- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 7,550
Artwork by Archian, then edited by Rui
Opening...
by Rui (Development Director)
by Rui (Development Director)
1. Hello. We're sorry for not having brought you the news for some time now, but time is so scarce this year that it's impossible to find room for the news. Anyway, what I really wanted was a banner, so I picked the image from "December News Batch", removed the snow and resized it for our monthly announcements thread. The trouble I went through because of the transparency was greater than drawing the missing parts of the plant (which turned out horrible, sorry, I am the worst art designer on Earth). Turns out the Pastebin was turning the images to .jpg without us noticing, and it was displaying black or white backgrounds. Pyritie taught me a way of fixing it using layers. He provided me with an image that I ended up not using. Still, I am very grateful for all the help.
2. Three more moderators have abandoned us: brad.dude03, Hanky and Traxamillion. They should keep in touch, though. I thank them (especially Hanky, who was promoted by me) for their free service and time spent here, on behalf of the administration!As they leave, new faces join our team.{edit} Welcome WILLTHEALMIGHTY, Deathcom3s and Squiggy! You might have noticed Eccho's spell reviews as well. Yup, he is our new spells moderator! But he's not the only one. You'll find someone else among us soon.
3. Check out the index. Our new edition comes with a few innovations.
Happy Easter (and holidays, if that's the case)!
Index
- Top+ (NEW!) The Hive's Top 5 maps between April 2 (or 4?) and 10 o'clock of today.
- The Hive's Projects All news concerning the Hive's hosted projects.
- The Hive's Arena (NEW!) Check the Hive's contests!
- First Plane (NEW!) Kam is interviewed about his "Tides of Darkness".
- Caught! The old The things they say... is back!
Top+
The Hive's Top 5! It started working on the 2nd or 4th of April (I don't remember exactly when), so the downloads only range from then until now.The gathering of these informations occurred at 10 o'clock of the 11th of April.
| Diablo III Beta (v1.17) (by CloudWolf) CloudWolf's RPG was mentioned at Blizzard's Diablo III forums{link}, which may explain how it got downloaded nearly 2.500 times in only a few days. It has nearly a hundred ratings and a download count past 14.000! 
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| Upadoro TD (v0.97c) (by EpixBelongToMe) "Upadoro TD" is far from the peak, considering the difference between it and "Diablo III Beta" (while EpixBelongToMe's map has had nearly 500 downloads, by the time I finish writing this CloudWolf's will have over 2.000). Still, being the number 2 is not bad.
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| DBZ Tribute Elite (v2.0) (by ikcilapmada) Who said that DBZ sucked? "DBZ Tribute Elite" may be at #3, but it is the Hive Workshop's top downloaded map. A download count that increased by 400 in only a few days, adding to the 50.000 value on its download counter! A huge success! 
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| DBZ The Saiyan Race (1.31) (by Doctor-Pepper) Yet another! Doctor-Pepper, who has been a member of the community for some time (joined on August 2004) has just submitted his "DBZ The Saiyan Race" and the download counter already displays a value over 300. Even though it is pending, its reviews are generally favorable.
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| The Chosen Ones (3.2) (by Aeroblyctos) Even though its creator is not going through his best situations here at the Hive, The Chosen Ones counts with over 250 more downloads, and so, makes it to #5 this edition. The campaign has similar statistics to those of "Diablo III Beta".
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The Hive's Projects
That's it, buddies! 1)ark_NiTe is back on charge and a new trailer has just been released! Check it out here!
The project which attempts to take you to an artificial World of Warcraft in Warcraft III has gained a lot of new fans thanks to an April Fools joke at ModDB.com by its creator.
As for developments, there are no good news. All the new data was lost, forcing the team to the November 18 version of Wc3:WoW (which is not a public version). The bug list remains the same. The team is planning on adding newer stuff.
hvo-busterkomo is resigning from the team, but Eleandor has already been hired and he's fixing bugs and implementing new features. Hanky will also lend his JASS knowledge to the project.
It's really hard to get scared in Warcraft, but in this map you will feel like death is behind you! The producer of this Horror game is trying to make the gaming darker and scarier.
The first beta will come out in five or six days, according to the creator.
Age of Heresy is a heavily altered melee that draws a lot of elements from the Warhammer universe as well as gameplay elements from the original Battle for Middle Earth. It features two races, Empire and Chaos, as they battle it out on fields of war.
