Staredit Network

Well, how did you ever get into making maps for StarCraft?


UMS or Melee...


Well, for me, it all started back when I had an obsession with cheating. (Yes I know... kind of sad). Anyways, I was too lazy to do "Show me the money" fifty times. So, I opened up a fastest possible map to add triggers. (Yes... again... very sad...) So, I then started making stupid rigged melee maps where I would ALWAYS win.

That eventually got boring, so I started on an RPG (Way over my head) and I never even got started on it. So, I was hanging around the Custom Maps channel @ US West and was trying to find a website for map making. That was when good 'ole TSoldierWolf referred me to SEN.

I came to SEN with the 100% n00b attitude. tpyin leik dis and bieng a totl n00blet.

Then DTBK started talking trash (in a sarcstic way) when I wasked for concepts for an imaginary RPG.

2-3 months later, I figured out how to actually utilize triggers. Then I reall started working on actual maps in let's say March maybe April. And now, I am here today.


Let's hear your story and how you got into mapping!

Long story shortened =)

I once played "simpsons madness" when I was about eleven. I lost my internet one day and decided to play by myself. I figured out I couldn't play by myself so I went into Starcraft Campaign Editor to try to fix it so its single player. As the dumb noob I was back then, I simply gave all players except one to computer and put them in different forces. I played for a while and realized the computers weren't moving. Ever since then, I've tried to figure out problems on Staredit and slowly moved my way up to the old "ISOM" program for making square terrain so I could make a bound. I joined Bm) with that bound and merged with Mp)(the old one one west). I learned one day that GUEdit was a much better tool for making square terrain and protecting maps so I did. After a while of messing with bounds, I decided to start my first RPG, Corruption RPG(common name..). Compared to todays standards, it was VERY CRAPPY. If anyone wants to see it, I'm sure aE[Ultimo] still has a copy LOL. I then made a few other rpgs and quit sc after a while and lost my cd key. One day, in the middle of December, 2004, I found another CD key. I began playing again and making maps again. Being the uninformed person I was, I chose to use GUEdit instead of the more power SF which I had completely forgotten about since my leaving. I worked HARD on a square piece of a terrain and found out it was TOTAL CRAP. So...once again, I've had to learn SC map making all over again almost from scratch. Now, 6 months later, I AM COMPLETELY OWNING EVERYONE ON SEN MWAHHAHAHHAHA..

j/k of course.

But theres my story =)

Shit... I never even bothered with isom. I was WAY too lazy. And by the time I actually stated making maps StarForge 2.2 was already out. So in reality I have only been making maps for like 5-8 months. And playing SC for about 1 1/2 years. Not very long lol...

LONG STORY!!![but shortened]

Uhh.. when I got it, and beated the missions like 5 times... I got bored. So I decided to play around with the map editor. I thought it was easy to use. Untill of course I got cable and was able to play online! I was interested in map making. I saw some cool stuff you can do with it that the orginal one couldn't. So I asked some people they told me, just search it up!!! So I did! and I found Starcraft.org, Starcraftcampaigns.org, stormcoast fortress. I actually don't remember how I found this site.... During my 4th/5th year I made my first rpg! it was I THINK!!! The Invasion of the Orcs. It wasn't fancy or anything really. It was simple, basic, and hard which was fun. At the end was fun setting those charges and blowing up those orcs and buildings and clearing way for the army force. Uh... well then that was done.....I did some movie maps. Anti-drug, zanzibar, Starcraft 9/11. Well that was it. I can spend 1 week or more on ANY map for testing, balenceing, and triggering. Bored.. so I wrote a story, that I wrote in 5th grade,for another rpg map witch also turned into a movie. I did some small maps along the way... Well, had to reformate hard drive as last resort, I had recent backups but turned corrupted some how, not sure...now here I am!!! AFTER 8/7 YEARS OF PLAYING!!!

Well thats the shortened version.. Had to get rid of LOTS OF STUFF!

