- Joined
- Sep 27, 2006
- Messages
- 3,746
Yaaaaay.
Here are my rankings for the top 5.
1. Cannon Commanders
2. Crazy Survival
3. Mansion Murder
4. Demobots
5. Plagueland Legacy
Congratulations to everyone. Illidan will receive 45 rep and an award icon, Kitabake will receive 30 rep and Schurke will receive 15. Big thanks to PurplePoot for reviewing every map and both Poot and Gilles for testing them out and judging.
Place
|
Entry Name
|
Contestant Name
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Review
|
1
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Mansion Murderer
|
Kitabake
| We started out and I was quite impressed at first. We ran around a bit, got the hang of it, and then… well, the zombies were everywhere. We only lasted two minutes until two people were killed by the murderer and the other two were killed by the zombies, and didn’t see how we could’ve lasted much longer – zombies would get random hits on you, and roughly 5 hits throughout the course of the game killed you. Then I tried it again, and it went a lot better this time. The zombies were avoidable after a bit of practice - I was able to dodge them without thinking about it and taking more than the occasional hit when I felt daring enough. By this point the game picked up the pace a lot, and became quite fun. The gameplay was excellently designed, and had a huge amount of replayability. However, the one problem was (as is evident by what I mentioned above) the learning curve turning away first-timers, as there isn't really any way to get good at the game other than dying a few times. |
2
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Cannon Commanders
|
Illidan(Evil)X
| This map was a blast, reminiscent of Scorched Earth which was was quite a lot of fun back in the day. It was pretty easy to work out the controls, though the view was a bit annoying as it was hard to tell what was in the foreground and what was in the background rather than what was in the middle (what would or would not obstruct your bullet). Observer support would be great (so that they could get the view etc), but not necessary. Also, a “waiting” list of people who could be cycled in during future rounds would be cool (see: Peppar’s Multiplayer Chess). The UI was great and original, and beyond that fit very well with the game (terrain, gameplay, etc) – something that most maps with custom UIs desperately lack. If I have any criticisms of this game, it’s that often you just fire three shots in the same place (it would be nice if players moved somewhat, for example both players moving left or right as well as back and forth at the same time such that aiming is still 2d but obstructions and distance change), and that after a few rounds its effect started to wear off. Finally, it would be neat if hitting the terrain damaged it. 3d mode sort of incorporated this by having the wind be two-dimensional (rather than one-dimensional), but it was far too hard to aim with wind as such, and in general was just not that fun. If this game is to move out of the 2d restrictions the main mode falls into, it needs to be rethought. |
3
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Demobots
|
Dreadnought[dA]
| This was actually pretty fun at first, and easy to work out. The arrest ability wasn’t particularly useful, but the others all had their place and were used a lot. The damage seemed somewhat random, and how exactly the points worked was unclear at first (turns out the team with the most players in the middle got the points), but after about a minute everything was easy. I don’t see why you made the map so big, nor why you designed the points system the way it was. It was rather frustrating to play as a team, as if a single person left you had lost; it was basically impossible to get points (let alone kill your enemies) with a person down. This part seriously needed rethinking. The map also lacked flare, and in general variety. It slowed down quickly, but still earned second place over the others. |
4
|
Crazy Survival
|
xD.Schurke
| The map concept was pretty cool and a bit of fun. We played it three players but were still fine for a while, until someone who will go unnamed managed to knock a few bosses into the portal with his roar and end the game. It was perhaps too easy, as I (the tree lover) could run around with rejuvenation on whenever my allies died, giving them enough time to resurrect and go back to killing our enemies. The spells were decent, and while the graphics could have been improved I recognize the time span in which you made the game limited such details. However, there were a few key bugs we noticed, namely:
|
5
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Capture the Flag
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hvo-busterkomo
| Seemingly a half-decent map concept (though cliché), this map had a lot of problems. The heroes were very imbalanced (being simply melee heroes) – for example, blademaster (who I played) utterly dominated. It was pretty hard to catch people when everyone moved at the same rate, and only a few heroes had slows. The gameplay was somewhat entertaining, but being able to carry the flag while invisible broke it. Additionally, the raw damage output of some heroes (such as the blademaster) trumped anything that other heroes could throw at them. It could be good, but custom spells and balance work would be necessary. |
6
|
Node Commander
|
Sabertooth
| A somewhat entertaining game, but a little too fast and simple, along with giving no time for people to learn. We played a few games, but they were decided within a few seconds, which made it a bit annoying (a rematch feature would be nice, as well as 3+ players in “waiting” slots or even perhaps playing). It didn’t have much replayability due to its lack of… anything, really, though. Beyond that, there was apparently some sort of bug, as one of the games ended when red took about half the nodes and blue had most of the rest, when it claimed that you had to capture all the nodes to win. |
7
|
Goblins vs Dwarves
|
Ezikielth
| The starting selection looked neat (except for the fact that the options were… cars?), but that looked like the thing most of the effort in the map was put into. The inventory system was really annoying as you couldn’t control yourself while viewing it. The creeps were really imbalanced, with the tanks being nearly invincible to everything other than towers and the rest being horribly weak. Players could set handicaps, the spell balance was nonexistent, multiple respawn timers were appearing for alive players, the list goes on. In general, the game was pretty boring and didn’t seem to have much of a point. It looked like it needed a lot of work. |
8
|
Plagueland Legacy
|
The_Silent
