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Chernobyl Remains

Map Description:

Decades after the Chernobyl disaster the environment is slowly starting to recover from the nuclear effects. The remaining natural resources are guarded fiercely by the mutated survivors. Seek shelter in faraway places that were not contaminated.

General Information:

Chernobyl Remains is a melee map for 2 players.

This melee map mainly uses Felwood tiles, but they are mixed up with different ones from other tilesets.

The concept behind this map was to create an environment that exhibits different life forms after being exposed to different amounts of nuclear radiation. Thus pretty much all the creeps consist of some form of mutated animals or humans. Also the creeps that are closer to the nuclear power plant and those which are directly exposed to the radioactive substances are usually more mutated than those further away that could evade direct contact to the radioactive materials. I also added a green dungeon mist as a weather effect for most of the map to support the theme of radioactive impact.

This map features three additions that help to distinguish it from standard melee maps in the competitive map pool.

1. The Dalaran Mutant creeps at the green spots and the symmetrical expansion spots are only Level 2 but killing those rewards the player with approximately 30 gold each (even Level 5 creeps don’t do that). This opens up the player’s decision to trade experience and better items for a faster tech for example.

2. The northern Mercenary Camp is randomized between Dalaran, Northrend, Ashenvale and Lordaeron Winter. These are suited for competitive melee maps in my opinion and should provide some variety regarding the recruitment of mercenaries.

3. I added gates to balance out the closeness between the starting positions and to provide the ability to open up new pathways. Destroying these gates would take up too much time in the early game in my opinion while they can be quickly eliminated later on, if a third and more immediate direction to the opponent’s base is considered advantageous.

This map has a total amount of:
2 green camps
14 yellow camps
1 red camp

This map also features:

1 Tavern
2 Goblin Shops
1 Marketplace
2 Mercenary Camps (1 Lordaeron Summer & 1 Randomized)
2 Goblin Laboratories
5 Gold Mines

Update:

1.1:

- flattened the areas around the starting positions
- flattened the area around the randomized Mercenary Camp
- moved the Tavern (now one each between starting positions and symmetric expansions)
- removed the bridge that linked the old Tavern area with the Lordaeron Summer Mercenary Camp
- added a Marketplace creep spot at the old Tavern area
- rotated the ramp of the Lordaeron Summer Mercenary Camp creep spot for easier access
Contents

Chernobyl Remains (Map)

Reviews
mafe
Approved based on the judge review of the recent melee mapping contest: Hive Cup 2020: Melee Mapping Contest #6 - Results Still, from the reviews you've probably seen that there is a lot of room for improvement nevertheless.
Level 26
Joined
Jan 4, 2020
Messages
364
I did an over look, have no idea about item drop and creep. I love how you design structure lol. I love the idea of random merc. Less multiway in the middle here Idk though no issue here, I just mention it. Mid red merc is really a creepjack spot. You can't retreat at all look like a dead sandwich. Let see what other see.
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 19, 2019
Messages
18
Thanks Zucth for your post.


The fountain at the red camp does not actually heal, it’s just visual and adds to the theme.


I agree with that Lordaeron Summer Mercenary creep camp. When I created this map there was this idea I had in mind that I wanted a high-risk- and high-reward style of map. This is one of the unique creep spots that would be advantageous to creep by oneself. On the other hand I would actually never do that creep spot myself in a competitive match, unless I was 100% sure that the opponent was busy with creeping himself.


Any other kind of feedback is well appreciated.
 
Level 26
Joined
Jan 4, 2020
Messages
364
Thanks Zucth for your post.


The fountain at the red camp does not actually heal, it’s just visual and adds to the theme.


I agree with that Lordaeron Summer Mercenary creep camp. When I created this map there was this idea I had in mind that I wanted a high-risk- and high-reward style of map. This is one of the unique creep spots that would be advantageous to creep by oneself. On the other hand I would actually never do that creep spot myself in a competitive match, unless I was 100% sure that the opponent was busy with creeping himself.


Any other kind of feedback is well appreciated.

yeah sry I mistake the Fountain of life to be Fountain of power xD, np.
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 19, 2019
Messages
18
Thanks Nudl9 for your opinion.


I agree that the mood around this map is something special. Me personally, I am actually quite bored of Lordaeron Summer or Village tileset maps, so I tried to do something completely different here. I even wondered about the name of the map quite a lot because some people might be offended by it. At this point I would think that it just comes down to personal preferences.


I am eager to hear other peoples’ opinions as they are always welcome to be shared!
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 19, 2019
Messages
18
Thanks SayuriTenshi,


I guess you are talking about that Curse and Carrion Swarm creeps. I would usually avoid these abilities in 1v1 maps. With this it was quite hard to implement creeps that consistently stay true to the mutation theme throughout the whole map, while having them being suitable for competitive melee maps.


I definitely had to compromise there. While play testing I noticed that those spells didn’t have as much of an impact on my creeping and fast expanding as I originally feared. Thus I decided to keep them, even though I expected that this could keep me from achieving the full score in the creep balance department.


I don’t expect to win the melee mapping contest with this map. Instead I would be really happy if this map could be an inspiration to other mapmakers if they liked the concept behind this map in general. While the concept I had was quite fresh for melee maps, I am very sure that there are a quite a few map makers here in Hiveworkshop who probably would have translated this concept even better than I did.
 
Level 20
Joined
Nov 6, 2013
Messages
276
Hey, here is some feedback from a quick look into your map!

