SC2Mapster

Tomorrow is the Blizzcon and this is going to be very exciting. Sixen is already in Anaheim and will be able to get us fresh informations about Starcraft 2 maps! Friday 3pm-4pm is the Starcraft 2 Map talk on the main stage :)

greythepirate found out that you could use the Trigger Debugging Window on Battle.net maps. While this is not really useful this is still fun :)

Blizzcon Map Winners

I have been able to find out two of the three winners of the Blizzard Custom Map Contest. We can see that Blizzard chose action maps, they are both using mouse control and have really few abilities to master.

Rocket Missile Arena Deluxe (MAD) by Acemore

Missile Arena Deluxe is a Team versus Team map. With only a few abilities the skill takes great part in victory. The map is not yet published on Battle.net so you will have to wait after the Blizzcon to play it ;)

• Move around the map: Right click
• Shoot a missile: Left Click
• Jump: Space

Photon Command by Galdiuz

Photon Command is a solo map that is really to understand: you just have to left click on the map to send bullets to kill the incoming units! Each new wave is harder than the one before and you can learn new abilities through the levels. There's 45 waves, with bosses every 15 waves.

You can already play it on Battle.net searching for "Photon Command".

Blue Posts

Here's the latest round of blue posts :)

Quote:

(Ardnived) - Is it possible to easily rotate doodads in three dimensions for the purposes for terraining? The only way that I have found is through Host Site Operations, which I can't seem to get to work anyways. In warcraft 3 we had Roll and Pitch which was reasonably easy to work with, but I cannot find anything similar to that in the Data Editor.

You should be able to rotate a type of doodad by using Site Operations, but we are also considering adding support for per-placed doodad pitch and roll.

(PointBlank) - Why is there nothing to change unit attributes (Heroic, Armored, Biological) in the data editor, editing/adding more such as changing "Armored" to "Heavy" or adding another like "Immortal"

You can rename the unit attributes in the text editor by modifying the strings that begin with e_unitAttribute. Certain attributes will still affect in-game functionality like the Structure attribute.

(Wakeman) - Can you add some kind of "unit / ability creation wizard" to the editor in the future?

We've considered adding a unit wizard to the editor frequently and have generally decided to focus on improving the existing UI for editing data instead. However, we're still planning on adding a simple unit wizard in a future patch.

(Roanari) - How about triggers allowing you to change some of the properties of effects?

You can already change certain fields of effects using the Catalog Field Value Set trigger, or the upgrade system. Let us know if there are specific fields that are important to be able to change through triggers.

(Skittles) - (How do I...) Set animation speed for all animations.

You can use the Set Time Scale Global actor message to control animation speed for all animations.

(Skittles) - (Any plans to add...) Holding shift while painting in the terrain editor to make straight lines.

We're planning on adding this feature in a future patch.

Blizzard responded to Rodrigo about Nexus Word Wars ban giving examples of bad words and saying that he could upload his map back once all the bad words have been removed.

Blizzcon Decals by HeroLief

HeroLief just found out that in the latest patch the Starcraft 2 Blizzcon goodies: custom decals.

Raynor Party by Blinn

Making a minigames map looks easy to do but it's in fact quite hard. Raynor Party is a really polished map that is fun to play. It has been released worldwide so you must test it :)

Battlefield: Egypt by Bounty_98

This is another map from Bounty_98 using WASD movement. This is a shooter game using bullets that move into a 2D plane in order to avoid all the hitboxes troubles. You can already play it on Battle.net and it's up to 8 players :)

Blue Posts

Three interesting questions of ZeroAme have been answered by Blizzard :)

Quote:

(ZeroAme) - Is there any way to make a mod that would allow, or map that is larger then 256x256 and would it be playable on b.net?

The game is optimized to play 256x256 maps and increasing this limit would affect performance as well as require significant development time. We're aware of the desire to create larger maps and would like to support it but it may conflict with other needs.

(ZeroAme) - Can you please add support for users to create/use more then 3 cliff heights.

We'd like to allow more than 3 cliff levels for map makers and will add support for it if we have time.

