No, it's not the name of the map, the title refers to the undertaking I'm about to make right now. It's not my life's odyssey, it is a gaming odyssey. Strap yourselves in and prepare for my speech.
I expect a ton of criticism, trolling, and crazy people, but I also hope for support.
My goal for the next few days, weeks, months, or even years, is to build a starcraft 2 map that's praised by so many people, it reaches page 1 at the top of the list, right under the starcraft masters map.
What do I hope to gain? Nothing. Seriously. I just want to make a map, stick with it, and make it for the community. I want to make a map for you guys.
That's why I came back to mapster after testing around with a bunch of maps that I experimented with. I think I've figured out how to reach the top.
The maps at the top of the page of the NA servers have most of the following...
Unique - This doesn't include all of the maps on there. It includes squadron tower defense, however.
Balance - Most of the maps on there have balance. Simple as that. You all know what balance is.
Polish - All of them have neat and slick looking polish look to them. They run smooth and they make it look good.
Expectation to Failure - This is a confusing one. But, when blizzard makes a map, everybody expects it to be the best map ever. This sometimes means that people dislike it so much it never gains popularity. Sometimes, if you don't expect to like something, but you play it and you do, you'll think it's really good. Difficult to explain, but yea.
Content - All of them have extra content in there all over. Multiple classes, heroes, and even music! Unlockables?
Competitive - For some reason, almost all of the maps on the front page of the NA server are hugely competitive. I don't know why, but I accept that.
Easy to learn, hard to master - Now, you've all heard this many times. If I had to make a map, I'd have to make it pretty easy to learn. This means 1 of 2 things. Either, make a quick little tutorial or provide tips, or make the gameplay simple. A nice trick is to give newbies something easy to start with, for example, create a hero designed to be balanced, but easy to figure out how to use. Then make the more difficult classes much more fun and maybe even a little more powerful, to encourage them to try other characters.
Addiction - If you want your map to become popular, you need it to be addicting. This means making a reason to want to play again, but not only that, make the gameplay excite the player into wanting to play again.
Fun Factor - This should be at the top of the page, but all maps need that one fun factor. They must be fun for anybody to keep playing it, or they'll just rage quit before they play long.
Now, these are the ways a map, I think, can get popular, is if they hit all of the above.
I want as many people to contribute to the map as possible.
The following are 3 questions I've been asking people to answer lately. They will help me decide on the map I will build. You may also volunteer to help out. Anyone helps out enough, I will have half of the load screen dedicated to the latest update, and the other will be dedicated tot he mappers who helped out. Answer with a post answering these 3 questions and also with any feedback. you have.
What do you think makes a game fun?
What is your favorite map on sc2?
What kind of map do you want me to make?
This is going to be a tough ride. I've never seen any game have every genre a community wants, so this is going to get difficult, but we will do it.
I ask the community, let's build a game together.
PS. Everybody probably thinks I'm a moron or a selfish lunatic just for posting this. Please do not post with rage, namecalling, or trolling, thank you.
*looks at top 5 poular maps onEU*
SquadronTD
DesertStrike
MarineArena
RageTD
Monobattles
Judging by this list if you want to make a top map it should be something along these lines:
Easy to understand game where lots of units die. Something that you would play after a hard days work to relax your brain and forget yourself. Add requirment for grinding to incentivise players go afk for 8h :D, that will boost popularity. Or you could emulate slot machine where there is a 0.01% to get a cool reward for your actions (rare item drop in rpg). Something simple and addictive. I remember reading articles about psychological traps some games use to keep players addicted, I'd recommend reading them in order to understand how to make #1 popular map :D
There are of course other cool games down bellow, but if you're really aiming for #1 popularity map.. ;P
As for me.. I'd like a sandbox type of map where you get a hero and a world and you can influence how map goes based on your actions/choices. Since it's a multiplayer game, other players can either help you with your goal or influence other forces to push their own agenda and ruin your plans/crush your faction. I want players hero to be good in small encounters but still realistically weak vs Boss type units and large gathering of enemies. Agile and fragile.
