• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

🕹 Funmap Evening Event 🕹

Status
Not open for further replies.
Level 26
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
4,097

Funmap Evening


maps_18423_preview.jpg
maps_20606_preview.jpg
maps_12768_preview.jpg

maps_28301_preview.jpg
maps_11557_preview.jpg
maps_28508_preview.jpg
maps_16185_preview.jpg
maps_13195_preview.jpg

(images taken from maps section)


Announcement Note
Date of appointment: 27 March 2021; 2000 CET (UTC+1)
Meeting Channel: #gaming on Hive Discord
Realm: Northrend Battle.net (EU)
Requirements: Latest version of the game must be installed.

The Warcraft III player base has experienced a number of changes over the years. While it has shrunk in general, hosting bots and Battle.Net alternatives were introduced and dedicated websites emerged, the gaming situation has altered. Public games have always been different from playing with acquaintances, too.

The Funmap Evening offers a possibility to meet up in a small scale and spend some fun time together playing custom maps in Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne. Therefore, every few weeks or so, commonly on the weekend, a couple of hours are reserved for this event. It has originated from mapmaking communities and you are encouraged to bring your own maps but other than that, we simply host what we can agree on or seems appropriate regarding the number of players, variety or what we feel like. Suggestions can be made at any time.

Rendezvous point & participation


The exact dates are communicated via announcements I put in the thread here. Henceforth, I will make a new post as well as relay it to this initial entry everytime. The announcements also state the details if anything changes. Since we live in different time zones, an adjusted countdown timer will be included with each announcement note.

Anyone who is able to may participate (as long as you keep a decent attitude). The event is not restricted to mapmakers or members of the Hive.

Since there are different gaming platforms (see further below), an independent channel for talking was selected:

#gaming on HIVE Discord

There is a range of clients for IRC. If you are not familiar with them, you may pick this web interface linked above, too. The game names and everything else will be communicated there. The games are currently hosted on Battle.Net (Azeroth and Northrend, Lordaeron has been discontinued by Blizzard). So you are required to have a Battle.Net account and can login to at least one of these servers. For more information see section Hosting services below. While the event is generally open-end, it is quite usual that the number of players gradually decreases and after 4-5 hours we call it a night. I am not mandatory to the event either but then you have to host maps and organize yourself.

Hosting services


In this day and age, there is a range of game hosting options and player platforms for Warcraft III that are partially or not compatible with each other. Since the current policy of the Funmap Evening tries to target at the common ground, broad and official means are preferred. Therefore we use Blizzard's Battle.Net as a venue. However, conventional, manual game hosting has become very disadvantageous. Remote and local bots have been introduced. And for information and reference I want to fix the following overview of available or deprecated services:

Platforms

  • Battle.Net (preferred):
    Blizzard's official servers divided into the gateways US West (Lordaeron), US East (Azeroth), Europe (Northrend) and Asia (Kalimdor). Anyone who owns a legit copy of the game and is not banned should be able to join Battle.Net. So in contrast to the other platforms, you do not require an extra application.
  • Eurobattle.net (partially used):
    This is basically an unofficial server that works analogue to Battle.Net. The interface is the same, there is hardly a difference for my GHost bot. But not all publicly shared remote hosting bots use Eurobattle, probably because of the need to reactivate the accounts once in a while and/or lack of relevance.
  • wc3arena (not used):
    Another PvPGN similar to Eurobattle.net but mostly used for traditional melee wc3. Hosting bots are not condoned here.
  • GameRanger (not used):
    GameRanger is quite popular. Everyone can create private or public games and it connects the players via LAN. The drawback is that it does so via an own interface and I have not seen a way yet to combine this with Battle.Net to host on both simultaneously. GameRanger is only viable for the Funmap Evening when everyone who is present possesses it.
  • Garena (obsolete):
    Garena was a gaming platform for a couple of popular titles with an own messenger and public channels. It emulates a LAN between all users in a channel, which provided fair manual hosting capabilities (and my bot could connect to it, too). We had no real private rooms there. Garena discontinued its gaming services for most countries a couple of years ago.
  • Hamachi (not used):
    Hamachi establishes a LAN like Garena but here all the channels are private and have a low player capacity (unless you pay for more).
  • Tunngle (not used):
    Tunngle is another LAN emulator with public channels. Unfortunately, the player base is rather small here and I admit I have not really stuck my nose up this one because nobody asked for it either.
Hosting bots

Hosting bots



    • my local bot (GHost++):
      Hosts on Battle.Net (US West, US East, Europe) and Eurobattle. It runs on my machine and I can operate it. Adding maps is pretty easy, you just have to pass it to me, so I can put it in my local maps folder.
    • oxBot:
      Frotty's bot that usually lurks in the IRC channel. Hosts on Battle.Net and Eurobattle. Messages are displayed in the IRC channels it is connected to. Only specific individuals have rights to upload maps and command the bot.
    • MakeMeHost:
      MakeMeHost provides a range of publicly shared bots that can either host on Battle.Net Europe, US East or both. The maps are selected from a predefined list, you cannot just upload maps yourself unless you are a privileged mapmaker (of the same map).
    • ENT Gaming:
      ENT bots host on a range of platforms (all BNet servers, Eurobattle, entconnect, ...) yet that may differ according to settings. If you freely register there, you can upload maps and organize your own collection, from which you can then issue a launch order. The interface takes a little getting used to but the versatility is nice and that renders it the pick if I should not be present/if no private bots are available.

