SC2Mapster

Teaser: Tomorrow you should have a neat surprise, stay tuned :)

Popularity Boost by xenrathe

xenrate discovered that it was possible to artificially boost any map to the top of the Battle.net list. The process is really easy:

• Create a game with your map
• Open it to the public
• Quit and Repeat

Every time you do it, your map counter gets 1 played. This is not a good solution but it is virtually the only way to get your map off the bottom of the listing. My only advice is to use it wisely to promote your map, try not to abuse the system :)

1 Phoenix vs 200 Mutalisk by rrowland

You've probably seen the 100 Phoenix vs 100 Mutalisk by HuskyStarcraft. Here rrowland made a better one: 1 Phoenix vs 200 Mutalisk, and ... guess who won ... the Phoenix of course :) Custom AI can sometime be really impressive!

Tutorial: 4 Requests by Beider

Beider decided to go over the Tutorial Request Thread and make a video explaining 4 of them. That's really nice of him! I hope you will enjoy the program.

• Adding a weapon to a caster
• Removing requirement from upgrades
• Removing requirement from skills
• Adding shield to Marine

UPDATE: Patch 15 has been released. You can see the complete patch notes here and you can check out our forum thread for undocumented 14/15 Editor changes.

Dota by Zymoran

As you probably know, it's possible to insert videos inside maps. Take the name Dota and Rick Roll, you get a map #1 on both EU and US in a matter of hours! It's not that difficult to get your map being the top one played :) (Thanks to -WhiskeeGX Soushibo (Sorry!) for the video)

Snow Model by Triceron

The Modeling contest goes well and there has been a cool submission. There's now Snow from Final Fantasy ingame, that's really neat.

Sentry AI by rrowland

Making a great AI is difficult, check out an attempt by rrowland to use the sentry unit. In the demo it is working fine, let's hope it will be easy to integrate it in a real AI.

Train System by Hegemuffin

You can do really crazy stuff with the editor and this is a proof. What about a train moving on changeable rails ... !? Hegemuffin made it! You basically have to find the good combination of rails to make the train go from the beginning to the end. At the moment this is a prototype but this can be really cool!

Death Baneling by Upcios

Wanna have fun with a 2D game where you have to avoid incoming banelings with really cool sounds, this map is for you! It has been made by Upcios from our friends at sc2galaxy.net (french).

Tutorial Basic UI by Beider

Beider has made tons of tutorials and I want to feature one explaining how to make custom UI. This is one of the new addition of the Galaxy Editor that gives so much power to the user!

A new poll has been setup: What are your thoughts on the map publishing system. You can vote to give an idea of how good/bad the publishing system is and give constructive feedbacks there :)

Power of Chaos by xDSchurke

The dialog functionnality of the Galaxy Editor allows for advanced layout possibilities. xDShurke for its map Power of Chaos made a nice example. It wouldn't shock to see something like this is a real game.

Reaper Sidescroller by A1win

Sidescroller games are being given a new life. A1win made one with clever use of the game mechanisms: Reaper cliff jumping. It's an early draft but the idea is there!

Frank Pearce Interview

In the recent Frank Pearce Interview on IncGamers, during the looong interview he mentionned some stuff related to map development.

Quote:

Do you have any plans to incorporate, for instance, some of the 3D models from Warcraft 3 in the map editor?

No plans for that right now. I'm not even sure if the formats would be compatible – I'd have to go back and ask some of the guys if that was even compatible. But even if that's not compatible, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the community finds a way to import that.

I know you've said you have plans for guilds, or clans. Is that something you're planning to release before the first expansion?

Groups and clans is definitely something that we would have a goal of delivering prior to the first expansion. We'll be definitely releasing patches along the way, and so we'll try and get it into one of the patches before Heart of the Swarm comes out.

So that'll be small patches and content patches?

Content patches, I think, is probably something more reserved for the concept of a game like World of Warcraft. I don't know if we'll describe any of our patches as content patches, but definitely patches that enhance the feature set of Battle.net. We've got guys that are working on new maps that we can deliver online, and whether we do something like a "Map of the Week" or put those in a patch is still to be determined.

You did that for StarCraft and Warcraft 3, I think.

Yeah, for Warcraft 3 we did maps every week.

Would those be in the same concept, or possibly using the premium map-making system for people to buy them?

Well, we don't have any plans to launch the marketplace any time soon. Definitely something we want, because we want not only to be able to deliver content that we create to the community, but also if the community is making great content for themselves, have a mechanism by which that can be distributed to the community as well.

