an adventure map, a starcraft universe spin off themed "discovery" map where you have to visit/experience/"farm" the map in order to discover clues and figure out the required win scenario conditions..
.. the idea of the pace of the game is not unlike a race between two heroes, as to who will reach the end of his scenario first..
and at the same time
a competitive 1v1 / team map (with all those gameplays in too).
To finish, you can obviously play it alone as a "campaign" type of map.
With this out of the way:
Questions for you :D
1/ Has it been done before? in sc2? Elsewhere?
2/ How long should a game be thought for?
As a pure adventure game, i think 3 hours to know the map if you are a "standard discovery gamer" (meaning nothing is too hard to figure out in itself but you find several threads by visiting the city and by adding them you get the gameplay/objectives required organically, an ff7 addict would finish in 1 hour, a total lose at finding stuff must not exceed 4 hours finding out everything about the map ; it is mostly still: place unit "x" on region "y" / unit "z" count for player "w" is "0"or"1" and gamers relate easily to that i hope)
3 hours ? why not 33?
.. so that it is "still" easier to scan through all the gameplays/options in said 3/4 hours (how long does it take to just look at all the heroes and their gameplays available in doto or in overweight?? is it too long or just long enough?? i'm curious if you guys know please pray tell)/..
.. so the skill gap between beginners and more seasoned players may have a smaller effect on the outcome of the game.
If you have two heroes/storylines, that's an 6 hour content :D The idea being to add more and more possibilities (branches to a tree like of possible outcomes) stemming from those original two storyline starts so that that number can grow without changing the "standard time of play" but enrich it.
Then, when both confronting parties play the map with every info known beforehand (the map "plays out this way", "this unit can be recruited here", "the win end goal is this", "the shortest way is", etc)
then competitiveness can come to play in the strategies deployed, the tactics applied etc.. and for that the sky is the limit really as far as time / repeat play!
i'm genuinely curious if this is of any interest to anyone interested in the very notion of rts (as opposed to the "discovery" type of map).
I think any game you are going to play with a random person on the arcade should be at most 40 minutes long probably closer to 20-30 minutes. Keeping multiple people's attention for hours is extremely difficult.
i come from a time when people played the games that were bad, because the superabundance of games had not happened yet.
Starcraft is a game that is "for competitive 1v1"AND " for campaign adventures.. as a platform sc does what i am trying to do with my weird arcade map.
i want players to be able to:
play it alone and have a fun "campaign' storymode gameplay`
play it alone and speedrun it for a high score
play it as a 1v1 with both players "discovering" the map (both topographically and gameplay wise)
play it as a repeat 1v1 map to compete
play it as a team vs team
play it as 1 pro vs many noobs
ALL IN THE SAME MAP
:D
Has this been done before? done in sc2?
@usernamenotworkingright : my wish is that speedrunning my map is hard, but just micro/multitask/macro wise. My playthroughs (and i'm average at micro etc) are along the 20 minute line so i guess we agree ;P
i agree that people will rage quit (that's what they usually do :D ) before "figuring out" the map. And to be perfectly candid i'm fine with it.
@Triva, i understand your stance but i'm sorry to completely disagree. Games are meant to be played that much is clear, but the recipe for success is far removed from the players when it comes to "new games" no?
What i am trying to do has not been done yet. Of course i am cramming any and all fun/competitive/weird gameplays i can .. so it is an experiment. But the point still hangs out there: where is rts going?
i believe there is a wide open market for team storyline games, i think the same for storyline competitive games, and finally the same for a game that allows for different skill levels to coexist!
A map that features a gameplay such as this allows you to finally play with that friend who's skill level is so much higher/lower than your own.
Same goes for pro rts players that can feel competitively drawn by the map because he/she can play it versus several stream subscribers and the skill gap is null and void, which makes it exiting for both parties.
rts is just a baby right now, it is feeding off every other gameplay/gamestyles. i'm trying to stay on the curve, not follow it. :D
I once created such an adventure map, called "Sanctuary Guardians". The story is just an intro cutscene, and the gameplay is just you and the other players hunting for zerg. However, it's pretty darn difficult and requires real teamplay.
