Spring RTS Engine

Best

1) Comet and remakes (Green Comet has almost identical gameplay fex) due to wide openness as well as the fact that noobs die quickly

2) Oki River; original layout, decent metal distribution, multiple ways to win/lose

3) DUCK - Novelty map ftw

4) All of Quanto's tourney maps. All are very small, make for fast/intense games, have extremely good (read: sparse, spread) metal distribution, and look great - although the graphics realy are just gravy.

Aftershock. Because if your machine can handle it, it's one of the most scenic things in Spring.

Ashap Plateau and NanoArena, because they're small, allow for multiple strategies, and allow for defense as well as offense.

The Cold Place Remake, even though I wish the water was a natural color.

I like both GreenerFields and SpeedMetal, because they aren't afraid of being what they are. GreenerFields would be better with a real texture and a teensy amount of hills and valleys just to feel like a real place, but I see no real problem with its premise.

I don't get the people who hate Speedmetal, honestly- metal maps had their place in OTA, and they have a place in Spring. Speedmetal is a good trainer map for people who need to learn the basics of gameplay without getting insta-pwnd by experienced rush players, and therein lies the appeal- even newbies can last long enough to try a few things out.

I like Picasso's maps, because they're actually interesting attempts to model places that are actually interesting. The places are sometimes surreal, but that's ok- I believe that meta-maps have a place in the universe, and that people who take the whole Realism concept and worship it as gospel are missing the point.

Splintered 4X4, which has a real feeling of place to it. I think that that map might be very nicely made for SM3.

EuroGreen, which is begging for a decent texture, has very interesting gameplay. I could really see it being a classic in SM3.

Hells_Teeth, which would rule in SM3 because the teeth would no longer look stretched and normal maps would really change how it felt, also has very interesting gameplay.

Nightscape, which almost succeeds in really evoking a place that's different, and manages to feel like night- without being dark.

Cliff Run, which probably hardly gets played because of its atrocious minimap, is an incredibly tight and intensive map.

Eurogreen? Seriously? I made that in like 20 minutes. Including compiling. You HAVE to be joking there...

EDIT: My favorites would have to be:

Small Supreme cause of the water. So many ways to win, and just as many ways to lose. Seriously, no one EVER goes amphib, or is prepared for an amphib assault. Easiest way to win a game.

Cold Place, good memories.

NanoArena cause it owns with NanoBlobs (figures).

Riverdale, cause it looks like ownage and plays well to boot. Sparewood also owns with NanoBlobs.

Nope. Been using it to test NanoBlobs with since I wrote it. Call it a happy accident. I just wish it was... pretty.

Yeah, and Riverdale is very nice, have to agree with that. I haven't tried Egypt... that sounds intriguing... tell me it is has halfway-decent pyramids...

Well theres your problem, im a crappy artist, and Fireworks chokes on images that big as it is, theres no way I could work with it to make it look good. A L3DT render wouldnt look right on that map either, if i could even get it to work. If you want to throw together a texture just grab that MapExporterAI and rip the height/metal map from it.

You don't have the original heightmap sitting around? I'm more than half-tempted to do it in SM3, just because I find the format intriguing...

Nah I lost all my old maps (only two ever saw the light of day: EuroGreen and RollingHills), but you can do what you want with either of them, I couldnt care less about them anymore.

I hereby release my two maps (EuroGreen and RollingHills) into public domain for anyone to use in anyway they see fit.

Argh wrote: I don't get the people who hate Speedmetal, honestly- metal maps had their place in OTA, and they have a place in Spring. Speedmetal is a good trainer map for people who need to learn the basics of gameplay without getting insta-pwnd by experienced rush players, and therein lies the appeal- even newbies can last long enough to try a few things out.

I belive it is also my opinion.

I will not say which maps i like/hate because I still have to check out other mods than AA and XTA in battles

Argh wrote:I don't get the people who hate Speedmetal, honestly- metal maps had their place in OTA, and they have a place in Spring. Speedmetal is a good trainer map for people who need to learn the basics of gameplay without getting insta-pwnd by experienced rush players, and therein lies the appeal- even newbies can last long enough to try a few things out.