| This map was a neat concept and looked really cool to start off. We only had 2v2, so it was not as action-packed as it could have been, but there were still a few skirmishes and the game was pretty easy to work out. However, it had a lot of problems and evidently had not been tested much. The undead players complained their units were too slow and far too weak (which they were) and that they did not have enough power to summon the needed amount to accomplish much. The pyre spell for the humans costed no mana (since you paused them as soon as they started casting, negating the actual casting of the spell). Beyond that, as soon as a player died, they were supposed to be kicked. This is a stupid concept to start off with, since players could stick around and either help their allies by microing or paying attention to other units, or simply stay for the fun of it. However, beyond the fact that they were kicked, well… you forgot a GetLocalPlayer(), so everyone was kicked. This really detracted from the playability of the game (for obvious reasons) as one player dying ended it. |
9
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Phodom as a Dragon Slayer
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Aeroblyctos
| The cinematic started off blah, with some nice camera work but the walking looking really odd from the angle and due to the slow motion. The backdrop was rather bad all the way through, so we’ll focus on the events. At first, it was rather odd, as they stood there talking about the skeleton, who kindly let them continue their conversation. Once they actually fought, it was shockwave spam and blink spam for a few minutes – rather repetitive, boring, and cliché. The fact that all three people were custom models when they could’ve been normal ones was rather annoying, as it was basically a blatant statement that you were using imports just for the sake of it. Use them when they actually enhance the cinematic. From there, there were a number of flaws (beyond the boring repetitive nature of the ‘action’, including the same problems), such as the hero glow on Thoumas moving around, his hands glowing even after he was dead, shadows on “dead” units still being there, Phodom randomly seeing the necromancer for no good reason through a building, etc, etc. One of the most annoying to me (beyond the glow and the shadows) was the fact that your timing was off, meaning the skeleton often teleported into the older fire waves of Phodom yet was apparently undamaged. |
10
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Guns of Ironforge
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ArcticInferno
| This game seemed to be a cliché molten core map, with insanely strong enemies and not much chance of survival. I can’t say much about this other than it was incredibly imbalanced, due to the fact that my entire team died on about the fifth group of enemies, and there wasn't really anything we could've done differently. The terrain was decent but it was annoying to not be able to use the minimap. The concept was okay and could've worked out, but the map needed a complete redesign for success. |
11
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Hand of Justice
|
Septimus
| The cinematic had a nice backdrop, but the actual action was consistently mediocre at best. The head snapping looked terrible, and making them smoothly would have made a huge difference in the effect of those scenes. Beyond that, it was rather random, and the models chosen were not necessarily the best (a blood elf with a sword summoning leafy dryad spears?). The cinematic could’ve used a storyline, rather than just a random combat scene where it looked again and again like one or the other of the characters should have died, such that the ending when it came was rather bizarre. |
12
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Assault!
|
Just_Spectating
| The map was really unpolished and buggy. It was almost impossible to aim, the goals were pretty unclear, movement did not look smooth at all, and in general the map was unimpressive. Only red and green got heroes apparently, so we just shared control, which was moderately entertaining with three people controlling the same guy. |
13
|
Hunting for Survival
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Chaos.
| Umm… What? This was quite boring, as all you did is run around looking for mammoths then getting your ass kicked by them once you found them, waiting for your army to rebuild, etc. Only one group of trolls came and they were insanely weak. Mana potions were useless. Once the chieftain died it was impossible to win but you didn’t lose. Young mammoths were weak as heck but still gave as much meat as the insanely overpowered alpha male mammoths. The list goes on. Basically, the concept wasn’t particularly good, the balance was bad, and there was no challenge. |
14
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Combat Zone
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Palaslayer
| I don’t even know where to begin. You had a week (slightly more actually) to give it your best shot, and this map looks like you spent an hour on it. The terrain was a series of obvious strokes with the Raise One Level brush on Square mode, with the occasional doodad added. As for the actual players, the Tank was far more powerful than the Scout, but both were incredibly frustrating to use due to the lack of aiming (no targeter) and the lack of hotkeys on the attack abilities. This made gameplay slow to impossible, and by extension made the game boring and unimpressive. |
15
|
Rain of Fire
|
matyko
| There wasn’t really a clear goal, and the ‘gameplay’ beyond that had a number of problems. We couldn’t sabotage buildings (it didn’t work), pink could camp our spawn, it was impossible to survive, etc, etc. Once we randomly turned into demons after about 10 minutes of this, we killed each other (as we were unallied apparently), and then the remaining person (me) spammed infernals with no clear goal until I got bored and left. |
16
|
War of the Gods
|
WILLTHEALMIGHTY
| Looked like it could’ve had a bit of potential, but it really failed to. You could get more than one ancient, and beyond that summons lasted forever so all you did is spam them assuming you weren’t already spamming ancients. Ancients were also incredibly slow, which was quite frustrating. When you died, you were uninterruptable upon spawn, meaning it was basically game for you. All in all, this was far too buggy to be playable. |
17
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School Zombie Survival
|
water_Knight
| Umm, what? So we started the game and learned spells which we apparently didn’t have enough mana to use. At that point, we started running around shooting zombies that just stood there and respawned (including on walls etc) until we finally died out of a mixture of teamkilling and randomness. The items were bizarre (for example, I got 4% lifesteal on my 3-6 damage, and some other guys got knives that made their guns twice as strong?) and their utility was variable (as described), The terrain was terrible and did not have anything to do with the map – all it did was get in the way of pathing. One of the players claimed a lot of the map was copied from somewhere else. All in all, this map was terrible and looked like it was done in 20 minutes without testing. |
Here are my rankings for the top 5.
1. Cannon Commanders
2. Crazy Survival
3. Mansion Murder
4. Demobots
5. Plagueland Legacy
Congratulations to everyone. Illidan will receive 45 rep and an award icon, Kitabake will receive 30 rep and Schurke will receive 15. Big thanks to PurplePoot for reviewing every map and both Poot and Gilles for testing them out and judging.
Last edited:
![Dreadnought[dA]](/data/avatars/m/134/134647.jpg?1465504677){kind=avatar}