A map is fun, when it offers team play, so you can play with your friends. I am pretty sure you knew that already...
Fun can sometimes be if something surprises us, example: 20 banelings fall from the sky and explodes dealing massive AoE damage to EVERYTHING.
That could be an ability.
other example: you hear Day[9] say "trumpets" and your gameplay is temporarily interrupted by "isla del sol".
Random things are mostly fun. Weird stuff is not the dominating thing though. But your definition of a good map mixed with some fast paced randomness would be hilariously fun to play, i recon.
It has to be original, but something with Heroes is always good. DotA, SotIS and all the other Hero Tug of War maps are pretty fun, but they need the REAL twist of fun. Variation. Perhaps 4 teams in a DotA map with 12 custom voiced heroes with epic surprising abilities? I am sorry, but don't know what else to do with your map...
The most fun map out there... I don't know, but here's a list of good ones:
Squad TD
Footmen
Nexus wars (to an extend)
photon cycles
Monobattles
Desert Strike
Perhaps turn a popular genre around, like make a TD where the computer builds and players send creatures, or a DOTA map where heroes are computer controlled and players control minions.
No matter what you do, don't forget to make it playable by 8yo's and include LOTS of pretty effects and overly huge fights.
My goal for the next few days, weeks, months, or even years, is to build a starcraft 2 map that's praised by so many people, it reaches page 1 at the top of the list, right under the starcraft masters map.
I had this goal in mind the very day I downloaded the Starcraft 2 beta editor. It has taken me two years of consistent work and TONS of free time to finish my project (started in late April, 2010). Strap in, son!
I remember reading articles about psychological traps some games use to keep players addicted, I'd recommend reading them in order to understand how to make #1 popular map :D
For an interesting analysis of this game mechanic, watch this:
If you want to make popular map I bet making a TD could be a way to go.
There have been many TDs that are popular or semi popular (and there are tons of them and many of them get plays).
Making another dota could be another way. Sotis is pretty pathetic comapred to original dota and cityoftemepest is quite different from it, so Im sure well polished dota game would triumph over sotis.
Some more a bit risky bets could be defence maps. Building and defending + gathering resources is fun! or a minigame map (raynor party was popular, yet it dissapeared for some reason). But making better raynor party would be rather easy.
Making another dota could be another way. Sotis is pretty pathetic comapred to original dota and cityoftemepest is quite different from it, so Im sure well polished dota game would triumph over sotis.
Maybe a DOTA game is good for popularity (maybe?), but it's not good for the soul. The age of DOTA as a custom map is done as far as I'm concerned. Great games like League of Legends and DOTA 2 are free to play, and avoid 90% of the problems that ruin 90% of the custom games (like AFKers and imbalanced skill levels between players). Besides, making a game like this that is good enough and balanced enough to get to the first page is going to be a NIGHTMARE.
In my opinion, you should focus on something that custom games can do well that other genres cannot! You've got 20-30 minute multiplayer matches, and you don't need to have an entire supporting game around your muliplayer. Pick something that would work well in these parameters and go for it. Here's my example: I have always wanted a competitive game where players are on teams, but can switch teams, change alliances, and backstab one another. A great player could be 1v3 and power up faster if they're holding their own, and then as alliances change throughout the game, they will be stronger for having done well as a minority alliance. Playing as 3v1 (or 4v1 or 5v1!) you'll have an easier time but your rewards will be a fraction of what the 1 player is getting.
That's new as far as I'm concerned. If it's not new, someone tell me what it is so I can go play it.
Thanks for all the posts. I think I have an idea on how the map is going to work.
I have decided I'd do as much combining as possible. Imagine a DotA/strategy/creative/TD/simulation map. This is how it's going to work...
There are 8 players. 4 on the top of the map and 4 on the bottom. The terrain is an empty valley of space. Each player gets 1 space station, a fleet, a capitol ship and a builder.
Each space station has some defenses, but they won't last forever. To protect yourself, you have a builder. This builder can construct several different towers that can defend you. They can be destroyed, but they repair automatically if not attacked for some time.
