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Techtree Contest #4 Poll

Vote for your favourite entry!

  • [URL="http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/1843016-post702.html"]Vermillion Edict's Alterac Race[/URL]

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • [URL="http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/1843227-post714.html"]Xiliger's Horde[/URL]

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    59
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
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Improved Melee Race
Contestants are to create an improved or at least an alternate version of the current Warcraft 3 races, be it Human/ Orc/ Undead/ Night Elf/ Naga. The race created must fit the name of the race you picked and must have many similarities to the original one (lore- and concept-wise).

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  • Each user can only vote once in the poll.
  • You cannot vote for yourself. If a voter has the same IP as the author then the vote will not be counted and it may result in the disqualification of the entry.
  • You cannot create multiple accounts to vote for an entry in the poll. If a voter has been found to be using multiple accounts none of the voters votes will count in the final result.
  • You cannot bribe users for votes. Contestants who break this rule will be disqualified and given negative reputation.
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  • First Place: 50 reputation points and your entry on the award icon
  • Second Place: 35 reputation points and an award icon
  • Third Place: 20 reputation points and an award icon

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  • Pharaoh_

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Gameplay
How fun the gameplay is; does it introduce a new way of playing? Is it too complicated? (If yes, is it still playable?)/10

Strategy
This is what Wacraft 3 is. Does the race offer dynamic and various types of strategy or does it look like a simple race editing?/10

Philosophy
Does it follow the theme of the original race? //Although the points are 5 here, having a score of 0 means elimination from the contest./5

Appearance
Does the final output look better than the original race?/5
  • 70 % of the winner shall be determined by the contest's appointed judge(s).
  • 30 % of the winner shall be determined by the results of a public poll.

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Inviting your friends to vote for you, bribing random members with rep and otherwise cheating with the VB poll system will get you DISQUALIFIED, BANNED from future contests, -REPPED, and possibly INFRACTED. So don't do it!

This includes, but is not limited to, sending PMs out to various users, getting other people to send those PMs, advertising this contest on other sites with the intention to gain more votes (whether it is explicitly stated or not), and so on. If you are suspected of cheating, the staff will notify you and interrogate you (hopefully) over PMs.​

Thanks to Lich Prince for making this poll!
 
Last edited:
Level 16
Joined
Jun 17, 2008
Messages
550
This post is meant as a response in the Techtree#4 thread :) I'm still in the process of reviewing all the races; most of the races I've played so far have been really awesome (well made!). I hope to finish my reviews in maybe two weeks from now. Then only will I vote ;)

67chrome said:
Perhaps a new thread could be opened for further upgrades? If we could get the races balanced enough we could even play-test them against each other. A lot of the races I've tested so far could be polished a little more and balanced a little more as well, mine included.
I would love to see this too. I'm sure many of you are still working on improving your races, so I think it would be nice if a small thread could be opened somewhere to post the various progress. I'd even like to merge my race with any willing participants further down the road.


Thanks for taking the time to write down some feedback ;) I'm glad that you managed to win with the race because most of the feedback I got is that the race is 'weak' or 'underpowered'. I personally find my race too strong for my liking, but then again don't we all always think our races is at least above average in terms of balance and firepower :xxd: I've also been updating my race a lot after my submission, including giving the flying machines and genius you mentioned a makeover but hopefully I'll keep their specific roles still intact. :) Now several responses to specific points you raised:

Sage Chow said:
- Townhall: It gives 8 food, making you dead in the water in the beginning, you already need to make a black market to get the lumber going. Give the player 12-15 food so you can atleast train a hero right off the bat.
- Dwelling upgrades: This is a good idea that goes with the recycle concept. Just make them upgrade more food and make them more expensive.
Thanks for the reminder. While I agree an 8 food beginning is far from ideal, I'm not very keen on giving my small town hall even more food than its original counterpart. (I use a 'mini' town hall concept in many ways: cheaper, faster build/upgrade time, less hp, etc.) I'm thinking of pushing this responsibility to the dwelling, either making them much cheaper of provide more food. I guess that is the fun of balancing, if I don't like what I did I'll just have to revert back to the ideas provided in the feedback to my race ;)


Sage Chow said:
- Heroes: I would have loved a level 6 morph ability giving the junkmaster the ability to fly (add some junk wings and some siege bomb attack to drop on buildings). My heroes got killed all the time while my flying units stayed out of trouble
You've got to believe me on this, I'm really tempted to make my heroes fly or have partial flying capabilities in one way or another! But as a flying race, almost the entire army is always going to much more mobile than the original 4 blizzard races, so in my opinion adding flying & mobile heroes into the mix would stray too far from the original game play. And yes they do get targeted a lot during late game, especially if the rest of your army are flying xD I'm trying to balance this, but as of now, having the heroes hang a little further back seems like the only solution.


Sage Chow said:
- Tech dependancies: Some upgrades required the recycle upgrades. I understand you would want to promote your systems like that, but I felt this was forced on the player and unneccesary.
Yup, it is a hassle isn't it? :D
Here's how the race would look like if I take out the tech dependency:
- Town halls will be upgraded into tiers 2 and tiers 3 much quicker, because they cost much lesser and are upgraded more quicker if compared to the town halls of the 4 original races.
- The snowball effect of getting a tier 3 town hall too quickly would also make getting tier 3 units much more quicker than other races.
- Lumber procurement would be too quick if the requirements of Black-Market-to-Improved-Dwelling ratio is met too early in the game.

All in all I added the tech dependency to introduce something like a 'grace period' or a 'wait period' until the player can get a bunch of flying units, which I'm aware are really potent during late game. But I do think you have a point, and I have eased several of the tech requirements (like dependency-2 to dependency-1) as I'm updating the race.

As for the black market lumber part, yeah I hate harvesting lumber too ;D plus working as lumberjacks is hardly a woman's strong suit. (lol) And yeah that flamethrower tower is redundant already in my current version, I'm thinking of just removing it.

Good feedback from you Sage Chow, keep up the good work! ;)
 
Level 12
Joined
Aug 22, 2008
Messages
911
I'd like to comment on this one. No offense meant to any of the competitors, but judging through a map is not always possible (for example, if you're using another computer), whereas judging through screenshots is easier and possible through many more computers.

I don't want to change the voting system or the entries themselves, in fact I'm not voting in this contest at all and I don't mind what will be the results. I'd just like to point this out since I'm curious about this contest and I'd like to experience the entries in a better way, even if I'm not on a computer with WC3 on it.
 
Well, lol, nearly all of the races were pretty imba.

However, I loved Sage Chow's race the most. It was the most innovative by far, and was pretty balanced compared some races. Also, a nice use of models that fit well.

EDIT: Well, since the contest thread is locked, I'll be putting some reviews here, starting with Vermillion Edict's;

I only did a quick playthrough, as with the other reviews I've done so far.
Presentation - 1/5 - - This was appauling.
-Units/Buildings
Most of the custom unit models were low quality, like that gliding dude (Heirophant), whose portrait doesn't even match. Buildings are FAR too large, and although most of the building models were alright, thanks to Mr. Bob, they didn't even have a build mesh, and just generally didn't match.
-Icons
Tell me 1 DISTBTN file you imported. Seriously, everywhere I go, I just see big green boxes. And most of your icons were horribly placed, especially the buildings. You could've taken some time to make some screenshot icons for those imported building models too.
-General
The look of it didn't match at all. I don't know if they are evil, if they are holy, if they are imperial, if they are refugees, if they are anything! There's no central theme. Some tooltips had errors and lacked information (especially one of the hero's).
Gameplay - 2/5 - Not spectacular. Though not as ugly as the presentation, it was still poor.
-Units/Buildings
Most were just plain old units and structures. The structures had a Hideout ability, so I guess it added some flare to it, however, I still don't see any recurring theme. The techtree seemed a bit bland. There was some structure called Villager's Castle or something, which I think had no purpose, you could've just let the Town hall building train Dregs. That brings me to this, you need to research an upgrade... to research an upgrade? Why don't you just increase the build time of the 'Hold' structures instead of making a whole new 'Glorylust' upgrade?
-Gates/Walls
Well, they look absolutely ugly, especially icons, but hey, this is gameplay, so I will ignore this. Again, I'm confused over the theme of this race. It's just a blabber of random Human shit combined. I though this was a Refugee race, yet they can build massive walls and gates!? They're not that special either, they're available at T2, and they basically just...block. They work in games like AoE, but they don't really suit Wc3's gameplay.
Balance - 3/5 - Well, this bit's alright. I guess this race is fairly even in combat. But some things that can make this race imba;
-Doesn't the item shop sell about 3 different units or so?
-That Villager's Castle thing instant-make Farmsteads...
-Gates and walls, like I said, don't fit in. They'll either be a waste of time and resources for the owner, or too much of a pain for the attackers.
Creativity - 3/5 - Meh. The whole theme of this race I don't get. It is so unclear. It is supposed to be some kinda Bandit/Refugee shit (eg. , the Town Hall, your Hideout ability, those beast units as well as your models), but then you get a feeling that this race is like some kind of massive Human Empire (eg. Gates and Walls, and your large buildings), and you finish with introducing a Dark and Light religion thing (Atramancers and the heroes). However, I don't think the techtree itself is barren of innovation. You did implement Gates and Walls, as well as the Atramancer, and how you can simply 'buy' units from shops.
Storyline - N/A
Overall - 9/20 - 2.25/5 - [2/5] -
Presentation - disgusting. I don't know how you could've made it that bad.
Gameplay - mostly dull and a bit too varied.
Balance/Creativity - average. Not good, not bad, but has alot of room for improvement.
 
Last edited:
Level 12
Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
865
67chrome
For starters, the naga builders' price was a bit high and I was greeted by a very welcoming Reveal buildings message. I also noticed that you removed the Black Temple's ability to build barracks, a shame, since it relieved the player of some peasant control early in the game. You seem to have forgotten to place a food cost for the Nethermancer and the shop requirement for the inventory upgrade. Something I enjoyed was the ability to buy permanent succubi, it's a huge push early game since it provides vast help for the hero and allows the production of other units. Now, the race in general was very over-powered basically because the heroes had destructive abilities, the Nether Focuses provided base immunity, the archers were able wipe out bases easily, and the high tier units were obtainable in early game. I didn't even bother with the upgrades, my epic army was already massacring the foe. You might have heard all these since you received quite a good amount of reviews already.
Fuzzyfury
Your race has a very weak start, the ghoul and archers are weak as hell. I had to attack the Wedingos around 3 times to actually kill them. Unholy Strength upgraded all my beginning units' attacks, including archers' and peasants'. The heroes were a bit weak, Death Coil for an Int hero isn't that good of an idea, it also didn't work on one of my other heroes. The Vengeance dude had a relatively weak stab ability, it's melee, you should have INCREASED the damage, not decrease it. After upgrading the Town Hall I researched the Inventory only to notice that it didn't affect the right units. Finally, your race is weak, it doesn't even have an ultimate unit. I wouldn't call this race an improvement for the Undead...
GhostThruster
The race was sweet at first with the nice resource gathering ways. Though the lumber gathering was too sweet. I built 2 heroes (bugged), assembled an army quickly, bought some potions (bugged), and charged. My resources were still very high. The Mur'gul dude is indeed a MASS SPAWNER, I was able to swipe the enemy farming enemy, kill the troll creeps, recover, reengage plus destroy the coming army, and eventually destroy their base with the help of a couple of units as reinforcements. Your race is far too over-powered man. I continued the game after that just so I could check the remainder of the race.
JokeMaster
The first thing that came to mind was: "Where the hell are the lumber harvesters, wait, and why the hell does the Lumber mill cost wood?". Most of the annoying things in this race were the tooltip mistakes and the upgrade bugs (Hunter Hall req. for Ballista). Oh and, 2 out of 3 of the computers I was facing turned out to be high elves doing absolutely nothing. Luckily, the third computer weren't High Elves and I managed to spar with it. I must say that the Heroes and units stacked well, and had nice and simple upgrades. The race is pretty well balanced, good job.
Mephestrial
Pretty much the same thing as the Human race. All you did was replace some units, add an existing Ranger hero to the race (who has male names [bug]) and call it an improvement. The race obviously needs more tinkering.
Narogog
I didn't get any peasants when I started, not cool. The way you categorized your workers and peasants was nice, so was the way they build. "Units can be build by many buildings and vice verca" thing wasn't necessary. I had a hard time finding the heroes. The buildings' Tower defense was too powerful, they managed to fend off two attacking computer players without any unit help. There was a very high amount of spell-casting units which doomed your army in balance. It's impossible to be able to concentrate on all of them.
Sage Chow
Basically the Night Elf start, the Sacred Shrine was also able to uproot (bug). The race seemed a bit crowded at first but then everything became more clear. The weather system was a cool addition and so were the Pokemon abilities. I noticed that the race didn't have an ultimate unit, or was it the Fungovor Vine, cause I really didn't understand what its role was that late in the game. There were some few bugs but all in all, the race seemed cool and balanced.
VeljkoM
The race had a helpful start, especially with the raisable skellies and the awesomeness of the Archlich. Some roles in the tooltips were messed up. Now, the towers came really later in the game, I had barely any means of defense. The tier one skeletons were very weak, the only two units I could depend on throughout the whole game were the Wraith and the Shadow Wyrm.
Vermillion Edict
At start game my Alterac race peasant got mauled by Wedingos. At second start game I had to deal with one computer players' Militia peasants. At third start game I had to destroy the Haunted Gold Mine I got, thanks for all those. The race has a fitting music theme and fitting models, I'll tell you that. Now, the more I advanced through the game, the more I got confused. Really, why is your race this crowded? Plus, the only units worth using are the Noble Knight, the Bear, and the 4 Heroes. The race is relatively weak and requires a vast amount of micro-management. I'm also pretty certain you had some special lore for this race in your mind, too bad you didn't share it with us.
Wraithling
First of all, kudos on making the workers female, to hell with the male dominated peasant ranks, great improving going on here. If the player starts as Undead, he only gets 3 workers. The recycle thing wasn't a bad idea, didn't use it though, and got pissed when I was forced to upgrade it twice as a requirement. Solidarity was a good system, not that helpful for a small pack, but nevertheless helpful. Lumber was the most annoying thing here, my units and upgrades need lumber, my lumber need gold, my units and upgrades then needed gold, Blackmarket is a good idea, but not balanced at all, oh and Scroll of Teleportation can't be bought. After accumulating a huge-ass army with super solidarity bonuses, I charged!... only to get wiped out rapidly after. Weird, I was so confident that I could win, but it seems the units either failed me or I failed them.
Wazzz
The best race is the simple race, no fancy-eye candy shit. Your race contains pure brilliant ideas such as the Horse drop-off thing and the buy-able units ability. The Zeppelin transport system was a really helpful too. There are still a few bugs however. Oh, and the weird thing here is that your race is perfectly balanced without even having an ultimate unit or being finished. My votes goes to you.
Xiliger
I wasn't really able to test your race since you like, just placed all the units there. The heroes weren't complete, the fortified air ship unit seemed like it was gonna cause some imbalance. You're race is obviously not done.
 
