Hello everyone, I love so much making melee maps for RTS games for nearly 10 years now. Making 2d maps on Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, Starcraft: Brood War, Starcraft 2 was a ton of fun, especially making tournament maps. Now with 3d maps for RTS games, a whole new universe is opening to us. I never was so exited to open the planet editor but sadly i have no idea when it will be operational. While the game has a built-in planet generator that looks very interesting, i think it is crucial to keep having human made maps with very precise strategical features because a generator have a very low probabily to create it. I wonder how the tournaments will handle computer and human generated maps, will the map pool be only composed of computer generated maps, human generated maps or a fix of both. Meanwhile, i started drawing single planet maps mostly for 1v1. Since you can't really draw a sphere on paper, i decided to draw two faces of the planet. There is also the question of fixed spawns versus random ones. When i drew the maps, i didn't think about random spawns since you can see the colored crosses signifying the start locations. For each line, there is one planet with its two halves. I thought there were spoilers so i could put my pictures inside them in order to keep the post small. To easily understand my drawings, here is a little legend. Dark green: land Light green: High land, view it as plateaus without any ramp Light blue: Water Colored cross: Start location. Each color symbolizes one player. There is sometimes two crosses with the same color because they spawn on the "edge" of the planet from my point of view. The top of the picture is always the north pole. To visualize the entire planet in your mind, close the two halves through the vertical symetry axis on the pictures.
If nothing else this post demonstrates the possibilities and that you've thought about them. I'm sure you'll make some interesting maps.
It will be important to keep in mind if it is fine to place start location at the poles. I think some players like the view with locked poles and it isn't very ergonomic to play at the poles with this option on. But then it may have consequences on the gameplay in the scenario with moons and other planets. You won't be able to fire on bases on the other side of the planet but it will be possible for bases on the poles.
Pole lock will be fixed with time. I'm sure Uber wouldn't leave such an important feature unattended.
individual worlds will be one thing. interacting planets, that's what I'm interested in. Having different planets moving in customized orbits and all the custom events that can be made with them will allow for dozens of game 'modes' with just regular games (timed asteroid impacts, reverse orbits for 2 starter planets, ferrying planets between clusters of usable planets, etc) it will be very in depth, but in terms of only macro multiple planets makes for one of those strategy games where you own planets or towns etc and they increase their own population which you use to defend or attack.. I just hope there are units and structures that really keep this late game from becoming repetitive, and map making dynamics will allow gameplay to always stay fresh. I hope there is a good engine for PA map making, I really hope to learn how to use whatever they produce to it's full potential ^_^
I absolutely agree with you. For now i start with the beginning and explore the possibilities with only one planet. A map without borders or corners is something totally new.
Superouman made one of best maps in starcraft 2. Give him the tools asap, he will make wonders with those Jesus, I didn't realize this thread is 1 years old, sorry It's not really outdated though
Holy necro Batman! I would really like to see maps like these. The random planets are fun, but having a good hand made map is pretty fun to play too.
I would like to get my hands on proper planet modeling as well, it is like a game itself - creating the environments This needs to be a thing! If not for release, then asap! Procedural generating is "meh", especially for fun games and tournaments.
Absolutely fantastic! I have been wondering about the possibility of manually designing the planets, it shouldn't be hard. In fact, a random generated planet is a harder algorithm than a manual one, they just need to add an interface for the manual. PS: the map #9 is glitched, it is not properly mirroed
