Staredit Network

If you've been keeping up on other sites, Blizzard is hosting an event called BlizzCon, an invitational melee tournament where pro players will go for the gold with the grand prize being a large sum of money.

Yes, its my first time mentioning it. I don't bother with news that map makers won't find interesting, because almost all the starcraft sites are doing news posts about this. However, they've added something of interest for us map makers.

They've added a melee map contest. Here are the main rules and guidelines:


You are free to get submitting information through this form. Good luck everyone!

That would be awsome to have your map played in a major tournament

haha i might enter but look at the prize WoW action figures

rofl nice prizes there 3 wow action figures "YES" couldnt even give us SC Ones ... pfft o yea cant forget the T-Shirt and nothing i like best then reading sc books so sure ill sign up for Mp) !

Someone at TL.net confirmed that it's okay to submit maps if it hasn't been used for an official tournament, other map making contest, is well known, etc,. But it's okay if it was used in, say, SEN's Summer Melee tourney because it isn't official, if it's in the DL section of the Melee Maps at SEN, or if you post it in a forum thread for feedback.

http://teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=29804

I'm sure that any map they consider a viable choice will have done at the very least a google search of, and if that map comes up with an exact link to be downloaded I highly doubt that it will be one of the ones selected.

The last line is the best.

how old do you have to be to enter? because :

If you are under the legal age of majority in your state or country of residence (a "Minor"), one of your parents or legal guardians must submit a signed, written statement that they have read, understood and agree to these Contest rules with your entry, and that such agreement constitutes acceptance of these Contest rules on behalf of you and themselves.

and then :

As stated above, the contest is not open to Minors under the age of thirteen (13). In the event that you are under the age of thirteen (13) years and submit Entry Materials to Blizzard, Blizzard will delete, erase or destroy any and all personally identifiable information that is obtained from the Entry Materials.


im assuming you have to be above the age of 13

SEN and StarCraft are both Teen (13+), so you should already be qualified... unless you've been breaking the law all along...

I'm 14 and are you going to enter?

Nope, I'm undeserving of these terrific prizes, they are way too "gosu" for me.

Bogus! No extended terrain or sprites. With all the amazing new stuff that's been done with either, that's just plain ignorance. It's easy with any review staff to weed out exploits with terrain or sprites, so I don't see the reason for this.

And why do they insist on ignoring UMS still?

Thanks for the heads up. Updated.


UMS has never been considered a tournament type genre.

Even so, it's not like there's not any UMS maps that couldn't be played competatively or anything. Just none that are popular enough to warrant it maybe, on account of lack of publicity or not being "official". But meh, I guess that'll be asking too much, if they won't even allow stuff like extended terrain and whatnot.

Can't have their precious melee gameplay tainted, now can they?

And I was considering making a map for it.

It seems a reasonable decision not to allow extended terrain. It could confuse melee players who may have trouble strategizing at ramps or on bits where it's hard to diferantiate whether the terrain is high or low. An extended terrain map would take a lot more time to get used to playing, at least to learn the intricacies and specific parts of the map that may effect the game, such as corridors and what units fit through what and the like.

the starcraft figures are awesome... if only...

Maybe we should all just make two basic maps each that are pretty plain and include extended ramps or other types of such terrain. At least we could get the point across that such terrain CAN be done well.

I just wish we could use sprites, then I could use my weird minable doodads to spice the map up.

The most I've ever seen Blizzard interact with the UMS community was with Starcraft.org (them being the offical maps db) and an honorable mention here and there. If you give me a suggestion for what they can do to help us, then I'll email it over to them.

Actually, no extended terrain was reasonable. For the exact reason ZPD mentioned. A lot of pro map makers aren't used to it. Hey, look on the bright side, Blizzard just aknowledged a really big concept we do over here (with the terrain forum and all )

Plus sprites mess up unit movement, remember, these maps are going to be played on, plus I think regular staredit's terrain is just fine.

Sprites are SPRITES. They don't interfere with unit movement or pathing in any way, because they physically aren't there.

Ok, let's clear a few thing up.

First of all, there were SC action figures as prize, but they ran apparently out of stock. Thats the reason for the award being WC figures instead

Secondly, Who cares about the prize anyway?. If Your map is played in that contest you will be granted fame over night in the sc community and you will probably have a great deal easier of publishing new maps after that, simp,y because people perhaps actually will bother.

Finally, the restrictions to using custom terrain is so obvious that im a bit surprised you didn't point it out yet... (no intension in being a wise ass, but anyway). We are not perfect, sorry we just aren't. And they WILL modify the map before the tournament to suit the better gameplay. Probably Rose.of.Dream personally will open you scm/scx and alter the entire thing and removing your name etc. Therefore its a matter of comfort not to have to rebuild the entire map, simply because some part are made by tiles, i.e moving a bridge a few hexes, thus having to remove it and rebuild the entire terrain around it to remove those tiles etc, the replacing it. Its too much work, and i fully understand why they won't bother with such inconvinience.

It's their game, it's their event, and it's their contest, and they're letting us participate in it! I don't feel like we have any privilige at all questioning the rules they've set up. I'm just glad they're letting me compete.

BTW: Can anyone can tell me why after filling all the things at http://www.blizzcon.com/maps/register.aspx and pressing "submit" it writes me 404 error . Does someone has same problem?

R u sure that u used a correct cd key? not a hacked one or one you can find on the internet? hmm? Think about it you will.