Level 8
Joined
Jan 22, 2010
Messages
115
I would love to see this too. I'm sure many of you are still working on improving your races, so I think it would be nice if a small thread could be opened somewhere to post the various progress. I'd even like to merge my race with any willing participants further down the road.

And: Yup, it is a hassle isn't it? :D

And also: Good feedback from you Sage Chow, keep up the good work! ;)

^^ Count me in! I'm slowly merging my baradin humans as the nemesis race for the elves.
2: I never said you should completely throw the dependancies in the garbage.. Just choose something that feels a little more natural ;)
3: You're welcome!

Here are some more walls of text reviewing the maps.


Your race is definitely one of my fave's! You've managed to get the naga theme going with fitting buildings, some great units and loads of creative well-coded custom spells. Unfortunately the few problems are caused by overdoing some of these things.
I would say the first problem is in the actual numbers behind things. A lot of stuff is unbalanced or overpowered because they don't compare to blizzards spells in terms of mana-cost and damage output. There is a long list of examples below.
The second thing is the amount of status. Nearly every ability gives a huge buff to disrupt enemies. Making a race is also about making a choice between various boosts and picking the one you need. I get that the theme is counter-defence and that you want your race to rely on disabling abilities, but you haven't given anything up in return. Make the damage output and disables reasonable. If you want to focus on status then lower damage proportionally. I would also suggest to reduce the number of disrupting abilities to give the player a better understanding what, how and when to use them.
You used a lot of special effects in your spells. This should be a good thing, but in certain cases is makes a spell look over the top or a bit messy. The ethershift is an example here, where the shaky ground just doesn't help. This could be my personal taste. Also the amount of knock-backs (tying to the previous point) is pretty big. Try to concentrate it on the primary abilities. So, maybe not on the Barnacle turtle or Drench.
The heroes are cool, but for some reason have overlapping roles. You could exaggerate their individual roles, stats and abilities a bit. I had the feeling that all heroes spread status around.. I can't really say.. Even after playing 4 times it's a confusing point for me.

- I like the little lore stories in the tooltips; a great addition to your race.
- The waterhounds and infectors are great base units. Try to keep the damage and upgrades in check.
- The Barnacle Turtle is another exellent addition to the race. I do suggest reducing the foodcost of coral beds to 10 and limiting the number of turtles per bed to 1. This way you would make more use of the entire base. I usually had 3 Turtles on my first coral bed and that was that. You could even give the townhall 15 food instead to balance the scale.
- Frost Guard. All of his abillities do the same thing; maybe remove some of the slowing effects from this guy? Wall of Frost, damage per second and.. Slow. Cold Armor, increase defence and... Slow. Cold Snap, freeze and Slow! And the summoned Ice Elemental? Heh why not have a slowing attack? Do you see my point? Also Warp Flurry/Mind Break/Rip Surf (/Venom Tongue/Typhoon/Drench) also lower attack or movespeed.
- Water Mark: 20 Mana for 200 HP on primary target and 200 HP on nearby unit (x2 units on average). Note that rejuvination heals 400 HP in half time for 125 mana. That means your spell is almost 6x overpowered.
- Megamorph: Cool ability. But don't let it target heroes and the 4x polymorph is just too over the top. This should cost double and be on a hero, not on a unit.
- Reaver Ward: 25 Mana for a 10x fairy fire buff (Assuming a clustered army). The mana cost should be quadrupled and the -5 should be -3 or something. Let it target organic ground units. Then you can increase the time so it can be destroyed by the enemy to counter it.
- Splash: Hello stun-lock! (AoE??) Be carefull spreading stun around.. it disables spellcasters and melee units! You could atleast go for a thunderclap semi-stun.
- Infection: The idea of an infector is great, but the numbers you put here are ridiculous: Let's take a look at them: Each enemy takes 20 damage over 5 seconds at a 1 second cooldown. That means your unit adds 100 damage per second bonus to the regular attack! The manapool enables 10 attacks, and each 20 seconds a new attack is ready.
- Ethershift: SFX much? It feels a bit over the top in my opinion. I love the idea of this spell, but i'm not so sure whether to put this on a unit or a hero. These huge AoE abilities are part of why your race is overpowered. You could water the spell down, lowering the area and wild special effects or maybe place it on a hero and combo it with a delayed magic damager or a spellshield.
- Swift Strike Aura: Please choose: Have a silence attack (Not AoE!) or the quadrupled attackspeed bonus compared to endurace aura.
- Sea Ranger: Lol! Did you try to add the last possible buffs on your race? You get the point.
- Deepsee Aura: Balance!!
- Slimeskin: Balance!! 30 seconds should be 5, 30% should be less.
- Frost: This one bugged for me. Haven't gone over the trigger too much. This a perfect example of an ability that shouldn't be here. Give it to a hero (maybe), but on this unit is will only spam more buffs. Note that you have stun, silence, megamorph and nets running around to disable enemy units. You must draw the line somewhere.
- Purchasible Shop: Meh, I'm not a huge fan of this kind of thing. The (mana)potions need a tech tree dependancy.

This seems like a lot of critical points, but in the end your race is very creative and has a lot going for it.



The skeleton theme is here, and it's quite well executed! The base units are frail (that hp upgrade on the warrior is so needed) but that's what being a skeleton is all about. The overall structure is very Blizzard-like: Positive caster, negative caster, anti caster etc.. all with original spells. The air units are less organized in my opinion and resemble the frost wyrm and gargoyle a bit too much. The choice of strutures is allright, allthough the Tomb or Bones could have used some love (custom items etc). The absence of towers is a bit tricky here.. I haven't played your race enough to fully comprehend the balance of obelisks and raise dead.

The combination Eternal Servitude/Reassemble/Reanimate Dead makes the race's frail units a bit more viable and makes up for the loss of animate dead. This is what makes your race a great race for me.
Liked the Archlich. Chain deathcoil for healing, death-pact for mana and raise dead for the combo. Sounds like a proper hero to me. The ranger needs a bit of a punch. Maybe mess with the illusion so that it deals 33% damage? Also the wounding arrow could be replaced by something autocasting. This race really needs a big fat strength hero, though.. But yeah, timing.

Remarks:
- Tooltips: Role/spells/attack give a good summary of a unit and it's purpose. I might steal this idea from you =P
- Lumber Harvest Upgrades: Maybe a usefull addition?
- Skeletal Archer Upgrades: Yes! And they work best in combination. I noticed that you use blizzards settings for the attack dice. Each attack upgrade now gives another 1 of 9 attack-dice bonus, you could reduce it a bit (but you can increase the base attack).
- Sky Barge: I'm not a huge fan of the tower-building-while-attacking as it requires a lot of micro management. But when building and defending a base it fits the frail skeleton race, so why not.
- Reanimate Dead: The tooltip still says it lasts 120 seconds. I reanimated 950 Hp
- Wendigo's.. quite a powerfull skill. Maybe a creep-level limit?
- Triggers: Something is causing lag in the map. Atleast remove the location in Cripple Autocast. But there must be something else too.
- Ghost: He can still attack air units and set the weapon type to normal. Seems a bit random that a ghost spawns from a buildings, but ala it ties to the theme.
- Eternal Servitude: Eternal Servitude fits the frail units better than I expected. I need to do more testing to see how it's balanced. Animation-wise I could suggest a burrow or grave buff and play the skeletons birth animation at half speed to make it appear as if it's climbing out of the ground upon resurrection.
- Frost Blast: Air units tend to attack from afar, therefore thunder-clap doesn't make any sence.. Use breath of frost instead. Note that the Wraith has a 300 range, yet the AoE of this spell is only 250!
- Wraith: Ok, this is your anti-air unit. You could keep a little more damage vs air units on him (You halved it from the gargoyle).
-Icons: You can easily make PASBTN and upgrade icons from any BTN using gimp and the icon-creator from the tools section. This should fix the arrow icons, caster icons etc.
- Credits: Where are the credits? Did you code the spells yourself?
- Tooltip Issues: Unholy Power still displays as a 4 level spell.



Your race is well structured and rounded. You've picked a clear theme, nice models and managed to keep it quite balanced, while keeping a fair amount of units with a niche role in the race. The unit abilities are very much blizzard-abilities, but most of the time they were put on the proper units and fit the proper strategy. You could have fiddled a bit more with the details (base stats etc), but in general the copied stats fit balancing aswell as strategy. The custom items added to the details of this race, fully in the structure of Blizzards racial shop. I have to give you points for that. From campaigning experience; those Trapper Nets go quite well in any mission.

The tribal theme was carried out well. The buildings have that primitive look, the animisitc abilities make sence and the ogres replacing taurens and trolls fit in well. Somethings did look out of place though: I would have preferred something else than Blizzard on the Magus, as “Ice” doesn't really fit with the storm/fire/earth theme.

The hero abillities were carried out great in the sence that they clearly underline the heroes role. The elementalists skills were perfect: theme, creativity and presentation come together here to make a cool hero. For me the gladiator missed that sence of creativity with Warstomp and Reincarnation and the pure Chieftain stats. This feeling is also reflected in a great deal of orcs and orignal abilities finding their way back into your race. On the plus side this gives the player a sence of familiarity, but can also be regarded as some missed opportunities. In short run this is fine, in the long run I would have liked even more differences form the original concept.

Remarks:
- Music: I laughed about the music trigger a bit. Liking the orc-theme eh?
- War Station: 3 Food and no attacks is a bit much, I suggest going down to 2 or even 1. The units are quite weak and require a grunt to work anyway. Other than that the model is quite awesome.
- Rest: A good use of animation and tranquility. I wish i'd thought of that..
- Baticist: Awesome Model, i'm liking the air/ground commands. The downside: Why would this unit even want to land?? There are no benefits to the ground version, and thus the ability. Suggestions: Change the attack and armor type on the air unit, add an attackbonus versus structures or air units (depending on ground/air) or place hp regeneration on the ground unit only. Secondly, you gave the poor bastard 340 mana, leaving him open for mana-burn and feedback. It doesn't really use the mana except for a thunderbolt clone, which doesn't really seem to fit this unit. Alternatively, you could lock the flying ability behind an upgrade, and leave this ability for the ground version.
- Drummer: The tech dependancy for the wardrums doesn't work. The thunderclap has an ugly ground art that is a bit messy when used as an attack. You may consider an other model for this (especially vs air units).
- Bloodlust/Rage: You've put a Frenzy clone on the Axe hero. I advise an alternate ability here, because you already have bloodlust on your caster. Also you're already skyrocketing the attackspeed with the aura. Try something like Roar, so nearby units can benefit from the boost aswell and you still have an offencive skill (the theme here is good).
- Blizzard: Hmm, another elemental spell on the caster.. I don't know, it feels a bit off the theme.
- Stones: You can set the turn-rate to zero by holding shift when you click the field.
- Spirit Wyvern: I'm not so sure on the windwalk ability here. I'm guessing this an anti-air unit with aerial shackles.. But why the stealth? You could make a mana-shield activating evasion or add something like Etheral form (now that would combo with the Aerial Shackles!) Just a suggestion.


