Guess this is my first post to the forum but i just wanted to drop by and add my 10c review to it
I'd just like to start off by saying that this map is ABSOLUTELY phenomenal. The game you have created is rather superb in many ways. You have made a highly commendable effort here; as such my criticisms are only intended for the purposes of aid and help.
The Positives
First Impressions:
So many maps I have played fail to do this, yours does not. Immediately upon opening there is a cutscene (this is good)! The starting point is where you first get how good the map is. In this map the player sees a variety (12) CUSTOMLY MODELLED DESIGNED HEROES WITH UNIQUE SPELLS/ABILITIES, this is what makes maps good. Furthermore, just above is the Orc Chief displaying custom/interesting items in his inventory. This inspires good first impressions. Well Done
Heroes:
12 uniquely made heroes, custom spells and all that jazz. Excellent. The only thing missing is a repick, not critical though. The heroes (the ones we tested) all had interesting (most importantly different from std. w3) spells often with added effects such as shaman passive lightning. This was an area well done!
Items:
A large variety of highly unique and interesting items, often befitting the theme of your map. This was another solid effort. This was further improved through the excellent item creation system, complimenting the casual drops from the monster. The item ranking system also worked very well (yay for -stats
).
Terrain:
Simply flawless. Commendable effort in this dept. Need I say more.
Boss Fights (Save one...)
For the most, your boss fights were well done. There were issues with some... but I'll get to that later. For the majority of the time, each boss fight had an interesting scripted event which made it unique and to some degree a challenge. Making the player forced to fight in a certain away to avoid taking immense damage (Firelord a prime example
).
General 'Unqiueness'
Another area in which you excelled. The random events such as traps and altars all lent your map a great sense of unqiueness, making it more interesting to play. The altars were certainly an excellent idea for stat boosting and the possible chance of items. On the subject of items, the item chance drop from monsters (chance or scripted?) worked really well throughout the map. The puzzles, levers etc... were all well done adding depth. They worked well in letting the player know what he was looking for (the elven bow locked away needing the key... for example). The little gold carrier was cool too ahah
! As were the tents, serving a dual purpose for a bug fix (not that it happened)!
The Negatives: Not that they detracted from the experience too much
The Lore/Story: My MAIN Issue.
The way you created your map with the story on the forums of the rising mysterious islands and the introduction (not that i can remember it well now) made it seem there was going to be a good, underlying story behind it all. For the purposes of this, I'll refer to two other maps that were highly similiar (although yours was better slightly than both). CastleOrange's 'Explore the Ruins'
http://war3.incgamers.com/?p=mod&m=9677 (A GAME I HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU PLAY IF YOU ENJOYED THIS, IT IS SIMILIAR IN ALMOST EVERY ASPECT A GOOD 3 HOURS OF FUN) and 'Treasure Cave (Cove?)'. Both maps had you start out stranded upon and island/temple. Progressing through the game, gradually revealed to you the well designed lore and history of the place (ultimately a tragic demise of a powerful civillisation through various means'). This back story was revealed well through diaries, events and other means that you encountered as you progressed through the map. This gave the sense that your actions were somehow going to culminate in something exultant (which they did.)
The gradual revelation of the past and history of the place you were in made the game more interesting, resulting in you actually achieving some sort of meaningful victory against evil or w/e.
I felt that you had tried to incorporate elements of this in your map. The altars, the feron and ferics tomb. The white writing describing past battles etc... yet it just felt kinda superfluous. You get that the overarching sense like ok something went down here a long time ago, big battle or what not. But it never really comes to fruition, you never learn details about the lore or past in any great depth. Whether or not this was a focus for you or not, I'd thought I'd point it out. The ending was just... ok go time now woo, no cut scene or anything just victory, but it was more of the boss before... which leads me to the next problem.
The Final 'Boss':
The reason I didn't like this was for multiple reasons. Out of nowhere (yes there were minor references to him) with no real lore/story of any major kind we run into this Kalendednon (cant remember his name sorry). The major evil or what not for this temple, though i have no idea what happened long ago really or what he did. But yes, he is the final boss. Surprise! The cut scene was annoyingly stupid (and buggy i got teleported to the orc base and he was talking to nobody our characters weren't on the camera) i cant even remember what he said but I think it was kinda dumb and unecessary like 'ah yes i am big evil' the most annoying part was this though "you guys are puny"... we had just killed every single living thing in the temple. Kinda weird. His script isn't that exciting he attacks then disappears to the top and casts an easy to dodge blizzard and spawns weak ass elementals. For a final boss I expected more. He was just weak in general, but this leads to the final problem moreso.
Balance:
You had it right up to about level 9 or so. Then we got the fire hammer of GGNESS. At level 10 and with the FIREHAMMER OF GGNESS it was all too easy. Every mob/boss became food. I don't know if this was intended or not but it was easy after level 10. We got the OP weapons and proceeded to have no more troubling fights. Maybe it's because we picked the two most OP characters (idk havent tested them all we had shaman and rogue). Everything becomes way to weak, even the last boss. Imo he needs an extra 10k hp more armor more damage and more scripted spells. He is just too easy, the water elementals die quick and the blizzard is dodgeable by a 2 year old. He became more of a chore than a real challenge. The difficulty needs to be ramped up sufficiently once you've cleared out all the level 6 and 3 area.
Misc:
Not much to say here. Amongst just this. FIX THE TYPOS!!!!! Such an excellent map with such dedication put into it does not need typos... (the witch dr. book is one i remember). Typos are a personal hate, so easy to fix and i can understand why they are there, but such a well polished map, typos just drive me insane! Actually there were TWO things. One was the sewer exit, there was no sewer. Lastly, there was a gate down near the bottom right corner with runes on it, it was near the teleporter which takes you the twin corridor. Whether or not it was a bug, we could smash it down but not go through it... annoying.
Overall, i loved this map solid recommendation to anyone who wants to play a high quality and well polished map. The best in its genre of 'warchaser style' followed closely by Explore the Ruins and Treasure Cave. Well Done SpasORc. Wonderful Map all up.
91/100
Approved
Still a great experience and fun to play. Great terrain and everything. I saw only one bug. When we were at the final boss there is a cutscene and the instead of one hero a backpack was saying some really mean things to the boss 
None the less 5/5. 
+rep
.. just curious...
