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Hello everyone! Due to the many well documented problems and imbalances with the current Blizzard map pool iCCup has decided to create our own monthly map pool. Any and all tournaments are more than welcome to use this map pool, and we feel it will offer a better overall balance for tournaments than the current Blizzard map pool. NO ONE should ever have to lose a tournament because of maps with positional imbalances that affect actual game play (Steppes of War, Scrap Station) , or even general architecture that severely favors one race (Kulas Ravine). The map pool will consist of 10 maps per month. In October the pool will consist of 2 Blizzard made maps, and 8 custom ones created by the iCCup Mapmaking Team. PLEASE SUPPORT iCCup MAPS HERE! IT MIGHT HELP!2-4 maps will be rotated out of the map pool per month, to promote growth and to prevent stagnation of the current map pool, a hallmark of what helped Brood War grow to the gigantic E-Sport is was in it's hay day. However if a major bug or serious imbalance to a race the map may be either suspended from the map pool temporary until the problem is fixed, or be rotated out completely if the problem is considered un-fixable. If this happens the empty slot will normally not be filled until the following month to allow players proper time to be prepared for the new map. From this point forward iCCup and iCCup TV events will follow this map pool, however we will not choose to use the Blizzard made maps. Please stay tuned to this thread as map rotation dates, replacing map, map suspensions, map removals, and all matter will be updated daily in this thread. We always encourage feedback on the maps and will seek to make the strongest and most solid map pool to date. To find iCCup maps: Create a custom game within the SCII client, find the search box above where it says "author" and search "iCCup". That's it ! To find iCCup maps on EU: Create a custom game within the SCII client, find the search box above where it says "author" and search "iCCup". It will probably not work the first time, you have to search a couple times until it shows up. Without further wait I present you with our iCCup Monthly Map Pool - October in alphabetical order (iCCup tag excluded for the order). iCCup EnigmaMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing iCCup Fighting SpiritMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: 11/1/2010 Replacing Map: Will not be replaced, slot will be removed Map status: In good standing iCCup God's GardenMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing iCCup Match PointMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing MetalopolisMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: 11/1/2010 Replacing Map: Will not be replaced, slot will be removed Map status: In good standing iCCup Neo Orbital Divide - Picture is out of date Map addition date: 10/6/2010 Map rotation date: 11/1/2010 Replacing Map: iCCup Starlight Breaker Map status: In good standing iCCup Sanshorn MistsMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing iCCup Sungsu CrossingMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing iCCup VahallaMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: TBD Replacing Map: TBD Map status: In good standing Xel'Naga CavernsMap addition date: 10/1/2010 Map rotation date: 11/1/2010 Replacing Map: Will not be replaced, slot will be removed Map status: In good standing
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Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o
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i think u guys need to reformat the pictures, some just cuts out at points
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Every tournament should use these map lists immediately.
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you could put (3)Hades, there is any 3 players map
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The pictures are a little cut off, I do think that even the cut off version of fighting spirit looks cool though :-).
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United States5162 Posts
Excellent. I really hope tournaments start using these and Blizzard doesn't stagnate the map pool like they did with WC3.
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On September 28 2010 01:39 andeh wrote: Every tournament should use these map lists immediately. agree!
but dunno if keeping 2 blizzard maps in this is a good idea Xel'Naga is the perfect example as some think it's imbalanced and some don't..
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On September 28 2010 01:36 torm wrote: xel naga caverns is one of the maps that has a positional imbalance... not that i'm overly concerned about that, i just figure you may want to be consistent.
This has been noted, but the positional imbalance is not as much as a problem as other Blizzard maps other problems (such as DO, Terran on Kulas, etc). We will be constantly monitoring this, and if necessary suspend it from the map pool if it becomes a problem.
On September 28 2010 01:36 Ftrunkz wrote: Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o
We will always consider remakes of Blizzard maps but at this time Caverns has proved to be an exciting map. But like I said above we will be monitoring his map VERY close.
On September 28 2010 01:37 Lightswarm wrote: i think u guys need to reformat the pictures, some just cuts out at points
Weird, works fine here. . Maybe R1CH can tell me what I did wrong as I am not sure....
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On September 28 2010 01:40 Superouman wrote: you could put (3)Hades, there is any 3 players map
We will be looking at 3 player maps for November. However at this time we feel there is too much unknown about 3 player maps and their effect on the game. 3 player maps will be seeing a lot of testing in November to determine if they are viable in SCII through things like the IMS.
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Might be because of Firefox, happens for ma aswell
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On September 28 2010 01:44 Endorsed wrote: Might be because of Firefox, happens for ma aswell
Hmmmm. I'm on Firefox and they work perfect. Where's the wizard R1Ch when you need him?
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Picture issues for me as well. Hope it can be fixed, although I can tell which maps are which for mostly all of them
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On September 28 2010 01:40 MoreFasho wrote: The pictures are a little cut off, I do think that even the cut off version of fighting spirit looks cool though :-).
Same, but i'm using opera. this started some days ago, maybe the tl staff changed something in their code or something(don't know nothing on code things)
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Can't wait to see people duking it out on player made maps (I'm so tired of Blizzard's map pool )
Iccup taking small steps :D GL
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It's a great idea but the execution seems too drastic. I doubt most high-level players want to add 8 custom maps to their practice routine and risk losses in tournaments that run on Blizzard maps. Something like 4 Blizzard maps and 3 custom maps would be more realistic. In the following months you could rotate 1 Blizzard and 1 iCCup map every month for 2 new iCCup maps and improve the pool over time. Of course I understand that you have a great mapmaking team that wants their work shown, but giving the leagues and players the most manageable start in using custom maps is important.
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Totally friggin' dope/sweet.
Is there an easy way to pull these up? If I search "iccup" on the custom search will I get only these, or will I get ALL of the iccup maps?
Would be nice if there was a search term I could put in to get precisely the list of 10 monthly maps like "iccup october" or something.
PS. Chair.
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The maps are not appearing entirely for me either. I'm on chrome in ubuntu. They seem awesome though.
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
FIX TO IMAGE PROBLEMS
There is an option in your TL profile: "Resize large images." For people with that option checked, the images will look fine. For people without that option checked, the images will look cut off.
To fix this problem for people who don't have that option checked, resize your images using the "Upload Image" function at the top right of the post box. If you can't find it, just Ctrl+F Upload Image.
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I agree with some of the posters that with the current state of the game that many brand new maps might be a bit too much.
However here is to hoping that blizzard incorporates them into their own ladder.
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On September 28 2010 01:47 Superouman wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 01:40 MoreFasho wrote: The pictures are a little cut off, I do think that even the cut off version of fighting spirit looks cool though :-). Same, but i'm using opera. this started some days ago, maybe the tl staff changed something in their code or something(don't know nothing on code things)
agreed, on chrome and for some reasons pictures on TL don't properly thumbnail/adjust to the width of the main forum column anymore.
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I, as a zerg, am totally for new maps like these iCCup maps. Most of them look awesome. We absolutely need new maps, Blizzard maps are so bad.
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Great maps, I wish them all to be in the ladder pool...
We cannot even find a custom game on those map due to the bad popularity system implemented by Blizzard.
I've never played on iccup maps
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Picture issues SHOULD be fixed, let me know.
On September 28 2010 01:50 Teddyman wrote: It's a great idea but the execution seems too drastic. I doubt most high-level players want to add 8 custom maps to their practice routine and risk losses in tournaments that run on Blizzard maps. Something like 4 Blizzard maps and 3 custom maps would be more realistic. In the following months you could rotate 1 Blizzard and 1 iCCup map every month for 2 new iCCup maps and improve the pool over time. Of course I understand that you have a great mapmaking team that wants their work shown, but giving the leagues and players the most manageable start in using custom maps is important.
That was a big issue we had to tackle when planning this. However there was a problem with finding more than 2-3 Blizzard maps to use in a pool. The 3 closest we could get were Metal, Xel Naga, and Lost Temple. However Lost Temple's cliff over it natural has reared it's ugly head quite often lately even in the GSL.
The other maps have the following problems: Blistering Sands: Universally hated, holding an expansion becomes impossible in some maptchups, most notably ZvT, and PvZ.
Desert Oasis: No one like that map. Requires 100% different play style than any other map thus the map becomes a pool in itself wherever it is used.
Steppes of War: The cliff imbalances cause massive and well documented problems in PvP, ZvT, TvT, and PvT, Sensor Towers also cover WAY too much of the map.
Scrap Station: Positional imbalance in the mains immediately favors the Zerg that spawn on the right side in ZvZ. This alone is a damning quality, but add in the ability to hold the middle choke with a minimal force for Terran and this map becomes unusable.
Delta Quadrant: Reaper harass is very hard to stop for both Zerg and Protoss, and the rocks by the "in base" expansion favors Terran's expanding safer than the other races due to the early availability of Maruaders and Tanks. Also Protoss can warp units into that expansion, which we only assume cannot be an intended feature of the map.
Kulas Ravine: No one should play this map ever unless they are Terran. THE most hated map
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I wonder if Blizzard will have the common sense to add these maps to the ladder. Would that cause a bundle of copyright issues?
I remember them making a statement about the best user made maps being incorporated fully but I don't know if that referred to custom games (like nexus wars or DotA) or ladder maps.
Those 4 player maps look amazing ...
Pictures fixed now (I had done a right click view image for all of them before.
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And how do play the maps?
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On September 28 2010 01:59 Sixes wrote: I wonder if Blizzard will have the common sense to add these maps to the ladder. Would that cause a bundle of copyright issues?
Doubt it.
You probably automatically forfeit your copyright and give it to Blizzard just by hitting the "publish" button.
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On September 28 2010 02:00 CONFIG wrote: And how do play the maps?
You log on with your tournament practice partner and select the map for your custom game.
In short, if you aren't tournament level you only do with friends unless Blizzard makes a smart move and puts these kinds of maps and this kind of rotation into the ladder (I think there are even a few Blizzard maps that aren't on ladder but look better than current ladder ones).
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We would not stop Blizzard from putting them into the ladder and have reached out to them regarding this. We aren't trying to make a $1,000,000 off map making, we are trying to improve the game.
To find iCCup maps: Create a custom game within the SCII client, find the search box above where it says "author" and search "iCCup". That's it !
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The images look great now, no more cutting.
To play the maps I think you can search for them in the create custom game section.
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Aaaahhh! I want to play, but no one is joining Enigma. Come on people, let's play!
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On September 28 2010 02:01 ltortoise wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 01:59 Sixes wrote: I wonder if Blizzard will have the common sense to add these maps to the ladder. Would that cause a bundle of copyright issues? Doubt it. You probably automatically forfeit your copyright and give it to Blizzard just by hitting the "publish" button.
Good.
As much as I love the map makers, seeing their work never hit ladder due to some copyright thing would be annoying.
Quite honestly if Blizzard removed the stupid maps (Kulas, LT, DQ at least) and added some decent ones it may do more for game balance than tweaking the units.
If I (as Zerg) could just veto rush maps (avoiding the eternal all ins) instead of using all my vetoes on the terribly imbalanced 4 spawn ones I could start playing mostly macro style which is way closer to balanced than the tank drops or reapers on LT.
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There has to be a ladder or a tournament(TLO) otherwise I don't see this working. It need a good kick before it will snowball.
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On September 28 2010 02:07 CONFIG wrote: There has to be a ladder or a tournament(TLO) otherwise I don't see this working. It need a good kick before it will snowball.
The hope is having a formal map pool that players can know what to expect and what to practice on will allow more TO's the ability to use these maps in their lineup.
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Really good to see some non blizzard maps that have been tested decently been released, Hopefully tournaments pick some of these maps up out of common sense /player pressure for fair map pools.
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nice try, really WOULD appreciate it. but it´s just nearly impossible to work. it worked in broodwar, because there was no matchmaking. to make these maps popular and make the system run the way you intend it to, every tournament would need to accept those maps and people had to start playing custom games and abandon the ladder almost completely.
btw. i dont know if this is only because of the pictures, but i think you lag xel-naga on almost every map, this is NOT bw. i really like xel naga watchtowers, so please correct, if i´m right (could really just be, that i cannot find them^^)
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On September 28 2010 02:10 ensis wrote: btw. i dont know if this is only because of the pictures, but i think you lag xel-naga on almost every map, this is NOT bw. i really like xel naga watchtowers, so please correct, if i´m right (could really just be, that i cannot find them^^)
Leave our mapmaking team some feedback, they are always listening to what the fans want or think needs to be added.
We are more than willing to listen to suggestions and try out different ideas on maps.
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On September 28 2010 02:10 ensis wrote: nice try, really WOULD appreciate it. but it´s just nearly impossible to work. it worked in broodwar, because there was no matchmaking. to make these maps popular and make the system run the way you intend it to, every tournament would need to accept those maps and people had to start playing custom games and abandon the ladder almost completely.
btw. i dont know if this is only because of the pictures, but i think you lag xel-naga on almost every map, this is NOT bw. i really like xel naga watchtowers, so please correct, if i´m right (could really just be, that i cannot find them^^)
On the other hand I dont like XelNaga towers so keep the out!
I think the game is better without them.
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On September 28 2010 02:10 ensis wrote: nice try, really WOULD appreciate it. but it´s just nearly impossible to work. it worked in broodwar, because there was no matchmaking. to make these maps popular and make the system run the way you intend it to, every tournament would need to accept those maps and people had to start playing custom games and abandon the ladder almost completely.
btw. i dont know if this is only because of the pictures, but i think you lag xel-naga on almost every map, this is NOT bw. i really like xel naga watchtowers, so please correct, if i´m right (could really just be, that i cannot find them^^)
The hope would be that Blizzard picks them up. To be fair it saves them a lot of work and improves their game ...
There seem to be Xel Nagas there on close inspection, look at metalopolis to see what to look for.
These maps seem great ... might even make nydus play viable on most of them (metalopolis being one of the more viable ones in ladder for that).
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I really think Blizz wont really support maps, which ones dont have Xel Naga Towers and / or Gold expansions
[Yes i know, in one 2v2 maps, there are no golden expos, but 1v1 and 2v2 is a different level ]
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ICCUP HWAITING!!!
Did I do it right? :O
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On September 28 2010 02:16 Darksoldierr wrote: I really think Blizz wont really support maps, which ones dont have Xel Naga Towers and / or Gold expansions
[Yes i know, in one 2v2 maps, there are no golden expos, but 1v1 and 2v2 is a different level ]
I doubt that will be an issue. Large maps work better for Xel Naga and gold expos anyways and most of these are large, so even if there aren't towers or golds I am guessing that could be fixed.
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On September 28 2010 02:16 Darksoldierr wrote: I really think Blizz wont really support maps, which ones dont have Xel Naga Towers and / or Gold expansions
[Yes i know, in one 2v2 maps, there are no golden expos, but 1v1 and 2v2 is a different level ]
I see no reason why every map should have these little gimmicks.
I'm having issues finding the maps on EU. Whenever I search iccup it seems to bring up nothing. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?
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I applaud what you're doing but like others have said you need to have an incentive for players to practice and prepare for your custom maps. As we all know the only way for that to occur is prize money. As much as I love to watch iCCup events on custom maps, every single custom map game feels like the players are playing on it for the first time after having a quick glance at it. Sure some games are exciting but, that has more to do with the inexperience on the map than skill.
I just don't see non-Blizzard ladder maps being used in major tourneys until maps are the last piece of the puzzle to change gameplay. Basically all expansions are done and the game balanced as much as it can be. Again don't stop what you're doing since there will be a breaking point sooner or later.
Custom Map Fighting!!
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Can't you make a web based ladder with iccup rankings and the player who wins uploads repaly? I would prefer it any-day to blizzard's.
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On September 28 2010 02:20 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:16 Darksoldierr wrote: I really think Blizz wont really support maps, which ones dont have Xel Naga Towers and / or Gold expansions
[Yes i know, in one 2v2 maps, there are no golden expos, but 1v1 and 2v2 is a different level ] I see no reason why every map should have these little gimmicks. I'm having issues finding the maps on EU. Whenever I search iccup it seems to bring up nothing. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?
I keep hearing this and have no idea what's going on. They are on EU but it seems there is an issue with the search. Will get on EU later tonight and investigate for myself.
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XC has issues with regards to zerg. The expansion cannot be held with pure crawler and it's really hard to stop runby attacks/harass. it's a really really difficult map for zerg earlygame. I think modding it to close in the natural and remove the back path or block it or something is necessary. It's still one of the better Blizz maps, but that doesn't make it good.
