Old Map Reviews

[-Kobas-]

Old Review

-Kobas- Map Review for:

Ben10 ____ 7.0a

Created by k-h-g @@@ ; Uploaded by: netzas004

Let's start with game idea.
It's bad, I don't know what I'm supposed to do in your map.
You presented your map horrible, no description at first place.

To improve map description check links:
BB Code List: Click
Color List: Click
Need pictures for your map Description? - Come here!
Map Description Templates
The importance of a Description
Polishing Your Game

No hints, no tips no nothing. Quest log is empty:

That means that I can't learn more about your map ingame.
Or read credits.

Always give credits to people that helped you
and to authors of resources you used!
Crediting Tutorial

Another bad thing that come out fast is terrain,
it's empty, huge and bad.

Click

Add different tiles.
Fix/Improve cliffs.
Add doodads.
Add destructibles.
Add special effects like doodads.
Add lightning effect like doodads.

Sorry I can't be more specific I will lost time here,
but let us move forward to next bad thing, gameplay.
Horrible gameplay because of:

• There are no game modes for players to choose from.
• There are no dgame difficulties or any other game setup settings.
• Missing DISBTN icons as well as tooltips.
  
  
• Unbalanced and fail damage calculations.
  
  
• Poor models.
  
  
• There is no scoreboard of any type.
  
  
• Large number of units placed randomly create lag.
• No custom items.
• No custom spells.
• Models in general makes no sense, undead base is guarded with SC Protoss like buildings or high tech lightning towers, while Piccolo fight together with Ancient Protectors or Water Elementals.

Long list eh. And I just started.
Let's check script (triggers).
This trigger below is interesting. Because it create memory leaks.
Group and location leaks.

• Alien attack Copy
  • Events
    • Time - Every 50.00 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in (Units in Region 102 <gen> owned by Player 7 (Green)) and do (Unit - Order (Picked unit) to Attack-Move To (Center of Region 002 <gen>))
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in (Units in Region 011 <gen> owned by Player 7 (Green)) and do (Unit - Order (Picked unit) to Attack-Move To (Center of Region 002 <gen>))

Instead of this bad way, you are supposed to code like this:

• Alien attack Copy
  • Events
    • Time - Every 50.00 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Set p = (Center of Region 002 <gen>)
    • Custom script: set bj_wantDestroyGroup = true
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in (Units in Region 102 <gen> owned by Player 7 (Green)) and do (Unit - Order (Picked unit) to Attack-Move To p)
    • Custom script: set bj_wantDestroyGroup = true
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in (Units in Region 011 <gen> owned by Player 7 (Green)) and do (Unit - Order (Picked unit) to Attack-Move To p)
    • Custom script: call RemoveLocation( udg_p )

There are empty triggers as well:

• Knight
  • Events
    • Time - Every 200.00 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions

Triggers that make no sense:

• Untitled Trigger 014
  • Events
    • Map initialization
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Unit - Kill Villgax 1280 <gen>

Triggers that repeat same actions over and over:

• Doom
  • Events
    • Time - Every 120.00 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Unit - Create 3 Small Doom Beast for Player 7 (Green) at (Center of Region 061 <gen>) facing (Position of No unit)
    • Unit Group - Order (Last created unit group) to Move To (Center of Region 002 <gen>)
    • Unit Group - Order (Last created unit group) to Move To (Center of Region 002 <gen>)
    • Unit Group - Order (Last created unit group) to Move To (Center of Region 002 <gen>)

And so on. There are many tutorials on this site, check them.

Let's now check Object Editor.
Poorly organized, all objects are more or less spammed over all categories,
it's hard to find something you need.
Values are bad, units re-scaled poorly, so models can enter each other,
I can hide small unit inside Siege Tank.

Import Manager is more or less ok,
but some models require 300 KB and still have poor quality.

And for the end few things about this site.