Recent updates include the laying of all subraces for the two primary races, while the terrain is slowly progressing.
The Hive's Arena
- Speed Mapping Contest #1: The Speed Mapping Contest is still on its first edition, but it has already generated polemic. The cheating on contests dominated the staff's topics of discussion.
The poll results can be checked by pressing the link. - Cinematic Contest #3: Sorrow: Like the name states, sorrow will be theme of the entries for this competition. The participants list counts 9 people.
- Terrain Contest VI: Ancient Mythology: Six days left for the end of the Terrain Contest's sixth edition. The goal was to create a mythological terrain, resembling cultures such as the Greek, the Japanese or even Norse. Check out the thread to see how well the contestants managed to do this.
- Texture Contest #13: Another Texturing Contest has taken off. Its thirteenth edition was launched on the 6th of this month. Every skin must be at least 75% freehand.
- Modeling Contest #13: The Modeling Contest #13's theme is buildings. The contest started on March 24 and its end will be on the 28th of April.
- Comic Contest #2: With "Recessions are FUNNY" as a subtitle, this competition challenges you to make a comic... when unemployed! The prize for the winner is a profile icon and 30 reputation points!
First Plane
The First Plane is a new page of the Hive Workshop News Batch. It is a spot to interview the author of a featured map. Each edition comes with a new project and several questions for its creator.
This month, the page debuts with "Tides of Darkness", a map by Kam.
Interview by Rui. Screenshots provided by Kam.
Rui: First of all, what is "Tides of Darkness"?
Kam: It's what I had envisioned Warcraft III would be. I was very bothered that naval units were left out, and even more so that the extreme sections of the two main races were splintered off into Night Elf and Undead. I never felt that either of those were real races, they were merely lost children of Humans and Orcs.
This map is placed after the fall of the demonic legion and the departure of Medivh at the end of WC III. As with most great wars, recovering nations tend to throw themselves into furthering their technology to prevent the same thing from happening again. As a result the remainder of the Scourge was absorbed by the Horde and the now mortal Night Elves sided with Humans. In addition Ogres, Trolls, and Dragons found their way back to the Horde. Both races have heavy magic reliance and spells specifically aimed at the other race (Exorcism, Disruption Ward, Unholy Spikes, Revenge of Quel'tallas). This is not meant as a re-make of WC II, rather it is the logical next step in the conflict.
| "I am constantly balancing units and spells. I have been told by many people that there is an abnormal amount of balance." | Don't you fear that the story contrasts with the lore? After all, those turns are (somewhat) unlikely. I don't think it contrasts at all. There was never an explanation from Blizzard as to why the Death Knights and elven units left their alliances. I saw no reason that Trolls, Ogres, Dragons and the Paladin order would be lost. I also saw no reason for both races to leave naval units behind. |
What does "Tides of Darkness" have that other altered melee maps don't?
I am constantly balancing units and spells and making sure that things make sense for the race structure. As a result, and I have been told by many people, there is an abnormal amount of balance and sense of unit placement. No unit can do what another can, there are no wasted spaces. Really what this brings though is naval unit integration. I've seen a lot of WC II based maps that never were able to balance ships with air and ground units, and I think I've done that here.
| Are there any other features you'd like to mention? Well it doesn't have amazing crazy systems, as it is a melee - but there are some new things in the next version. The AI will ally with other AI's depending on how the game plays out, who attacks who and so forth. | View attachment 52009 |
Camera distance can be adjusted.
| View attachment 52010 | What inspired you to make this map? And in which maps did you find inspiration? Well I can't say I got inspiration from anywhere but WC II. The very first version of this was released about two weeks after WC III came out. To be honest it was the |
Caught!
| Kimberly "I tend to hallucinate when I have the flu." On the Chat (30-Dec-2008) | 
| Archangel_Tidusx "Anyone who uses JASS is a noob." In "GUI or JASS" (16-Feb-2009) |
| Pyritie "Yeah, you suck motherboards, not blow...that sounds so wrong..." Regarding Rui's board overheating problems, on the Chat (8-Feb-2009) | Rising_Dusk "Yes, I am emo. The truth is out." On the Chat (8-Apr-2009) |
{EDIT}
I apologize I had to fix the images. I didn't know people needed permission to see them.
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