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On September 28 2010 02:23 Floophead_III wrote: XC has issues with regards to zerg. The expansion cannot be held with pure crawler and it's really hard to stop runby attacks/harass. it's a really really difficult map for zerg earlygame. I think modding it to close in the natural and remove the back path or block it or something is necessary. It's still one of the better Blizz maps, but that doesn't make it good.
Agreed on all points. However we felt only having one Blizzard map the first month would create problems for TO's using the pool. Now in a BO3 you only have to introduce one new map. With Caverns it was the best solution for the time. As I mentioned before we will be monitoring play on Caverns very closely, and if it becomes a problem will be suspended from the map pool.
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is this only on US servers ? i can't find the maps on battle net...
Okay i'm stupid didn't see that everybody on EU had the same problem, but i thought they were only one 1 page on the thread too :p
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I think this is an excellent idea - i would love to see some of the 'small' weekly tournaments add some of these.
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i want to see games on gods garden and moar fighting spirit
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On September 28 2010 01:36 torm wrote: xel naga caverns is one of the maps that has a positional imbalance... not that i'm overly concerned about that, i just figure you may want to be consistent.
The problem is that this positional imbalance is inherent in the game.
I checked out the distances from each starting location in the editor on Caverns and it's all mirrored perfectly. I didn't count all squares because it wasn't necessary, but diagonally, horizontally, and vertically in reference to the cliff edges, both starting points are in the same location and have the same distances to the ramp, and both ramps are the same size. There is an inherent problem with creep spreading in the game.
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I guess its Just me but Caverns is my least favourite map. I litterally have not won one game on that map as Z. Terran owns it, too easy for them to hold expo and too easy for them to take yours.
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This seems like a wonderful idea, putting an optional mappool with mostly well-known iCCup maps (a lot of BW ports ).
I wonder if any major tournaments will begin picking these up eventually, hopefully the iCCup team will continue to do this every month to allow for that.
Edit: On September 28 2010 02:40 CounterOrder wrote: I guess its Just me but Caverns is my least favourite map. I litterally have not won one game on that map as Z. Terran owns it, too easy for them to hold expo and too easy for them to take yours. Worse than Kulas? Rly?
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Fightning spirit and Enigma looks sooooo terran favored... Just put a planetary fortress on the gold, some tanks and turret around, gg you win T_T The simple idea of putting a gold expand with so many minerals and gas is so ridiculous and prevents any comeback possible. If one is slightly ahead on those maps, expanding on the gold will just seal the deal and prevents any further gameplay. You guys should stop playing fastest map possible ..
Edit : I forgot to mention besides those two maps i really appreciate the work and im looking forward to play on great maps !
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I'd love to see these maps implemented in more tournaments or the ladder.
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On September 28 2010 02:21 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:20 Numy wrote:On September 28 2010 02:16 Darksoldierr wrote: I really think Blizz wont really support maps, which ones dont have Xel Naga Towers and / or Gold expansions
[Yes i know, in one 2v2 maps, there are no golden expos, but 1v1 and 2v2 is a different level ] I see no reason why every map should have these little gimmicks. I'm having issues finding the maps on EU. Whenever I search iccup it seems to bring up nothing. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I keep hearing this and have no idea what's going on. They are on EU but it seems there is an issue with the search. Will get on EU later tonight and investigate for myself.
Its a problem with the custom search. Just hit [enter] a couple more times untill it finds the iCCup maps.
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Problem with Enigma (btw nice meeting you at slp).
The southwest/northeast bases, the expansion choke is substantially larger then the two others.
To give u an idea, took roughly 5 gateways/forges in the northeast/southwest compared to..2 or 3 if im not mistaken for the northwest/southeast.
Edit im just dumb, for whatever reason i couldnt tell. The two diff chokes allowed one to have a backdoor via rocks but an easier wall off, the other no rocks with more space. the way the map looks from each side just threw me off.
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On September 28 2010 02:41 ViRtU4l wrote: Fightning spirit and Enigma looks sooooo terran favored... Just put a planetary fortress on the gold, some tanks and turret around, gg you win T_T The simple idea of putting a gold expand with so many minerals and gas is so ridiculous and prevents any comeback possible. If one is slightly ahead on those maps, expanding on the gold will just seal the deal and prevents any further gameplay. You guys should stop playing fastest map possible ..
As mentioned in the OP we will constantly be reviewing these maps and it major problems are found they will be suspended from the map pool until they can be fixed. However we have had a great many games on Fighting Spirit and have seen no true racial imbalances.
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all maps except xel'naga are pretty awesome!
xel'naga has a too wide open nat that is too far from the ramp, very hard for zerg early-game in every MU...
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These look pretty awesome. Not that I haven't played on them before or anything. Looking forward to seeing these maps become more standard.
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On September 28 2010 02:50 Wolf wrote: These look pretty awesome. Not that I haven't played on them before or anything. Looking forward to seeing these maps become more standard.
Are you going to use them for Open Wolf Cups????
I hope so :D
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On September 28 2010 02:51 Shifft wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:50 Wolf wrote: These look pretty awesome. Not that I haven't played on them before or anything. Looking forward to seeing these maps become more standard. Are you going to use them for Open Wolf Cups???? I hope so :D
Me too. The more tournaments that start using them the better.
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On September 28 2010 02:51 Shifft wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:50 Wolf wrote: These look pretty awesome. Not that I haven't played on them before or anything. Looking forward to seeing these maps become more standard. Are you going to use them for Open Wolf Cups???? I hope so :D
This would be a big step. The Wolf Cup is a great tournament and I hope you will use them in upcoming events!
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This is a great Idea and I'm hoping to see more tournaments adopt these types of map pools. If only Blizz would add some variety to the ladder maps. Wide open expansions and Terran favored cliffs get real old real fast regardless of what race you play.
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I really hope someone picks up a few of these maps. Just one or two in some of the regular cups with minor prizes would be such a big step.
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Nice to see so many classic maps from iccup! gonna go check them out now
great job Diamond!
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On September 28 2010 02:45 justinsroy wrote: Problem with Enigma (btw nice meeting you at slp).
The southwest/northeast bases, the expansion choke is substantially larger then the two others.
To give u an idea, took roughly 5 gateways/forges in the northeast/southwest compared to..2 or 3 if im not mistaken for the northwest/southeast. PM me a screenshot, I'm not sure how this could have happened because all four sides are copy/rotate/pasted :/
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On September 28 2010 02:41 ViRtU4l wrote: Fightning spirit and Enigma looks sooooo terran favored... Just put a planetary fortress on the gold, some tanks and turret around, gg you win T_T The simple idea of putting a gold expand with so many minerals and gas is so ridiculous and prevents any comeback possible. If one is slightly ahead on those maps, expanding on the gold will just seal the deal and prevents any further gameplay. You guys should stop playing fastest map possible ..
Edit : I forgot to mention besides those two maps i really appreciate the work and im looking forward to play on great maps !
I was looking at that too as a Zerg player. With 4 points of access and a lot of space around it it seems like the middle could be hard to hold in a static way ... The threat of runbys or busts to the main would become huge and there is no space for production facilities in the middle. By the time the Terran can actually hold the center the Zerg can be on 3-4 bases with hive tech. Ultras in a confined space with surrounds are just generally fun.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 28 2010 03:04 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:41 ViRtU4l wrote: Fightning spirit and Enigma looks sooooo terran favored... Just put a planetary fortress on the gold, some tanks and turret around, gg you win T_T The simple idea of putting a gold expand with so many minerals and gas is so ridiculous and prevents any comeback possible. If one is slightly ahead on those maps, expanding on the gold will just seal the deal and prevents any further gameplay. You guys should stop playing fastest map possible ..
Edit : I forgot to mention besides those two maps i really appreciate the work and im looking forward to play on great maps ! I was looking at that too as a Zerg player. With 4 points of access and a lot of space around it it seems like the middle could be hard to hold in a static way ... The threat of runbys or busts to the main would become huge and there is no space for production facilities in the middle. By the time the Terran can actually hold the center the Zerg can be on 3-4 bases with hive tech. Ultras in a confined space with surrounds are just generally fun. Not to mention the fact that by the time Terran can hold it, the main constraining factor isn't going to be minerals, but gas and supply. The middle is still only a 2-gas base, so the extra effort needed to defend probably won't be worth it when you could just take a side expansion that requires way less effort to hold.
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On September 28 2010 03:05 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:04 Sixes wrote:On September 28 2010 02:41 ViRtU4l wrote: Fightning spirit and Enigma looks sooooo terran favored... Just put a planetary fortress on the gold, some tanks and turret around, gg you win T_T The simple idea of putting a gold expand with so many minerals and gas is so ridiculous and prevents any comeback possible. If one is slightly ahead on those maps, expanding on the gold will just seal the deal and prevents any further gameplay. You guys should stop playing fastest map possible ..
Edit : I forgot to mention besides those two maps i really appreciate the work and im looking forward to play on great maps ! I was looking at that too as a Zerg player. With 4 points of access and a lot of space around it it seems like the middle could be hard to hold in a static way ... The threat of runbys or busts to the main would become huge and there is no space for production facilities in the middle. By the time the Terran can actually hold the center the Zerg can be on 3-4 bases with hive tech. Ultras in a confined space with surrounds are just generally fun. Not to mention the fact that by the time Terran can hold it, the main constraining factor isn't going to be minerals, but gas and supply. The middle is still only a 2-gas base, so the extra effort needed to defend probably won't be worth it when you could just take a side expansion that requires way less effort to hold.
Here is the center on Enigma:
There isn't a lot of room for static defense on top of the fact that there's four towers that can see inside of the center. Hopefully this serves to address the issue that players seem to be worried about.
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On September 28 2010 02:45 justinsroy wrote: Problem with Enigma (btw nice meeting you at slp).
The southwest/northeast bases, the expansion choke is substantially larger then the two others.
To give u an idea, took roughly 5 gateways/forges in the northeast/southwest compared to..2 or 3 if im not mistaken for the northwest/southeast.
Uh are you sure about that, I just loaded it up and tried and you can block the chokes of every expansion with the same number of gateways.
Maybe you were looking at the wider choke from the wall of your base rather than the same one that comes just before the 3rd?
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Its a great work u have done there. I desperatly hope that Blizzard gives us the option to play ICCUP maps. Xelnaga cavern is a map I dont understand in your pool. It has obvious disadvantages position wise and also the REALLY big open natural makes Zerg expanding a pain in the ass, with such a small map. (boy is this sentence anywhere near to correct?)
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On September 28 2010 01:36 Ftrunkz wrote: Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o
The back path to the natural is one of the things that really makes it an interesting map. If it's a serious annoyance to a player they can just wall it off/spread creep back there.
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awesome maps. wish blizzard could add them to the ladder
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This is amazing. I really hope River Point makes it in for november, love the layout of that map.
All the xel'naga caverns hate is unfounded IMO. It's one of the best maps in the blizzard map pool.
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Wow, great. I can't wait to play these maps! Actually, I want to play one now. So anyone in the EU who wants to play. Join Enigma. Right now. If you press join game and press show more a couple of time, you'll see it :D Oh, and I'm not very good, just curious about the map ;p
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Thank you iCCup! Had some great games already on some of these now, its a much more enjoyable and different style.
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Awesome! Hope these are used, i still remember the IMS TvP on orbital divide where the map was mined out nearly and it ended up mass raven versus something and the Terran? won.
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On September 28 2010 03:17 Meta wrote: This is amazing. I really hope River Point makes it in for november, love the layout of that map.
All the xel'naga caverns hate is unfounded IMO. It's one of the best maps in the blizzard map pool.
River Point came VERY close to making it this month. However with the unorthodox chokes we felt we needed to give players more time to learn the map and proper walls. Expect to see it in Novemeber.
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Here's hoping high profile tournaments (like the HDH?) start picking these maps up. If they are a success it may help blizzard acknowledge the necessity of adding higher quality maps to the ladder pool. What would they do with their top 200 if Huk stopped laddering?
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Cool! Games have gotten pretty stale on some of the current maps. I can't wait to try these out.
While searching for these, is there any reason I should be worried about getting an incorrect or modified version (like the old hacked maps with incorrect unit stats)? Is there a specific publisher name I should be looking for? In my search I see ProdiG, Anthony Wilborn, Aikepah, Kinki, Lyra, Raptured, Adriel Leung and Cirno.
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On September 28 2010 03:37 Tsagacity wrote: Cool! Games have gotten pretty stale on some of the current maps. I can't wait to try these out.
While searching for these, is there any reason I should be worried about getting an incorrect or modified version (like the old hacked maps with incorrect unit stats)? Is there a specific publisher name I should be looking for? In my search I see ProdiG, Anthony Wilborn, Aikepah, Kinki, Lyra, Raptured, Adriel Leung and Cirno.
I know for sure ProdiG is legit... not sure about the people with "real names" though. OT: Keep up the good work! I love enigma! <3
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Match Point looks awesome!
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On September 28 2010 03:37 Tsagacity wrote: Cool! Games have gotten pretty stale on some of the current maps. I can't wait to try these out.
While searching for these, is there any reason I should be worried about getting an incorrect or modified version (like the old hacked maps with incorrect unit stats)? Is there a specific publisher name I should be looking for? In my search I see ProdiG, Anthony Wilborn, Aikepah, Kinki, Lyra, Raptured, Adriel Leung and Cirno.
Maps made by Adriel Leung and Aikepah are fake maps. We are trying to figure out a solution for this.
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Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the puposes of using different maps?
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On September 28 2010 02:51 Shifft wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 02:50 Wolf wrote: These look pretty awesome. Not that I haven't played on them before or anything. Looking forward to seeing these maps become more standard. Are you going to use them for Open Wolf Cups???? I hope so :D
I really really hope so too!
I mean: The Maps would be "new" for every player, so noone would have a disadvantage I guess.
I really think the community has to take matters into their own hands after seeing nearly no new maps throughout the beta until now and no statement from blizzard to rotate the maps in the Mappool. We just have to show them how much better the Iccup-Maps are and how much fun it is to play on them and how important it is to add new maps after a few months.
Blizzard seems to be really worried about newer players not wanting to learn the new maps or that those bigger maps are too complicated or sth, but if you look at maps like DO and Kulas, those arguments really aren't valid at all.
I would hate to see blizzard handling the SC2-Mappool like the one of WC3, that would be a huge shame.
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On September 28 2010 03:45 HCastorp wrote: Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the purposes of using different maps?
The problem is the style requires a totally different set of practice for only one map. If the map design was something common among a couple maps we would consider it but to practice totally different stuff for one map is not fair to the players.
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Gotta love Iccup, seriously I want to kiss someone for putting matchpoint into tournaments
My dog'll probally have to do =)
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is there a reason for not using any xelnaga towers at all on these maps? just for old times sake or ? cuz i feel there are some great spots for them..
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I miss maps with the desert tileset like blistering sand or desert oasis. Something like Colosseum.
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On September 28 2010 03:46 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:45 HCastorp wrote: Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the purposes of using different maps?
The problem is the style requires a totally different set of practice for only one map. If the map design was something common among a couple maps we would consider it but to practice totally different stuff for one map is not fair to the players.
As an aside, have you considered making some DO style maps in the future and making it something common amongst several maps in the pool?
Another question, have you approached HD/Husky about potential inclusion in the HDH map pool. It is a pretty high profile tournament outside Blizzard control (well, at least it can be run on custom maps) so it could be a good way to publicize the maps. I know for sure HD has commented on map imbalance a number of times (especially recently as he has been covering a lot of ZvT on LT or Kulas ...).
On September 28 2010 03:51 torq wrote: is there a reason for not using any xelnaga towers at all on these maps? just for old times sake or ? cuz i feel there are some great spots for them..
The Xel Naga towers are there. As was pointed out there are 4 around the middle of enigma and there are some on most of those maps, they just aren't pointed out with a big blue eye.
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these maps look like nice long macro games =)
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The reason I don't have towers on the BW ports is because I want to keep them as faithful of a remake as possible. As it stands, they are excellent testing platforms as we can draw from what we already know about the map and see how the features play out in SC2, rather than flying blind with an original design.
On maps like Valhalla, there are no spots on the map that I feel wouldn't be simply a crutch for bad scouting versus an important point on the map to control.
On September 28 2010 03:40 GenesisX wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:37 Tsagacity wrote: Cool! Games have gotten pretty stale on some of the current maps. I can't wait to try these out.
