February 2012 News Batch

[Vengeancekael]

[self=http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/latest-updates-news-101/january-2012-news-batch-212199/]

[/self]

^{News Batch content by Vengeancekael.}

Opening...
by Vengeancekael (Map Moderator)​

Greetings, people!
In this February News Batch, we bring the latest news of our hosted projects, the top maps to check out and updates on the contests!
2 additional spotlights have been added this time around, namely "Skins" and "Spells" spotlights.
But that's not everything new, Rui has added a new part to the monthly news batch, the "Hypercomments"!

• Top+
• Modeling Spotlight
• Skins Spotlight
• Spells Spotlight
• Icons Spotlight
• Projects Spotlight
• The Hive's Arena ^{(Be sure to check out the contests before it's too late)}
• Hypercomments (New)
• Caught!
• Last Page

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Top+

Each batch will feature the highest rated and most popular maps published in the Maps Section!
The data was gathered on the 28th of January.

	(1.1L 3) Gaias Retaliation ORPG - Todeszwiebel, teh.fellow, muzzel This high quality ORPG contains neat features like item attachments, save/load, custom hero stats, building interiors, etc. The project is still constantly being updated with multiple bug fixes.
	(3.1.4) The Kingdom of Kaliron - Crimson Creations Team Another amazing ORPG, with features like a custom dialog UI, unique classes, advanced boss fights and an immersive world. The project is also still being updated with new small features and bug fixes.
	(1.6f) The Chosen Ones - Aeroblyctos This still in development campaign contains 10 chapters, 9 interludes, a prologue and an epilogue, over 100 cinematics, beautiful effects, hundreds of quests and most of all, an unforgettable storyline. Aeroblyctos has confirmed that a major update will be on its way over the next few weeks.
	(0.66i) Blades 'n Gore II - Kitabatake A fabulous map made by a known author, featuring a smooth combat system, which is easy to learn, yet hard to master. Other major features are its astonishing environment, a team balancing system and a really advanced damage modeling. (Being kicked or interrupted during a strike can throw you off balance and cause you to stumble, etc.)
	(0.1.7.5) Brick-Breaker - Tirlititi This amazingly packed mini-game features 2 different modes, Adventure and Custom, allowing you to either play quick matches or to make your own brick setup. The map can never get too boring, you can always come back to it and try new things.

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Modeling Spotlight

Every news batch will from now on include a Modeling Spotlight, showing off multiple users' latest amazing works! The data was gathered on the 29th of February.

	Ocula - -Grendel » "Big eyed flying demon. Has a "cute" and sinister version." An amazing looking eye model with a very small file size!
	Twilight Enforcer - PROXY » "TwilightHammer-Enforcer. A hero unit of my modelling project: Twilight Dawn" A really neat looking Twilight Enforcer on a vicious mount!
	Death Knight - PROXY » "A requested model." A darker and more mysterious version of Medivh, with amazing texture work.
	Cyclone Cannon - Mechanical Man » "Cyclone cannon was developed to fight big hordes of orc warriors threating the borderlands. Based on ancient Guild repeating cannons, but since the Guild technology was long gone, this was the best approximation. However ineffective bureaucracy delayed the production of this fearsome weapon and before it could see the field of battle, the war ended and orc were driven away. So cyclone cannons sank in oblivion and those few prototypes were gathering dust in secluded warehouses scattered through the land. Until now. Dark times are approaching and reviving this almost forgotten weapon can greatly increase the chance for survival and fight the evil."
	Chinalake - darkdeathknight » "The China Lake Model (or China Lake Pump-Action Grenade Launcher) is a pump-action grenade launcher that was developed by the Special Projects Division of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, which provided equipment to Navy SEALs."
	Honorable Mention: Treasure Guardian - diosilva16 The first place winner of the Modeling Contest #22.

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Skins Spotlight

	Chaos Dwarf Warrior - darkdeathknight A skin made for the custom model Dwarf Warrior by Urkdrengi, based on the Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Dwarves. Be sure to use it in your Dawn of War inspired map, it cannot fade away without some recognition.
	Chaos Sorceror - darkdeathknight A skin made for the custom model Chaos Sorceror by Pyramidhe@d, based on the Warhammer Fantasy Corrupted Space Marine Librarians. Be sure to use it in your Dawn of War inspired map, it cannot fade away without some recognition.