(ZeroAme) - Would it at all be possible to make it so water can be bent or painted almost like terrain so that we can have a river that say goes from a body of water, down hill, levels out and then back into another body of water.

Our current implementation of water is optimized for rendering. It would be much more flexible if water was a more important part of StarCraft. To achieve the look you are describing, it would probably be best to create a custom model.

(Khalint) Can we please get the ability to hide units and doodads by player, and perhaps hide terrain in a region?

We'll look into adding support for per player actor visbility. Generic per player actor properties would work too but may require too many changes to the current system.

(Riley) - Could you please add an ability flag that will allow an auto-cast ability to interrupt a directed attack order?

Could you more specifically describe the problem you are trying to solve? We could support if it was important, but adding a flag like this wouldn't be trivial amount of work. You also might be able to emulate this using triggers.

(payne) - Why don't you allow map-makers to detect if a unit is within a region instead of just letting them detect if a unit entered or left it?

Use the Unit in Region trigger function to check if a unit is within a region.

CRC - The Sorcerer's Defense by DarkRevenantX

DarkRevenantX is doing map reviews and has just given his first Gold rating (Gold: This map is refined, high-quality, and memorable; it’s just all-around good.) for the map The Sorcerer's Defense by Riley. The review is really interesting and if you've got some time I encourage you to play the map :)

Melee: The Mystery of the Ulaan by Gionight

Without a doubt this is an amazing use of the Galaxy Editor to make a good looking melee map :)

Life of a Raven by hentaiforeva

This is an interesting song clip. If you don't like the music you can turn it off and can make the video go to fast mode :)

Codename Labyrinth by Keldrif

The map Codename: Labyrinth by Keldrif has achieved Beta status and is looking for testers :) The map is published in US and I let you discover it in the following video.

Blue Posts

Three new batchs of answers have been posted. I'll news them on per day :) Click the link if you can't wait!

Quote:

(Turel) - Is there a validator to recognize when you cast any spell? I need something like this to remove a cloak behaviour whenever a unit or hero casts Any spell .

You can accomplish this by combining the Unit Compare Order Count and Unit Order Queue validators. You want to set the behavior to disable if the order count is greater than 0 and the order that's queued is not move or attack.

(Turel) - Currently the veterancy share filters are bugged, meaning they share to enemy from your kills, The filters simply just dont work.

Veterancy share filters will be fixed soon along with other improvements like gaining XP from kills made by a unit that doesn't have a veterancy behavior.

(Turel) - Can i get a validator to prevent items from being purchased when your inventory is full?

I believe you could use the Unit Order validator to validate that the unit can issue a Take command. However we'll also look into adding validators specific to inventory functionality.

(payne) - Why don't you allow map-makers to literally draw custom regions?

We're aware of the limitations of the current region shapes and are planning on improving this in the future.

(payne) - Why don't you give map-makers more tools to customize the No-Fly Zones?

No-Fly Zones are not intended to be as flexible as ground unit pathing and were added to prevent air units from clipping through tall doodads. We may extend it in the future based off the needs of our designers and feedback from the community.

Updates: Otixa hasn't logged on yet and there might not be ModCraft today, sorry.

Updates: New patch 1.1.2 is up for US with a tons of balance changes. Check it out here

Dragoon Model by Skizot

People really like bringing life back to Starcraft 1 units that haven't made into Starcraft 2. Today Skizot show

WTE #10 - Hellas

WTE #10 Hellas is over and I've had a great surprise when Twobit2354 made a video of him working on his terrain. This is really fun to see how the map goes from nothing to something! This week WTE is about Favouritism :)

Shield Radius Effect by progammer

progammer had fun with the Shield Radius and discovered that you could achieve a nice barrier effect by changing it :) Might be useful to your maps.

DotA 2 by Valve

There have been rumors of a new DotA being made by Valve and IceFrog. This is now official, there's a DotA 2 in the work :)

If you are a winner of the Blizzcon Contest or if you know who is please PM me. I'd like to make some interview of you guys :)

progammer believes that he can make a Tower Defense without any trigger. He is looking for your input in order to know at what scale he is going to do it.

