Campaign Creations

One can actually make a campaign work, and have maps linked together. I'm making one atm. Not survivors though for models issues.

Make a folder say, "Campaign1" and have maps in there. Then use the trigger set next map, just like in sc1.

example. Set next map "campaign1/map2"

the reverse slash is important.

Then distribute the folder via zip, and campaign enthusiasts will have them and play by drag and dropping the first map. I use a "root" map for scenario selection in this case.

I think the real problem is most mappers don't have the feel for making stories just yet (or ever). Most go for the publishing and popularity contest in battle.net and all they do is make revisions of said TDs etc. There's also the idea that somehow people think these maps have to be elaborate and so new just because galaxy editor can do so much.

Story always come first, imo. Eye candy later.

edit: Oops. Already in ricky's thread.

Hmmm... That depends. A campaign can have a fairly good story, but uninteresting missions and/or downright irritating gameplay. I never finished Fallen Angel because of that. Not sure I should have either, as my frustration had a lot more to do with SC1's pathfinding than the actual mission designs.

Hopefully, the upcoming SC2 remake won't have that problem.

Good point.

You can rest assured that LotC for SC2 will not have any of those trigger driven instant death mazes, or any instant death scenarios at all for that matter.

Even when you ram your hero balls-deep into a giant stack of Leviathans?

Well, to be fair the instant death traps are largely a limitation of the SC1 engine.

RazorclawX wrote:Well, to be fair the instant death traps are largely a limitation of the SC1 engine.

Yeah.

My SC1 maps had plenty of these, but this is something I'm willing to avoid entirely in SC2. This doesn't mean there won't be some bosses with AoE attacks that deal huge damage and trigger big fireworks, but at least they can deal appropriate damage now, instead of instant killing everyone who is found within their radius.

Meta wrote:

RazorclawX wrote:Well, to be fair the instant death traps are largely a limitation of the SC1 engine.

Yeah.

My SC1 maps had plenty of these, but this is something I'm willing to avoid entirely in SC2. This doesn't mean there won't be some bosses with AoE attacks that deal huge damage and trigger big fireworks, but at least they can deal appropriate damage now, instead of instant killing everyone who is found within their radius.

Well, I kinda liked the idea of instant death traps, they kinda developed players' micro skills and motivate them not to do bullshit.

Had some of those in my unfinished SC-1 campaigns and I'm seriously considering things like these on Duality, just for sadistic fun.

The Oracle wrote:You can rest assured that LotC for SC2 will not have any of those trigger driven instant death mazes, or any instant death scenarios at all for that matter.

Half the fun of those was that you couldn't beat them even with cheats unless you had a quick mouse hand.

Ugh... I'm surprised that few if any people found alternate methods to make triggered damaging explosions. Of course that might require Iscript knowledge, which was rare early in Starcraft's life. Possible example:

Create a dummy unit with an attack like the Firebat's, but that spawns one hit at its position rather than 3 in a line (other arrangements like a circle of hits are possible)
Make its weapon have a huge range, and full attack arc (like a tower), so it will attack as soon as it is created. The explosion will still appear at the unit's position.
Use triggers to place the unit wherever you want a damaging explosion, then kill it.

A unit with an Iscript that uses a weapon on death might work, or it might just crash. Not sure.


I've also seen instant-death traps in at least one WC3 campaign. It was in an area that was already frustrating to begin with (take out a few guards, wait ten minutes to regenerate, repeat.)

Xenon> Trash mobs should be avoided entirely in campaigns. There's no excuse to have them. Instant death "traps"... well this context is gratuitously ambiguous. I can think of instances where they are good to have for environmental purposes. Pits and lava to avoid getting pushed into, for example...

It's a lava maze like those polar/whatever escape maps, with very thin paths. And there are guards there too (which aren't affected). I think it uses air-pathing blockers so your hero won't try to path across them, but your hero can still cut corners and die instantly. If you haven't saved you have to start the whole map over.

Yeah that's just bad map design, but I haven't really run into good map design in an RTS for a long time so not too surprising or unusual.

I don't suggest you all go for a gleefully easy experience either. I'm not going to lie, I like to fail every now and then on maps. If possible, it'd be more interesting if maps understood my gameplay experience (how well I did) to justify how difficult the next phase will be.

EDIT: But puzzles and minigames shouldn't be ignored either. I know SC2 did well to mix this with melee, but I still enjoy the classic mazes, timed explosive-hallway-of-deaths, etc. just on a moderate level.