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Spells Spotlight

	(1.10) Spirit Scorpions - Tank-Commander » "Throws a volley of spiritual Scorpion eggs randomly onto the target area, the scorpions then hatch and chase down nearby enemies and lay a curse upon them which will deal damage as well as freeze them temporarily."
	(1.5) Doppelganger - mckill2009 » "Summons a mirror portal that reveals the inner fear of an enemy unit. An enemy unit that goes near to the portal will be forced to sleep and create it's doppelganger. The doppelganger deals 2 times damage, but takes 2 times more damage from enemy attacks, and will disappear after 20 seconds or when its hit points is zero."
	(1.5) Deadly Strike - bowser499 » "Kael summons his astral apparation that summons dark energy. After a few seconds circular lightning appears to stun nearby enemy units and deal damage to them."
	(4.0) Spinning Blade - CoLd Bon3 » "Throws a spinning blade in any direction, traveling 600/900/1200 units. The blade deals 50/100/150 damage to every enemy it cuts."
	(1.2) Frigid Blast - Jay The Editor » "Jaina sends a small piece of crystal shard towards. She can activate it to cause a freezing explosion upon the area around that crystal, dealing damage to all the enemies around the area of the crystal and freezes them for 2 seconds. Damage and area of effect slightly increases by the distance travelled of that crystal."

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Icons Spotlight

From now on, icons from different authors will be featured here! The data was gathered on the 1st of March.

	Grim Orc M0rbid			Palantir Sauron I3lackDeath
	Blue Skull I3lackDeath			Dark Matter I3lackDeath
	Doombringer PeeKay			Death Touch JollyD
	Draconian Zealot sPy			Eye of Kilrogg JollyD

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Projects Spotlight

	Shadows of Everwood (by Wolfe) Shadows of Everwood is an open roleplaying game raised from the ashes of Everwood ORPG currently in development by Everwood Entertainment. A very ambitious project that seeks to constantly press the boundaries of the World Editor and, in the process, offer players a unique gaming experience compared to that of normal WarCraft III RPGs. Type: Online RPG
	Requiem (by Goris) A map, which is derived by the graphics engine as possible, containing beautiful landscapes, a magical world, rich storylines and lots of NPCs. It is a remake of Goris' map from 2006, hosted on one of the Polish portals long time ago. It tells the story of a distant, newly discovered island, Seteran, which is full of old magic and mystery. Type: Adventure/RPG
	Argos: Rise of Elements (by ShadowFlare) Argos is a game full of customization. The goal for this project is to allow players to diversify themselves from other players while creating their own "class". The foundation for all of the classes depends on what you choose as your weapon specialization. This may be a mace/hammer, bow/crossbow, staff/wand, or sword/axe. What you choose as your armor depends on your preference on how you want your character to work. Type: Online RPG
	Warcraft III: Paranoia (by Grievous1 - Hosted Project) <<"WarCraft III Paranoia" - is my singleplayer & multiplayer modification for Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne. You will play the role of a russian officer of the secret service. There will be many missions, each with specific objectives for the players to accomplish, such as defending a restricted military area, eliminating a terrorist threat and protecting innocent scientists. Your first impressions are that this mission will be just like any other, but you really have no idea what nightmares future events have in store for you...>> Type: Multiplayer Campaign
	Oasis and Desert 2 (mainly by bowser499 - Hosted Project) <<The deep past. The Universe has no fantasy worlds - there are only the Great Desert and the Great Oasis. In the Great Desert you would see cruel and deathbringing forces. The Great Oasis is a place where you would see many lifebringing and justiceful forces. These sides were in the unstoppable war. Until an entity known as the Balance Dominator came to the world.>> Type: AoS/RPG