ALSO:

I'm pretty sure this isn't a game. So can it be moved to the Anything Goes section thingy.

Installed the game, And opend the starcraft campiagn editer. Did not bother to play the game.

We played an old rpg with my friend and he asked "can you fix this,that and add this?"
I did, then made my own, then... bored.

Played an Armored Core map but one certain player slot was broken so we couldn't play a fair 4v4 game. So I said "someone should fix that or make a version that works" and someone responded "why don't you?". So the first map I began working on was an Armored Core map based in space tileset. It was pretty cool, but too small and very buggy. I stoped working on it when I started wanting to do other maps.

I hate when people rig maps. I remember I was playing a fast paced game on B.Net (BattleCraft). And as the game starts I realized I had like 100 stacked cannons and infinite money. Needless to say I was annoyed. So, I went and fixed that map. So, there is hope that at least one non-rigged BattleCraft floating around B.net right now.

That's how it kinda started for me, but I really don't remember (my memory is so poor due to many.... Things....)

But from what I can remember, I wanted to make a "kick ass" melee, so I opened it up, and went from there.

I started to make map's when starcraft first came out. I wanted to be a map maker, And let my map's be popular all over starcraft.

But the map's I made back then were for BETA stacraft, And I lose them over the years.

I simply tried it once, after installing and playing starcraft a few times. At first i was a complete noob and started putting units all over the map yes sad..
Then i discovered battlenet and found what you can really do. Then i again tried to make something and failed.. Then i dled starforge, scmdraft2, and X-Tra Editor

I have a whole autobiography about this: http://www.geocities.com/millenniumarmy/starcraftbio.html

Well..One day i thought to my self, HEY I LIKE ALL OF THESE COOLMAPS, I WANNA MAKE 1, And so i went to my bad (Well it wasnt THAT Bad at the time) kinda laggy computer which today has been emptied so it's use able again but i have another comp..ANYWAY, I opened up the campagin editor and started messing around with crap,(A few months..Years ..WHATEVVER Later) I found me self Getting X TRA EDITOR, And i made my actually Ok map, Lost in the desert. THE END.
Or is it..Then a -LONG BIG STORY IS CENSORED BY COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS TEXT- And then my first RPG WAS MADE!

I started a few years back after I found the Campaign Editor. My first map was teh suck, then I dissected some of the maps of the time (the first vers. of Zombie Hotel was one of them) and this gave me some knowledge.

My maps got technically better but slowly less frequent. I don't really make them anymore.

I remember the days where I would churn out 2 maps per week. I don't know where my creativity went.

Um... That depends... Before i knew that you were supposed to switch the map to USE MAP SETTINGS in order to play it or after?

I started off making a few rigged melee-comp-stomp maps for my own fun at about age 8 or 9 (Reminds me of how I was gonna yamato a CC, but I didn't select the 13th BC and tried selecting it by clicking on it. WHILE I WAS SELECTING A TARGET FOR THE YAMATO. Nowadays, you sure don't see me do that.). Later, I delved into normal melee, and upon discovering how to use an actual trigger, I started UMS. I went off, made some piece of [insert word to describe suckiness here] maps that never really got released at all. I eventually stumbled on SEN for a few things. Never really gave it a good look. By now, I knew some triggers but barely what I can really do with them. By now as well, I also have SCXE and an older version of SCMDraft. Never really did use SCMDraft though. I started making more now-discontinued maps. Around here (well, it's been a long time now, I forgot), I've been on Battle.net for a bit, comp-stomping like a nuthead, never actually got into playing multiplayer maps. Then I found Starforge, and started putting square terrain in my maps this time, as well as stumbling onto SEN. Registered here, I skipped posting a welcome post (what what I thinking!?). I kept going with the maps. On B.net, I met a few people around who made maps and roleplayed. It encouraged me to keep making more maps, and keep roleplaying. Then I got back to SCMDraft when I got a newer version just a few days ago. I'm still going at those maps, which A.) Nobody really knows about. B.) Will most likely be released all at once.

