trebla ratilla - Jeffreys Misssion
It looked good when I checked the abilities, imagining their use. While the story showed potential. However as I began playing, issues cropped up. There is no guards if you just spawn the pet into the mansion without passing the door. The guards are way too twitchy and random, as a result you don't really get the feeling of being able to plan your sneak maneuver - instead I find myself just waiting for mana to slowly regenerate, so I have my abilities ready. It also makes the pet almost useless besides a vain hope to find items, as you can't get an impression of any routes or patterns the guards might have (as they don't).
The detect could be useful, except that the guards (there seems to be only 3) will always move in a location near you and it appear to be fixed to a certain distance.
Clearly a lot of effort went into the terrain, but I am sadly not seeing a pattern. For instance one garden contains giant alien eggs, there are lots of old furniture mixed with new tech like AC and a computer. I know the idea was to create a home environment, but it became too much clutter.
The guards also seem to be able to see and sometimes walk through doodads as opposed to the player, which again creates some odd moments. The banana peel is a fun poke at comics, but given the otherwise serious theme, I would have gone for another name for it. Still it is worth noting that opposed to most of the other entries this went for a stealth style, where avoiding detection and following punishment is key.
Sadly due to the above I didn't really enjoy this.
ZiBitheWand3r3r - Alien Invasion
Good start, and the alien theme shows, with some effort into the diff settings. But the terrain doesn't really shine, and the initial tool-tip that says build anywhere you want makes a bad first impression. Given that one can teleport it is very easy to build in a location where you will just be stuck (say on a cliff) - thus I had to restart my first game.
Some other technical aspects hamper the immersion. There is a slight delay on the transformation process, so the unit will stand next to the "egg", which looks odd. If you spawn for instance 3 beholders, without enough food, it will just remove some instead of building it, without information or returning your loss.
I enjoyed the map, but it didn't really come anywhere close to stealth. I could build my lair right next to two civilians without a problem. Nobody except enemies reacted to my presence and one could just overwhelm them with an army. The resources was also a bit odd, as they became quickly irrelevant once I had one flying unit to just go around and infect. Then there was the infect when they are alone mechanic. Its a good idea, but as most civilians didn't move unless attacked, it just forced me to kill those that were in the way, which goes against stealth. When I read the description I had hoped for something like the old popular aliens & marines map, where you can hide in plain sight or sneak around infecting people, trying to avoid notice while slowly evolving.
Svetli - Underground Volcano
Not really feeling much stealth from this, but its fun. I am mostly just wrecking the enemies (normal mode, but thanks to position and items it isn't hard - More so when you get fast teleport).
A big + for using my icon
Damn that made me happy to discover
. Love the effort put into the terrain (the attempt at the volcano with the colored waterfalls
) and the cinematic's.
Good Warcraft fitting story, but again not really stealth - more of a lone journey for revenge while getting stronger (or finding items to do it, such as the +5 crown). This could be a Warcraft Campaign map, but in the context of this contest I cannot vote for it.
DD_legionTN - Silent Intruder
Tiny spelling error in the intro, but nonetheless a fine introduction. This is stealth from the get go, without a doubt someone went through a ton of effort to create this map. I sense a clear thief inspiration from it, and the unique way you interact with the world makes one almost forget that it is Warcraft 3. The attention to proper hints, sounds and dialog is very much appreciated, even if there is some slight visibility problems with doors being almost invisible thanks to the wall interaction.
Right from the start its clear that this a is a stealth game, where you have to think ahead and plan. Easy to learn, hard to master fits well in here. There is patterns, risk management and profit, just as a proper thief. Could wish for a re-spawn mechanic though
Hard, but rewarding.
Cokemonkey11 - Windwalked
I don't see the stealth. Seems like what has been done a lot before and nothing new. The arrow ability can trigger without a target, which just wastes mana. Doesn't feel unique or have any focus on stealth. Guess it could be an okay multiplayer map, but for this contest I don't see the point of it (Playing this solo might impact my experience). Other than to create a pattern, not much in the way of terrain. Heck even unit path-finding seems to have some issues as they can easily clump toward goldmines that are placed quite far out (and doesn't seem to serve a purpose).
Conclusion:
While I like the overall ideas for all of the maps, only two of them really tried to focus on stealth, without any alternative. Of those two Silent Intruder is clearly the superior, with a dedicated stealth focus, without going overboard on abilities and yet keeping things unique. Jeffreys Mission tries, but the lack of patterns forces it down a more ability focused approach, where it quickly becomes a chore.
DD-legionTN well done for creating a very well thought outstealth map, that manages to punish without destroying the feeling of joy from playing. You get my primary vote.
I am also voting for Jeffreys Misssion as it was the second to focus on stealth and punish a lack thereof, even if I liked it less than the others. It is however a vote of principle.
(Correction: I am not voting a second time, as I upon looking at the result see a sad lack of votes for the stealth maps - as such I will give that my only vote. Not meant as a bad word against Svetli's map, but I don't really feel that people actually considered the core contest subject when voting).
EDIT Reason: Attributed a terrain comment to the wrong map (Svetli's where it was supposed to be Cokemonkey11)