- Pathing seems to be nice, no gaps in tree lines is always nice to see.
- Gates are a nice feature, though NE will have to send wisps around if they choose to go 1st Tavern hero. (Not a big problem since as far as I know, NE doesn't open with Tavern hero often.)
- Terrain in base seems to be "hilly" or uneven, which can be confusing for some players and might ruin theirs base layout. (See picture bellow)
Base01.png

Base02.png

- Though I'm not a fan of the tileset, I dig the general feel of it. Seems fitting for its name.
- Not sure about the accolyte creeps, Raise Dead is usually a no no for a creeps. (While at it, Curse is also not a fun spell to deal with.)
- Creep spots seems ok, though you included creeps from nearly every tileset, which is unusual.
- I don't know how I feel about that Red Camp though, lvl 26 with Slow + Frost Armor, while the item carrier is only lvl 6 (750 hp) and drops lvl 5 perma.
- I like the random Merc idea
- I also enjoy your watter/off limits areas, nice of you to put that much time into them.
- Few more critters would be an nice addition imo, but it's more of an personal prefference.

All in all, the map seems fine while also bringing some "revolutionary" or unusual ideas, which is nice.
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 19, 2019
Messages
18
Thanks Mr.Henci for your feedback.

While the gates only really interfere with a tavern hero as a first hero, I guess that they will still be quite controversial as a feature in a melee map. I am curious as to how the judges are going to review my map in this regard.

While I was play testing I didn’t have any issues with the uneven terrain in the main bases, but that doesn’t mean that some other players might not actually get irritated as well. In this regard I might have to do some levelling if the terrain seems to be too confusing to a lot of players.

Concerning the Heretic creeps (Level 5 ranged + Acolyte model) at the symmetrical expansions I totally agree that their abilities are not really suited enough for standard melee maps. While play testing I noticed that the best way to creep these expansions was with them getting focused first. While doing that they won’t be able to spawn skeletons and usually they will only be able to use their Carrion Swarm once while being alive due to the cooldown. So Militias for example won’t take that much damage when fast expanding.

The same issue is with the red camp. While the Sludge Monstrosity seems like the perfect creep for the power plant spot as it is the most mutated creep it was too weak to carry the item. Thus I had to find other special creeps which are unique to this spot. So I decided to use the Voidwalkers as they are used to resemble the souls of the power plant workers that had to pass away during the disaster.
I envisioned this as a late game creep spot, so the players should already be able to dispel the Frost Armor and the casted Slow.
I wouldn’t have chosen all those creeps with controversial spells if I wasn’t that strict with myself to stay completely true to the theme that I chose as the origin behind this map.

Concerning the few critters I had the idea that with these close spawn positions and having more critters Undead would be favoured too much as they are already good at rushing and harassing the opponent in the early game. I guess only excessive testing would be able to tell if my presumption was right.


At last I would like to thank you for the positive feedback you also gave. While this map with its theme is destined to have flaws I am actually quite glad that some people still like it. Any other kind feedback is always welcome.
 
Level 7
Joined
Mar 19, 2019
Messages
18
Hey Mafe,

First of all, thanks for the approval. I worked on some things that were criticised by the judges. I guess there was some salvaging possible although this was a highly experimental map (gates, extreme closeness between starting positions, unorthodox creeps, etc.).

The stuff that is directly linked to expressing the theme (toxic green tiles, mutant creeps) would have to get fixed as well to fit an actual standard melee map. Staying true to the theme and having the map tell a story as to why certain creeps (mutated local wild animals or human residents) exist on the map was my main focus on this map. I even checked if all the animal creeps I used are actually part of the local Ukrainian fauna. Thus it’s hard for me to eradicate that one purpose this map was supposed to serve.
But it looks like I failed to achieve my goal of making my idea of the theme clear enough. Knecht even said in his review that the “creep compositions make little sense themewise”.

I guess one solution to this problem could be that this map gets changed to “Open Source” that other mappers might change this map and make it work properly if they wish to do so. I wouldn’t even have bothered if you had classified this map as “Substandard” after the contest.
 

mafe

Map Reviewer
Level 24
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
Messages
869
Hey Mafe,

First of all, thanks for the approval. I worked on some things that were criticised by the judges. I guess there was some salvaging possible although this was a highly experimental map (gates, extreme closeness between starting positions, unorthodox creeps, etc.).

The stuff that is directly linked to expressing the theme (toxic green tiles, mutant creeps) would have to get fixed as well to fit an actual standard melee map. Staying true to the theme and having the map tell a story as to why certain creeps (mutated local wild animals or human residents) exist on the map was my main focus on this map. I even checked if all the animal creeps I used are actually part of the local Ukrainian fauna. Thus it’s hard for me to eradicate that one purpose this map was supposed to serve.
But it looks like I failed to achieve my goal of making my idea of the theme clear enough. Knecht even said in his review that the “creep compositions make little sense themewise”.

I guess one solution to this problem could be that this map gets changed to “Open Source” that other mappers might change this map and make it work properly if they wish to do so. I wouldn’t even have bothered if you had classified this map as “Substandard” after the contest.
Yes I understand. I'm usually coming from the point of view of "does this melee map have what it takes to a ladder-like melee map?" However, it's a completely legitimate to have other goals in mind (though the gameplay should still make it feel you are playing wc3 and not something else). If this is your primary goal, I think you have achieved it, and there is no need to make any updates.
 
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