Ruins of Alterac

[ザイルス]

Love the combination of the Lordaeron Winter tiles mixing with the Cityscape ones! Gonna check this map. The ratings with follow.

UPDATE: The map is very clean, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t see any critters (I know it’s a city but please consider), actually that’s it for me. It’s a smooth map and no pointy bumps and levels (sorry, can’t say the term right). I haven’t actually played the map. I only viewed it using the World Editor.

 

[Mr.Henci]

Love the combination of the Lordaeron Winter tiles mixing with the Cityscape ones! Gonna check this map. The ratings with follow.

UPDATE: The map is very clean, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t see any critters (I know it’s a city but please consider), actually that’s it for me. It’s a smooth map and no pointy bumps and levels (sorry, can’t say the term right). I haven’t actually played the map. I only viewed it using the World Editor.

Thanks for the comment! I am not sure what you mean by clean map and no pointy bumps, but I hope it's nothing gamebreaking. Yeah, no critters forgot about them, will fix it when I come home.

 

[mafe]

This looks like great map to me, both from the visuals and the potential gameplay (as I would have expected from you). Apart from the critters, the only thing that is unusual are the itemdrops: Compared to ladder maps, the items are relatively weak for the strengths of the creeps for some spots.

 

[Korialstrasz]

This is my personal review and others might have a different opinion and/or value the points mentioned differently.

Description => 3/3 (Your description is how it should be for any melee map. Small introductory, important details about camps/neutral buildings, followed by 4 screenshots that give the viewer an idea about the map and some kind last words. Well done!)

Fun & Gameplay => 5/5 (I do belive your map has everything in order to have a nice game of melee Wc3. Shops & Labs open up a lot of possibilities for a long game and overall there seems to be much to do on the map. I would have preferred a life fountain in the middle, but that's just me.)

Balancing => 8/10 (I do believe this is the most important point for any melee map, and even though you did really good, there are some points of improvement. The items drop are, as before mentioned, a bit too low. It would be better if you would add the levels of each camp together, divide the number by 3 and that should be the level of the items dropped, rounding up. Also I would not use the Lordaeron Fall Merc. Camp since it doesn't really fit to your map and has two really strong units, the ogre magi and mud golem, which can really shift the tide in battle sometimes. The Lordaeron Winter camp would be more fitting in style anyways.)

Terrain => 3/7 (This point is just my opinion as I'm not the best terrainer out there, but I do believe I can still be a watcher. As mentioned before the map is a bit too flat, didn't disturb me much, but wasn't that pretty in some open snow places. Also, I did not like your use of the "round tiles". This could be just me not liking that tile, but I do think that it looks kind of ugly if only used in small 1x2 or 2x2 spots. I also had the feeling that some doodads were placed a bit random just to have something there, for example some destroyed fountains in the middle of nowhere between two camps. And i believe the city in the middle could use some improvements aswell. Maybe some walls, so that it isn't a complete open space, but I'm not sure about that.)

Total: 19/25 => 4/5 Stars

[+] Balanced camps & buildings
[+] Great gameplay if played in big teams
[+] Good and fair symmetry
[+] Always nice to see snowy maps
[~] The map may be unbalanced and less fun if not played with full house
[~] Item drops are a bit too low
[-] Terrain needs some improvements

 

[Mr.Henci]

This looks like great map to me, both from the visuals and the potential gameplay (as I would have expected from you). Apart from the critters, the only thing that is unusual are the itemdrops: Compared to ladder maps, the items are relatively weak for the strengths of the creeps for some spots.

Well, this was a big issue when creating this map. Actually wanted to contact you in the evening about this. I heard once that when there is a Marketplace on the map, items should not go above lvl3 since lvl4 items can appear in marketplace and cause some imbalance. If you can confirm/deny this fact, I would redistribute items to be more fitting.

...I would have preferred a life fountain in the middle, but that's just me...