Every 30 seconds a fleet spawns behind your space station and automatically flies down towards the enemy's defenses. Each player has their own fleet of ships that spawn and even though they automatically attack, you can also control them, but I'll have to find a way to keep players from hiding them or massing them. :/ Possibly even removing control completely...
Next, every 5 minutes, each player will be given the choice to do 1 of 3 things. They can either summon a wave of ships instantly, summon or revive a hero (capitol ship) of their choice, or they can choose 1 of a few abilities to cast on the battlefield.
Next, I said waves of fleets come in, right? Well, some are transports. They will land troops on asteroids to attempt to conquer them for extra resources.
With everything I've said, the map will be blazing with awesome epic space battles, lots of explosions and ships breaking to pieces, and a competitive gameplay.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, there will be an autopilot button! Yes, this means you can click a button and the game, through triggers, will automatically do a lot of the things normal players would do. This will fix the AFK problem.
There's other ideas I've had, but that's the basic form of the map right now. I hope to get some feedback on this...
Sounds very interesting, but by judging from the information given, the TD part seems very weak and most likely out of interest from the players. Rest of the concept is cool. Partly enabling autopilot for new players could be good too, allowing the player to focus on learning one mechanic at a time, instead of getting blasted by 4 units to control at start.
Thanks, the TD part was like...added after I read everybody's posts saying TD was popular...lol
The rest of it was after a brain storm I just happened to get. I thought it was simple, addicting, and would create some pretty effects that would make people want to stop, set to autopilot, and just watch the awesomeness happen.
I think I've found the idea I'm looking for, anybody else?
I think you'd be giving a player too many duties to micromanage a hero ship and also build towers to defend. Autopilot mode is never a good idea. I think this stuff would work better if each team has shared control and shared resources (at least shared control and resources for towers in the base). This would alleviate the AFK problem because having 2 vs 4 would just mean you have less people to help manage the base and ships, and would be even more effective at fixing AFKers if each team had only 1 hero ship that had shared control... though not sure how that would work exactly.
Well, I want players to have options. I'm going to remove the TD part. I think it'd get in the way as you said.
Shared control could work too...
I don't know...the only problem with shared control is players would have to worry about you as well as their own forces. I'm not sure that's what I want.
What if it was shared control but if a player leaves it kicks into AFK mode?
Or if AFK mode is activated you get shared control and messages reminding the other players that they can use there special abilities?
Afk mode seems like a terrible idea. Why would I play a game that can play itself without me? It wouldn't feel rewarding at all. Games are usually about giving player a set of rules and a goal. It feels good to do tasks to achieve that goal, even if they are as simple as right-clikcing your SCV to mine some rocks.
So far, I've just gotten mixed emotions about the autopilot button. I wanted it to be an option for players if they had to go to the bathroom, get food, or whatever and they couldn't control their own troops while they were away. I never wanted it to be forced on players. I'm going to have to think about that implementation. It'll have to be decided later in development.
PS. I've got a blank map with 4 asteroids and 8 space stations and nothing else. Going to work on some triggers so the map is functional to some extent.
AFK mode is a bad idea, and the only reason you're considering it is because AFK'ing is one of the biggest problems with this genre. There are no consequences if a player goes AFK and ruins a team game. Often a player is going AFK in a game they don't care about and they'll never play it again, and playing with random people that they'll never see again.
I think it's an unavoidable problem with any team game, and adding a way for a player to be played while AFK or gone is less fun for everyone. If it's even possible to have a computer controlled player then you're either really good with AI or your game isn't engaging enough. Ever play Mario Party with bots?
In my opinion, the best solution is to either have a game that is FFA, or make it so that a player leaving or AFKing from a team doesn't have guaranteed game ending consequences.
Well, maybe I could simply fix it by giving bonuses to players left on the team. Like income, extra ships, and additional HP.
As for players going AFK, it wouldn't hurt a team too badly because ships are already automatic anyways. The only thing that really isn't is your abilities and capitol ship.
Edit: So far, I've been doing data to get the interceptor beam to look right on the wraith unit. So far so good.
Trust me, this is a difficult read!