While searching for these, is there any reason I should be worried about getting an incorrect or modified version (like the old hacked maps with incorrect unit stats)? Is there a specific publisher name I should be looking for? In my search I see ProdiG, Anthony Wilborn, Aikepah, Kinki, Lyra, Raptured, Adriel Leung and Cirno. I know for sure ProdiG is legit... not sure about the people with "real names" though. OT: Keep up the good work! I love enigma! <3
Here is a list of people that I know are legit: prodiG (myself) Anthony Wilborn (aka kinki or konicki) Lyra (aka Nightmarjoo I believe) Raptured (friend of mine publishing maps for me) Cirno (friend of mine publishing maps for me)
Adriel Leung and aikepah have published "iCCup Python" and "iCCup Heartbreak Ridge" respectively, which are NOT made by the iCCup mapmaking team, nor is it a part of our official map pool. We do not support these maps nor do I personally approve of people publishing maps under the iCCup name without our consent. We're trying to do this for the community and someone taking advantage of the publicity is downright atrocious. If anyone can contact these players and ask them to rename these maps I'd be very appreciative
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Any idea off the top of your head what the dimensions of a lot of these maps are? They certainly feel bigger, but a number to go with that feeling would be nice as well (or rough increase in travel time between bases).
The map dimensions seem to convert differently from BW? I think the current ladder maps are in the ~170 range but feel smaller than BW's 128x128
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Thanks for doing this! Big non gimmicky macro orientated maps <333 I hope blizzard does something with you guys
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On September 28 2010 01:53 motbob wrote: FIX TO IMAGE PROBLEMS
There is an option in your TL profile: "Resize large images." For people with that option checked, the images will look fine. For people without that option checked, the images will look cut off.
To fix this problem for people who don't have that option checked, resize your images using the "Upload Image" function at the top right of the post box. If you can't find it, just Ctrl+F Upload Image.
Logged in just to see if I could help with this but someone was already on top of it
I just learned this myself and found this thread about the new image functionality on TL for the ones interested: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155401
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The dream would be if blizz contacted u guys and asked if they may use your maps in the official ladder.
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On September 28 2010 04:12 Tsagacity wrote: Any idea off the top of your head what the dimensions of a lot of these maps are? They certainly feel bigger, but a number to go with that feeling would be nice as well (or rough increase in travel time between bases).
The map dimensions seem to convert differently from BW? I think the current ladder maps are in the ~170 range but feel smaller than BW's 128x128 Most if not all of the Blizzard maps are less than 132x132 or 140x140 if I recall correctly. Our maps range from anywhere between 132x132 and 170x168, but the general threshold we aim for is a ramp-to-ramp time of in between 20 and 40 seconds with a worker moving at 2.81 movespeed. To compare, cross positions on Lost Temple are 25 seconds.
Edit: When I say Blizzard maps I mean 1v1 Ladder maps
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Gogo matchpoint! Wwanna see iccup maps in tournaments ASAP. Hurray for iccup!
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Thank you guys, those maps look beautiful, especially match point
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I'd like to see crossfire at some time and could you maybe lose the iCCup in the mapnames? I know you might want the recognition but it's really annoying and obfuscating. Just put it somewhere else. I'm not talking about Bnet obviously, because it's a lot easier to find the maps this way. That is if the map search would actually be working.
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On September 28 2010 04:25 ven wrote: I'd like to see crossfire at some time and could you maybe lose the iCCup in the mapnames? I know you might want the recognition but it's really annoying and obfuscating. Just put it somewhere else. I'm not talking about Bnet obviously, because it's a lot easier to find the maps this way. That is if the map search would actually be working. Crossfire is horrible for Zerg because of how many chokes there are and where the XWT's are positioned. I've seen a few king of the hills using this map and every time I see Zerg's get wrecked :<
I'm pretty sure the reason why the map names have iCCup in them in the OP is to maintain consitency between here and bnet ;D
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You guys should contact MLG and see if you can maybe get a few of these into the MLG mappool. A lot of top players are only going to really practice hard on these maps when a major tournament adopts some of them. MLG would seem to be a good place to start, since they take balance and positional issues somewhat seriously from what I've heard. Just two of these maps would improve the mappool and quality of games by so much. Good work guys.
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Isn't crossfire just a port of Peaks of Baekdu? I havn't seen any high level games on it in SC2 so i can't comment on that, but the map was good in BW.
Either way, i'm just excited to start playing Matchpoint again. Easily my fav map.
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How can I get or play those maps on b.net?
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On September 28 2010 04:31 Backpack wrote: Isn't crossfire just a port of Peaks of Baekdu? I havn't seen any high level games on it in SC2 so i can't comment on that, but the map was good in BW.
Either way, i'm just excited to start playing Matchpoint again. Easily my fav map. It is Peaks of Baekdu but I think it's too small in it's current iteration :<
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On September 28 2010 04:29 Kishkumen wrote: You guys should contact MLG and see if you can maybe get a few of these into the MLG mappool. A lot of top players are only going to really practice hard on these maps when a major tournament adopts some of them. MLG would seem to be a good place to start, since they take balance and positional issues somewhat seriously from what I've heard. Just two of these maps would improve the mappool and quality of games by so much. Good work guys.
Good idea, I will talk to JP when I see him online next. Also I know someone very sexy (for once I don't mean Gretorp) is going to be doing some replay review on iCCup maps soon !
On September 28 2010 04:32 Alpina wrote: How can I get or play those maps on b.net?
See the OP.
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On September 28 2010 03:59 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:46 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 28 2010 03:45 HCastorp wrote: Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the purposes of using different maps?
The problem is the style requires a totally different set of practice for only one map. If the map design was something common among a couple maps we would consider it but to practice totally different stuff for one map is not fair to the players. As an aside, have you considered making some DO style maps in the future and making it something common amongst several maps in the pool? Another question, have you approached HD/Husky about potential inclusion in the HDH map pool. It is a pretty high profile tournament outside Blizzard control (well, at least it can be run on custom maps) so it could be a good way to publicize the maps. I know for sure HD has commented on map imbalance a number of times (especially recently as he has been covering a lot of ZvT on LT or Kulas ...). Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:51 torq wrote: is there a reason for not using any xelnaga towers at all on these maps? just for old times sake or ? cuz i feel there are some great spots for them.. The Xel Naga towers are there. As was pointed out there are 4 around the middle of enigma and there are some on most of those maps, they just aren't pointed out with a big blue eye.
you're wrong, valhalla, match point, fighting spirit have no towers, engmia does have them and u can see it in the ingame minimap. but prodiG already answered my question.
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Damn, i'm in love with Sungsu Crossing !
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On September 28 2010 04:40 torq wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 03:59 Sixes wrote:On September 28 2010 03:46 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 28 2010 03:45 HCastorp wrote: Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the purposes of using different maps?
The problem is the style requires a totally different set of practice for only one map. If the map design was something common among a couple maps we would consider it but to practice totally different stuff for one map is not fair to the players. As an aside, have you considered making some DO style maps in the future and making it something common amongst several maps in the pool? Another question, have you approached HD/Husky about potential inclusion in the HDH map pool. It is a pretty high profile tournament outside Blizzard control (well, at least it can be run on custom maps) so it could be a good way to publicize the maps. I know for sure HD has commented on map imbalance a number of times (especially recently as he has been covering a lot of ZvT on LT or Kulas ...). On September 28 2010 03:51 torq wrote: is there a reason for not using any xelnaga towers at all on these maps? just for old times sake or ? cuz i feel there are some great spots for them.. The Xel Naga towers are there. As was pointed out there are 4 around the middle of enigma and there are some on most of those maps, they just aren't pointed out with a big blue eye. you're wrong, valhalla, match point, fighting spirit have no towers, engmia does have them and u can see it in the ingame minimap. but prodiG already answered my question.
You said none at all, was just pointing out there are some. I think fighting spirit could use a couple like the enigma ones but I wouldn't get upset because a map or two don't have them.
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On September 28 2010 04:42 bluustarr wrote: Damn, i'm in love with Sungsu Crossing !
I got to admit that's the one map I have not seen a whole lot of but it came highly recommended by Raelcun so it should be interesting!
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On September 28 2010 04:46 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 04:42 bluustarr wrote: Damn, i'm in love with Sungsu Crossing !
I got to admit that's the one map I have not seen a whole lot of but it came highly recommended by Raelcun so it should be interesting!
Seems great, looks like a relatively safe 2nd but after that a complete war for map control and scouting with so many paths it can't just get choked up (at least not without a lot of effort).
Edit: I really like the use of double cliffs on both Sungsu and Sandshorn, this gives a relatively large defensive cliff area with only half of it being usable by reapers or colossi (a little like the added chasm in DO without needing a chasm there).
Have you tried contacting HD/Husky about use in the HDH?
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On September 28 2010 04:46 Sixes wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 04:40 torq wrote:On September 28 2010 03:59 Sixes wrote:On September 28 2010 03:46 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 28 2010 03:45 HCastorp wrote: Huge props to the Iccup team for taking the lead and doing something abotu this problem instead of just complaining about it.
Just one question though:
To my mind, the fact that DO forces different playstyles from other maps is a mark in its favor, not against it. Isn't promoting variety in games and strategies one of the purposes of using different maps?
The problem is the style requires a totally different set of practice for only one map. If the map design was something common among a couple maps we would consider it but to practice totally different stuff for one map is not fair to the players. As an aside, have you considered making some DO style maps in the future and making it something common amongst several maps in the pool? Another question, have you approached HD/Husky about potential inclusion in the HDH map pool. It is a pretty high profile tournament outside Blizzard control (well, at least it can be run on custom maps) so it could be a good way to publicize the maps. I know for sure HD has commented on map imbalance a number of times (especially recently as he has been covering a lot of ZvT on LT or Kulas ...). On September 28 2010 03:51 torq wrote: is there a reason for not using any xelnaga towers at all on these maps? just for old times sake or ? cuz i feel there are some great spots for them.. The Xel Naga towers are there. As was pointed out there are 4 around the middle of enigma and there are some on most of those maps, they just aren't pointed out with a big blue eye. you're wrong, valhalla, match point, fighting spirit have no towers, engmia does have them and u can see it in the ingame minimap. but prodiG already answered my question. You said none at all, was just pointing out there are some. I think fighting spirit could use a couple like the enigma ones but I wouldn't get upset because a map or two don't have them.
oh i meant "none at all" in the sense " not even a single tower", haha but ya enigma, orbital divide, and the sanshorns, sungsu have towers while the other 4 maps don't
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Ehm it appears god's garden isn't available in europe any possibility of an upload?
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I don't think any tournament should start picking up on these maps until iCcup utilizes some of the map tools provided in standard Blizzard maps. Example, Rocks, WATCH TOWERS, and gold minerals. I realize some maps don't need these features, but why does it seem like iccup is not putting watch towers in any of these maps? I don't like when a small organization like iCCup trys to change a huge part of what makes starcraft 2 fun. I really liek the iccup maps I think they are amazing, but please add the watch tower mechanic it makes for some great territory battles and mind games.
Edit - Sorry for my rant, there have been watch towers in some of the maps. I was mistaken. I still think they should be in most maps. Fighting for a Xel Naga tower is a huge part of starcraft 2 IMO. to each his own though. I realize some people don't like it.
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There are watch towers in some maps, and there aren't in a few others. The map makers aim to make good maps and I doubt they are going to go out of there way to put in these features just for the sake of doing so.
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Watch towers hardly make the game more fun, just easier. They are no must for me, i really don't like them too much.
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On September 28 2010 04:34 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Good idea, I will talk to JP when I see him online next. Also I know someone very sexy (for once I don't mean Gretorp) is going to be doing some replay review on iCCup maps soon !
Is it Day[9]?
That would catapult those Maps into the Radar of so many ppl I guess.
And JP is a reasonable man - I think he should really consider using a selection of those Maps in the MLG-Mappool. IMHO, this would make the MLG-tournament soooo much better!
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Wow, definitely going to start playing on these for my practice matches! Hopefully my losses will be so much less frustrating when I'm not losing to map imbalances.
Not sure what Blizzard's deal is, but hopefully they'll start phasing in custom maps that are popular (these), or at least take the hint and start making balanced maps.
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We will continue to observe the effect of Watch Towers and always are open to revising maps if they are deemed necessary.
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the maps look amazing, but now is the question of getting them in alot of tournament for exposure
ESL and MLG would be amazing, but maybe thats aiming to high right now? if thats the case then i hope alot of the millions of tourneys will concider using them
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Watch towers are quite tactical and in my opinion a positive addition on some maps (DO, Scrap, Metalopolis, Xel Naga, DQ) but are useless, overdone or downright destructive on others (LT, BS, Kulas, Steppes).
So yes, they have a place on some maps but I don't think they are a requirement on all of them.
Destructible rocks have more varied uses as do gold mineral patches. I could see all maps having one (or two or three) of those three features but it's not a necessity to have all 3 all the time.
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great... so while blizzard is trying to balance game play on their maps you guys go and make new maps that will (if people start playing your maps) leave the game in a once again unbalanced state....
until your maps are recognized by blizzard i do not believe it is a good idea to have tournaments switch over
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Been playing ICCUP maps for like the past week and a half. I only really have one issue and that you have autostart on which is really bad for finding good opponents. I used to play a lot of custom lost temple games but then they added autostart and the stupid 30 second timer so now if i join and the other player is some platinum player i can't leave (and if i do it completely fucks the other guy over). It also makes it a pain if i wanna play multiple games in a row cuz it can takes like 10 minutes to find a game. If you can't turn of autostart or whatever thats fine just lower the countdown timer. There arn't any positions you can move to like in custom games so it is pointless.
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Watchtowers add a tiny bit of strategic depth, but destructible rocks in general are pretty uninteresting IMO. BW had destructible doodads on some maps, and that was OK, but I think the mapdesigners should feel like they can take or leave those tools if it means making a better map.
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Metal also has a positional imbalance as the lower left main has a shorter distance to the ramp than the other 3.
My only complaint about the maps is that several of them look pretty similar, 4 player with all the starts in the corners and gold in the middle of the map. That isn't necessarily a bad thing but I don't think the differences are that acute.
No question that that pool is better than Blizz's current pool though.
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On September 28 2010 05:11 DonKey_ wrote: great... so while blizzard is trying to balance game play on their maps you guys go and make new maps that will (if people start playing your maps) leave the game in a once again unbalanced state....
until your maps are recognized by blizzard i do not believe it is a good idea to have tournaments switch over
So?
If Blizzard balances the game in a certain way that would make certain features of custom maps imbalanced, you can just balance the Maps based on the current state of the game!
Besides, Blizzard's Maps are clearly imbalanced and favour certain races, you don't need to be a genius to know that Cliffs above the Nat favour tankdrops and small rush-distances aggressive play.
You can't just w8 for Blizzard to hand us over the perfect game and the perfect Maps and I think that efforts of the community should be supported, not held back with posts like yours.
Those Maps won't have ANY negative effect on Blizzard balancing the game, but rather show them what they need to think about when balancing the game in regards to bigger and simply put better maps.
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I'm trying to find them on the EU servers by searching iCCup but I'm not getting anything, is there a wildcard symbol for the search or are the maps just not up on EU?
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Thats not it,I think the search is broken after patch.
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Just keep pressing search and you should get them eventually, its pretty bugged.
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Having similiar problems on EU, I have to search plenty of time to find the maps. They are definatly up, if they dont appear on the first search keep pressing the search button. Its pretty sure that this is a fault of Bnet 2.0
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On September 28 2010 04:58 Owen523 wrote:Ehm it appears god's garden isn't available in europe any possibility of an upload? Ah yes I haven't got it up there yet, I'll take care of this tonight
Thanks for reminding me 8)
In regards to all of the debate over watchtowers, three of the custom maps in the map pool are BW ports and I am trying to keep them as close as possible. (The center on Fighting Spirit being an exception, I added the gold, rich geyser and rock and everyone loves the map so I don't want to change a thing)
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I played all the maps this afternoon with a teamate and I've to say I love them all. I really like the more macro oriented style and the design.
I hope blizzard choose some of these to include in the ladder map pool.
Keep up the good work!
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On September 28 2010 05:27 Owen523 wrote: Just keep pressing search and you should get them eventually, its pretty bugged.
I added this information to the OP.
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I really hope more tournaments pick up on this pool and start using them regularly. So tired of the blizzard maps and how fast the games play out on them.
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Very cool looking maps. I hope some smaller tournaments like craft cup pick them up so I will have a reason to practice on them.
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There goes the usefulness of ladder T_T time to find practice partners
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On September 28 2010 05:36 Combine wrote: I really hope more tournaments pick up on this pool and start using them regularly. So tired of the blizzard maps and how fast the games play out on them.
I miss the old epic 5 base games myself. Will be good to see some macro play.
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I miss major macro games as well.
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On September 28 2010 01:39 andeh wrote: Every tournament should use these map lists immediately.
quoting this for importance.
if only a few tournaments pick this up, we might get a snowball rolling!
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On September 28 2010 06:03 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 01:39 andeh wrote: Every tournament should use these map lists immediately. quoting this for importance. if only a few tournaments pick this up, we might get a snowball rolling!
