What sort of Maps?

What sort of Maps?

Discuss maps & map creation - from concept to execution to the ever elusive release.

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aGorm
Posts: 2928
Joined: 12 Jan 2005, 10:25

What sort of Maps?

Post by aGorm »

This is just so that us map making people know what you guys want.

What sort of maps do you want to see? You know, size, flat, hilly, concept or realistic.

Also, voice which maps you liek and dont like if you want to.

This is just so I know what to do with my time... and others to.

aGorm
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Min3mat
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Joined: 17 Nov 2004, 20:19

Post by Min3mat »

ANYTHING with teh new styley of placing metal...a good metal map would be nice (one that requires expansion!) or urban or well whatever! as long as its the new styley of placing metal its all good with me! :)
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aTTacK
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Joined: 23 May 2005, 13:00

Post by aTTacK »

realistic and naturalistic would be my taste
a (good..) night map could be interesting
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
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Post by Warlord Zsinj »

I want to see maps where time is not just spent making it look good, but also making the game play well. There should be choke points, high ground, marshes, things which make for fun games, not just pretty glamour shots. Also, any maps that discourage porcing, and encourage being at each other's throats are always good for getting people out of bad habits.

As for map types, there are two types of maps I want to see. I wanna see some bizarre alien maps, which really have some imagination to them, not just "this is a vaguely recogniseable landscape just extruded to be strange" (ie: a desert world or a snow world). TA had a couple of good ones, such as pincushion or the acid worlds, but with Spring you should really be able to push these boundaries.

The other thing I'd like to see are some proper mountainous maps. Not maps where there are one or two mountains sticking out of an otherwise flat plane. Boring. Real mountain maps should have soaring mountains and leading up foothills, with plateau's for base construction, and winding mountain passes perfect for ambushes and choke points.
Image
Image

(note how hilly terrain doesn't have to be an obstruction base building, as visible in that last picture)
Kixxe
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Joined: 14 May 2005, 10:02

Post by Kixxe »

Castle map.
A map where 2 casles, whit vertical walls around them fight each ohter.
The castlels should be dark, but it should be day and grass between the 2 casles.
Some resurces in the castle, but most outside.

Oh, and if a hardness map is inturced next version, change the grass to metal and make is very soft while the castle walls are very hard.

I was gonna make this one myself, but ill se if i have the time, energy and knowledge :|
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
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Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

Spring handles vertical and near-vertical surfaces very poorly.
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PauloMorfeo
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Joined: 15 Dec 2004, 20:53

Re: What sort of Maps?

Post by PauloMorfeo »

aGorm wrote:...
What sort of maps do you want to see? You know, size, flat, hilly, concept or realistic.

Also, voice which maps you liek and dont like if you want to.
...
Metal distribution...
Please, at least some maps where the freaking metal is not scatered all over the place.

It is so annoying to go around the whole map to build metal extractors that, when people advance to moho mines, people won't even bother to build more moho mines than the ones they can build near and, instead, end up prefering to build moho metal makers that have a much, much lower metal income per energy spent.

I prefer to have all metal or metal zones like in GOW, where you have islands. You fight to control those metal areas, the islands.

Visible metal
I like to see where the metal is. I hate to start a game in fear that i might place some building on top of a metal patch.

Extractor radius
I can't remember which, but there is a metal map which has a very bad extractor radius.
It isn't small enough so you can put the mexxes all together. It is small enough so when you build a bunch of those, they need to be close enough to not allow buildings to be built in the middle.

Map size
I prefer small maps made big (or just small.). For example, GOW feels much larger than a similar land map of the same size because players are isolated. Same thing with small divide, Lava & 2 hills...
Also, in big maps, units take forever to reach anywhere. Even gunships sometimes take a boring amount of time to reach ... anywhere. So, in large maps, rushing or early raiding is virtually annihilated (and all sort of land raiding if you're not patient enough to see the units travel for 5 mins)...