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The Hive's Arena

	Icon Contest #9: Results First Place: Mr.Goblin Second Place: ž11es Third Place: M0rbid Fourth Place: Marcos DAB Fifth Place: -Grendel Sixth Place: chr2 Seventh Place: Elainiel Eighth Place: JollyD Ninth Place: I3lackDeath
	Modeling Contest #22: Results First Place: diosilva16 Second Place: skrab Third Place: -Grendel Fourth Place: Deolrin Fifth Place: Radagast Sixth Place: eubz Seventh Place: eryfkrad
	Terraining Contest #14: Racial Settlements Participants are to capture a race from the Warcraft lore's special style of construction and portray how it interacts with their habitat/natural enviroment. Contest Judging: Creativity(15) + Detail(15) + Technique(15) + Aesthetic(20) = 65 Deadline: 25th of March, 2012, (GMT)

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Hypercomments by Rui European consumer society  a report of development and clientele stances

An ever-growing consuming tendency has settled on both WarCraft III and StarCraft II, but the issue  a term perhaps not as strong as «problem» and yet maybe not as accurate  is not recent. Taking a look at the WarCraft III custom games list, you are invaded by numerous games of Vampirism, tower defenses and, of course, DotA. A similar view is presented on Battle.Net 2.0. Whatever your stance on this situation, the why of such a panorama makes an interesting object of reflexion. It's been a decade since the release of WarCraft III. Many talented modders managed to break limits that were intrinsic and come up with very good innovations: the release of syntax highlighters for JASS, as well as the subsequent development of vJASS are certainly good examples. Breaking several of these restraints has left modders with nearly one only final limitation: their imagination.Or so you'd think. Attending to the introduction and the last line of the last paragraph, we're immediately met with a paradox: if the limits are so loose, then why is Battle.Net so monotone? This is a central question. In the case of StarCraft II, the situation is not a grave one, let's admit it  the game has just been released, therefore, it is logical that the easier-to-make mods burgeon while more complex ones are delayed for a later debut.

The case of WarCraft III's scene, however, is enigmatic and paradoxical. There are several prisms through which we can assay the stage of things, all of which constitute a distinct possible issue, remaining modding constraints aside. I identify the problem to be people playing bad maps. No doubt GHosts play a factor into this: when looking for DotA, you will find many  and I do mean a lot  of empty lobbies, a fact that is quite puzzling: why make a GHost++ host a DotA when there are so many lobbies already? Moreover, why not take down the bot when it is clear the games aren't running? By oneself I am unable to respond to this, but the owners should consider that their proliferation obscures other games that could otherwise get more attention. On one hand, it is sad to see that TDs keep being produced while this type of map is so explored already. MeTooism, as defined by VGsatomi? Maybe. On another thought, many bots remain online because there are actually people who are playing these games. Which is disconcerting. Over the course of a decade, I simply cannot believe that all we have accomplished is DotA, Vampirism and a couple of cheap TDs, but this is what you conclude at first sight when looking at Europe's custom game list. Yes, to blame may be the bad tastes of Europeans and the most aggravating is that the paradigm has been settled for quite a few years. Yes, they are Europeans; not only were favo(u)rite the cheap TDs and DotA even before the GHosts arrived (and therefore there is no inter-realm hosting excuse), but also, just to give an example, you'll find mostly Americans playing TKoK or Roleplaying (RP) maps (read: when you do see them being hosted). Parallel to this is the incapability of these maps to rise and, most worrying, the new ones as well. For example, I remember writing a review for a map in which you'd combine several elements and play with the spell's effects, AoE or damage -- this map was incredibly fun and it never received any attention at all. The same happens to most other maps. Is it possible that our consumer society is incapable of playing maps that are only a little better than totally simplistic and childish?Camões wrote in The Lusiads that the lack of interest for art and literature contributed for writers to lose inspiration. Which is to say that no doubt WarCraft III is decaying and will continue to do so, but the lack of interest for actually good maps may be largely responsible for the acceleration of that process.

This month's Liked	Patch 1.4.3 for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Adding an upgrade to the Fleet Beacon that increases the range of protoss Phoenixes by 2 is genial and the units are now actually worth getting to fight mutalisks; a humble player suggested it in one of those threads filled with gibberish (it appears Blizzard either had the same idea or listened to this user).
Thumbed down this month	On February 24, I entered a game of "The Kingdom of Kaliron", an ORPG. One fellow loaded a 34level Ranger and took the new hero of a friend of his all the way up to lv13 and into Jahara. The Pyromancer meanwhile picked all the loot, even stuff he didn't need, and neither of them did, pardon the expression, give a crap about the two other players, all the while communicating to none but themselves. A philosophy that'd make an object for severe critiques, illustrated to the right (nicknames have been erased, all but that of the controller of the new Pyromancer; if you don't want your nickname displayed here, perhaps you should consider not protagonizing this sort of situations).