That's the hope !
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I think with the ITL we've had a number of tremendous games on these maps - and I hope we can keep that rolling.
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Come on it's "Iccup monthly map pool" not "Iccup monthly map pool and 1 blizzard map" xelnaga caverns is garbage imo, but that's a whole different discussion.
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Hey guys, first post on TL!! Whoop!
So, I challenged this guy I played in a FFA to a 1v1. He let me pick the map so I picked a random iCCup map to play on. Anyways, I'm a 600 Platinum player he is like a 1100+ Diamond.
I beat him the first and only 1v1 game we played. I played as Random and ended up as Terran so I went for Marauders/Quick Ghosts. He seems to think that Sungsu Crossing was IMBA due to the short rush distance and wider chokes. Does he have a valid point or was he just Raging cause he got owned by a Platinum player?
Here's the replay.
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can't you get some pros to play on these maps to try and raise their profile a bit?
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Love the maps. Gonna play on them tomorrow. Can't wait to be tomorrow
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On September 28 2010 07:23 NoXious90 wrote: can't you get some pros to play on these maps to try and raise their profile a bit? They (iCCup) do that in their weekly events. It hasn't helped the maps get picked up by other tournaments yet, though.
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On September 28 2010 01:36 Ftrunkz wrote: Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o
Sir, that is a good idea!
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On September 28 2010 07:33 konicki wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 01:36 Ftrunkz wrote: Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o Sir, that is a good idea!
While you're at it, please fix the positional imbalances, symmetry, and all that!
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On September 28 2010 07:23 NoXious90 wrote: can't you get some pros to play on these maps to try and raise their profile a bit?
We have now had a couple hundred games played on custom maps. The ITL, IMS, and ITC all have been using custom maps since beta.
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On September 28 2010 06:54 DomiNater wrote:Hey guys, first post on TL!! Whoop! So, I challenged this guy I played in a FFA to a 1v1. He let me pick the map so I picked a random iCCup map to play on. Anyways, I'm a 600 Platinum player he is like a 1100+ Diamond. I beat him the first and only 1v1 game we played. I played as Random and ended up as Terran so I went for Marauders/Quick Ghosts. He seems to think that Sungsu Crossing was IMBA due to the short rush distance and wider chokes. Does he have a valid point or was he just Raging cause he got owned by a Platinum player? Here's the replay.
Thanks for the replay, ill take a look at it!
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I know of the already created iCCup.Python is created by someone not on the official team and is thus not supported in the map pool, but it was my favorite map in BW.
Can the official team please create a SC2 Python map for us? It always hurts to see Fighting Spirit and Match Point but not Python.
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I really like this map pool. All of the maps are well designed, and the two blizzard maps were good choices. I haven't gotten to play on all of the maps yet, only fighting spirit and match point, but so far they're very well designed and fun to play on. Something about those two maps just feels a lot more balanced than what Blizzard has to offer for most of their ladder maps.
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talk to day9 to promote you're maps!
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Hey why aren't you using Blinn's vastly superior remake of God's Garden that he made like, forever ago?
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On September 28 2010 08:04 Aduromors wrote: Hey why aren't you using Blinn's vastly superior remake of God's Garden that he made like, forever ago?
Cause it has not been published since forever ago...
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But it's not published. If we start publishing other people's maps than how are we any different from the assholes making fake iCCup maps?
I waited all of beta phase 2 and over a month of retail before I had the team re do it. If he's that uninterested in publishing it I cannot imagine how long bug fixes will take.
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On September 28 2010 04:33 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 04:31 Backpack wrote: Isn't crossfire just a port of Peaks of Baekdu? I havn't seen any high level games on it in SC2 so i can't comment on that, but the map was good in BW.
Either way, i'm just excited to start playing Matchpoint again. Easily my fav map. It is Peaks of Baekdu but I think it's too small in it's current iteration :<
Having played on it a couple times I have to say it's easily the best 2-player 1v1 map blizzard made. Xel'naga is a very close second. The long rush distance makes fast expanding viable for all races, and the easy-to-take third really lends itself nicely to drawn-out, macro games. Add in the multiple flanking routes and this map is actually quite good for zerg, and way more balanced than all of the two player maps on the ladder as a result (in my extremely uninformed opinion).
It's not quite as big as some of the iccup 2-player maps but I think it's a healthy medium. One-hundred percent support here of adding into the list of potential maps for rotation in the future
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Wow those maps look awesome, great job as usual, except I don't get why XC was included... isn't that map bad for Z and force PvZ into 4gate a lot?
I wish these maps were in ladder, or ICCUP had a ladder again. I really dislike Blizz maps and don't want to have to practice 2 pools of maps esp where one is bad blizzard maps
It would be awesome if blizz used these maps for diamond or at least saw them and made better maps.
PLS GET BLIZZARD TO HIRE YOU!!!!
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Can I recommend ICCUP Python? That and destination are pretty much the only maps I played lmao
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I imagine they'll be rotating between the blizzard maps, so Xel'naga caverns is probably just for October.
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On September 28 2010 08:21 kaisr wrote: Can I recommend ICCUP Python? That and destination are pretty much the only maps I played lmao
iCCup Python is a fake, but not a bad map.
We tried Destination a bit in the beta but it didn't work so well. Ended up being 1 base all ins like 99.9% of the time.
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awww when I read valhalla I thought it's a hall of valhalla remake, that would have been awesome. sad.
Anyhow great maps and idea.
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Canada10901 Posts
re: fake iCCUP maps. Until you get this sorted with Blizzard, could you not also list who are the iCCUP publishers on the different servers? Then people definitely know which ones they should be looking for. (At least people who frequent TL.)
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On September 28 2010 08:47 Falling wrote: re: fake iCCUP maps. Until you get this sorted with Blizzard, could you not also list who are the iCCUP publishers on the different servers? Then people definitely know which ones they should be looking for. (At least people who frequent TL.)
I talked to prodiG and he will probably put them in the official map list here.
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On September 28 2010 08:04 Aduromors wrote: Hey why aren't you using Blinn's vastly superior remake of God's Garden that he made like, forever ago? By the time I noticed it existed I had already done up a beta design. I downloaded his version and checked it out and there were a few things that I didn't like about it: -Much smaller than my version, likely because he used the legacy map conversion tool (which spits out a pretty small version) -Unbuildable terrain did not have holes for creep tumors -If I recall correctly (and I could be wrong) the in-base natural could be sieged across the lake
On September 28 2010 08:47 Falling wrote: re: fake iCCUP maps. Until you get this sorted with Blizzard, could you not also list who are the iCCUP publishers on the different servers? Then people definitely know which ones they should be looking for. (At least people who frequent TL.)
Repost from page 5:
Here is a list of people that I know are legit: prodiG (myself) Anthony Wilborn (aka kinki on bnet or konicki on TL) Lyra (aka Nightmarjoo I believe) Raptured (friend of mine publishing maps for me) Cirno (friend of mine publishing maps for me)
Adriel Leung and aikepah have published "iCCup Python" and "iCCup Heartbreak Ridge" respectively, which are NOT made by the iCCup mapmaking team, nor is it a part of our official map pool. We do not support these maps nor do I personally approve of people publishing maps under the iCCup name without our consent. We're trying to do this for the community and someone taking advantage of the publicity is downright atrocious. If anyone can contact these players and ask them to rename these maps I'd be very appreciative
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I just got to say I'm glad everyone is embracing this so well! Thanks for all the support, I think this is the start of something big !
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Diamond!
We recently met at the Sparty Lan Party and talked maps over pizza. I forgot to introduce myself by my ID! Anyways, I'm Chess, and it was awesome for you guys to come out. I had a loss in the winner's bracket of the SLP tournament on Steppes ZvP and it sucked. ;\ And now, this post!? Fucking amazing! Me and my friends are definitely going to start practicing on these maps and we all think the iCcup pool is awesome. We'll do our best to make it 'something big' and keep up the good work.
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On September 28 2010 09:44 Chessz wrote: Diamond!
We recently met at the Sparty Lan Party and talked maps over pizza. I forgot to introduce myself by my ID! Anyways, I'm Chess, and it was awesome for you guys to come out. I had a loss in the winner's bracket of the SLP tournament on Steppes ZvP and it sucked. ;\ And now, this post!? Fucking amazing! Me and my friends are definitely going to start practicing on these maps and we all think the iCcup pool is awesome. We'll do our best to make it 'something big' and keep up the good work.
Thank you so much for the support, and don't worry I remember you !
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I absolutely love that ICCup it taking the initiative with non-Blizzard maps, and you really do have a talented map making team (<3 prodiG). The only thing I feel is a little off with this map pool is just how hard to defend most of the bases are after your natural (sometimes including the natural) are on so many of the maps. So many of the thirds are wide open and seems fairly well beyond the range of effective defense, but I'm still just going to wait before passing my final judgement. I assume you did some fairly in depth balance testing, so I'll just wait and see how play goes on all of these maps.
Also, not sure if this has been brought up, but are there downloads available for people not participating in your tournaments? If so, where can I find them, and if not, why?
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On September 28 2010 10:11 im a roc wrote: I absolutely love that ICCup it taking the initiative with non-Blizzard maps, and you really do have a talented map making team (<3 prodiG). The only thing I feel is a little off with this map pool is just how hard to defend most of the bases are after your natural (sometimes including the natural) are on so many of the maps. So many of the thirds are wide open and seems fairly well beyond the range of effective defense, but I'm still just going to wait before passing my final judgement. I assume you did some fairly in depth balance testing, so I'll just wait and see how play goes on all of these maps.
Also, not sure if this has been brought up, but are there downloads available for people not participating in your tournaments? If so, where can I find them, and if not, why?
LOL reread the first post until you find the answer.
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On September 28 2010 10:17 GagnarTheUnruly wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 10:11 im a roc wrote: I absolutely love that ICCup it taking the initiative with non-Blizzard maps, and you really do have a talented map making team (<3 prodiG). The only thing I feel is a little off with this map pool is just how hard to defend most of the bases are after your natural (sometimes including the natural) are on so many of the maps. So many of the thirds are wide open and seems fairly well beyond the range of effective defense, but I'm still just going to wait before passing my final judgement. I assume you did some fairly in depth balance testing, so I'll just wait and see how play goes on all of these maps.
Also, not sure if this has been brought up, but are there downloads available for people not participating in your tournaments? If so, where can I find them, and if not, why? LOL reread the first post until you find the answer.
Sure enough. I just skimmed and looked at the maps :p
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On September 28 2010 08:24 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 08:21 kaisr wrote: Can I recommend ICCUP Python? That and destination are pretty much the only maps I played lmao iCCup Python is a fake, but not a bad map. We tried Destination a bit in the beta but it didn't work so well. Ended up being 1 base all ins like 99.9% of the time. Do you ascribe most of that to the map, or to the metagame favoring all-in stuff and players not willing to spend too much time on non-ladder maps?
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These maps are spectacular. PLEASE BLIZZARD PLEASE LISTEN TO US AND KNOW THAT ICCUP KNOWS WTF IS UP WITH MAPS!!!
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I've noticed a couple minor things that could be revised:
Behind mineral lines, there needs to be sufficient space for building turrets and dropping mules. The following maps/bases are missing space: + Show Spoiler +Enigma MidLeft/MidRight 3rd's Sanshorn Mist's 3rds Sanshorn Mist's Island expos Sanshorn Mist's mineral only expos Sungsu Crossing's Bottom 3rd Valhalla's Mineral only expansion Valhalla's TopMid/BottomMid 4ths
The other comments are just general, and could easily be revised. Orbital Divide: + Show Spoiler +Distance from main to natural is too far, making defending too hard in FE builds
Valhalla: + Show Spoiler +The natural seems too hard to defend, its got too wide open chokes
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when will blizzard start incorporating custom maps to ladder?
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Any hope of these maps being published in other regions? Namely LA in my case, but having them in the KR server seems mandatory to me.
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On September 28 2010 10:43 epicopter wrote: when will blizzard start incorporating custom maps to ladder? Don't hold your breath.
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On September 28 2010 10:33 monitor wrote:I've noticed a couple minor things that could be revised: Behind mineral lines, there needs to be sufficient space for building turrets and dropping mules. The following maps/bases are missing space: + Show Spoiler +Enigma MidLeft/MidRight 3rd's Sanshorn Mist's 3rds Sanshorn Mist's Island expos Sanshorn Mist's mineral only expos Sungsu Crossing's Bottom 3rd Valhalla's Mineral only expansion Valhalla's TopMid/BottomMid 4ths
The other comments are just general, and could easily be revised. Orbital Divide: + Show Spoiler +Distance from main to natural is too far, making defending too hard in FE builds
Valhalla: + Show Spoiler +The natural seems too hard to defend, its got too wide open chokes
no.
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On September 28 2010 11:29 Django wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 10:33 monitor wrote:I've noticed a couple minor things that could be revised: Behind mineral lines, there needs to be sufficient space for building turrets and dropping mules. The following maps/bases are missing space: + Show Spoiler +Enigma MidLeft/MidRight 3rd's Sanshorn Mist's 3rds Sanshorn Mist's Island expos Sanshorn Mist's mineral only expos Sungsu Crossing's Bottom 3rd Valhalla's Mineral only expansion Valhalla's TopMid/BottomMid 4ths
The other comments are just general, and could easily be revised. Orbital Divide: + Show Spoiler +Distance from main to natural is too far, making defending too hard in FE builds
Valhalla: + Show Spoiler +The natural seems too hard to defend, its got too wide open chokes no.
That is summed up very nicely.
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On September 28 2010 10:22 0neder wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2010 08:24 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 28 2010 08:21 kaisr wrote: Can I recommend ICCUP Python? That and destination are pretty much the only maps I played lmao iCCup Python is a fake, but not a bad map. We tried Destination a bit in the beta but it didn't work so well. Ended up being 1 base all ins like 99.9% of the time. Do you ascribe most of that to the map, or to the metagame favoring all-in stuff and players not willing to spend too much time on non-ladder maps?
Just in general. I can't remember a single game we played on it that ever went to 3 bases, and any game that reached 2 was pretty much over.
Luckily no one ever figured out how insanely powerful a proxy reaper in the 3rd base (the quasi-island expansion) could be with there being like 12 miles between the mineral line and the back of the base and the easy access. Good luck catching them with Zerg....
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On September 28 2010 10:28 DaCruise wrote: Where is the island map? I hope someone does Neo Arkanoid or something just to see how it plays.
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If you pylon near the natural rocks on river point you can warp in a single unit above them and then mass warp in tons of units. It works for the NE base didn't test with the SW. Not too big of an issue because you should generally have vision of the area, but it's an issue anyway.
The glowy green stuff on triforce needs to go or be severely toned down. It it hurts my eyes a bit when I am not doing anything. Kick it up to gameplay apm and every time I am at my main or natural screen for a split second I want to die.
I realize neither of these are official october maps. They were just the maps I was most interested in playing.
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Only me can't find god's garden on eu?Also sanshorn mist is listed twice one version 0.1 and one 1.1, logic would say 1.1 is what I should get, but since they have different publishers...Anyway good thing that some better maps are coming, I was hoping for python but good nonetheless :D
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I hope more tournaments start using these maps, as it will make the games much more interesting to watch. I do wish the rotation would stay away from BW ports though. Those maps had their day.. and since most of them are direct ports with no real changes I don't really see the point of having them in the pool. The original maps look good for sc2 though. I really like sanshorn mists, valhalla, and OD. Also looking forward to seeing hades, fury, and river point in the pool in the future. Enigma has a lot of potential too, although I hate the center of the map at the moment. I haven't played on or seen games on Sungsu Crossing yet so I will reserve judgment on it.
Anyway, I'm glad to see the effort iccup is putting into this so far, and I hope tournament organizers will follow suit.
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When will you upload these maps to EU?
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Could you upload them to the SEA servers please? Thanks.
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Good to hear, but disappointed at a few of the maps that were left out (ie. the river one whatever it's called) but I'm sure lot's of thought + balance reasons went into the maps picked.
Look forward to watching events with them.
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so Metalopolis and Xel naga caverns. These are blizzard, maps, what did you change? And why XNC btw? It's an awful map
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Neigh impossible to find someone to actually play these iccup maps with T_T
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Make people play these maps and they'll find imbalances within them as well. People hate on Blizzard maps far too much.
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this is cool... but when i tried making a game with these maps by iccup... no one joins.... -_-;;
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On September 28 2010 01:36 Ftrunkz wrote: Imo you guys should do a iCCup Neo Xel'naga Caverns, removing the back path to the natural and making only one entrance to the nat have it be tighter ;o
Yeah, should definitely mod it a bit to remove some of the indiscrepancies.