^^ In reply: Thanks for the feedback. You're absolutely right about missing an ultimate unit: Depending on Strength of the Moon/Valor of the Sun I planned an uber building & unit to augment defence at night/offence during the day. But making this would require at least 2 full weeks of modelling, so I decided to round off the part i did have. The Fungovor vine was meant as 'organic' tower with a weaker attack but slowing and uprooting vines. The model i'm making has the tidal guardian replaced by a vine and the base by a big ass plant.


You've done a convincing job at a high elven theme. The custom models, courtesy of elenai, help here obviously, the abilities are not that bad and the overall balance is quite allright. You tried to build most units around a central idea or strategy (like a curse illusionist or a mana stealing hero) but at the same time you failed to polish the proper details of it: The Mage Hunter, the Arcane Guardian, the Spirit of the Woods, they don't have that usefullness when everything comes together.
A lot of the details are missing too. It's funny how stuff like caster upgrade names and tooltips are customly done, when at the same time there are lot's of flawed tooltips, icon positions and tech dependancies. In my opinion these details set your race back from what could have been a great race to a mediocre one. I understand that this could be a timing issue, but atleast having the correct icon positions and an attempted tooltip would have been a big help.

- Spirit of the Woods: The second worker didn't do it for me, mostly because it's quite useless outside of lumber harvesting. Secondly, you need a lumbermill in order to build the unit. So why let the lumbermill cost lumber? This is something you've purposely done in your race! Also, your townhall provides only 10 food, but you still need 30 lumber for a house.. At least have the townhall create the wisps.
- Unit Upgrades: There are double units on the buildings (you can set a trigger to enable/disable the availability of a unit to fix this and use chaos/bearform to morph the previously trained units). Don't use different upgrades for each unit (cleric/archcleric). Make one upgrade, and have both units benefit from that (at least). Or think of a more elegant way to combine both features.
- Scout Tower: Please use a different model for the scout tower to differ it from towers that can actually attack enemies.
- Arcane Guardian: The odd one out in your race. Why is this unit here? Please set it aside from something like the templar! I'm not buying the piercing attack. I get that it works versus flyers, but shouldn't this unit be having a siege attack? Also why does this unit have mana and a thunderclap? I would've settled for magic immunity, a siege attack, better armor/hp and the taunt from your initial idea. Taunt could go with thunderclap, but it just doesn't fit on a unit or on this particular unit.
- Tooltips: Some are absent or have grammar issues. The Mage Hunter still uses the demon hunter tooltips (I only chose it because I was suspicious of the abilities, thinking this tooltip hás to be wrong!), the gather tooltips are in Polish, the upgrade tooltips for the cleric are missing etc.
- Tech Dependancies: Again a matter of detail. I couldn't build ballista's or upgrade the mount eagle thing. A lot of stuff wasn't really locked away behind the upgrades either: Illusion, Mana shield, Frost Shield etc were available without having to upgrade anything.
- Icons:Use passive icons for passive abilities and vice verca. I assumed the Golem had magic immunity until I accidentally clicked and realised that it was a thunderclap.. Other stuff like the eagle eye too. Secondly, you've used the priest icon for a unit and at the same time for an upgrade. This looks messy and confuses the player, especially when there are already two similar caster upgrades. Take a look at icon positions and try to actually place the relevant upgrades under the relevant units → Defender and Archer upgrades for example.
- Buildings: I see you've used elenai's building pack. Why not extend this a bit and take the armory and lumbermill too? I'm guessing this is a file-space problem?
- Mage Hunter: There are TWO mana stealing abilities, which is completely useless if you can't actually dó anything with the mana (except for maybe silence). In other words: your hero has a butload of useless mana. I suggest to change the first ability into giving away mana instead.
- Lumber Upgrade: I'm not sure this works for wisps.. I didn't get around to actually checking this, though.
- Archon: This guy doesn't really fit in with the elven theme. I'm also not a big fan of the Frost Bolt abilities on standard units. But looking at the stats, at least it has a kind of heavy caster role.




If anyone is interested: Older reviews for 67Chrome, Wraithling and Vermilllion Edict are posted here.
 
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Level 12
Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
865
Yes! Someone finally reviewed my race. Now to answer your remarks:

Remarks:
- Music: I laughed about the music trigger a bit. Liking the orc-theme eh?

I added that in the final moment before submitting the race, hopefully it was a good thing.

- War Station: 3 Food and no attacks is a bit much, I suggest going down to 2 or even 1. The units are quite weak and require a grunt to work anyway. Other than that the model is quite awesome.

I agree on the food part, however on the attack, I'm inclined not to. This is more of an addition unit than a replacement one, you basically have 2 Grunts packed inside a Station who are safe, attacking, and ready to be deployed for war after leaving the station or after it gets destroyed. The weakness part was to maintain Balance, trust me, I had to weaken it around three times from its normal stats.

- Rest: A good use of animation and tranquility. I wish i'd thought of that..

I just had to make use of the Ogre sleep animation in a way.

- Baticist: Awesome Model, i'm liking the air/ground commands. The downside: Why would this unit even want to land?? There are no benefits to the ground version, and thus the ability. Suggestions: Change the attack and armor type on the air unit, add an attackbonus versus structures or air units (depending on ground/air) or place hp regeneration on the ground unit only. Secondly, you gave the poor bastard 340 mana, leaving him open for mana-burn and feedback. It doesn't really use the mana except for a thunderbolt clone, which doesn't really seem to fit this unit. Alternatively, you could lock the flying ability behind an upgrade, and leave this ability for the ground version.

You're right about all this. I made a flying and a ground version thing just for pure "cool", it seems "cool" has backfired on me. Excellent thinking on the mana thing, that never came to mind.

- Drummer: The tech dependancy for the wardrums doesn't work. The thunderclap has an ugly ground art that is a bit messy when used as an attack. You may consider an other model for this (especially vs air units).

I'm sure you understood that the Thunder Clap meant the ultra-sound attack effect, I couldn't find anything more fitting. And for the tech thing:

hmmi.png


You can't find a simple bug on me, as stated, this race went through intensive testing =P.

- Bloodlust/Rage: You've put a Frenzy clone on the Axe hero. I advise an alternate ability here, because you already have bloodlust on your caster. Also you're already skyrocketing the attackspeed with the aura. Try something like Roar, so nearby units can benefit from the boost aswell and you still have an offencive skill (the theme here is good).

I love how you said the theme here is good, it means you understood the entire role of the hero (attack speed and bloodlust aura).

- Blizzard: Hmm, another elemental spell on the caster.. I don't know, it feels a bit off the theme.

As I stood there thinking what would fit as a second degree spell for a Magus, it snapped at me. What would be more "cool" and fitting for Magus than Blizzard? Again, "cool" seems to have backfired on me here.

- Stones: You can set the turn-rate to zero by holding shift when you click the field.

Tried that, zero sets the speed of the rock to the default targeted unit speed. (wolves, etc..)

- Spirit Wyvern: I'm not so sure on the windwalk ability here. I'm guessing this an anti-air unit with aerial shackles.. But why the stealth? You could make a mana-shield activating evasion or add something like Etheral form (now that would combo with the Aerial Shackles!) Just a suggestion.

Wind Walk, Ethereal form, same thing, but yeah, I get your point.

Thanks for all these.
 
Level 20
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
14,361
Well honestly I rushed my race. It was simply to short time for me. It feels unfinished, ideas are badly executed...the end result kinda killed my mood for this contest really...

-Will consider wood upgrade
-Sky Barge does feel like failed idea...
-I was sure i lowered reanimate dead to 30 seconds or something and uh not sure how to ad level limit but that would still raise tier 3 units.
-triggers...who knows what horrors i messed up there.
-ghost uh well was originally ranged unit and well I missed the air attacking part.
-Eternal servitude well I really don't want to try to make triggers to force unit to use birth animation (in the heat of battle it wouldn't be useful either), but the skill it self can be rather to powerful in first and second tier. Originally I wanted to use item version because it can control health of resurrected.
-frost blast...yea poor choice indeed.
-Ah yes but gargoyle uses normal attack while Wraith uses piecing which is more effective against air units who generally have no or small armor.
-I have 0 experience really with icon makin'...
-Credits is thing i had to leave for after contest. I didn't get to make it but no way do I take credit for makin' spells
-Level 4 spell, 120 animate dead, skeleton get a50hp....yea tooltips will murder me in my sleep...
 
Level 4
Joined
Oct 9, 2009
Messages
50
A lot of great and interesting maps.

A few stand out, and deserve detailed reviews.

Sage Chow:

I really enjoyed the weather effects, and having different strategies/abilities during day/night. You put a lot of effort into this team, and it shows.

Gameplay:
Very fun to play, too many awesome concepts to note, but a few things stood out that lowered my score.

I got off to a very slow start. Lumber requirements across all buildings and units minus the Nymph caught me off guard. I like how the Nymph isn't consumed by building, but the increased gold cost slowed me down. It played very much like Night Elves in early game, except having the Forest Druid as my first Hero let me creep a little stronger/faster without resorting to Ancient of Lolwar proximity (those no-cooldown treants are nice). However, no Mooonwell meant that I spent the majority of the early game with my army at the Fountain of Health.

Then there were the upgrades. A lot of upgrades. The balance between advancing through tech and maintaining an army could have been more smooth. A lot of the upgrades were passive, thankfully (less abilities to memorize), but it did overwhelm me and some upgrades felt like they could have been trimmed/made baseline.

Minor notes: Are the stat gains of the heroes intentional? The Forest Druid (INT) has a lot of STR and AGI (at level four is STR 29/AGI 25/INT 21), and the Moon Ranger is loaded with INT. Her lower AGI is balanced by the Arrow auto-cast, but the Forest Druid too powerful when he has Mana (many treants, no cooldown) and too weak without. I do however LOVE the random plant spawning, and bringing them to life.

Strategy:
This race is very complex. A little too complex for me to fully grasp my first time through. Several units and abilities would change in the midst of battle, and it wasn't always a good thing. Between learning every ability, buying every upgrade, and trying to learn keep my frail army alive, I would lose track of time and weather. Having Wolf Spirits instantly die because Night came just as they initiated attack, finding myself unable to heal properly, or expecting secondary effects to chime in, only to find that they were disabled. I have no doubt that if I spent more time playing this race, I could handle this chaos, but as is, it isn't very friendly on the first visit, and makes them a weaker race until they are mastered.

Getting attacked in the first ten minutes threw me into a panic, and had my enemy not retreated, I would have lost.

Philosophy:
This race is iconic. As far as Wood Elves go, they are perfect. The Pokemon move names/themes are a silly addition, but they were relevant and interesting.

Appearance:
Every model looks the part, every spell is wonderfully animated and colorful.

Overall:
I enjoyed your race a lot. I will be playing it again to try out the fourth hero, and try and understand these weather and plant concepts a little better.

Extra note: I couldn't figure out how to make it hail, nor did I entirely understand the Turtle Spirit's ability. It seemed like it just stopped him from attacking buildings. . .


67chrome:

This was a very iconic race, especially remembering how long I spent in Black Temple. I appreciate the attention to detail, even something as simple as adding a custom ground texture for the buildings.

Gameplay:
Numerous balance issues, most triggers leak locations/units/unit groups. Succubi without a food cost makes this race incredibly powerful in the long run. As others have stated, every unit has some big ability that turns the tide of the battle. Once mastered, this race has monumentally more control, AoE damage, unit spawning, and passive destruction. Some of the ideas are fantastic- auto-stealthing units, a lot of unit control on units that need it (I personally hate chasing units around forever, wishing I had a snare or immobilize to stop them). This race feels finished- they've covered every niche possible, but it doesn't feel refined.

Things like balance and efficient triggers would definitely add to this score.

Strategy:
Early in the game, I simply hid behind Nether Focus and expanded. Things that got too close were poisoned, slowed, and destroyed. Later in the game, I had so many abilities and different units that all I needed was to select a few auto-casts and attack-move towards a base. As mentioned, the Illidari Siegebreakers are fire-and-forget. Aim them at a building, watch it die, shift-queue a few more attacks, the base is gone while your spawns and AoE is dismantling the survivors.

