SC2Mapster

Edit: For those who aren't a fan of browsing the entire damn thread to see what videos I've done for SC2 Mods, the playlist for those are here: DeadZergling's SC2 Playthroughs

If anyone would like to see an awesome avatar picture on top of a fairly lame background, my channel is here: DeadZergling's Youtube Channel

Original Post:

Hey all, recently decided to have a little fun recording with Fraps and a headset, than publishing some videos based on that. Then I thought of how useful I've found seeing others play my maps in video/stream format has been to me in the past, and thought I'd offer a little of the same.

What I am offering here is to see your project played in a video with some commentary, to see what someone who has potentially never seen your map thinks, what they decide to do, how well they navigate it, that sort of thing. I will probably keep the video length somewhere in the ballpark of 30 minutes, and can post the video publicly and on the forum, or privately so only you can see, if that is what you prefer. I totally get not wanting your project revealed ahead of time.

Why I am doing this? Well I could go on about how useful SC2mapster has been, how I want to give back, blah blah blah, but that wouldn't be all that honest. Fact of the matter is I think this sort of feedback is useful, and I'm doing this for fun for at least a little while.

Few benefits of this form of feedback, at least in my opinion:

A lot of the issues will not be what I do, or what I say, but what I completely miss. Maybe something you thought was obvious wasn't, maybe I'll trigger a glitch you notice and I don't, hard to say.

Feedback will be in context. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and while I doubt my videos will rate much more than 50 words per second, you will have a very clear idea what I'm talking about from the video you are watching.

Gives you a true idea of what a new player really experiences. While I won't say feedback or reviews can't be very articulate, and let you imagine what was going on, it is kind of hard to beat the actual video/experience happening.

So if you would like to see some random dude who thinks he is a Dead Zergling play and commentate on your map a bit, let me know. This is just for fun for me, and hoping it can be useful for some of you.

Before you send in a request, some stipulations:

I am el cheapo expansion wise, I still do not have Heart of the Swarm expansion, nor do I intend to get it any time soon. So if your project requires it, I'll need it published in order to be able to play it. Otherwise, feel free to just send me the map, I don't mind playing it straight out of the editor.

I am absolutely awful, the worst when it comes to card games and melee. I will give them a shot, but if you expect anything short of the most terrible inept game play, I'm afraid you are in for disappointment!

My voice is well, a natural monotone. I can adjust the audio levels and make myself a monotone chipmunk if you like, but an interesting voice full of lots of interesting inflections you shall not hear. On that note, I also don't really do the fake excitement/fear thing, what you hear is about what I am feeling/thinking, no sensationalism at all here.

Due to the nature of rendering videos into a format that won't take a year to upload to youtube, I may be a little delayed getting to a request if I am getting several requests a day or something. I'm kind of doubting this kind of volume, but it could happen.

And lastly, while I don't have any plans to offend anyone, my opinions are my own, and chances are good my thoughts on some matters may not be the same as yours. I won't be aiming to go after anything really, just to play it, call it as I see it, that sort of thing. Believe me, insulting anyone is the last objective of this, but I'm well aware that I can be unwittingly abrasive at times.

Anyways, if this sounds useful to you, let me know, would be happy to do a little recording for you. Can either PM me or reply here, not picky at all.

What timing! I've been working on a map and it's nearly ready for playtesting. It also only requires WoL as you require.

I'd rather not send my map files to someone, but when it's ready, I'll upload it to b-net and link it here.

Do you have friends to play multiplayer maps with when you record your videos? My map is not single player.

my map, "Hero Survival J" on na server could really use some exposure if you would want to do that <3
battlenet://starcraft/map/1/253683

@Amaroq64: Go

Hey Amaroq, not particularly, but I can probably find 1 to 3 people to play with if the map requires it. if it needs something like 4 v 4 or something like that, could be more trouble some, my typical play time being rather late in the PST, and open game only netting so many players. Doesn't mean I wouldn't give it a shot though.

@joey101d: Go

Hi joey101d, I will try to record something in the next day or two, I will assume from you wanting exposure that you would like me to post the video here when it is finished. If this is not the case, please let me know.

So finished with my first video on behalf of StealthToast. The audio quality is a little on the bleh side as SC2 decided to jack my mic setting to the max on me, but was able to alter it enough so that no one should go deaf!

Not a bad little mission if destroying Zerg happens to be your thing. I probably should have explored the custom units a bit more, not that I understand melee enough to even know what the new ones are...

