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Opposing Fortresses

This bundle is marked as useful / simple. Simplicity is bliss, low effort and/or may contain minor bugs.
Description:
This Melee map features multiple area types. Fortress, Forest, And a rolling plain. Each is littered with its own monster's to engage in combat.

Well i wasn't sure whether i should upload a Melee map or not. Well I've decided to anyways. Hope you enjoy and please comment and criticize on terrain.

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Change log:
- Fixed Balance issue.
- updated description.
v2
- added screenshots.

Keywords:
Warcraft, Melee, Fortress
Contents

Opposing Fortresses (Map)

Reviews
12:51, 5th Sep 2010 ap0calypse: Rejected
Level 3
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
62
Just being frank, i didn't mind the explanation of what ur char. felt, but I would personally like a description telling me the point of the game. I can see that there is Castle Defense opportunity in the name at least but I wonder if this is just hero runs through a creep-infested castle then gets out and does it again....... In other words a proper review is paritally unobtainable.

A Better Description recommended, I shall check out the map itself.

Feedback shall be returned soon.
 
Level 21
Joined
Jul 2, 2009
Messages
2,934
Yes kinda like they said, so people can be interested in the map.
Oh and change the info so people can be actually be glad too play instead of getting bored and closing your map and going too something else.
Make it sound exciting and you can get a few people liking your map.
 
Level 6
Joined
Oct 10, 2009
Messages
1,425
Alrighty,
I will give my full review now, or you can see my final rating at the bottom.


Please note, parts of the description section, and almost all of the terrain section of this review I borrowed from ap0calypse, because he is awesomeness.


"The reason why a good description is necessary is to encourage players to play your game.
It will grip the attention of people who (accidentally) pass by, attention is one of the basic things a map must have, otherwise it will be forgotten in the thousands and thousands of maps on battle.net."
( - The Importance of a Description, by ap0calypse).

Also,
If you'd like some examples of a good description try the following links.
Shining Waters by R.Gaming_Strike
Avatar by dj0z

Additionally, a description is required (not just optional).
Only a few people will download your map with no description and it is certain to get rejected.

>>Now, your description lacks in many many ways.
You should add screenshots, a change log, get good with the bb codes, and just put more thought into it overall.
<<



General Terrain


1) Tileset

Choose your tileset carefully: a combination of about 3 or more different types of grass for forests is not a luxury.
The tileset is the base of the terrain, it's very important that you learn to combine tilesets that look good together (note that some of the edges of tilesets can be different when next to another type, you need to think about that too: what looks good next to what?).
Most people start out with 1 or 2 different types of tileset that don't match eachother, then go to randomly placing a few tilesets that do match eachother and then finally, after some practice, can succesfully combine tilesets and know where to place them.

You used the basic lorderon summer tileset, which in itself, is a decent tileset. You used it very poorly however. You really left a lot of space where only 1-2 tiles were used.


2) Transition

This part also belongs to the tileset somehow.
When you're creating a terrain and you're using different tilesets, make sure that they are mixed and that you can't see any clear border.

You used almost no transitioning.
In the dirt area in the bottom left corner of the map, it's very clear you just click your mouse a few times to create the other blotches of dirt.

3) Cliffs

Try not to use cliffs (in the terrain palette: apply cliff: increase/decrease one/two).
Cliffs could be used when you actually need a cliff, but when you need a mountain of some sorts, or a wall use the raise land tool or doodads.

You only used blizzard cliffs, most of which just didn't look realistic by any means...

You should also never use the standard water-tools for the terrain, there's a far better (yet more complicated) option to create water.
Cliffs could be used when you actually need a cliff, but when you need a mountain of some sorts, or a wall use the raise land tool or doodads.
The thing here is that you need to create a new map in order to make this work, I don't think you can adjust this when you've already made your map.
What you need to do: when creating a new map, there's an option called "Initial Water Level", if you set this to "shallow water", you start off with your terrain completely under (shallow) water.
Afterwards, when the terrain is created, you should raise the land (not with the cliff tool!) so it is slightly above water-level (it should look like land on the minimap, but may not be too high).
When this is done, click the "apply height: plateau" tool and drag it all along the terrain, starting from the little patch of land, now the entire terrain should be above water-level.
To create a river now is very easy: lower the terrain and you've got water - this can be done to create puddles, rivers, sea, whatever you want.

View attachment 89077
Ahem....

Doodads:


1) Spamming doodads

Doodads may never be spammed, you can place a lot of environmental doodads (such as shrubs), but never overdo it.
A lot of people spam things like rocks, waterfalls or fire, but that is not the point of doodads.

View attachment 89078
Looks pretty spammy...and the fact that these are some of the only doodads you used makes it worse.

2) Cinematic Doodads

Cinematic doodads should only be used in rare occasions and should never be spammed.
I know it is very flashy and might be appealing to some, but believe me: it looks far from good.
The fire is probably the most used cinematic doodad and I really don't care if it's used in the right places (a burning house for example).

You really didn't use/need any of these.

4) Emptiness

Empty terrains are very ugly, if you compare older or less professional maps with higher quality maps, you can immediately see that the higher the quality of the map, the less empty the terrain looks.
This is because, usually, people who know how to map, also know that the terrain is a major part in the entire game: I don't like playing on empty, bad terrains.
The solution? Environmental doodads! These are the most useful doodads and your map should exist out of about 70-80% environmental doodads (and trees are probably the second most used doodad).
A tree doodad is just a tree, nothing special, but once you add a bit of shrub and mushrooms underneath, it makes it feel more realistic.
Yet again: do not spam these either... they can look good in greater numbers than most doodads, but that's no reason to spam them.

Untitled8.jpg
Sad isn't it...?
Not only are the trees just randomly placed and bare, but the landscape around them is bare.

Additional:


1) Weather/Fog

These are main ingredients when creating a cinematic and shouldn't be forgotten in other maps either.
There's no need for a weather effect (in fact: please don't touch it if you don't really know what you need to do with it), but a (triggered, not weather) fog can drastically improve how a terrain looks, or the 'aura' it gives off.
Creepy maps need a darker fog, happy maps a light one, you can make it change for day/night purposes, you can change it depending on the region you're in.
Basically this decides what kind of map you're playing

To make a default fog: go to Scenario -> Options, there you should see the option "Use Terrain fog", set style to "Linear" (nothing else) and choose your color.
You probably need to lower the starting Z as well (about 1000, or even less if you want), otherwise you won't see a lot of the fog.


2) Sky

You seriously don't need this if you don't use camera's that have an angle of attack of at least 330 degrees...
In cinematics however, it decorates the entire terrain and - if it matches the cinematic theme - it really expresses the general idea.




General Gameplay Tips

1) Replay value

This refers to how well your map can be replayed. Major bugs, imbalances, and other things to just generally mess up the gameplay, will affect this.

Kinda low here.
Mainly due to the fact that the creeps were in random places and some were OP and some were too weak.
You had a few mud golems guarding a fountain of life/mana yet you pt 15 zombies guarding a merc camp.




My final comments/concerns

The terraining was just bad. It didn't make sense in some places and didn't look good everywhere.
I see what you were aiming for, but you missed.

The gameplay was a bit weird mainly because of the fact hat this map is so abstract. I was constantly getting lost in the places...


My final rating,

1/5 (Poor)
Rejected
 
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