Starchitects: Simple but addictive multiplayer map

[UED77]

As a resurrection attempt, I propose the creation of a map that could have the potential of becoming and staying very popular on Battle.net. The exact nature of this map shall be determined over several chat sessions.

A few guidelines:

The map should have an quick learning curve, but more veteran players should benefit from their experience.
The map should be trigger-driven and trigger-intensive.
The map should support a wide variety of multiple players, with the emphasis on game balance intact regardless of the number of players.
The game should be long enough not to annoy the players by a quick defeat (or victory), but short enough to achieve quick popularity.
The game should be entirely original. This might as well be the hardest thing to accomplish. Preferrably, our game would start a new genre in SC UMS.

I'm proposing this project due to a variety of reasons. The most obvious one is that Starchitects has been inactive for about two months, and we really need to manufacture another product. Another reason is that I feel our Minigame Map has grown too big, too complex, too messy, and I feel it is best to put it off for a while. Not to mention the Minigame Map was designed from the start for singleplayer. Popular maps are multiplayer, obviously because they are shared with more players during the course of each game; more people are exposed and introduced to it.
Possibly, our map could be compatible with any number of players, from 1 to 6, perhaps more, depending on the number of computer players we could use.

What do you think?
(Approved Starchitects only, please)

UED77

[Hikari256]

There are about 23232114 left over ideas from blizzscums that you could use.

Some of which were quite good, like Spier-mine farming.

[BSTRhino]

I love the idea. Multiplayer UMS maps are the most fun to create.

Hmmm... I'll look over the ideas at BlizzSCUMS, I remember that spider mine farming one. We need ideas to be able to create a good map.

[Dark_Soul74]

Reverse Defense - Geno
? RPG - Tiga.
Mini-Games - Dark_Soul74
Psychic Visions RPG - ZeroDarkStar
Bomberman - Megalord
New World - ZeroDarkStar
RUN! Bound - Megalord
Crazy Dropship! - Zackarotto
Soldier: Basic Training - -bum-
Epic RPG - EdvardMunch
Most Extreme Melee Elimination Challenge! - EdvardMunch
Multiple Personalities Disorder RPG - Edvard Munch
Cyborg RPG - Cataclysm
Raynor's Son Campaign - BSTRhino
Fleet Map(no name found) - rulesofvalinor
Monopoly - pyromastaforeva
The Accursed RPG - pyromastaforeva
Newbie Training Map - BnetGamer1
Secret Of Mana RPG - Geno
Mirror Actions(no name) Map - Drakain Zeil
Titanic Escape - Omega
Agron Farming - herodotus
FFX Monster Arena - Omega
Flood Stoppers - Omega
Game Of Life - Omega
Asteroids - Omega
Side-Scrolling Map - Drakain Zeil

teh haxx~!

A lot of the ideas are actually from members of SCTS, so it counts as an SCTS idea. :P

[Hawthorne]

Good idea Aqo, very nice trigger simplicity.
I think you should add another spell:
Summon Skeleton army.
You'll create 4 marines & with trigger you'll reduce their lives per second or minute & kill em eventually,
you could use the ice effect by the Protoss Fly unit that does recall, or the dark archon's maelstrom.
It would be a good benefit :)

[DragonPaladin]

Idea has been shot down, please refer to "DragonPaladin's Trash Bin of Ideas" to see this message.

[Hawthorne]

DragonPaladin we're talking about something we create, not just borrow & remake, that's total lamesville & stealing.

BST, we'll lower their healt to 20 each,they'll have attacking power of 1, no armor (0) and we'll drain 1 life per 2 seconds after which we kill them.

Hawthorne

[Hawthorne]

Well we should create another very important thing:
Military stock ups or better yet those buioldings in Warcraft where you can purchase warriors.

He'll get gold from buildings & he can buy 1 if he has enough money.
That would be a good addon, to have an actual army because the Summon Skeleton thing just won't cut it if there's a conflict :)

Hawthorne

[Hawthorne]

Hm.... then there should be skill bonifiers, pit fights:

Skill Bonifier: If he reaches a certain place without losing his hero he gets more weapons/armor/skills

Pit Fight: Fights against creatures to gain SKill Bonifiers & Items :P

Hawthorne

[IceFlare]

Instead of stating ideas for game designs, you should be thinking of what type of maps to make and not to make, for example if we go with the simple but addictive part, RPGs would be out bcuz they are complex, and those micro intensive maps would be too. In my opinion the only thing that satisfies it is a defense map but that has been waaaaay too overplayed and cliche, so we make up our own with a little curve. Something that has amazing triggering that runs in the background but the players have no control over so it will seem like a simple map but in fact a very complex map running. I suggest a remake of some team battles, imo those were very addictive and very simple. Snowball wars anybody? Also, a possible side project could be redeveloping an older map say cats vs mice that had crappy triggering and unit placement and remake it with everything perfect, a retro remix?

