User:Roy

Roy Gallant is a StarEdit Network community member who serves as a Global Moderator (GM) for the website and Discord server. As a member of the Staff, he is the most recently appointed GM for the site. Roy has contributed to the community in a variety of ways, including submitting maps, utilities, and guides, as well as being a prominent member in the mapmaking assistance and theory forums.

StarCraft history

Roy was born and raised on the West Coast of the United States, where he first discovered StarCraft. He originally used the handle Roy_Gallant and played on the USWest server, where he proceeded to lag significantly due to his dial-up connection and low-spec desktop computer. Due to these economic challenges, Roy could not play online for long periods of time, and his choice of game gravitated toward custom maps under the Use Map Settings (UMS) category. It was there that he discovered a genre of maps that would become his specialty: bounds. He quickly became one of the more prominent bound players in the early scene, joining the National Bounding League (NBL) under the handle NBL)Roy, where he was recognized as one of their top players.

It wasn't long before Roy began looking into creating his own custom maps, which he could create offline when he had no internet availability. His first map, Hunter Bound, was never released. It featured a lot of similar elements to classic oldschool bound maps such as Heaven Bound or Bubble Bound, but the project was abandoned as it did not meet Roy's standards of what a bound should be. While still in NBL, he would release Ovy Bound, which would be one of the most difficult bounds of its time, and it is still considered to be a challenging map to this day.

NBL's members began to dwindle, including the original founder, NBL)Shabutie, leaving the scene. Roy was eventually promoted to co-leader of the National Bounding League, alongside NBL)Brittany. Due to the high recruiting standards of the NBL, it was difficult to find new members on USWest, and as both leaders were opposed to lowering the NBL's standards, Brittany and Roy eventually agreed to disassemble the league.

Roy continued working on his maps independently on USWest under his original handle Roy_Gallant, where his recognition for mapmaking steadily grew and spread across servers. He was eventually recruited into Bound-Making Revolution (BmR) on USEast under the handle BmR-Roy. With an increased focus on mapmaking, Roy would go on to make several maps, focusing more on his content than participating in clan activities. Due to this, he gained the reputation of always being away-from-keyboard (AFK) in the clan channel, and fellow members would joke about Roy being asleep at his desk.

BmR had management issues, and its existence was short-lived, eventually usurped by a faction of members that were dissatisfied with the state of things. The group was recreated under the name realBounders (rB). Roy didn't release any maps under this clan, however. Roy returned to USWest, and his membership in realBounders was more honorary than compulsory. It was there that, in channel Op R3n0, where Roy and a friend were alone talking together, a mysterious third person, QuiK., shows up. QuiK. claimed to have found an exploit that could surreptitiously get him any game handle he wanted. Skeptical, R3n0 asked for the account "Reno", whereas Roy_Gallant asked for the account "Roy". In a matter of minutes, QuiK. came back with both accounts and handed over the passwords to them, no questions asked. As mysteriously as QuiK. appeared, he vanished without a trace, leaving Roy with his new game handle on USWest.

Eventually Roy officially resigned from realBounders and became independent. Having released many bounds and a few other maps, Roy had made a name for himself on the mapmaking scene. He was approached by xBc Productionz to join the Bound Creators (xBc). Having been burnt out on joining short-lived clans, Roy initially rejected the offer, and would declare himself "clanless" for several years. However, he remained active in the xBc community, alongside Happybikini, Pie (a.k.a. Marth), Valor, Midna, Adzz, and others, and eventually Roy accepted the offer: it would be the last StarCraft clan he would join.

Mapmaking

Roy predominantly played bounds, and consequently made several bounds of his own. As bounds are considered one of the 'simpler' maps to create, other mapmakers would often disparage or underestimate Roy's extensive knowledge of triggers. Roy has been at the forefront of mapping techniques such as the use of deaths as integer variables, grid systems, hyper trigger evolution, and Extended Unit Deaths (EUDs). Roy has also built specialty tools specifically to make mapmaking easier for the community and abroad.