I haven't touched it in years, but if you're feeling "adventurous", feel free to give it a try. Be warned though, it requires a lot of players. The less players there are, the more coordination you need.
I'm proud of the challenge I've created with this map, as it has quite a few hidden mechanics new players have to figure out on their own. However, it's also too hard and inaccessible for most players. Simply-put, I think I've created something that requires too much patience. And not many Arcade people have that kind of patience.
Unless the map is called "Starcraft Universe", then people will happily-sink in dozens of hours. But not for my map :\
Still, the map might help you to figure out how to do (and not to do) such an adventure map.
Also I don't understand a thing of what you're saying you old geezer you.
From my experience any map becomes stale or in desperate need of break after 1 and a half hour of non-stop gameplay. If you plan on making it super-duper-ultra lengthy then a save system might be nice, tho it doesn't look like it would fit your "versus adventure" idea. Especially since it's a "versus" map, the longer it goes on, the bigger are chances that enemy player will leave/have something happen to him that he'd need to leave (life happens). I imagine it would be super anti-climatic to race against a guy for hours to just have him abruptly leave without acknowledging all the effort that remaining player put into the game (now for naught).
Overall, this sounds curious. The way you've described it so far makes me think it's like "The kingdom needs a king. There are X players/team. The first player who manages to become the King wins. You can become a king by various feats and ways. Become the King!", at least in spirit of racing to victory trough various adventures. Haven't seen anything like that so far.
My project loosely fits your guidelines. While some people would consider it a moba at first glance, it is intended much more as a single play-through RPG race with teams. You fight monsters, buy items, kill bosses, and yes, fight other players (in a periodic event, you fight for a team competition, PvP or pve).
Either way, my project is aimed towards a competitive adventure RPG, and winning can be achieved through killing players, bosses, or completion of the RPG aspect.
The vast majority of people who play my game like it. So my belief is that people would be willing to play an adventure RPG race game as well. As others pointed out, content for returning players would be your issue. Then balance so all of the paths are equally difficult, and making sure the game is fun enough that players want to return to try new things.
I think it would be hard to execute properly, just due to the large number of things that need to be aligned with each other for both new and old players to want to play it, and be on equal footing while playing it.
I agree wholeheartedly with shorter experiences. Something in your original post gave me an interesting idea, though: what if you figured out a method of procedural story generation? So each time, the players explore to figure out what the quest is, then play it out. If you've seen Cabin in the Woods, something like the way that plays out.
Just to be clear, i'm not conceited and feel "my map is the only one doing "x" ".. i'm curious about other maps that exist out there and what their life are like or have been like :D
so thank you for different answers to that question
It is really surprising just how much "maximum freedom for the player" translates to "too hard" / "too much investment" required from the players" :(:(:( very disconcerting and disappointing.
Again :D .. 25 years ago, gamers used to buy horribly expensive "playthrough magazines" because we wanted to have more out of the games we bought, moreover we didn't want the devs to pass anything by us.
i really feel like any "real discovery" in games is bad (considered like un-useful hindrance) if that is not "overly" advertised beforehand. :(
I don't know if that says more about me or about the bnet sc2 crowd, but i would have thought those maps would at least have a niche of eager hardcore players. i must be wrong about my assumption that "cross platform" and multiplayer play are "standard" to most players. Apparently, adventure seekers like their game alone and on a dedicated platform ?!
YES LucidIguana, that is what i want to do, albeit my triggering is awful but the idea is there:
the way the player "plays" should implement the proper response scenario (adapt to the player's level / (more impractical) monitor the opponents and help the less skilled still have an edge if that is required / make the adventure change according to the skill "detected" .. again i'm a professed amateur and i'm doing this with what i can, not what i know can be done but i'm secured in the feeling that i should try (even if no one ever plays it, it is there, it exists :D )
Yeah Azure, i do believe the nest of the matter is that real gamers are becoming extinct. Of course a game can be "too" hard.. i happen to think those are more interesting.. and i'm sure there are people who want this type of content.. but it has to be "sold" as such i feel.