Contest Melee AI Extended

We realized that making an AI was more complicated than expected as it is an unexplored area. This is why we extend for one week the contest to June 7th. Th3LaughingMan just released his TLM AI Framework if you don't know how to start it can help you out :) We hope to see your AIs and try to beat them!

Waterworks - Multiplayer FPS by malu05

malu05 is definitively going to release awesome maps. AC 130K - Spaceship Gunner was quite impressive and now he is back with a multiplayer FPS deathmatch map. I think it's useless to talk more, the video is enough!

Dota by KorvinGump

You've all played Dota in Warcraft III and KorvinGump decided to make a copy of the map in Starcraft II. It's in development for some time now and even if it's not complete yet many mechanisms are already implemented. Thanks to Beider for recording the video and commenting it :)

Forum Restructure

Mapster is growing and the forums were too compact for all the activity. We decided to expand our forums to give you more space to talk :)

• Project Workplace - Fusion of Project Brainstorming and Project Show Off because the distinction was really small.
• Galaxy Scripting and Trigger Libraries - We want to promote advanced use of the editor.
• Team Recruitment - Being solo for a project is lame, find people to build up amazing maps together!
• Third Party Tools - They are really useful to push beyond the limits of the editor.

NOTE: This means that some links to the forums that were moved/renamed will be invalid.

Warcraft III Aura by shaftm

helwet asked on the forums if that was possible to simulate the Warcraft III visual auras and shaftm implemented it! It is extremly easy using the actors. I'm pretty sure you will like it.

Planetary Boss Hunt by Bounty_98

The map Planetary Boss Hunt is now in beta phase. You should test it out as it's a clever use of third person camera with a nice fighter gameplay. It contains many bosses with a different technique to defeat them each time.

ChessCraft by progammer

Want to play Chess but you can't find any cool one. You will likely like this implementation in Starcraft 2 by progammer. All rules have been implemented and you've got a nice UI for the user interaction.

Beta Extended

Beta is being extended for one more week.

Quote from Blizzard:

We previously announced that the first phase of the StarCraft II beta test would be coming to a close in all regions on Monday, May 31. In order to prepare for the final phase of beta testing, we plan to extend the current phase in all regions until Monday, June 7. After this date, the beta test will be unavailable for several weeks while we make some hardware and software configuration changes for the final phase of the beta test and the release of the game. We plan to bring the beta test back online for a couple of weeks prior to the game’s launch to complete our testing. We’ll have more details to share about when this final phase will begin at a later date.

We’d like to thank all of our beta-test participants for your enthusiasm, dedication, and valuable feedback during the beta test, and we look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on the StarCraft II beta test as the game’s July 27 launch approaches. Source

Cut Scene Contest Results

The cut scene contest is over and we've seen many great videos done with the Galaxy Editor. Due to that great amount of entries I've chosen to use Digg as a voting system but it didn't work really great. I apoligize for that and will find a better way next time.

• 1 - Eiviyn (19 votes) - 3 Starcraft II Beta Keys + 1-year Curse Premium
• 2 - depthsofchaos (13 votes) - 2 Starcraft II Beta Keys + 1-year Curse Premium
• 3 - SirLyrrad (11 vote) - 1 Starcraft II Beta Key + 6-month Curse Premium
• Full list ... - 1 Starcraft II Beta Key + 1-month Curse Premium

8 Bit Starcraft by Owen Denis

Many of you have probably seen this video but it's my duty to share it to you.

Top 10 Maps

13 of the 20 top maps of Starcraft II have been developed using Mapster and this is a real satisfaction. All the work we (admins: vjeux, Sixen, moderators: Bifuu, Hati, Grum, Skizot) put in Mapster was not in vain. We managed to gather the majority of you, map developers, in a central point and this makes magic!

If you are working on a map, here's a little recap of what we provide you on mapster:

• Homepage for your project - You can have a long description, screenshots ...
• Version system either by uploading the different files or by using a versionning system (SVN, Git).
• User comments to get feedback from the players.
• Totally free, you get the ownership and credits of your map!

Thanks everyone! It really means to us what you all did!

