Wonder [Working Title]
A single player adventure as told by qPirateKing

Plot Synopsis
Every 100 years, the seas are said to rise and swallow whole the Isle of Solomon. However, the last time that the floods were supposed to come, disaster was averted for the first time. Believing that the cycle had been broken, the people of the island grew complacent and fast forgot their fear of the flood. Now, with the advent of the 99th year since the taming of the tide, storm-clouds have begun to gather once more over horizon. Many have fled the island while others have done what they could to fortify their cities and towns in the face of the imminent inundation. Your character -- a kid with no place to go, nothing to do, and no fear whatsoever -- decides to find out how the floods were stopped the last time, and, if possible, to do it himself.

Gameplay:
This map will involve two main things. One is exploration, the other is puzzle solving. The world will be full of caves and dungeons to explore, and the goal is to make the player have to think their way through these areas.

Combat:
The combat in this map is going to be a little complicated. Attacking and blocking will be controlled manually with the push of a button, so combat will be heavily dependent on skill. While this may be a challenge at first, the idea is that a highly skilled player will be able to clear an entire dungeon without taking a single hit. A practice area will be available in the game for you to practice the timing of your attacks against foes you have encountered.

Inventory:
It's a system involving slots almost identical to Deep Blue. I'll expand on this later when I have more time. Here's a pic of the new slightly more intuitive inventory screen to hold you over. Hopefully, you can sort of tell how it works if you are familiar with Deep Blue.



Spells:
There will be a total of 3 learnable spells, but I will not elaborate on them at this time.

Note:
I promised that I would post this today, but it's getting pretty late. I'll take time to pretty it up some time this weekend. Also, this opening post is just for the facts. The next post and others like it will constitute the true meat of this topic..

29 January, 2009
Th Pilot Episode

Hi! It's me, qPirateking. It's been a while since I've made a production thread, hasn't it? I know that I declared my departure back in May of '08, and honestly, I did quit mapping entirely until December. Sometimes things just change, you know? For example, it turns out graduating from college leaves you with a lot of spare time! I've had a lot of things going on like my job and the usual post-college rigmarole, but realistically, I've been a lot more at ease since I graduated. Still, you need more than idle hands to make a map, so I guess what really got me back on the wagon was a chance encounter with Payne, Kaias, and Lethal_Illusion back in December. I heard they were having a secret RPG competition, and it got thinking about how I would make a map. A few practice sessions in SCMDraft (2) and I was ready to get mapping again. So, that's the story.

Now as far as the map goes, it's still in the conceptual development stage. I have the engine planned out, a story in mind, some themes, and a bit of terrain. Frankly, I hadn't planned on opening a production thread until I had a lot more progress, but I chose to do so now because I want people to understand something. Making maps is boring, tedious, and requires a lot more thinking than actual doing. Pretty much every map maker starts to realise this when they develop to a certain point, and that's probably why we don't get more great maps than we do. That said, the challenge is genuinely something that I enjoy, and so that's why I'm still around.

To conclude, this production thread isn't your typical production thread. The posts will have more to do with what I'm thinking abbout than with what I'm actually doing. I plan to talk about my theories of mapping and give some insight into what I believe goes into making a good map. I also want you to see all of my ideas -- the good and the bad -- and the process by which I pare them down before arriving at the end.

- q

As usual, another expected masterpiece by qPK. I don't know how much more you've done on it since I played that one time, but even then it was very professional with top-notch quality as expected from a map maker such as yourself. Good luck with this.

I think the only map maker that is, to me, as god-like as Lethal_Illusion is qPirateKing (though Kaias and WoodenFire are part of them too, I'm pretty sure, but it's just that I do not know them well and haven't seen that much stuff from them).
Of course, in terms of map making itself (triggers), Lethal_Illusion will probably always be over everyone, but what's so exceptional about qPK is his ability of making things so aesthetic then we just don't think about the rest. Deep Blue, even though unfinished (oh please, finish it! ), is still one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Anyways... xD
I'm glad of being part of the ones that brang you back to life (Coming Back To Life - Pink Floyd, please go listen that song, SO BEAUTIFUL!).

About the map itself, I can already say, just like Fwop_, that it is even better than actual popular finished maps played on Battle.net

PARTY HARD!

The long awaited post, finally here. I await a masterpiece to come out of this map, and a certain style that can't be replicated by anybody else. The map sounds great- though you weren't lying about the lacking screenshots heh.

I can't wait to be beaten.

Quote

It's a system involving slots almost identical to Deep Blue. I'll expand on this later when I have more time. Here's a pic of the new slightly more intuitive inventory screen to hold you over. Hopefully, you can sort of tell how it works if you are familiar with Deep Blue.

Sorry for being ignorant, but I actually don't understand how it works. You bring your items to the flag, and what's binding?

Quote from stickynote

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It's a system involving slots almost identical to Deep Blue. I'll expand on this later when I have more time. Here's a pic of the new slightly more intuitive inventory screen to hold you over. Hopefully, you can sort of tell how it works if you are familiar with Deep Blue.

Sorry for being ignorant, but I actually don't understand how it works. You bring your items to the flag, and what's binding?

See the Zealot, Goon, DT and HT? I think it's reasonable to assume he means binding items to gateway units.