...Also I would not use the Lordaeron Fall Merc. Camp since it doesn't really fit to your map and has two really strong units, the ogre magi and mud golem, which can really shift the tide in battle sometimes. The Lordaeron Winter camp would be more fitting in style anyways....

...As mentioned before the map is a bit too flat, didn't disturb me much, but wasn't that pretty in some open snow places. Also, I did not like your use of the "round tiles". This could be just me not liking that tile, but I do think that it looks kind of ugly if only used in small 1x2 or 2x2 spots. I also had the feeling that some doodads were placed a bit random just to have something there, for example some destroyed fountains in the middle of nowhere between two camps. And i believe the city in the middle could use some improvements aswell. Maybe some walls, so that it isn't a complete open space, but I'm not sure about that.)

1. I believe fountain are imbalanced, maybe in the future I might create map with fountain but for now, no fountains.

2. While Winter Merc might be more fitting at a first glance, a deeper look into the theme will prove us wrong. Alterac is a home of ogres, thus I believe they should be present in Merc camp. The problem is however, that only Merc camps containing Ogres are Loraeron Fall and Summer and again, while Summer Merc is more balanced, thematically forest troll doesn't fit snowy area. I had to make this compromise. (I am willing to change that if more players will find it unbalanced)

3. I really like those "round tiles" so I guess we have different taste To that random decoration. The corner area is supposed to be a burned village (you can see burned tower and farm nearby as well as few untouched buildings) but you are probably right. I will try to come up with something more decorative. - Problem is however, that more decoration means less space for players units. "City" part of this map was really problematic when I did my test runs, so I have deleted many decorations which weren't that useful.

Thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate them.

 

[mafe]

Well, this was a big issue when creating this map. Actually wanted to contact you in the evening about this. I heard once that when there is a Marketplace on the map, items should not go above lvl3 since lvl4 items can appear in marketplace and cause some imbalance. If you can confirm/deny this fact, I would redistribute items to be more fitting.

I believe marketplaces are problematic if some items are available: Iirc it was mostly aura items, and possibly stuff like book of the dead, i.e. lvl 4-5 items (Though I'm not sure where I got this opinion from). Echo Isles is the only 1on1 map with a marketplace and there are only items up to lvl 3.
However, this applies mostly to 1on1 and for team games, there should be more freedom. So marketplace might be ok. Regarding auras, on one hand auras are obviously more powerful in team games, on the other hand aura heroes are also more common for this reason, and so aura items might actually be less relevant (unless ofc it is an aura you dont have on a hero in your team). Book of the dead and other charged lvl4 items should be less dangerous as dispell is more likely to be in play. However, lvl 5 charged items are very dangerous as the infamous scroll of restoration will then appear in the marketplace at some point, and whichever teams is able to get it (through lucky timing?) has an insane advantage if used correctly.
TLDR: I think you can keep the marketplace, but I'm fully convinced about my opinion here. But definitely dont use lvl5 chared items then.

 

[deepstrasz]

Ogres and trolls are kind of all over the place. Aside of that, it's a really good map with few to no choke points. Pretty straightforward in a lovely way.

Approved.

 

[WolfFarkas]

edited

not going to review, but excellent work!

 

[Mr.Henci]

Ogres and trolls are kind of all over the place. Aside of that, it's a really good map with few to no choke points. Pretty straightforward in a lovely way.

Approved.

Thanks for the kind words. About the creeps, I was going for a themetic feel, if it is a big problem, I can consider changing it.

not going to review, but excellent work!

Thanks!

 

[Mr.Henci]

@WTii , a well-known Warcraft 3 Youtube guy, recently played on this map and here is the video, if you are interested:

I would say it nicely represents what this map has to offer.

 

[Wasabee]

Why can't I open this map ingame and in WE?? I have the 1.27 version.

 

[Mr.Henci]

Why can't I open this map ingame and in WE?? I have the 1.27 version.

It was updated with 1.30+ patch, you may find older versions made with 1.26 on epicwar.