The famous group Tenacious D is going to perform at the Blizzcon. That might make you buy a 30 euros Virtual Ticket ... :)

Starcraft Universe Reloaded by Mille25

I thought that Starcraft Universe project was abandonned but it's not! Mille25 is still working on it and has made great improvements. This is a really impressive use of Dialogs to make the interface.

Planned Editor List of Changes Compilation by KratsAU

KratsAU went over all the Blizzard Q&A and made a compilation of all the things we could expect for the future patches :)

New Features/Fixes:

1. New feature to get Players Name as a string We'll look into adding functionality to get a player's name as a string in a future patch.
2. Ability to display the charge counter for weapons This can't be done currently but it's a good idea and we'll consider adding it in a future patch.
3. Fix coming for depency load order on battle net We're aware of an issue with dependency load order when maps are played on Battle.net and are working on a fix for the next major patch.
4. New feature allowing you to attach two actors at separate attachement points We'll look into adding support to attach two actors at separate attach points in a future patch
5. Mutli-Map Publishing This is currently not supported, but we are planning on adding features for multi-map campaigns in future patches.
6. New feature allowing you to share a fraction of kill resources with nearby players (similar to sharing a fraction of experience with nearby players that we currently have)
7. New feature that allows you to specify requirements for a unit that is purchasing items from your shop, such as if they have a certain ability.
8. Reducing Keyboard/Mouse control lag We will be improving keyboard and mouse control in a future patch, but we can't match the responsiveness of an FPS game with an authoritative server. Keyboard-based unit movement should be as responsive as issuing move orders with the mouse after these changes.
9. Bank Protection Bank protection will be added in a future patch to allow mapmakers to prevent users from modifying their bank data (optionally).
10. Increasing the Max Brush size You can turn on the grid in the View -> Show Grid menu to help line it up perfectly. We'll look into increasing the max brush size since it does seem somewhat arbitrary.
11. Improving filtering for big lists in the editor We're looking into adding a way to filter huge dropdowns since they are a bit unwieldy at the moment.
12. A new validator that can check the number of charges left on an ability
13. Changing render priority of minimap items Currently there is no way to change the rendering priority of minimap icons, but we'll consider adding a priority field in a future patch.
14. Fix for SetText 40 character limit There was a bug preventing the SetText message from accepting strings larger than 40 characters. This will be fixed in 1.2.0.
15. Turn a dialog box into a text box that players can type in Trigger edit boxes were temporarily disabled for the editor's initial release, but should be functional in 1.2.0.
16. Ability to modify the command card on the fly, or more command card slots There is a cost (performance and development time) for each field that can be upgraded. We'll look into either allowing command cards to be upgraded or increasing the maximum number of abilities.
17. Activate abilities on right click You can make certain types of abilities (unfortunately not Blink) activate on right click by setting the Smart flag on the ability. We'll look into allowing more flexibility for smart commands.
18. Adding the ability to detect the texture/terrain of a specified point We'll look into adding this in a future patch.
19. Improving the editor performance We're aware of certain areas in the editor with less than optimal performance and will be working to improve them as time is available.
20. The ability to use the placement/target system via triggers You're correct that this is currently handled asynchronously and adding a trigger to enter placement mode would be not be a trivial task. We'll do our best to support this in the future or provide sufficient alternatives.
21. Exposing console commands We're working on exposing more of our debug tools without making the game more vulnerable to hacking.
22. Making modal dialogs work Modal trigger dialogs currently aren't implemented and we're planning on adding support for them in a future patch.

Features that blizzard will probably not add:

1. Text to String Conversion It's intentional that there is no text to string function or text comparison, in order to localize the game without requiring that every user have every language installed. Player Name returns a text value since computer controlled player names can be localized.
2. On the fly Mover change The ability to adjust a mover for an invidual unit will probably not be added due to performance reasons. You can adjust a mover via triggers at the moment, but this will effect all units using that mover. We try to limit per-unit attributes for performance reasons so it's not likely that you will be able to change the mover for a specific unit unless there is a strong need for it. It can already be changed with upgrades and CatalogFieldValueSet, so there is already some flexibility available. Feel free to provide more justification if it's really important for your project.
3. Changing cliff levels during run-time. Changing cliff levels during run-time would require significant changes and we would only add support for this if there was a strong need for it.