So now, I'm a pretty good (according to my standards, I know the tricks like marines shooting air and all that but never use them that much) RP addicted map-maker who's a real lazy (at map-making....mooostly) klutz typing this out and trying to finish his maps, like his CS Movie map which was started about 5 minutes ago.

And so, here I am, typing the final and useless words of how I got into map making...
How many of you bothered to read all of my unorganized text? XD

Edit: The color reminds me, I'm a bit of a color whore in maps. Everything is colored to another color unless is set to blue on purpose. I despise entire words in light blue if they're in maps.

There was another topic on this but oh well.

Started when, my friend and I like the original Volcano run. I didin't really start mapping until last summer. Anyways we beat it so many times that it was super easy so then I decided to edit it. Give us some fighing to do and make them spawn more units. I remember I wanted to have a spawning pool and it would constatly spawn archons until it dies. However I didin't know how to do that so I just dropped it. During that time I like bounds so I decided to make my own. I didin't know how to make the square tiles so I opened up an old bound (Boa bound to be exact) and use the ISOM from X-tra to make the square since there was null tiles and it would not make isometric terrain. Then later I opend up Zebra bound to look at the triggers for the zergling and archon thing. And then yeah that is how it started.

It started for me... Basicaly I've loved to make things all my life... Since I was 5 I would make small bord games on pieces of paper attached with stapels... I would colour it in and everything... Then I played Starcrat for the 64 and it was amazing... I asked for it for christmas... But I didn't get it because my dad said that the stoped making it... But than day he came home with Starcraft for the comp. I was really impressed because there was a map editor! I started making really crappy melee maps you know... dirt and water connected by a line arcoss the middle of the map.

Later I was playing wiht my friend online and he asked me if I wanted to play ums... I never played UMS before so i said sure... As soon as I joined that Bunker Wars game i was like O M G you can do this with SC!...

Thats basicaly how it started and then i just started playing around with the triggers

I wanted to make Simpsons bound so i larned how to make maps from some site. and then i made simpsons bound...

Well I think the very first time I made an actual map was when I first got on battle.net, didn't even know what UMS was, and then started fiddling with the StarEdit editor to create a really crappy Melee Map.

Then once I got into UMS game playing I joined clan ID for dodgeball, and started editing the dodgeball map and learning about triggers and junk. Thats pretty much how I got into mapmaking.

Oh yea, then when I needed help I got a lot of "go to SEN site" blah blah. The first few times I heard it I couldn't reach the site because it was still down a lot Then eventually the site was back up and I joined.

I've always liked creating games. StarCraft Campain Editor is pretty powerful without having to buy anything (I bought StarCraft for the game, not the editor), and it's quick enough that I don't have to spend a month making a game. I found SEN when Entropy made a news post on WGTour.com and thought I should help out the amateur melee maping community.

I actually started about four years ago. I had 40$ in my pocket, and was browing around wal-mart, and noticed the SC battlechest. I had seen it many times before, and decided I'd give it a shot. I bought it, and soon become quite engrossed in the game...that was, until I beat it. I had no clue it even had a campaign editor (yes, I know there is a large icon on the main screen, lol, it just never caught my eye), so I gave the game to my cousin. Now, my cousin is not the brightest kid in the world, but he DID find the campaign editor, and told me about it. And for several months, we went back and forth, creating maps and challenging the other to beat it. At the peak of my mapping, I considered myself to be exceptionally good (I was using basic StarEdit), and him equal.

But one night, around 3am in the morning, (this was a very common thing for us...we would take turns, one mapping while the other sleeps, going back and forth until it was time for him to leave...yes, we got very into this game) he had finished creating the map, and testing it, and woke me up.

(Sorry about the incredibly choppy sentence...I'm kinda stoned off pain pills right now (strained my wrist in a bike wreck(pants pants pants))

For some reason, although we had been doing it for months, I became incredibly ticked off at him for waking me up. I kicked over the computer; the computer kept running, the drive kept spinning, but the disc become off-balanced, and spun until it exploded.

