Who likes MetalMaps & Who Doesn't ?
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One perhaps should mention that, at least in TA, people would use metal maps to play some intresting, alternative rules games. Such as playing them with an extremly low unit limit, thus lending to a completly different game, the large amounts of available metal worked very well for that game mode in my opinion.
I think variety is always good. Having a wide range of map make it so player have to adapt to different style of play. Having only metal map would be awful. But when used in moderation, metal map can be refreshing: sometimes it's nice to get to play with the level 2 and 3 you normally rarely see in regular games. It's always exciting to have overwhelmingly large armies clashes! To be able to afford anything, but to lack the time to give order to so!
Metal maps remove the need to expand to get new metal patch, in fact on those maps mexxe are kinda like farm, that you build in row and row anywhere in the map, E and M becomes too similar, so metal map remove one aspect of the game, the take-and-hold metal patch. But on the other hand, most games on low metal map forget another aspect of the game, the high level units.
Tradionaly, metal map have been derided as being the newbie map, wherewas experienced player play on low metal map. But when you're bored of playing game of GoW after game of GoW, it's nice to have maps that allow for a different gameplay: Metal map offer games when the limited ressource is not the metal or energy anymore, but the real time it takes YOU to actually click the mouse and keyboard to transmit order. It's not about memorising perfectly crafted build order, it's about being able to afford to try any strategy, to change from mass planes to mass tank to mass nukes in minutes, without risking automatic failure by straying out of the perfect build order path.
I'll point you to Storm comment about my Spring CPIA:
Metal maps remove the need to expand to get new metal patch, in fact on those maps mexxe are kinda like farm, that you build in row and row anywhere in the map, E and M becomes too similar, so metal map remove one aspect of the game, the take-and-hold metal patch. But on the other hand, most games on low metal map forget another aspect of the game, the high level units.
Tradionaly, metal map have been derided as being the newbie map, wherewas experienced player play on low metal map. But when you're bored of playing game of GoW after game of GoW, it's nice to have maps that allow for a different gameplay: Metal map offer games when the limited ressource is not the metal or energy anymore, but the real time it takes YOU to actually click the mouse and keyboard to transmit order. It's not about memorising perfectly crafted build order, it's about being able to afford to try any strategy, to change from mass planes to mass tank to mass nukes in minutes, without risking automatic failure by straying out of the perfect build order path.
I'll point you to Storm comment about my Spring CPIA:
As well as Metal Heck is Metal Heck is For Newbies, an article by J. Molloy, old and about TA, but still relevant today:It's not about metal or energy... you simply can not use more after a certain point. This map is about macrostrategy - Point conquering and production lines, Bertha wars and, more importantly, clashing of giant armies.
Really, it doesn't matter how much metal you can get in when you can't manage to have a decent output. Put up four mohos on any OTA metal map and you're pretty much secure metal-wise, combined with the mexes you set up before them. Now you have to focus on the macro battle. What to build where, how to build when and mass your forces against critical targets.
Personnaly my favorite maps would be maps with large cluster of metal patches, so you still have to build mexx on patch, you still have to expand when you need more metal, but nevertheless you get enough metal to afford large armies of level 2. Unlike the elite, I was never a fan of games that are won or lost by proper micromanagemet of jeffies.Metal Heck is For Newbies.
By Molloy
In recent years, there has been an almost universal opinion that a diet of metal maps and 10k resources is a thing to be ashamed of. It is a worthless way to play Total Annihilation that demands little intelligence, skill or experience. Metal Heck is for rookies who can't handle resource management and expansion. To offer a veteran a game of Metal Heck is a social faux pas! You might as well spit in his face and tell him his mother builds Wind Generators on Comet Catcher.
Let us travel back in time for a moment to early 1998. One of the most popular gaming services back in those days was MPlayer (now defunct). Cable modems were a rarity and most players were still chugging along happily on 56k modems. The situation wasn't helped much by the fact that TA on MPlayer was not direct IP but played via hideously slow servers. Pings of 700 were optimal while a latency in the region of 900 was more common. TA was somewhat playable in these sort of conditions provided there wasn't too much packet loss -- if you think we had it bad you should sympathise with the poor Quake2 players who had a miserable time.