Some of the bounds Roy has created include:

• 4 Hour Bound
• Bloodshot Bound
• Bloodshot Bound 2
• Dargon Bound
• Fire Emblem Bound
• Hamsper Bound
• Jihad Barbie Bound
• NuBs Bound
• Oblivion Bound
• Ovy Bound
• PGCC Bound
• Quaint Bound
• Radiant Dawn Bound
• Six Way Bound
• Suneric Bound
• Symmetrical Bound
• The Sims Bound
• Utopian Bound
• Viva La Bound
• When Anothing Bound
• WoW Bound
• Wow Bound 2

Roy was additionally fascinated by an extremely niche bound-adjacent genre: auto-scrollers. These maps feature a locked screen that moves, and players must safely navigate their unit through obstacles while staying on the screen to survive. There were very few of these maps that existed: Yoshi's Bound by MNeox, Infinite Shift by StarmanJr., and The Pan by Dreigun. Roy single-handedly more than tripled the amount of maps in this genre with his Dash series, a set of ten maps, and two maps from the Jog series, meant to be an easier-to-play version of the game.

Roy also created several experimental maps that tinkered with novel or uncommon mapmaking techniques. The most notable example is Super Mario SC, a map designed to play like a 2D platformer, stylistically mimicking Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., where players take turns controlling Mario and attempt to clear levels. Other examples include:

• Cannonball/Fireball (alternatives to the well-known Dodgeball map)
• Strength Contest (minigame)
• Guard Your Civilian (minigame)
• Dem0nS1ayer Bound (WASD key movement)
• Phrost (ice puzzle concept)
• RPB (Role-Playing Bound)
• Rat Race (minigame/puzzle)
• Fatty (run-to-goal concept)
• Interceptor Arena (asymmetrical VS)

StarEdit Network

Roy first joined StarEdit Network (SEN) as the 6491st member under the username R0y- on August 13, 2005. He signed up as the 558th member under his current name, Roy, when SENv5 launched in 2007. Roy focused a lot of his early contributions to StarEdit Network making complex solutions more accessible to the average mapmaker, and the majority of his posts in the community are answering and solving mapmaking issues in the SC1 UMS Mapmaking Assistance forum. His most notable contribution in this regard is his "A Mapmaker's Guide for Creating EUDs" post, which took a very complicated subject at the time and put it in layman's terms to make working with EUDs more accessible to the community.

As he did not interact with the community much outside of the assistance forums, Roy's presence was largely unnoticed during his early years at SEN. It would take until July 6, 2010 for Roy to be promoted to Regular after having been recommended by rockz, a Staff member who was also active in the mapmaking assistance forums. Once Roy was put on the radar, the rest of the Staff recognized his knowledge and contributions to the community, and he was promoted to Veteran status in November of the same year, only four months after his promotion to Regular, making him the fastest Regular-to-Veteran promotion in the history of the site.

When StarCraft II launched in 2010, StarEdit Network created new forums for the game, including mapmaking assistance forums. Roy began becoming more active in areas outside of the SC1 assistance forums. He played and hosted Mafia games, posted in non-StarCraft related topics, learned about PC building and helping other members pick out computer parts, and generally increased his presence on the site. Importantly, Roy was one of the few members who invested time into learning the SC2 mapmaking tools, having carried over knowledge from the Warcraft III editor and programming knowledge he had accumulated. As the SC2 forums slowly became more active over the next year, the SC2 forums needed dedicated moderators, and on April 5th, 2011, DevliN asked Roy through the Shoutbox if he would like to moderate the SC2 Triggers and SC2 Data Editor forums. Roy accepted, and officially became a Staff member. DevliN also expanded Roy's moderation to the SC1 Assistance and SC1 Theories and Ideas forums in a subsequent post the same day, which took many by surprise. However, Roy proved that he was capable and qualified to lead these forums, and within a year, his effective moderation and community connection quickly led to DevliN recommending Roy's promotion to Global Moderator. On March 12, 2012, Roy was officially promoted to GM.

Roy's contributions to SEN extended beyond posting on the site. He has built tools specifically for the mapmaking community, such as Bound Maker and EUDGen. Devourer, the sole developer at the time Roy joined the Staff, was becoming increasingly busy and unable to dedicate enough time into managing the website by himself. Roy offered to help in this regard, and Moose (formerly Mini Moose 2707), the site administrator at the time, agreed to give Roy access to the server. While Devourer focused on new features and performance, Roy worked on bug fixes and site stability. Roy also conducted manual fixes, data recovery, and facilitating manual account resets and edits.

Roy has for the most part stopped working on StarCraft mapmaking, deciding that there isn't much left to learn in the scope of UMS maps. Like much of the community, Roy never took a strong interest in SC2 mapmaking due to the myriad of issues with Battle.net's map distribution system, and a general lack of enthusiasm for custom maps in SC2. As he drifted away from the StarCraft scene, Roy still kept a connection with the StarEdit community for many years, though he has become far less active as of 2020, and mostly just fulfills his responsibilities as a Global Moderator for the site.