The point is that there is a ton of ground to be explored and many areas untapped. I cite things like DDS (relatively recent) to Lethal and Kenoli's (even if conceived long ago) different takes on pixel coordinate detection, to things like your Space Dogs map, as evidence.

It almost seems to me as if the only thing he'll call original is even someone invents a new gametype humanity has never seem before.

I have yet to see a completed game that fully utilizes DDS. It offers a lot of possibilities and isn't that difficult to trigger conceptually when compared to stuff like FRAGs.

Nonetheless, the majority of games people make are akin to adding toppings to a cookie. But the toppings make the cookie something completely different. Take a slice of bread as the original. Now plop some cheese and tomato sauce on it and we got pizza. Sure, they are toppings, but it's still something completely different.

If you really want to make a new game genre rather than remake existing ones in innovative ways, you can. It's just a hell of a lot harder. Think for yourself if you want to do something like this. If someone on these boards has this new revolutionary game genre, they aren't going to just post on here for someone to steal. Asking for these new game genres is futile.

Originality is in the eye of the beholder. Hell, most amazing movies and books are just variations of well known cliches. The variations (oftentimes just a simple concept) are what makes them unique. It's the same for games.

I actually have an idea for a new cookie-cutter shape. I dunno how well it'd work out though. I probably don't have the time to make it either.

How very helpful, good for you.

Well, why not bend old cookie cutters, and after a few iterations, we have a new cookie cutter completely unrecognizable as the original one? In simpler words, map evolution.
Btw at PvP RPGs, there already is one that's released. It's called Colossus RPG (I'm not sure if it has one or two l's).
I have this idea for a third person shooter. I never made it because I do not have the triggering skill nor motivation to complete such a map. The idea was that your character is always located at the bottom center of your screen, like a normal third-person shooter. Text cross hairs along with a location that followed in the same position relative to your character was used to target. The really interesting part though, was turning around to aim. I decided to split the map into sections of pi/12 or 24 different directions your character could be facing. There would be 24 different arenas with your character and everybody else's guy in the position relative to yours, kind of the way elementa does it with 2 arenas, except that this is with a lot more. So actually, there would be 24 per person. Anyway, if that wasn't understandable, don't worry about it. I don't think anybody here has the motivation to make something like this.

I actually want to create a multiplayer top down shooter using a location grid over the entire map.

I also want to make a four player pvp map, in which the four players infect various enemy types with viruses, causing chain reactions -which are meant to harm the other players.

I also want to finish my Battle Clash map (which seems pretty original to me), and include 2 in game AI players, so that there will always be at least 4 players in game playing together, with at least two humans. This would also be nice (since the game is new) if you are having trouble gathering an even amount of players (since the game is basically not playable with odd teams), and would allow an AI player to automatically join in the game if the teams are unbalanced by 1 player.

I also want to finish my two player RPG, in which both players control a single character.

I've finished a map called Absorb n Reflect, where you pretty much play two games at once. On the left you play with a character you level up, and cast spells with; on the right you fight in an arena with a small army, and sort of play zone control.

I'm sure I could come up with more, and more, and more ideas like these -however, these ideas are all worthless without someone to make them. I just wanted to point out, that we aren't going to see any new or exciting maps come out if nobody makes them

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 8 2009, 6:09 am by CecilSunkure.

1) The use of the cookie cutter idea isn't original, since someone invented the cookie cutter. (unless you invent a new way to cut cookies, you are unoriginal) (at the same time, cookies are unoriginal period) (so is the use of flour in foods...) (then again, the idea of food is unoriginal) where does it end? it ends at the point where StarCraft maps are "unoriginal." technically the only original person was the 1st person to make a map, which are the programmers who made the SC campaign. Everything is relative to your own opinions on originality, and exactly what frame of perspective you are looking at.

2) No one has yet suggested the mutation/splicing/combining of 2 cookies. Combine a snickerdoodle and a chocolate chip cookie and you get something new. (combine some maps, and see what you get. ie: custom hero + mass attack game = footmen frenzy [which has been done {and failed since it-over- was lazy}]) (or my idea, Custom Battlefield, a combination of AoS maps, and the custom spells/heroes of CHW [which is looking very original, and is in progress])

3) If you want to really make a good, new map, use EUD's. Its very likely that blizzard will not patch SC anymore. Making a map (any map, AoS, mass, RPG, micro, random, etc.) with EUD's can really change the game. For example, in WC3, many maps have different text commands. Typing ",Help" will start a tutorial; or typing ",1" gives a description of spell #1 (in DBZ maps, typing "SST" activates super sayen trunks). Or add some click detection, or key stroke detection (the number pad WASD idea is good and original, with some minor kinks).

4) EUD's + text can make a map massive. Get. Over. It. If the map is good enough, people will dl it online, or just wait a long time to dl it. ("long" time is relative to the player's sense of time). (ie: norm map used to take a long time to DL, since he didn't compress the alpha, but people still waited a long while to dl it, and for others to dl it so they could play.)

lol. CHW is already an AoS

Are you sure? Link or explanation plz.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 8 2009, 7:52 am by ClansAreForGays.

You guys are taking the cookie cutter analogy too far...

New ideas DO still come out. Take Blood Marathon. Most epic map EVAR. And I don't know of any maps quite like it. But, new game types don't come every day.

