12:06, 22nd Nov 2009, by Rui:
Despite a few rough edges needing polishing, "Uther's Slumber" clearly evidences quality. Check my [self=http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/uthers-slumber-149154/#post1385599]review[/self] for details! Reviewed and rated 4,5 / 5.

This is actualy the map made by you I love most.
The creeps and drops were fine 5/5
The terrain was rly nice - you have this blizzardish style with using only few doodads, but it still kicks ass! 5/5
I like the idea/structure of the map 5/5

What I can say - this map is one of your best =)

PS.
+1 for mapname
+1 for the idea

So its 17/15 - HIGHEST RATING I EVER GAVE

Rui's review for "Uther's Slumber", a melee map by Adamcg

"Uther's Slumber" is a very decent melee map. Despite the poor ground texture variation and a notable homogeneity on the drop types, the map evidences quality.
Looking at the terrain from the World Editor, it is clear that the author used the grid to his advantage. Starting locations and neutral buildings are symmetrically placed with a very small error rate. The distance between them is fair for both players.
On the beautification aspect, I was not as pleased. The terrain is not bad – it contains the minimum quality we can demand from a melee map. However, the ground texturing could use a lot more work. Besides a few variations here and there, there is a clear homogeneity on the placement of tiles. On top of that, the city textures (marble, cobble...) do not fit well on the open.The creator did, more or less, manage to make this less noticeable with the doodads.
Creeps are (fortunately) decently placed and chosen, and their drops are balanced. Plus, the author actually knows what guard distance to set for which creeps, something not everyone knows.I have only a few things to say regarding the drops. While playing, you notice that most items being dropped are permanent. Well, actually, there are only two creep camps (one per player) which drop a charged item. The rest of them are indeed permanent or powerups.While permanent items are always welcome because they passively increase the stats of your hero (thus not requiring the player's intervention), I think they do not contribute a lot for momentary advantages; these are usually given by scrolls, potions and other charged items. These items could serve as adequate drops for the Gold Mine guards. Or any of them. I just don't find it very fitting for the lot of the hostile camps to drop permanent items.In addition to that, I noticed these camps on the center's edges, composed of a Forest Troll and a Shadow Priest and alternately an Ogre Warrior or a Forest Troll Berserker. I just want to remind that the latter is not necessarily stronger than the prior – remember that Normal damage type is more effective on heroes, while Piercing, on the other hand, is nearly insignificant against Defend.Nevertheless, the drops are relatively fair.
I believe this is all I have to say. The map does deserve being on the league. With these few rough edges polished, "Uther's Slumber" will no doubt be a perfect map!My rating for this map is 4,5/5, which rounds up to 5 (Highly Recommended). On an unrelated note, it is actually the first time I give a melee map a rating this high.

thanks for the high recommendation Rui, but i want to comment on a few things.

Rui said:

"I noticed these camps on the center's edges, composed of a Forest Troll and a Shadow Priest and alternately an Ogre Warrior or a Forest Troll Berserker. I just want to remind that the latter is not necessarily stronger than the prior – remember that Normal damage type is more effective on heroes, while Piercing, on the other hand, is nearly insignificant against Defend..

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- both camps are meant to pose a similar difficulty. likewise, they both drop the same level of item.

Rui said:

"While permanent items are always welcome because they passively increase the stats of your hero (thus not requiring the player's intervention), I think they do not contribute a lot for momentary advantages; these are usually given by scrolls, potions and other charged items.

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- permanent items can typically be considered as valuable as a charged item, depending on the table and circumstances - especially the difference between a level 2 charged item and a level 2 permanent.


-adam

(new update of the map is up v2.5 - which includes some balance changes and coincidentally a revised item table which includes a few more charged item drops)

I completly agree with Adam - the terrain should be blizzardish and thats is what league maps need. A simple , clear and functional terrain. Not a terrain which is suposed to stun people with its beauty.
I personaly hate people who say that cliffs are "crap" or that blizzmaps are looking "gay"

This map is used in leagues - and thats what counts.
I love this kind of terrain (even if I like to use more doodads and more cliffs actualy)

I also agree. It has a very Blizzardish feel to it. At first looks I thought it was a Blizzard Map.

+Both sides are even
+Drops are good
+Looks amazing
-
Infact the only bad thing I can think of is the lack of terrain difference. But hey Blizzard didn't do that too well on their 1v1 maps.

4.9/5 - Can always be improved

adamcg said:

thanks for the high recommendation Rui, but i want to comment on a few things.

Rui said:

"I noticed these camps on the center's edges, composed of a Forest Troll and a Shadow Priest and alternately an Ogre Warrior or a Forest Troll Berserker. I just want to remind that the latter is not necessarily stronger than the prior – remember that Normal damage type is more effective on heroes, while Piercing, on the other hand, is nearly insignificant against Defend..

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- i'm not sure why you made the assumption that i meant one of those camps to be stronger than the other. both camps are meant to pose a similar difficulty. likewise, they both drop the same level of item. again, just not sure why this was a noteworthy point. basically you reinforced the fact that i did a good job in choosing creeps for those two camps, yet you say it as a negative.