Metal maps do, yes. And you'll find the better ones on a lot of peoples' top lists - Metal Heck, for example. SpeedMetal's not really a metal map. It has far more metal and wind than any of them and only one avenue to attack your enemy. It's actually bad for teaching players the basics, as they learn nothing that's useful for playing on a real map.

As a note, also, maybe the best would just do like RedDragon(?) made and request for an idea of a map.
Or like Ice, which proposed a serie of designs and asked for which one people liked best. That way, you still get to be the one who made the original designs and choose the final one, still having most of the credit of the map.
Also, after Ice made DeltaSiege, he humbly asked for help making a metal map since he didn't feeled perfectly confident in making something perfect.

Of course, these methods ruin the surprise of something new but, on the other hand, are much more reliable in making a good map .. if the person is willing to ask for help or feedback.

Low metal maps in general, particularly Green Fields - Having less metal does not make the game "more tactical". It just encourages porcing and punishes people for being aggressive. There's a minimum metal level where any game plays well. These are below it.

Try pincushion. Or how low do you mean?
Pincushion is a really good map, since it gives the advantage to the plotter. Here metal really... and i mean REALLY matters. See those 3 peewee corpses? They're your new LLT. You almost not notice the change in a normal... ZOMG CC match, but now... you must have units

And i would't say it encourage porching... it almost has the perfect balance of to much metal and to little. Keeping you hungry for metal should make you expand more really. If it pays, and it does.



I like small maps, i maps with SOME kind of choke. Srsly, big, flat and open AIN'T always the best fucking idea to a good map. Given the player some kind of terrain to mess around with + some good resource distribution is the best IMO.

For example.. Brazilian battlefield, Mars, Small divide(possibly Digsite)... all great maps, thanks to the terrain giving many strategies. It's kinda hard to find maps that are good like that really...


Don't get me wrong, big open maps are good to. But i don't like em. They offer no protection and huge rewards for expanding like a fucking hamster, but they don't offer any terrain benefits or important area to secure. Also, the fights are so undynamic. Half the fights don't do anything, half of them kill you, or cripple you beyond repair. All of them, if you don't have super radar coverage (and even then it prbly doesn't matter much) you can't do anything. The units will come, they will kill anything you don't have protected. There is no "raiding" past the 6 minute mark.

Small maps is all about the micro thou, and one unit failure and bam, your on the slippery slope of DOOM. (if your playing against a good player)

Maps with actual terrain difference complement these 2 issues by giving advantage to the player who plotted the terrain best, and then an advantage to the player who micro his units best on that important terrain.

Maps i don`t like

Duck-
Sorry i just don`t get it

SM
Because there are already MethadonMaps available to get SM-Players of the Drug. To learn SpringPlaying - The Pass is way better.

Atlantic...
But this is only AA - never played EE on it.

The Pink
Man i expected that Much - with that Name - and - what must i see... Nothing...

Maps i like

Mountain Lake
The Constant Struggle for the MiddleHill make it the great Map it is.

Green Haven
2 Continents Remake
Gyser Plains

PS: Kixxy get your Avatar repaired it still has this odd flickering

Argh

EuroGreen, which is begging for a decent texture, has very interesting gameplay. I could really see it being a classic in SM3.

That was one of the maps I was planning on redoing when the new
format is complete.

Atlantic was a good effort but really, really bad result. If we ever get higher resolutions available to us, I'll make something like that, but with a high-resolution heightmap and a decent texture.

genblood, I know you technically released that map, but I did make it, I was just having trouble compiling so I uploaded the files to the net for someone to take a look at. You compiled and released it. Just clearing that up.

True ... my mistake ... memory going ...

Still planning on redoing the texture, metal and some custom
features. I plan on calling it EuroGreen-Redux ...