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Mystic Isles

PLEASE GO HERE FOR LATEST MAP
Newest Map




I. About the game
This is the standard melee game merged with Warcraft II and some of my own ideas. It seeks to mainly introduce naval combat in a balanced way and provide a seamless tech-tree that makes sense for each race.

II. Influences
I drew most of my inspiration from playing Warcraft II, there weren't really any other maps that caught my eye. I'm also a war history buff so I drew on that knowledge when I was fleshing out the race trees.

III. Added features
This is a melee so there isn't anything crazy going on, but there are a couple things.
-The camera can be adjusted two levels higher as well as to an overhead view.
-If you exceed your food produced all your units and structures will lose health slowly.
-All units of a player who leaves the game become rescueable.

FORUM

IV. Credits
The following websites are where I found my custom resources:
thehubb.co.uk
wc3campaigns.com
wc3sear.ch -> hiveworkshop.com

The following people are those responsible for the above listed websites and creators of custom material used in my map:
[K40$]-Spectre, Balnnazar, Beepo, Blade.dk, Blizzard Entertainment, Cookie, Darky27, Dmitry Rommel, Elven Spellmake, General Frank, Ghan_04, IceFrog, Metzen, Moyack, Pitzer Mike, richie_lich, Red XIII, Rising_Dusk, Strategy Master, The_Mechanic, Tiki, Tim., Vexorian, w3catlegio, Whitehorn

Original terrain used: Mystic Isles by Blizzard Entertainment

Keywords:
Orcs and Humans, Warcraft 2, Tides of Darkness
Contents

Mystic Isles (Map)

Reviews
08:22, 11th Apr 2009 by bounty hunter2: An altered melee that tries to bring Warcraft II back, although lacking in terrain in balance, still a decent map, Approved with a 3/5 (Useful) rating. You can find my full review Here.

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08:22, 11th Apr 2009 by bounty hunter2:
An altered melee that tries to bring Warcraft II back, although lacking in terrain in balance, still a decent map, Approved with a 3/5 (Useful) rating.

You can find my full review Here.
 
Level 17
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
1,433
This is my review of Mystic Isles

Pros:

-Contains the same quality as Tides of Darkness. This includes the excellent AI, techtree, and naval combat.
-Terrain was done quite well.
-The portrayal of heroes worked well in this map. Each player had a completely different hero.
-Terrain was done quite well, save for an area where a doodad was placed quite strangely. I attached the occasion in a screenshot in my post. It was of a floating rock.
-The use of black mask in an altered melee map was an interesting idea.

Cons:
-None, save for the rare occasion in which a doodad was placed strangely.

Rating: 4.9 and recommended for approval.
 
Level 18
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
2,069
bounty hunter2's Review on Mystic Isles

Rules

Proper resource crediting
Proper description X (Lacks images, tags.)
Proper author name
Doesn't crash
Mystic Isles is a six player altered melee map, thus I don't see how is 2 - 4 players suggested, shouldn't 3 - 3 work as well? You take control of one of the two warcraft II races, orc or human and your goal is to destroy the opponent with or without allyes.

The terrain of the map was done quite nicely although lacking in parts, such as the water. This should elaborate you on how to make rivers: How to make smooth rivers - Wc3campaigns To continue you lack shrubery and rocks in places.

The drops weren't done so good, neither were the creeps. Satyrs and lizards just don't fit together, and some of the creeps weren't placed symmetricaly to the others. The huge creep drops near my base dropped only an invurnability potion, that isn't much.

About the balance, the two middle players are really in a huge minus. They don't have any NPC buildings close to them. The north east player has the goldmine much further then the rest. And on six players only two additional mines, that's quite imbalanced.

The races themselves were done good. You managed to pull it out nicely and I can't complain much.

Now we come to another huge issue, the lag. I played against AI, and the map suddenly started to lag after a period of time. Then I typed iseedeadpeople, and I saw how the AI massed zounds of units. Warcraft just isn't for that, it's not for massing units. Although the AI addition is really good.

