First of all let me make it clear that a map maker
needs to be curious, creative, like to play with details and manage to
find out of things him\herself without asking people for help unless atleast
half an hour of testing is done without success. If you ask people for help
once you get an idea, without even trying yourself to find out how to
do it, just because you've never done it before, then you'll never became a
good map maker!
Also do note that making a really good, popular map takes months to
complete! And Im talking about working several hours with the map several
days each week! If you dont think you're that patient, start with a small
idea, a small map, and do not hope for a 4+/5 grade. In general, dont
hope for a very good grade on your first maps. Most people have to play
around with the editor for a while before they manage to make a really good
map.
If you fill these requirements, let's move on to the real stuff:
1. Originality
The most important thing in map making is to have an original idea.
You can make a good map and get some fans by using an old idea if you do it
really good, but your map will never be one of the maps "everybody" is
playing all the time and your name will not be very well known.
When creating a product for thousands of potential users you must have
something to give that no other products of the same type has.
Take your favorite wc3 map as example. What makes your favorite so special?
If you think about it you will realize it's because the map has something to
offer that no other maps has. Often this thing is the gameplay or some
functions that are unique for that map.
So if you want to make a really good map, that you want to be among the maps
"everybody" is playing, you need to have something special and unique to
offer, like a brand new idea of gameplay or new useful game functions (then
I mean something big that affects the whole gameplay).
Things like new units, sell functions, leaderboards, new heroes etc alone is
by far not enough to make the game popular.
Take Massacre TD as an example. What made this game special is the amount of
creeps. Most TD's have like 10-30 creeps coming from 1-4 spawning areas,
while the first versions of Massacre TD had 10 spawn spots spawning 420-840
creeps depending on the difficulty. The 2 latest versions had "only" 290
creeps from all 10 spawn spots. "I love killing lots of creeps!" That's the
main reason why Massacre is any popular
Another word for map idea can be concept. Examples of used map concepts are
towers figthing creeps, heroes fighting creeps, heroes fighting heroes,
creeps fighting creeps, towers fighting towers, tag, heroes doing summoning,
playing survivor in the woods, maps made from movie stories, surviving
oncoming waves of enemies as long as possible, hero figths with user
selectable skills, heroes morphing into new heroes, etc.
Tip: I dont know any maps with playerowned creeps fighting npc towers or
playerowned creeps figthing npc heroes.
So if you have an idea for a map, that is really original, no other maps use
the concept and the idea is something big that affects the whole gameplay,
then you have a very good start!
In the start while being a noob map maker I really thought it was hard to
come up with something original. But after I got alittle more experienced
and I knew what is possible to do, then I got a flow of ideas so big I can't
manage to make all the maps fast enough!
It all comes with experience
2. Learning the editor
It takes some time to learn the editor by heart, and the only way to really
learn it is by experience. You can do everything with the wc3 map
editor, the only thing that prevents you from doing just that is time and
experience. The importance of terrain and layout varies alot from gametype
to gametype, and the sounds editor is often very little used, but the unit
editor and trigger editor usually stands for about 90% of the work together.
You already know by playing experience how important the units are, but the
triggers are just as important as all the units together. Although a noob
map maker might have no idea at first how to use either of these editors,
they are really easy to learn. The triggers are all logical and the units
editor is just a matter of remembering everything to change when you want a
new custom unit. There are many details to set when you make a new unit, and
it's very easy to forget some of them, ending up with a unit that doesn't
work like it should.
Another part of the editor that can be really helpful is "Gameplay
constants" and "Game interface" on the "Advanced" menu. There you can change
how many levels a hero can level up, how much a unit will be slowed from the
slow ability, what the food limit should be, names of weapon types, how much
damage different kinds of weapons do to different kinds of armours, change
images of all buttons in the game +++.
