Unranked is the "main" pub mode. You don't have to play ranked (you haven't for a while).
2.0 fixed a lot of "noob unfriendliness".
Not sure when the last time you played was but the game has evolved quite a bit.
Also the community is far from "dead" ;P, it's picked up significantly since 2.0. Cheers
Smashcraft was a 1st page staple when it was released, even after the map popularity system was changed. It's stuck on the third page now. It doesn't have the player base that it used to, maybe because it's no longer a new commodity that everyone wants to try out, but I still think the main reason for that is the map changed a lot for the worse when it's popularity was at its peak.
I'm glad it's recovering now though as I really loved the map, but I stopped playing because I didn't like the direction it was going. I hope it continues to get better :)
I agree with everyone else here, in that I felt a bit let down when seeing that first video after reading the hype machine in the news here. It just seems like a glorified hero arena, which is fine. However, as a player of maps who understands the mapmaking side of things, I like where the gameplay aspect is headed and I think it will be something new and refreshing.
The heroes in the videos released look really well thought-out and designed, and everything looks nice. And that's important. As a player of maps and a mapmaker at the same time, I want good maps to succeed, and while you may say that this map and Smashcraft are totally different, I disagree with that. If I'm going to play a hero arena, I don't care about the little intricacies that separate two maps in the same genre from one another. You're making a hero arena. Smashcraft is a hero arena. Nothing else needs to be said, because like I said, if I want to play a hero arena, I'm going to pick one over the other. I'm not going to play a game of this and then feel like doing something else and go play Smashcraft, no matter what the differences in gameplay are; essentially, the maps are built around the same principles with different ways of achieving them. I will get my Arena fix from one of the two maps, whichever one entertains me more.
That being said, you guys have an opportunity to succeed where Mephs (in my opinion) failed. I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Smashcraft because Mephs is a good editor, but that's just the way it is going to be. Mephs had a great map when he first released it. It was simple enough that newcomers could grasp the idea of it after a few games, and the gameplay was fun. Then shortly after he started listening to the wrong people and making stupid decisions. Adding a rating system and having two game modes, Ranked vs. Unranked, which split the map popularity and it never recovered. Listening to elitist WoW Arena morons and adding more elements to the gameplay that were unnecessary and confusing to newcomers. The list goes on, but those were the main issues.
A map can't succeed without a good community to support it, and Smashcraft failed in that department and it's not going to recover. This map has an opportunity to go where Smashcraft did not and I hope it does, because there's a lot of room for a Hero Arena that's well-done on the custom games list and in the desires of gamers.
If a map is popular and successful, then it was worth the hype. Just because it doesn't involve "impressive" things that the mappers at this community expect doesn't mean it wasn't worth it or that it's not good. If this map turns out to be fun and successful, it was worth it and you can laugh in the faces of everyone here. You guys just haven't given us enough information - and the map hasn't been played publicly yet. Furthermore, you can be the best coders and the most creative mappers ever but if you handle the map the wrong way after it's released, it can go downhill just as fast as it went up.
Good luck and I'll definitely be trying it out with some friends as soon as it's released. :)
I just played this map for the first time last night, and I saw this thread be bumped when looking over the forums so I thought I'd post my opinion. I liked what I saw but I really felt the gameplay was extremely shallow.
This isn't a card game... the cards almost feel like they're there to fool me. They may as well be "Spawn Unit X" buttons instead of cards and this may as well be just like any other tug-of-war map, because the "card game" aspect in this map was completely lost on me. I wish there was more to this map than managing vespene gas and spawning the right counters to units at the right times. As I said, nothing in this map makes me feel like I'm actually doing anything at all related to a Starcraft Card Game, which is where I felt sort of disconnected from the map; this is just another tug-of-war map to me.
When I think of a card game, I think Pokemon or MTG, both which make heavy use of Energy and Land cards, respectively. In this map I feel like I'm just drawing a random array of units.