Overall, a good map, my complains go on the terrain, balance and packaging here. You gave a link to the forum topic, but you should write everything here and add screenshots. You should also put a list of authors here aswell. Approved with a 3/5 (Useful) rating.
 
Last edited:
I realized I forgot to update the suggested players right after I submitted it. Honestly I will improve the terrain as I can, but I would hope the rating focuses more on the mod. Thanks for the tutorial though, that is really useful.

Updated to include info here too.


The center players have it worse for shops, but that's why they have such close access to a second mine.
 
Level 1
Joined
Dec 7, 2008
Messages
823
Beyond the Throne v3.8.9p-Mystic Isles

1.....Some info about the game on the loading screen is helpful
2.....The credits are well done. Only if you mention who gave what it will be just perfect.
3.....In general Information it is written "Units of players who leave become rescuable"--What does that mean?
4.....In Orc tips the last sentence is "Altar of Teron is an important support abil"---What does that mean?
5.....There is a big time lag in case I play with all the computer players too soon in the game. It is taking out the fun.
6.....Why I cannot ally with the computer?
7.....There was a random hero in the beginning. There should be a choice for it to be present or not.
8.....I think there is some problem with human AI. It is building maximum archers & very less melee attackers.
9.....You have written that there is naval tech tree. Tell me is the water big enough for naval battles? I don't think so. I never got a chance to test that much due to the high lag.

I played the map for 13 minutes with all computer players. The lag has become too much so I cannot play it anymore.

My Rating: 3/5
>Good work on developing the tech trees
>Improve the lag otherwise its fun factor evaporates too fast
 
I don't know why people are reporting lag, I never encountered any. Are you using older machines perhaps?

If a player leaves the game, not is defeated, then all their units become rescuable (recoverable) by any other player.
If it's building archers, then you must have set it to a lower difficulty.
Altar of Teron is a support ability, meaning it's too weak to be used by itself.
The AI won't build naval units, there is no distinction for sea units with AI and thus it presents some unsolvable issues. This is a game engine issue.
 

HFR

HFR

Level 22
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
3,388
Too bad, whitout sea AI.

I played your first 2 maps, "Islands" and "Lake", and I was quite imprssed about your map, and an very good AI, and never having lag problems.

Now I have an answer: Is this map the same of your previous two, only with different terrain, or it's have more elements (like abilities for heroes)?

If this map is the same, only with new terrain, I can review it now.
 

HFR

HFR

Level 22
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
3,388
I'll test soon, expect my review for today already.

Played with Dalaran, Normal AI in all players.

[+] - The Balance

The 2 races are very balanced, like the old Warcraft 2, but whitout an grunt having the same amount of HP of a Footman, I liked it.

[+] - The Terrain

You still needs some final touchs, like rolling shores and bushes, but the terriain is acceptable, because it has the Blizzard style of melee maps.

[+] - The Fun Factor

Is very fun to play with an mix of Warcraft 2, 3 and your ideas, along with a naval techtree.

[+ -] - The AI

I'm a big fan of maps with AI, your AI is very good, but, it has some flaws. For example the mass archers on Normal dificulty. But the biggest flaw is the unit mass that the players use, like 15 footman, 10 archers and 20 Paladins.

[+ -] - The Alliance

Your map is just "Free for all", I suggest you making the map allie's like the standard melee maps.

[-] - The L.A.G.

The infamous lag, feared by 10 in 10 map makers.Your map have lag. I don't know why. Bounty_hunter2 said that's because the mass unit, but I played your previous maps, "Island" and "Lake". I tried 40 paladins, 25 archers and some Mages, raged a epic battle against 30 ogres, 20 trolls and 5 Catapults. Guess what happened? No Lag!!!. So, I don't know what cause the lag, it can be the terrain, or some triggers. But, please, fix it, as I want to play again.

I still can't rate your map, because it's nearly unplayble. When you fix the lag, I'll give my rate.

