If you take this "oh well, no one is gonna play, guess I might as well quit mapping" then you aren`t giving it your all.
@EternalWraith:
ill just give up because i live in give up america. (always sunny quote :)
im not giving up at all, im just saying i hate the system blizzard has in place now with the custom maps.... !
@tm8six: Go
Until they improve the custom games system you just have to deal with the hard knock method.
yes i understand that im ok with dealing with it, i enjoy making maps, but i just dont know how to get games played outside of my friends. my post was more me asking for a suggestion on how to get a game started to be played?
@tm8six: Go
Aggressive advertising. You know, Posting vids/screenshots, building hype. That kinda thing.
Not just here but on the b.net forums too.
Keep in mind that the standard of quality in getting your map noticed and excited about is relatively high. So if it stands out in someway/looks fun, It`ll be cool.
Have you:
[ ] Gotten your map newsed on sc2mapster.com?
[ ] Asked various livecasters (like the Custom Live guys) to play your map?
[ ] Asked people to review it in the Map Review forum?
[ ] Posted a thread in the Project Workplace
[ ] Posted a thread on the official battle.net forums.
If you haven't done all of those things you haven't really tried to publicize your map. And that's just scratching the surface.
I agree with this.
When I released Catalyst, I newsed it on 3 different sites. Vjeux was kind enough to front page it too. It went from 0 to front page in a day.
On that note, thank you Vjeux!
As the people said, make some vids and talk about your map. However on Battle.net, here are some keys
Once you have a map that fits best the popularity scheme.
Bump it!
This will give you about 150 popularity + the players that will test it you should be around 300. The first maps during the night are at 600 so you basically are on first page on the morning.
Then you just have to wait for people to play the map. If that stays on page 1-2 then your map was good. If not, you have to work more on it and retry later on :)
I noticed that the outrage at this system has dropped off significantly since release. I suspect people are just 'dealing with it' by doing exactly what vjeux suggested.
Which means all you can create is short minigames...
Tip: automate the create/leave process. Make it so if only one player is in the game, anything that could cause an afk to lose before the time is up is disabled and the game automatically ends after 5 minutes and 1 second. This allows you to go afk and just remake every 5 minutes instead of being forced to replay the first 5 minutes for 12 hours like groundhog day.
@vjeux: Go
I really tought there was a limit on the popularity a single account could give a map. LoL at being able to give your map 150 popularity by yourself.
Somehow I think there's no formula to get your map popular, just good luck.
We posted our map Outranged on Team Liquid as well as here and so far we've got 1 reply in two weeks in two huge communities (with multiple update posts a week), which seems quite laughable. Maybe it's really a gameplay video that's missing, but we planned on doing that when reaching the final release and not for the alpha as the screenshots and infos should suffice for testing...
Or maybe it's because we developed a fresh gameplay style you need to play a few games first to get into, but the standard player just wants more DotA and TD ripoffs. I think my next mod will be something really basic, with tons of upgrades and explosions - seems the only way to get a mod played.
@anteevy: Go
I dont even think its luck... Its blizzard deciding if they like your map or not. They have nothing better to do with their zillion dollars than to make your maping life hell.
@RileyStarcraft: Go
Debates:
Popularity: 0
Platform Defense:
Popularity: 12,000 (before the first Blizzard popular maps reset).
@RodrigoAlves: Go
Nobody would ever accuse you of not trying to popularize Debates. :)
But that raises a good point. Sometimes a map is just not going to be popular no matter how hard you work on it. Maybe it's just not very good, or maybe it's simply not something that most people are interested in. The currently popularity system is not kind to niche maps, so something like Debates is simply not going to do well. At some point you have to accept that and move on with a new project.
I've already accepted that and moved to a new project. My next map is already 90% done, and it will be released this weekend or in the next one: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/nww/
The map is unique as Debates. :)