Photon Defense Review by BadAxe

I just discovered BadAxe who is shoutcasting custom maps. I am going to show off one review of him per day :) We start today with Photon Defense.

Song: 12 Days of Christmas by Love4Starcraft

Here's a nice Starcraft 2 adapted song from the 12 Days of Christmas :)

Fan Arts

Blizzard updated the fan arts section with 3 new awesome picture. They also released an artwork about fruits: Grapeling, Applelord, and Bananalisk.

Update: Blizzard sent a mail to the Map Contest winners four days ago. It's time to check your mails if you don't do it often :)

Nexus Word Wars Banned

Rodrigo has received a mail saying that his map Nexus Word Wars has been banned from Battle.net

Quote:

Offense: Inappropriate Map published under this account was found to have contained: Inappropriate words above some mobs (ex: dyke)

This is another really bad move from Blizzard against the map making community. We are spending a lot of our free time making maps and giving Blizzard content. Instead of being grateful they ban maps because of tiny details such as bad words or copyrighted sounds.

Right now it makes me want to stop spending that much time on Starcraft 2 map making ... I really hope that their attitude toward us is going to change.

Sorcerer's Defense by RileyStarcraft

Sorcerer's Defense is RileyStarcraft's Blizzcon contest entry and is a really polished TD. Give it a try on Battle.net :)

Icon Requests by Adelios

Adelios wants to help you by making icons for your projects. If you need some ask him nicely and I'm pretty sure he will help you out. Here are some icons he already made.

Blue Posts

Here's another round of Blue Posts. Important thing to note is the future addition of a way to get the player name as a string!

Quote:

(Tordecybombo) - Any chance of allowing us to convert texts to strings? If not, any chance of allowing us to get some sort of player information? Such as the player's name or the player's character code as a string?

It's intentional that there is no text to string function or text comparison, in order to localize the game without requiring that every user have every language installed. Player Name returns a text value since computer controlled player names can be localized. We'll look into adding functionality to get a player's name as a string in a future patch.

(Eternal) - How will patches effect the custom maps already developed? Will it change within the dependencies? Will it override the unit if it has already been altered? Will it override a unit if it has been unaltered? More importantly, will it at all jack up our map?

Balance changes will only affect LibertyMulti, but bug fixes in a patch may change Liberty data. So generally custom maps will not be affected by patches unless you have LibertyMulti as a dependency.

When you override/extend data from a dependency, the map only stores the difference between the map data and the dependency data. The fields that are most vulnerable to being broken by a dependency change are array fields that only have specific indexes overriden. We've worked a lot to ensure that custom maps won't be broken by patches and will try to improve this in the future.

(SiNiquity) - What's the proper way to utilize Catalog Is Field Array? It takes 2 parameters, Field and Scope.

The Scope is an entry type like CUnit, and Field is a field like AbilArray. For example, CatalogFieldIsArray("CUnit", "AbilArray") == true.

(StKerrigan) - Does anyone know how to get the Charge counter to display for weapons?

This can't be done currently but it's a good idea and we'll consider adding it in a future patch.

(CutMeOwn) - Why do maps sometimes act diffrently when you test them with the test map button vs when you upload them to battle.net

We're aware of an issue with dependency load order when maps are played on Battle.net and are working on a fix for the next major patch.

(Rorax) - Will it be possible in the future for an attachment, to be attached 'by point'.

We'll look into adding support to attach two actors at separate attach points in a future patch.

ProzaicMuze Interview

You probably know ProzaicMuze for his tutorials. Here's an interview of him :)

Quote:

Hello ProzaicMuze. Can you present yourself in few words?