US Top 10

• 1) BattleCraft Armageddon by tordecybombo
• 2) A Standard Tower Defense by maverk
• 3) Overrun by RainGame
• 4) Bunker Defense by Valconeye
• 5) E.v.o.l.v.e.s by Xeane
• 6) 10 Way Cannon Defense by Alpha
• 7) Freeze Tag by Matt Witkowski
• 8 ) Top Down Fighters by Dustin
• 9) Evolves - Nuclear Chaos by Marcidious
• 10) SpineCrawler D by Kjc

Day 7 - Machinima by spacegh0st

As you probably have seen, I try really hard to push machinimas made with the Galaxy Editor. This is a fantastic opportunity to see high quality videos :) Today spacegh0st presents us his movie called "Day 7". It's the story of a marine and its robot in a land full of zergling ...

Bullet time effect by malu05

Ever wanted to reproduce the famous Matrix bullet time effect in Starcraft 2? malu05 discovered the function that allows to change the game speed at anytime using a non-GUI function. You will no more see the following explosion the same way.

Edit: Map publishing has been turned off in both EU and US probably due to the many crashes it causes on battle.net. There isn't any official announcement yet but it looks like World of Warcraft beta tests have been prioritized during this week-end. Let's hope the issue will be found and fixed soon!

Quote from Blizzard:

We're currently conducting three types of tests: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, World of Warcraft 3.3.5 and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. There will be a server team to watch over the servers on weekends but we currently require additional work on StarCraft II so you won't see any during *this* weekend. They have to finish the other stuff first. (Source)

Beta Key Giveaway Winners - May 22nd: USMCREPHER, Zukiros, mysticflamelizard, mumiyyah, Tetranis, KaelaNekosune, madpwnator, Blackoutace, fluxflashor, CALAK33F

Cut Scene Contest - Vote Now!

The Cut Scene contest is a huge success. There are 42 entries and they are all of great quality. Due to forum restrictions, we could not use the poll system. In order to vote we set up a Digg page per video. The one with most diggs will win the contest! The votes will end in 3 days (Wednesday midnight Los Angeles time), so make sure you as many entries as you can before voting :)

Cardcraft by BeLugh

You probably seen the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime where people play cards and real creatures are fighting. BeLugh took the concept and applied it inside Starcraft II. The demo is really impressive.

Final Disaster by flydaggar

There hasn't been many Hero Defense maps yet. flydaggar created the map Final Disaster where you can chose up to 3 heros and have to kill all the incoming waves. You can buy items, participate to minigames, kill bosses ... It's pretty complete and fun to play (even if a little hard).

Edit #1: The Battle.net servers are not working well. US are better than EU but finishing a custom map is still really hard. Sometimes the game freeze (but you can still chat), you get random disconnections, or there are no more servers to host the maps. Let's hope it gets fixed soon.

They fixed a bug where the team settings were not properly used by the game.

Even with Map publishing being released now, we still encourage you to submit maps here on Mapster. When the Beta goes down on the 31st, the only way to distribute maps is through private websites such as Mapster. Battle.net will be down, therefore the Publishing features will be down as well. In addition, our system is also a good way to distribute single-player maps for those people who choose not to play over Battle.net and wish to play the Offline version of the game.

Patch 13 has gone live on the US servers. The EU patch is also up now! Battle.net is live! Undocumented changes can be seen here.

Note: The default Battle.net host in the editor is currently not configured with the correct beta information. Before you can publish from the editor, you will need to change this setting by doing the following:

• Use the File > Preferences command from any editor window
• Select the Battle.net item in the list
• Change the Host value to: us-beta.logon.battle.net (or eu-beta.logon.battle.net for EU players)
• Click OK

See here for further information on the Publishing features.

The window to publish your map to Battle.net can be seen below As you can see, you can set your own versions, allow it to be Public (all Battle.net users) or Private (Real ID friends only can see it). Also, there's a "Protection" feature which you can set (Lock Editing status). Something interesting, the Editor also optimizes our maps for size as well, which is great.

The window to manage your published Battle.net Maps. As you can see, it displays all basic information that can be seen over Battle.net.

Unit Tester by XGDragon

I'm pretty sure there are many theorycrafter out there who wants to know what are the best units. How do 20 zerglings do facing 12 zealots and that kind of thing. XGDragon made a Unit Tester map that let you choose the units you want and make them fight. It is using a custom UI to help you in that task which is pretty well done. If you want to get the basics of UI, I suggest you to read the dialog tutorial by Voxglhf.

Galaxy for Beginners by mikelat

If you want to start using the Galaxy Editor, mikelat has done 6 videos tutorial explaining how to get started. This is really instructive and he speaks really well (he did more than 1000 youtube videos playing and commenting many games in the "Let's play" serie). I hope you will like it.