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I really like Xel'Naga, but as mentioned before, there is a major imbalance in Main Base positioning there as well.
An ICCup retro-fit that fixes that issue should be enough.
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Playing with Z on iCCup Matchpoint convinced me that TvZ is nothing more than a map problem (dont want so start a balance discussion)
Thumbs up for this pool
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From watching the GSL today, I desperately want to see ICCUP maps in the standard tournament mappool. Gonna grab a mate and try these maps out, hoping for the best.
Metal close positions is horrible I feel for zergs everywhere when they come against ZvX on that map in close positions (i.e. not by air).
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On September 28 2010 20:35 Jermstuddog wrote: I really like Xel'Naga, but as mentioned before, there is a major imbalance in Main Base positioning there as well.
An ICCup retro-fit that fixes that issue should be enough. I like how we can't find 2 maps in Blizzards map pool that we can deem suitable for play. Metalopolis is the common consensus for balance and it turns out to be macro oriented and the most well liked map.
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Just played a game on Enigma and oh my god it was fantastic. These maps will make the game sooo much better!!!
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I've seen a lot of these on the stream... good stuff. I assume you guys are keeping track of win % for each matchup uring the tournaments right?
I'd really like to see a couple of these mixed in to be the standard in the future. The best part is if there's a gimic or expoit that is discovered that maybe one race gains an advantage down the road, it can be easily updated.
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remakes of old starcraft maps is the last thing sc2 needs. no problem with the new maps, but no remakes - especially with some more recent maps like fighting spirit or match point. lt was understandable since kind of THE map that defines sc2, but not some korean pro-maps that lasted only 2-3 seasons, besides the fact that you can't really know if these map-layouts fit to sc2 changed gameplay.
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I played on a few of the maps yesterday, loved them! Can't wait to see some of these in more tournaments
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For all the people asking for maps on SEA, KOR, etc servers, we currently do not have any accounts to publish with on those servers. If you would like to donate some of your slots please PM prodiG on TL.
THANK YOU again everyone for all the feedback, I'm going to be contacting every major organization including GOM about this pool. You guys all rock !
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On September 29 2010 00:58 iCCup.Diamond wrote: For all the people asking for maps on SEA, KOR, etc servers, we currently do not have any accounts to publish with on those servers. If you would like to donate some of your slots please PM prodiG on TL.
Does this map slot restriction apply to setting up maps on the NA servers as well? If so, I'd be more than happy to donate some of my slots. Just a friendly offer. =)
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On September 29 2010 01:01 Aeres wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 00:58 iCCup.Diamond wrote: For all the people asking for maps on SEA, KOR, etc servers, we currently do not have any accounts to publish with on those servers. If you would like to donate some of your slots please PM prodiG on TL. Does this map slot restriction apply to setting up maps on the NA servers as well? If so, I'd be more than happy to donate some of my slots. Just a friendly offer. =)
I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though.
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On September 29 2010 01:14 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 01:01 Aeres wrote:On September 29 2010 00:58 iCCup.Diamond wrote: For all the people asking for maps on SEA, KOR, etc servers, we currently do not have any accounts to publish with on those servers. If you would like to donate some of your slots please PM prodiG on TL. Does this map slot restriction apply to setting up maps on the NA servers as well? If so, I'd be more than happy to donate some of my slots. Just a friendly offer. =) I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though. Although slots are limited, any chance in seeing some BO Hider versions up for private practice?
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Is any of this stuff on the iccup site anywhere? I looked and didn't even see an SC2 section let alone where to find this map pool.
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On September 29 2010 03:18 Shifft wrote: Is any of this stuff on the iccup site anywhere? I looked and didn't even see an SC2 section let alone where to find this map pool.
We are going to have it all hosted on www.iCCup.tv as soon as the site redesign is done.
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One thing I would like to see is a map like scrap station with the whole U layout (close air far ground). if it can be balanced of course.
Any plans to make a map like that?
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On September 29 2010 03:23 Lunares wrote: One thing I would like to see is a map like scrap station with the whole U layout (close air far ground). if it can be balanced of course.
Any plans to make a map like that?
rotate the image 45 degrees, this is the next map i think i'm going to work on.
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On September 29 2010 03:27 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 03:23 Lunares wrote: One thing I would like to see is a map like scrap station with the whole U layout (close air far ground). if it can be balanced of course.
Any plans to make a map like that? rotate the image 45 degrees, this is the next map i think i'm going to work on.
On September 29 2010 01:38 urashimakt wrote: Although slots are limited, any chance in seeing some BO Hider versions up for private practice? I have every intention on getting to this at some point in the near future
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On September 29 2010 03:27 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 03:23 Lunares wrote: One thing I would like to see is a map like scrap station with the whole U layout (close air far ground). if it can be balanced of course.
Any plans to make a map like that? rotate the image 45 degrees, this is the next map i think i'm going to work on.
Fire tile set go go!
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On September 28 2010 01:39 andeh wrote: Every tournament should use these map lists immediately.
This.. so much this
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The map Orbital Divide was recently added to the iCCup October map pool.
In light of that i looked back and considered a lot of balance suggestions i had received, especially those concerning the nat distance from the main and the amount of small chokes.
For testing sake the new version will be played tonight in the IMS. *note the increased space directly outside the nat choke, the widened top ramps/increased space, and the different main->nat structure.
Here are two images old/new (these images are also in the OP:
Old: + Show Spoiler +
New: + Show Spoiler +
The new version will be tested tonight in the iCCup Map Series.
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I can't find the maps on EU server
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On September 29 2010 04:40 Zog wrote:I can't find the maps on EU server
Read the OP. EU is bugged but there is a workaround.
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The maps are awesome... Just tried Fighting Spirit and Match Point, they bring back so many memories.
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On September 29 2010 05:05 Bibzball wrote: The maps are awesome... Just tried Fighting Spirit and Match Point, they bring back so many memories.
I got to say I'm very impressed how Match Point has transitioned into SCII. LOTS of exciting games.
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Are these maps actually balanced for SC2? Like, have progamers played a ton of games and agreed that they're balanced?
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On September 29 2010 05:36 Vei wrote: Are these maps actually balanced for SC2? Like, have progamers played a ton of games and agreed that they're balanced?
Yea we have had a lot of games on these maps and no major flaws have been found.
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Man, I'd so wish tournaments would use those maps, they look fantastic. I'll probably download all and when I have some time play a few customs on it
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Nice translation of Match Point but.. it looks smaller? Maybe I'm crazy
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On September 29 2010 05:47 hugman wrote: Nice translation of Match Point but.. it looks smaller? Maybe I'm crazy
I don't know, but it looks bigger to me lol. I'm sure prodiG will run in soon and tell us who's right !
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I wish that you could play these maps on ladder, they look so much more fun
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Russian Federation483 Posts
On September 29 2010 01:14 iCCup.Diamond wrote: I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though. Russian B.Net is on EU gateway, so we have all maps published on EU here. The problem is that nobody plays them. :|
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On September 29 2010 07:54 chuDr3t4 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 01:14 iCCup.Diamond wrote: I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though. Russian B.Net is on EU gateway, so we have all maps published on EU here. The problem is that nobody plays them. :|
Good to hear. Wonder if LA is like that too?
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On September 29 2010 08:15 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 07:54 chuDr3t4 wrote:On September 29 2010 01:14 iCCup.Diamond wrote: I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though. Russian B.Net is on EU gateway, so we have all maps published on EU here. The problem is that nobody plays them. :| Good to hear. Wonder if LA is like that too?
I can confirm that the maps are avaiable on LA and the author is showing as proIG (or proDIG, sorry, can't recall correctly).
I'm not sure how the gateway thing works though. Our server is in the US and the "number of players on battle.net" counts US players, but we don't have maps published on the US server and there's definetly a delay between new versions of popular Custom Games.
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On September 29 2010 08:49 phfantunes wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 08:15 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 29 2010 07:54 chuDr3t4 wrote:On September 29 2010 01:14 iCCup.Diamond wrote: I think we are good on NA slots being none of mine have even been used yet. I believe we don't have accounts on SEA, KOR, Russia, and LA. I'll double check with prodiG though. Russian B.Net is on EU gateway, so we have all maps published on EU here. The problem is that nobody plays them. :| Good to hear. Wonder if LA is like that too? I can confirm that the maps are avaiable on LA and the author is showing as proIG (or proDIG, sorry, can't recall correctly). I'm not sure how the gateway thing works though. Our server is in the US and the "number of players on battle.net" counts US players, but we don't have maps published on the US server and there's definetly a delay between new versions of popular Custom Games.
Weird but all good info! Thank you very much!
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On September 29 2010 06:25 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 05:47 hugman wrote: Nice translation of Match Point but.. it looks smaller? Maybe I'm crazy I don't know, but it looks bigger to me lol. I'm sure prodiG will run in soon and tell us who's right ! It feels about the same but I didn't play it a lot in SC2 so I can't say for sure :p
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Has Sanshorn Mists been featured in any streams yet? I follow the iCCup streams religiously, but haven't seen it yet. Maybe I just have bad luck? Any dates or even names you could point me to in your uStream archives?
BTW guys awesome maps. I'm a product designer by day so the prospect of map design is really exciting and maybe I can make a name for myself once I get a new comp that can handle SC2.
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Sanshorn was used on the stream a lot a while ago we havent used it much recently but players generally liked it as well as the viewers.
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Realy great initiative from the iCCup guys. Keep it up, and hopefully we will get to see you shake up the SC2 scene not just the BW one. Can't wait to see some of these maps used consistently in tournaments. So far I think I have only seen MatchPoint and Valhalla on streams, but the other maps seem very interesting as well. I really wish there were some sort of ladder with this map pool in the future.
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On September 29 2010 14:07 NR wrote: Realy great initiative from the iCCup guys. Keep it up, and hopefully we will get to see you shake up the SC2 scene not just the BW one. Can't wait to see some of these maps used consistently in tournaments. So far I think I have only seen MatchPoint and Valhalla on streams, but the other maps seem very interesting as well. I really wish there were some sort of ladder with this map pool in the future.
Thank you very much. The maps have been doing well and I hope to keep continuing forward. I'm sure a couple will be less than optimal but I think we can have a lot more good maps compared to the bad.
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Could you please update the OP with authorized uploaders? I don't know if there are still fake iCCup maps around, but it would be nice to know the authorized uploaders on each server
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Yeah you guys really need to turn off autorestart. I was searching for a game but i kept join people who were far lower in skill than me. LT didnt have autorestart and it was great but now it has the 30 second time which is very very annoying
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Wow, these maps look awesome. A few of them have too many resource areas for my tastes but they still looks very well done and very interesting. I'll need to try some of them at some point =).
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On September 29 2010 21:13 illumination wrote: Yeah you guys really need to turn off autorestart. I was searching for a game but i kept join people who were far lower in skill than me. LT didnt have autorestart and it was great but now it has the 30 second time which is very very annoying
To be honest I wasnt aware this is something we had any control over??
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Liked the map layouts overall, except god garden. What up with the huge area in the middle with absolutely zero terrain?
All the others looked promising. But as posters already pointed out, it might be a good idea to phase in the new maps more slowly.
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On September 29 2010 22:41 Kreb wrote: Liked the map layouts overall, except god garden. What up with the huge area in the middle with absolutely zero terrain?
All the others looked promising. But as posters already pointed out, it might be a good idea to phase in the new maps more slowly. You will like it after sometime. These map a not "new" map. They are remake of famous SC:BW maps.
Great maps btw. But I think 10 maps per month is a little bit overwhelming. People have to practice in order to play on these map. With the amount of tourneys nowaday, there is so little time for players to get used to all 10 map.
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I love the ICCup maps, I have such great games on them.
I have been having one problem with using them though... I've noticed recently when making custom games and I do the search for "ICCup" that some of the maps are sometimes greyed out. What's the deal with that? Anyone know?
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Good maps overall but i agree with the general opinion to be a bit more patient with updating the mappool so fast, as players need to accustom oneself to new maps which takes time.
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If I can make a suggestion, could you have some dedicated VODs on your site for specific maps? I went out and watched a few of your vods just guessing they'd use your maps, to get an idea of them. Now, I'm not a player, but I think even players might want to check out how a map plays by looking at a replay or two. And you could tell tournament makers to go watch single games... well, yeah, I'm asking for my sake. I admit it.
Anyway, from what I saw I really like those maps and I hope we get to see them in tournaments soon. When I looked at the image of Match Point, I thought there were quite a few choke points – and then I saw in game how fricking huge that map is. I really think you did a great job there and I want the GSL to play on these maps.
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i love playing on BW remade maps !!
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Cool, can't wait to try them!
Edit: Maybe sticky this thread if appropriate?
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before i get banned again, i'd like to say that this is fuckin awesome... 10 maps by iccup on a monthly basis? you guys are awesome and i hope that in the future we'll see maps (made by you guys) which will be used for tournaments and so on
ty a lot !
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On September 30 2010 00:35 blackberrypwnz wrote: before i get banned again, i'd like to say that this is fuckin awesome... 10 maps by iccup on a monthly basis? you guys are awesome and i hope that in the future we'll see maps (made by you guys) which will be used for tournaments and so on
ty a lot !
lol thank you very much for the support, and good luck on not getting banned, you tdot or something ?
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Now if only Blizzard would just "steal" your maps and put them into ladder...
Awesome maps. I hope to see some good VODs on them.
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On September 30 2010 02:59 Uhh Negative wrote: Now if only Blizzard would just "steal" your maps and put them into ladder...
Darn, don't threaten me with a good time !
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TL should use these maps for TL Open
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Wow some of these maps look superb!
Is there a reason why authors are not listed?
Edit: I would think over the balance of cliff abuse in God's Garden, but that is just my opinion.
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I agree that changing out all maps out each month is a bit rash. If you chose to keep half of them (the best) and change the other half, then it will be much easier to get accustomed to certain maps thus increasing the popularity.
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On September 30 2010 05:57 Mikkerthebhu wrote:
I agree that changing out all maps out each month is a bit rash. If you chose to keep half of them (the best) and change the other half, then it will be much easier to get accustomed to certain maps thus increasing the popularity.
We will only be rotating out 2-4 maps a month.
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I've PMed prodiG about donating my slots for the SEA server, but no reply yet. I would like to donate my slots for iCCup maps on SEA.
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On September 30 2010 14:03 Sept wrote: I've PMed prodiG about donating my slots for the SEA server, but no reply yet. I would like to donate my slots for iCCup maps on SEA.
I know he's getting bombarded with people offering right now. I THINK we have SEA covered just got to get them the maps. Will keep you updated though.
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On September 30 2010 14:05 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 14:03 Sept wrote: I've PMed prodiG about donating my slots for the SEA server, but no reply yet. I would like to donate my slots for iCCup maps on SEA. I know he's getting bombarded with people offering right now. I THINK we have SEA covered just got to get them the maps. Will keep you updated though. My poor inbox
Sorry in advance to anyone if I don't reply!
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Sorry for not reading all 14 pages, but could anyone post a link where these ominous "positional imbalances" are explained? I don't think it would matter much to me as I am a Gold/Plat level player, but now you have churned up interest inside me. It makes me feel all tingly.
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this might be a ridiculous question, but do you have any ability to contact blizzard about (these and other) user-submitted maps for the future?
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Why are Metalopolis and Xel Naga Caverns in the iCCup map pool? keep it exclusive to iCCup maps. The sooner our community moves on from Blizzard's wrecked maps the better.
<3 iCCup
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On September 30 2010 14:19 kariido wrote: Why are Metalopolis and Xel Naga Caverns in the iCCup map pool? keep it exclusive to iCCup maps. The sooner our community moves on from Blizzard's wrecked maps the better.
<3 iCCup soon my friend...
soooooooOOOooOOoooOoOoOoooon...
On September 30 2010 14:16 StarSense wrote: this might be a ridiculous question, but do you have any ability to contact blizzard about (these and other) user-submitted maps for the future? I believe diamond has contacted them but I don't know if he's gotten a reply. I'm sure he'll confirm below 8)
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Not sure if this was just a glitch, but I was playing a friend earlier on God's Garden and we found that he could run his hellions up and down the cliff south of the 3 o clock expansion.
Will do more testing when I have time, or others can check it out. Otherwise the maps are amazing!
The map author was prodiG, if that helps.
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Everywhere those small ramps. WHY? :/
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I'm a total noob, but quick question. Does ICCup currently run SC2 or just BW right now? Main page just says StarCraft, so not too clear lol.
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On September 30 2010 18:18 grinTOR wrote: I'm a total noob, but quick question. Does ICCup currently run SC2 or just BW right now? Main page just says StarCraft, so not too clear lol.