I'd rather see the Starcraft equivalent of Land cards with Minerals/Gas/Terrazine; and actually make it look like I'm building a base or something. The same tug-of-war aspect can exist with spawning units from cards, but I just wish there was more of a card game feel to this.
On the plus side, the presentation is amazing and the cards themselves look really awesome, so great job with that. :)
Laser Tag map for SC2, press "A" to begin firing your laser, then click in the direction you want to fire. Run around dodging other people's lasers to avoid being hit. Get money from hitting other players (and eventually killing them) to buy upgrades (to things such as HP, shields, run speed), weapons (different weapon types, i.e. sniper rifles have a "scope" ability which can reveal an area for a short time and have much longer range and deal more damage, but have a long cooldown on their shots), accessories (such as grenades) and abilities (such as blink).
Three classes, Warrior / Ranger / Engineer each with their own unique purchasable abilities.
Firing your "laser" is a lot like firing a shockwave from a tauren chieftan in WC3, if that helps people understand. Here's a WIP/test screeny of that:
Unlike most laser tag rulesets IRL, if you die, you will respawn after 20 seconds in a vacant area on the map.
Map is 6v6 and will initially only contain a deathmatch mode (first team to 50 kills)
There's no need to argue about the writer's review or his stupidity, doing so might mean you're more stupid than that. The point of the thread is to give more information for people who does not have a chance to play the maps. The author spends his time sharing his experience with everyone and its his opinion, his credibility does not factor.
the writer comes across acting like a know-it-all in regards to the DOTA scene with the intro to his "preview," and comes off sounding like a moron. Sorry, but I could have written something ten times more credible than that without even being at Blizzcon, because the author didn't write anything that went more in-depth information-wise than what a random person could obtain by looking at screenshots of every hero (which are readily available through searching google) and the names of their abilities.
The only interesting piece of information provided in that was the characters having different names/models depending on what side they're on.
The reason I'm saying this is because it pisses me off to no end that people who don't even know that DOTA originated on Reign of Chaos claim that it was created by either Guinsoo or Icefrog, both of which are horribly wrong. People don't even know why it's called DOTA "Allstars". why? Because Guinsoo copied and pasted the most powerful "Allstar" heroes from each of the popular DOTA ports when TFT was first released and put them in one map. And guess what? Those DOTA ports only existed because Eul decided not to officially port the map to TFT himself.
It's hilarious how Eul doesn't get the recognition he deserves for actually creating DOTA on RoC and starting this entire thing, where he did something more profound than any editor of DOTA has ever done by making custom abilities in Reign of Chaos where there was no editor support to do it and no ability to find a guide on google at the time. People like the author of this guide are the reasons TFT DOTA players get the reputation of being retarded and immature, because that's exactly what they are.
Sorry but the person who wrote this is retarded. "Think of him as the Stealth Assassin with a ranged attack replacing cloak." rofl, how about Leon, who actually has a cloak with his ranged attack? Furthermore, the author compares everything to a hero from "DOTA", when sometimes he should really be comparing them to a hero from "WC3." Muradin is a carbon copy of the Mountain King from WC3, not the Zeus from DOTA. Lastly, the "original" DOTA was created on Wc3: ROC and did not have a Lina, Krobelus, Darchow or Lion, so comparing Kerrigan to those heroes from the "original" DOTA is highly inaccurate and retarded. Same thing with the Pudge comparison.
5. Its created by the original creator of DOTA and even has some old Blizz staff on thier dev team.
The original creator of DOTA is a Halo addict (thank Halo for allstars becoming what it is today, as Eul abandoned porting the map to TFT when TFT was released) and a former student, not that douchefaggot Guinsoo.
Sadly so many people like you don't know who actually created the original map, or know anything about what it was like.
People who don't know much about ME might not understand the story behind this, but the gameplay wouldn't require any knowledge of the game.
- Map is set on an eezo-rich moon occupied and mined by Cerberus, where they also experiment and test out new technologies on captive humans and aliens for the advancement of humanity. The Alliance has taken notice and wishes to terminate the colony due to inhumane experiments and rights violations, pitting the two sides against one another.
