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This is another map off my list of "wanting to do but haven't the time/patience/gumption to get started". It's going to be a movie. Similar in many respects to Kill Me!'s style, with scene select and some degree of interaction, but I'm gonna take what I learned from then and try to do better this time.

For instance:

• Scene selection is now done with a vote system (with a time limit that begins as soon as the first person makes their choice).
• Larger map size for movie scenes (less terrain recycling).
• 3 computer players instead of just 2 (more trigger flexability, and as far as I'm concerned the percentage of full house games no longer justifies sacrificing flexability to add one or two more player slots).
• Scenes will be replayable (will require some extra heavy duty trigger work).
• Ban system (as loath as I am to have it, there are people who just won't shut up, or else just too damn laggy.)
• Control panel options: Forced view toggle (constant 'center view' over the action), overlapping text toggle, autoplay vs. scene select, and vote-based scene select vs. topmost player-only select.
• Ending scene now a selectable option (only after 70% of the other scenes have already been viewed.)
• "Outtakes" available once all prior scenes have been seen (optional).

So that's the current list of functionality features that will be involved, which is entirely open to change should need or other considerations become present. I figure though that I'm better at doing functionality than content, generally speaking, so I'm going to do something I've never done before with a Starcraft map: Collaborate!

I need your help! I'm not talking about just giving suggestions or sideline brainstorming, I mean actual collaboration. Of course, to participate with the actual mapping portion, you will have to have a some degree of map making skills and experience, and you will have to learn a bit about how I do my trigger systems, as I'm not actually going to do any of the scene making of this myself! You are.

I won't be setting any strict participation requirements (yet), but if you are to participate I will be setting quality minimums for each part under your charge. This will be handled in a sort of "pass the baton" kind of way, unless I can decide on something better. That is because there's just no effective way that I know of for people to branch off and tackle parts on their own seperately and bring them all together in the same map, I'm afraid, short of a new utility for that purpose or some messy process of copying triggers, strings, locations, units, terrain, sounds, etc. between maps. That will be the only real challenge involved with this, though.

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Ok so, to the point: what's it about? This will be a collection of skits about all the little quirks, flaws, bugs, inconsistencies, exaggerations, conundrums (sp), and general programming laziness involved with Starcraft. I'm aiming for a PG-13 at worst kinda movie, as seriously: you don't have to stoop to vile pornographic/sadistic crap to make good entertainment. Besides, staying within those boundaries makes it a test of skill and creativity, but I don't really think that should be too much of an issue anyway.

So how are we going to begin? Brainstorming. I need ideas. The rule with brainstorming is not to be critical of any ideas, no matter how far fetched they may seem, whether they've been mentioned before, etc. Frankly, I haven't really thought of ANY ideas yet to make spoofs out of, so you can rest assured this is a blank slate we're working with here. I might think of some along the way, though, but instead of deciding myself on which get to make the final cut (which'd probably end up being my own, given my ego ), I'll probably end up doing something like a poll or a process of elimination thing, or both, when the time comes. For now though, anything goes! Let's get the ideas rolling!

P.S. So as to make Yoshi's renewal of his hosting worthwhile, and because frankly, all the best map makers hang out here anyway , I'm making this thread exclusive to these forums. This will be a community-centered project, which I'll do my best to lead and manage, but the main content will be coming from you!

Also Note: This will be my FINAL new starcraft project, though I will be concurrently finishing Trigger Happy Offense, after which I will officially retire from Starcraft map making and move on to (hopefully) Better Things ™. Time to go out with a bang!

Nooo! Not the 2nd last map from Tux. I'll miss your maps.... Anyhow, sounds very... Cool...

Alright, while brainstorming content, let me bring up the first issue I have involving the functionality. Just for future note, I'm going to divide the brainstorming/planning portion into two halves: content and functionality, or in other words, actual movie stuff (scenes, characters, etc.), and trigger base (how to handle scene selection, strings and dialog, what will each player's triggers be doing, etc.) My posts will be mainly about the functionality stuff, obviously.

