I think that hearing a tutorial from the storyline is more fun anyway, like how Blizzard tells you how to use the Attack command with marines, or how to repair units with the talking vulture, it doesn't make the game seem unprofessional, while still giving the players the information they need to enjoy it.

Ok, maybe not blizzard. Maybe, uh, some other game company that always does that.


Valve?

Well, except for the fact that a marine telling his commanding officer to click on the move command is probably a bit of strange when you think about it.

Good thing most players don't tend to think about such things anyway (though its for that reason I end up doing all this extra work ).

No one is forcing you to do all this extra work I think as long as you provide some basic information needed to play the game in the beginning, such as through the briefing or ingame tutorial that's skippable that should be fine. Provide a means to access the tutorial and let the players do the rest.

If you're intent on doing something creative don't whine about the extra work Enjoy doing it

Well, on some level letting the players do what they do is really what should be happening, since you can't really force people to do things. But on the other hand, you can make it such a better experience if you can get them to do more than they will ordinarily do on their own. It's kinda a wrestling match, really. Between the mapper and the player.

Oh god I just made another analogy.

Please, don't make it altogether too quickly understood...so long as players can successfully get good new maps to play by operating on the maxim of "do what works in other maps for a few minutes, and if that doesn't work, give up," the maps played will be limited to those maps which can possibly be learned in such a way, which conceptually rules out any map with the gameplay complexity of a professional game (which ought to be the level that mapping operates at). If players won't take a certain amount of time to learn a map, they don't deserve to have it.

Problem with that is, the map just dies then.

It's stupid. You kinda do end up having to be the player's bitch on some level. Which is why most of my maps have never really worked out, historically.

Maps don't die just because of complexity.

They die because they suck and no one wants to play them.

Enough of your excuses!

I know, I hate it, if a map is too complex, even maps like Bounds(That's the actual map name), the players give up all too soon, I guess what you really have to do for more complex maps, is make it so it is understandable, but then get the real gameplay started by playing it online with people, so that they learn how to really play the map, and then spread that to other people.

Aye. Enough indeed. That's the idea.

Doesn't really work like that. If the players don't have the capacity to do that for themselves, the map's lifespan won't be sustainable over bnet. When you're not around, no one else is really going to want to take the time to propagate the map as you would in that way. At least, not normally. Not unless they REALLY like the map.

Nevermind that most players have the attention span of a doorknob besides.

I haven't read the whole topic, but the best way to teach players how to play is to incorporate it into the story (if there's a story ). Rather than have to sit through a ton of emotionless text, have a character in the heat of the moment say "Use X ability or we all die!"

Of course, some people are simply beyond help.

The problem with that logic is that unless players are changed from what they are now, there's no way that the mapping community can survive, especially not in the years following the release of SCII. Individual mappers who are not well known don't have the sort of influence to do anything of the sort (I certainly don't, as much as I have tried), but if a majority of major map-makers work together, the worst players will probably leave SC and the rest, freed of the influence of their lowest common denominator, will change. Such a change is necessary to the continued survival of the Starcraft community because, with a dwindling number of players and the increasing popularity of alternative games, community members have a diminishing incentive to come onto Starcraft in general. In the absence of such a general incentive, it must be the specific game that they are playing that draws the players; maps need to compete outside of Starcraft rather than within it. In short, we want people to be looking for games that just happen to use the Starcraft architecture and Battle.net in order to run, rather than for forms of Starcraft.

Also, anyone who plays Starcraft, figured out Starcraft; it's not unreasonable to expect players to learn a map that takes even a little longer than Starcraft to learn, so long as it is not very much more difficult than Starcraft. Any time you allow yourself to be the "player's bitch", you teach those kids that they can get away with being whiny, unreasonable little pieces of crap and get away with it.

Yeah that was mentioned. But it is a good idea. That example helps expand my thinking a bit.

Well, they get to be unreasonable, whiny bitches in the end because they're the ones who are going to be playing your map (or not). You can't really play it for them, except if you want to play alone.

To get them to expand to playing something as you want them is to find a way into their minds and hearts. It's similar problem to advertising products and product placement, really. Or like a wrestling match between player and mapper.


Anyway enough philosophy for tonight. I'm gonna formulate my plan on this now.


jeez whats my analogy count up to now?