When you wonder about something in the editor you should try for yourself
for atleast 30 minutes before you post a question at a forum. When you think
about posting a question, do note that it might time several hours, maybe a
day or two before you get an answer. And if you post a question that has
been answered tons of times before, is already answered or commented in the
FAQ or is as easy as cake to find out, be prepared that you might get some
annoyed people at your neck. You'll understand when you become one of the
"big guys" who have to answer the same questions over and over and over and
over again. So use your brain before you start yelling for help. You know,
by checking the FAQ and reading old threads about your problem you might
solve it much, much faster than you would by posting a new thread!
3. Game functions
Game functions is a part of the map that is often not very neccasary but
will improve the map's quality. Examples of game functions are selling
functions, "give gold to player" functions, repick of heroes in hero maps,
voting for difficulty, gold gambling functions etc. Good game
functions can be like the cream on a cake, it makes the whole thing more
enjoyable.
They add more work, but they will all make the map easier to play, remove
possible annoyance from players and in general make the players like the map
better. New, original game functions to an old map idea will attract more
players to the game with less work than implementing a brand new map idea.
4. Perspective
A useful thing when you want to make your map popular is to pretend you're
new to the game and think about everything you would like, dislike and new
things you would wish to be implemented. This is more helpful than you might
think, because the common player will have a pretty different view at your
map than you do. Think of everything you think would be exciting and fun,
think of everything you think would be discouraging with the map, then fix
and improve! You will sooner or later come upon the problem "should I put in
alot of extra work to make the players a bit more happy, or should I drop
it, save time and get a slight lesser grade on the map?". Let me tell you:
It will be worth it! The more work you put in your map, the more game
functions, the more options, the better balancing, it will all increase your
maps grade and increase the chance for your map to become popular! 1 thing
alone probably wont do that much, but you will stumble across enough of such
things to really raise the map's grade.
5. Polishing
If you have come up with a really good and original idea for a map, you have
already secured your 4+/5 rating on 1 condition: That you really take your
time polishing the map. I do TONS of testing on my maps before I even start
thinking of a beta version, and I do TONS of testing before I even start
thinking of an official release. I do not want people to complain about
things like "wrong info on that unit", "bug in leaderboard", "bad placement
of that building" etc. When you do the testing, think about everything
you think people might complain about and point at, anything that could ruin
your 4+ rating!
The easiest way to remember every small detail you need to fix is to point
at the thing with your cursor ingame, write a message (without posting it,
so noone else has to see it) and then take a screenshot. Then when you're
done with that testgame you can watch all the screenshots 1 at a time, fix
the details and delete the screenshots when you've fixed the error\whatever
on the screenshot. You should also use this if you get an idea for the map
while playing. I usually end up with about 3-10 such screenshots from every
game of testing I do.
And for the triggers: DO take the lang way, dont do all the shortcuts!
Taking all the shortcuts will often slap you in the face later, when you
realize you have to expand the map and the shortcuts give you even more work
in the long run. You should set up the triggers in a way that makes it easy
for you to change them later. For instance, dont use the "if / then / else"
function, use the "if / then / else (multiple functions)". It turns out
pretty often that you need a multiple IF sentence instead of a regular one,
and it's also much easier to find bugs and problems in a multiple IF
sentence than a long regular one that often is too long to be fully viewed.
(IF sentences is a common place to find bugs).
Another important thing is that you should always do testing of a map
version before you release it, because sometimes when you fix bugs and
problems you cause another problem/s to occour, and you wont know if you
dont test the map.
6. Map size
By sacrificing the size you may add custom models, custom sounds, mp3's,
introduction pictures etc to the game. But the map file will easily become
very big, and no one likes big map files that takes ages to download at the
battle.net, which I belive stands for about 95% of the rate at which maps
spreads and becomes popular and known. Big maps will make the players
unpatient and leave the game without having downloaded the whole file, more
players will get kicked because the host is not patient enough to wait for
them, and the rate at which the maps spreads will be decreased
considerably! This is a problem every map maker has to decide on his
own, personally I avoid using any files not already included in the
map editor.