We only run servers for BW and not for SCII (and never will).
Although Blizz keeps making that part of my contract seem harder and harder to justify.
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On October 01 2010 00:52 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2010 18:18 grinTOR wrote: I'm a total noob, but quick question. Does ICCup currently run SC2 or just BW right now? Main page just says StarCraft, so not too clear lol. We only run servers for BW and not for SCII (and never will). Although Blizz keeps making that part of my contract seem harder and harder to justify.
meh i don't understand the last sentence
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On October 01 2010 00:55 Superouman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2010 00:52 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On September 30 2010 18:18 grinTOR wrote: I'm a total noob, but quick question. Does ICCup currently run SC2 or just BW right now? Main page just says StarCraft, so not too clear lol. We only run servers for BW and not for SCII (and never will). Although Blizz keeps making that part of my contract seem harder and harder to justify. meh i don't understand the last sentence
I mean part of my contract is that iCCup will not run any SCII servers. Although with all the issues such as no cross-region, horrible map pool, etc all make it hard to justify.
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day9 will do daily on this!
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On October 01 2010 01:11 DarkspearTribe wrote: day9 will do daily on this!
Which is awesome. Go iCCup!
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On October 01 2010 01:11 DarkspearTribe wrote: day9 will do daily on this!
God it's been killing me holding that in !
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On October 01 2010 01:55 Gentso wrote: Is that daily tonight?
I'm pretty sure, he said Thursday and I assume this Thursday but he didn't clarify 100%.
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When they will add chat channels it will be way easy to play those maps.
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On October 01 2010 02:39 iCCup.Diamond wrote:I'm pretty sure, he said Thursday and I assume this Thursday but he didn't clarify 100%.
He implied at the end of wednesdays daily that today will be about the custom maps.
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I just had a great time playing in ICCup maps with a friend. Was kinda hard to find them in Europe i hope that would change for that more people find them and play Playing in ICCup maps for me a ex BW player make the SC2 alot more enjoyable and challenge the game.
I would like to see a practice partner thread but only for ICCup maps and other aways to spread this maps. Ty <3
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I was hoping to see a map with long distances and a huge wide open middle, like Python. In-fact, put a remake of Python in there!.
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I've been trying some of these maps out...and they are pure win. They're soooooo much better than the Blizzard Map pool. Sanshorn Mists is my favorite so far. Whoever the mapmaker(s) are, well done!
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On October 01 2010 05:14 FREEloss_ca wrote: I was hoping to see a map with long distances and a huge wide open middle, like Python. In-fact, put a remake of Python in there!.
Working on a something new and exciting that would bring Python to our map pool. That's all I can say at this point
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Match Points chokes and ramps and even the main base is so small, I'm surprised they don't blow up that map just literally by 25% o.o;
It's obviously a great BW map but with smart fire, the small chokes wreak havoc, I don't know if I would quite consider it "in good standing" as long as the map is as small as it is. Other than that, I think the other maps there aren't bad at all
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Russian Federation483 Posts
I really, really want to see SC2 Fantasy.
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On October 01 2010 06:51 ZlaSHeR wrote: Match Points chokes and ramps and even the main base is so small, I'm surprised they don't blow up that map just literally by 25% o.o;
It's obviously a great BW map but with smart fire, the small chokes wreak havoc, I don't know if I would quite consider it "in good standing" as long as the map is as small as it is. Other than that, I think the other maps there aren't bad at all
Match Point has actually been one of the best maps we have had thus far. So many good games on that map. But as always, we will keep watch.
The "In Good Standing" thing relates to it's inclusion in the map pool. For example if those chokes proved to be a major problem that HAD to be fixed you would see it labeled "Suspended until chokes are fixed" or whatever.
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Some thoughts for potential Blizz map application:
Are kespa maps copyrighted? I assume so..maybe in the future something can be negotiated
Blizz will likely want more xelnega towers, gold min, and destructible rocks, as well as the 8 mineral + 2 gas standard... that could be tough to get around
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Bashiok recently said that blizz plans to remove several maps from the ladder pool. Maybe that means they will replace them with the maps you guys have made?
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On October 01 2010 11:44 Abdiel wrote: Bashiok recently said that blizz plans to remove several maps from the ladder pool. Maybe that means they will replace them with the maps you guys have made?
Source?
I don't see how that applies, but Match Points, etc. would be amazing to see in the map pool!
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On October 01 2010 11:46 monitor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2010 11:44 Abdiel wrote: Bashiok recently said that blizz plans to remove several maps from the ladder pool. Maybe that means they will replace them with the maps you guys have made?
Source? I don't see how that applies, but Match Points, etc. would be amazing to see in the map pool!
Link: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628240320?page=4#72
Bashiok: "We're certainly aware of map concerns. It's not concrete on what action we're going to take although it's likely to simply be a removal of the offending maps from the pool. Map balance is extremely important not only to the balance and enjoyment of our multiplayer games on Battle.net, but the tournaments they can lead to, and of course the tournaments themselves. We watch them very closely and right now we do agree that some aren't presenting, literally, a level playing field."
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So Blizz is going to remove every map besides Metalopolis???
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On October 01 2010 11:57 iCCup.Diamond wrote:So Blizz is going to remove every map besides Metalopolis???
We can only hope .
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If anyone ever wants to play on any of these maps, message me for my character code. I'm low diamond/high plat. Nothing special, just looking for some fun games on fun maps
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This is.... so cool!
What I would love to see is major tournaments starting to implement non-blizzard maps. Hopefully that would force Blizz into taking some action on map balance. Problem with Warcraft III is that there were no major tournament organizations like ICCup putting out their own maps, left everyone to deal with the Blizz-made maps.
Keep the good maps coming ICCup!!
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I've so far enjoyed these maps, I feel they promote a more refined macro skill in the players, especially against Zerg since the sizes let them build up fast and the mobility of Mutalisks is very strong. On the same note, Pheonixes have superb mobility too. =D
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Some (okay all) of these maps look great, but the limitations of bnet 0.2 are really kicking in here. I've been sitting in an open lobby for Enigma for ten minutes on NA and no one has joined. There's no way to invite random players into the game and no way to show that I'm looking for a game.
I don't really know how any good map is supposed to catch on when it's automatically placed behind something like 4 pages of Blizzard maps and 5 more pages of random junk.
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Nice job iccup. I heard there are some maps floating around that block the ability to see the build orders in the match history. If true, any plans on adding that to some of your maps, so competitors can practice without giving their opps information?
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sungsu crossing and valhalla look particularly exciting!
Very, very nicely done!
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Awesome! Good to see some of the classic maps back in the game, like Match Point and Fighting Spirit...
No Python? =D
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I would do anything to have some type of league/ladder ran with these maps. Even if we would have to manually report wins on a website or something...it would be soooo worth it.
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Oh man some of these look so awesome. I wish I could play these on ladder.
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How would we go about getting blizzard to use better maps like these?
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On October 01 2010 12:45 RoKetha wrote: Some (okay all) of these maps look great, but the limitations of bnet 0.2 are really kicking in here. I've been sitting in an open lobby for Enigma for ten minutes on NA and no one has joined. There's no way to invite random players into the game and no way to show that I'm looking for a game.
I don't really know how any good map is supposed to catch on when it's automatically placed behind something like 4 pages of Blizzard maps and 5 more pages of random junk.
Welcome to Battle Net 2.0! I think your best bet is to just play the iccup maps with friends. At least until chat channels in 1.2 (hopefully).
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Will some of these remakes get Xel'Naga or LoS blockers (Match Point)? Or are they trying to be more like the originals?
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On October 01 2010 04:33 SoL[9] wrote: I would like to see a practice partner thread but only for ICCup maps and other aways to spread this maps. Ty <3
100% this
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On October 01 2010 11:57 iCCup.Diamond wrote:So Blizz is going to remove every map besides Metalopolis???
I am ok with their leaving Xel Naga as well. As long as I get my vetos back from Kulas, LT and whatever my offending map of the day is (I rotate between Steppes, DQ and BS because they all annoy me).
Really liked the Daily and the posts from Bashiok give some hope too (if not necessarily that they are using these, at least they are aware theirs aren't adequate).
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Why are there 9 mineral patches in the main on match point? This gives the advantage to 1 base strats, dont like Besides that, love you guys for doing this, hope these get used in more tourneys
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On October 02 2010 01:27 ZaaaaaM wrote:Why are there 9 mineral patches in the main on match point? This gives the advantage to 1 base strats, dont like Besides that, love you guys for doing this, hope these get used in more tourneys I think that's the point. Trying to pull off a one base on match point with only 8 mineral patches would be near impossible to do. So it seems adding the 9th patch unrestrictes the options players have.
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On October 02 2010 01:27 ZaaaaaM wrote:Why are there 9 mineral patches in the main on match point? This gives the advantage to 1 base strats, dont like Besides that, love you guys for doing this, hope these get used in more tourneys
It's more of a testing thing. Remeber BW had less mineral patches than were found to be optimal (I think all Blizz maps had 7 but I could be off on that number).
We have seen no super abusive one base strats however due to the long rush distance.
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btw why is there no iCCup ladder? Does blizzard forbid it? imo it would be awesome to have a ladder with simple elo ranking and an automatchmaking system on the page...ofc u would have to report games and stuff but i would still love it and prefer it over sc2 ladder
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On October 01 2010 14:28 Fa1nT wrote: How would we go about getting blizzard to use better maps like these?
One way might be to introduce them in a slightly less antagonistic way than "Blizzard's map pool is horribly imba garbage".
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On October 02 2010 04:54 kojinshugi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2010 14:28 Fa1nT wrote: How would we go about getting blizzard to use better maps like these? One way might be to introduce them in a slightly less antagonistic way than "Blizzard's map pool is horribly imba garbage".
The thing is Blizzard has said the same thing in different words. They have admitted that the current maps are iirc "not a level playing field". It's true.
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On October 02 2010 04:55 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2010 04:54 kojinshugi wrote:On October 01 2010 14:28 Fa1nT wrote: How would we go about getting blizzard to use better maps like these? One way might be to introduce them in a slightly less antagonistic way than "Blizzard's map pool is horribly imba garbage". The thing is Blizzard has said the same thing in different words. They have admitted that the current maps are iirc "not a level playing field". It's true.
I'm sure they did, but the original post is just a little too soap-boxy for its own good, imho.
Also maps with no-gas expos and no Xel'naga towers seem a bit too much. I'm reluctant to accept that maps are imbalanced just because people say so. I mean, very few people like Desert Oasis, but I'd be interested to see what the per-map w/l ratio is.
A lot of this might be a vocal core of BW veterans being reluctant to change. The no-gas expos and no-towers maps certainly point towards that hypothesis, and I seriously doubt Blizzard will take kindly to that sort of stuff, not least of all because it interferes with their own balancing (more gas-hungry races will be at a disadvantage, and races with fewer methods of passive map vision).
I'm not trying to be a contrarian, I just don't think it behooves an official announcement like this to adopt the sort of all caps tones of a balance complaint thread.
(P.S. before anyone says anything, yes, I think the Lost Temple cliff heavily favors terran, I'm not insane )
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Nice map selections. As for other good Blizz maps, Crossfire is fun.
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I was linked this from somewhere else, what I see mostly in here is people saying stuff like "oh these are so awesome!" without any real feedback. It's cool that people appreciate other people's work, but here's a differing opinion.
The best one of those for tournament competition is God's Garden. Most of the rest are cliff/chokepoint fests.
I mean look at Fighting Spirit, a protoss could win with just sentry/colossus/phoenix against any opponent. Match Point = "Siege Tanks + dropships lolololololol" Not to mention needing a roadmap for your units to move 8 hexes diagonally across the map from bottom left towards top right. Orbital Divide has exactly the same kind of problems, way too little open space not broken up by some kind of map tomfoolery. Sandshorn Mists is what I imagine Steppes of War would look like if it could reproduce asexually and then morph together with its offspring into an even bigger map of the same. Sungsu Crossing again has too many cliffs and too little open space. On second look I don't have a problem with Valhalla, that looks good. Enigma looks mainly okay as well.
Fighting Spirit, Match Point, Orbital Divide, Sandshorn Mists and Sungsu Crossing all have some serious problems. Enigma, Valhalla and God's Garden all look decent enough for competition.
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On October 02 2010 06:36 Energin wrote: I was linked this from somewhere else, what I see mostly in here is people saying stuff like "oh these are so awesome!" without any real feedback. It's cool that people appreciate other people's work, but here's a differing opinion.
The best one of those for tournament competition is God's Garden. Most of the rest are cliff/chokepoint fests.
I mean look at Fighting Spirit, a protoss could win with just sentry/colossus/phoenix against any opponent. Match Point = "Siege Tanks + dropships lolololololol" Not to mention needing a roadmap for your units to move 8 hexes diagonally across the map from bottom left towards top right. Orbital Divide has exactly the same kind of problems, way too little open space not broken up by some kind of map tomfoolery. Sandshorn Mists is what I imagine Steppes of War would look like if it could reproduce asexually and then morph together with its offspring into an even bigger map of the same. Sungsu Crossing again has too many cliffs and too little open space. On second look I don't have a problem with Valhalla, that looks good. Enigma looks mainly okay as well.
Fighting Spirit, Match Point, Orbital Divide, Sandshorn Mists and Sungsu Crossing all have some serious problems. Enigma, Valhalla and God's Garden all look decent enough for competition.
To start a lot of your comments dont really mean much. Not because i say they dont mean much, but im not sure what "[a map that has] reproduc(ed) asexually and then morph(ed) together with its offspring into an even bigger map of the same" is really saying.
The only thing Sanshorn Mists has in common with Steppes of War is a tileset. If you disagree, maybe you could be more specific.
I also fail to see how the design of Fighting Spirit makes colossus/sentry/pheonix the only thing a protoss needs to win against "any" opponent. Your "any" might cover a little more ground than your intending. I am also unaware as to how the terrian, as open as it is on such a big map as fighting spirit, makes the combination of units you suggest the best choice for a protoss.
The lack of open space in Orbital Divide was addressed in last weeks IMS and a new image should be up tonight. Your right about that one.
We welcome criticism, in fact we need it. Its no mystery to me that a lot of my maps would be crap if the community had not stepped in. If you want to talk balance, lets do it, but your funny man speech doesn't communicate much of anything well.
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The protoss who manages to get phoenix, sentries and colossus is going to win anyways, because he's got all the gas geysers on the map.
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Enigma is such a sweet map. Blizzard needs to add it to the map pool. It has large rush distance, tons of expansions, a great layout, and it is one of the most aesthetically pleasing maps I have ever seen.
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Could you put the names of the authors in red in the OP so I know which maps are truly from ICCUP? I know there are fake maps out there, the only author that I can ever remember is prodiG.
Thanks!
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I personally like most (if not all) of these maps, but really the quality of the maps is pretty irrelevant.
Right now, tournaments pretty much just use ladder maps, and that's it. If this continues, we depend on Blizzard to fix the map pool in a timely fashion (which most likely won't happen). Once tournaments move over to custom maps in general, even if only 2-3 out of 8 are good (still a better ratio than ladder maps), it opens the door to just simply STOP USING the bad maps and replace them with better ones. Map makers in the community can quickly respond to complaints about map imbalance in a way that Blizzard just can't do, so the sooner we can get away from using ladder maps and move on to community-designed maps the sooner we can have complete map pools of balanced maps.
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On October 02 2010 10:20 Shifft wrote: I personally like most (if not all) of these maps, but really the quality of the maps is pretty irrelevant.
Right now, tournaments pretty much just use ladder maps, and that's it. If this continues, we depend on Blizzard to fix the map pool in a timely fashion (which most likely won't happen). Once tournaments move over to custom maps in general, even if only 2-3 out of 8 are good (still a better ratio than ladder maps), it opens the door to just simply STOP USING the bad maps and replace them with better ones. Map makers in the community can quickly respond to complaints about map imbalance in a way that Blizzard just can't do, so the sooner we can get away from using ladder maps and move on to community-designed maps the sooner we can have complete map pools of balanced maps.
This is a good point... the reality is only a hand-full of maps made by blizzard or anyone will stand the test of time. The idea that iCCup is operating off of is the more quality maps we bring to the community and the more play the maps recieve, the better they become and the more candidates there are for long term solid solid maps.
We know that in a lot of ways Blizzard really has set the bar high on maps. Have they dropped the ball on some aspects, yes, but that is where we and the rest of the community come in. We are here to take what they have started and put in the time they do not to make it better.
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I've recently been playing a lot on the icCup map pool, and I have to say, many of the maps make it very very difficult for zerg ground pushes to work. It takes a really large number of creep tumors to creep the map... and God's Garden makes it even more frustrating because you have to hunt and peck to find squares in the middle where you can actually lay one down.
