14:27, 3rd May 2009, by Rui:
The map's very structure isn't perfect. The drops need to be balanced and the minimap prevents players online from seeing the map. Posts #2 and #3 contain full reviews.
Rejected^{(until updated)} with 2/5 (Lacking) rating.

bounty hunter2's Review on Cyclone

Cyclone is a five player melee map. What I dislike is the minimap image, I couldn't really see much, as where where the starting spots.

The terrain was well average to lacking. There were a lot of Blizzard cliffs, especially in rivers. They look really ugly. There were a lot of unnecessary spammed rocks as well as shrubs. There were a lot of plain and empty parts missing rocks, while there were places such as the river with lots of rocks.

The creeps weren't fine. First of all you have groups consisting of air units only. That shouldn't exist. Aswell as some really low strenght groups. The drops were quite imbalanced, two low level centaurs dropping a level one permanent item, such as the mantle or slippers of agility.

The map composition is very imbalanced. Some players have gold mines close to them, and protected, and some have them very far an exposed. Aswell as the upper players having one extra goldmine more.

I didn't really understand why did you spam so much goblin labs. They aren't really that necessary nor to they enhance the map.

All in all a flawed melee, needing updates, 2/5 and vote for Rejected until Updated. I'm not a fan of rejecting approved maps, but heck if I played it I guess it should be rejected then.

Rui's review on "Cyclone" (melee map by Johan 'Atlerik' Samuelsson)

The minimap looks cool. However, it won't allow players to see the minimap on Battle.Net. It also gives the wrong idea, somewhat. This looked like a Village Fall tileset. But that's not very relevant.

The terrain structure was average. I don't remember seeing elevation, and the ground texture variation was nearly nonexistent.

The resources are not well distributed. Like bounty hunter2 mentioned above me, some players have their expansions too close to them and with a placement that allows them to defend it from a single side. Others, like Red, have it in the middle of a path.

And since Gold Mines are neutral buildings, I'll mention that point right away. I hate to see Mercenary Camps heavily guarded, since they turn out not to be used late game, and what you did was protecting with a red hostile camp.
The Goblin Laboratories don't have much use here either.

Now, the creeps. The choice and placement was alright, but the drops were not. Two centaurs should drop only a lvl1 powerup, like you can see on a Blizzard 4vs4 melee map on the ladder. The rest of the drops were not very good either.


My rating's a 2/5 (Lacking). I vote for the map's [highlight]Rejection[/code].