Brood
Only hours after the Queen of Blades had been neutralised as an immediate threat the various Broodmothers of the Zerg Swarm were suddenly without a unifying force.
Some simply disappeared to fulfil their own agenda, others turned on their kin to determine who was the stronger.
As with all conflicts there were winners, and losers.
Az’Khar is the Brood Mother of a small Brood with a specific purpose, the cultivation and protection of a small number of eggs that house the developing embryos of the monstrous Leviathans, who serve the swarm as vast carriers. Allowing them to extend their reach across the sector
With the Queen of Blades gone Az’Khar stood little chance against rival Broodmothers who desired her charges as their own.
Reduced to but a handful of Zerg left under her control and with her overriding directive of protecting the Leviathan eggs now impossible to fulfil, Az’Khar is now left with only one option, to run.
But to do this means to somehow escape Char. Otherwise she will be caught between her sisters and their belief she is too weak to be allowed to live or the Terrans who will destroy all Zerg indiscriminately.
Third map available, only beta at the moment. Although the primary mechanics are in the text is awful and needs work... also the cinematics are rubbish and need additional stuff done.
Probably a few bugs in it still which I’m hunting down but wanted some thoughts on the general idea behind the map. (Kinda a reverse defence mission)
Feedback, as always, is much appreciated.
-Debe
debe2233 thanks for the reply.
As in sending waves to attack a base?
There are a number of triggers in the AI catagory that deal with setting and sending waves. In general you want the following three actions in this order.
Set Target Player For Attack Waves (Sets the target for the attack wave and player sending the attack wave)
Add Attack Wave Unit Types (Sets the units you want to send you can have multiples of these to add multiple unit types)
Send Attack Wave From Player (Sends the attack wave)
Take a peek at the triggers i use in the maps (They're not protected)
-Debe
Hey Debe2233 ,
Epic Nice!
but can i ask someting
how to make unit attack your base?
Thank you Terhonator :)
Yup I’m currently working on the next map. I’m trying to get the triggers “right” this time so I’m taking a lot of Designerdougm’s good practices for campaign triggers and trying to get them as solid as they are in his campaign.
It takes a lot of effort to make a campaign, I guess that’s why there are so few of them around. It’s not really a type of map that will make you famous and you need to be able to do terrain/triggers/data/story all by yourself.
My one hope is that people waiting for the HOTS will find this a nice little distraction in the mean time ;)
-Debe
Really good job Debe2233.
I have browsed campaigns here in sc2mapster and I think your campaign is best at the moment. I hope that your campaign is getting bigger, better and longer.
There are only few campaigns on progress so we hard working campaign makers must support each other =) Many projects are abandoned.
They're not burrowed in the campaign dependencies, i did spend some time making them burrowed but in the end it did have the effect of allowing the player to see everything as the computer does not hunt them down and cull them like a player would.
I found i could spread the creep right up to the opponents base and then have vision. So i had to force the AI to send observers along with the waves which meant they would destroy the creep tumors anyway.
Swings and roundabouts.
Its one of those things that works in multiplayer but in a campaign the AI is to stupid to deal with it. Im curious to see how Blizzard deals with it in HOTS.
-Debe
Fun maps. Bug I found on both maps though, creep tumors are not stealthed after you spawn them, it really takes away the zerg feeling of spreading creep everywhere and of course not having map vision anywhere is lame + it takes my roaches/hydras FOREVER to run across the map without creep
By all means! altho im not sure what you'll learn from it :p
I keep meaning to go back and tidy the trigger layout up a bit. Its a bit on the rough side sometimes :)
-Debe
Hello. I'm intrested to learn from other designers single player maps / campaigns. Can I download your map for trigger / data inspection? I know that I could just download map and look at it but I feel its polite to ask =)
Minor update.
Az'Khar is now slightly larger than a normal Queen and upgrades will affect her... and has Fungal Growth (Altho im currently working on an ability for her that will chuck out an egg which then spits out 4-6 Broodlings which feels a bit more Broodmotherish)
And Vikings no longer have an annoying little perch to shoot your expo mineral line from in Duty of Care.
-Debe
I think the thing with single player maps/campaign maps is they are generally straight forward to create however you need a story to drive the thing. And in my opinion that scares a lot of people away from attempting it which is a shame.