Does anyone have any ideas for ways to make this better? I like mutalisks, but not enough to use them every single game.
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I think all maps will favor Zerg.
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On a big map zerg should probably focus on expanding and teching, using lings and mutas to keep the opponent pinned (a la BW). I'm actually a little worried that when players start refining strategies on these large maps they'll become imbalanced in favor of zerg, which has high mobility and a punishing lategame.
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I think it will be difficult for people to pick these maps up 8 at a time. I could however see tournaments swapping in single maps in with the ladder maps to give people a chance to actually familiarize themselves with them.
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On October 04 2010 04:20 eloist wrote: I think it will be difficult for people to pick these maps up 8 at a time. I could however see tournaments swapping in single maps in with the ladder maps to give people a chance to actually familiarize themselves with them.
Hey any step is a good step in my eyes. Also we will not be replacing all the maps every month, only a couple will swap out.
Edit: And to elaborate more on what Kennigit said on WoC, the power is in Blizzard's hands for sure. We test these maps as much as humanly possible but the way the stupid popularity system works in the custom game list is making it hard. But Blizzard has shown recently they will listen to the community, and that's where this movement will start.
Also when we are not able to see the real stats played on these games on b.net is another limiting factor. If Blizzard would allow us to view these stats (which I have reached out to them about the custom map thing) it would help us a lot. We do record all the games played on iCCup TV and look at these stats to help us figure out potential problems with the maps. However if more tournaments start picking up these maps we can really start to get a true testing.
I'm not saying our maps are the greatest maps int he history of maps and that no one can ever make better maps. All I am saying is that they are better than the current Blizzard map pool. I am well aware that in 2-3 years maybe some professional map making team will be made in Korea and have maps that blow ours out of the water. But until then why should we not help advance the game. I know people are claiming "oh the games only been out 2 months!" and to that I say "odd, I've been playing on Kulas since March..." These maps are approaching a year old and Blizzard has only changed two of them. Of those three changes to the two maps two of them have been "oh throw rocks in here." NO, there are much more deep seeded problems on these maps than rocks. Even with the rocks, DO is STILL a bad map.
We are doing this because we love the SC community and want to see it grow. We don't make any $ off map making and are fine with that.
As to Chill saying "iCCup stop talking and do stuff." I am frankly confused by this statement. What we are doing here is doing things, not just talking. But we can only do what we can. We HAVE made a system that allows people to know which maps to use, we do have a lot so this should help. We HAVE reached out to Blizzard (thanks Wheat!), but with Blizzcon they are very busy. We HAVE reached out to ESL, who agreed to start using our maps "soon". We HAVE reached out to GOM about this, We HAVE reached out to JP about this. We HAVE been using these maps in our events since Patch 13 in the beta. We HAVE switched our events to iCCup maps only. We HAVE reached out to Day9 about highlighting these maps (which he did), we ARE doing everything we can.
At this point it is out of our hands and in the hands of the community and tournaments like TL Open, Wolf Cup, etc to use these maps. But all of them claim they are worried about blow back from the players/fans. I can tell you 100% the only blowback from a player I have ever had over these maps is from HuK. There are players like QXC who LOVE to use these maps and help us balance them, and the fans want them, our polls in previous posts all point to this. Our last comment on our Youtube channel currently is "Want vods with new iCCup maps please". While doing all this still have found time to live broadcast 40+ hours a week, keep a steady stream of Youtube VOD's going, etc etc. There is only so much one org can do.
Our map making team listens to what people say and are extremely quick to initiate chance. Look at Orbital Divide. Players were complaining about Zerg having issues spreading creep and the natural being too far away for Protoss to defend. What did they do? They went and redesigned the whole main/natural layout to help with this.
As for the lack of practice for the players, well this is not anything we can do much about. We don't control the ladder. But the more tournaments that start using this pool the more players will practice on them. I know of quite a few players that practice the SHIT out of these maps (you know who you are, I know who you are, it would be nice if you came clean and put it out in public) and LOVE them.
In short we are doing EVERYTHING we can and then some. It's time for some other people to help us out.
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On EU its still very hard to search for the maps. sometimes it takes some minutes untill you see them. on the other hand you can already join custom games. really love those maps even ive never played them in sc1. keep the good work up!!!
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Looking at those maps I seriously don't feel like playing ladder right now. They look much more balanced and interesting that the "counter attack GG" or "my natural is inside his base" horrible blizzard maps.
*Edit: However I don't know what kind of impact the map size has on zergs and creep.
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On October 03 2010 18:53 Crushgroove wrote:I've recently been playing a lot on the icCup map pool, and I have to say, many of the maps make it very very difficult for zerg ground pushes to work. It takes a really large number of creep tumors to creep the map... and God's Garden makes it even more frustrating because you have to hunt and peck to find squares in the middle where you can actually lay one down. Does anyone have any ideas for ways to make this better? I like mutalisks, but not enough to use them every single game.
Zerg is still faster than the other races once you get roach speed out unless you're using hydras. I'd say maybe try forward Nydus worm and spread creep out from there if you want to use hydras to push--this also lets you reinforce faster, jump back to the main, take an island, threaten worm inside base, etc. Nydus play isn't so terrible when you have a stronger early economy and the counterattack distance is longer. Really, I don't think that maps where an early hydra cross-map push is possible need to exist.
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Any1 on europe wanna play those maps right now?
Msg me Gont.934 ~1500 diamond zerg u should be around the same lvl and no zergs pls
hope to see u soon
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Isn't it possible to upload the maps in their raw form?
On October 04 2010 05:02 iCCup.Diamond wrote: ... At first sight most of your maps look really amazing. I'd like to see them introduced to some tournaments. There are more cash tournaments in Europe than ESL. There is also Craftcup, Zotac and Competo. Maybe you can contact them, too. The sc2cl might also support your cause.
In order to forge these maps further, we definitely need to monitor the matchup statistics. Since Blizzard is too busy and ESL hosts the biggest tournaments, I'd propose that they might introduce such a section to their homepage. That would deliver pretty significant data.
Prior to 1.1.1 it was possible to read out certain information from the replays like races, winning player and the map. All you need is a small program which reads this stats out and summarizes them for every tournament round, where the uploading of the replays is mandatory.
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Don't really like how you guys are doing this TBH. You are introducing way too many maps at one time, and theres really no way players will be able to practice on all of them.. 1-2 at most would be much better imo, and those maps would get a lot of good testing, rather then lackluster testing on 8 maps.
I mean if you want tournaments to start using iccup maps, you shouldn't be throwing 8 untested maps at them, but rather one at a time for players to practice on and see if its truly good or not.
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On October 04 2010 06:06 Fianchetto wrote: Don't really like how you guys are doing this TBH. You are introducing way too many maps at one time, and theres really no way players will be able to practice on all of them.. 1-2 at most would be much better imo, and those maps would get a lot of good testing, rather then lackluster testing on 8 maps.
In future months we will be scaling down to probably about 5-8 maps per month. But like I said before we will not be rotating out all the maps every month, only a couple at a time. So yes the first month will be much harder than subsequent months.
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These maps look beautiful. When the chat patch arrives in a few months it'll be a lot easier to play these with other people.
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just played enigma and matchpoint and gotta say those are great maps...ofc i cant tell much from playing them once but even in some cgs it was quite nice how u have to control the map on matchpoint to secure ur 4th i.e.
hopefully blizzard will implement those atleast 1 or 2
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I know of quite a few players that practice the SHIT out of these maps (you know who you are, I know who you are, it would be nice if you came clean and put it out in public) and LOVE them.
Maybe if you started a list of all the players who would like to see more ICCup maps in tournaments it would help you to convince organizations like Blizzard and MLG. You know, kind of give them something tangible that shows that this won't scare off the players and that it will improve player satisfaction and the level of play. Right now it's easier for them to argue that it isn't player friendly or whatever if you don't have that kind of tangible evidence from the players themselves. I think putting together some sort of list or petition of top players would go a long way towards getting tournaments to accept this. If you add that to the polls you've taken of fans, it'll be hard to argue against ICCup maps from either the player or spectator standpoint.
I can tell you 100% the only blowback from a player I have ever had over these maps is from HuK.
Hahahahaha. This just supports what IdrA's been saying about him.
Also, have you guys tried reaching out to HD and Husky yet? Their fans are quite loyal, so if you would get them to just shoutcast a couple of games on ICCup maps, you'd instantly get a lot of fan support. I know you've already reached out to Day9, which is great for the more TeamLiquid type of person, but if you get HD or Husky's support, you'll also get support from some of the more casual spectators and players.
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You guys should remove the nazi cross from the first map, as it's impossible to focus on anything but it. What has been seen...
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On October 04 2010 07:43 Kishkumen wrote: Maybe if you started a list of all the players who would like to see more ICCup maps in tournaments it would help you to convince organizations like Blizzard and MLG. You know, kind of give them something tangible that shows that this won't scare off the players and that it will improve player satisfaction and the level of play. Right now it's easier for them to argue that it isn't player friendly or whatever if you don't have that kind of tangible evidence from the players themselves. I think putting together some sort of list or petition of top players would go a long way towards getting tournaments to accept this. If you add that to the polls you've taken of fans, it'll be hard to argue against ICCup maps from either the player or spectator standpoint.
Would be nice. I however normally do not release anything I know about players practicing habits and such without their consent. If they want to say it, it will only help even more. The polls I did prior to this pool's creation showed a great majority of the fans want this. The info is right there. If it was easier for a player to know these maps and practice them for tournaments I am sure the players would follow. But as for the fans there 94% support the use of more custom maps over the majority of Blizzard's current pool. These polls are from the previous thread that led to the creation of this idea.
+ Show Spoiler +Poll: Should iCCup start making thier events cutom map only ones?Yes (896) 66% No, but a majority should be custom (257) 19% No, LT and Metal should stay (119) 9% No (77) 6% 1349 total votes Your vote: Should iCCup start making thier events cutom map only ones? (Vote): Yes (Vote): No (Vote): No, LT and Metal should stay (Vote): No, but a majority should be custom
Poll: Do you think a iCCup Monthly Map Pool would be a good idea?Yes (506) 95% No (29) 5% 535 total votes Your vote: Do you think a iCCup Monthly Map Pool would be a good idea? (Vote): Yes (Vote): No
Hahahahaha. This just supports what IdrA's been saying about him.
Also, have you guys tried reaching out to HD and Husky yet? Their fans are quite loyal, so if you would get them to just shoutcast a couple of games on ICCup maps, you'd instantly get a lot of fan support. I know you've already reached out to Day9, which is great for the more TeamLiquid type of person, but if you get HD or Husky's support, you'll also get support from some of the more casual spectators and players.
I am in the process of reaching out to pretty much everyone at this point.
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I however normally do not release anything I know about players practicing habits and such without their consent. If they want to say it, it will only help even more.
Oh, I wasn't arguing for that. I was just suggesting actively asking players if they'd like to sign themselves on to a list/petition like that. Just making a central place where top players who want to endorse the ICCup maps can do so. So it doesn't have to be about their practice habits, it would just be asking top players if they'd endorse greater use of ICCup maps in tournaments. I'm sure a lot of them would and already do support it, but if you got an actual list of those players who support it, it'd be much easier to argue your point to the various tournaments you're trying to win over. We know the support's there, but your argument becomes a lot stronger if you can show MLG that 90% of their players endorse using more ICCup maps, and then give them a list of those players. So really I guess I'm just suggesting creating tangible evidence of the support you already have among top players. It'll make your position seem a lot more concrete in the eyes of tournament organizers.
Keep up the great work. I really hope this movement starts exploding soon!
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i just say it another way since my last post did not seem to get any attention. i know its mentioned in the OP. but on the EU server its very buggy to search for iCCup maps. ive read this problem does not exist on the US server. is this a problem caused by blizzard or not?
no offense but atm it feels very cheap. get in contact with blizzard or whatever. its just annoying hit enter for 10 times before you can go and play. the way it is now i feel like an idiot telling people to search for iCCup maps because they are awesome and fun to play on.
it just makes me sad and i dont like to be sad ;o)
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i just wanna throw in some thought about some of the maps:
tbh im not such a fan of mineral only expansions in sc2. the point is, in bw, u still got gas from depleted geysirs which makes extra minerals more attractive especially in the lategame. but in sc2 u already usually have a minerals surplus and starve on gas.
what about some gas only expansions? outsider comes to my mind or an expansion with only 3 or 4 patches and a gas instead of pure minerals
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What about single-geyser expos? (Since as mentioned, unlike BW, 0-geyser expos are less useful since geysers fully deplete rather than reduce rate to 1/4 normal)
Also, maybe 3 or even 4 gas geysers that are light on minerals? (BW had maps with 2 geysers!)
High yield geysers are interesting too, but I understand they are buggy when mined from certain angles. The advantage of additional geysers in an expansion over high yield geysers is that you get more total gas before depleting (assuming the amount of gas per geyser is fixed) The advantage of high yield geysers is that you need to invest fewer minerals to get to the same rate of mining gas.
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Pretty sure that along with HuK, TTOne also does not like BW maps in SC2. However, that dislike may not extend to the original non-BW maps that iccup's crew have created. Plus, two vocal players do not a decision make
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This is pretty friggin sweet, nice!
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Thought I'd put this out. I was watching Responses channel... and someone playing on gods garden was able to walk up the cliff with MM as if it was a ramp and into his safe natural. I have the area highlighted in red.
+ Show Spoiler +
I only got a quick glimpse. otherwise i'd be more specific. I'll try testing it out.
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On October 04 2010 15:24 Jackafur wrote:Thought I'd put this out. I was watching Responses channel... and someone playing on gods garden was able to walk up the cliff with MM as if it was a ramp and into his safe natural. I have the area highlighted in red. + Show Spoiler +I only got a quick glimpse. otherwise i'd be more specific. I'll try testing it out. I am absolutely blown away right now, this is one hell of a bug in the editor. As far as I've ever seen, there is nothing that lets units just walk up cliffs like that.
I'll try throwing down some pathing paint and see if that solves it. What the hell :/
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On October 04 2010 15:36 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 15:24 Jackafur wrote:Thought I'd put this out. I was watching Responses channel... and someone playing on gods garden was able to walk up the cliff with MM as if it was a ramp and into his safe natural. I have the area highlighted in red. + Show Spoiler +I only got a quick glimpse. otherwise i'd be more specific. I'll try testing it out. I am absolutely blown away right now, this is one hell of a bug in the editor. As far as I've ever seen, there is nothing that lets units just walk up cliffs like that. I'll try throwing down some pathing paint and see if that solves it. What the hell :/
Thanks for letting us know! Map is suspended out of the map pool until fixed (which knowing prodiG will be about 5 mins from now lol)
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I wish these maps were used in the GSL2
Then it would be a lot more fascinating
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Yeah me and prodiG have been messing with it. Like I said before it's on a temporary suspension until this is fixed (which prodiG is already doing).
Weird bug....
Edit: Before someone comes in here screaming about why these maps suck cause of this: The map was suspended 14 minutes into the bug's discovery. Seriously, 14 minutes.
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Proof that your system works, anyway. Who knows how long it might take Blizzard to fix something like that
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On October 04 2010 15:24 Jackafur wrote:Thought I'd put this out. I was watching Responses channel... and someone playing on gods garden was able to walk up the cliff with MM as if it was a ramp and into his safe natural. I have the area highlighted in red. + Show Spoiler +I only got a quick glimpse. otherwise i'd be more specific. I'll try testing it out.
Lol, I just played that game, those were my marines! Glad someone brought this to the threads attention. BTW I love these iccup maps and play them near exclusively in practice games, thank you for all the work you guys up into these. I sincerely hope to see these used in competitive tourneys and ladder because they truly are better maps and I feel the importance of these larger maps isn't stressed enough for the future of Starcraft 2.
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On October 04 2010 15:48 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Yeah me and prodiG have been messing with it. Like I said before it's on a temporary suspension until this is fixed (which prodiG is already doing). Weird bug.... Edit: Before someone comes in here screaming about why these maps suck cause of this: The map was suspended 14 minutes into the bug's discovery. Seriously, 14 minutes.
14 minutes?! GOD!
but seriously, keep up the good work! i hope some major tournies start picking up your map pack instead of using the default blizz maps!
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Yea. If you want I'll take down that video. I wasnt trying to make it seem like I was exposing you guys or something. I'm just being as sincere as possible. Just trying to help out. Know what I mean?
Also. Cygnus, you seriously made me wtf when you walked up that cliff lol.