That said, you have a lot of innovative and beautiful ideas. The Illidari Spellblades doing offhand attacks/having two passives and stealth was interesting. The Coilscar Predator spawning Waves as he attacks was fun, and strangely balanced for the top-tier unit. So many abilities were iconic and new, it is a very flashy and (perhaps too) effective.

Elite Badges are a fantastic concept. It is simple, effective, and amazing.

Philosophy:
I wish I could give extra points in this category. They ARE Black Temple. The flying Sorceress, the over-the-top spells, the theme is definitely strong. I have nothing negative to say about the philosophy of this race.

Appearance:
Again, if I could award bonus points, I would. Every skin fits perfectly, there is a very strong color theme that ties everything together. Nothing looks out of place. The spells are flashy, the units have been reskinned to be new and impressive, and I have no doubt that you could recreate the actual Black Temple raid using this race.

Overall:
The race is good, the spells are interesting, and it is a very iconic race. I feel that polishing is the only thing that could make it better. As unbalanced as it was, I had fun. And not just because I was winning. This is a race I wish I could play on ladder, and it fits so well into the Warcraft Universe that it would be hard for Blizzard themselves to top your race.

Unfortunately, the gameplay and strategy are hurt by the leaks, the imbalances, and the potency of the abilities. As far as 1v1 goes, this race does not feel challenging. As is, it is much more suited to be a campaign race wherein you fight off multiple teams at once, or even better, as a race you fight against in a dungeon siege. Regardless of my score, I really enjoyed playing it, and was just blown away by the overall theme, look, and feel.

A few notes:
-The Succubi have no food cost. You can literally build 20 Dens and continue buying items/use Nethergate to summon durationless Succubi without risk of Upkeep or food cap.

-There seems to be negative health regeneration associated with the Elite Badge. I'll see if I can recreate/document/Fraps it. It would be interesting if you could change the Elite Badge trigger to avoid giving repeat abilities/refund the Badge if the unit already has the randomly assigned buff, but it's not a big deal. It is, however, a fantastic concept.


Lich Prince:

This race was nostalgic. I really enjoyed the Old Horde, and always felt that the Ogres were an iconic unit to lose.

Gameplay:
Some units were too strong, some units were too weak. I found myself wishing some basic improvements could be made.

For example, unit movement priority. The slaves loved being right in the front, despite being ranged attackers. By editing one of the fields in the editor, you can make sure every unit is smart enough to stay where it is most optimal. It's a slight oversight, but it did impact the game.

Some units I feel didn't quit perform as they should:
Baticist- no reason to stay grounded. Very cheap unit, great for spamming. His stun effectively begs to be abused. With a large energy pool like that, he can use his Strike every time it's off cooldown without even thinking. End game, I had a full group of Baticists following my Ogre Gladiator, and every time an enemy Hero got too near, he was trapped, stunned, and killed in seconds.
Slave- slightly more durable than normal archers, but it is forgiven because he also gathers lumber. However, unlike ghouls (who gather lumber), the Slave did not get any upgrades to guarantee his usefulness later on. That means that past T2, you only needed a handful of them, and they were just glorified peons.
War Station- good idea, sub-par execution. I wanted to like them, but they had half the HP of a Grunt (despite being loaded with two of them), a very large damage range, and still had the weakness of a minimum range. For a 9 food siege unit, it underperforms in all aspects.
Destroyer- 4.5 second swing timer? Good lord. I couldn't figure out why they couldn't hold their own against any unit, until I saw that. If you want to balance their siege damage, turn the siege attack into a secondary attack, and leave the main for dealing with units. Rest was fantastic, but overall this unit was disappointing.
Some ideas:
-he sits down with such force that he thunderclaps/war stomps upon resting (adjust cooldown as needed)
-he has two different attacks (one structural only) and can actually kill something 1v1
-his damage is increased so the swing timer is justified, and normal units struck by him have a large chance to be stunned
Drummer- interesting unit, but has too much front line competition. When you have a lot of large-colision-size units all trying to get a piece of the action, a lot of potential is wasted and a lot of enemy AoE increases in potency. Kodos work because they are ranged, and units who get too close get eaten. When they die, you lose a large amount of buffs and it is your own fault for letting it die. However with the drummer, he runs into danger, does a bit of damage, and takes forever to kill. I think the collective health of this army is too large, and he would be a good place to start. Make him less durable and mid-range, instead of grunt durable and front-range. If not, then maybe change his attack to AoE to justify him running in like crazy.
Shaman- a little too powerful. Summons wolves two at a time for a very small cost relative to max mana, they last very long and they still have healing wave. Damage and health seemed fine, but as is, they're much more impressive than the Ogre Magus.

All that considered, I did find this race easy to play, enjoyable, and the gameplay was fluid. Hero abilities were decent (Gladiator abilities didn't scale very well) and fit the theme, and overall, I had fun.

Strategy:
I could mass Baticists and win. I could mass Shaman and win. I could mass Slaves and win. The incredibly cheap nets in T1 guaranteed me kills on any Hero I found without a Scroll (especially since nets had 4 charges), damage was slightly overtuned on key units, and the technology was incredibly linear.

In addition, very few triggered abilities means that the "shock and awe" factor wasn't there. Every effect was straight-forward and expectable. Slam, stun, bladestorm, summon wolves, etcetera. It isn't a bad thing, but interesting abilities that catch me off guard are a good source of bonus enjoyment.

That said, this race has potential. The Avatar of Storms was a nice reward for reaching the end of the techtree, though I don't know if he's worth 8 food when he feels like an itemless level 10 Hero with one skill point and bad mobility. Maybe an extra ability (chain lightning would be iconic), and limit the training of them to 1 through Triggers. Another interesting idea would be to bring in the Altar of Storms earlier, as an upgrade building or tower-type unit that can't be transformed until late T3. It's a great unit, I would just like to integrate it a little better.

Philosophy:
Orcs. Strong units. Elementalists. Slavery. Carnage. You nailed it. This Old Horde is perfectly themed.

Appearance:
A strong improvement over the Orc Race. Even once the units were balanced, I would gladly play this race over the normal Orcs. The units look good, the spells are good, they look like an army should look. Integrated. Intereting. Intimidating.

Overall:
A good race, better than the regular Orcs. Brought down by balance issues. I liked the personal effects (extra music), but feel that it isn't quite there yet. With a handful of triggered spells, some balance changes, and some more time, I have no doubt that this would be a welcome addition or replacement in Warcraft III.


Veljkom:

I love undead. With the abundance of skeletal models (Ampharos_222 could populate an entire game), it's easy to find the models for the race. To extend the skeletal philosophy into a race, is an entirely different notion, one that I think you did well in.

First, some thoughts:
-Chain Coil is amazing. I don't know how I ever lived without this spell. Learning Tooltip should be updated, however, as it currently doesn't mention chaining.
-The Role/Abilities fields in the unit tooltips are incredibly helpful and look good.

Now then.

Gameplay:
Some slightly new things were added. Some concepts worked, some did not. For example, Graves. The cooldown for spawning units is rather high, and does very little to make this defensive structure worth using for anything more than food and early creeping. Any time I was attacked, the Skeletal Guardians were too little too late. The Graves could easily either have an attack of their own, or be upgraded to have one. As is, they died too fast and made little difference. Now, if the cooldown was lowered (to be equal to or less than the duration of the Guardian), or they were based off of the spawn Carrion Beetles ability (as suggested by 67chrome) to limit how many you could have without making them too strong or too weak.

I personally liked the Sky Barge unit spawning different towers and wards. I wish that there could be more GUI methods of accounting for Blight, increasing the race's effectiveness substantially when on Blight to give a homefield advantage and a reason to actively spread said Blight. Even something like +1 armor, +10 movespeed on Blight would be great incentive to spread and corrupt, and help with early defense. At this point, I cannot find a way to do that (without resorting to auras based off of invincible blight wards, which would require a way to destroy blight to balance), nor do I expect you to. Simply an idea I had while using the wards.

Summoning buildings did feel awkward from skeletons, but I really like the skeletal workers. AoE destroyed my team though, and early attacks were brutal. Skeletons (both temporary and permanent) broke too easily early on, and Eternal Servitude was obtained a little late to help with that. I liked the archers though. However, their Role field says melee, which was confusing for a moment. If melee is meant to mean just a physical attacker (regardless of range), I understand.

Strategy:
It played as a bone race should. Lots of small units, able to mass armies, able to overwhelm enemies and raise their dead to fight their living.

Execution and balancing was not quite there, however. Early skeletons were too weak and too expensive. Mid skeletons were strong enough, but still a little costly. Only having two Heroes and no auras left me weaker endgame, but I had the means to destroy teams before it got that far. That's good and bad. If given more time, I'm sure you could flesh out this race a bit more (skeleton puns are awesome), as I see in editor that you have four Heroes, but only two completed.

Philosophy:
A sect of undead with no living servants of any kind. I like it. No demons, no creatures, just undead and death. It improves upon the original concept, and is a much more iconic army of the dead.

Appearance:
Everything looks dead, which is good. Every ability is related, every unit looks like it fits (minus a few teamcolor issues, but they are minor), and it fits the theme well. This is a true army of death, and it shows. I just wish they spent less time dead and more time undead. Fragility is fine, but not to the point of weakness.

Overall:
A good race. If I was better with them, maybe I could win or at least survive early attacks. They're pretty straightforward, but it's difficult for me to succeed as well as I feel I should. Once I have some decent momentum, they perform well enough, but until that point they feel too weak. Could be improved, but I still enjoyed it.



Ghost Thruster:
Expect your full review here soon
-Notes: Some of the ideas are fantastic, just overpowered (read: Swiftstrike Aura). Also, I noticed that Swiftstrike Aura is incorrectly triggered. As worded, it will not silence, and the chance to silence actually decreases as you level.

(Random integer number between 1 and (10 x (Level of (Ability being cast) for (Triggering unit)))) Equal to 1

-There is no ability being cast, this trigger operates off of "unit is attacked".
-Integer between 1 and (10x1=10) Equal to 1: 10% chance. Integer between 1 and (10x2=20) Equal to 1: 5% chance. Integer between 1 and (10x3=30) Equal to 1: 3.33% chance.

To get a 10/20/30% chance to silence, change "Equal to" to "Less than or Equal to" and make it say something like:
(Random integer number between 1 and 10) Less than or equal to (1 x (Level of Swifstrike Aura for (-save the Watcher as a variable here-)))


Wraithling:
Your full review will eventually be here
-Notes: Solidarity is interesting, but I feel that upkeep runs against your race too much. Were this a game without upkeep, I could see it as a powerful tool. But as your race is balanced around having it, I'm too pressured to expand my army as soon as possible. I would like to see a heavy-duty land unit (maybe give Chariot some extra armor and Taunt) to draw fire from my heroes, but that's a small aspect.

The Prototype Flying Machine feels weak for a top-tier unit. No attack, and high cooldowns on decent abilities makes it an unfortunate investment. It could easily be better than it is without breaking balance. Too many self-imposed limitations make this race innovative, but a little weak in key aspects.

I actually liked Recycling, and didn't mind it being necessary for tier upgrades, though I think upgrade time could come down a bit, as it did slow progression into tiers that were necessary to keep up with enemies. However, later on, it gives a large resource advantage when every unit refunds nearly 70% of its cost. If this were to go ladder, it could be looked at, but as-is it is fine.

The Black Market idea is decent, and requires a large investment to ever abuse/massively profit on, so I don't have any complaints there. Building sizes are large enough and costs are high enough that it is a liability and expensive to try and reach 100+ gold per 30 seconds. Really can't be abused, but is a nice background/sustainability aspect.


---

Every other contestant can expect a small review/mention/list of questions/advice.
 
Last edited:
Level 8
Joined
Jan 22, 2010
Messages
115
Glad you guys liked my reviews! I will try to cover most of the maps, although the quality may suffer a bit from here.

@Veljkom: To make icons: check this tool: click I just use a photoshop layer to create borders.

1: I'm sure you understood that the Thunder Clap meant the ultra-sound attack effect, I couldn't find anything more fitting.
2: And for the tech thing: You can't find a simple bug on me, as stated, this race went through intensive testing =P.
3: Wind Walk, Ethereal form, same thing, but yeah, I get your point.

1: I meant his regular attack under 'projectile art'. You could set the sound with a trigger.
2: I can post pictures too you know =P I meant on the ability itself.
3: Not really: Etheral form/banish would protect it from all non magic attacks while casting Aerial Shackles. Windwalk requires it to break invisibillity.