Other tutorials: [2.1] Little bit of controls, [2.2] Terrain 101, [3] Starting the map, [4] Fixing & Doodads, [5] Alvin and the Data Editor and [6] Adding abilities

AC130 Escort by Pinworm45

You probably remember the AC130K map I featured few days ago, at the same time Pinworm45 was working on a map of the same type: AC130 Escort. It's an aerial shooter and this one is playable! Enjoy :)

Clock Contest Results

The contest is now over! There has been a total of 267 votes (150 + 117). Thanks a lot for all those who participated, all your maps are really impressive! You should all get your rewards shortly (within 1-2 days max).

• 1 - DarkRevenantX - (50 votes): 1 Beta Key + 1-year Curse Premium
• 2 - shaotang - (34 votes): 1-year Curse Premium
• 3 - Squeegeez - (29 votes): 6-month Curse Premium
• 4 - SCMapper - (28 votes): 6-month Curse Premium

All the following: 1-month Curse Premium

• 5 - Sholdak - (21 votes)
• 6 - Slarti - (20 votes)
• 7 - Bifuu - (19 votes)
• 8 - Forsoki - (16 votes)
• 9 - Listonos - (14 votes)
• 9 - Skizot - (14 votes)

Tutorial: What's under the mouse by rrowland

Many of you probably want to do a FPS game but are stuck because you have no way to tell what is under the player mouse. rrowland made an excellent and pretty detailed tutorial on how to get the unit you are currently targetting. Thanks iWaNN for the screenshot.

Trailer: Merry Christmas Bravo Two by Mojache

I would like to feature a pretty cool upcoming map made by Mojache and Ziros. It's a multiplayer 2d "plateform" game where you have to jump on different rotating plateforms and kill the incoming ennemies at the same time. The gameplay looks really well done and the video is pretty hilarious. Note that Mojache is also working on a video cartoons serie called Unforgotten Realms. It really worth viewing.

Make sure you vote for the clock contest (1-9, 10-18), the results are going to be announced tomorrow.

Kerrigan's Ultimate Wars Arena by Clord

So far, trigger have been mostly used for making non-melee maps. Clord decided to make an AI for his map and, it's really well done. He just made a video with 12 AI playing against each other and the result is pretty epic. Will you manage to beat them? It is fully playable and handle well disconnecting players by giving buildings randomly to allies.

Aura Abilities by Bifuu

If you want to do somewhat advanced editor things, check-out this video tutorial by Bifuu. It explains really well how to create an aura that makes units move faster around you. Video tutorials are really great and doesn't require any particular skill (poor english speaking people like me are welcome too!).

M3 Export Plugin by NiNToxicated

I know I just newsed it yesterday but NiNToxicated just made an update adding support for special material from Starcraft II. He also fixed reported bugs. You can see some more models imported inside the game. Corbo imported a Link and Triceron a Commando :)

M3 Exporter by NiNToxicated

I'm pretty sure there are guys that do 3D modeling around here. You will be glad to hear that NiNToxicated M3 exporter tool is working really well. At the moment it exports from 3DSMax to M3 static models correctly. In a short future, animations will be handled too. Here's a preview of imported models into Starcraft II.

Icon Tutorial by TheLaughingMan

Our tutorial forum is pretty active, you should find there great resources to help you map making. I would like to feature today a video tutorial made by TheLaughingMan that explains how to make Starcraft II Icons with Gimp and import them into the game.

Help us promote SC2Mapster

With the mapster team, we've been trying to create a great place for you map makers. We are really happy of how it worked so far and would like to push it further. That is why we need your help!

At the moment, mapster is a great place to develop maps but once maps are released, every trace of mapster goes away. In order to fill that gap, we give you a simple way to help us back: Adding sc2mapster logo on your creations.

This is in no way an obligation and you won't get anything in return, this is just a way to promote us if you would like to.

Many videos are made to promote maps and it's your chance to help us :) All you have to do is to add this little introduction video (6 seconds) before your video.

If you want to help us making more loading screens, introduction videos or other goodies, please let us know!.

Every Saturday Otixa and Xaragoth shall present you with interesting Workshops, Tutorials and Discussions centered around Maps, Mods and Tools! We will grab folks from the community, prepare stuff you're interested in and go through all the important steps you need to complete in order to create a good Map. The topics will range from the very basics to advanced things like Nextgen Models, Game Design rules and creating awesome Terrain.

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