Dualism BETA
Created by Sverkerman ; Uploaded by: Sverkerman
★ Map Review & Moderation ★
After hours of testing, playing and editing map I can finally write nice
review about it. So let's start.
DUALISM or Dualism simulate FIRST PERSON game almost completely,
sadly for us old and unsuitable for this kind of genre, wc3 engine fail
in few things. First one we need to mention, is arrow movement system,
no mater how great code look like, wc3 won't allow us to exploit this
feature with 100% accuracy, you will need some time to get used to it,
and even after a while you will find yourself blocked inside wall or other
textures. Another thing I mentioned is camera system, again there is no
way to create, or should I say, simulate 100% correct first person camera,
blizzard mess up things with terrain levels, so any kind of cliff or ramp will
damage or at least a little worsen your camera view. I can't forget to
mention that angles near or above 360 degrees show huge number of
object on the screen lowering FPS (frame per second) even more, causing
small lag/delay.
Now when we covered basic things related to game type itself let's move
to story. Authors spent a lot of time on story elements, everything needed
to be very accurate, everything is voice acted, we have huge number of
sounds used in this map, increasing quality a lot. To achieve mystery and
horror effect authors stepped back into past, time without electricity or
any kind of modern devices, you have no lamp to use it in your adventure,
you have no gun to defend yourself. I won't post spoilers here but let's say
that finding yourself in woods, alone, weapon less, darkness all around you,
while day seams so long forgotten, really carve chilling feeling into you.
I really like how owl scream, or how tree fall in background, while some crazy
monster or some shape of some creature pop out on the screen from time
to time. You can interact with objects like, doors, traps, potions, all kind of
items placed all around map. High res textures improved quality a lot, this
for sure can't be achieved with normal wc3 resources, but everything has
it's own cost, so knowing it authors sacrificed a lot of space, increasing map
file size. I was able to see resources used and I must say that having 1 MB
large textures indeed are bad choice. Mp3 file with 128 kbps take around
4.5 MB, while compressed one can take below 2. All textures with huge file
size should pay a price and be compressed at least by 25% (from 100 to 80
or even 70), this won't effect game much, because it's mostly dark while
size go down from 1 MB to 0.5 MB. The largest model has around 0.3 MB
and that's superb.
More or less optimized resources mentioned above used together, create
really good and detailed terrain. Off course as terrainer myself I will find
bad things and have something to suggest, but I won't be wrong to say
that regular wc3 player can become speech less after checking this.
Many time we can see map edge, empty, black, space. Also some trees
looks bad in distance covered in fog. Terrain is sometimes empty as well,
I speak about forest and outside world, where is ground usually covered
with only few grass doodads and here and there rock or two. You can
add one or 2 support wooden beams or something like that inside
basement, especially on the place where you go for lantern where is that
cliff or something.
Expect to see nice systems as well, for example Save Load system that is
basically regular wc3 Save system but thanks to blizzard error (related to
dialogs) and authors nice idea you will see something totally unique.
This is huge bonus in map quality and I like it very much. Another cool
system is one related to Journal, cool idea and nice texture with some
small code created another big bonus in my eyes. I can continue and
mention Latern (turn light on/off, require oil bla bla bla), reading Books
and so on, but I will leave something for checking to you as well.
Finally we can mention script that run this map, we can speak about
efficiency, bugs and game features in general. Using mouse you can
interact with object, but only if you come close enough. This has
bad side, because authors based this system on units, units must be
selected, units will show hit point bar above them. I suggested trackables
but both ways have third common problem, you will be able to interact
with objects located way across map, that's why I suggest some system
that will show/hide units based on distance from the player location.
Triggers are more or less ok, even for GUI I had nothing to mention,
except maybe House Leave/Enter triggers, or that Bear traps, as you
can see you repeat 95% of trigger actions in all triggers, you should
merge them into one trigger. Also triggers like Keyboard event are
more or less useless, they should be injected into movement system
directly, with like 6 or 7 lines of code you will replace 5 or more triggers
and like 50 lines of code generated by them. I really highly suggest
converting core GUI systems into fast vjass clones.
In the end I must say that unique design, cool ideas and nicely
created concept really impressed me, that's why I decided to
award you with 5/5 rating, Highly Recommended award for your
effort and very good job.
I will keep checking project, hoping to see improvements and maybe
if still be here have that honor to gave you highest hiveworkshop
award that one map can achieve, Directors Cut Award.
Good luck with project and have a nice day, sincerely -Kobas-.
Approved