(Anyone who owned some of the earlier 52x CD drives knows what I'm talking about...because the drive would spin the disc so fast, the slightest imperfection would cause the disc to start wobbling, and would eventually (somehow) shatter. Very messy.)

We got into a small fight, but were both too sleepy to really hurt each other. But we got over it, and were left without a game. And neither of us could afford to buy another game, so we just quit with the mapping.

For four years.

I recently came across the battlechest again, priced at 10$ (clearance)
Although I tried to start again with my previous skills, I found I had lost all information, and was struggling just to figure out how to assign computer AI's. As for my cousin, he had moved hundreds of miles away, and we are no longer in contact. And without our constant competition to fuel my quest of becoming a better map-maker, progress has been very slow. What I learned in two weeks before has taken me 6 months; I've actually lost most interest in it.

::sigh::

Damn. I think it is kind of funny when a CD blows up in the older ROM's. Roffles... Same thing happened to my cousin. He was really drunk and fell over and knocked he computer off of the desk and all we could hear was: "Whizzzzzz***CRACK**Sprinkle Sprinkle" And yes, it was just like that.

Well I was playing Red2Blue's bound maps (and of course all the other great mapmaker's!) and one day said to myself:

"Wow, thats so freakin' cool... I wanna make a map!"

So, I was bounding with some friends and all of a sudden... Red2Blue joins the game. I was shocked to see one of the people who inspired me by their maps to mapmake even though I didn't know where to begin. I talked to Red2Blue about it, he was quiet about it all and I understand, I know like... Millions of people bug him about maps, so I left him alone.

--- Now it's when I get into mapmaking [Fo' Realz]

I was in Clan uUu's channel (somehow I got in there) and guess who? Yep... Evil_Moogle was there. We talked for a while, him telling me about mapmaking, me telling him how I wanted to get into mapmaking... After a while we became like... Best 'internet' friends. He also told me where to get SCXE (not really... Just told me to google it).

Of course, me being a n00b has no idea what the hell this crap is... I'm on my computer for like, hours trying to figure it out. Then, it hits me:

"Chill.!"

Chill. is in the same clan as I am, he is also an Advanced Mapmaker. I thought he could help me out... He's lazy though, but he gave me some suggestions and told me about this great site called:

- SEN - (Yes I saw some old skin before this Uber green one).

I sign up as Wraith. and ask questions. I got answers from advanced people and my thoughts saying:

"Holy crap! Look at all these people who can help me out..."

--- First Map

My first map (which was incomplete [BAD MOVE!]) was:

' Death City '

It was going to be a sort of... Run away map, you get weapons, run through the city and collect upgrades while running away/fighting all these monsters.

Sure, the gameplay sucked such as the story board. But did it stop me? Yes... I got lazy and stopped the map 2% done. That was probally the worst move I ever map while mapmaking because now, I barley finish my maps.

Instead of describing all my maps, I'll just list them.

1. Death City
2. Marines Gone Mad
3. ? Bound
4. ZoNe BouND
5. ZoneD Bound
6. Marines Gone Mad 2
7. Marines Gone Mad 3
8. Unknown RPG
9. ? (Campaign)
10. ? RPG
11. The Myth

All those maps, I didn't finish yet I'm thinking of finishing them. Especially Death City because I'm more better as a mapmaker now and it now seems pretty cool.

I've always had support from:

Chill., Moogle, Gamer), eXiLe5, aE[Ultimo], aE[Fortune], Christian4drag, Lost-Soul, S[o]A-Zfire, S[o]A-Sky

If I had trouble with my map, I would ask one of them for help, or ask them to test my map/suggestions.

--- Thats it

Holy shit Rexy, you knew TS before he was here?
Goddamn, that must have been when I was still over at West making my shitty aliens maps... (which TS was amazed by...)