Favorite maps
GOW - It eliminates land contact between players and, as such, there will be no land rushing. Because of that, it bring alot of new options like rushing boats or air, tech rush for lvl-2 boats or air, hovercrafts, underwater tanks, pelicans, Big Berthas... All of these are very hard to pull off in a small straigh land map. Also, the map is small enough to make sure that games will not last for hours. Also, the map allows for up to 5 players which is good to play teams of 3v2 which would be too unbalanced in other maps.

Full Moon - It is a small map. Looks good. Has metal patches showing up. Has size enough for 2v2 or even 3v3.

Metal Heck - You don't have to go around everywhere, micromanaging your constructors to build mexxes. All that metal, allows for alot of building of units and since the map is small, we get really big and messy battles in no time. Still, due to those parts of the terrain, it is still defendable because it makes units go through those choke points.
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Tim Blokdijk
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Joined: 29 May 2005, 11:18

Post by Tim Blokdijk »

Maps that give good gameplay!
Maps that allow for difrent tactics.
Maps that are made with love for detail.
Maps that are not final with the first release but are improved with feedback.
And don't contain any content from the original TA!

That are good maps. IMHO

I made one map for the original TA and made improvements for some years.
I had put a lot of love in that map and I played it a lot with frends.
It has it's own AI and more.
I will port it to Spring in the future.
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Min3mat
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Post by Min3mat »

sorry to say it Paulo but that is a typical xtaer view. make metal easy to get to so i don't have to expand/micromanage :( its porcers like you who really piss me off. GoW ROCKS i love it coz it introduces soooo much variety into the game!. A Castle Map where castle walls are hard would be cool! although i would want multiple smaller setllements with ditches/moats/wooden palisades to take outside of the castle :) that woul dbe the coolest if map sections could have different hardness
smokingwreckage
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Joined: 09 Apr 2005, 11:40

Post by smokingwreckage »

Why, why, why do people have to clutter up threads with utterly gratuitous claptrap about how someone else is "obviously a porcer"??? The guy gave a list of what he liked in a map, and why, and the gameplay consequences as he saw them. (And you flamed him. Nice one.) For example, my opinion is this:

Fighting over metal-rich areas, where a player could put maybe four mexxes close together, results in intense skirmishes with rich rewards for the victor. Many of my favourite TA maps had a critical area or three where it was possible (even if only just possible) to pin down three or four metal patches at a time.

On the other hand many TA maps had a small cluster of metal patches to get base production underway and then you had to expand all over the place to hold more as they were widely spread; while this was also fun it didn't create such big firefights and tracking down the enemy's last production unit was hell. (Yeah, he should surrender, but....)

Chokepoints create a tactical problem for commanders to solve; so do island maps or seperated continent maps like confluence, expanded confluence, red river, to name a couple off the top of my head. These maps offer a greater diversity of play as a result. Huge enormous flat maps are hell, taking a long time to cross but not requiring any thought.
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Min3mat
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Post by Min3mat »

i like big maps, like kingoftherock i like cool island maps (Africa coast rox!!!) i like OTA maps (GoW, pd) i dislike porcers, ground maps with choke points are cool as long as there is at LEAST one way around so porcers don't have a easy time of it! 8) :twisted:
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PauloMorfeo
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Joined: 15 Dec 2004, 20:53

Post by PauloMorfeo »

Min3mat wrote:...
First, you have put into my mouth words that were not there.

Second, you took wrong conclusions of what i said, as smokingwreckage pointed out.

Third, defending is an important part of every good game or sport. The only ones where you don't have to defend are for example racing 100m where you run as fast as you can.! All good games like TA, Quake/UT, football, snooker, etc, etc, etc, etc, are all about attacking better than the opponent defends and defending better than he attacks!

Fourth, you are still to fulfill your word
Min3mat wrote:If someone posted a good game (involving rushing, raiding, and interesting strategys NOT PORCING) on XTA i will review it make it Platinum/Gold and although i will not stop saying OTA>xta i will admit there is nothing wrong with xta. this is a once in a lifetime oppurtunity!!!
Just because you don't like it, it doesn't means it is not good and it does have a better balance, independantly of people liking it or not.

