The World Editor is one of the most comprehensive programs out there
that encourages modding/mapmaking.
This tool released by Blizzard has fueled an active modding community
for games like Starcraft and Warcraft.
So to those aspiring mapmakers who want to make it to the
list next year,
here are some notes from Atchucan Gaming.
1) Putting the word "Defense" in your title seems to work their magic. Get a good title for your map. Something that has a good name recall.
2) A dedicated website is a must to get gamers who like your map to get together. This also serves as the mecca for those newbies who want to know more about your game. Plus, a community will be a great place to get feedbacks about your map from the people who play them.
3) Get a nice graphics guy. Nice map previews and loading screens gives a boost in terms of mass appeal. It also makes your map stand out from the flurry of other generic looking maps.
4) Encourage competitive play. Setting up leagues and tournaments ensures support from hard core followers.
5) Keep up map support by releasing map updates to fix bugs and leaks, update content, do more balancing and to basically improve the overall quality of the map.
6) Do map protection. Unless you're a Linux advocate and want to encourage open source, map protection minimizes unofficial clones of your map. Map protection greatly decreases the number of people who would give their favorite heroes imba buffs and mess up your map. Plus cheat versions of your map won't multiply that much.
7) Submit your map to mapmaking communities. Sites like
TheHiveWorkshop and
Garena give a lot of exposure or your map. Plus you get reviews from fellow mapmakers.
8) Get a Beta testing team togeteher. These guys would help out in spotting stuff you missed and contrary to popular belief, Beta tests actually increases the hype for your map.
9) Host your map.
Nothing better than going down and dirty to spearhead the spread of your map.
10) Have your map reviewed by gaming blogs like
Atchucan.
Nothing much more effective than going grassroots and encouraging word of mouth.
We've already done blog reviews on a couple of maps.
If you want your map to be reviewed, feel free to let us now by pressing the comment button.
"Hell, it's about time."
"There is no cow level."
"Too bad it's me, Blacksmith."
"l337 Swedish Facebook fans"
This was the toughest place to take, with 3 different tower defense maps fighting for it namely: Element TD, Mafa and Tropical Tower Wars. But in the end, the "dota" of tower defense, Element TD, has wrestled the number 5 slot away from the other two. To find out more about Element TD, go to http://elementportal.blogspot.com
Who cares if this is one of the most unbalanced custom maps ever released for Warcraft 3. FOC has combined both hero arena and imported anime models to turn it into a good formula for becoming one of the fastest rising maps for 2008. Originally Korean, there is still no good English translation as of the moment.
It started as a splinter map to the now defunct Ninja Duels project by ThredNThrash but it has now come out on it's own. Relying heavily on game balance and simple gameplay, Fufu United Ninja AllStars has grown immensely popular especially at the Garena game servers. With a few more improvements, it could possibly become the next big thing in competitive gaming after DotA.
