Before you Start a Project....

New people should be making simple learning-type maps.

Busy yourself playing with the editor. Try placing some doodads and units.
Work a little with the terrain editor and see what it can do. Create some simple triggers to do simple things.

The World Editor is very advanced program, and it's going to hurt you if you don't have experience with programming and variables.
Learning comes with time.
Creating simple triggers and doing things on your own help you learn.

People new to map making should NOT be trying to make a tower defense, maul, or LOAP type map.
Ryoko TD has about 120 triggers to run the mini games alone.
It has a map initialization about three pages long.
It also has 10 massive triggers to run the general game play, manage levels, manage mini games, and spawn creeps.
It also has over 100 custom units.

Please do not start a massive project that you know nothing about and cannot complete.
It is just not practical.
When your ready to start a real project, plan it out well.
Have everything down before you hack away at the editor.
Plan the events.
Plan the basic concepts of the map, and what player objectives will be.
Plan what units your going to need ahead of time.

Our best advice for the new mapmaker is to open an existing melee map from Warcraft III.
Add a few special events that can occur.
Add a quest or two, and create some custom units.
Change the terrain a little to learn about the terrain editor.
When you know your way around the editor a little, create a few custom abilities, and maybe even a custom hero.

You can also learn a lot from other people's maps.
There are a lot of good maps out there that are not protected.
Looking at how other people did things and how they organized it can help you a lot more than you think.

We are not obligated to write triggers for people.
When people see a forum post that says, 'I need a trigger' we will only post a general outline, which is fine.
We will guide you in the right direction, but we will not do your work for you.
We are very strict about this.

We expect people to try and learn on their own.
You won't be able to write triggers yourself if everyone does it for you.
We have our own maps, tutorials, and websites to develop.
Don't expect us to do your work too.


We created this tutorial site to help you learn.
With dedication and effort, learn you shall.

 
 
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