Anyway, as I already listed above, I have a lot of the functionality features already planned, but I'd like to discuss a few of them I'm not particularily sure about. It's always best to have flexibility and all, and ideally I would like to have it all, but for the sake of sanity, time, patience, and scope, and also because I'm particularly loath to wasting huge gobs of time on complex things nobody gives a rat's bum about (as I seem to do by habit), I'd like to determine EXACTLY how the interface should work on paper first, and keep it relatively concervative for the end model (only the stuff that people will actually NEED, and room for the luxeries after). Not to say it won't change while its being put into triggers, but at least this way there'll be some certainty about things before reaching that point.

Rest assured, I'll be handling the main brunt of this catagory, so for the rest of you: gimme some sugar! Er, content, I mean. Scene ideas, characters, spoofs... brainstorming in general.



So, where was I? Oh yeah, functionality. Alright, from to the list above, I'm specifically undecided about a few things. Namely, the "Control Panel" features. I have a feeling that, though convenient, it isn't really going to make it a better movie for anyone, despite its convenience. A certain line has to be drawn here, as first and foremost comes the movie content, but if the other end of functionality isn't held up properly, it will infringe on the movie experience, which is a definite no no.

Issues from Kill Me!, like constant "center view" actions and overlapping dialog (which blocked text messages and caused complaints) stand out in my mind, though people were able to overlook them mostly then (with the exception of those who played it in single player, thanks to the way it moves the mouse to the middle of the screen and interrupts control). So to decide on this, I really have to get a good idea of whether it matters enough to anyone to be able to toggle these options. Obviously, doing so will entail a world of pain in handling triggers for scenes, requiring potentially two sets of the same triggers for view handeling, etc., but if it eleviates people's potential complains enough, it may be worthwhile. What do you think?

Content, huh? You should add some content that is relevant to the UMS community, too. Like, having a guy slaving at his computer making a StarCraft map or something, and it turns out to be a crappy map so he goes on a killing spree. Oh, here's a good one. Let's goof around with the hacking community - go through the types of hacks and then explain that they are all cheating, and that hackers should be ashamed. End it with a guy saying he'll never get caught, and then have a "Saving Replay" text box or something, and then he explodes and a Goliath with the name of the big robot from RoboCop comes up and says "CD-Key muted" or something like that.

Okay, it's two in the morning. I can't tell if these ideas are good or bad or what, so you'll have to forgive my poor judgement .

You're not being judged, Noz. Especially since there isn't anything yet to judge you against. Not to say I will, but we'll get to all the decision making later when we get a wide enough base of ideas to work with.

But those are good ideas, Noz. I don't really know much about specific hacks, but I know plenty about slaving away to no avail, heh. Now that you mention it, I might even do a scene of that myself (my only scene), but I have no ideas of what to begin with. Maybe I'll use a reference to one of my real maps, like Cannonballs or Fire Fighters or Trigger Happy D or something that never quite took off but I spent gobs of work on nonetheless.

Keep em coming!

Speaking of doing a scean of yourself. Have a out take or something. A behind the sceans look at you making the map that there playing. And of course over exagerate it, You could go leave for a coffie break or something and forget your no longer in the world of Starcraft.



It would be funny seeing a little SC verison of Tux Yelling out Starcraft Triggers at the BurgerKing Employees. Then the screen goes black and he is in prison asking for Staredit instead of a phonecall.

Ha! Classic.

Waiter: Hi, may I take your order?
Tux:


Waiter: Sir that'll be just one moment
Tux:


Tux:

Waiter: Sorry for the wait, it'll be just a few more minutes, ok?
Tux: ...

Tux:


Tux:


Tux:


...heh, ok I got a little carried away typing all that, so I'll get it together in the movie as the first scene, I suppose. That way I'll have some time to work out how the functionality is going to work in relation to implementing movie scenes, so there's no confusion for anyone else on how to do it later.