No, it's not the name of the map, the title refers to the undertaking I'm about to make right now. It's not my life's odyssey, it is a gaming odyssey. Strap yourselves in and prepare for my speech.
I expect a ton of criticism, trolling, and crazy people, but I also hope for support.
My goal for the next few days, weeks, months, or even years, is to build a starcraft 2 map that's praised by so many people, it reaches page 1 at the top of the list, right under the starcraft masters map.
What do I hope to gain? Nothing. Seriously. I just want to make a map, stick with it, and make it for the community. I want to make a map for you guys.
That's why I came back to mapster after testing around with a bunch of maps that I experimented with. I think I've figured out how to reach the top.
The maps at the top of the page of the NA servers have most of the following...
Unique - This doesn't include all of the maps on there. It includes squadron tower defense, however.
Balance - Most of the maps on there have balance. Simple as that. You all know what balance is.
Polish - All of them have neat and slick looking polish look to them. They run smooth and they make it look good.
Expectation to Failure - This is a confusing one. But, when blizzard makes a map, everybody expects it to be the best map ever. This sometimes means that people dislike it so much it never gains popularity. Sometimes, if you don't expect to like something, but you play it and you do, you'll think it's really good. Difficult to explain, but yea.
Content - All of them have extra content in there all over. Multiple classes, heroes, and even music! Unlockables?
Competitive - For some reason, almost all of the maps on the front page of the NA server are hugely competitive. I don't know why, but I accept that.
Easy to learn, hard to master - Now, you've all heard this many times. If I had to make a map, I'd have to make it pretty easy to learn. This means 1 of 2 things. Either, make a quick little tutorial or provide tips, or make the gameplay simple. A nice trick is to give newbies something easy to start with, for example, create a hero designed to be balanced, but easy to figure out how to use. Then make the more difficult classes much more fun and maybe even a little more powerful, to encourage them to try other characters.
Addiction - If you want your map to become popular, you need it to be addicting. This means making a reason to want to play again, but not only that, make the gameplay excite the player into wanting to play again.
Fun Factor - This should be at the top of the page, but all maps need that one fun factor. They must be fun for anybody to keep playing it, or they'll just rage quit before they play long.
Now, these are the ways a map, I think, can get popular, is if they hit all of the above.
I want as many people to contribute to the map as possible.
The following are 3 questions I've been asking people to answer lately. They will help me decide on the map I will build. You may also volunteer to help out. Anyone helps out enough, I will have half of the load screen dedicated to the latest update, and the other will be dedicated tot he mappers who helped out. Answer with a post answering these 3 questions and also with any feedback. you have.
What do you think makes a game fun?
What is your favorite map on sc2?
What kind of map do you want me to make?
This is going to be a tough ride. I've never seen any game have every genre a community wants, so this is going to get difficult, but we will do it.
I ask the community, let's build a game together.
PS. Everybody probably thinks I'm a moron or a selfish lunatic just for posting this. Please do not post with rage, namecalling, or trolling, thank you.
What kind of map I want you to make?
A new map
Something we havent seen before
I dont know what else I could say
Well, this is the same thing I've been saying. What kind of map should I make? I have no idea. :(
That's why I'm here.
*looks at top 5 poular maps onEU*
SquadronTD
DesertStrike
MarineArena
RageTD
Monobattles
Judging by this list if you want to make a top map it should be something along these lines:
Easy to understand game where lots of units die. Something that you would play after a hard days work to relax your brain and forget yourself. Add requirment for grinding to incentivise players go afk for 8h :D, that will boost popularity. Or you could emulate slot machine where there is a 0.01% to get a cool reward for your actions (rare item drop in rpg). Something simple and addictive. I remember reading articles about psychological traps some games use to keep players addicted, I'd recommend reading them in order to understand how to make #1 popular map :D
There are of course other cool games down bellow, but if you're really aiming for #1 popularity map.. ;P
As for me.. I'd like a sandbox type of map where you get a hero and a world and you can influence how map goes based on your actions/choices. Since it's a multiplayer game, other players can either help you with your goal or influence other forces to push their own agenda and ruin your plans/crush your faction. I want players hero to be good in small encounters but still realistically weak vs Boss type units and large gathering of enemies. Agile and fragile.
