I'm not sure if I should answer this reply, but since I'm the leader, I just can't ignore it no matter how much I'd like to... so here it is:
-The map is definitely quite big, and I agree that the base movement speed of the heroes was a little small. If you had taken a look at the changelog, you'd have noticed this:
Increased the base movement speed of all heroes by 30
I was thinking of doing it, and WaterKnight's post made me actually add to the current changelog.
-Towers; just because my map doesn't follow the silly "DotA standards", it doesn't immeditaly means that it's bad. I always hated the way DotA worked, where towers were a huge chunk of rock, whose only purpose was that you could stand next to them and take photos all day long, because they were so weak that everyone just ignored them and ran past them. I made them fairly strong so that they could do what they're supposed to do: protect the heroes. It's still very possible to kill an enemy even 1v1, I've played a few games with my friend and none of us had problems with the tower.
-Melee heroes are almost always limited by their range, but most of them has got some sort of a gap closer ability and have better base stats in general. In fact, my full-geared friend could 1v2 our two ranged heroes with ease.
-Gems. Let me quote something for you:
Gems serve as battle-boosts for you hero. Every hero on both sides is given a bracelet or a pair of gloves (which one he or she has choosen) that he can put these gems into. These items contain 5-5 slots for each four type of gems: rubies, emeralds, sapphires and ametyts. To socket this item [lore-wise, these items are invisible in the game], you have to enter the shop menu, select one of these categories and click on your gem. The counter in the bottom left corner shows how many free slots you have left.|n|nSocketing is not bound to the spawning pool and your hero does not have to be alive to socket the item.
It's from the Information (quests) section. It's not my fault if the user is blind (khm), and cannot notice the huge "Information" text nor the text that tells him to either press F9 or open the Information menu.
-Selection circles. Units do have circles, only heroes have them hidden. Hiding their health bar was only possible by hiding the circles as well; quite unfortunate, but I couldn't come up with a better solution. If you have one for me, then I'm all ears.
-Why should the player not be allowed to browse the shop while away/dead? Just because you can't buy those items, you should be able to browse it, it may contain some important information, such as exact item costs, for example.
-And lastly, balance. I've said it many times in the thread already: it's an alpha version, I haven't done any balance works yet. I'll start doing them once all the items and heroes are finished; I'll have their code, effects, icons finished and I can start working on the numbers. It's going to be a long procedure and our main effect maker will soon start his studies at the uni, thus his time will be very limited, so I'd like to finish as many heroes before that happens (1-2 weeks) as possible. I'm aware of the issues, that's why it's just an Alpha. It's not really playable because of the balance issues, it's basically mechanism, item and hero demonstration.
EDIT: P.s. removed.