I got off to a very slow start. Lumber requirements across all buildings and units minus the Nymph caught me off guard. I like how the Nymph isn't consumed by building, but the increased gold cost slowed me down. It played very much like Night Elves in early game, except having the Forest Druid as my first Hero let me creep a little stronger/faster without resorting to Ancient of Lolwar proximity (those no-cooldown treants are nice). However, no Mooonwell meant that I spent the majority of the early game with my army at the Fountain of Health.

The nymph was made expensive because it's essentially a tier 1 melee unit when merging with a treant. The extra cost is to prevent a rush. The absence of healing is something I might fix somehow.. Suggestions are welcome.

Then there were the upgrades. A lot of upgrades. The balance between advancing through tech and maintaining an army could have been more smooth. A lot of the upgrades were passive, thankfully (less abilities to memorize), but it did overwhelm me and some upgrades felt like they could have been trimmed/made baseline.

I understand where you're coming from. I added many non-mandatory upgrades to give the player something to do late-game. The weather upgrades and night specializations just make abilities a little more uber.

Are the stat gains of the heroes intentional? The Forest Druid (INT) has a lot of STR and AGI (at level four is STR 29/AGI 25/INT 21), and the Moon Ranger is loaded with INT. Her lower AGI is balanced by the Arrow auto-cast, but the Forest Druid too powerful when he has Mana (many treants, no cooldown) and too weak without. I do however LOVE the random plant spawning, and bringing them to life.

I put some effort into creating my own hero-stats, rather than copying them from the original heroes, so yeah everything here is highly intended. You're spot on about the Moon Ranger, the AGI was lowered to put an emphasis on spells and placing the damage in the Arrows. The Forest Druid was intended to be more (allround) bulky than the Water Druid, who was mostly designed for damage. So while keeping the focus on INT, I put a lot of stuff in STR for hp and AGI for armor. The blinding from Seedflare, healing from chlorophyll and healing sun, the bodyguard treants and the thorns should all add to an overall bulk to keep this dude alive. Allthough, I could have put a minor cooldown on the treants.. But yeah, the lesser mana was also meant to limit this a bit. I also substituted STR on the mountain druid for pure HP to keep his damage in check.

This race is very complex. A little too complex for me to fully grasp my first time through. Several units and abilities would change in the midst of battle, and it wasn't always a good thing. Between learning every ability, buying every upgrade, and trying to learn keep my frail army alive, I would lose track of time and weather. Having Wolf Spirits instantly die because Night came just as they initiated attack, finding myself unable to heal properly, or expecting secondary effects to chime in, only to find that they were disabled. I have no doubt that if I spent more time playing this race, I could handle this chaos, but as is, it isn't very friendly on the first visit, and makes them a weaker race until they are mastered.

This is a very good point! I absolutely agree. To add some background to this all: I'm making this race for a little campaign. The campaign features a flute (analogous to Zelda's Ocarina of Time), that changes weather and time to solve puzzles and such. Here it should be less of an issue, because time will be determined by the player himself.

Getting attacked in the first ten minutes threw me into a panic, and had my enemy not retreated, I would have lost.

Extra note: I couldn't figure out how to make it hail, nor did I entirely understand the Turtle Spirit's ability. It seemed like it just stopped him from attacking buildings. . .

I'm planning to create a Call to Arms ability on the townhall that causes all nearby Nymphs to Spirit Link a nearby plant. Call it a Panic Button =P

The Hail was meant to disrupt this race, rather than buff it. So an adversary playing as humans could do something to counter. I also had a totally different race in the back of my head that could benefit from this system: (I have an icetroll race that would make excellent use of it). So players can rival over the global weather using abilities and expensive items. In the map you can buy a Hail Rock from the goblin shop, it's dropped from creeps or hit the 10% activation chance on 4 Seasons.

The Turtle Spirits Water Inlet should only be cast when swimming in water (Yeah the map isn't really a big help here with two kiddypools around the fountains =P). This enables 10 siege-type attacks at 4x normal damage that enable you to hit structures. The attacks drain 15 water (mana) per attack. This changes the turtle from a kodo-beast type unit, to a dangerous siege unit that can destroy enemy camps in the proxmity of water.


+rep for such a great analysis!
 

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1: I meant his regular attack under 'projectile art'. You could set the sound with a trigger.
2: I can post pictures too you know =P I meant on the ability itself.
3: Not really: Etheral form/banish would protect it from all non magic attacks while casting Aerial Shackles. Windwalk requires it to break invisibillity.

2: The ability itself does not require a research. The research increases the War Drums' effect, not provides it, read the description carefully =P. My bugless race is still bugless.
3: By same thing, I meant the concept, spirits can go invisible or go ghost form, etc... Both abilities have their ups and downs.
 
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Sage Chow:

The nymph was made expensive because it's essentially a tier 1 melee unit when merging with a treant. The extra cost is to prevent a rush. The absence of healing is something I might fix somehow.. Suggestions are welcome.

I actually have just the thing. You're familiar with the graveyard of the Undead, right? It automatically creates corpses at timed intervals. Adding such a feature to a building, and either:
A) give it a passive healing aura, like a toned-down Fountain of Health
B) add a plant that when merged will bestow such an aura

The plants are immobile, so they can't be abused offensively (unless an opponent allows you to build and protect said building as an offensive front), they cost food so they're not a fire-and-forget defensive location (as you will bog yourself down if you aren't careful), and it takes time to respawn the plants so they will need to build up their usefulness.

This also adds an extra threat to early attackers- as your building could suddenly be surrounded by 5 turrets with different effects/auras/attacks, causing the need to retreat or die.



I understand where you're coming from. I added many non-mandatory upgrades to give the player something to do late-game. The weather upgrades and night specializations just make abilities a little more uber.

The problem is deciding which are mandatory, which aren't needed until later, which are just fun and never actually needed, and which are actually crutches that make a sub-par unit perform just well enough to avoid the realization that it is too weak. I'll be playing around with this race some more, and will try to add specific examples.


I put some effort into creating my own hero-stats, rather than copying them from the original heroes, so yeah everything here is highly intended. You're spot on about the Moon Ranger, the AGI was lowered to put an emphasis on spells and placing the damage in the Arrows. The Forest Druid was intended to be more (allround) bulky than the Water Druid, who was mostly designed for damage. So while keeping the focus on INT, I put a lot of stuff in STR for hp and AGI for armor. The blinding from Seedflare, healing from chlorophyll and healing sun, the bodyguard treants and the thorns should all add to an overall bulk to keep this dude alive. Allthough, I could have put a minor cooldown on the treants.. But yeah, the lesser mana was also meant to limit this a bit. I also substituted STR on the mountain druid for pure HP to keep his damage in check.

I understand. It is boring to have every hero a perfect 25/20/15 spread when it comes to primary/secondary/unimportant stats. Your way is a more interesting way to balance it. One thing that could help would be a flat heal somewhere. Heal-over-times are nice, but when I hit Roar on my Mountain Druid, and suddenly he's at 10% HP, I wish I had something to save him. Maybe it's there, but I currently have not found it. Mountain Giants can afford to Taunt because of Resistant Skin and their high HP. Mountain Druid is scared to Taunt because Storm Bolt hurts and melee mobility is already pretty low. I know everything is supposed to be "close-to-melee", but something as simple as collision reduction or movement speed increases could help this ability not backfire. Of course, I mean pre-Four Seasons when he becomes godly.

This is a very good point! I absolutely agree. To add some background to this all: I'm making this race for a little campaign. The campaign features a flute (analogous to Zelda's Ocarina of Time), that changes weather and time to solve puzzles and such. Here it should be less of an issue, because time will be determined by the player himself.

I see. Well, even though this system wasn't made for melee, it works incredibly well in it. You did well with the crossover.

I'm planning to create a Call to Arms ability on the townhall that causes all nearby Nymphs to Spirit Link a nearby plant. Call it a Panic Button =P

See above note about Graveyard-style building. Would synergize so well.

The Hail was meant to disrupt this race, rather than buff it. So an adversary playing as humans could do something to counter. I also had a totally different race in the back of my head that could benefit from this system: (I have an icetroll race that would make excellent use of it). So players can rival over the global weather using abilities and expensive items. In the map you can buy a Hail Rock from the goblin shop, it's dropped from creeps or hit the 10% activation chance on 4 Seasons.

That sounds like a lot of fun/chaos. I can't wait to see it in action.

The Turtle Spirits Water Inlet should only be cast when swimming in water (Yeah the map isn't really a big help here with two kiddypools around the fountains =P). This enables 10 siege-type attacks at 4x normal damage that enable you to hit structures. The attacks drain 15 water (mana) per attack. This changes the turtle from a kodo-beast type unit, to a dangerous siege unit that can destroy enemy camps in the proxmity of water.

That would explain some of it. Very interesting concept.


Added responses in bold. Thank you for responding, I like getting/giving feedback, and it's nice to see someone who can accept constructive criticism.

67chrome: edited your review into my previous post, top of Page 2.
 
Level 38
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854
A lot of great and interesting maps.

67chrome: 23/30

This was a very iconic race, especially remembering how long I spent in Black Temple. I appreciate the attention to detail, even something as simple as adding a custom ground texture for the buildings.

Gameplay: 7/10
Numerous balance issues, most triggers leak locations/units/unit groups. Succubi without a food cost makes this race incredibly powerful in the long run. As others have stated, every unit has some big ability that turns the tide of the battle. Once mastered, this race has monumentally more control, AoE damage, unit spawning, and passive destruction. Some of the ideas are fantastic- auto-stealthing units, a lot of unit control on units that need it (I personally hate chasing units around forever, wishing I had a snare or immobilize to stop them). This race feels finished- they've covered every niche possible, but it doesn't feel refined.

Things like balance and efficient triggers would definitely add to this score.

Strategy: 6/10
Early in the game, I simply hid behind Nether Focus and expanded. Things that got too close were poisoned, slowed, and destroyed. Later in the game, I had so many abilities and different units that all I needed was to select a few auto-casts and attack-move towards a base. As mentioned, the Illidari Siegebreakers are fire-and-forget. Aim them at a building, watch it die, shift-queue a few more attacks, the base is gone while your spawns and AoE is dismantling the survivors.

That said, you have a lot of innovative and beautiful ideas. The Illidari Spellblades doing offhand attacks/having two passives and stealth was interesting. The Coilscar Predator spawning Waves as he attacks was fun, and strangely balanced for the top-tier unit. So many abilities were iconic and new, it is a very flashy and (perhaps too) effective.

Elite Badges are a fantastic concept. It is simple, effective, and amazing.

Philosophy: 5/5
I wish I could give extra points in this category. They ARE Black Temple. The flying Sorceress, the over-the-top spells, the theme is definitely strong. I have nothing negative to say about the philosophy of this race.

Appearance: 5/5
Again, if I could award bonus points, I would. Every skin fits perfectly, there is a very strong color theme that ties everything together. Nothing looks out of place. The spells are flashy, the units have been reskinned to be new and impressive, and I have no doubt that you could recreate the actual Black Temple raid using this race.

Overall: 23/30
The race is good, the spells are interesting, and it is a very iconic race. I feel that polishing is the only thing that could make it better. As unbalanced as it was, I had fun. And not just because I was winning. This is a race I wish I could play on ladder, and it fits so well into the Warcraft Universe that it would be hard for Blizzard themselves to top your race.

Unfortunately, the gameplay and strategy are hurt by the leaks, the imbalances, and the potency of the abilities. As far as 1v1 goes, this race does not feel challenging. As is, it is much more suited to be a campaign race wherein you fight off multiple teams at once, or even better, as a race you fight against in a dungeon siege. Regardless of my score, I really enjoyed playing it, and was just blown away by the overall theme, look, and feel.

A few notes:
-The Succubi have no food cost. You can literally build 20 Dens and continue buying items/use Nethergate to summon durationless Succubi without risk of Upkeep or food cap.

-There seems to be negative health regeneration associated with the Elite Badge. I'll see if I can recreate/document/Fraps it. It would be interesting if you could change the Elite Badge trigger to avoid giving repeat abilities/refund the Badge if the unit already has the randomly assigned buff, but it's not a big deal. It is, however, a fantastic concept.

Thanks for the review :)

It's good to know you had fun and liked the aesthetics of my race, I worked really hard on those aspects of it. balance, clearly not as much.

Wasn't thinking clearly with the succubus item, I think I'll change it to one and give her a 3 minute timer.

Ya, the elite badges deal 0.5 damage per second. Forgot to take that off and threw that in there last minute. (Sadly, they can also effect buildings atm). I'm thinking of perhaps changing their effects around a little, and if I can get better with triggers hopefully prevent an effected unit from being re-targeted by the badge effect.

Overall the triggers are universally pretty bad, I'll see if I can get those running more smoothly.
 