Rules


Since there have been multiple occasions now where people entered the thread solely to promote their map: You may bring your map to the funmap evening forth and ask if we are interested in playing it together but do not simply use this place for advertisement of your work. It is not suited for map reviews nor is it some testing facility where you would submit your products and we would deal with it.



Appendix



current list of maps on the bot

Replays & Maps archive

Replays & Maps archive (expiring)[/color][/size]
[/tab][/CENTER]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Level 26
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
4,097
The listed maps are of those that we have played multiple times in the past. I cannot promise what we will play nor which people show up for this matter and even if a map is liked or not. However, I do usually direct suggestions/take the lead and host it in case we cannot decide.

Hint: The chances of playing a specific map raise with the participation of the person who recommended it, to back up his/her desire.

Last time, we did Scars of Conflict since TaShadan was there. Normally, altered melee is less suitable. Taking a look once, twice is okay but I doubt it will be repetitively chosen.
 
Level 9
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
576
Check the maps in my signature, and Miners, Spider war evolution, Zombie Infection Virus, Vampirism Beast, Swarm (you could make a tournament), Chernobyl lost riddles, the 11th vampire by titanhex, or the original one, or the one by ace_rimmer
 
Level 26
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
4,097
So we played with max 4 players yesterday.

Frog Garden Survival

Was very easy up till the last round but then the boss shredded us. I could not upgrade my axe higher than 2nd level. You constantly searched for the spawn wave and there were trivia questions to be answered for extra reward.

Terran Base Defence

Probably the best defense of the evening. You could hire defenders, level your hero as well as make use of applicable items, though few. It's a starcraft theme setting, fairly matching imports. You get attacked from four sides. The balancing was kinda poor and it's still too small.

BEER BEER

You need to refill your mana by drinking from a mug item you can refill the mug at the tavern. Mana decays over time and you lose hp fast as soon as the mana drops to zero. Having to retreat and estimating your mana level posed an interesting idea. Enemy waves have to pass narrow door passages, so at first, you did not take any damage but once the door broke and raiders appeared, it could easily overthrow everything. When being dead, you needed to move your ghost to the graveyard situated outside of the walls, which required time. I do not know why the author saw the necessity to add the functionality of not being able to revive and return to the game when remaining in ghost form for too long. Also enemies wandered into the revival/tavern zone and took you with one, two hits before you could act.

The Territorial Defense

This one was not a really a defense. In this FFA map every player just had a base structure and a couple of towers. You are defeated once the main falls. You control a hero, can buy mostly standard items and hire some units, go either creeping or attacking the enemy players. Yeah, not much to say. Highly unflexible, bad gold income, snowballing, randomness-based skills. I bought a costy item in the beginning that was not indicated as recipe, thereby was pushed in big disadvantage right off the bat.

World of Ancients Desert Winds

This dungeon crawler is rated high (4.88 of 32 votes) and I dunno why. It is probably not player-balanced since we constantly died and the system pretty much does not allow any application of skill. But we could revive all the time without penalty and there was no rush, so what's the point? No storytelling and nothing besides slashing boring enemies within a boring combat system. The inventory and upgrader were difficult to handle and practically useless. Plus seems like the author tried to copy everything from WoW, then you are better off playing WoW directly.

War of Skills Accuracy

A hero arena with no rounds, where you only run around the map and try to snatch the enemy players' heroes with your skills. Your hero can develop in a small scale but each hero possesses the shared abilities Dash, Jump, Heal and Defend. I cannot recognize the accuracy premise. The spells are very simple, require little aiming, are spammable, thus very forgiving.

Death Carnival

TcX in bad/worse? No powerups/ammo refill, horrendous camera movement, little gameplay. The height of the different layers is deceptive/unrecognizable with this perspective. Bad terrain, seems totally unfinished. Guess the map is in alpha state.

Swarm!

2on2 Farmfield Rampage/PvP Plants vs Zombies. Yeah, playing in team/with more players definitely increases the fun. Inflexible mana household, since you are permanently under attack, you can hardly establish buildings but once you have your aqua orbs, you possess superior advantage because everything is paid in mana. The functionality of units cannot always be read from appearance, the Demigod for example or the orbs. The players are not granted any time to read tooltips/explore their possibilities.
 
Level 26
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
4,097
It's only a bit of a first impression. Besides the beer map, we played everything only once. Guess I will write a bit more for the Starcraft Defense in its thread since I felt the scenario had potential and I could tell how to improve it significantly.

But yeah, attend the event and you will get more opinions. Mine do not necessarily have to match others' either.
 
Level 9
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
576
ok imma test terran defense thanks to you :)


about the wow looking map (with trolls), i remember i beat it in solo (it was not easy for sure) but maybe was in earlier version, but i don't think it's harder in coop :x
anyway yes the map was boring but good looking
 
Level 26
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
4,097
Northrend, Us East and Garena but we do not always get enough participants, like last saturday, which is why I would repeat it this weekend:

Announcement Note

Date of appointment: 29th of June (Saturday) 8pm CEST (UTC+2)
Meeting Channel: #inwc.de-maps-FA (quakenet irc)
Hosting bot accessibility: Battle.net Northrend, Azeroth, Garena: >War3 RPG >Europe >Europe RPG Room 13 (Element TD)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top