Ah, thanks for playing! I apologize for the difficulty spike in the earlygame, that was because of the zerg drop pods (one of the random events), I'm assuming those are also the zerg waves that kept coming after you destroyed the bases? Also, the easiest difficulty is meant to be "braindead mode", 90% of what attacked you were drop pods, normally it's 1 small wave every 6-10 minutes. I think I should either tweak or remove them for that difficulty...

I'm gonna better explain control points next time as well, thinking of either with an early message saying what they are, or "Your units are X better/worse while in this point" when you hover over one. Could also reveal the locations of the crimson minerals on the map. The text clipping was odd too, I thought they'd scale more properly with resolution...

Anywho, again, thanks for playing! :)

@MaskedImposter: Go

I realize this MaskedImposter, I more meant for those who might want an HoTS map checked out who haven't actually published yet, don't want anyone seeing it quite yet. I fixed the wording on that segment as I can see why it might give that impression.

Have finished another video, this time on behalf of joey101d, playing Hero Survival J:

While I'm not fond of having upgrade money I can't actually use, and it is silly to choose anything other than a summoner class, it was overall a pretty fun little game, got pretty far I think.

haha thanks- well you found a bug for me at least (the scanner).

you may not have been using your hero to their full power, but I appreciate the time you took haha

the reason you had so much excess gas is because you gain more gas with fewer players btw

@joey101d: Go

That's probably true, but who does use their hero to its full power their first 2 games? Summoner types still have quite an edge in the survival department if you ask me, get a 10 second refresh blink, and disposable minions to give you time to escape. Cloak can be okay, until they surround you, you run out of energy, and bad stuff happens. I would definitely play the map again, I'd just also definitely pick a summoner. :)

What was going on with the not being able to trade 120 gas for 1 mineral thing anyways, what was I doing wrong there? I'm curious.

you spend your mineral to get gas, not gas to get a mineral
^{(tbh that feature is only there because someone once insisted that he didn't want his ult and would rather have more gas)}

haha ok note taken. balance is most definitely a work in progress, problem is that I find the spectre one of the harder classes to balance because if you play like you did in the video, then it needs a buff, but if you play it in the optimal way, its borderline over-powered and can sometimes take out entire waves solo. thing is, a new player will most likely not know what the optimal play style is or may be unable to pull it off on their first time. I tried labeling it as an advanced hero in red, but it seems I need to make the tooltips shorter or people just wont read them lol

btw the executor is supposed to spam his q ability to regenerate energy and fuel the storms, you didn't use that ability until your final wave lol

@joey101d: Go

It is a real problem for sure knowing what needs to be easier/harder/etc on your own map, you just get so used to certain things you tend to assume everyone will know to do this, that this will be too easy for everyone, etceteras. Death TV is a great example of this, I have no real difficulty playing on hard 2-3 player mode completely alone, so I tend to assume it is too easy, needs tweaking, etc. Then I see Sinvicta and company getting their butts kicked, discover it just ain't so :)

Let me know if you do some updates later, I don't mind giving it another shot in the future at all. I can't promise amazing gameplay from me, but I'm definitely not trying to lose, lol.

haha yeah ill have to do some more testing. Trying to think of some good ways to give players tips on how to play their hero without making a full blown tutorial. Maybe ill go reword some tooltips...

haha thanks, ill let you know after ive added some new (significant) content :P In the mean time, feel free to play, it usually doesn't take all that long to get the lobby to fill (admittedly I have people on my friends list who play often so that might speed up the process lol)

@joey101d: Go

A simple bank file might do the trick, just keep track if they have played the game as Character X before, if they haven't, do a little tutorial at a time. Like maybe at start mention 2 abilities they should get, how to use, in as few words as possible. Then maybe more info as they unlock more stuff, for the first time anyways. This would take more than a little work to do right, but I would have greatly appreciated something like that just starting out.

hmm that's a good idea. Id like to have it not require a long time to read as I don't want people to pause a multiplayer game for it.. hmm maybe a dialog system on the side of the screen that overviews the hero's abilities and play style.... I have an idea in my head. I just hope I know how to implement it. man this is gonna take a while lol.

@LucidIguana: Go

well I already spent like 10 hours creating a dialog tutorial system I guess ill use that haha (prolly shouldn't have taken that long tbh, but I am very new to dialogs so it took forever)

@wargirlwargirl: Go

lol yeah I know my maps terrain probably needs improving

Hey Deadzergling, if you want to try a map and have some people available, look up "StarWorkInProgress" in the arcade! It's a map that Wargirl and I (and our composer friend, Moustro) are working on.

It's not finished but it's definitely playable. Only downside is that it's a multiplayer map without AIs, so you can't play it solo. But if you can find some friends (I think 3-4 players are enough to get the full experience, I wouldn't do 1v1 just yet) I think you'd enjoy it!