Level 12
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865
Lich Prince: 23/30
This race was nostalgic. I really enjoyed the Old Horde, and always felt that the Ogres were an iconic unit to lose.

Gameplay: 8/10
Some units I feel didn't quit perform as they should:
Baticist- no reason to stay grounded. Very cheap unit, great for spamming. His stun effectively begs to be abused. With a large energy pool like that, he can use his Strike every time it's off cooldown without even thinking. End game, I had a full group of Baticists following my Ogre Gladiator, and every time an enemy Hero got too near, he was trapped, stunned, and killed in seconds.

Yeah, the mana pool should definitely be decreased. About the other thing, lol, nice strategy, but isn't that more of a good thing than a bad thing?

Slave- slightly more durable than normal archers, but it is forgiven because he also gathers lumber. However, unlike ghouls (who gather lumber), the Slave did not get any upgrades to guarantee his usefulness later on. That means that past T2, you only needed a handful of them, and they were just glorified peons.

They did share the Berserker Strength upgrade with the Grunts, however, they also have lumber upgrades. It's up to you whether or not you want to use them later on.

War Station- good idea, sub-par execution. I wanted to like them, but they had half the HP of a Grunt (despite being loaded with two of them), a very large damage range, and still had the weakness of a minimum range. For a 9 food siege unit, it underperforms in all aspects.

Exactly, it was never meant to be a permanent unit, only temporary. The grunts in it will leave it unharmed when it gets destroyed. You should either destroy the base as your units engage the enemy elsewhere or leave them behind for the battle and advance them after the victory for base destruction.

Destroyer- 4.5 second swing timer? Good lord. I couldn't figure out why they couldn't hold their own against any unit, until I saw that. If you want to balance their siege damage, turn the siege attack into a secondary attack, and leave the main for dealing with units. Rest was fantastic, but overall this unit was disappointing.

This was kind of the right siege unit here...

Drummer- interesting unit, but has too much front line competition. When you have a lot of large-colision-size units all trying to get a piece of the action, a lot of potential is wasted and a lot of enemy AoE increases in potency. Kodos work because they are ranged, and units who get too close get eaten. When they die, you lose a large amount of buffs and it is your own fault for letting it die. However with the drummer, he runs into danger, does a bit of damage, and takes forever to kill. I think the collective health of this army is too large, and he would be a good place to start. Make him less durable and mid-range, instead of grunt durable and front-range. If not, then maybe change his attack to AoE to justify him running in like crazy.

You obviously never used his Doom Pitch ability.

Strategy: 5/10
I could mass Baticists and win. I could mass Shaman and win. I could mass Slaves and win. The incredibly cheap nets in T1 guaranteed me kills on any Hero I found without a Scroll (especially since nets had 4 charges), damage was slightly overtuned on key units, and the technology was incredibly linear.

You didn't play the race like you were supposed to, you played them like the normal Orcs. The mass units and win thing isn't the right way to check balance, it's like saying I massed Frost Wyrms and won, I massed etc and won. Throughout the testing and reviewing my race has been revered for its exceptional balance.

In addition, very few triggered abilities means that the "shock and awe" factor wasn't there. Every effect was straight-forward and expectable. Slam, stun, bladestorm, summon wolves, etcetera. It isn't a bad thing, but interesting abilities that catch me off guard are a good source of bonus enjoyment.

I'm not a big fan of triggers, I only use them when necessary.

That said, this race has potential. The Avatar of Storms was a nice reward for reaching the end of the techtree, though I don't know if he's worth 8 food when he feels like an itemless level 10 Hero with one skill point and bad mobility. Maybe an extra ability (chain lightning would be iconic), and limit the training of them to 1 through Triggers. Another interesting idea would be to bring in the Altar of Storms earlier, as an upgrade building or tower-type unit that can't be transformed until late T3. It's a great unit, I would just like to integrate it a little better.

I don't think it's a good idea to limit the Race's ultimate unit, especially when it isn't that much powerful when misused.

Anyway thanks a load for the detailed review.
 
Level 4
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50
VeljkoM - see attached. I meant specifically the "learning" fields. When looking at it (before I spent the point), the tooltip made no mention of the chaining potential. That said, it is just a small issue.

Lich Prince - there are no controlled stuns on normal units in Blizzard's four base races. They are almost always reserved for heroes, occasionally mercenaries or neutral creeps. The reason for that is simple - they're powerful. Massing an inexpensive unit with a controlled stun is a very effective way to assassinate...well, anything. I realize it sounded harsh when I said you could mass anything and win, especially considering people do it all the time on ladder (hello Crypt Fiends/Druids of the Talon/whatever the devil those Hu-mon players do). What I meant specifically, was that with their abilities, their cost, and their availability, they could be spammed to the exclusion of nearly all other units and would be more effective than building a balanced army.

I guess I was looking at the Destroyer more like a Raider than a Demolisher. Used for siege and siege alone, I suppose he fills a niche.

You're right, I did not use Doom Pitch. I must have missed that one. I used the Drummers regardless, I'm a big fan of AoE buffs.

About limiting the Avatar, I saw him as kind of like a Mothership rather than a Carrier (if you play SC2). The limit thing isn't necessary by any means, and I didn't think him to be overpowered as you had designed him. I was expecting some pinnacle unit to turn the tides, rather than a top-tier unit to augment an already standing army. Just a philosophy misinterpretation on my part. You're right though, as-is he is fine (read: balanced), just not mandatory or game breaking.

Seeing as how he took 80 seconds to build (excluding upgrade), cost 560 gold and 280 lumber and moves slower than any non-ancient in the game, I was expecting something unbalanced and terrifying. In retrospect, that would have been silly. Though I did find a tiny exploit with how they are created. If you get to 92 food, build a ton of Monuments, and spam-summon, you can breach the food cap by a large margin. I realize that if you can afford that much at such a high food cap, you probably deserve to sweep the map with 20 Avatars, but still, it was silly. I don't know if you can put food costs on buildings, but that would prevent it.

One minor note - the learn tooltip for Earthen Curse is a bit flawed.
"Transforms an enemy unit into rock chunks, disabling movement special abilities." I think it should say something along the lines of "Transforms an enemy unit into rock chunks, disabling movement, attacks, and special abilities."

As for the triggered abilities, I understand if it's a personal preference thing. I'd like to stress the fact that I did really enjoy playing as your Old Horde, and I would definitely play it again, but it feels like I cannot lose as long as I remember to build Batacists and Shaman.
 

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Level 12
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Lich Prince - there are no controlled stuns on normal units in Blizzard's four base races. They are almost always reserved for heroes, occasionally mercenaries or neutral creeps.

Yes but we weren't supposed to make a Blizzard race, we were supposed to improve them.

I realize it sounded harsh when I said you could mass anything and win, especially considering people do it all the time on ladder (hello Crypt Fiends/Druids of the Talon/whatever the devil those Hu-mon players do). What I meant specifically, was that with their abilities, their cost, and their availability, they could be spammed to the exclusion of nearly all other units and would be more effective than building a balanced army.

Exactly, name me a race where you can try that and result fruitless.

You're right, I did not use Doom Pitch. I must have missed that one. I used the Drummers regardless, I'm a big fan of AoE buffs.

You're big fan of AoE buffs ? Did you try stacking all the buffs?

Anyway Doom Pitch is an ability they must have when facing huge armies at end games. The ability should be used during offense instead of catching them retreat.

About limiting the Avatar, I saw him as kind of like a Mothership rather than a Carrier (if you play SC2). The limit thing isn't necessary by any means, and I didn't think him to be overpowered as you had designed him. I was expecting some pinnacle unit to turn the tides, rather than a top-tier unit to augment an already standing army. Just a philosophy misinterpretation on my part. You're right though, as-is he is fine (read: balanced), just not mandatory or game breaking.

Seeing as how he took 80 seconds to build (excluding upgrade), cost 560 gold and 280 lumber and moves slower than any non-ancient in the game, I was expecting something unbalanced and terrifying. In retrospect, that would have been silly. Though I did find a tiny exploit with how they are created. If you get to 92 food, build a ton of Monuments, and spam-summon, you can breach the food cap by a large margin. I realize that if you can afford that much at such a high food cap, you probably deserve to sweep the map with 20 Avatars, but still, it was silly. I don't know if you can put food costs on buildings, but that would prevent it.

Yeah I know, "Avatar" sounds like some huge pissed off thing about to destroy everything, but it's a unique well-balanced ultimate unit here.

One minor note - the learn tooltip for Earthen Curse is a bit flawed.
"Transforms an enemy unit into rock chunks, disabling movement special abilities." I think it should say something along the lines of "Transforms an enemy unit into rock chunks, disabling movement, attacks, and special abilities."

Hmm.. didn't notice that tooltip mistake, thumbs up to you.

As for the triggered abilities, I understand if it's a personal preference thing. I'd like to stress the fact that I did really enjoy playing as your Old Horde, and I would definitely play it again, but it feels like I cannot lose as long as I remember to build Batacists and Shaman.

I'll just say this one last time, balance can't be judged with massing. When Blizzard computer players start spamming you with Frost Wyrms and etc., then judge balance on massing. This shouldn't be used as a spam-friendly race, it all depends on strategy.
 
Last edited:
Level 38
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Jan 10, 2009
Messages
854
All right, played through all the races at least once. I might add a few things to this (probably to both undead races and Wazz's bandits), but overall this is what caught my attention for most of the entries I tested. (the critique for GhostThruster's Naga is the same here as the one back in the contest thread, just felt like I should add all the races here in the same post). Anyways, here goes.



Nice theme

Overall the buildings seemed a little out of place, the hey thatch roofs gave a farming community look that seemed to suggest a more rural medieval setting, while most of the units seemed more technologically advanced and urban. The pocket factory could have been used for something, and I could see Red Shift's re-skin of the city buildings fit in relatively well with this (those doodads have a build animation to). Also, you may want to check out the map Castle Fight by Gex for how he only used in-game resources to create a multitude of races, one of which had a goblin/mechanical theme. Another thing that could be interesting is if higher tier buildings looked more technologically advanced and sort of give the feel that the race is advancing through time as they tier up.

Overall the tooltips were clean and helpful. The genus's solidarity bonus tip was all kinds of messed up though, you should spell-check that one. The math in it seemed off to. All the others seemed correct though.

Ah, seems like you deleted the melee game trigger, though the lack of a message confirming the defeat of hostile players and overall victory wasn't really a measurable amount of annoying beyond putting up with the base revealed trigger.

The worker's inability to harvest wood was a little annoying, and made the construction of around two black markets mandatory for the resources of one expansion. It would be nice if their wasn't a bulk discount for the 100 gold lumber and keep the ratios the same for lumber, just allow the larger chunk to be more convenient when a lot of lumber is needed.

The knock-back parry bonus on the dwarves seemed a tad overpowered, units struck by it seemed incapacitated for to long.

Rather than universally capping solidarity bonuses at 12 you should vary the maximum stacks for all of the bonuses, making higher-tier units such as the prototype flying building only stack, say 1 to 3 times while allowing other lower-tier or more basic units gain higher overall stacks. This could allow the bonuses provided by units to be more proportional to their cost as well without getting horribly out of balance.

The black market income generation was a nice way to offset the upkeep cost that would otherwise hurt this race's finances much worse than the others.

The steam-punk tower didn't seem like much of an upgrade from the standard towers, especially considering it requires workers to operate. With the lack of workers at the base it seemed more like a way to hide the idle worker icon rather than offering much of a defensive advantage. I'm not really sure what a good way to put workers to use that aren't needed for construction or repairing would be, but it seemed as though this wasn't it.

the flying machine upgrades were nearly instantaneous, it took roughly 1 second to research them.

A wide mix of units seemed the best for this race, with several tier 1 units being quite good at end game as well. I liked how unmounted dwarves were still rather good end game, with their armor type and mass of health they were able to re-direct a lot of potentially damaging firepower away from the more fragile fliers and heroes. For such a stress on flying units I still seemed to enjoy keeping a lot of ground units around, though seeing 2 of the heroes have a melee attack made that a rather important factor.

30 seconds on the paladin's ulti seemed quite long for the awesomeness of the effect, especially when your being taxed on upkeep. I'd suggest either make the effect last a lower amount of time or decrease the multiplier.

The unmounted gryphons were sort of, not very useful. It would be nice if they did substantially more damage with their attack, gargoyles and hippogryphs both deal massive piercing damage and have unarmored armor types, the same build would make unmounted gryphons quite useful as air-superiority fighters. As is their isn't much use in having them riderless, and no use in having their rider dismount.

Forcing the recycling upgrade on players was a little annoying, considering it was such a central mechanic to the race it would have been nice if it was available in the town hall for it's current purposes.