- Players pick a class between the classes in ME (Warrior, Adept, Infiltrator, Engineer, Sentinel, Vanguard) as well as two additional classes based on faction (Alliance: Spectre, a biotic infiltrator, Cerberus: Elementalist, a genetically enhanced biotic that would resemble a mage). Each class will have a talent setup similar to Mass Effect 2, where putting points into abilities makes them stronger and unlocks better versions of these abilities (i.e. Cryo Freeze, a single-target ability, becoming Cryoblast, an AoE ability). Each level will unlock multiple ability points which can be spent. Each class will have 6-7 abilities.
- Heroes use the attributes from Mass Effect: Combat, Tech, Biotics
- Players can equip their character with a weapon, ammo and an armor suit. These provide the primary basis for the player's attack and defenses. For example, certain Sniper Rifles may have a chance to crit, certain ammo may go through shields, or certain armor sets might have a chance to reflect a missile attack, etc.
- Players can also purchase a certain amount of genetic mutations, as gene therapy is a popular part of the ME lore. Gene Therapy provides primarily passive bonuses to your character (as a replacement for "items".)
- Map makes use of an in-combat and out-of-combat system, where heroes will regenerate their health and energy much faster outside of combat.
- Terrain is set on the Ulaan (cave) tileset, with a blue-ish tinted lighting and fog setup. Not too many doodads (at least compared to, say, a jungle map), lots of open spaces with points of interest scattered around.
I know it's not much, but I should have at least an early demo version of the map available within the next month. I guess I might make a page for it but I haven't gotten around to it yet, i'll probably wait until I have something to release to people
Anyways let me know what you guys think! or if you have ideas
ive posted these in a lot of threads but i guess they fit here too, im huge on height variation i dont think i use a single cliff in any of these
i dunno I guess I just prefer doodad-walls (like rocks) or natural height variation instead of cliffs, but they actually look alright in yours, you did a good job incorporating them
0
Smashcraft was a 1st page staple when it was released, even after the map popularity system was changed. It's stuck on the third page now. It doesn't have the player base that it used to, maybe because it's no longer a new commodity that everyone wants to try out, but I still think the main reason for that is the map changed a lot for the worse when it's popularity was at its peak.
I'm glad it's recovering now though as I really loved the map, but I stopped playing because I didn't like the direction it was going. I hope it continues to get better :)
0
Here's my two cents.
I agree with everyone else here, in that I felt a bit let down when seeing that first video after reading the hype machine in the news here. It just seems like a glorified hero arena, which is fine. However, as a player of maps who understands the mapmaking side of things, I like where the gameplay aspect is headed and I think it will be something new and refreshing.
The heroes in the videos released look really well thought-out and designed, and everything looks nice. And that's important. As a player of maps and a mapmaker at the same time, I want good maps to succeed, and while you may say that this map and Smashcraft are totally different, I disagree with that. If I'm going to play a hero arena, I don't care about the little intricacies that separate two maps in the same genre from one another. You're making a hero arena. Smashcraft is a hero arena. Nothing else needs to be said, because like I said, if I want to play a hero arena, I'm going to pick one over the other. I'm not going to play a game of this and then feel like doing something else and go play Smashcraft, no matter what the differences in gameplay are; essentially, the maps are built around the same principles with different ways of achieving them. I will get my Arena fix from one of the two maps, whichever one entertains me more.
That being said, you guys have an opportunity to succeed where Mephs (in my opinion) failed. I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Smashcraft because Mephs is a good editor, but that's just the way it is going to be. Mephs had a great map when he first released it. It was simple enough that newcomers could grasp the idea of it after a few games, and the gameplay was fun. Then shortly after he started listening to the wrong people and making stupid decisions. Adding a rating system and having two game modes, Ranked vs. Unranked, which split the map popularity and it never recovered. Listening to elitist WoW Arena morons and adding more elements to the gameplay that were unnecessary and confusing to newcomers. The list goes on, but those were the main issues.