About THW:
The Hive includes many talented Warcraft III modders of all skill levels
among its users. New members (especially friendly ones) are always
welcome. Take a look around and enjoy your stay, may it be long and
productive!

Some good places to start include:

• The Important Site Rules
• Your User Control Panel
• Warcraft III Tutorials
• Cool Avatars
• Search The Hive
• Community Members
• The Hive Workshop Staff
• THW Chat

Searching the site using the above link always helps, you can learn a lot
that way: just reading and learning is usually the best place to start,
especially if one feels overwhelmed.

Likewise, the tutorials can really teach ALL of us a thing or two.
The chat room is cool: lots of people can answer questions there.

A few other tips that might help too:
-Always search first! Did I already mention THAT?
-When creating a new thread, make the title VERY specific: so the site's
search engine (and we users) can easily understand just what the thread
contains.
-Post your new threads in the proper forum: read the descriptions of each
one so that you know what to post there.
-If all else fails, just send me a private message! I'll try to do whatever I
can to help.

Also:
If map isn't finished yet, use Map Development forum for that! You can
make thread there upload your map so people can tell you what they think
just like here! Also for any help with triggers or how to clean memory leaks
post triggers and create threads here Triggers & Scripts! Btw if you need
any help with WE we have World Editor Help Zone here on THW! And at
the end if you need any resource from icons to loading screens check this
out Requests!

You still need to work more on your map!
Sorry buddy.

Old Review

Dualism BETA

Created by Sverkerman ; Uploaded by: Sverkerman

★ Map Review & Moderation ★

After hours of testing, playing and editing map I can finally write nice
review about it. So let's start.

DUALISM or Dualism simulate FIRST PERSON game almost completely,
sadly for us old and unsuitable for this kind of genre, wc3 engine fail
in few things. First one we need to mention, is arrow movement system,
no mater how great code look like, wc3 won't allow us to exploit this
feature with 100% accuracy, you will need some time to get used to it,
and even after a while you will find yourself blocked inside wall or other
textures. Another thing I mentioned is camera system, again there is no
way to create, or should I say, simulate 100% correct first person camera,
blizzard mess up things with terrain levels, so any kind of cliff or ramp will
damage or at least a little worsen your camera view. I can't forget to
mention that angles near or above 360 degrees show huge number of
object on the screen lowering FPS (frame per second) even more, causing
small lag/delay.

Now when we covered basic things related to game type itself let's move
to story. Authors spent a lot of time on story elements, everything needed
to be very accurate, everything is voice acted, we have huge number of
sounds used in this map, increasing quality a lot. To achieve mystery and
horror effect authors stepped back into past, time without electricity or
any kind of modern devices, you have no lamp to use it in your adventure,
you have no gun to defend yourself. I won't post spoilers here but let's say
that finding yourself in woods, alone, weapon less, darkness all around you,
while day seams so long forgotten, really carve chilling feeling into you.

I really like how owl scream, or how tree fall in background, while some crazy
monster or some shape of some creature pop out on the screen from time
to time. You can interact with objects like, doors, traps, potions, all kind of
items placed all around map. High res textures improved quality a lot, this
for sure can't be achieved with normal wc3 resources, but everything has
it's own cost, so knowing it authors sacrificed a lot of space, increasing map
file size. I was able to see resources used and I must say that having 1 MB
large textures indeed are bad choice. Mp3 file with 128 kbps take around
4.5 MB, while compressed one can take below 2. All textures with huge file
size should pay a price and be compressed at least by 25% (from 100 to 80
or even 70), this won't effect game much, because it's mostly dark while
size go down from 1 MB to 0.5 MB. The largest model has around 0.3 MB
and that's superb.

More or less optimized resources mentioned above used together, create
really good and detailed terrain. Off course as terrainer myself I will find
bad things and have something to suggest, but I won't be wrong to say
that regular wc3 player can become speech less after checking this.
Many time we can see map edge, empty, black, space. Also some trees
looks bad in distance covered in fog. Terrain is sometimes empty as well,
I speak about forest and outside world, where is ground usually covered
with only few grass doodads and here and there rock or two. You can
add one or 2 support wooden beams or something like that inside
basement, especially on the place where you go for lantern where is that
cliff or something.