Well, I live in Oregon, a lovely west-coast state in the U.S. I'm not currently in school, but I'll eventually get a degree in music. Musical goals aside, I'm an avid gamer and graphic designer. I create everything from simple logos to web design or photo retouching. I don't have a long history in game design, but I've always enjoyed the process of creating new things. As such I found myself drawn to the powerful new editor Blizzard produced for StarCraft 2 and began developing my skills by helping others with their mapping ideas.

Talking about teaching. You've done a lot of video tutorials on Starcraft 2 Map Editing. Is that the first time you are doing such things? Why did you do it?

I've actually made mostly written tutorials, but I started adding video demos to them to make them easier to understand. As far as mapping goes, my only previous experience is with the OLD Age of Empires editor (for making big battles) and then some minor NWN (Neverwinter Nights) and Morrowind/Oblivion work. The majority of that work consisted of moving objects in the game to where I wanted them.

StarCraft 2 is my first real attempt at mapping. I actually got started when I wanted to make this old board game I played into a Starcraft 2 map with graphics called Stratego. I played it a lot as a kid, but I quickly decided that wasn't something I'd enjoy making and resorted to roaming about the Data Editor. I experimented as much as possible while teaching others what I learned. The process helped me learn more quickly than if I had tried to trudge through it alone.

Great. I am sure that among the many tutorials you've written so far you must have some favourites.

I think my favorite tutorial to make was probably one of my first tutorials: The Uberlisk. I noticed early on that a LOT of people were asking about this thing they saw on YouTube and how to make it. I'd actually never seen it prior to attempting to make it and I was finding that the current method of XML was just waaaay to complex and produced very iffish results. I like my inside parts INSIDE my Uberlisk ;P

I had recently discovered that you could use multiple Site Operations (things that allow you to attach models and move them around) at once. Until my tutorial, I hadn't seen anyone try it so I figured, why not?

I found it a lot easier to make than I had anticipated, but largely due to the fact that I was able to use more Site Operations than what people thought was the max. So I added the Spine Crawlers and moved them around until they were flailing away at baddies to their heart's content! I never got around to making the spells from the demo, but I'm sure one day I'll add them.

It looks like you are focusing on making tutorials about exciting parts of the Galaxy Editor that haven't been really discovered yet. Do you have anything else completely awesome that we can do with a bit of skill and time?

Around the time I joined the site and had begun making the Uberlisk, there was a contest for custom spells well underway. I saw a lot of great spells, but I hadn't spent much time creating them. A week or so after finishing the Uberlisk I wanted to take some of the ideas I had seen and expand upon them. I ended up making another tutorial covering what I learned.

One really exciting thing I found was that you could attach Text to units while they cast a spell or even create models that had their own mini-spell running. Whereas most spells run through a linear set of effects, I tried to make a lot of spell effects that happened at once. I managed to separate each of the steps of a spell out and attach a really cool effect to it. The caster starts the spell, text changes above his head while glowy stuff appears around him. Normally this would continue on to have the caster reduce everything around him to very small bits, but I started summoning more units that had their own spells running on them instead. The result was a fun spell that you might see in any WoW boss fight.

What about physics. It's usually a domain that people like to implement in Starcraft 2 as it gives nice effects at the cost of some simple formulas. Did you manage to implement physics into the Data Editor?

Well, I'd love to say that I sat down and contemplated advanced mathematical formulas that any lesser mind would cower before. . . but I barely did more than simple multiplication. Given my lack of experience with Blizzard editors, I wasn't comfortable venturing into the trigger editor just to "attempt" to make things move around. Mixing myself with coding typically involves many facepalms, several punched babies and a dramatic ragequit. One might say I have a strong aversion to triggers given this history ;)

I knew that Blizzard implemented a system for moving objects in the editor so I dove right in. A friend had recently asked me how to make a tornado complete with a swirling vortex and the randomly thrown bodies of those unfortunate enough to be sucked in. By now my tutorial request poll was underway and there was a high demand for it, so why not?

While I didn't put the tornado in the tutorial, I made a "Ground Pound" that reminded me of my Mario days and a shockwave. The spells weren't that complex, but I found that there were a lot of aspects regarding force mechanics that weren't working exactly as expected. For example, you'd think that more force would throw an object farther, but the editor just wouldn't have it. I had to apply the same force repeatedly over a short period of time until the bodies started flyin'.

