Survival falls under Defense.

Is there some way I could vote RPG three times?

Hrhhmm, looks like RPG is the most pop game, then.
Maybe I should make an RPG, with an arena and...

Defensiveness!!!!

Players can resolve their differences via the Arena. Defend towns from barbarian invasions. As well as go on mean as quests, hunting, rescuing fairytale princesses and whatnot.

You could hack someone's account or convince someone to allow you to "borrow" their account and secretly vote for them

Or else you could just tell everyone in the shoutbox to vote in my awesome thread.
muahaha!!! I might just do that myself, actually.........

Well.. For some reason I feel like writing a really long post. Hope you don't mind

I like maps that are:
-Quickly learnable
-Unique
-Fast-paced
-Replayable
-Strategic

These are based purely on my own personal preferences, but I think that a map like these would be the best type of map, and anyone who disagrees is either stupid or lying about their disagreement. That was a joke.

I love maps that are quickly learnable, not because I don't have the patience to learn maps that are complicated (many complicated maps are the most fun out there), but because you can't get the general StarCraft public to sit and learn a new UMS map. With that in mind, you just need to keep things.. obvious. Instead of having a series of units that move to pick between two options, have a couple factories, with the names of the factories labeled as what the units built from them does. Just keep things organized.

As for uniqueness. Something unique adds replayability to your map. Clones of other maps can be fun, but the appeal won't last as long as if the map were unique. As for replayability, there are a few ways to go about that. I think a good way to ensure that your map is replayable over and over again, is to force the player to choose an option or two out of a grand list of options, and construct your map so that a person CAN NOT use every option in a game. I.e. you could have an RPG where you choose a character, and you use that character for the entire game. But, there are also 5 other characters that you haven't played as yet! There you go! Your map just became more replayable by a factor of 5 in comparison to having only 1 available character with 1 set of spells/ups. So basically, give each player a lot of options to win, many different ways to kill each other, many different things to do. For a team vs team map, the most important thing would be being able to kill the other team in a grand variety of ways/strategies.

Fast-paced. Sort of self-explanatory. Tweak your map to make sure the players have to be always doing something.

Strategic. I already covered this, give your players as many different ways to win or kill each other as possible. Give the players counters to certain strategies, and defenses against counters, and so on.

And lastly, I prefer maps that are short. Temple Siege was fun for a time, but I stopped playing after my 5th game or so. Why? Because I think I'm better than TS? No, I just know what to expect from the game, and I don't think the funness of the game is cost effective to the amount of time spent playing the game. I love shorter games. A perfect example would be Bloody Marines. I love that game, because I am not going to be playing Bloody Marines for thirty minutes, just to found out that I spent too many attribute points on mana, and therefor I will not make it past the next boss, and will have to play through another 30 minutes in order to try a new tactic. Since the game is short, you can get good at it fast, and have no time to get bored of it. I prefer games that are fast-paced, addictive (strategic and replayable), and short.

I think you should make your map like something I described. I guess you can ignore the short part as long as you keep things fast-paced and everyone will be happy.

As for a specific idea......... You were on the right track. You took two kinds of maps that you enjoyed, evolves and RPG's, and decided to make a mix of them. In my opinion, bad idea. I like evos because evolves fills many categories that I just explained above. Most people hate the game because they think there is no way to be better than anyone else, and therefor too easy to become too good at. I guess I just like beating people at it. I also like RPG's, but I only like a few RPG's, as there are only a few RPG's out there [Edit] that are worth my time playing. Your map of a mix of these two things will either be something unique and fun, or self defeating. I think it's a bad idea. Mixing a fast-paced anti-strategic map with long, slow, strategic RPG-ness? I think you have to spend a long long time to perfect this map, and the overall product isn't going to be appealing because of the polarity in genres.. But then again it could be something great.

