Staredit Network

Post how you became the map maker you became now. Post how you advanced through you career of map making. Explain how you felt when you opened an editor again after you have been discriminated at by b.netters because of your first not so good map. Tell us about the motivation you had. Tell us how you felt when you found the 'trigger' section in the editor. Tell us the maps you made, your ideas, thoughts to give to new map makers and the journey you have taken.

Me: (very briefly and general, will be updated soon)

I can't remember who recommended staredit.net to me, maybe I just found it in another map making/modding forum I used to go to. However, this place has made me improved the most. I still remember the times which I made newb maps, get laughed at when I host them on b.net etc. or the times I ask so many questions that just seemed to be so easy that now, I basically became ignorant of them. I used to look up to map makers like Ghost_Yoon and think I will never understand how his maps worked or how to make a map that was up to the standard that will not be mocked at. I once thought only certain gifted people has potential in map making and I was just a wanabe. I once thought being a nobody was my destiny. But I'm wrong finally I learnt some new things, comprehend the editor more thoroughly and opened a new path to my map making career.

Oh that's a nice idea for a thread!

K, let me start off from way back...

Both my parents are programmers and I personally started programing in C when I was 7 years old, it was fun... writing things that cause things to happen! so I kept learning programming.
Unfortunatly, it became too hard for me (as for I'm a very lazy person) so I went to a lower 'programming' level where I don't make programs from screatch but maps with an existing editor.
I started making maps in Heroes III, for those of you who know the game you'll know that it also has a nice editor with some options... but it got boring.
Than, I got WC2, and I liked it's editor too, but it also got boring after some time.
Than, Heroes 4 was released... and guess what...
Anyhow, later on I got SC, that one I used to make all kinds of terrain types and such,
I knew that in SC there can happen more complicated things than melee so I asked one of my classmates that was playing SC how to do those effects, he told me that there are 'triggers' and 'forces' and 'unit settings' where I can do 'advanced editing' for maps.
So for a year of so I learnt how the SC editor works till I knew every action and condition by heart.
Than I heard about SC.org (came late to me... grr... ... well, I kinda didn't even speak English well than...) and I got the better editors, AKA- Xtra SF n' SCMdraft.
Unfortunatly, after making five or six boring maps I decided that SC mapping is not that fun, so I started relearning real programming (C, C++, Visual Basic, Micro World, HTML), and at the same time I played SC in bnet and started learning to make mods.
After two or so months that I studied modding I decided it's boring as well (geez I'm lame...) so I came back to mapping.
I browsed the net and started making better maps, learnt some tricks from the old clan (U) site, and got to WB.
One day, there was a topic in WB that told about how SEN got hacked and all, I read the comments all around and decided that I'll register there(here) too when it's back.
SC got less and less interesting to me every day, I liked that game, but it was boring to me (weird ehh?) so I started joining to teams in order to get a reason to make maps (and mods) without getting bored in the middle.
Yet today, I don't enjoy SC at all anymore, and I'm working on the WC3 editor, not really exciting, but currently more fun than SC.

meh... sounds like total crap... :\

NEXT -

I had SC for several years, decided to play on B.Net, was bored of melee and thus went instantly to the UMS maps since I wanted to know what was possible with them, decided to modify a map, started messing around with SE, skimmed over the help files to learn tings such as the Preserve Trigger speed(2 seconds default), messed around, got Emerald Editor, messed around, never really did any advanced triggers, got X-Tra Editor, then I started thinking of some advanced ideas, heard about this program called 'Starforge', was amazed by the features that were going to be in it, forgot about it after a couple months, found SEN, a little while later, someone mentioned SF which reminded me of it, went to check it out, can't remember which version was out at the time.
I was thinking of triggers a little above average a little while before I met SEN, but I didn't really think of much or enough to place me in the above-average category, but after SF, I really started thinking about the possibilities of triggers.
Also, throughout that all, I modified maps, which contributed to what knowledge I have, if not much to my trigger usage, though it did teach me about the infinitely valuable Comments.