Last but not least, what's the best tutorial you've done so far?

While it might not seem like it at first, one of my best works is definitely my Custom Movers/Projectiles tutorial. I had finished the Uberlisk only a few days before and people were already beginning to ask me questions about things like artillery shells, ships spiraling down from the sky and mounting missiles on the already beefy Uberlisk that could shoot in zig-zags and arcs. I really wasn't excited about answering any of these questions because I didn't know a thing about how movers worked and I couldn't find material to reference anywhere. Movers were a daunting mystery. So of course I flipped to the movers tab and spent a couple long days guess and checking my way through every field.

I think I really got into it when I accidentally made a missile spiral wildly across the map and then off the screen. I still have no idea what happened to this missile, but I quickly took what I had discovered and tweaked it until I had missiles that could fly in arcs, spin in circles and zig-zag back and forth across the map. While I still don't know what half the fields in the mover section do, I walked away with a wide range of missiles to show off, and mappers began using them to create all sorts of awesome stuff previously believed impossible to do.

I know you are working on a lot of different projects, and that you are talking a lot! So here's a challenge. Give us 1 sentence on each of those.

Attrition: Attrition is a mostly unique plot-capture war game with elements of Tower Defense and Risk; capture stuffs. . . kill stuffs. . . then rub it in their face >:D

Munchkin DotA: MDotA is a comedic project by myself and many of my good friends that pokes fun at the traditional DotA clone while highlighting some of the best parts of Munchkins (the card game).

Hex-tile Boardgame Mod: I recently participated in a ModCraft where we created hexagon shaped tiles that could be used for a boardgame. I'll be expanding this to multiple hex-tilesets and genres for mappers to make boardgame maps without the hassle of modeling.

Age of Empires Tribute: I grew up playing Starcraft and Age of Empires so I want to combine elements of my two favorite game into one supermegaultrasexy game!

4x Turn Based Space Strategy: While I originally thought I'd pack this into my boardgame mod, I've always wanted to turn boardgames like Twilight Imperium into something playable online; something like the first Master of Orion.

Omg it's coming to an end :) Any last word you want to share with the rest of the world?

I'm working out the details for a YouTube channel with more "fun" content as opposed to all tutorials all the time. Hopefully, through collaboration with friends, you can expect to see REAL maps from me, enjoy mapping challenges and learn exciting new things :D

mariehane just bought a new computer and is offering to record your maps in Ultra Settings. If you have a great project you want to show off but a sloppy computer, this is your chance!

Also, I've been working on wowtal.com during the last week to upgrade it to Cataclysm (Release date: December 7th). I'm proud of it so here's a small line here!

SC1 Melee Map Contest

This contest is about melee gameplay! There has been a lot of buzz about Custom maps themselves that I think everyone has forgotten where we started so many years ago with Warcraft II... The game itself originally began as pure melee and the majority of the players who own SC2 play Ladder. Blizzard also said they would consider using our maps in the official Ladder, so why not take a shot at making a map worthy of pro gamers like Boxer and Huk?

What to do?

You have 10 days to complete this contest.

• Recreate an SC1 Melee Map as you see fit. The goal is to create a balanced SC2 melee map, but must be a replicate of the original map. So that means the map itself must be correct in terms of cliff and player placement, etc.
• You can add in things like the Xel'Naga Watch Tower, etc from SC2, or change the amount of resources so things are balanced in terms of SC2.
• You have to provide a screenshot of both Minimaps. (SC1 Minimap and SC2 Minimap).
• You have to attach your recreated SC2 Map. The original SC1 Map is not required.

Resources

• You can download the SC1 Maps on Nibbits. If you need an SC1 Map Editor, you can use SCMDraft (and UnknownEdit for Mac users), aside from the default StarEdit that came with the game.
• In addition, Rod has created a guide to go along with all of this, so you can read it to learn how to properly create a Legacy map in SC2.
• RodOfNOD made an entire package of doodads you can include in your map.
• Dimfish's SC2 Map Analyzer which gives a lot of cool statistical information about your map that will likely be extremely useful for recreating your map with perfect balance.