The workers should have built the structures human or orc style (build style is controlled by the race field). Summoning didn't fit the skeleton workers very well :/

The skeletons in the beginning were not worth their cost, footman gain 420 hp for 120 gold and your skeletons cost more and had much less. The hp upgrade was essential to putting them to use at all.

The graves were kind of cool, though the cooldown on the summoning was a bit long. Perhaps you could give the stones mana and give them the carrion-beetles ability (which allows you to set a limit on how many skeletons may be active for each stone). That way you could save the skeleton raising until the base is under attack, and then amass a defensive force.

It would have been nice if more was done to differentiate the skeletons from one another, the skeleton warriors and raised skeletons, as well as hostile raised skeletons, almost looked completely identical. Perhaps change the coloring of one to be rather dark and another brownish. (you could call them horrors and returned to).

Spawning ghosts when the buildings die is a cool touch, though it seemed to happen a bit often. The race seemed overall underpowered.

- Edit

From playing it through again it seems this race has a few key upgrades that, once upgraded, turn the forces from underwhelming to more overpowered.

The life-boost on skeletons is essentially mandatory to put their cost ratio to use. Consider grunts already start with 700 health before they are upgraded, allowing the 100 health boost to increase grunts survival by 15% (which is also generally the boost to dps most weapon upgrades offer). With your skeletons though, it was a much higher ratio; making it much more vital.

The eternal servitude effect was really awesome, though atm it allowed me to maintain a sizable force with really minimal losses, even after being sandwiched between two armies.

The chain death-coil's learn tooltip seemed pretty unchanged from death coil's, and doesn't reference it's bouncing capabilities. The fact this spell bounced from friend to foe was pretty snazzy, and made it really easy to heal wounded allies. If you missed and hit something else, hay - your intended target usually got effected by it regardless. Good stuff, really liked that spell.

the frost-archer's attachments were rather well done, and the hidden burning archer model was put to good use with the upgrades. Would have been nice if you did something along that line with the skeleton warriors though, paired with summon skeletons from the gravestones, facing against hostile skeletons, and spawning skeletal dark minions with the orb - offered a bit of confusion as to which units were which.

The sky barges were pretty useful at setting up preliminary defenses for expansions, the sacrificial skull ability on them seemed to have a long enough cooldown as to not be overpowered as well.

The skeleton ranger hero's ultimate seemed to bug into being effective indefinitely.

Overall this race seemed to have a bit of a difficult start, but once the health boost was researched and skeleton archer's could be upgraded they seemed more on-par with the other races. With eternal servitude, much more powerful. Perhaps said effect should be changed to revive skeletons with minimal health, and only come into effect once. In the end the race was fun to play as and seemed rather reminiscent of the scourge while still being unique and offering new strategies.



The race had an interesting RTS feel, but didn't seem to fit in as an alternative melee race in warcraft universe.

The town hall was generally the most unimpressive building for the race, while in most cases it is the other way around. The structure that provided armor bonuses was an interesting idea, but the model seemed rather indicative of a town hall while the tent encampment did not. You should change the town hall model to something else, most of the other buildings had a pretty solid theme going on that it just didn't share.

A lot of buildings took up a ridiculous amount of room, the lumber mill for one should have taken up about a quarter the space. While the base and structures seemed more condusive to defense, the units cost to little food to merit keeping them behind the walls. If the race is meant to stress defense, their units should be more like the Protoss or Orcs - highly survivable and easily manageable even at high upkeep. With a balanced force I nearly filled 5 control groups with your race, which seemed more indicative of highly offensive. Another advantage of high survivable/expensive units for defense is they take up less pathing, allowing higher-cost units to hold defensive positions more easily by funneling enemies to them. The structure of the base with your race seemed to do the exact opposite though, which really sucked if anything attacks you and you have to town portal back, as it really offers a home field disadvantage.

The wall-builder and atramancer were in nonsensical locations for their construction, and a lot of building locations were different from the standard melee races. Most of the icons in this race could stand to be re-organized.

Pharaoh_ figured out a really sexy way to implement walls with just one structure, you should check out Pharaoh_'s submission in the last contest just for that. It was the coolest defensive structure in the whole contest by far, and doing something similar with yours would allow the walls to be built by the primary worker alone.

The skull-bearers didn't seem to fit in with the race very well, especially paired with their soundset. For the lich king? Shouldn't the Alteric forces be fervently against said character?

You should have imported disabled versions of icons, seeing obnoxious bright green squares isn't that attractive. I believe one of the heroe's abilities was missing a learn icon as well, despite having a standard icon.

The start-up trigger for this race should be re-worked, starting with a base full of wendigos or another player isn't the greatest intro to the race.


Pretty decent race, felt well-balanced and very reminiscent of the other melee races while still feeling unique.

Lumber mill was a little annoying, none of the melee races have to wait to harvest lumber. Players should start with at least one wisp, as how the current set up is a very specific combination of building the lumber mill, farms, and wisps at the right time is needed so a player isn't stuck waiting for one to finish construction before being able to do much of anything else.

The lumber mill flat out shouldn't cost any lumber at all to build

Overall the unit and building model choices were wll done, and the imports added to the high-elven flavor of the race. The aesthetic was pretty uniform and helped define the elves as a separate race from humans.

The eagle's pick up rider and dragonhawk's cloud upgrade didn't do anything. The abilities they were supposed to unlock remained unavailable after research :/

The ballista flat out wasn't available, paired with the lack of access to cloud this made assaulting more heavily defended bases rather difficult.

The illusionist was pretty cool, even with renamed auto-cast abilities it seemed rather unique.

A lot of the models used could stand to have an icon that better represented them. Screen-shot icons are pretty easy to make and don't take a lot of time or space, you should make some icons for the knight, illusionist, and paladin hero.

The mage huntress hero had an incorrect tool tip for summoning her, in her summon tip it referred to demon hunter abilities instead of the custom ones she had.

The mana absorb ability was completely useless on the mage huntress, considering she had a passive and her aoe silence didn't need much spamming she was usually at maximum mana to begin with. That ability should be replaced with something else with better synergy, something like control magic, spell steal, evasion, mirror image, ray of disruption.

The arch cleric and ranger upgraded units didn't upgrade properly (check out this thread). A shame the berserk upgrade doesn't work much at all. For upgrading the clerics you should make the healing wave auto-cast as well.


Batasicts were pretty cool, though their flying form is the only flyer in the game with medium armor. (Small armor is the most common on flyers, though a few air-superiority flyers have unarmored. Flying machines and most creeps have large armor). All flyers take bonus damage from either or both magic and piercing (except lvl 10 dragons, via spell immunity), but medium armor reduces the damage from those sources - making batiscists rather survivable for an air unit, especially considering any attack capable of hitting them will likely either be piercing or magic. Their seemed to be no incentive for them to land, I'd recommend making the ground version only attack ground and air only attack air. Give the flying version unarmored armor as well, it would be the most suiting armor for an air-superiority role (similar to hippogryphs and gargoyles). 340 mana was a little much as well, most casters only start with 200 (a few more expensive ones with 300). For a non-caster unit something like 100 would probably be more appropriate, though you could remove the mana cost of their one ability and remove mana from them entirely. For being the only air unit they were pretty awesome in general though, and were cool enough to be the only air unit.

The ability for burrows to house peons seemed to be completely useless, as peons were either actually inside the gold mine or inside the structure they were building. Having the few peons designated to build structures just repair them during an attack will put them to as much use. I'd recommend replacing burrows with pig farms or allowing a different unit (such as the ogres) to load inside them instead.

The campaign music was a nice addition, it made the race feel rather unique and set a good mood for playing it.

A lot of the ogres were pretty creative and memorable, the drummer, slave, and destroyer all had entertaining abilities and/or attack types that fit them pretty well. Keeping everything based off of Draenor races was pretty cool to, and certainly did make the race feel more old horde.

The avatar seemed a little unimpressive for being the end tier unit, though considering a Battlecruiser is tied with one Zergling (with an attack speed upgrade) in dps I can't say that model hasn't been used before (25 at 3 cooldown vs. 5 at 0.6 cooldown in SC1). Would be nicer if it seemed a little flashier though (battlecruisers, carriers, chimeras, and frost wyrms all seem pretty awesome), a custom projectile art, flashy attachments, something. It could stand to be like, 20% more awesome.

You could probably set up healing wave to be auto-cast, not that it needs it, but by giving the shaman a modified priest heal that restores say, .01 health it will auto-target wounded units, and when it does you can create a casting dummy at the shaman's feet and order it to healing wave the target of heal. Overall I liked the change of abilities on the shaman though, he seemed fresh and new while still maintaining pretty standard skills.

You should set the animation speed of units to 0% when the get turned into rock chunks, that would prevent them from turning away from their attackers anyways. Only problem is re-setting animation speed to 100% when the effect wares off, which is a little beyond my knowledge of triggers.

The unimpressive life regain bonus on fire shield didn't make a lot of sense, and the regeneration rate wasn't much of a bonus on it in the first place. Even if you cast it on a unit with 0.5 hp/sec regain the level 3 bonus of 65% health regeneration reads as...14.62 health recovered over 45 seconds. With a standard regain rate of 0.25/sec at level 1 it reads as 3.94 over 45 seconds. The tooltip makes it sound like a healing spell, but in game it's kind of a let down. Actually in game it's not even noticeable. The defense bonuses aren't quite double most levels of a Paladin's devotion aura as well, which costs no mana and applies to an entire army. Even inner fire grants a better bonus due to the boosted damage. I'd suggest doing something with this skill to make it feel more heroic, atm it's rather meh all around.

Overall this race looked rather nice, all the units and their attacks were well done, each unit seemed unique, the icons and tooltips were laid out well. It felt rather balanced as well, or well balanced for the purpose of this contest.


Zerg-style ghouls were pretty cool, though they dropped rather fast to abilities like blizzard, shockwave, flame strike, impale, and so on. One hero could easily wipe out vast quantities with ease. It would be nice if they had spell-resistance (could be an upgrade or defend-based) to help them be more viable when heroe's aoe abilities get more and more powerful. One of the main things that make zerglings so awesome in Starcraft beyond their excellent cost ratio is a big lack of any early-game aoe damage. (In SC1 zerglings small armor actually reduces all explosive damage by 50%, and considering anything that deals splash damage is generally an explosive attack, it helps them out).

The deathguards seemed to small for their level of health and cost, it would be nice if they were 50% larger.

The worker's should have had human or orc build style (the unit's race field controls build style). Human build style needs human repair to work btw. Summoning structures didn't seem to fit the workers.

Seeing my sylvanas skin in there was pretty cool, though the archers seemed virtually unchanged from night elven archer's stat-wise. Would be nice if they were buffed up to be a little stronger (if nothing else it would further the zerg feel), they dropped rather fast and paired with the ghouls could be decimated by aoe damage as well.

- Edit

When looking at the ghouls it seems their health to cost ratio is on par with archers rather than solid melee units like footman and grunts. Their lack of health for close-combat doesn't make them particularly cost efficient, which could explain why they drop so fast to everything.

Building the siege weapon seemed fitting, though it would look much better with human style build. Summoning them on the spot is a little awkward, especially with their lack of a birth animation.

The heavy influence of WoW lore added a nice feel to this race with all the heroes and unit choice in general.

having the food buildings heal units was kind of cool, though perhaps a modified fountain of healing or unholy aura could work as well. The limited range of the heals made it a little annoying to work with.



The mid-tier items in the shop (or more specifically potion of haling, potion of mana, and scroll of town portal) don't seem to get unlocked at tier 2. Or they get unlocked and then re-locked. At some point they are unavailable when they should be available, is basically what I'm trying to say.

All four heroes are still available when one is summoned, and all may be summoned without upgrading the town hall once :O (It looks like a blank space is occupying were the heroes should be in the game play constants).

The uh, frost guard model in your race was actually a joint effort by Misha and me. He made the model and I made the skin for it. :(

The turtle vomit (at least in the first map version) caused major lag on my computer when my units (maybe it was just tortoises that triggered this) walked through it. The more vomit a tortoise was surrounded by the slower my computer ran. I'm running at 4 GB of RAM to, so seeing 1 frame every 3 seconds is kind of scary.

For starting out it would be nice if players received a coral bed for the barnacle turtle to attach to. You could reduce the food supply offered by the town hall to compensate (for instance Zerg hatcheries only offer 1 food while their initial overlord offers 8). Considering all other races start with lumber harvesting capabilities it would be nice, and probably make the unique lumber harvesting mechanic more easily noticeable to first time players.

Speaking of lumber harvesting, the floating text seems to have been removed in you're more recent map version (it worked in the previous one).

It was a little hard to tell the ethereals and summoners apart, it would be nice if you added a few details to separate the two units further. Glowing attachments, semi-transparency, etc. Ethereals were pretty solid casters, I liked their healing ability. They seemed to get targeted first and foremost with every invasion though, their life span was pretty shot. Also, you should set their heal to be initially on auto-cast when they are trained.