Here's my autobiography:

I got starcraft when i was 11 years old. Back then i only played Single Player and never really knew about battle.net. On singleplayer my favorite race was Terran since i thought they were uber cool and all that with their high techy stuff. Seeing how all the terran squads had cool names like Alpha Squadron, Delta Squadron, Omega Squadron, etc... I wanted to make my own Cool squadron name. I brainstormed many possibly "cool" words that woulds suit my "squadron." Since my vocabulary was very limited back then, the coolest word i could think of was Millennium since it was a long word, sounds sophisticated, and was also part of Han Solo's ship's name. So my account was Millennium Squadron and i had quite some fun.

Later when i turned 12, a friend of mine introduced me to battle.net. That literally changed my life forever (in both positive and negative ways). I had to make a screenname and i wanted it to be very similar to my single player name. Now as i thought about it, i knew that on battle.net i would also be playing with zerg and protoss races and so the "squadron" name wouldn't necessarily fit all 3 races perfectly. Army was a better word i thought and so my Screen name was MillenniumArmy.

My friend who introduced me to SC that day, rather than show me melee, took me through a couple Use Map Settings games. This was actually the first time i actually played real UMS games and i was astonished and awed at some games (Evolves, Defend the Temple, Zelda Madness). It was amazing, it was the funnest experience i've ever had. From then on, which was in the spring of 2000, i started playing UMS on battle.net and didn't even touch melee.

Man, all the UMS games were amazing. I was even amazed at how madness maps like Evolves were made so that units spawn underneath your Science Vessel. And all these people, with their names on their maps, must be famous as hell. I wanted to be famous; that's what i want the most out of anything in the world. So i wanted to make maps. However, i was perplexed at how "complicated" the triggers were. Just when my hopes were about to be shattered, i just realized that all the maps i played on battle.net were saved to my downloads folder. So i opened some of those maps (like evolves) and inspected those triggers. Day by day, i studied more triggers from more maps, and my trigger knowledge expanded. I tried putting some of these newly learned concpets into some of my maps. Damn, map making is harder than you think. It's hard to tweak each and every aspect of your map perfectly. Most of my games were just uberly newbish and no one liked them. I made at least 10-20 maps and which all were nothing but utter failures. I almost wanted to give up...

Until, unexpectantly, on December 26th 2000, one of my maps stood up from the crowd, suddenly took hold of many people's interested and soon spreaded instantly. The map was Blob Tag. It was where you control about 24 probes and you had to run away from the Blob (archon) for 15 minutes. To survive, you can build barriers and pylons to cave urself in and stall time. It sound's like today's archon tag, but it came out way before it. That was an original map back then. It's nothing people have seen before. That map spread like crazy and then before i knew it; i had people come up to me and say "Hey Millenium! You made that Blob Tag Game! I love it." "Millennium, im a big fan of your huge success!" "Millennium, may i have ur autograph?!?" My dream almost came true, but then, just like most famous maps back then, it fell into the hands of many riggers and stealers and fell victim. That map was stolen a couple times and rigged in many aspects, but back then most ppl knew i was the creator of that game.

However 4 months later, i faced the greatest adversary of all: Archon Tag. It was obvious that the map tried to be like my Blob Tag and wanted to overtake it's fame. In it's early stages though, many people figured it was a rip-off of Blob tag but that didn't last quite a while. Soon the map was way to pervasive to control. It spread throughout the public about 3x more than my blob tag map. And since starcraft is a dying community, many of the "blob tag fans" began to leave and play other games and so all the newer people dont remember blob tag at all but only archon tag. That map became a classic and sadly, no one knows who made the original concept...

At the same time though, another map was born. This time, on March 31 2001, it was Drawing Contest. That map spread even faster than Blob Tag and was instantly played by everyone. That game became a classic and is still being played alot even today. Fortunately i haven't heard of many cases in which that map was stolen. Seeing how great that map was, some people tried to make their own versions. Still, mine was already too far spread into the public and so that map made me even more famous than ever.