A map can't succeed without a good community to support it, and Smashcraft failed in that department and it's not going to recover. This map has an opportunity to go where Smashcraft did not and I hope it does, because there's a lot of room for a Hero Arena that's well-done on the custom games list and in the desires of gamers.
If a map is popular and successful, then it was worth the hype. Just because it doesn't involve "impressive" things that the mappers at this community expect doesn't mean it wasn't worth it or that it's not good. If this map turns out to be fun and successful, it was worth it and you can laugh in the faces of everyone here. You guys just haven't given us enough information - and the map hasn't been played publicly yet. Furthermore, you can be the best coders and the most creative mappers ever but if you handle the map the wrong way after it's released, it can go downhill just as fast as it went up.
Good luck and I'll definitely be trying it out with some friends as soon as it's released. :)
0
I just played this map for the first time last night, and I saw this thread be bumped when looking over the forums so I thought I'd post my opinion. I liked what I saw but I really felt the gameplay was extremely shallow.
This isn't a card game... the cards almost feel like they're there to fool me. They may as well be "Spawn Unit X" buttons instead of cards and this may as well be just like any other tug-of-war map, because the "card game" aspect in this map was completely lost on me. I wish there was more to this map than managing vespene gas and spawning the right counters to units at the right times. As I said, nothing in this map makes me feel like I'm actually doing anything at all related to a Starcraft Card Game, which is where I felt sort of disconnected from the map; this is just another tug-of-war map to me.
When I think of a card game, I think Pokemon or MTG, both which make heavy use of Energy and Land cards, respectively. In this map I feel like I'm just drawing a random array of units.
I'd rather see the Starcraft equivalent of Land cards with Minerals/Gas/Terrazine; and actually make it look like I'm building a base or something. The same tug-of-war aspect can exist with spawning units from cards, but I just wish there was more of a card game feel to this.
On the plus side, the presentation is amazing and the cards themselves look really awesome, so great job with that. :)
0
@Mephs: Go
just wanted to tell you that this map is fucking awesome
I haven't really read the thread, but Ace seems a little bit powerful. outside of that I don't really have any balance complaints
looking forward to new heroes!
0
Laser Tag map for SC2, press "A" to begin firing your laser, then click in the direction you want to fire. Run around dodging other people's lasers to avoid being hit. Get money from hitting other players (and eventually killing them) to buy upgrades (to things such as HP, shields, run speed), weapons (different weapon types, i.e. sniper rifles have a "scope" ability which can reveal an area for a short time and have much longer range and deal more damage, but have a long cooldown on their shots), accessories (such as grenades) and abilities (such as blink).
Three classes, Warrior / Ranger / Engineer each with their own unique purchasable abilities.
Firing your "laser" is a lot like firing a shockwave from a tauren chieftan in WC3, if that helps people understand. Here's a WIP/test screeny of that:
Unlike most laser tag rulesets IRL, if you die, you will respawn after 20 seconds in a vacant area on the map.
Map is 6v6 and will initially only contain a deathmatch mode (first team to 50 kills)
Map will be released on US within a few weeks
here's some terrain screenshots in the mean time:
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edit: nvm delete this
0
@TheAlmaity: Go
desert oasis lol
0
the writer comes across acting like a know-it-all in regards to the DOTA scene with the intro to his "preview," and comes off sounding like a moron. Sorry, but I could have written something ten times more credible than that without even being at Blizzcon, because the author didn't write anything that went more in-depth information-wise than what a random person could obtain by looking at screenshots of every hero (which are readily available through searching google) and the names of their abilities.
The only interesting piece of information provided in that was the characters having different names/models depending on what side they're on.
The reason I'm saying this is because it pisses me off to no end that people who don't even know that DOTA originated on Reign of Chaos claim that it was created by either Guinsoo or Icefrog, both of which are horribly wrong. People don't even know why it's called DOTA "Allstars". why? Because Guinsoo copied and pasted the most powerful "Allstar" heroes from each of the popular DOTA ports when TFT was first released and put them in one map. And guess what? Those DOTA ports only existed because Eul decided not to officially port the map to TFT himself.