Expect to see nice systems as well, for example Save Load system that is
basically regular wc3 Save system but thanks to blizzard error (related to
dialogs) and authors nice idea you will see something totally unique.
This is huge bonus in map quality and I like it very much. Another cool
system is one related to Journal, cool idea and nice texture with some
small code created another big bonus in my eyes. I can continue and
mention Latern (turn light on/off, require oil bla bla bla), reading Books
and so on, but I will leave something for checking to you as well.

Finally we can mention script that run this map, we can speak about
efficiency, bugs and game features in general. Using mouse you can
interact with object, but only if you come close enough. This has
bad side, because authors based this system on units, units must be
selected, units will show hit point bar above them. I suggested trackables
but both ways have third common problem, you will be able to interact
with objects located way across map, that's why I suggest some system
that will show/hide units based on distance from the player location.
Triggers are more or less ok, even for GUI I had nothing to mention,
except maybe House Leave/Enter triggers, or that Bear traps, as you
can see you repeat 95% of trigger actions in all triggers, you should
merge them into one trigger. Also triggers like Keyboard event are
more or less useless, they should be injected into movement system
directly, with like 6 or 7 lines of code you will replace 5 or more triggers
and like 50 lines of code generated by them. I really highly suggest
converting core GUI systems into fast vjass clones.

In the end I must say that unique design, cool ideas and nicely
created concept really impressed me, that's why I decided to
award you with 5/5 rating, Highly Recommended award for your
effort and very good job.

I will keep checking project, hoping to see improvements and maybe
if still be here have that honor to gave you highest hiveworkshop
award that one map can achieve, Directors Cut Award.

Good luck with project and have a nice day, sincerely -Kobas-.

Old Review

Map Review Depths Temples Created by Remixer ; Uploaded by: Remixer Terrain pathing is horrible, even if we avoid trees, there are still too many errors here. For example, hero can be spawned and blocked between doodads and tavern. Conecting whole map with just bridges is bad idea, huge army won't be able to move easy from once place to another, positioning creeps into right place in fight will be problem, not to mention huge number of spawned units for example if you play as Undead and focus on Rise Skeletons (Necromancer) and Spawn Skeletons (Item) abilities. Expansions in map middle are somehow bad, there is no enough lumber and large bricks tile will limit build-able area for your structures. Human towers are more suitable here than Undead ones because of smaller pathing ground for example. Terrain is often plain and empty, you should add more environment doodads, some lightning doodads and special effect doodads. The way you used Naga as Neutral Passive is magnificent, really nice idea, but again you made mistake and placed few Murlock like units near taverns. I fond this bad idea, because you have almost same units as neutral hostile just few points away near Goblin Merchant. Item drops are more or less fine. Do not drop level 7 or level 8 artifact by level, drop artifact by class, so there is chance for both levels to drop equally (Good for Macrura, bad for Turtle). You should drop artifact items so many times, you have players in your map, it means in your case max 2, this is more or less "rule" for small sized maps, you don't want to spam 2 many legendary items like this one, melee map isn't AOS or RPG, there is no need to overpower hero too much. I suggest increasing playable map area by simple reducing camera borders even more, this will fix lumber resource supply in map center located expansions. Keep the level of Ruined Pilars and Statues, but drastically increase number or shrubs, rocks and other such like objects. Add some effects to naga units. Remove 4 Marketplaces, this neutral building is useless in such small maps. I think, I covered everything, if not you can always check my melee map tutorial for few more instructions. Finally I hope, this critics didn't scared you much, keep working. Note to moderators, suggested map rating: 2/5 Lacking (in current state) With improvements above and maybe few more unique things like Naga Neutrals and you can possible score 4/5 Recommended. Much love, -Kobas-.