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Balin's Tomb 2.8.09

Control one of nine characters and slaughter the monsters of darkness as you fight to survive and escape the depths of Khazad-dûm with a group of companions! Inspired by 'Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance' for the PlayStation 2, this classic co-op dungeon crawl is built on the premise of the earlier Balin's Tomb maps for WCIII: RoC.

Features:

* Players: 3 - 9.
* Two difficulty settings: Beginner or Normal.
* Team co-op gameplay, plus the competitive element of building the best hero by the end with the highest score.
* Nine heroes with diverse playing styles. From casters to fighters, ranged to melee, from fast-clicking action to a more relaxing pace -- there's something for many varieties in playing style.
* Numerous scripted abilities, custom models and imported icons for visual effect.
* Two bosses and eight minibosses to discover, plus six checkpoints along the way dot the underground and outdoor landscape.
* One unlockable ingame cinematic and single-combat showdown should Gandalf survive to the Balrog.
* Automatic difficulty scaling and other features to ensure that the challenge will remain on an even level, regardless of the number of players at the start, or players that leave along the way.




The first versions I made were labelled Balin's Tomb v5.9 beta through v7.2, and a few that didn't work so well after FT, if you ever came across them. I worked on them off and on from around the May before Frozen Throne came out, to the August after the expansion's release. I've been building the map again since the summer of 2006 and work on it off and on for a break from other things. Newest versions 2.0+ feature a massive rework of the entire map with closer accuracy to the universe of the books and movies. I hope you enjoy!

Screenshots:
i192.photobucket.com/albums/z24/BalinsTomb

Keywords:
Arda, Balrog, Balin, Balin's, Co-op, Crawl, Dungeon Crawl, Fellowship, Group, Khazad-dum, LotR, Lord of the Rings, Maze, Middle Earth, Moria, Quest, R
Contents

Balin's Tomb 2.8.09 (Map)

Level 4
Joined
Feb 1, 2006
Messages
107
Uhh, i always thought it was the mines of moria and Khazadum was the bridge. Still, it's a sexy map and once you reach about level 10 it's easy if you get attribute bonus. Try remove friendly damage on the rain of fire ability as it's kind of hard for gandalf to be effective with that spell unless he gets the back of the group and that's not a very handy support unit.
 
Level 6
Joined
Apr 17, 2008
Messages
136
Yeah this map is very very good.
This is the best RPG I have ever played!

The difficult is ok and the bosses are outstanding.

I think the map needs a custom Balrog model. Also the observer(Darkgreen is useless)-> you can´t play. Also many people are frustrated if their heroes die(No ankh) than they leave the game. But they don´t know, that they can later be revived :( Also after the end fight with Urzul the ending cinema is ok but could be better(f. ex. add: You see how the heroes arrive in Lothlorien)
 
Level 4
Joined
Aug 23, 2008
Messages
77
Great map, though you really should have a custom Aragorn model. That is the only complaint.

Amazing map otherwise, the balrog skin fits well. :thumbs_up:

5/5

Also there is a small typo on the loading screen. "band of travelers finds out" it should be find out that they are not alone.

Impossable... it was me "frodo" and my friend "white wizard" vs all the orcs. Impossable... as simple as that. We were doing 2000 DPS and 20k HP and still couldnt do it, simply impossable...

It is doable, at least on easy. I finished it going solo. Frodo is really imba as well in certain situations. Also hint= USE EAGLES For GANDALF

Also after the end fight with Urzul the ending cinema is ok but could be better(f. ex. add: You see how the heroes arrive in Lothlorien)

I agree with this, the map made me feeling what? thats all, no lothlorien??!
 
Level 4
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
38
  • Thank you all immensely for the feedback! Though I haven't spoken up until now, I've used comments here, ingame and elsewhere to improve things in the map over the past 8 years, ever since starting it soon after the release of Reign of Chaos.
  • I've imported many new custom skins, sounds, and graphics, now that modems seem to be completely gone from the mainstream internet scene and WC3 allows map sizes over 2mb. New Aragorn, Boromir, and other skins are included. I've avoided using a custom Balrog skin/model from the movie, as the game's Doom Guard is very similar to the Balrog (especially with some special effects added), and already has good animation options available. I chose this particular Legolas model because it has a good melee "sword slash" animation.
  • “it was me "frodo" and my friend "white wizard"...”
    It's helpful to have at least one tank, healer, or both, like most games in the dungeon crawl genre. Frodo and Gandalf are dps characters, with agility and intel as attributes. Frodo can actually tank quite decently however, if you use Gollum for tanking and buy plenty of Might.
  • Observer player slot is now removed. That was to let me watch and test full-house game hero balance without interfering with the other players.
  • The map's mostly intended for (and balanced around) at least 3 players. 1-2 can play, but the variety of heroes and abilities will be low, leading to somewhat less exciting gameplay.
  • “When I try to start it, it shows no player list.”
    I'm honestly not sure what this meant.
  • I did consider adding a battle with Lothlorien forces against the Orcs when I first started version 2.0 onwards (had some things planned out for it), but there's only a limited amount of time to work on things like this, so focused on other priorities in the map.


I'm in the planning stages for a StarCraft 2 port of this map. I'll begin full scale work once enough editing tools (such as the Galaxy Editor itself) are available to the public (possibly as soon as beta).

  • Will be able to play as Human/Protoss heroes or Zerg swarm (controlling monster squads like a Dungeon Master).
  • Set in the Starcraft story-universe. This setting will give greatly expanded flexibility in creating hero abilities with strong gameplay value. For Balin's Tomb, one of my top priorities has always been realistic believability that closely fits the LotR universe, though that somewhat limits options.
  • Persistent gameplay (saving “player experience” between matches to spend on your hero or zerg swarm), more gradual leveling, and less of a gigantic chasm between level 1 power and max-level power (possibly 50-100% stronger instead of thousands of times stronger) to balance the persistent capability.
  • Hopefully SC2 might have a way for players to join a custom game while the match is in progress (like first-person shooters, World in Conflict, Civilization IV, etc)... combining join-anytime with persistent gameplay will allow some major new possibilities. Though realistically, I doubt joining mid-game will be supported in SC2... can always hope.
If enough LotR/Warcraft - style graphics and skins are created for SC2, I might even be able to make a Balin's Tomb 3.0 for the Starcraft game engine, using these features and others being planned.
 
Last edited:
Level 12
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
1,156
When I go comment on this, you updates it. Kind of lol. It is a really good map, I have no complaints about it at all. If something that a friend of mine is working on actually works, I'll tell you. It would really help the map overall.
 
Level 4
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Messages
38
Thank you! :grin:

If you like this map, please take a look at the progress Zerahan and I are making on the new two-team, twelve player competitive dungeon crawl for Starcraft 2, Storm the Base:

http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/project-brainstorming/1730-storm-the-base/

It'll be finished by the release date of SC2 in July, and is already multiplayer-capable! Once blizzard releases their map publishing system, it'll be playable by everyone in beta. Gamestop gives out beta keys to anyone who preorders SC2, too.
 
Level 12
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
1,121
Hey.....is Barlog is able to be defeated or Gandalf has to do like in the movie?
The Balrog can be defeated as far as I remember.

Sad that there are no new versions, one of my favourite maps..
 
Level 2
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
7
Very Nice Map. We've beat it 2-person with Gimli & Gandalf. Plays better with three. Different races have different abilities that allow them to get to secret parts of the map. My only complaint is that the map crashes when we try to save.
 
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