New race altered melee: multiplayer test

[NightWolf]

Hello everyone,

I have been working on a map lately and as I was about to test it on Bnet, I realized there are very few players left on this awesome game that is warcraft 3
In fact, there are so few players that nobody would enter my map to test it .
Hence my request.

My map is not very original as its a melee map with new races. Actually it's so unoriginal that it features Naga only (for now !).
The idea came when I saw how many altered melee maps there were, but how I felt they were always lacking something (despite being fun !), whether it'd be in form (models buggy, lacking animations - especially for buildings -, no corpses, no portrait, excessive use of blademaster animations, cast point and attack points not accurate, ...), in gameplay (unbalanced units, wrong armor type or attack type, ...) or in diversity (spells like storm bolt, chain of lightnings, shockwave used repetitively, copied units with just a different skin, ...)

So I tried a different approach (I'm not saying it will be better than any existing altered melee maps, I know it probably won't !)
The idea behind this map is to feel like it's an ingame race.
Here are the key points:

• Make a complete race: 12 units, 4 heros, 10 buildings
• Respect warcraft gameplay style: one unit capable of dispel, one unit capable of revealing invisible units, at least 2 air units, at least 1 siege unit, a way to protect workers early game, etc ...
• Make as many custom spells as possible: I noticed that in the 4 existing playing races, not 2 single units/heros have the same abilities. That's what makes each race gameplay so unique. Therefore most Naga units have custom spells created from scratch or inspired by other video games (Dota2, Diablo, ...)
• Make the race unique: each race has its own peculiarities (undead has blight and haunted goldmines, nighelf has moving buildings and entangled goldmines, orc has burrows, human has call to arms). Naga now has "rancid waters"
• Make it feel like a 5th race: custom UI, custom research complete/building complete/town attacked/... sounds (most already existing in WC3 mpqs), custom musics
• Limit duplicated models: in WC3, there is very limited examples of models with same animations/skin that can be found in the creeps and in the existing races (basically only water elementals, heretic/acolyte, wizard/archmage, wraith/banshee, nerubians/demon fiend) so the Naga race has its own custom models and is not just a mix of crabs, water elementals, sea giants, turtles (also it does have a turtle )
• Try to stick to the original Naga theme: they can hide in water, they are all snaky-fishy-reptiliany-dragony units, can send nets, etc ...
• Give the race matching items: they have their own specific sets of items in their shops, like the other races, and there is a list of items corresponding to their units' abilities that can be dropped by creeps (such as pipe of insight, scourge bone chimes, wand of the wind, scroll of the beast, ...)
  

I'd love to be able to play it with someone interested in this concept and to see if it feels like an actual new race (and if it was worth the time spent - 11 months of my free time for 12 units which is a bit depressing ).
It's also important for me to get feedback from other creators on what could be improved.

If it turns out to be enjoyable, I might continue this journey and work on new races. I have in mind Centaurs, Pandarens, Demons, Ogres, Gobelins (although that would require to rethink all the concept of current neutral goblin laboratory that are used all the time by pro players).

If you are interested please send me a PM so that we can agree on a date/hour to play together.

Have a great day !
Regards

Specifications:
Warcraft version: 1.36.1
Mode: SD only

PS: I thank everyone who allowed me to use their resources for this map. I have a detailed list of all the credits even though it does not appear in the map yet (it will soon) as it's not over.

 

[Daffa]

If this is in a state that is close to completion, why not try releasing it to Map Section and gather feedbacks from there? As long as AI for the default races works, people don't mind playing custom races even alone. True that it is not 'perfect melee feedback', but at least some form of feedback might be better than none, I suppose?

 

[NightWolf]

Hey Daffa,

Thank you for your answer.
The problem is I don't think it's enough close to completion to put it in the Map Section. Moreover I'd like to test multiplayers for desync reasons too.
But I will do that when I get closer to completion.

Have a great day !