Fifth,
why can't people make up they're minds????
Some weeks/months ago (? i keep poor track of time), it was all about «defenses in XTA are too weak» and now it's all about «defending in XTA in too strong»...
mufdvr222
Posts: 681
Joined: 01 May 2005, 09:24

Post by mufdvr222 »

What ever happened to a community where people just made and upload maps, if nobody likes it,, so be it. Forget making maps to order
if its what you like to do just do it, and let you own omagination dictate what the end result is. If you just do requests then the mapper is not thinking of the map ideas,, just creating someone elses idea and I guarantee they will never bother to try and learn map making, not if they can just post a request of sorts.

PEACE :-)
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hrmph
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Joined: 12 May 2005, 20:08

....

Post by hrmph »

mufdvr words so true can only be spoken by someone with a nick such as yours :)
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aGorm
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Joined: 12 Jan 2005, 10:25

Post by aGorm »

Its nice to make maps and i hope people like the ones ive made...

But its nice to get other peoples ideas, as this can lead to other ideas of my own.

Thats alrite isn't it? I am alowed to ask...
mufdvr222
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Joined: 01 May 2005, 09:24

Post by mufdvr222 »

aGorm wrote:
Thats alrite isn't it? I am alowed to ask...
Dam right you are, But with the ability to come up with maps like Core pyramids you don`t need anyone elses ideas,, and the more people that take up map making for spring "for themselves" the better off we all will be, in map diversity.
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Noruas
XTA Developer
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Joined: 24 Feb 2005, 02:58

Two ideas for a map

Post by Noruas »

I live in this new house and theres brown puddles everywhere! so this is how the map goes. there is brown wastless dirt all over the map, all dead no grass, rough rugged screwed up terrian, make it the ugliest good looking dirt you ever seen!, next put puddles all over the map, like small water puddles, this will make attacking by ground force diffcult, and since things will spread out due to water, airforce and hovercrafts are the way to go! and when your done with this map, call it (Noruas's Backyard) make it 16 by 16 plz.

then make a small qucik 6 by 6 map for 1on1 for the fastest game for ta eva! make one tree in the middle, with lots of grass around it and dirt around that and call it (Noruas's front yard)

Then make me a map with aGorm on the map, so youll be recognized by people!

Well then, we have mars, down, now for a real map not a joke map. make maps with mountains at the edge of the map so you do not see the map fall off in blue water, but surronded by high cliffs, but dont make it where you can build on it, then slope down 400 terrian and make a valley with whatever style you want
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AF
AI Developer
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Joined: 14 Sep 2004, 11:32

Post by AF »

*Alantai looks at the mars maps*
*Alantai then looks at the moon heightmaps of the moon and Titan*

Titan looks nice
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munch
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Joined: 26 May 2005, 20:00

pincushion

Post by munch »

I'd love to see a remake of pincushion - it just requires such different tactics to most maps because it cuts effective weapon range right down. Thinking about it, it might make for a lot of High Trajectory weapon use.

The main thing I want though is variety. So just keep making maps that are different to the last one and I'll be happy =)

One idea I had was a two side map with one side supporing a porcers mentality (good natural obstacles, choke points etc), and the other which suits an expansionist. You could even make the porcers side have specifically formed terrain for putting buildings in (e.g. one for VPs, which would have walls on three side, one for an air plant which would have walls in four sides, four walls for fusions etc. tall circular crater rims for HLTs, small sunken areas for countersunk MRPCs)..

The idea is that the expansionsist gets far more resources, but the porcer gets more in the way of natural defenses.

It would be hard to balance a map like this mind you!

Another more general idea is for an unbalanced map, with a NOOB side and a PRO side. The noobs get a big help in all areas (resources, choke points, amount of flat land), the pros get very little...

Map4 can already help on this front if the noob goes on the side that has thermals.

Just some thoughts =)

Munch
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Min3mat
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Joined: 17 Nov 2004, 20:19

Post by Min3mat »

i like the idea of a porcing/expansion sides of a map, if both players choose their pos could make for a interesting game. also might convince more xta players (generally porcers) to play some OTA! :D
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