However, one game type that hasn't really been done before with SC is racing maps. I'm talking WASD movement, pseudo-physics, stuff to smash into etc. One way to make it work better would be to double the map speed, then use burrowed units underneath to control acceleration. Perhaps even a save game system and car upgrades, so you can upgrade car speed, acceleration, and crash resistance.

You can't think about these things when you map, dude. It'll just paralyze you or give you a cop out any time you get stuck. As long as you aren't mindfully making a map that is based off of someone else's map, you should be satisfied with yourself. It doesn't matter if someone else says they've seen this before and that you're not original. Really, that shouldn't bother you in the slightest.

When I think of map ideas, it usually starts with an obscure mechanic. One of my maps based entirely around the fact that a player can unshare vision with himself. Out of this, I made a game where you go around dropping spider mines (with shared vision) to light up the world and explore the darkness. Tux does some similar things. His RUSH map uses the defiler darkswarm ability as targetting system. He also built a map using rally points to target shots. Seriously, the best way to come up with unique things in SC is to take a mechanic that no one has expanded before and make something of it.

I would challenge you to take a mechanic and see if you could spawn a game out of it. If you can't, it's not that there aren't any original ideas -- it's just that you aren't that creative. Hate the player not the game.

If you're up for a challenge, here's a mechanic that I built an entire game around: Infested Terrans can be ordered to explode anywhere -- even places where there are no targets. What use could you find for this unique ability?

I have made a lot of original stuff, but never finished it. I made a few mini games.

Ocean of Fire was original.
Pylon Dyne is original.
The Null was original.
[xM] ProduceCraft was original in a lot of ways.
Elemental Duels would have been an amazing milestone in arena maps had I finished it. Lethal said it was great enough to compete with Crescent Dyne.
[xM] Ball was a whole new genre of ball games.
There was a map me and Koltz were making before I got kicked out of Canada that would have been amazing.

@Possessed

Of course it would be a whole lot harder. But the difficulty would seem small (to me) in comparison with the want to finish this amazing map and let other people see it and enjoy it.

@sticky:

All right. I'm beginning to get the point here. Originality doesn't always mean something entirely new.

That wasn't my question, though.

@Cecil

Of course not. That's probably one of the main problems; people don't go to the trouble to make these awesome ideas that they have.

@pigs

I'm not saying we have to reinvent the wheel here. What I am saying is that we have to try and think outside the box. My question is, is that possible any more? Have we expanded the box by thinking outside of it too much? Is there no longer any outside to this box?

Instead of reinventing the wheel, one man put wheels on furniture. You can drive in comfort. His sofa is road-certified.

That's what I want. I want to be able to say, "I came up with this," even if it isn't entirely original. I don't want other people to be able to say, "You copied x portion of your map from this other map, and you copied x portion of your map from x portion of this other map..." I don't mind if they can say, "This reminds me of..."

@zany

That's a bit too far out for my tastes. Ever hear of the K.I.S.S. rule?


@PirateKing

So you think of flour, or yeast, or something like that, and before long you have bread? My mind doesn't work that way very often.

@Shocko

I've noticed that no one has really answered my question. Yes or no: are there still ideas to be thought of and COMPLETELY NEW maps to be made?

YES

"nothing is impossible! it's just not possible yet"

If that's all you were looking for...then the answer is pretty obvious. There is absolutely no need for an entire topic to answer a YES or NO question about potential of all things, hence why people were replying as if this were a discussion.

Although...the amount of "look at all the awesome creative ideas I thought of but I will never make ever, I'm so original!" trend in this thread is disturbing. Narcissism ftw. It's a trap.

Ugh, what a horrible analogy. But yes, if bread had not existed and I noticed that yeast made dough rise, I would experiment with adding ingredients to make it taste good, and, before long, I would have bread. It sucks (for you) that your mind doesn't work that way, but that's says nothing about whether or not there are still original concepts to be made.

Besides this, things are rarely ever fully conceived as wholes. Inventions are built around a single piece or are expansions of an existing idea. The light bulb, for example, started with the discovery of the filament. The glass encasing it and everything else were build around this central concept.

Meh, I hate to say that this is a product of you being fifteen, but, since you volunteered that information, I'm just gonna go with that. The OP is like a case study in what we in the field call adolescent egocentrism. You are not the measure of the community. The fact that you can't think of anything original doesn't mean that no one else can. There are tons of original ideas being worked on at the moment, and just because you don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist.

My car idea isn't THAT hard to do...if I ever have time, i'll make a demo for it.

I wanted people to answer the question WHILE they discussed. Thanks, anyway.


All right, then.

I suspected that, but wanted confirmation. Is that too much to ask for?


Do it! We need some originality around here...

Yes, that was a joke.

It is very hard to make something original.

Within the context of Starcraft maps specifically, I feel I had a very original map in Spaceship Combat (link)
However, in the context of life, the universe, and everything, it was based off of rulesets for various tabletop paper & dice games which can be googled and looked at.


EDIT: A tribute to FoxWolf1's lament on the first page:
As my most original map, it has the fewest people on b.net who know how to play it of all maps I've made.
It also has the lowest ratio of [players who learn to play it / players who are refuse to read unit names and leave]