Something like "you can't touch this" type of label.. "you will die trying" etc label on my map would sell more :D than me saying anything about it.
Yes the content is what i need before i launch my charm blitzkreig to get a few players interested (i humbly admit that the lack of alpha testers is starting to get to me :P )
.. the content in such a game is indeed the atmosphere, the gameplay .. the fun of it overall! .. because if it is hard to win, then it should be extra cool to play (just a for instance: every time you select your hero the dialog emitted in response is original and fun and the player likes it, that sort of thing)
Trieva <3 yes .. maybe you are right on the money :D
At first i thought "mario", the very notion of that kind of game had nothing to do with it.. but maybe you are more in tune with what i cannot see. Yes, a very rail like structure makes for players wanting to come in. An open city where heroes are piloted to areas (without control) via triggers to make nice cinematics that regularly lead to "playable" arenas (where/when players control their units) is probably what i should go for if i want players to feel at ease and motivated. <3 nice one, i'm so far removed from the mario party bit that i thank you again for telling me just how far removed i am from it :)
Again, freedom or perceived reassuring format is really a fork in development, i wanted to put everything possible in my game and there did not seem to be anything preventing me from achieving that goal.. but now that i have managed to see the fork, i feel that there is no way to do both at once, ... Well of course you could, by imposing a choice at the start, a cheat mode would do it, you choose to have the adventure play out, or to discover it on your own.. but to me that would be two maps (even if they could be played simultaneously, which seems a gargantuan undertaking to say the least, and probably would still end up being a compromise).
GlornII "I think it would be hard to execute properly, just due to the large number of things that need to be aligned with each other for both new and old players to want to play it, and be on equal footing while playing it."
Agreed, the variables all in the air :D
How many players you count on being available? more to the point "how many players required for the map to be "playable/enjoyable/competitive? As azure pointed out, the sheer difficulty of a map is a deterrent to developing it (even if the hard part is getting 3 other players in).
This was one of the bases for my reasoning: get more players by making it a 1v1 playable alone and up to 5 players (the last player slot being meant for me :D to film the action performed by gamers within my environment), so that i cover all the angles.. make my map appealing to all types of players .. to end up having a half dozen players interested in "further" content and making my movie with these :D live actors alongside the engine's :D:D .
But alas.. as azure said, i am not called "universe" :D
Yes ducky, <3<3 one king is a good one, :D my last one was called "9 queens" Kreygasm.. you are right, that is good pr note, thank you <3
Something like "be the one on top when the dust settles" yes that is what i am doing :D
Again, thank you all, keep ideas/comments coming <3
ty mapster, for all the lubricant ads and apparent passion/community/social apathy it is a place i humbly consider my galaxy home :)
ps: real sorry if i'm hard to decypher, ty for trying <3
Again, just to be clear: for me the objective of my map is that when you play it the game should take around 30 minutes/45 max in all cases!
When i said 3 hours i mainly meant through repetitive play. i meant the main stories unfold and "end" the game (after 35/45 minutes) . Mostly thinking that 3 hours would be reached by playing my map half a dozen times (6 times 45minutes) more than spending those hours in one sitting, in order to find all the things available at the start of the map. More in tune with the "i'm watching this online video to understand what the win goal is" rather than having to force players to know everything in order to win" . Does that make sense? :D:D ?
Furthermore, while currently my map "ends", you can remain in it and visit it too. This for me is my stepping stone to implementing "stages" in my map :P but there is a whole "visit me" point i intend to work on .. as a reward type of idea, coupling it with a tutorial aspect, not to mention a "tease what is to come" aspect.
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i am humbly making
an adventure map, a starcraft universe spin off themed "discovery" map where you have to visit/experience/"farm" the map in order to discover clues and figure out the required win scenario conditions..