It's hilarious how Eul doesn't get the recognition he deserves for actually creating DOTA on RoC and starting this entire thing, where he did something more profound than any editor of DOTA has ever done by making custom abilities in Reign of Chaos where there was no editor support to do it and no ability to find a guide on google at the time. People like the author of this guide are the reasons TFT DOTA players get the reputation of being retarded and immature, because that's exactly what they are.
0
Sorry but the person who wrote this is retarded. "Think of him as the Stealth Assassin with a ranged attack replacing cloak." rofl, how about Leon, who actually has a cloak with his ranged attack? Furthermore, the author compares everything to a hero from "DOTA", when sometimes he should really be comparing them to a hero from "WC3." Muradin is a carbon copy of the Mountain King from WC3, not the Zeus from DOTA. Lastly, the "original" DOTA was created on Wc3: ROC and did not have a Lina, Krobelus, Darchow or Lion, so comparing Kerrigan to those heroes from the "original" DOTA is highly inaccurate and retarded. Same thing with the Pudge comparison.
0
The original creator of DOTA is a Halo addict (thank Halo for allstars becoming what it is today, as Eul abandoned porting the map to TFT when TFT was released) and a former student, not that douchefaggot Guinsoo.
Sadly so many people like you don't know who actually created the original map, or know anything about what it was like.
0
updated OP with a few more wip terrain pictures
0
People who don't know much about ME might not understand the story behind this, but the gameplay wouldn't require any knowledge of the game.
- Map is set on an eezo-rich moon occupied and mined by Cerberus, where they also experiment and test out new technologies on captive humans and aliens for the advancement of humanity. The Alliance has taken notice and wishes to terminate the colony due to inhumane experiments and rights violations, pitting the two sides against one another.
- Players pick a class between the classes in ME (Warrior, Adept, Infiltrator, Engineer, Sentinel, Vanguard) as well as two additional classes based on faction (Alliance: Spectre, a biotic infiltrator, Cerberus: Elementalist, a genetically enhanced biotic that would resemble a mage). Each class will have a talent setup similar to Mass Effect 2, where putting points into abilities makes them stronger and unlocks better versions of these abilities (i.e. Cryo Freeze, a single-target ability, becoming Cryoblast, an AoE ability). Each level will unlock multiple ability points which can be spent. Each class will have 6-7 abilities.
- Heroes use the attributes from Mass Effect: Combat, Tech, Biotics
- Players can equip their character with a weapon, ammo and an armor suit. These provide the primary basis for the player's attack and defenses. For example, certain Sniper Rifles may have a chance to crit, certain ammo may go through shields, or certain armor sets might have a chance to reflect a missile attack, etc.
- Players can also purchase a certain amount of genetic mutations, as gene therapy is a popular part of the ME lore. Gene Therapy provides primarily passive bonuses to your character (as a replacement for "items".)
- Map makes use of an in-combat and out-of-combat system, where heroes will regenerate their health and energy much faster outside of combat.
- Terrain is set on the Ulaan (cave) tileset, with a blue-ish tinted lighting and fog setup. Not too many doodads (at least compared to, say, a jungle map), lots of open spaces with points of interest scattered around.
I know it's not much, but I should have at least an early demo version of the map available within the next month. I guess I might make a page for it but I haven't gotten around to it yet, i'll probably wait until I have something to release to people
Anyways let me know what you guys think! or if you have ideas
heres some terrain shots I took real fast
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city WIP
0
those are really good, especially the first one. &really lovin the prop usage on the mar sara ones ^^
0
ive posted these in a lot of threads but i guess they fit here too, im huge on height variation i dont think i use a single cliff in any of these
i dunno I guess I just prefer doodad-walls (like rocks) or natural height variation instead of cliffs, but they actually look alright in yours, you did a good job incorporating them