Lack of Interesting Maps

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Curious if I'm an ignoramus or is there a serious lack of quality custom games or "maps" in sc2. I was an active modder on the wc3 scene, contributing to island troll tribes, footman frenzy 4.x, and kodo tag among many projects I took on. I'm just curious why it seems that the map making scene in sc2 feels nonexistant. Where are the quality map defenses, rpg's, survival oriented games? Is the game still too infant to accommodate for this or what? Am I not looking in the right place?!!?
 

Jokker

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Well, we have to start by defining a quality map. There are a couple of very interesting ideas and executions out there. And on top of it there are endless possibilities compared to lets say the Warcraft III days. This still brings us to the sad part that, I agree, somehow the general feel of the maps is not right. They feel sluggish and not very well polished (with exceptions of course). Again, I feel the need to compare this to the Warcraft III tims, where even the most generic maps felt complete and well put together.

This brings us to the first point of a list of problems. Starcraft II was not really built for Arcade maps. I mean, sure, they added support and got a lot of fanbase because of the Editor, but still, you know what I mean. SC II is meant to be a competitive, fast-paced action strategy game. So the engine is built to be very responsive and count your every single click, move and action. This, on the other hand, adds unnecessary sharpness into the arcade games that do not need it that much. Also, there is no good system for items (hero maps), that would satisfy the needs of the map as well as look and feel good at the same time.

The next problem is support. Arcade system, although well build and updated constantly (?), is still a system that does not really support the maps themselves. Yes, it is easy to publish them and easy to search for them, but how will you find a map when you don't know what you are searching for. The Fun or Not feature is not used that much and many good maps get shut down by the 10 most popular ones.

This all is backed up by our psychology as well. People don't really like to feel under pressure (most people at least) when playing arcade maps. SC II on the other hand boosts this pressure. That is why many of the Arcade players won't even touch the PvP features of the game. They just don't want to feel stressed. Arcade maps in SCII still will use many features (like micro management) that makes the player feel under constant action and movement, making it a turnoff for a general gamer. If (again) you have played Warcraft III, then you might remember maps like Green TD, where you just chatted away with other people, not even thinking about what you were really doing.

There are very many other points to take to account and you might not agree to what I've said here, but in my humble opinion, Arcade in SCII started in a little wrong direction at first and can't seem to stop trying to go that way.
 

Siretu

Starcraft 2 Editor Moderator
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This brings us to the first point of a list of problems. Starcraft II was not really built for Arcade maps. I mean, sure, they added support and got a lot of fanbase because of the Editor, but still, you know what I mean. SC II is meant to be a competitive, fast-paced action strategy game. So the engine is built to be very responsive and count your every single click, move and action. This, on the other hand, adds unnecessary sharpness into the arcade games that do not need it that much. Also, there is no good system for items (hero maps), that would satisfy the needs of the map as well as look and feel good at the same time.


I disagree with most of this. WC3 was the same, with an engine built to be very responsive and counting every single click, move and action. I also don't think this added some kind of unnecessary sharpness. I do however agree that the item system is pretty bad and I prefer how it looked and worked in WC3.

My opinion is that the reason for lack of interesting maps is three-fold:

1) Lack of battle.net support. It used to be pretty bad with just a small icon and description. Now it's better with it's own page and reviews and stuff, but it used to be very bad. This combined with a lack of open games list and another player mentality has lead to a system where it is hard to get people to play your game.

It's not impossible, just hard. My map Cruiser Command has been revived from the dead around 10 times already, but that's because it has a decent amount of dedicated fans and, if I might say so myself, it's a good game.

2) The interesting games actually exist. There are remakes of most of the WC3 games out there. Most of them are pretty decent, although few of them are super polished. It's just hard to find them.

3) Most of the ideas have been used already. If you see just another TD or TAG map, you wont think twice because you've already seen something like it in WC3. Many map ideas got made in WC3 and there's not a lot more to do. Therefore naturally, most maps are remakes of WC3, and hence wont look interesting since it's just a remake of something you saw in WC3.
 

Dave312

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One other thing to remember is that the SC2 Editor requires much more time and effort to get the same result as it would in the WC3 Editor. Making a quality map by yourself was possible in WC3, but in SC2 it is much more difficult and time consuming. I guess it is just the trade off between having a limited editor that is simple to use and a complex editor and that you will never know how to use completely.
 

X-maul

AKA: Demtrod
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Curious if I'm an ignoramus or is there a serious lack of quality custom games or "maps" in sc2. I was an active modder on the wc3 scene, contributing to island troll tribes, footman frenzy 4.x, and kodo tag among many projects I took on. I'm just curious why it seems that the map making scene in sc2 feels nonexistant. Where are the quality map defenses, rpg's, survival oriented games? Is the game still too infant to accommodate for this or what? Am I not looking in the right place?!!?

My opinion on this is that, the reason why there are so many games that feels unpolished/undone, is the unlimited amount of options. If we campare to wc3 (I was modding a lot in wc3 aswell) I created a pretty decent and good looking map in a month, but if you are to do that in Sc2 - it will most likely take half a year to a year.

So the main reason, I believe, is that it just requires so much work, that most people are frightened by the steep learning curve of the editor, and the amount of work it takes to make a quality game.

Though, if you do make something great, it's a great feeling when people compliment you on your hard work :)

So I would encourouge you to give it a try, and dont be afraid of the editor being too hard, as it may seem complicated compared to the Wc3 version, but it's a very great and powerfull tool once your learn how to use it.
 
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