A map is fun, when it offers team play, so you can play with your friends. I am pretty sure you knew that already... Fun can sometimes be if something surprises us, example: 20 banelings fall from the sky and explodes dealing massive AoE damage to EVERYTHING. That could be an ability. other example: you hear Day[9] say "trumpets" and your gameplay is temporarily interrupted by "isla del sol". Random things are mostly fun. Weird stuff is not the dominating thing though. But your definition of a good map mixed with some fast paced randomness would be hilariously fun to play, i recon.
It has to be original, but something with Heroes is always good. DotA, SotIS and all the other Hero Tug of War maps are pretty fun, but they need the REAL twist of fun. Variation. Perhaps 4 teams in a DotA map with 12 custom voiced heroes with epic surprising abilities? I am sorry, but don't know what else to do with your map...
The most fun map out there... I don't know, but here's a list of good ones: Squad TD Footmen Nexus wars (to an extend) photon cycles Monobattles Desert Strike
Is that help enough? :)
Be innovative.
Perhaps turn a popular genre around, like make a TD where the computer builds and players send creatures, or a DOTA map where heroes are computer controlled and players control minions.
No matter what you do, don't forget to make it playable by 8yo's and include LOTS of pretty effects and overly huge fights.
I had this goal in mind the very day I downloaded the Starcraft 2 beta editor. It has taken me two years of consistent work and TONS of free time to finish my project (started in late April, 2010). Strap in, son!
For an interesting analysis of this game mechanic, watch this:
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-skinner-box
If you want to make popular map I bet making a TD could be a way to go.
There have been many TDs that are popular or semi popular (and there are tons of them and many of them get plays).
Making another dota could be another way. Sotis is pretty pathetic comapred to original dota and cityoftemepest is quite different from it, so Im sure well polished dota game would triumph over sotis.
Some more a bit risky bets could be defence maps. Building and defending + gathering resources is fun! or a minigame map (raynor party was popular, yet it dissapeared for some reason). But making better raynor party would be rather easy.
WHO TOLD YOU THAT WAS MY PLAN! TOP SECRET.
Maybe a DOTA game is good for popularity (maybe?), but it's not good for the soul. The age of DOTA as a custom map is done as far as I'm concerned. Great games like League of Legends and DOTA 2 are free to play, and avoid 90% of the problems that ruin 90% of the custom games (like AFKers and imbalanced skill levels between players). Besides, making a game like this that is good enough and balanced enough to get to the first page is going to be a NIGHTMARE.
In my opinion, you should focus on something that custom games can do well that other genres cannot! You've got 20-30 minute multiplayer matches, and you don't need to have an entire supporting game around your muliplayer. Pick something that would work well in these parameters and go for it. Here's my example: I have always wanted a competitive game where players are on teams, but can switch teams, change alliances, and backstab one another. A great player could be 1v3 and power up faster if they're holding their own, and then as alliances change throughout the game, they will be stronger for having done well as a minority alliance. Playing as 3v1 (or 4v1 or 5v1!) you'll have an easier time but your rewards will be a fraction of what the 1 player is getting.
That's new as far as I'm concerned. If it's not new, someone tell me what it is so I can go play it.
Thanks for all the posts. I think I have an idea on how the map is going to work.
I have decided I'd do as much combining as possible. Imagine a DotA/strategy/creative/TD/simulation map. This is how it's going to work...
There are 8 players. 4 on the top of the map and 4 on the bottom. The terrain is an empty valley of space. Each player gets 1 space station, a fleet, a capitol ship and a builder.
Each space station has some defenses, but they won't last forever. To protect yourself, you have a builder. This builder can construct several different towers that can defend you. They can be destroyed, but they repair automatically if not attacked for some time.
Every 30 seconds a fleet spawns behind your space station and automatically flies down towards the enemy's defenses. Each player has their own fleet of ships that spawn and even though they automatically attack, you can also control them, but I'll have to find a way to keep players from hiding them or massing them. :/ Possibly even removing control completely...