7. Protection
There's alot of discussion among map makers if it's a good or bad thing to
protect maps. Im a supporter of map protection so I will tell you how to do
it. But first I will tell you about all the good and bad things about
protecting your map, to let you judge yourself.
+Without a protection, anyone can change a map against the authors
permission. The author has absolutely no control of the map.
+Without a protection, anyone can steal the map, by releasing it in his name
and thus stealing all the credits.
+Without a protection, anyone can copy things straight from your maps,
putting them in their maps and claim it to be all their ideas and made from
scratch.
-Without a protection, everyone else can learn from your map, improve their
map making skills and make new, good maps based on yours. (did you know
Massacre TD was built on Taishos TD?)
-A small mistake might cost you TONS of work.
Well here's how you protect your map in a 99% secure way, not even the
blizzard team will be able to crack it!
All you need is the wc3 editor and an empty word file. Put the word file for
instance on your desktop, just make sure you know where it is.
The reason why it has to be empty is that the file itself will not be used,
and a file that is not empty will add extra "weight" on your map. Big maps
is not a good thing, so use an empty file. (you can also use for instance
paint files, just make sure it's as small as possible)
In the editor, editing your map, press f12. You will then enter the Import
Manager. Right click in the window, choose "import file" and choose the
empty word file. Then doubleclick the file you imported and "Imported File
properties" pops up. Click the box for "use custom path", type in
"war3map.wtg" in the path and click ok. Now comes the really
important thing: Save the map in a NEW file! You wont be
able to open this map after you've closed it!
If you save the map on top of your old map file and close the map editor,
then you have my permission to go knock your head in a concrete wall. Been
there done that!
When you edit your map, always save your map in 1 protected file and 1
unprotected file, use different file names and put them in different folders
to tell them apart. Now always make sure you play the right map file on the
battle.net, pick the right folder with the right filename so that you dont
give away the unprotected one.
* I've just found out
there really is a way to unprotect a map, nomatter how you protect it.
However, very few people know how to unprotect maps, and this way of
protecting it might be the most secure. Please do not ask me how to
unprotect a map, I will not help anyone unprotecting other people's maps.
Personally I wish it was literally impossible to unprotect any protected
map.
8. Spreading the word
When your map is finished and ready to be released, you want to find a good
way to make it well known fast. The most important way of releasing it is to
host it at battle.net. Keep this in mind when you create the game, because
the more playerslots you have in your game, the faster your map will spread.
The absolutely best way to do it is to play it alot with all slots used.
Some players can't host the game and are not able to host for you later, but
they will populate the games other players create. You know a game with only
2-3 players is not as fun as a full game, so the more players know your map,
the better, because it makes sure new players dont leave because of
almost-empty games (this is just a minor grade of affection on the
spreading, but still). Also, I use to create host games called "no dl,
host away", where I have 1 slot open and let people download the map. Then I
go to sleep, school, work, watch tv or anything that can be done while wc3
is running. You should only have 1 slot open because then the game will
automatically be refreshed every time a player leaves the game.
Keep hosting it for as long as you have patience to.
Btw: If you get alot of "OPEN THE SLOTS YOU B*D F*K YOU G*Y *SS N****R"
that's just normal... You can do like me and msg them with "watch your mouth
or I'll ban ya from my map!"(even if you're not going to) Some dont
care, but some get scared;)
At the same time, release your map at http://maps.worldofwar.net/ so that
even more players can download it here and give your map a grade at the same
time. Barely 1\10 of all the people who download the map will give you a
grade, but it's fun and very encouraging when you get a good grade. Last,
upload your map at www.wc3sear.ch. That website is not as good as
the worldofwar site, but your map will get uploaded right away so people
dont have to wait to download it like they have to at worldofwar.net.
If you follow these steps carefully you may become
a very good map maker! And we need more good map makers, so get going!;)