Here's a parting analogy for you, then. Look at the automotive industry in the United States. Most cars sold here have automatic transmissions. Why? It's easier to learn and to use. Many people end up never buying a car with a manual transmission, because they've learned to drive on a car equipped with an automatic transmission, and won't go the extra distance to learn how to drive a manual. Now look at Europe. In Europe, manual transmissions are dominant. Why? Because Europeans, in order to drive their more common manual cars, have to learn to use a stick; in some European countries, taking one's driving test on a car equipped with an automatic means that one can only get a license that is limited to the use of automatic vehicles.

Manual transmissions are cheaper to produce, more fun to drive, and maintain superior fuel economy, but it is unlikely that Americans will switch to using them, because in order to sell to the American market, automakers must produce cars with automatic transmissions. The norm in this case is self-maintaining due to the structure of the market.

Now, here's where map-making is disanalagous to selling cars. Even leaving aside anti-trust legislation, automakers could not cooperate to shift the US market to a manual-dominated one, because even if all the major companies announced the imminent phase-out (perhaps on environmental grounds) of the automatic transmission, it would only take one automaker defecting, and offering an automatic transmission, to give people an "out" from learning to drive a stick shift. The same cannot be said of changing the Starcraft community over to more complex maps with cooperation, for the following reason: Even if a number of easy maps remain, if such maps are only produced by a non-cooperating minority of map-makers, players will get bored, in a way that people who drive a car for purely practical reasons will not. At that stage, players will be faced with a choice between learning a whole new game and learning harder maps; there would no longer be a clear "easy" option. Once players begin to shift to more complex maps, the rest will have to switch as well, in order to have people to play with (though doubtless, some of the trash will be gotten rid of during this process). On the other hand, if map-makers do not produce more complex maps, and the point of widespread boredom with simpler maps is reached (and this is bound to happen due to the shrinking size of the community), there will be nothing on Starcraft to compete with the games that people will switch to, and the Starcraft community will die.

The community will also die if the change is left too late. Why? Because after a certain point, too many people will have left the realm of Starcraft-based games to form stable new map-centered communities. A map that builds its own community need not share in the decline of Starcraft in general, since players will effectively be getting a new game (thus resetting their "boredom timers") when they join such a community by learning the map. Communities, however, require a certain critical mass to stabilize, in order that there are enough players to have games. Such communities, then, must begin to form when there is a large enough pool to draw from. If a sufficient number of people can be drawn into these communities, then the easy passage of people between communities enabled by a common engine and internet system should allow new communities to attain that critical mass even if they are founded long after the demise of general Starcraft.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 14 2007, 5:18 am by Wing-of-no-Wing.

If you're looking to ease players minds in knowing how a complex map works. Its best if you don't chuck it all into their face all at once. You'll send a much clearer and easier message if you have players actually using specific functions while still indulging into the game.

An example is, lets say someone doesn't know how the drop ship system works, for spells. Just chuck in one spell for the time being, have in the first levels of some random map order the player to unload that unit from the drop ship and watch the outcome. THen as the player gets experienced with that system you know what to do after that

Basically, start off small, have the players learn of functions while still playing along with the game. All at a steady pace. Hope this helps.

When I am interested in an UMS map from bnet, I usually download it and then try to launch it alone, hoping that it won't give me a defeat message after the first second. I want to get familiar with the map before actually playing with people who know the map, spoiling everyone's fun because of being a nub on that map. If I get that defeat message, I'd open up the map and check it out, but you can't expect the average player to do that.

So... If I am not the only one who tries to learn a map alone before playing it with others, this might work out:
If the map is launched by only a single person, present him with a special tutorial mode. It might have to work a little differently than the actual map, but you could easily guide the player through the basics. In a multiplayer game a nub would be flamed and trying to keep up with everything, thus not being able to pay attention to the tutorial.

Create a "help center" where you can move a unit to some others and get a SHORT description of the unit's useage and effects.

I made that for a map (which is still in progress) to show which unit will do what.
It will be easier to understand if you place the units like the buttons south of the building.
(E.g.: Factory: Build a Goliath for a Reaver -> Reaver in east-south of the Factory)

---------------------------------------------
And start the map with a important hint for the beginning in the map.
("Build or die!" Quotation of 'Random Bunker Def')

TBH, I don't think there's a way to have "public" players take time and read instructions.