Meanwhile, more ideaz!

That would be ace! Nice idea there Bolt, and maybe have complaints about "supah powahed BattleCuiserss!!" Every map should have something about those, ask all the Campaign Makers!

I need some ideas for a skit about backstabbers and bnet. Not a cut and paste from B.net Experience, though, just some tales of woe about BSers, lag, hacks, etc. In game stuff.

I can't think of anything at the mom, but i will later on the day hopefully

Sounds nice allso.

Thanks Taz, though whether it will BE nice is up to all of yous mugs. Honestly, I can't do alone.


Ok, I've decided for everyone's sanity (and mainly because no one seems to really have anything to add for it), to handel the functionality base portion entirely by myself. So ignore 90% of what I said up above about functionality stuffs.

Anyway, I plan to have the first scene done in two weeks, and that'll include all the base functionality, after which I may or may not post it as a sort of trailer. That is the deadline for the main part of brainstorming, after which all new ideas will either be considerations for things in specific scenes or if alternatives are needed. I think the only real limit on scenes that I can think of will be as much as can fit in the string max, but with a little bit of economy that shouldn't be a big deal.

So just to get ahead, I'll ask now: who wants to do some scenes?

1.) I think a scene about someone going into a supposed "allies" base with mind control, and you just see them all converting the scv's.

2.) A quick cut-scene of one player destroying another, and suddenly all their units start attacking themselves, inside the opponents base.

3.) Pretend lag is happening, and they save, and see someone saying they lag, and so they all turn on him to remove him, and once gone, it gets MUCH worse.

4.) Someone pretends to use a "hack" suddenly goes around destroying mineral patches and gases.

Nice! Keep em coming!

1: a marine, gets lost and ends up arriving 50 miles away from the human race and ends up in a protoss area, who he thniks are allies

2: A hacker thinks his wining, but somethnig goes wrong and he gets owned!

These are to silly ones i could think off.

Good! Good!

Need some ideas too for things like SC glitches, annoying patch upgrades, B.net messages, game imbalances, "unrealistic" stuff (like why marine bodies explode when hit with even tiny attacks, why reavers move so slow but can rotate instantly, etc.), or any spoofs in general.

I'll shuddup now.

1. A player is playing online 1v1 Melee with a computer, as he is about to kill last building after playing for 2 hours, he gets this pop up:
Incoming Melee mass attack! You have lost.

Now that would piss me right off.

2. Player upgrades Terran Amor, as it says upgrade complete this pop up:
You have cought hacking by upgrading your Units amor, You have been bannd for 4 days.

Argh! Tux, if you do force the 'constant center view' on location... PLEASE make it so it doesn't do it when you are trying to select scenes.. It was really annoying trying to grab and move.

And yes, my plans for moving fell through, so I decided to come back!

Woop woop!


EDIT: Ok, I re-read the entire post. Ideas eh? Well, I got some "bug" ideas.
-Have the old 1.09 bugs where the Drone tries to fly over some water, have a message pop up saying "Now playing BW 1.11b! No cheating!" and then have the player start messaging saying how he can't expand and how Bnet is stupid... or somethin.

-Have 2 dark templar try to merge and fly across the water, but to stop, turn around, say something like "You can't force me to cheat!" they turn hostile and destroy the player's base, hehe.

-About the reaver "turning fast", how about having "Alpha Starcraft Reaver", where you force it to turn around, VERY slow, while it's being attacked from behind. Have it get killed, a protoss templar(or even Tassadar) say something like how the Reavers need an upgrade, boom! Then you have one Reaver sitting there, all slow, a progress bar comes up, then it says "Upgrade finished!" and it starts spinning around like mad, spitting out scarabs all over the place.

Those are my ideas for now.