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Caught!

unk: guys wat are portraits for ? at custom models some models have portrait some don't have :| why ?! this one?

shamanyouranus: did you know that the inside of your rectum can safely absord sea-water without absorbing the deadly amounts of salt. So if you're stuck out at sea, giving yourself an enema of seawater is your best option for getting water

Magtheridon96: My system, my API, so fuck you

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Last Page

Community:

Users are discussing the current state of the Hive's Arena and are trying to fix some problems in order to revive the section to its former glory! The well known artist CRAZYRUSSIAN has won a League of Legends Art Contest, with his amazing Sona entry! Check out his thread here. For the Caught! segue, we require funny quotes from either the chat or from the forums, so be sure to leave some cool ones for the next batch.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Also, I would appreciate it if you guys could post some chat/forum quotes for the Caught! part

 

[Xian]

Ok,these batches are awesome,2 minutes reading it was awesome.
P.S. Shouldn't you make a Thread Spotlight too? i mean put all the "trending and famous" threads,sorted by importance of course, like this thread or this one?

 

[Orcnet]

yay! feb batch is out, oh and cool idea with the hypercomments

 

[HFR]

Glad to see the quotes I sent to Kael were useful

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Oh, another excellent batch. Good job, Vengeancekael.

A lot of information here and there. I think this is so far the best batch. The whole batch is written very well and I like Rui's section a lot too.

 

[Wolfe]

Absolutely amazing Vengeancekael! Keep this up.

 

[Deolrin]

Awesome stuff.

@Rui, perhaps people simply play those maps because they are fun? I, for one, find most RPGs extremely complex and boring, to the point in which they're simply not worth playing. They take too much time, and if you start an RPG, it's likely no one in your group would have the time or will to play any other game afterwards. Short, sweet and easy games are great for that purpose.
Besides, most "advanced" and "awesome" maps are often too complicated and have too many controls. I often find myself with a hero who has like 6 different abilities and 6 items, all with unique and complex abilities, with no explanation whatsoever about anything(asides from the incredibly long tooltips). This is very discouraging, especially in fast-paced games, in which you are expected to act quickly and learn everything fast.

 

[Rui]

The point of that chronic was exactly to stimulate debate. People are wary of using news threads for that end, but they shouldn't be. If you have something to add to the subject I brought here, go ahead and do it.

By the way, I don't deny that DotA can be fun, I personally don't find TDs fun at all, except perhaps Squadron on SC2, but the problem I noted is that the majority of European Battle.Net seems to play those games only.

 

[EloTheMan]

The lack of dedication from players is a big factor too, I've hosted Gaia's Retaliation a couple of times and it was basically the same thing over and over again.

3-4 people join, they are new to the map or have lost their saves, so I say lets group up and level some new heroes, we get in to the game and after 3 minutes two guys leave and another one goes afk leaving me and the last guy all alone with the option of try and fail or leave the game.

But I agree on the fact that crappy maps and the popularity of DotA is overwhelming both Garena and Battle.Net hosting.
Not to mention the flaming on public DotA games, apparently its never your own fault for loosing.

 

[Deolrin]

There are no DotA games in RPG rooms on Garena. There are 51 dedicated DotA rooms in the European servers, and DotA tends to stay in it's place. People host various games in the RPG servers, actually. Just not unpopular ones from the Hive, they mostly get their maps from EpicWar I guess.

 

[EloTheMan]

The problem is that each time I log in on garena there are 7 RPG rooms and they are always full during the game hours. DotA stays in the DotA rooms, but I still find the RPG rooms full of Legion TD or Vampirism (who got its own room already). If I am lucky there might be a nice guy hosting Castle Fight, otherwise there is mostly random Epicwar maps and barely any Hive maps.

 

[Deolrin]

You can easily access even the full Garena RPG Rooms. The first option is to get Garena Plus: http://intl.garena.com/ (Which lets you join rooms with up to 335 people)
The second option is just to keep clicking. You'll eventually join.