.. the idea of the pace of the game is not unlike a race between two heroes, as to who will reach the end of his scenario first..
and at the same time
a competitive 1v1 / team map (with all those gameplays in too).
To finish, you can obviously play it alone as a "campaign" type of map.
With this out of the way:
Questions for you :D
1/ Has it been done before? in sc2? Elsewhere?
2/ How long should a game be thought for?
As a pure adventure game, i think 3 hours to know the map if you are a "standard discovery gamer" (meaning nothing is too hard to figure out in itself but you find several threads by visiting the city and by adding them you get the gameplay/objectives required organically, an ff7 addict would finish in 1 hour, a total lose at finding stuff must not exceed 4 hours finding out everything about the map ; it is mostly still: place unit "x" on region "y" / unit "z" count for player "w" is "0"or"1" and gamers relate easily to that i hope)
3 hours ? why not 33?
.. so that it is "still" easier to scan through all the gameplays/options in said 3/4 hours (how long does it take to just look at all the heroes and their gameplays available in doto or in overweight?? is it too long or just long enough?? i'm curious if you guys know please pray tell)/.. .. so the skill gap between beginners and more seasoned players may have a smaller effect on the outcome of the game.
If you have two heroes/storylines, that's an 6 hour content :D The idea being to add more and more possibilities (branches to a tree like of possible outcomes) stemming from those original two storyline starts so that that number can grow without changing the "standard time of play" but enrich it.
Then, when both confronting parties play the map with every info known beforehand (the map "plays out this way", "this unit can be recruited here", "the win end goal is this", "the shortest way is", etc)
then competitiveness can come to play in the strategies deployed, the tactics applied etc.. and for that the sky is the limit really as far as time / repeat play!
i'm genuinely curious if this is of any interest to anyone interested in the very notion of rts (as opposed to the "discovery" type of map).
Thank you for reading and answering <3
@houndofbaskerville: Go
I think any game you are going to play with a random person on the arcade should be at most 40 minutes long probably closer to 20-30 minutes. Keeping multiple people's attention for hours is extremely difficult.
Sorry for being muddily clear :D
i'm 42
i come from a time when people played the games that were bad, because the superabundance of games had not happened yet.
Starcraft is a game that is "for competitive 1v1"AND " for campaign adventures.. as a platform sc does what i am trying to do with my weird arcade map.
i want players to be able to:
play it alone and have a fun "campaign' storymode gameplay`
play it alone and speedrun it for a high score
play it as a 1v1 with both players "discovering" the map (both topographically and gameplay wise)
play it as a repeat 1v1 map to compete
play it as a team vs team
play it as 1 pro vs many noobs
ALL IN THE SAME MAP
:D
Has this been done before? done in sc2?
@usernamenotworkingright : my wish is that speedrunning my map is hard, but just micro/multitask/macro wise. My playthroughs (and i'm average at micro etc) are along the 20 minute line so i guess we agree ;P
i agree that people will rage quit (that's what they usually do :D ) before "figuring out" the map. And to be perfectly candid i'm fine with it.
@Triva, i understand your stance but i'm sorry to completely disagree. Games are meant to be played that much is clear, but the recipe for success is far removed from the players when it comes to "new games" no?
What i am trying to do has not been done yet. Of course i am cramming any and all fun/competitive/weird gameplays i can .. so it is an experiment. But the point still hangs out there: where is rts going?
i believe there is a wide open market for team storyline games, i think the same for storyline competitive games, and finally the same for a game that allows for different skill levels to coexist!
A map that features a gameplay such as this allows you to finally play with that friend who's skill level is so much higher/lower than your own. Same goes for pro rts players that can feel competitively drawn by the map because he/she can play it versus several stream subscribers and the skill gap is null and void, which makes it exiting for both parties.
rts is just a baby right now, it is feeding off every other gameplay/gamestyles. i'm trying to stay on the curve, not follow it. :D
I once created such an adventure map, called "Sanctuary Guardians". The story is just an intro cutscene, and the gameplay is just you and the other players hunting for zerg. However, it's pretty darn difficult and requires real teamplay.