MPlayer was the home of Metal Heck 10k 10k. It was our bread and butter. On any one day there would be 20 rooms of metallic goodness just as the Zone lobby is flooded with GD2 Ground Wars today. It was easy to separate the wheat from the chaff; games for beginners demanded build times while the L337 always played Commander Dies: Game Continues with no rules and 1v1 exclusively.
Certainly you wouldn't think metal maps would be the most rewarding maps to play in viciously laggy conditions, but somehow it worked. Both players would create huge armies of Flashes and Rockos, or Storms and Slashers if they were Core, and the game could very well end at the 5 minute mark as a Commander's defences crumbled and anti-matter explosions leveled his base. This was very preferrable to playing Comet Catcher for 20 minutes before the attacking army walked right through the enemy defences, due to massive lag advantage. Metal Heck tends to get quite sticky by the 8 minute mark because there are so many wrecks and pillars hindering your attacks. You can't just waltz in through the front door riding a wave of poor latency before the defences even get a chance to fire a shot.
Another deciding factor was that it was extremely difficult to get games to launch properly, especially 2v2s. It often took 2 or 3 attempts to even reach the gameroom! This resulted in all of us having rather poor attention spans. We wanted a big battle quickly because a player could disconnect any moment and spoil everybody's fun.
Evenly matched players would usually reach a stalemate by the 8 minute mark. Wreckage piles high, and Dragon's Teeth and HLT fill the gaps, making offence rather difficult. At this point, one of Metal Heck's greatest charms shines through: you tech up. On every other land map I can think of, there is little real incentive to tech up except for economy. You need Fusions and MMMs to churn out more Level 1 units. But on Metal Heck, Level 2 tech serves a very different purpose: artillery. It's one of those few occasions where Core's Morties and Goliaths make a big difference. They're essential for blasting through wreckage while under HLT and Guardian fire.
But where is the skill in this you ask? There's no resource management! You're ignoring the most skillful thing in TA: balancing your economy. You don't even need to expand!
Ah! But this is where people misunderstand the brilliance of Metal Heck 10k. It's completely different from a game Gods Of War - instead of being presented with a limited amount of resources and having to budget them carefully, you're given a blank cheque and have to spend it as quickly as possible. Bases can be built in minutes, defences mounted in seconds. It is by the late game where Berthas and Intimidators blast shells across the map and the skies are filled with Hawks that the player who expanded reaps the benefits. Because his base is huge and growing at a fantastic rate it's very difficult to scout out his Longrange Plasma Cannons. Destroying a good Metal Heck octopus is viciously difficult because by the time you've killed one portion of his base he has built another one somewhere else. His bases are so large and numerous that they can absorb damage much better than the player who boxed himself in and limited his expansion with walls and boundaries.
It's a shame that more "veterans" don't embrace MH 10k's liberating gameplay and rediscover the subtleties that the Warriors of Old enjoyed. Instead they despise and fear it. Can you imagine if that map had to be played in a CBL? There would be outrage! I want to watch demos where players battle for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I want to see something other than stale GoW micromanagement and Comet Catcher missile forests. I want to be amazed by dramatic comebacks and lightning expansion.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play a Ground Bore. Metal maps? Nah! They're so nineteen ninetey seven.
Metal maps are ok, but just if they don't have a good awful choke point setup (speed metal) Metal Heck, Core Industrial are much better at being fun since the chance of you having a 3 hour Korg battle is little to none. I'd still much perfer to see newer 'normal' maps (make more delta siege like maps ok)
Yes... Send me $4000 and I will build a computer capable of developeing maps fast enough to keep up with my impatience... and my meager skills at map and feature making should produce something that isn't terribly painful to look at... otherwise, yes, it's entirely possible for someone to creat something that looks less like crap that the current metal heck.