That and the lack of support for campaign maps on B.NET is problematic i believe the SC2 Editor is as good at telling a story as it is for interesting mechanics
@lolzguy: Go
If only someone going to BlizzCon this year can ask about custom single player campaign support on BNET in HotS. Lack of Battle.NET support for sharing campaigns is the primary reason for the problem you describe.
Sad that single player is overshadowed by multi-player maps. It good to see that there are some mapsters who are willing to make polished single-player maps :).
@Debe2233: Go
Glad to hear it, you can also check out the SC2MOD file for the project to get an idea for how to go about using the Data Editor, there's also a ton of tutorials on here, but the best thing to do is just experiment. Create an empty map and go to town. You can always export the map's data and then turn it into a mod later, which is the way I do it. (Working inside a mod itself is like working in a vacuum, and makes testing tedious.)
The queen is definitely a defensive/caretaker style unit, and so you have the right things in mind when you talk about not making her more offensive. If you haven't already, you should take a look at http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Queen_(StarCraft_II)/Development It's an article on the development of the Queen during early WoL. Some of the things the queen used to be able to do are perfect fodder for Brood Mothers, or at least are something to get the wheels turning.
We did see a very large Queen in WoL during TValerian02A (the hero mission) where she was in charge of a large amount of eggs. Giving her some egg laying capabilities, etc, would probably be appropriate. Focus on things that increase production of the hive, or allow it to be more easily defended.
General tips for working with the data editor:
Thanks BillyBobJoeSmith glad you liked it. I'll fix those bugs and i would be more than chuffed if my attempts were to be place anywhere near Jones313's masterpieces!
I do agree its a bit of a tease to have a Leviathan in a mission and not allow you to go whale on your enemies with it not once but twice. I am going to allow you to control him at some point i promise but unfortunately i'll need to fiddle with his abilities to make him useful AND not overpowered :p
That does bring me to the second point. Az'Khar does need some modifications i agree. As a Broodmother i dont imagine she will get into the fight personally too much... shes got people... er... Zerg for that. But when she does turn up she does need to be a bit more than a higher health queen. I am starting to play around with the Data editor but i'll be honest its a bit big and scary at the moment. I've managed to totally maul several maps by doing things i shouldnt have in that thing.
That said i am still trying and one of the things i definately am planning to do is make Az'Khar and Ltoth a bit more interesting than their baseline units.
The difficulties is another thing im having a go at adding currently. Im learning as i go along so i do apologise for dragging others along on my learning experience :)
(oh and thank you designerdougm, the amount of things i've picked up just from going through your maps alone as improve my trigger creation and layout no end!)
In regards to the difficulty of the missions, there's no reason you can't support multiple difficulty levels. It's actually fairly well supported in the editor, the unfortunate reality is that it's not supported well on the user's end. (Let's hope that changes with HotS) The reality is, if you want to appeal to the largest number of people, allowing them to choose the difficulty they play at is important. Not everyone plays at the same skill level. For those calling others noobs, and talking about ladder matches. Remember, this is a campaign, there are a lot of people out there who don't play SC2 to be competitive.
Some additional feedback on the maps themselves: Your main character Az'Khar, as it were, is a brood mother no? Based on what we've seen from HotS, and the original concept for brood mothers in WoL before they were scrapped, they're much larger than a standard queen. You should play around with some things to help set brood mothers apart from normal queens for your campaign. Make them bigger, perhaps give them different or additional abilities, etc.
Depending on your focus, you obviously don't want to make them too powerful, but it would add some flavor.
I just played both missions and thought they were really good, but a bit too easy. Keeping the Leviathan alive was a cool idea. I only built queens in that mission :D. Will we be able to wreck havoc with the Leviathan in the next missions?
Some minor bugs i noticed: In mission 1 Az-Khar doesn't get the attack upgrades. In mission 2 there's a tiny spot behind the northern expansion where a viking can land and shoot your drones, but he can't be attacked by your land units.
I'll be putting together a list of good Starcraft scenario/campaign maps for the fine folks over at www.reddit.com/r/starcraft in the next few days and i will include yours, among Jones313's remake of the Sc1 campaigns and some others. I hope you don't mind :).
Glad you liked it michael :) For the Leviathan i just killed the egg and created a Leviathan on the same point, no actors (I havent worked out how to use them yet)
And you probarbly need to turn on the subtitles in your options. At least im guessing that could be the problem your experincing with not being able to see them :)
-Debe
and don't change a thing. The game is perfect and I beat it on the first try... all of these people crying about the difficulty are noobs... tell them to go back to the bronze league ladder >:D