Flow of Liberation

[Moderator]

Wolverabid

7/10

Nothing fancy-schmanchy here: this is a straight up melee game on a Lordaeron Summer tileset. There's plenty of blood to be spilled in this map playing on either Bnet or LAN.

 

[Saikann]

quite nice, but minimap looks messy

 

[RaD-]

is it a melee? cause theres only 1 trigger lol

guess not a melee but a standard type of game... cause theres units

 

[Rui]

Behold my review for "Flow of Liberation", a melee map by VGsatomi!

My opinion on the map is that it is original.

As I have said before, originality is not always a positive thing.
Two allies start next to each other and they're most likely going to aid each other on creeping all the stuff around.
However, it makes the map somewhat boring. In "Friends", the situation's different since the enemies are relatively close, but in this... well, two allies are positioned next to each other and, like I said, the first thing they're going to do is creep, since there is nothing else they can do.
This part is related not only with the starting locations, but also with the creeps. They're placed on the path, on the bridges... this prevents you from scouting and removes every other possibility you can think of.

The above is, obviously, a minus for creep placement. The creep choice was average: you spammed Bandits a little too much.
The drops were OK at first, but why would you place different drops on hostile camps composed of exactly the same units? Again, it would lure an experienced player to creep there instead of any other, and again sealing the gameplay's random unfolding.

Now, for the neutral buildings. I saw a critical mistake: a guarded Tavern. This is going to wight heavily on my decision.
To prevent gameplay loops, we have a Goblin Laboratory that can easily be accessed. The problem is that the weak creeps are more preferable, since they drop those average-level items, like I mentioned. The result is that players end up not using it.
The map had sufficient Gold Mines. You didn't have to go through any trouble to get (to) them.

What I probably enjoyed most about this melee scenario was the landscape. The city was well built, but I especially liked the outer terrain. The grass with the dirt, covered by some flowers, reminded me of Quel'Thalas from Blizzard's RoC UD campaigns.

Summarizing, I really wanted to give this a positive grade, but... I just can't. Hopefully you'll return someday and fix these mistakes.
My rating is 2/5 (Lacking), but the map can remain Approved, in respect to the author.

 

[bounty hunter2]

bounty hunter2's Review on Flow of Liberation

Flow of Liberation is a four player melee map.

To start, the terrain. It wasn't really bad. Although it can use a lot of fixes. Such as the removal of Blizzard cliffs are rivers, instead using the height tool. There are way to much flowers, making it look odd, at most. It lacks more various dodoads such as rocks and shrubery. There is also a floating log.

The creeps were well, bandits. Only bandits. Perhaps using more different creeps would enhance the map. Actually I'm sure it would. The drops were mostly fine, although the problem Rui mentioned exists. Same groups drop different items. You placed creeps guarding a tavern? Taverns shouldn't be guarded.

The map is symmetrical and therefore its balanced.

What I also disliked are the neutral buildings such as tents. They just make a mess in melee maps.

The map is original, with the interesting center part. However the map is quite big and it takes some time until the upper and lower parts meet. That's a minus.

The map also doesn't contain a description, but that was okay back then.

All in all, a interesting melee, that is more a 2 then a 3, so Approved with a 2/5 (Lacking) rating. That would be about 6/10 in the 10 system Wolve was using.

 

[Runic Cat]

I like it, but it has some issues.
The waygates don't always work, the creeps that protect the waygates sometimes help the creeps that protect the goldmines. The tavern is being guarded by creeps, which I am not a fan of, and you can't access the creeps that are in the little villages near the river because they are blocked by a fountain.
But I do like that it tries to tell a story and the map is pretty although a bit too small.