21:30, 31st May 2013
Orcnet: Hell_Master's review:

Hell_Master;2349845 said:

Hey there, played your map and it is quite nice. Here is my review to give you more:

Cold ! Review

[+] Good Points:
-Terrain is good but I did notice that it is empty at some points and also as possible maybe you can try mixing and blending tiles so they will look good. Using 1 tiles is quite dull and boring dont you think?
-Map has required resources:

• Gold Mines
• Goblin Merchant
• Taverns

-Positioning of players looks fine
-Creeps are balance enough

[-] Bad Points:
-I do think that there are quite a few creeps. Maybe add some more.

[] Suggestions:
-Some minor improvements in terrain
-Add some more creeps

Overall, a good melee map with decent to good terrain, has required resources and proper positioning of players. Rated 3/5 and +4 REP to you!

Voting for Approval!

Update: Improve description please. You are breaking a rule if description is not properly polished.

Click to expand...

Well most people will tell you : "omg you must put images", so do it.
For me at least from mini map, it looks somehow simple
.

hi there i say your map and i think

good things
-nice terrain form
-starting locations well placed
-6 gold mines for a 1vs1 map. thats good. it can do a large duel
-you put 2 markets and 2 taverns

things i question
- i didnt like the doads, you spawned like trees, and the plants doesnt fit with the snow
-you used 3 tiles for the map, and the 80 % is snow, i would customice the tile using some more of notrthrend or ice crown, maybe some ice
- some parts are dificult to transit because the paths are a little reduced
-i never liked gold mines locked with trees because the ia, the human is more inteligent than the ia, i saw that in Blizzard maps too.

i think the map can be improved and aproved.

Hey there, played your map and it is quite nice. Here is my review to give you more:

Overall, a good melee map with decent to good terrain, has required resources and proper positioning of players. Rated 3/5 and +4 REP to you!

Voting for Approval!

Update: Improve description please. You are breaking a rule if description is not properly polished.

Needs a description...

^I agree

Updated review due to UndeadImmortal's comment XD

a description can change the world you know

EDIT: map updated

Orcnet said:

a description can change the world you know

Click to expand...

You are truly right

Hey I updated now.

map approved now all thanks to Hell_Master

Oh yes again, I really deserve a cookie! =D

I thought I'd take the time to appreciate someone else's map instead of working on my own, for a change. Here's my feedback:

the good
-terrain looks beautiful. However, I am far from 'qualified' and assessing this sort of thing, so I would defer you to the feedback of others for this..
-there is enough gold, lumber, creeps, and building space for a solid game


the bad
-Your drops are ridiculous. You must fix the drop tables for it to be even considered a 'playable' map, in my opinion. Never ever ever drop "miscellaneous" items in a melee map (or campaign items, purchasable items, or most level 0 items), for one thing. I would suggest establishing a map table*, instead of adjusting each creep drop individually - this helps keep things in order and also makes it very easy to make map-wide modifications. Also, always specify a level for a drop. Putting "any level power up" on a green creep camp means someone could get a tome of power off of them! That's a potential level 6 hero from taking out a green creep camp. I always appreciate a little bit of a 'dice luck' effect in the drops, but that extends to maybe something like a 10% chance of a tome of knowledge dropping instead of a manual of health. What you have is way overboard - you don't want the luck of the drops to potentially decide the outcome of the game. Play or look at any melee map to determine what drops are appropriate and start over with the drop tables. Fortunately, adjusting drops is typically the least time-consuming thing to do in a map, so this should be a quick fix.
-starting locations have a minor imbalance. As I allude to in the suggestions (below), the width of the entrance to a base can be a big factor. If you want to make wide entrances, that's fine - i would suggest against it, but it's fine if you do it anyway. However, what you can't do is make one entrance significantly wider than the other, because that is a strategic imbalance which thus renders the whole map unqualified for competitive play. Fortunately, this is also trivial to fix.
-nearby green creeps have shadowmeld and sleep at night. This makes them tricky to engage at night time.

the quirks
-green creep camps are sparse and far away from starting locations, but this is offset by having very few of them
-all creeps in the center camp drop something. This is okay as long as the drops are fair.
-a lot of pathing bottlenecks, which begs for an air strategy.
-center creeps have no anti-air capabilities. Coupled with a likely air strategy, this trivializes what should be very difficult creeps, and gives a minor advantage (depending on the drops) to a Warden (hero), as she can simply blink in to take the items. Not game-breaking, but a quirk
-expansion mine creeps drop three items. Again, it's okay as long as the drops are fair.

suggestions
-in general, you never want to leave gold mines unguarded (because it gives a significant advantage to humans and undead), but since they are enveloped by trees it isn't a total freebie, so I guess it's 'okay.' It doesn't hurt anything to guard it with something anyway, though.
-a little less space for the entrances to each base is always appreciated. That is, if you close things up a bit, no one will have a problem with it, but if you leave them wide open some will have a problem with it. For example, humans typically rely on building structures early game such that it barricades their base from (say) a sneaky blademaster. With your map as it is, this can not be done without a good 10 structures, which can't be produced in time to obstruct a hero harass.
-a lot of the creeps seem to be rotated randomly. You could get them all facing in some sensible direction.
-add some observatories. any time you have places enclosed by trees, you'll want to put some observatories in

*a typical map table might look something like this:
green - 50% chance random level 1 permanent, 50% chance random level 1 charged
yellow - 50% chance random level 3 permanent, 50% chance random level 3 charged
red - 50% chance random level 5 permanent, 50% chance random level 5 charged
super red (like what you have in the center) - 50% chance any level 7, 50% chance any level 8

That is quite a detailed and good review, normalice! Nice.

Hell_Master said:

That is quite a detailed and good review, normalice! Nice.

Click to expand...

thanks. I only got to look at it for a few minutes, though, because I had to rush off to work, so some of my assessment might be a little bit off or even missing. I'll take a closer look later...

Good. Its good to see users becoming map reviewers also.