There are 7 composites of making UMS maps that are very important elements to keep in mind. Read on if you’re interested at all in making use map settings maps . . .
The motivation element:
Not familiar with this terminology when making maps? Get used to it. Without motivation, you got (if you ever DO end up making your map) one heck of a crappy map. You do not just think up of a map on the ‘spur of the moment’, plan it out all the way through, else something may screw up and all your time wasted. All you regular UMS map makers out there, notice all those junk maps in your maps directory? It’s either the fact that you were somewhat ‘pressured’ or ‘forced’ to make a map, or you had the motivation and lost it half way through. Map making is time consuming enough don’t make it worse by abandoning your maps. Ever try to finish those un-finished maps of yours? Pretty hard huh? It’s cause it never really lifted off the ground. I have rarely ever been able to finish one of those maps.
The creativity element:
Never, repeat, never make maps that have the same relative idea as another. It may be easier to make since you don’t need to think up of something yourself and you already know how to do it, but don’t, waste of time once again. And even more so, do not "re-make" maps, taking credit for maps that you only modified is pathetic. Think of new ideas, new techniques. I still remember the day when "Elements RPG" came out a long time ago, it sparked the animation of many RPG fans, and thus began the era of Starcraft RPG maps. Very soon, all these maps died out to an exceptional few, and these few, had the elements I describe here. Many of the maps have the EXACT same idea, kill the enemy, kill the enemy, well screw kill the enemy maps, does anyone have a better idea? Even within madness maps, it’s: get the most KILLS within a time limit, KILL everything, don’t let your bunker get KILLED, it’s a good idea to KILL the other person’s heroes. How about sub missions that you can also accomplish? Like optional objectives that will aid you in reaching the ultimate goal. Or how about an actually "rewarding" ending to an RPG map? If you pass elements (which is a game that takes well over about 2 hours to play), a text message comes up and says somewhat "You saved the land from tyranny. Congratulations." Ah, yes, I’m very enthusiastic to see that message. Some ideas: Build up a very good storyline, at the end the player get’s a feeling of ‘motivation’, or ‘pride’. Make a cool cutscene that actually took time to make. Etc. etc. there are so many things that are possible with a flexible editor, you may not think so now . . . but perhaps you will think differently later on.
The time element:
Like I said, map making can be incredibly time consuming when making ‘fun’ maps. Don’t even try to make it if it interferes directly with your studies or social activities. Trust me, good grades are important, they will affect the rest of your life, so will relationships, StarCraft is a ‘game’ that will die out when new games such as Warcraft 3. That quote really discourages you doesn’t it? I am not implying anything negative towards StarCraft, I’m saying don’t let it kill your interaction with the world around you.
The story line element:
Many times, I hear someone say, "hell, no one reads briefings anyway", and goes on to create one of the most devastatingly stupid briefing ever. "Sure, you need a good story line with a campaign, but a single map? Give me a break" no break will you get thinking over this one. Giving it a good story line gives it something more than just another ‘fancy worded’ paragraphs, it immerses the player in a different world, where you create what happens. Do anything in the map to disrupt this, and you’ve broken the connection.
The discipline element:
Making maps required discipline. To stay on task. Someone may say, "I spent 15 hours completing this map" when actually he only spent 9, the other 6 doing miscellaneous things such as checking e-mail (which you may think takes no time at all), talking on ICQ, etc. etc. Get down to it and work. Sometimes I go looking around for a particular sound somewhere on the web, example, I was looking for a sound of someone unsheathing a sword for my campaign. I ended up downloading a whole archive of sounds, and then I remembered what my true task was. Albeit I found it finally, I could say I spent 5 hours looking for it =] Many a time people give up their maps because ONE thing goes wrong, which is very common with me. If something doesn’t work out that I worked on for a long time, I am very reluctant to delete it, and so I leave the map there unfixed and say I’ll come back some day to fix it, but I don’t. Now I do, I delete the triggers if something screws up, and try not to make a big deal of it (although sometimes my tower casing DOES occasionally come loose from frequent bashes . . .). This, I say, is one of the hardest parts of making maps. There is no way I can make a revelation to make you follow this, deleting hard work, in fact there is no way I can even affect you to do this, unless you choose it to be so. Ah yes, and DO ask for other people’s help before you delete. Just a little something I forgot to add. =]
The ‘learning’ element:
Now, you may not follow me on this one, but this is one of the most important areas of making maps. No learning, no trials, no good maps. Decide to try new things you think may be out of your grasp, try a few complicated things, such as StarGraft, StarDraft, or MPQ editing. Only if you decide to ever come out to do these things, will you ever continue to flourish as a map maker. Do new things. My second point I must make here is making errors is excellent =] And yes, I AM being serious here. Only if you make errors can you use the solution to your advantage. If you don’t fix an error, and decide to leave it be, at least ask someone to help you with it. You’ll never know the answer if you don’t look for it. And thus you’ll be pulling out your hair if the error ever comes back . . . to haunt you.
The concept element:
Grasp the concept of the triggers in the Starcraft Campaign Editor, the conditions and actions. Know the true meaning, and everything will be infinitely within yourself somewhere. Look at how everything works. I’m willing to make this short but I’ll give you an example. Many times people come and look for help on making loops with triggers (with the action "preserve trigger"). It is the same thing as a "while" loop in programming. This means, "while" those conditions are met, the trigger will continue to run over and over again in a loop. Thus the "while" loop. People come to me saying some junk like, "why doesn’t this trigger work?:
Conditions:
"Current Player" kills "exactly 1" zergling
Actions:
"Add" "5" "Custom" for "Current Player"
Preserve Trigger"
Now want to know why this doesn’t work? Easy, because the conditions are always met. When you kill a zergling, later in the game, you’ve still killed that zergling, correct? Your kill doesn’t suddenly somehow dissapear to nothingness. You need to make sure that somehow the condition is not set forever, you need to do something else in the actions to take away that kill. Now, I’m not going to type up the many solutions here, but if you really haven’t got a clue how to do it after my little explanation here . . . then . . . then . . . just post in the forum =]
To conclude:
The path goes ever on and on . . . to lead to new developments, new opportunities in life. Yes, gaming can be a waste of time, but you may also want to consider it as ‘learning’. An example: I have decided to create this site with others, what do I learn? How to co-operate and to interact with others. I have been motivated to learn more HTML, and learn new skills such as Javascripting, CGI and so forth. This will aid me in the future, put it that way