The vision thing is single-player only. If you played in an empty LAN or bnet game, for instance, that wouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the ideas, Valahan. My time is limited now with Starcraft, and I can't keep making hugeass maps all by myself repeatedly forever. That's the main reason I need help if this is going to be finished. So far so good, though, but this'll need more than a few casual brainstorm ideas to get off the ground.

Trust me, this'll be huge on bnet if we can pull it off. I guarantee it! But I simply can't do these big projects by myself anymore, nor do I intend to. Brainstorming is only a start, but I want to see some real volunteering. Once I get the base trigger functionality layed down, the hard part is mostly over, and then from there it's just plug and chug, or whatever it's called.

For now though, let's continue brainstorming. But I do want to know before I begin serious mapping work: is anyone at all interested in seriously participating?

I'd help, but the problem is, i suck at triggers, and i hate making melee maps.
im ok at making terrain, and i guess im pretty good at balancing the stats.

Wish i could

Well Tux, I would love to help with triggers, but as you've seen in my previous posts... I am horrible at complex trigger work(complex to me, not to others!). I really enjoy making terrain, and I have made several very nice melee maps, though that was before my Format.

I volunteer to do triggers only if I don't have to do that Complex stuff. I can do waits, pauses, transmissions, basically all the simple stuff that doesn't require total utter chaos and brain melting. I would also love to beta test/debug it.

Anyways, another Idea is... remember in... 1.07? 1.06... a transition from one patch to the other, where they slowed down how fast larva spawned... have something like that, where you get the message "Patch 1.0# downloaded!" and then a zerg player starts playing... and discovered his larva never come! And gets rushed by Terran, hahaha. Have a move trigger or something... if that's possible which I am sure it is. =D

I suppose a change from matrix once in a while is in order

1. Have a tank as an armed hippie bus. Explain that the hippies are high and want world peace and will do whatever it takes to get it even kill(although killing for peace is like screwing for virginity).

2. Start off showing someone playing N64:Starcraft. Then kinda make it where it looks like you go and zoom to the t.v. and watch. Watch him as he is winning cause he is using gameshark. Then something on the screen pops up and says," You have been caught hacking Starcraft The cops are on the way," then like three seconds later you hear a knock, and the guy makes a run for it out the back door. Etc.Etc.

Wow, thanks guys. This may work out yet! I had some discussion with a few guys about possible ideas, and heres some we came up with:

• Top 10 things wrong with Starcraft (or something to that effect)
• Starcraft Pub: A place where units go to talk about their various gripes
• Trigger testing range: watch a poor unit get tortured by various triggers (remember that one bugs bunny cartoon where bugs is messing with daffy in that drawing?)
• THE BUILDING STOLED MY DRONE!!!111 (newb antics)
• Unit deathmatches: One on One with various SC units... with comedic outcomes
• Crappy UMS maps (impossible bounds, rigged madness maps, newbaliscious defenses, crash maps, etc.)

Those are just brainstormed scene ideas, but no specific jokes or humor have been made for them yet. We need to brainstorm more ideas before we start filling in the blanks. Keep em coming!

This would work best in a non-movie map, and I'm going to include it in one of mine sometime, but...
"Nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-nu-clear launch detcted!"
is always fun! =D
I can't think of much right now... \:
Have a guest-star appearance of Mr.HApples, whatever his name was. The guy in Kill-Me!.
Seeing as your nick's "Tux", have Tux the Penguin(Suse or Linux or something, I dunno) come by and start yacking at you, not realizing it's just a nickname...
I'm dry.

Ok for the poor guy that get's tortured. Have him wandering around, then he sees a group of critters. So, since he is bored he goes over and starts to pet them. Three seconds later a message comes up saying,"Mutant Critters Have Completed Transformation." The unit would be like,"WTF, Mutant critter?." Then have them morph into like a ultralisk or something. So the guy starts running, and trips over a rock or something. Then the morphed critters get to him and make him his slave. Then show a lil scene of what the ultralisk are making him do(like being there butler or something).