I haven't touched it in years, but if you're feeling "adventurous", feel free to give it a try. Be warned though, it requires a lot of players. The less players there are, the more coordination you need.
I'm proud of the challenge I've created with this map, as it has quite a few hidden mechanics new players have to figure out on their own. However, it's also too hard and inaccessible for most players. Simply-put, I think I've created something that requires too much patience. And not many Arcade people have that kind of patience.
Unless the map is called "Starcraft Universe", then people will happily-sink in dozens of hours. But not for my map :\
Still, the map might help you to figure out how to do (and not to do) such an adventure map.
I thought Bua No Bas was pretty adventerous.
Also I don't understand a thing of what you're saying you old geezer you.
From my experience any map becomes stale or in desperate need of break after 1 and a half hour of non-stop gameplay. If you plan on making it super-duper-ultra lengthy then a save system might be nice, tho it doesn't look like it would fit your "versus adventure" idea. Especially since it's a "versus" map, the longer it goes on, the bigger are chances that enemy player will leave/have something happen to him that he'd need to leave (life happens). I imagine it would be super anti-climatic to race against a guy for hours to just have him abruptly leave without acknowledging all the effort that remaining player put into the game (now for naught).
Overall, this sounds curious. The way you've described it so far makes me think it's like "The kingdom needs a king. There are X players/team. The first player who manages to become the King wins. You can become a king by various feats and ways. Become the King!", at least in spirit of racing to victory trough various adventures. Haven't seen anything like that so far.
My project loosely fits your guidelines. While some people would consider it a moba at first glance, it is intended much more as a single play-through RPG race with teams. You fight monsters, buy items, kill bosses, and yes, fight other players (in a periodic event, you fight for a team competition, PvP or pve).
Either way, my project is aimed towards a competitive adventure RPG, and winning can be achieved through killing players, bosses, or completion of the RPG aspect.
The vast majority of people who play my game like it. So my belief is that people would be willing to play an adventure RPG race game as well. As others pointed out, content for returning players would be your issue. Then balance so all of the paths are equally difficult, and making sure the game is fun enough that players want to return to try new things.
I think it would be hard to execute properly, just due to the large number of things that need to be aligned with each other for both new and old players to want to play it, and be on equal footing while playing it.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
I agree wholeheartedly with shorter experiences. Something in your original post gave me an interesting idea, though: what if you figured out a method of procedural story generation? So each time, the players explore to figure out what the quest is, then play it out. If you've seen Cabin in the Woods, something like the way that plays out.
thank you thank you :D
for all your inputs <3
Just to be clear, i'm not conceited and feel "my map is the only one doing "x" ".. i'm curious about other maps that exist out there and what their life are like or have been like :D
so thank you for different answers to that question
It is really surprising just how much "maximum freedom for the player" translates to "too hard" / "too much investment" required from the players" :( :( :( very disconcerting and disappointing.
Again :D .. 25 years ago, gamers used to buy horribly expensive "playthrough magazines" because we wanted to have more out of the games we bought, moreover we didn't want the devs to pass anything by us.
i really feel like any "real discovery" in games is bad (considered like un-useful hindrance) if that is not "overly" advertised beforehand. :(
I don't know if that says more about me or about the bnet sc2 crowd, but i would have thought those maps would at least have a niche of eager hardcore players. i must be wrong about my assumption that "cross platform" and multiplayer play are "standard" to most players. Apparently, adventure seekers like their game alone and on a dedicated platform ?!