Next, every 5 minutes, each player will be given the choice to do 1 of 3 things. They can either summon a wave of ships instantly, summon or revive a hero (capitol ship) of their choice, or they can choose 1 of a few abilities to cast on the battlefield.
Next, I said waves of fleets come in, right? Well, some are transports. They will land troops on asteroids to attempt to conquer them for extra resources.
With everything I've said, the map will be blazing with awesome epic space battles, lots of explosions and ships breaking to pieces, and a competitive gameplay.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, there will be an autopilot button! Yes, this means you can click a button and the game, through triggers, will automatically do a lot of the things normal players would do. This will fix the AFK problem.
There's other ideas I've had, but that's the basic form of the map right now. I hope to get some feedback on this...
@yukaboy: Go
Sounds very interesting, but by judging from the information given, the TD part seems very weak and most likely out of interest from the players. Rest of the concept is cool. Partly enabling autopilot for new players could be good too, allowing the player to focus on learning one mechanic at a time, instead of getting blasted by 4 units to control at start.
Thanks, the TD part was like...added after I read everybody's posts saying TD was popular...lol
The rest of it was after a brain storm I just happened to get. I thought it was simple, addicting, and would create some pretty effects that would make people want to stop, set to autopilot, and just watch the awesomeness happen.
I think I've found the idea I'm looking for, anybody else?
@yukaboy: Go
I think you'd be giving a player too many duties to micromanage a hero ship and also build towers to defend. Autopilot mode is never a good idea. I think this stuff would work better if each team has shared control and shared resources (at least shared control and resources for towers in the base). This would alleviate the AFK problem because having 2 vs 4 would just mean you have less people to help manage the base and ships, and would be even more effective at fixing AFKers if each team had only 1 hero ship that had shared control... though not sure how that would work exactly.
How about a PVPRPG similar to DBZ tribute?
one where you kite enemies and use Strong high ranged attacks to level up fast. somehting like that.
Well, I want players to have options. I'm going to remove the TD part. I think it'd get in the way as you said.
Shared control could work too...
I don't know...the only problem with shared control is players would have to worry about you as well as their own forces. I'm not sure that's what I want.
@yukaboy: Go
What if it was shared control but if a player leaves it kicks into AFK mode? Or if AFK mode is activated you get shared control and messages reminding the other players that they can use there special abilities?
Afk mode seems like a terrible idea. Why would I play a game that can play itself without me? It wouldn't feel rewarding at all. Games are usually about giving player a set of rules and a goal. It feels good to do tasks to achieve that goal, even if they are as simple as right-clikcing your SCV to mine some rocks.
Well, idk...
So far, I've just gotten mixed emotions about the autopilot button. I wanted it to be an option for players if they had to go to the bathroom, get food, or whatever and they couldn't control their own troops while they were away. I never wanted it to be forced on players. I'm going to have to think about that implementation. It'll have to be decided later in development.
PS. I've got a blank map with 4 asteroids and 8 space stations and nothing else. Going to work on some triggers so the map is functional to some extent.
@yukaboy: Go
AFK mode is a bad idea, and the only reason you're considering it is because AFK'ing is one of the biggest problems with this genre. There are no consequences if a player goes AFK and ruins a team game. Often a player is going AFK in a game they don't care about and they'll never play it again, and playing with random people that they'll never see again.
I think it's an unavoidable problem with any team game, and adding a way for a player to be played while AFK or gone is less fun for everyone. If it's even possible to have a computer controlled player then you're either really good with AI or your game isn't engaging enough. Ever play Mario Party with bots?
In my opinion, the best solution is to either have a game that is FFA, or make it so that a player leaving or AFKing from a team doesn't have guaranteed game ending consequences.
Well, maybe I could simply fix it by giving bonuses to players left on the team. Like income, extra ships, and additional HP.
As for players going AFK, it wouldn't hurt a team too badly because ships are already automatic anyways. The only thing that really isn't is your abilities and capitol ship.
Edit: So far, I've been doing data to get the interceptor beam to look right on the wraith unit. So far so good.