Anyways I remember
Blade Artist which If I don't recall wrong, was a surpising map which showed the ordinary WC3 players that you can actually create a nasty PvP close combat map in blade warrior style, which is 7 years old, which is probably the main inspiration of this map. It just happened to be the first map I opened to learn from Other peoples work, although I didn't learn much of it at that time as the code intimidated me.
(Btw my avatar icon is from Blade Artist map, I just slightly edited to map to get a cool panda hat on blademaster)
Actually no.
Time for some history!
"Blades 'n Gore II" is a complete remake of "Blades 'n Gore".
"Blades 'n Gore" was a complete remake of "Combat Tournament", which was lost during transfer from wc3sear.ch to hive.
I do remember seeing Blade Artist in the wc3sear.ch map section and briefly trying it out in singleplayer at some point.
I think it was the first map I saw that had animated loading screens, so I could say that it inspired me to do my own animated screens.
I also remember it having very cinematic-like abilities that would lock your unit for a relatively long duration. This is a complete opposite of the Blades 'n Gore design philosophy.
The first map (Combat Tournament) had only 3 abilities (slash, defend, blade beam) and the playable characters were based on the captain/swordsman model with shield.
It was a very simplistic map that was designed with the goal to have more immersive combat: Instead of autoattacks and long cooldown abilities, the players would have direct control of their unit, allowing them to fight in their own style.
Next came Blades 'n Gore.
"Blade beam"-ability, being a ranged missile, did not fit very well in a melee combat game. Thus it was replaced with "Dash", which was a very long range strike that would also move your unit.
"Power Slam" also made it's appearance, bringing the ability count to 4 (Block, Dash, Attack, Slam).
"Block" ability was also upgraded to knock back enemy attackers.
The character models were also replaced with a villager model. Instead of having a preset character model for every race, this map supported attachment armor and weapons.
Finally, Blades 'n Gore II was created. The models were once again upgraded, now to a blademaster based one that had more realistic proportions.
Custom animations allowed the ability count to be doubled to the 8 that are currently in the map.
The overpowered and overused "Dash" from the previous game was replaced with "Lunge", that has nearly the same function but considerably less range and deals slightly less damage.
Also, the completely useless "Attack" ability was replaced by "Slash", which has a wider range and more power behind it.
These maps have always been developed with the central idea of having simple and fast, low-cost abilities, that the players could combine and chain up according to their own fighting style.
Blades 'n Gore has never been about "pressing a button, sitting back, and watching your character perform a preset combo/fancy move"
Blades 'n Gore has always been about "constantly reading the situation and chaining up abilities accordingly".
The inspiration for the very first map came from the simple fact that every wc3 map that focused on a player controlling one hero seemed to inherit numerous unfitting RTS gameplay elements. Autoattacks, long cooldowns, slow mana regenerations, and high health amounts are an easy way to destroy any immersion from the combat when you are controlling only one unit.
