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Alright, I know that this topic is highly taboo by the mapmaking comunity, and it is looked down upon by many.. but I would really like to recieve some help with this issue. While playing online one day, I ran across a map called "Preschool 4.0", and later, got one called "Preschool 4.1". This game has become amungst my favorite UMS game in starcraft, however, it has one glaring flaw... But, in order for you to understand this flaw, I must explain game mechanics. THere are two teams consisiting of 1-4 players apeice, one player north, the other, south. Each player accumulates minerals by the second, and an get more by mining either gas, or minerals. Each player must construct buildings, and they auto spawn units every once in a while. The units then automatically walk down a path that goes from left, to right, to left, etc. untill the other end is reached, the units fighting along the paths as they see each other, untill one team overpowers the other team, and manage to kill all the units traveling along the path, to attack their base. The problem, though, is that the paths are close together.. so units with long ranges (ghosts, tanks, goliaths) fire across the paths, and hold up units behind them, causing the paths to clog, ultimately resulting in (if both of the teams are skilled) a stalemate, because units are dieng slower than they spawn. I have come up with two solutions.

A.) Make the map bigger, have the spaces in between the paths wider, making it so the units cannot fire across them.

-or-

B.) Replace the ranged units with melee units, so there will be no shooting at all involved, and the units will just attack each other directly when they meet on the paths.

However, and here comes the part where you will all be desgusted with me, this map, is a protected map. I need someone knowledgeable in this to either give me a program to unprotect the map, or I send them the map to unprotect it for me. I have no desire to do this to any other maps, but.. I play Preschool a lot, and I am very sick of ending up in laggy, "cannot produce more units," stalemate games. I will not steal the map and slap my name on it. I will leave the original author's name in there, and only mention that I made an edit.

So, I would really like to know if anyone can help me with this, I would be very pleased if I could improve this map.. because really, it is fantastic.

Thank you.

Make your own prschool showdown map; I doubt anyone here would help you unprotect a map. (heh, unproedit lol)

Argh.. I've tried it, and failed miserably. There is far too much depth to that game that, my map would simply not be able to measure up. When I attempted this, the flaws were many, and I am relatively inexpereinced with mapmaking.. and since I can't go in to look at the triggers to find out how it really works, I am unable to figure out what I need to do.

Well, us at SEN wouldn't go against our own map protecting items by soliciting unprotectors.

*Link Removed* --LW

I've never played that game, but couldn't you just remake the terrain and basic triggers by yourself and for the ones you're not too sure about, you could use trigger viewer(or w/e its called)?

Trigger viewer? I've not heard of that. You can scope the triggers with it, even with a protected map? (And, does it allow you to simply copy triggers?)

By the way, unprotecting program did me no good... Once hex editors and such get involved, I'm afraid that I can do little to advance myself to success. So, I guess now I only have two options remaining.

A.) Use the "Trigger Viewer" program to see what I'm not getting.

B.) Request help from someone more expereinced to unprotect the Preschool map.

I personally opt for B, as it is less work for me overall. Is anyone reading this willing/capable of granting me that favor?

i can't really help you, i'm pretty new to map making and i'm a harsh procrastinator, but the trigger viewer program was in SEN news(it would be a few boxes down). Not sure who made it but it is meant to view protected map triggers(no reason to make a program to do something you can already do). This allows people to view the trigger techniques without being in a position to modify the map itself. I'm not sure about copying and pasting triggers(i haven't used it myself).

correction: trigger viewer article isn't in the news anymore and i can't seem to find it in dldb. trigger viewer might be wrong name for it.

Heh.. yeah... I was just looking for it, and could not find it where you said it was. I guess I will have to do a bit of investigating myself... but for now, I need sleep.

Unfortunately Trigger Viewer was removed from downloads because its download count was severely hacked. It was buggy anyway, I never had time to stamp out all the bugs, and it's probably going to be added in Uberation3. How old is this map?

I have an idea. Contact the author. I'm pretty sure I saw a 5.1 out too

Send it to the MRS... Are you guys still around?

unfortunately, there is no MRS for quite a time It died by the impossible lack of activeness...

That doesn't mean we can't restart the MRS, does it?

orangescoarched: the Map Restoration Society was something I proposed a while ago, but went on vacation, started the school year, and encountered a million other factors of hindrance. DEAD has taken over it for a while, but it died nevertheless.

This, however, could be an excellent opportunity fix an otherwise enjoyabe map.

I'm interested.

UED77

This looks like a project the society could pull off easily enough, I'd be in if we decided to work on it.

Well, I have already attempted to contact the author, and his email address no longer exists. I would've preffered to have his permission to do this, but if I am unable to contact him, I cannot see how that is possible.

Luckily though, someone has offered to unprotect it for me, but they wish to not have their name disclosed.

Hopefully I can begin working on it as soon as possible, and I thank everyone who supports it. I will upload the map to this website (if that is possible) so that anyone who wants to play it, can, because it is really fun.

By the way, I have also seen the Preschool 5.1 and 5.7 maps. They made them a bit different, and in my opinion, more unenjoyable. 4.1 is my favorite version of this map, which is why it is the one that I would like to work on.

Open Source mapping? I'm in

UED77

I have finally finished with the map, and tested it to make sure that there are no flaws.

Check here if you wish to try it out:

http://www.staredit.net/index.php?showtopic=24451