Reward

The main goal of the contest is to further community development within GalaxyEdit. The rewards can be see as follows:

• First: 1-year Curse Premium
• Second: 6-month Curse Premium
• Third: 3-month Curse Premium
• Everyone else: 1-month Curse Premium

Boss Contest

The votes are now over and we have three excellent bosses :) Click on their name to download the map and test them!

• 4th: Planetary Boss - Zaragor by Bounty_98 - 7 Votes
• 4th: General Vezax from Ulduar by LordAbyss - 7 Votes
• 6th: Ter'Ama by Dungeons Projects - 6 Votes
• 7th: Mengsk - Final Battle by gh0st00 - 4 Votes
• 8th: Random Boss Battle by FrozenFirebat - 3 Votes
• 9th: Verethragna by D1000 - 1 Vote

Game of Life by WallArcher

The Galaxy Editor is a lot more than a tool to make maps, it's really a full development environment. Here's the classic Conway's Game of Life ported to Starcraft 2 by WallArcher. You can either download the map or go on Battle.net Europe to test it.

Regional Starcraft 2 Icons by Existor371

This is a really unexpected way to use artistic skills! I love those flags :)

Party Craft Review by JohanPoN

Here's another map review by JohanPoN on PartyCraft. I hope you like those!

Two days after the end of the Blizzard Custom Map Contest deadline we have no news. We don't know if they just forget or contacted the winners already but without letting them say they won!

Gamespot during an interview managed to find leads on the Heart of Swarm (first expansion) release date. It's planned around March or April, 2012

Bounty Hunters Tournament by Tenshi

The latest Bounty Hunters Tournament was a lot of fun and Tenshi is organizing another one :) Come on for some epic matches this Saturday!

Freax Tower Wars by WiiKing

I don't know you but I really liked Tower Wars in Warcraft 3 and I was really disappointed not seeing much of them in Starcraft 2. However WiiKing heard my prayers and did one called Freax Tower Wars. You want to give it a try if you are in Europe!

Hotel vs Zombies by Bounty_98

Bounty_98 has a lot of crazy map ideas and this time he made a map called Hotel vs Zombie. It's a really simple arcade game that lets you kill a bunch of zombies! It features custom models :) It's only a preview.

NotD Commentary by JohanPoN

JohanPoN has decided to shoutcast custom maps and the first one I want to share with you is NotD :)

Blue Posts

Another round of questions related to the Starcraft 2 Editor is out :) As usual, if you have some please post them here.

Quote:

(Zaraf) - I would like to hear from Blizzard with regards to what exactly the differences between Modal and non-Modal dialogs are.

Modal trigger dialogs currently aren't implemented and we're planning on adding support for them in a future patch.

(nickmp) - the prob is this:i need tychas' shrreder gernade discription to account for level up spell bonus damage.

Tooltips can dynamically display data values using a tag like <d ref="Effect,BonesTossGrenadeDamage,Amount"/>. We're adding UI in 1.2.0 for inserting these types of tags.

There is also the info tag which will dynamically display information for a unit based on which fields have the InfoTooltipPriority field set. For example <info id="Marine" types="W,D,A,B,Un,UpP,UpR"/> will display the types of units a Marine can attack along with information about his abilities and upgrades. (W=Weapons, D=Detectors, A=Abilities, B=Behaviors, Un=Units produced, UpP=Upgrades produced, UpR=Upgrades Received)

(Reynold) - OK, i just got a little problem about the editor. The problem is ... it loads very very slow, i need to wait for 30 or maybe 40 seconds to open a new map.

We're aware of certain areas in the editor with less than optimal performance and will be working to improve them as time is available.

(NuneShelping) - From what everyone knows so far, it is impossible to use this functionality without using the native UI; that is, there is no way to trigger the "Placement System". We suspect this is because this particular system is handled client-side, but I digress.