HFR's suggestion:
If the problem is some triggers, read Septimus tutorials, that you can find in the Tutorials section.
 
Last edited:

HFR

HFR

Level 22
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
3,388
Oh, at least, you can make the Alliance command avaliable only for the player who write it, like:

Player Blue tips the chat message for alliy with Player Green. Done, instead of the 2 players write the command, just one does.
 
Level 1
Joined
Dec 7, 2008
Messages
823
I replayed the map. The lag is fixed now.
>I want to know which is the building where we revive our heroes?
>Do the hero abilities never upgrade wit level or by any other way? (I haven't played WC2 if it is an idea from there)


The AI is limited. Needs improvement if possible.
>It builds ranged units mostly & tier2 melee units (for orcs I noticed it quite quickly). Due to that thing the tier1 melee units get completely ignored by the AI.

>In case I choose easy difficulty it builds less amount of ranged units. The difficulty increases the number of ranged units. It should include melee units too. Otherwise I can just build melee units along with the ranged units & it will give me an edge over the computer.
 

HFR

HFR

Level 22
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
3,388
I played again, and here's my review. (some parts are from my previous one):

Played with Nation of Azeroth - Easy AI

[++++] - Lag Free

You fixed the lag, now the game runs smootly even with an epic battle. I made an army composed of 35 Paladins, 15 Archers and 5 Clerics, and I didn't suffered any Lag, even with the dozens of enemy Grunts, Trolls, Footmans and Archers.

[+] - The Balance

The 2 races are very balanced, like the old Warcraft 2, but whitout an grunt having the same amount of HP of a Footman, I liked it.

[+] - The Terrain

You still needs some final touchs, like rolling shores and bushes, but the terriain is acceptable, because it has the Blizzard style of melee maps.

[+] - The Fun Factor

Is very fun to play with an mix of Warcraft 2, 3 and your ideas, along with a naval techtree.

[+ -] - The AI

I'm a big fan of maps with AI, your AI is very good, but, it has some flaws. For example the mass archers on Normal dificulty. But the biggest flaw is the unit mass that the players use, like 15 footman, 10 archers and 20 Paladins.

[+ -] - The Alliance

Your map is just "Free for all", I suggest you making the map allie's like the standard melee maps. But you already explained this to me, so it's an neutral point.

[-] - Bug

I found a bug: The Reclaim ability doesn't work, fix it.

Overall, I rate it 4/5, you didn't scored an 5/5 because of the bug, that can turn the tides of the game sometimes and some flaws in the AI.
 
Level 1
Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Messages
9
This looked cool, so I just downloaded it and installed it like I install any other warcraft III map, by placing it in my maps folder, and I have the latest patch, 1.23 something, but when I launch warcraft III the map doesn't show up in the list of maps.... Help?
 
No unfortunately the AI can't use naval. This is a bit of an explanation, but basically: the WC3 engine can only use one waypoint at a time. Thus, if you give it a unit such as a boat that can't move inland it will get "stuck" on the shore of where the AI is attacking and ignore any enemies trying to kill it. In addition the AI can't make the distinction between ground and shallow water, so it has no idea how to build naval structures. I can trigger that, but then it still won't know how to use naval units. Blame Blizzard.
 
Level 2
Joined
Jun 11, 2008
Messages
20
i never played wc2 but i feel as though wc3 should have been a lot more like it if this is what it had to offer. Warcraft melee has never felt so right. 5/5
 
Level 1
Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Messages
9
Help?

I just downloaded the most recent version, and it still doesn't show up in my maps folder. I have the latest version of warcraft, 1.23...... This looks cool, wish I could play it. :(
 
Ok well here's the deal. I realized that I hadn't updated to the new patch yet, so I did. Upon saving it under the new patch it no longer appears in the game list. I am hoping it's something to do with jass newgen, a system my map uses. I will investigate and leave the current version up - it may work for some of you.

Until then I apologize and I will try to fix it.
 
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