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On October 04 2010 15:48 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Yeah me and prodiG have been messing with it. Like I said before it's on a temporary suspension until this is fixed (which prodiG is already doing). Weird bug.... Edit: Before someone comes in here screaming about why these maps suck cause of this: The map was suspended 14 minutes into the bug's discovery. Seriously, 14 minutes.
and 15 minutes later the map is fixed (at least according to local testing. At this point if it's still broken I blame bnet 2.0 entirely, there is no way that I know of that I could have forced a bug like that)
NOTE: Fixed on NA, gettnig in touch with guys on EU and SEA asap!
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On October 04 2010 16:05 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 15:48 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Yeah me and prodiG have been messing with it. Like I said before it's on a temporary suspension until this is fixed (which prodiG is already doing). Weird bug.... Edit: Before someone comes in here screaming about why these maps suck cause of this: The map was suspended 14 minutes into the bug's discovery. Seriously, 14 minutes. and 15 minutes later the map is fixed (at least according to local testing. At this point if it's still broken I blame bnet 2.0 entirely, there is no way that I know of that I could have forced a bug like that) NOTE: Fixed on NA, gettnig in touch with guys on EU and SEA asap!
Confirmed as fixed, just tested myself. Suspension lifted on NA and LA servers and other will be removed as they get updated.
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On October 04 2010 16:02 Jackafur wrote: Yea. If you want I'll take down that video. I wasnt trying to make it seem like I was exposing you guys or something. I'm just being as sincere as possible. Just trying to help out. Know what I mean?
Also. Cygnus, you seriously made me wtf when you walked up that cliff lol.
I was like WTF too, however after my medivacs died it made a convenient escape route for my marine marauder army to fight another day! :D
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On October 04 2010 16:08 Cygnus wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 16:02 Jackafur wrote: Yea. If you want I'll take down that video. I wasnt trying to make it seem like I was exposing you guys or something. I'm just being as sincere as possible. Just trying to help out. Know what I mean?
Also. Cygnus, you seriously made me wtf when you walked up that cliff lol. I was like WTF too, however after my medivacs died it made a convenient escape route for my marine marauder army to fight another day! :D
lol that was actually pretty funny when testing. Luckily crisis averted in less than 30 minutes. Thanks for helping out!
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Heh well Im glad you guys got it all squared away. You guys do a great job. I hope I didnt come off as rude ><
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On October 04 2010 16:11 Jackafur wrote: Heh well Im glad you guys got it all squared away. You guys do a great job. I hope I didnt come off as rude ><
Not at all. This is why we need this kind of feedback. We test these maps as thoroughly as possible but things will be missed. Thank you so much !
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On October 04 2010 16:12 iCCup.Diamond wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 16:11 Jackafur wrote: Heh well Im glad you guys got it all squared away. You guys do a great job. I hope I didnt come off as rude >< Not at all. This is why we need this kind of feedback. We test these maps as thoroughly as possible but things will be missed. Thank you so much ! This is a really, REALLY random bug to try and test for, it takes a unique situation like the stream for it to get caught. I'm still stumped on how that would happen
Can you leave the video up so I can report it as a bug and show it to some people to try and figure it out?
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On October 04 2010 16:23 prodiG wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 16:12 iCCup.Diamond wrote:On October 04 2010 16:11 Jackafur wrote: Heh well Im glad you guys got it all squared away. You guys do a great job. I hope I didnt come off as rude >< Not at all. This is why we need this kind of feedback. We test these maps as thoroughly as possible but things will be missed. Thank you so much ! This is a really, REALLY random bug to try and test for, it takes a unique situation like the stream for it to get caught. I'm still stumped on how that would happen Can you leave the video up so I can report it as a bug and show it to some people to try and figure it out?
yea i'll leave it up. it's no problem.
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On October 04 2010 05:02 iCCup.Diamond wrote: As to Chill saying "iCCup stop talking and do stuff." I guess this was during WoC, which I couldn't catch this week. Did Chill say what he had in mind? Or was he just saying, "The TL Open, and any other tournament that wants to be run well, obviously must use ladder maps. But I hope that iCCup will magically fix that problem."?
I can totally understand this reluctance, but I think it's shortsighted. Unless, of course, someone has a better plan for getting these maps into regular tournaments.
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On October 05 2010 01:18 Pyrthas wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2010 05:02 iCCup.Diamond wrote: As to Chill saying "iCCup stop talking and do stuff." I guess this was during WoC, which I couldn't catch this week. Did Chill say what he had in mind? Or was he just saying, "The TL Open, and any other tournament that wants to be run well, obviously must use ladder maps. But I hope that iCCup will magically fix that problem."? I can totally understand this reluctance, but I think it's shortsighted. Unless, of course, someone has a better plan for getting these maps into regular tournaments.
Really I'm not even sure what Chill was talking about. He ended the WoC with "Zergs stop crying, and iCCup stop taking and do stuff". He refused to offer any debate on the subject with me until I hung up then him and Kennigit both said the map pool was stupid. Chill because he just wants to ladder, and Kennigit because they are apparently untested. Chill has a very valid point, Kennigit is off base however. These maps are pretty damn tested and have proven to be much more game balancing than any recent patches. We use the hell out of these maps and many in the community play them on a regular basis. Match Point is currently #24 in the popularity list above maps like Desert Oasis, Kulas Ravine, and Delta Quadrant. People ARE playing and testing them.
But whatever, the success of this map pool already outweighs the opinions of those two, although I would prefer to have them supporting the map pool, I figured they of all people would be on board. But shit happens and you move on
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The ladder is unfortunate and out of our control. We are doing the best we can with the system that's been given to us, especially given it's numerous shortcomings. As far as testing is concerned, the map team has been CONSTANTLY stepping up the map testing before adding them to the pool. Most of the maps in the monthly map pool have been thoroughly tested and improved whenever a flaw is brought to light (The exception being God's Garden and that damn cliff bug. I'm still floored by how that happened, but regardless it's fixed now).
The more community support the maps get, the better chance they have of getting into the ladder pool.
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The maps look astounding! Have there been/when will there be tournaments using these maps? I've looked through the titles of the threads in the sc2 tournaments section, but didn't see iCCup.
Looking forward to watching games on new maps.
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Match Point is such an awsome map, both in BW and this version, was able to make it into the first page at the 1v1 Custom Games on EU
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really hope to see some of these in some big tournaments in the future, they all look really good. Keep up the good work guys!
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On October 02 2010 06:36 Energin wrote: I was linked this from somewhere else, what I see mostly in here is people saying stuff like "oh these are so awesome!" without any real feedback. It's cool that people appreciate other people's work, but here's a differing opinion.
The best one of those for tournament competition is God's Garden. Most of the rest are cliff/chokepoint fests.
All maps are nothing but cliff/chokepoint/open area fests, and those three variables influence balance. Start playing the maps and then you'll have some more valid and helpful suggestions.
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One thing that I didn't notice about Sungsu Crossing that's completely awesome...
The xelnaga towers both give total vision of both sides of the LOS blockers in the middle, so holding at least one and trying to prevent the other person from holding the other is super crucial for pushes along the middle lane.
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Played some games today on gods garden, this shit is awsome. it's like a totally new starcraft 2, MUCH more demanding.
Hell i would cut off one leg to play these maps in the ladder pool over stuff like SOW, BS, DO etc. I seriously hope more tournaments are gonna use these over blizzards (well, metaloplis + xel naga caverns are actually good imo, quiet like them).
Hope ur effort will be rewarded :D
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running my community weekly tournament on prodiG' maps tonight. Should be fun and way more entertaining
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Would it be okay for me to run some of these maps on my 1v1 night? Just to keep things interesting? (I cast my 1v1 night)
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I have a feeling once chat channels are up, iccup maps in general will gain a huge burst of popularity, or at least this is my hope. ^^
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The only thing that really makes me not want to play the ICCUP maps is that on the majority of the maps there are no gold expansions/Watch towers.
I mean how can you expect that Blizz takes one of those maps in the map pool, if some of their design decisions( high risk gold expansions/watch towers) are not even present? I am not surprised that they wouldn't take them into the ladder pool.
Other than that, the maps look pretty nice and interesting.
Just a quick question for the ICCUP map team:
You were saying that the maps are being tested etc. What kind of data does the ICCUP map team have in regards to win percentages, win/loss ratios race wise in order to judge if the maps are stats wise balanced or not? And in case you don't have those stats, what kind of tools would you like to have to make your testing process easier?
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On October 07 2010 15:03 Atlas_550 wrote: Would it be okay for me to run some of these maps on my 1v1 night? Just to keep things interesting? (I cast my 1v1 night)
100%, please do.
Also, Please support us here, it might help!
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What a great job, I hope we could play on these maps asap!
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Huh, good thing that the thread on Battle.net have a big number of post because in the forum rules, it's written that a thread name with "blizzard" inside will be closed and stuff. ^^
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Seriously, after playing these maps in custom games, I feel discouraged to play ladder. They are too good and the game is so much more interesting for both players and observers.
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I can't post on the bnet forum. Bnet say : "You need a StarCraft II character (created in-game) to post on the forums."
Huuu ? T_T
Anyway, good job, maps look really great and I hope we could play on it !!!
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Probably because you don't have one in the US region or something Glioburd. I think it checks to see if you have the game, and if you are on EU it doesn't think you do (since it is the US forum).
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Sad that accounts are made on a specific realm for forums. Even cross-realm is missing for forums lol.
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On October 07 2010 22:51 kasumimi wrote: Seriously, after playing these maps in custom games, I feel discouraged to play ladder.
Same here. At the moment absolutely no desire to play ladder with those maps. Hope we're seeing a quick switch by tournament hosters to these maps : /
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god I would love this.
hopefully a change to the custom maps menu to
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On October 08 2010 00:04 Elefanto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2010 22:51 kasumimi wrote: Seriously, after playing these maps in custom games, I feel discouraged to play ladder.
Same here. At the moment absolutely no desire to play ladder with those maps. Hope we're seeing a quick switch by tournament hosters to these maps : /
Strange, I feel the same way. Yesterday I realized that I'm not that excited about SC2 anymore... I wondered why and came to the conclusion that it is because I have seen the iCCup maps and how good they are, and now I don't like to see or play matches on the normal Blizzard maps anymore.
You are doing a great work there iCCup Team! Now let's just hope that some big companies like ESL, MLG or GOMTV will announce to play with your map pool in the near future (I don't think that Blizzard will listen to you sadly).
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iCCup maps aren't perfect and neither are blizzards. Most iCCup maps favor expansions and that is why I feel they are preferred, But demanding that everyone change to these maps is not going to change anything.
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The thread on Battle.net isn't about using the iCCup maps only, it's more about Blizzard opening up their options and considering some of the custom maps or giving us more variety in their maps (also balance). It's about map diversity and balance, they don't have to be iCCup maps, and it certainly isn't only referring to maps that have already been made.
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if you guys really want to get these maps known and perhaps some day to be put on the ladder then i would choose the best map, (balance/design/look/) and promote the hell out of it. get husky/hd to promote it on the gamestation or just on their channels and instantly get 1/2 a million people to try it out. promote the map on stuff other than TL and other b.net forums. imo sangsu crossing is your best map and has the best chance to go somewhere.
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so spam day9 to cast iccup matches or what? get him a match point shirt asap to promote the map! :D
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Israel2209 Posts
A small weekly tournament for Israelis which me and my friend run will be switching to using the iCCup monthly map pool as the allowed maps in the tournament. Just wanted to let you guys know, keep up with the good job!
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On October 08 2010 14:18 Noam wrote: A small weekly tournament for Israelis which me and my friend run will be switching to using the iCCup monthly map pool as the allowed maps in the tournament. Just wanted to let you guys know, keep up with the good job!
Awesome, thank you!
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On October 08 2010 00:48 OneFierceZealot wrote: if you guys really want to get these maps known and perhaps some day to be put on the ladder then i would choose the best map, (balance/design/look/) and promote the hell out of it. get husky/hd to promote it on the gamestation or just on their channels and instantly get 1/2 a million people to try it out. promote the map on stuff other than TL and other b.net forums. imo sangsu crossing is your best map and has the best chance to go somewhere.
Match point hit the maximum popularity for 1v1s on Europe. I dunno how many people does the popularity bar needs to be maxed but it's surely a lot of people.
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On October 08 2010 18:25 Superouman wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2010 00:48 OneFierceZealot wrote: if you guys really want to get these maps known and perhaps some day to be put on the ladder then i would choose the best map, (balance/design/look/) and promote the hell out of it. get husky/hd to promote it on the gamestation or just on their channels and instantly get 1/2 a million people to try it out. promote the map on stuff other than TL and other b.net forums. imo sangsu crossing is your best map and has the best chance to go somewhere. Match point hit the maximum popularity for 1v1s on Europe. I dunno how many people does the popularity bar needs to be maxed but it's surely a lot of people. That is fantastic news! >: D
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The ICCup maps were a big hit for the players on the 1v1 Night. Some didn't really like that they didn't really know them, but they all thought they were good maps.
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Holy frikkin shitz!! A garden of God!! I want to play 9pylon, 14 nexus sooo much!!
I wonder if we'll see theese maps on the ladder ever.. Would be great if Blizzard steps on it's own pride (or whatever) and start using community content..
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On October 08 2010 00:43 Alaron wrote: iCCup maps aren't perfect and neither are blizzards. Most iCCup maps favor expansions and that is why I feel they are preferred, But demanding that everyone change to these maps is not going to change anything. While this is a good point and is in line with Blizzard's policy of having less macro-oriented maps in the pool in order to make things more noob-friendly (yes, they did say that), the current map pool is not just "not perfect" it's plain bad.
ICCUP's maps aren't perfect and they're definitely more macro-oriented. But it's quite a giant stretch to say they're only on par (or worse) than Blizzard's maps.
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actually wish there was xel nagas on the maps. for istance one in the middle of fs. or one on each of match points central platforms. also
WHERE IS ANDROMEDA!
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hmm some of those maps are quite beastly
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I love these maps, but would love to see an SC2 Andromeda port.
That said, keep up the good work! It'll be tough to get these mainstream, though. 8(
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Are all these maps up to date on the server that match the pictures in the OP? I was dling them and cross-referencing and found notable differences.
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On October 13 2010 10:41 Drogith wrote: Are all these maps up to date on the server that match the pictures in the OP? I was dling them and cross-referencing and found notable differences.
Yeah some changes have been made. I will collect all the new images and use update them on Monday after MLG DC.
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Hi,
When will the november pool be released please ?
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I read some 10 pages of this thread, so I do not now if it was mentioned in the other half, but I would like to see a monthly Featured Map in addition to the monthly map pool. This map should of course be from the map pool, just single one out each month. The idea is that a whole new map pool is quite overwhelming. And tournament organizers might have trouble selecting just one or two to enrich their map pool, but it is easy to just state that the map pool is the ladder map pool + the monthly featured iccup map. This has the added advantage that all tournaments which follow this route pick the same map and players can focus practicing on that map. And given how the custom map part of bnet works, this way it might be possible to keep the featured map in the top positions of the popularity ranking.
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On October 14 2010 20:38 Sirion wrote: I read some 10 pages of this thread, so I do not now if it was mentioned in the other half, but I would like to see a monthly Featured Map in addition to the monthly map pool. This map should of course be from the map pool, just single one out each month. The idea is that a whole new map pool is quite overwhelming. And tournament organizers might have trouble selecting just one or two to enrich their map pool, but it is easy to just state that the map pool is the ladder map pool + the monthly featured iccup map. This has the added advantage that all tournaments which follow this route pick the same map and players can focus practicing on that map. And given how the custom map part of bnet works, this way it might be possible to keep the featured map in the top positions of the popularity ranking.
The idea is to start out with 10 maps and very slowly and carefully swap maps in and out. For example maps that have been proven to be balanced would stay in the pool while maps that are fundamentally flawed would be removed and replaced. After a few months there will be an obvious core set of maps that have proven to be balanced while other maps would continue to be in rotation until the map pool reaches a point when all 10 maps are nearly perfect.
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Always when I look at Gods garden, I see a Swastika in the middle. Maybe just because I am German, lol.
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Again, if anyone is looking to play some iCCup maps the SPGL has three in their map pool for Sunday's tournament. Check out the tournament tracker for information.
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Hyrule18714 Posts
On October 14 2010 19:53 hybride wrote: Hi,
When will the november pool be released please ? November.
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Any idea on how I can download and try this stuff out?
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On October 17 2010 22:18 pontiff wrote: Any idea on how I can download and try this stuff out?
Create a custom game and search "iccup".
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Just to keep everyone updated the new map pool should be released on Monday and will be only 8 maps with 0 Blizzard maps. We will probably reduce it to 6-7 the following month following feedback. The biggest complaint we had form players is 10 maps is too many so that's why we will be reducing it.
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