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They drop the same item level, but not the same item type. One is charged, the other is permanent. The usefulness aspect is questionable, that is why (as I mentioned), that note was only a reminder; it was not meant to criticize or praise. As a league player, you probably know better than I do.

adamcg said:

Rui said:

"While permanent items are always welcome because they passively increase the stats of your hero (thus not requiring the player's intervention), I think they do not contribute a lot for momentary advantages; these are usually given by scrolls, potions and other charged items.

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- in high level league play (which this map is used for) permanent items are typically considered more valuable than a charged item - especially the difference between a level 2 charged item and a level 2 permanent.

Click to expand...

Well, I can't reply back because I don't know why. I only know that people prefer permanent items because, like I said, they give a passive bonus, whilst charged items are often unused. On that note, having only two camps with charged items may have been a smart call.

adamcg said:

Rui said:

"On the beautification aspect, I was not as pleased. The terrain is not bad – it contains the minimum quality we can demand from a melee map."

Click to expand...

i'm sad you think that the map has poor terrain, considering i have received numerous messages praising the terrain work. the goal was not to create some custom doodaded landscape - the idea was to replicate blizzard's style which i think has been accomplished.

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R.Gaming_Strike said:

I completly agree with Adam - the terrain should be blizzardish and thats is what league maps need. A simple , clear and functional terrain. Not a terrain which is suposed to stun people with its beauty.
I personaly hate people who say that cliffs are "crap" or that blizzmaps are looking "gay"

This map is used in leagues - and thats what counts.
I love this kind of terrain (even if I like to use more doodads and more cliffs actualy)

Click to expand...

I think you might have looked over the «not». I said I was not as pleased with the terrain, but that it was «not bad».
I apologise if I induced you in mistake, but what I meant is that the landscape's texturing work is slightly disappointing, but it is of the minimum quality we can ask for in a melee map. The terrain's structure, on the other hand, couldn't have turned out better. I believe I forgot to mention that.

By the way, I am not a doodad-map extremist. I accept Blizzard cliffs and doodads in melee maps and I like to use the tools Blizzard provides us by default. The ground-texturing factor does not require any tool but Blizzard's genuine World Editor, which is why I think you can achieve a better variation of tiles.

Woa Adam - youre the beast!!!

found you

First of all its a very goog melee-map.
Classic "blizz-like" terraining, through very restrained Dot-using.
As you all should count in your reviews: its not hello kittys flower-painter ... THIS IS SPARTA !!!
(for melee-maps its not recommended to create a shiny-fluffy bling-bling landscape, through overusing dots, cause it may disturb the gamers while playing)

I really enjoyed this map watching, but while playing, i felt disturbed by the layout:
The middle is wellshaped - but dead and one has always control about it. Thatswhy i close to always knew where my enemy was - there are too less options. With more skill - i may have backstabbed him the whole game.

All together a really good map, but as i think with some layout-problems.
As it is my first time i write something here i dont want to rate ...

mfg NM3

Amazing map. Thanks mate !

Jeez, the map is cool af! Great job bud.

I would like to see this map in ladder. Great job adamcg

+Balanced
+Like the creep camp variety
+Center of the map looks gorgeous

- 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock expansions are great, but the other two look REALLY hard to defend.. I'm not sure if removing them could be a better idea (maybe switching to a different neutral building) or maybe put them closer to main bases.. idk
- I play against A.I. . Spawned as Undead on bottom position. Creep the most bottom camp with ghouls and then went straight to the left green camp. I was attacked by orange spot creeps :S. In fact I had to creep green and orange at the same time Kappa.

Originally posted in the official contest results thread, quoting it here so I can rate the map:

3ICE said:

(2)UthersSlumber_v5.0
No glaring problems found. Pretty map. Creeps were a little easy. Good itemization and unit type variety. Computer AI eventually built itself into its base so hard it was not able to leave for the rest of the game with anything except wisps and dryads. Widening the starting areas would help prevent this. (Yeah, it was vs Night elf.) Aside; I dropped a Sacrificial Skull on a green creep camp near the middle, and only trees got blighted, not the ground. So no regeneration for my army It's 100% unbuildable terrain there...

Rest of the maps will be checked later.

p.s.: Nice drama in the beginning of this thread. I for one can see both sides of the argument(s).

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Edit: Rabbits, Dogs, Raccoons have 200 (Camp) acquisition range set on them for some reason

Edit 2: Relevant excerpt from a slightly longer post of mine:

3ICE said:

I've never ran into this wall-in problem before on melee maps, so I assumed it was the layout.

More open maps would help lower the chances of it occurring, at least, no? AI drops its buildings wherever it can build, IIRC; positioned at a "random point ~800 units from the start location", searching for a buildable spot at that distance along some predefined range of angles.

So if we give it a wider arc to work with, maybe even half a circle, all buildings would fit with some spare room in between to walk through.

Of course the three other races destroy trees naturally so their bases open up over time. Only elves need special consideration.

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