Just think of something you enjoy in a map, and think of how to use it a map of your own. Today I made a 3v3 map, and everyone that plays it enjoys the thing. You control a zergling in an arena, and it is invincible. You attack the other teams photon cannons (which are called Life Support) to win. If your ling hits an enemy ling, you enter into a battle with a few units including your ling. If you win the battle with the person, your ling returns to where you were and your enemy respawns. You gain 5 minerals, and your enemy gains 3. You spend the minerals on buying more units for the battles. An average game lasts 6 minutes, and I played it all day today without getting tired of it. The map is 64x64, and only has about 50 triggers.. You don't need to create an insanely long, complicated map in order to make a good map. The bottom line is, the thing needs to be fun, not necessarily epic.

As for some specific ideas, think of something you enjoy in a map. Now think of how you could use this single concept in a map of your own. I based the map I described on how I like RPG's that are "turn based" in starcraft, in that when you run into an enemy with your character, you enter into a battle in some other part of the map to defeat that one enemy you ran into.

So to conclude this long post, come up with something simple, fast-paced, replayable, and unique. As for the unique part, think of something you enjoy in a map, and then think of a way in which players can duke it out against each other with that certain thing.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 15 2009, 5:59 pm by CecilSunkure.

Yeah, that's definitely true. I've made so many maps that were so hard to play with public people because they were so complicated. Battle.net noobs hate that. Hell, even I hate it when a game is complicated. Unfortunately, there are going to be idiots no matter what. For example, in my newest map here's how you play:

Step 1: Cast Dark Swarm at Someone
Step 2: It Explodes, hope they die.
Step 3: Pick up trophy and win.

People's still get confused. Even if you type out the basic steps of your map in huge fucking letters bolded in bright red on every inch, you're still going to get idiots, and they're going to hate your game because it confuses the shit out of them. That's the sad truth. Ultimately, if you're creating a map in hopes that people like it, forget about spending time on it, forget about planning and thousands of triggers - it's not worth it. There are a reason why noob maps are so popular: They're made by noobs for noobs. My latest map cashes in on this Idea big time. In the past, maps take me an average of about a month to complete, but this latest one took less than a week. The results? Well, Battle.net noobs love it a hell of a lot more than anything I've ever made before. Even for me, I find it to be more replayable.

When it comes to making maps, the more simple it is, the more people will like it.

Judging what all you said I'm sure you'll love the idea of my map. Thanks guys, everything you said only strengthens my faith that my map will work out! I'm too tired and my mind is blank to right a long post but I should maybe write one tommorow.

If it's partly a mass map don't bother putting in elaborate terrain. Either make a clear path to the enemy or everyone will get frustrated trying to get their 500 zerglings through the choke point.

The problem is with heroes in mass games is that the heroes are either too easy or too difficult to kill. This is probably because the next "level" throws the whole balance off.

Good luck with your map. I think it's going to be difficult!

Well actually.. people won't be getting 500 zerglings maybe they will maybe they won't but 500 zerglings takes what; 10 minutes to spawn. and plus people won't be getting zergling because by that time they'll be so weak. You won't "level" up heroes. But for the sake of copyrighting my map i'm not going to tell anyone.

Oh, well I'm glad my randomly long post was of help =]

I disagree with one thing my idea of an evolves is the farthest thing from anti-strategic in fact that's basically what it will be a strategic evo, plus not long quest rpg but leveling hero and fighting rpg like on dota
Like you said their will be many MANY diverse ways to win and the host will be able to set up the victory conditions to his wishes (even better).
My idea of map falls under every one of your categories. it will be pro as in you can get much better than newbies at it.
There will be a few main things to take into consideration:
Unit management
Skills / attribute choices
Spells, and other special things you can do
Basically, you will need to learn to bring everything into harmony, your army, your skill preferences and spells, all that needs to work together as well as being a team game you will need to use teamwork.

Oh well good. I didn't mean to say that your evos would be the same no matter what.. I just said I thought it was a bad idea. I ALSO said it could turn out to be great

Good luck, if you need any testers, I'll help out

well f*ck.
I wasn't paying attention and accidentally voted Role Playing when I meant to select RPG