Your Favorite UMS - Starcraft/WCIII

[AaronSofaer]

So I just reinstalled the two (Starcraft:BW and WCIII:FT).

What are your favorite Starcraft and Warcraft UMS maps?

Personally, I loved Skibi's Tower Defense and Tower Wars for WCIII, and of course there's the eternal DotA (there's even a song about it!).

There's so much more you can do with the WCIII map editing engine, including making a total-conversion to Starcraft (Which I played, and it's amazingly good). But there seems to be far fewer amazing RPGs and other staple SC-style UMS maps in WCIII.

[Angrycoder]

MOAR AKRONIMS PLZ K THX

[Staff Sergeant]

I was never sure why, but Wintermaul was always way more popular than Skibi's. It's so boring after the second time you play it, and in a few versions you'd have to be a complete moron to choose any builder other than the crystal builder. Add the complete dependence on Grey (a player who will be insanely bored, but can't leave or you will lose), and you have a losing formula that players flocked to (you couldn't host a wintermaul and not have it fill in less than 2 minutes).

EDIT: Oh did I mention the glacial pace of the game? It would last well over an hour and a half, by the end of 30 minutes my maze would be done and I'd have nothing to do, and losing was nothing less than sweet release.

[Piperfan]

I have to admit I don't know what a UMS is, though I pick it up from context.

I have also noticed a lot less civility on the boards lately. Even from long time members there seems to be many more drive-by snark and general hostility. It isn't the snarky that has always been here nor is the same few. Something else. In my opinion.

[AaronSofaer]

UMS = Use Map Settings, the setting to ... well... use the map's settings rather than the Free For All or Melee defaults in Starcraft.

SC = Starcraft.

WCIII = Warcraft III.


I think you can figure out from the context that :BW indicates : Brood Wars, and likewise, :FT is : Frozen Throne.

[Staff Sergeant]

UMS = Use Map Settings, the setting to ... well... use the map's settings rather than the Free For All or Melee defaults in Starcraft.

SC = Starcraft.

WCIII = Warcraft III.


I think you can figure out from the context that :BW indicates : Brood Wars, and likewise, :FT is : Frozen Throne.

Oh, I assumed UMS meant some sort of custom map game, because that's technically what Skibi's and Tower Wars were.

[AaronSofaer]

Oh, I assumed UMP meant some sort of custom map game, because that's technically what Skibi's and Tower Wars were.


It is a custom map game; Use Map Settings refers to using the map's own triggers, scripts, alliance settings, cost/build time for buildings/units, and starting building and unit spawns.

[Staff Sergeant]

It is a custom map game; Use Map Settings refers to using the map's own triggers, scripts, alliance settings, cost/build time for buildings/units, and starting building and unit spawns.

I see, I have just never heard of "Custom Games" referred to as UMSs anywhere other than maybe in Starcraft.

[malkav11]

There were a pair of Starcraft maps I really enjoyed when I could get anyone to play them with me (not often, and not always properly when they did). I got them from a friend, lost them in the shuffle somewhere along the way, and haven't been able to find them again.

One was an RPG-ish X-Men game where players controlled one of a number of loosely mapped "X-Men" hero units with their own special powers and defended the "mansion" (a Terran base) against waves of grunt enemies punctuated by hero-class villain units. After a certain number of kills each X-Man would morph into a new type of unit with new powers until they reached their final form. I think there were some basic defenses around the mansion, but the X-Men themselves were definitely key to fending off the hordes, and needed to work efficiently and coordinatedly.

There was also another map by the same author that involved small armies of powered up units (mostly Terran, I think) spawning at the bottom of a map and having to gradually power their way up through a series of enormously fortified Protoss positions, earning new units at certain kill totals or on certain objectives (I forget which). Again, required plenty of teamwork because no one player had a viable combined arms force on their own. Or the numbers, for that matter.

I don't remember what either of them were actually called, which has made it basically impossible to track them down given that there are approximately 890 billion UMS Starcraft maps.

[Aeon221]

Back when I was obsessed with Starcraft and Star Wars I put together a map where it was all space combat, with three people on each side (worked with fewer, and I think I even set it up so you could play it against the AI) where you'd get more and better ships based on your kill count. Oh and there were npc pirates constantly attacking. I think it was mildly popular, but that was a long time ago and I doubt I can find it anywhere. The goal was to destroy the starports of all opposing players. If you lost all your ships they'd repop for free, but once your starport was gone you were out.

One of the neat things about making maps in SC was the weird contortions you had to pull off to get things to work right. Like I remember having to increment the vespene gas counters of the players so that the game would remember how far along they were.

I bet I could remake it -- it'd actually be simpler now that I don't have to think up lame ass star wars names for everything.