You're correct that this is currently handled asynchronously and adding a trigger to enter placement mode would be not be a trivial task. We'll do our best to support this in the future or provide sufficient alternatives.

(NuneShelping) - What are "console commands"?

Console commands are tools that we use internally to debug the game. We're working on exposing more of our debug tools without making the game more vulnerable to hacking.

Quick Note: WoW Boss Contest Votes are still running for few days :)

The Custom Live show of today may not take place because Tinman is currently on the plane for a work meeting, we'll see if he can login :)

No Mans Land Survival by vincentgraymore

There aren't many maps with fast-paced actions and here's a good one in beta by vincentgraymore: No Mans Land Survival. Are you going to be good enough? Try it on Europe!

Many Hands 1 - Video Tour by Pshyched

The Terrain section is really active right now. I talked to you about the Many Hands initiative. Pshyched did a video to show off the terrain as it stands right now :)

WTE #9 - Canyon Ambush

WTE #9 was Canyon Ambush and now we are at the #10: Hellas (Read Greek Island).

Gundam Model by geminihc

Gundam here you come!

ModCraft #4 by Otixa and Xaragoth

Another ModCraft is going to be made tomorrow, I just wanted to highlight last week episode :)

Quote:

• Discussion of Project Vector
• Modelling a floor/ceiling tile

malu05 and TheKC Project Vector trailer has been featured on Kotaku. Cheers :)

The Blizzard Contest results are tomorrow :)

Waypoint System by Thenarden

If you are working on a RPG you probably made a town with NPCs. And they aren't probably moving because it's really time consuming to make them wander around the place. This won't be the case anymore thanks to Thenarden. He made a library that let you add a bunch of waypoints, a bunch of units and it makes them move automagically!

Play Video by progammer

You probably know that it's possible to play videos inside a Starcraft 2 map with the DotA rickroll during the beta. However I didn't see any tutorial on how to do it so far. So here it goes! progammer made a small lib that lets you play a cinematic in 1 trigger.

Note: he added a leaked trailer of Heart of the Swarm inside the map, if you didn't torrented it already that's your chance to see it!

Click Wars Tournament by Blackveiled

Click Wars Tournament (this is not a tournament, this is the map name) looks like Nexus Word Wars but instead of typing the name of units you have to click on them to kill them. It's available in the US if you want to give it a try :)

Blue Posts

Another round of questions related to the Starcraft 2 Editor is out :) As usual, if you have some please post them here.

Quote:

(Trigor) - When and item goes into a Hero inventory, it is indexed based on the order it was put into the inventory. ... This seems very counter intuitive to the inventory system and I don't understand why it would be designed in this way. Does anyone know how to work with this?

You should be able to set the item to a Unit variable and use it as a parameter to the Inventory functions to find which inventory and slot it's in. There is also a function to query the index but unfortunately our trigger library currently doesn't expose it. You can work around this by using the UnitInventoryIndex function in custom script for now.

(Jibekn) - Do you plan on unlocking the ability to manipulate the command card catalog entry? I, as well as many other mappers, desire the functionality of having equipped items grant abilities to the equipped unit. However, this is impossible after crossing the 32 ability threshold, due to not being able to modify the command card on the fly.

There is a cost (performance and development time) for each field that can be upgraded. We'll look into either allowing command cards to be upgraded or increasing the maximum number of abilities.

(AnonTwo) - Is there any way to tie an ability to activate on a right click?

You can make certain types of abilities (unfortunately not Blink) activate on right click by setting the Smart flag on the ability. We'll look into allowing more flexibility for smart commands.

(Toran) - Is there a way to dynamically load the wireframe image for a unit or actor in a trigger?

You can dynamically change the Actor's wireframe using upgrades or the Catalog Field Value Set trigger. We'll look into reusing the Upgrade UI for this trigger, which will allow you to easily see which fields can be changed.

(Roy) - How can I detect the texture/terrain of a specified point?

We'll look into adding this in a future patch.

Coordinated Light by SuperBien

Another non-Starcraft 2 related news entry but that is awesome too! It's really amazing what you can do with real lights and boxes.