[Sikawtic]

I still wanna get a team together an make a kick-ass RP. But I suppose this could be fun too... (none of you saw my quitting message... I just had the feeling SCTS was dead... bad me for doubting :().

You want to make an RPM.... [/subliminal message]

[Hawthorne]

Aqo,they can post it on a private part of the server and put in a pass ;)

Just send it over to one of 'em by e-mail.
Anyway we could do an interesting spell
It's called Freeze Burn.
When he uses the Freeze we might take a little bit of the life, but the coordination thing might be a little hard, because the freeze on the arbiter is pretty fast and it makes 'em indestructable :P

Hawthorne

[IceFlare]

Im from T dot O =) /endspam

OK heres my main idea, it was an on the spot thing but I think its very ambitious.
Any of you see Battle Royale? If you have skip this part and go to the part on the map ideas. The main story is that in Japan? students skips school on a daily basis and they dun care. But one teacher gets fed up and decides to take action. One day he takes his students on a "field trip" and he gasses them all so all the students are unconcious and when they wake up they find themselves in a jungle island who knows where. There is no way off the island and they have these bands around their neck that will explode if they try and take it off. The only way to get off the island is to kill everyone and to be the last one standing, the students have to fight each other and only one can win. The teacher isn't part of this but this is his revenge on his truant students. At the start, they get a demonstration of what to do and what not to do, eg do not pull the band off or it will self destruct. After that, they recieve a pack that contains a map, rations for a week (I think), and a random weapon, could be a garbage can cover or a fully auto machine gun of doom etc. Then they have to run and kill while staying alive themselves. The last one remaining wins and gets to go home alive. Of course in the movie yadayada there are 2 winners because its a story etc. There is also a grid in the movie to speed things up because the teacher was some psycho insane maniac I guess. Every few hours several random grid spaces would be designated as a no-go zone and anybody caught in it would automatically have their bands set to self destruct. So you dint wanna be in that zone.

Map Ideas:
I will try and get it to match the movie as much as possible. We could post mission objectives in the actual mission briefing or an in-game cinematic briefing and mission objectives. Up to the triggester. Near the start, the players will be given a random weapon (eg. you will spawn as a unit, eg marine for rifle I guess, ghost = sniper rifle?) The entire map will be gridded to recreate the no-go zones and one of the many seasoned triggesters will help code the triggers required for notifying the players that they are entering a new zone and I guess a minimap ping would help too. Since in the movie, they had a map, everyone's minimap will have explored fog of war, (dunno if thats the right term, I mean like in a melee game where you explored that area but you no longer have units in that area kind of effect). It would be an island map set to jungle tileset and the larger the map the better I would assume for more scenarios. Since these "children" are all fighting for survival, they would not speak candidly with each other so a proposed no-speaking would be enforced by using hyper triggers to display 8 rows of spaces. The only way players can speak to each other is if another player is within x amount of units away from him (I suggest 1-3 grid units). And he can only talk to the other players within those 1-3 grid units because the other players will have the no speaking trigger enforced.

On to the grid, we could have a randomization trigger select which zone would be designated as a no-go zone every few minutes (in the movies it was few hours but we dont got that kind of time). In the movie there was also a time limit of when you had to kill everyone by I think it was 1 week, I guess 1hr max would be a good limit on the map. So every few minutes on the countdown, it would designate a zone which you could not enter and it would be put in the mission objectives box F10. And then you could not enter that zone until a next zone was selected. Suggested players is 7 and there would be no alliance status between them, they are free to ally up with each other knowing that they will have to kill their allies to win but no vision will be shared.

Thats all for now, I will update whenever I can remember more details

[IceFlare]

Well it duznt have to be teachers/students im just giving u a backdrop of the story ya but feel free to change it up..... eg military and terrorists? too cliche i guess