Ever since those two great maps of mine, i began churning maps out like crazy, hoping one of them would be my next famous map. I made another +20 maps and all seem to have failed. However as i made more maps, my trigger knowledge and skill slowly got greater and greater. In November of 2001, i got another huge hit. It was The Bait. Like my other two maps, it was widely spread and loved by the public. It was original too. I was pretty happy with it. It was from that map's experience did i learn how important it was to protect your maps. Blob Tag and Drawing contest have fell victim upon many map stealers, but it did not shatter my original ones' fame. The Bait, on the otherhand, unfortunately did not survive. Sinec that game was so easy to amke, all people had to do was take out my name and put theirs in and wallah! A stolen map ready to be spread. And it just so happens that the stolen version started to be spread when the Bait was at it's "quiet periods." That version spread extremely fast. I was outraged and tried to spread my The Bait map but it was too late. Every time i'd make it, people would say "Omfg you stole this map."
The stolen version is still being played today by many and it's called Protect BOB.

I was deeply distraught by the lost of that map since i considered it to be one of my finest and most original works of all time. That did not shatter my dreams though. After that map, i began protecting some of my games and churned out many other famous maps as well. In 2002, that was the year my map making skill increased the most. Even though all my maps back then were failures, they still had good triggering done and worked pretty well. Only map that did reach some level of fame was Woman Tag. That year i also began to use the SCXE editor which totally changed the way my maps would be forever.

2003 was where my fame shall jump to a higher and even greater level. in the summer of 2003, i joined clan GgG, a clan which plays Sport maps on battle.net (which at that time would be Baseball, Dodgeball, Football, Snipers). Then i thought of something: I should make a sport map so good and famous that clan GgG would make it an official recruit map. It was then which i decided to start making sport maps. My first and most complex map was Volleyball. It was a good map, but very few ppl knew how to play it since it was very complex and people could not understand it well. However, it spread into the public for a while and i was satisfied..... somewhat. The downside is, the wrong version was spread. My glitchy version was spread vastly into the public and people started playing the glitcht version. Most people seem to be oblivious of these bugs but some actually noticed them. Soon that game's fame died out and unfortunately, did not make it into GgG's map list.

2003 was also the mark of my rising prime. Even though on September, my MillenniumArmy account was deleted due to hacking, it did not shatter my will to make maps with my millenniumarmy name on it. Then, in October of 2003, i spawned one of my most famous and well made maps of all time: Basketball. I even put GgG's name on it and so since that game spread like wildfire, our channel was flooded with people asking to be recruited. For a while, GgG made basketball official and started recruiting members. However after a while, our leader saw that this map was attracting many newbs and ruining our clan, took action and banned the map. It did not sit well with many people and so they broke off to form other basketball clans. I somehow had a bad reputation among clan GgG back then...

December, i redeemed myself. Pushed my many GgG members, i made the first ever Dodgeball TOurnament Map. I thought it would only be for GgG's use but it turned out to be a public map as well. That game suddenly became so well popular and famous, it also made GgG very famous as well. Our channel was flooded with new potential recruits and soon we reached a golden age.

Also, i've also been seeing lots of great maps made by (U) members and began to respect them. And just the thought of it; a map making clan, gets my heart pumping blood. For weeks, i was desperately searching for the clan's channel and finally at the end of December found it. I checked the website and saw that it only recruits members by invites. Dumb i thought, but nevertheless, i still hung around there.

Then it was finally until one day, i said that i made maps and so then to my delight, (U)Bolt_Head asked me whether i wanted to join. I said yes and showed him 3 of my good maps (which were basketball, rocket launchers, and bumperballs). I got recruited, but i didn't want Clan GgG to know really so i made my name tag Army(U). Joining clan (U) was the greatest and best thing i've ever done in my entire starcraft career.

So my map making career still continues today. I finally equipped myself with starforge, scm draft, and proedit and started making maps like crazy. My trigger knowledge increased and still even today continues to expand. Almost 5 years of map making... amazing