Approved
Map Reviewer
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2011
- Messages
- 1,957
Review - (4)Enclosure
(Version October 10th 2022)
Description: Enclosure is a melee map for four players, featuring a wintery theme with an interesting mixture of environmental visuals giving it a mystical, magic-like feeling. Uncommon gameplay elements, such as rock chunk walls and unusual creep units also bring some freshness to the map.
Terrain: The terrain looks quite marvelous with the mixture of blue-greenish hues mixing well with the prismatic water. The dully-vibrant greens give a stunning contrast with the dark greys of the palette, really nice job. In some parts, I wish you went easier with the winter green grass and kept it more cluttered instead of a continuous mat, but that's just my eyes talking. The good visual work continues with the props and doodads that fit in well with the background, despite the usage of more tropical objects like corals being used - they do fit in quite nicely. The Raise / Lower -tool is used nicely here as well and it combines nicely with the water areas of the map. Bonus point for nice usage of Sargeras' Eye.
Layout: The layout seems fair and I like the split between the players/teams. The Taverns are located at the edges of the map, giving players one-on-one clashing opportunities early in the game without having every player match each other too early. The central expansions are open and vulnerable, perhaps even too much so, but as they are secondary expansions I think that's justifiable. Overall I think the map has a nice amount of choke points and equally many open areas for battles. The Fountains of Health are seemingly gated behind a Rock Chunk wall, which acts as more of a signal of entry, rather than an obstacle.
Creeps: Most of the creeps follow the theme of frozen-water-wonderland, though I think Makruras might look a tad bit too exotic. Nice job nevertheless. Many unusual creeps such as Drak'thul and Hydromancer have been used to spice things up to break the normal creep types, nice. The Editor (at least my version) fails to count the correct level of the Hydromancer camps, but they seem to display correctly in-game. Weird. For my taste, there are a few too many types of creeps used from various tilesets, but that's up to the author and the audience. Typically you want to stay to one, two, or perhaps three tileset creeps, but this map takes some freedoms with the creep types already, which by itself is not a bad thing, just a point of note. The item drops seem appropriate. I like the relatively strong drop from the central expansion sites, giving the incentive to clear it - though I do not know exactly how Drak'thul's power corresponds to his level. The Fountain camps don't necessarily need to be on Camp mode completely, perhaps the dragon could be on normal mode to trigger the aggro easier to prevent easy abuse of the camps?
Gameplay: A nice map for four players. I can see a big replay value, especially for playing in a group of friends as the unique factors spice the gameplay nicely. Visually the map is very pleasing. The rather safe primary expansions are close to each player, yet on the direct line of attack from the enemies, with the Goblin Merchant and Tavern backing up the aggressor's side, which can give an interesting power dynamic.
Recommendations:
Perhaps tweak the fountain creeps' camp mode and change it if you wish. The maps' description should also probably read "sealed" instead of "seal".
(Version October 10th 2022)
Description: Enclosure is a melee map for four players, featuring a wintery theme with an interesting mixture of environmental visuals giving it a mystical, magic-like feeling. Uncommon gameplay elements, such as rock chunk walls and unusual creep units also bring some freshness to the map.
Terrain: The terrain looks quite marvelous with the mixture of blue-greenish hues mixing well with the prismatic water. The dully-vibrant greens give a stunning contrast with the dark greys of the palette, really nice job. In some parts, I wish you went easier with the winter green grass and kept it more cluttered instead of a continuous mat, but that's just my eyes talking. The good visual work continues with the props and doodads that fit in well with the background, despite the usage of more tropical objects like corals being used - they do fit in quite nicely. The Raise / Lower -tool is used nicely here as well and it combines nicely with the water areas of the map. Bonus point for nice usage of Sargeras' Eye.
Layout: The layout seems fair and I like the split between the players/teams. The Taverns are located at the edges of the map, giving players one-on-one clashing opportunities early in the game without having every player match each other too early. The central expansions are open and vulnerable, perhaps even too much so, but as they are secondary expansions I think that's justifiable. Overall I think the map has a nice amount of choke points and equally many open areas for battles. The Fountains of Health are seemingly gated behind a Rock Chunk wall, which acts as more of a signal of entry, rather than an obstacle.
Creeps: Most of the creeps follow the theme of frozen-water-wonderland, though I think Makruras might look a tad bit too exotic. Nice job nevertheless. Many unusual creeps such as Drak'thul and Hydromancer have been used to spice things up to break the normal creep types, nice. The Editor (at least my version) fails to count the correct level of the Hydromancer camps, but they seem to display correctly in-game. Weird. For my taste, there are a few too many types of creeps used from various tilesets, but that's up to the author and the audience. Typically you want to stay to one, two, or perhaps three tileset creeps, but this map takes some freedoms with the creep types already, which by itself is not a bad thing, just a point of note. The item drops seem appropriate. I like the relatively strong drop from the central expansion sites, giving the incentive to clear it - though I do not know exactly how Drak'thul's power corresponds to his level. The Fountain camps don't necessarily need to be on Camp mode completely, perhaps the dragon could be on normal mode to trigger the aggro easier to prevent easy abuse of the camps?
Gameplay: A nice map for four players. I can see a big replay value, especially for playing in a group of friends as the unique factors spice the gameplay nicely. Visually the map is very pleasing. The rather safe primary expansions are close to each player, yet on the direct line of attack from the enemies, with the Goblin Merchant and Tavern backing up the aggressor's side, which can give an interesting power dynamic.
Recommendations:
Perhaps tweak the fountain creeps' camp mode and change it if you wish. The maps' description should also probably read "sealed" instead of "seal".
