Map Makers Guid: How to Making Good Maps

Welcome to a tutorial / faq on how to create good maps! lets start:

Point 1: Map Protection

many people neglect to protect their maps. (EX: wintermal.) many maps where great, sutch as AoS 6 form morph. then peopel edited it untill it was junk and full of bugs and cheats.

Protecting maps is most likely the most important step to making good ones.

Point 2: Originality

there are many styles of maps, sutch as Tower defence, AoS, RPG, open RPG, but the ting that makes a map good and better then the rest is Originality.

Maps like DotA where popular because they where Original. skibis Castle td, yes, its not original in the sense that its a TD, but with minigames and the terrain setup with 2 sides, that makes it good, and better from the rest.

Original maps are better and more popular then copy'd / edited maps.

Point 3: Gameplay over Look

Gameplay is in fat, MORE important then the look of it. if it plays well, great! even if it dosent look extreamly good.

maps like sheep tag are never full of doodads, but they play well in the sense of terrain.

Less doodads means less lag, less lag means a better game for all.

Point 4: Nautural look

When terraining, dont make thigns all symetrical, make them look nautural. place things in random scale and rotation, and when doing man made areas, add some grass and trees, dont keep them all cement/brick.

A natural look is better then an unatural one.

Point 5: Insect full Triggers

by incect i mean BUG. its nice if you haveall kinds of cool features, but its WORSE to have them, and nto have them working properly! leave out soem things if u cant get them working, save them for a new ver.

Point 6: Customs

its all nice and dandy if u make a cool, nice looking, good playing map, but its better if it has custom models/skins. the better the skin, the better the game will feel.

just a few customs cane liven up a dull map.

Point 7: too many trees!

dont use massive amounts of trees, even in forests, dont just lien them with trees and say your done. place eatch tree in a dinamic spot, while keepong paths specified and clear.




Any questions? ask them here! if there good, il ladd them to the list with the explanation

actually... in defense of wintermaul, the first version was protected but somehow an unprotected version was accidentally released or something along those lines.

Another big one (and something Zoator grinds into all the Clan MaP members) is polish.

This would be things like different colors for the text so everything isn't all white and everything being spelled correctly. Many people I know say that if a map has lots of spelling errors, then it is a major detriment to the map. It gives the impression that the map maker doesn't care enough about their map to check it for spelling errors.

really? i never heard that b4. but still, if the duke isent gulty, then all these pricks copying it are.

(note: dont close/delete.... dont... i knwo its an old thread.)

I have to disagree with you here. Wardraft, for example is a good map that isn't protected (i had to chop up the first version to remove the annoying intro).

Qutie simply, the game is SO good (and of course very few people understand the couple of hundred variables jopejope has going) that no ones mutilated it so far. And this is with much controversy over the balancing of some of the drafted units.

Oh but i do agree with you on all other points though.