Holy crap! That is the same idea I was using! I was letting the player pick what spell each unit in the starport meant, except that I was using a more simple system to select it. (Beacon thing)

I wish thee ease of implementing thy ideas. (Referring to he tedium you mentioned before, I know exactly what you mean.) I just played Deep Blue, and I believe I've played Legacy of Haen before, I think that was one of yours as well? I must say, very professional looking, and deep blue was interesting (didn't get very far in LoH, I think it had to be played multiplayer or something). If I can muster anything to help you, it would only be to say that the amount of fighting could use a bit of a boost, unless it distracts from your theme or something. Best of luck with your current project.

Also, where do you get your music? I liked the style of the music in deep blue very much.

I had no clue who qpk was until last year. I have been shunned for saying this before, but your maps are very inspirational to me. It may sound foolish of me to say such a thing, but I hope that is one of the many complements you will get, that will help you continue your sc career. I am looking forward to play the finished version of this map, even if it means sticking around when sc2 has been released.

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even if it means sticking around when sc2 has been released.

I'm definetly getting sc2 when it comes out, but I also plan on sticking around sc1 partly because sc1 is way awesome and partly because mapping is fun in sc1.

The only think I could say is that I can't wait to paly this map! I am eager to find out waht kind of fighting you implemented into your map... could'nt you make a demo with only 1 enemy so we can experience the fighting?

Hi, I don't know who u were, but welcome back anyway ..

I just played Deep Blue, and I remember playing it before... The first time I played it I didn't like it too much because it was really slow, and I couldn't find anything out of the city... So i quit..

This time, I found the armory and store, and the 2nd city.. but When I went back into the office of Ink, he didn't do anything, so I didn't know how to progress...
Nevertheless, it was a good, very professional game .. As people said, the gameplay could've been faster.... and I had bullets but my gun wouldn't shoot.. w/e.. .. It is a lot of exploring.. so it'd be good if u have items lying around or w/e...
The best thing in the map is the inventory system..

anyway, it'd be great to play this map when it's finished .. hopefully, you'd speed up the gameplay.. but the atmosphere is good enough for me to play this.

He never finished Deep Blue, that's why Ink didn't give you assignments.

Alright, I've been lurking SEN for some time now. Was a member back in v4 and never had a real reason to post again with v5.
Until now.

I can honestly say Legacy of Haean was an amazing RPG, and Deep Blue was equally (If not, better, for what it was) astounding. Two of the most professional maps I have played to-date. I look forward to seeing this map, qPK, as I'm sure it can and will blow everything else out of the water. I know around here I am a 'nobody' but I have been mapping since '03, and your maps are nothing short of inspirational. Good luck!

qPirateKing: At what point in the map making process do you begin to work on terrain? Do you ever let the terrain dictate gameplay/story, or is it always the other way around?

30 January, 2009
Combat test

Dungeon Master asked for it, so I'm going to upload a map with one enemy. I took one of the first versions of the map I currently have and polished it up a little for this introduction. Check the attached files at the end of this post if you're interested. Also, don't play the map on bnet -- only single player and LAN games have latency low enough for the timing to work properly.

Thanks for the support, everyone. I'll do my best.

In other news, I haven't worked on either my terrain map or my trigger map lately, but I have been thinking a lot about how I want to do the terrain. I got out an old strategy guide I had for Zelda OoT (I got it because I loved all the art!) and took a look at the world map for some inspiration. I think I will have an open area similar to Hyrule Field in the middle of the map. It will branch off into the different areas and sub-areas. The trouble is that I'm having difficulty laying it out in the best way. When I made Legacy of Haean, I did not really think about the best way to utilise the space, and most cities suffered from terrible layouts. This time, I want to make sure to make sure that I get the most out of the space and that the cities don't take a minute to walk through. Frankly, I'd rather that the towns be extremely simple and compact to minimize wasted space than that they be gaudy and expansive. You'd think that it'd be easier that way, but I'm really having a hard time trying to plan out every detail. In other maps, I simply did whatever came naturally with no regard to whether it was practical. Hopefully, it'll be different this time.

I'll let you know if I make any progress.

@Razorsnail - I usually get a bit of a start on the engine before starting the terrain. At some point, terrain influences the gameplay, so I always work on them concurrently. Right now, I have a terrain map and a trigger map. Using SCMDraft, I'll copy and paste the terrain into the trigger version as I progress. Honestly, sometimes I do look toward terrain for inspiration. I'll make a piece and ask myself how I'd work it into my story. One of the important things I feel for doing terrain is to know the limits of what can be done in Starcraft and what can't. It's a little easy to bite off more than you can chew if you come up with a bunch of scenes in your head and try to make them in SCMDraft, so sometimes starting with terrain and working your way forward is a good idea.
- q

That was really cool but the only way to not get hit is to have your drone up and unburrow/burrow. You can't really move your zealot while doing it. Maybe you could make it a dropship system instead of the burrow/unburrow so you can do spells/abilities while blocking at the same time?

Quote from Craftstar2

That was really cool but the only way to not get hit is to have your drone up and unburrow/burrow. You can't really move your zealot while doing it. Maybe you could make it a dropship system instead of the burrow/unburrow so you can do spells/abilities while blocking at the same time?

I would not prefer this, by function or stylistically.

Pressing 'u' is more laborious than simply moving. Why not simply making it so it toggles when you move the drone?