YES LucidIguana, that is what i want to do, albeit my triggering is awful but the idea is there:
the way the player "plays" should implement the proper response scenario (adapt to the player's level / (more impractical) monitor the opponents and help the less skilled still have an edge if that is required / make the adventure change according to the skill "detected" .. again i'm a professed amateur and i'm doing this with what i can, not what i know can be done but i'm secured in the feeling that i should try (even if no one ever plays it, it is there, it exists :D )
Yeah Azure, i do believe the nest of the matter is that real gamers are becoming extinct. Of course a game can be "too" hard.. i happen to think those are more interesting.. and i'm sure there are people who want this type of content.. but it has to be "sold" as such i feel.
Something like "you can't touch this" type of label.. "you will die trying" etc label on my map would sell more :D than me saying anything about it.
Yes the content is what i need before i launch my charm blitzkreig to get a few players interested (i humbly admit that the lack of alpha testers is starting to get to me :P )
.. the content in such a game is indeed the atmosphere, the gameplay .. the fun of it overall! .. because if it is hard to win, then it should be extra cool to play (just a for instance: every time you select your hero the dialog emitted in response is original and fun and the player likes it, that sort of thing)
Trieva <3 yes .. maybe you are right on the money :D
At first i thought "mario", the very notion of that kind of game had nothing to do with it.. but maybe you are more in tune with what i cannot see. Yes, a very rail like structure makes for players wanting to come in. An open city where heroes are piloted to areas (without control) via triggers to make nice cinematics that regularly lead to "playable" arenas (where/when players control their units) is probably what i should go for if i want players to feel at ease and motivated. <3 nice one, i'm so far removed from the mario party bit that i thank you again for telling me just how far removed i am from it :)
Again, freedom or perceived reassuring format is really a fork in development, i wanted to put everything possible in my game and there did not seem to be anything preventing me from achieving that goal.. but now that i have managed to see the fork, i feel that there is no way to do both at once, ... Well of course you could, by imposing a choice at the start, a cheat mode would do it, you choose to have the adventure play out, or to discover it on your own.. but to me that would be two maps (even if they could be played simultaneously, which seems a gargantuan undertaking to say the least, and probably would still end up being a compromise).
GlornII "I think it would be hard to execute properly, just due to the large number of things that need to be aligned with each other for both new and old players to want to play it, and be on equal footing while playing it."
Agreed, the variables all in the air :D
How many players you count on being available? more to the point "how many players required for the map to be "playable/enjoyable/competitive? As azure pointed out, the sheer difficulty of a map is a deterrent to developing it (even if the hard part is getting 3 other players in).
This was one of the bases for my reasoning: get more players by making it a 1v1 playable alone and up to 5 players (the last player slot being meant for me :D to film the action performed by gamers within my environment), so that i cover all the angles.. make my map appealing to all types of players .. to end up having a half dozen players interested in "further" content and making my movie with these :D live actors alongside the engine's :D :D .
But alas.. as azure said, i am not called "universe" :D
Yes ducky, <3 <3 one king is a good one, :D my last one was called "9 queens" Kreygasm.. you are right, that is good pr note, thank you <3
Something like "be the one on top when the dust settles" yes that is what i am doing :D
Again, thank you all, keep ideas/comments coming <3
ty mapster, for all the lubricant ads and apparent passion/community/social apathy it is a place i humbly consider my galaxy home :)
ps: real sorry if i'm hard to decypher, ty for trying <3
Again, just to be clear: for me the objective of my map is that when you play it the game should take around 30 minutes/45 max in all cases!
When i said 3 hours i mainly meant through repetitive play. i meant the main stories unfold and "end" the game (after 35/45 minutes) . Mostly thinking that 3 hours would be reached by playing my map half a dozen times (6 times 45minutes) more than spending those hours in one sitting, in order to find all the things available at the start of the map. More in tune with the "i'm watching this online video to understand what the win goal is" rather than having to force players to know everything in order to win" . Does that make sense? :D :D ?
Furthermore, while currently my map "ends", you can remain in it and visit it too. This for me is my stepping stone to implementing "stages" in my map :P but there is a whole "visit me" point i intend to work on .. as a reward type of idea, coupling it with a tutorial aspect, not to mention a "tease what is to come" aspect.