Advancing up the tech tree seemed a little rough in the beginning, from the water hounds to infectors it took 2 additional structures.

All the unit production buildings seemed unusually cheap, the caster building and spawning pool only cost 80 gold and some lumber to build, while similar tier structures cost around double that for the other melee races.

Infectors were pretty cool, the masses of units they could summon added a unique asthetic to invasions.

The couatl and tortoise seemed to have to many abilities for their roles, it would be nice if there ability count was lowered by one or two. That being said the tortoise was pretty fun to use, and was one of my favorite units. Perhaps the eat tree ability should have been limited to barnacle turtles though. Barnacle turtles and tortoises could have been different colors as well, atm they look like one should upgrade into the other.

The freeze ability on myrmidons was more annoying than useful, the duration was to long and turning targets invulnerable was a little aggravating. A mini-stun would have been nicer imo.

Mana shield on the dreamweaver didn't fit it terribly well, considering it was the only ranged hero of the bunch it generally didn't need the extra health, while any of the three melee heroes could have gained a substantially greater benefit from it.

Silence proc'ed way to often with the Watcher's aura, with just matching opponent's forces in numbers it essentially locked down all their casters at any level. With the silence effect just on the hero it could be well-balanced, but on an army it seemed rather OP.

The Sea Ranger seemed a little unfinished with the multi-aura effect, it would be nice if she just gave off one unique aura imo. Rather than increasing dps and survivability you could just go for one or the other, or some effect that improves both (ie vampirism with bonus damage, critical strike and evasion bonuses, offering a bash effect).

The structures offered a rather nice atmosphere to this race, even in the snow it seemed like they get to relax in a tropical reef while managing the base.

Mantilisks probably shouldn't have resistant skin, it doesn't make much sense on them. Being considered a hero for the purposes of spells and effects with differing fields for standard units and heroes makes sense on heroic units like mountain giants, infernals, and doom guards, and your Basilisks seem to at least work with that category. Mantilisks don't thematically fit with that group of units though, and if spell resistance is desired the magical bracers (% magic damage reduction) or item defend (% piercing and/or magic and spell damage reduction) would probably serve the unit better. There is no reason Mantilisks should be immune to effects like doom, transmutation, and charm.

In their unit descriptions Basilisks and Sea Dragons are both refereed to as Leviathans, perhaps a more generic term such as sea monster, serpent, or beast would suit them better. With re-naming the hydra a basilisk and then using another monster name to refer to it in the back story makes it a little convoluted. Also, it would be nice if a little effort was put into differentiating Basilisks from hydra, I know DVO submitted a trycilide model that is a red legless version of the hydra that could serve a different enough aesthetic to merit a different name (Especially if you are going to recycle other names, such as myrmidon, couatl, and summoners). You could always use vertex coloring as well, or simply create your own hue/saturation skin change.

There seems to be a long delay from when the frost guard casts his ulty to when it actually comes into effect (I've been having a similar problem with my bowmaster's utly). It seems to take in the neighborhood of 3-5 seconds to show after casting.

Overall the race seemed to have its ups and downs with balancing, though overall felt pretty close to balanced. A lot of units had useful active abilities, but to get the maximum amount of use out of each unit it would require a rather intense amount of micro-managing as well. It would be nice if at least a few of these were auto-cast, such as the coutal's devour magic abilities or the basilisk's split when it approaches low health. Considering how invisibility is a much less serious issue in WC3 than it is in starcraft the invisible-reveal could be tied to the coutals auto-attack instead of requiring targeting.

The little back story description on all the units was a really nice touch, and aesthetically the race seemed rather well polished. Through spell specifics and the utility of units it seemed to be lacking something though, and the units in general felt a little rough and in need of refinement. A lot of the spells had multiple effects to, for mentally processing what the unit is good for and which spells to use at what times it would be nice if ability rolls could be condensed into one or two effects. For most melee units, the auto-attack, attack type, and armor type play a huge roll in their utility, were abilities simply modify these or show passive upgrades. This ins't a problem with all units, but for every unit that requires a little micromanaging the race seems more encumbered and hard to use. The only reason amphibious movement is cool is because it saves the time of loading and unloading units in a flying machine. While at first loading and unloading doesn't seem so bad, the ease of just cruising to an island instead of investing 1-2 minutes of careful management seems like a totally awesome and nifty thing to have. Likewise, streamlining unit abilities to be as easy to use as amphibious movement could make this race go from cool to totally awesome.

So to make a long post even longer, I'd say the whole presentation and storyline was pretty solid, and the actual game play and balance was rougher and could use some improvement.


Overall this race seemed to be lacking a lot of customization and modding, it felt very much like the standard human race.

A lot of the tier 2 upgrades were linked to the wrong keep, allowing generally only upgrades without any requirements to be researched. Tier 3 items didn't become available either, though all units besides the dragonhawk seemed available for training at the right time.

The horses and mount system is pretty cool in general, and implemented rather well. Their cost and inability to attack seemed to offset their lack of food cost, allowing them to operate more like a joint movement and health bonus. They were still quite pricey though, considering 2 of the 3 units that could ride them were considerably cheaper.

The Dalaran guard tower could be built on top of other buildings, allowing some pretty epic defenses to be constructed. Unless your opponent has a lot of aoe siege attacks or earthquake, the defensive capabilities of stacked towers are pretty impressive.

The stables still had all the upgrades from the workshop for flying machines, mortar teams, and siege tanks.



Relatively cool theme to run with, the caster units and constructs generally fit, the buildings and model choices were generally good and the race had a distinct aesthetic

The icon placement was really bad, and every unit could be trained in more than one building, which gave an overall incredibly cluttered and chaotic feeling to the race.

The food structures ability to train and revive heroes seemed unfitting of their purpose.

Overall it would be nice if units were only available through one structure, and the icons were placed in a logical, non-chaotic manner.

The waygate was a pretty awesome building, though considering you could place it next to a gold mine at no cost to the user and watch workers automatically jump in and out it seemed...really overpowered? Sending an army into the back of an enemies base was entertaining as well, and in general it was pretty awesome-it just needed to cost considerably more in time and resources to be more balanced.

Items seemed to spawn from several slain units and I was unable to find any unit abilities as to the explanation of why. While finding a few items is pretty awesome the utter lack of inventory space available made finding double-digits in items after each encounter with a hostile army rather annoying.

The aoe effect on illusionist's abilities was horrendously overpowered, even for a hero ability. The low mana cost and cooldown paired with an unlimited amount of illusionary units enabled one to easily boost the collective health of an entire attack force by a substantial amount.

The reference to warcraft I with the scorpion summoning was rather cool

The adept and nether mage were indistinguishable, it would be nice if there was a greater difference between the two units.

The siege braker had both blizzard and rain of fire-why? Both abilities are practically identical, you should go with one or the other.

Overall this race seemed to have a lot of cool ideas, but also a lot of poor implementation.


Really nice aesthetic to this race, the environmental themes for weather and surroundings are very well done.

Good overall model usage. The only model that seemed a little off was the rain druid, his face looked like it was unfinished.

WC3 crashes on my computer every time the ballistas' attack trees (with the impaling bolt upgrade researched). Not sure if that's a hardware incompatibility on my end though.

The units seemed to fit their roles rather well, the normal-damage melee units had abilities targeting heroes, could reduce their damage against heroes and buildings to tank, and in general every unit's abilities seemed to emphasis their role.

With all the day/night changes it would be nice if their was a way to shift the time of day beyond moonstone-based abilities. Maybe a hero ultimate that shifts the time of day 12 hours forward?

There is a bandit creep camp located in the middle right side of the map. Why is that there?

It would have been nice if you caused the plants placed in random locations around the map to be available in a different way. Perhaps making an item available in the shop (like a seed package or something similar) with multiple charges and randomized plants summoned from it. The random plants throughout the map didn't blend in very well, and several spawned in largely useless locations. For a campaign they would fit nicely in pre-placed locations, and doing things like placing plant X by tree stumps, plant Y by stream-beds, and plant Z in open fields could work out nicely. It would also be nice if they could be moved and positioned in advantageous locations, it was a little depressing finding one in a good spot only for it to be destroyed when I had other uses for the wisp.

- Edit

All right, noticed the seeds in the shop. The shop's items seemed pretty well done and easy to understand without to much effort.

The sentinel's sound-set could stand to be changed, right now it's set to one of those campaign sets that is just a few lines from another unit, in this case the archer. I would suggest changing it to the shandris sound-set, it's one of the most generic female sound-sets that still has a range of lines.

The only difference between the Forest Druid and River Druid's sound-sets was that the former had hove sounds when commanded to move some-ware. Perhaps you should change one to the Keeper of the Grove or Druid of the Talon.

The Owl Spirit's sound-set made me think gargoyle immediately when it came into the map. The sound-set is relatively fitting, but it's so recognizable as the gargoyle's you may want to change it. A lot of the building sounds seemed to be those of their original counterparts as well, and while it suits most of them relatively well, it could offer a more unique feel to the race if they were switched around a bit.

The turtle seems to have an unusual amount of abilities, five abilities on a non-hero unit is a bit intense, even if a few of them only serve a very limited function. You should move the environmental water passive bonus ability in the same spot the hero's environmental passives are, and maybe remove one of the turtle's defensive abilities. Considering one of the Heroes already has thorns aura getting rid of spiked shell would be my choice.

It would be rather helpful if each unit had a tooltip briefly describing all it's alternate environment form's abilities, perhaps just add them in the passive weather/environment buff tip. Would be rather useful for the sun and moon adept, as well as the wolf spirits, and moon ranger.

The sentinels were very well done, probably my favorite unit. It's abilities were simple and to the point, and geared them very well to fulfill their roll, and quickly change to fulfill another. Their ability to throw spears at air units is a little odd when they just stab ground targets though, and their powerful anti-air capabilities in this mode make archer's less useful.

Overall this was one of my favorite races, the aesthetic element was really well-executed, the unit-roles were easy to understand while still offering something new, and overall the synergy between different thematic elements, aesthetics, and units made this race stand out.



Well, at least you submitted something. All the structures and units were placed in the center of the map, and the race obviously isn't complete.

The stuffed doll ability on the shadow hunter was pretty cool, making it stab itself was also disturbingly entertaining.

The witch doctor's healing spell was an interesting idea, with sacrificing a unit to heal surrounding units.

The totems on the tauren hero had an interesting elemental theme going on. It didn't seem to make much sense with their placement unless they were all summoned at once. You should set the totems to just be placed in front of the hero, or use the totem spells or tiny building item spells to allow users to pick their location.

The projectile art for the goblin alchemist and the zeppelin were rather entertaining. For a goblin suiciding into units with each attack it would be nice if that attack had a bigger explosion though, and possibly a longer cooldown.

The incinerator's throw ability seemed rather useless, dealing an average of half a units health in damage to them for 50 aoe damage? pulverize can do largely the same thing without harming allies. If you get that ability to work I'd recommend having it shave off something like 10-20% of the thrown unit's health and deal according damage.

The AOE chance on hit ability on the blademaster made good use of the bladestorm animation, really liking that ability. It made the blademaster seem more unique while still utilizing a rather rare animation sequence.


The flying machine was rather unchanged from the goblin zeppelin available in several maps at an observatory. It would have been nice if something was done to it to make it seem more unique. You should have changed the soundset to something else as well.

The bandit, brigand, and bandit lord all had the same soundset, you should have given a unique one to each. footman would have worked well for one, the raider might have worked with the knight.

mobile lumber drop-off was pretty cool. Would have been nice if more abilities such as that were added.

Edit - The use of abilities that hostile bandits have was fitting, though several seemed to be sort of there rather than enhancing the functions of the units.

Hide on the melee bandits seemed to waste a bit of potential synergy without applying it to any of the other units as well.

The poison duration and damage on brigand's attacks seemed rather geared to hit and run tactics. With hide that could be an intertaining and effective combo.

The armor type on the bandits didn't really suit their roll. The only other melee unit that has medium armor is the mountain giant, and it has hardened skin to help it tank against other melee units. Being resistant to piercing damage to begin with sort of marginalizes the effects of defend as well.

Small armor on the brigands was an interesting choice, small armor is really only found on air units and air units alone. Paired with defend their did seem to be some logic behind this choice though, as defending granted them essentially no weaknesses when active.

The golems seemed rather underwhelming as a siege unit. They could have been designed more like the siege engine, which actually has fortifyed armor to allow it to survive when engaged in close-ranged combat with defensive structures. With nothing special in damage they seemed outclassed by the bandit lords, being slower, less survivable, and dealing only marginally more damage to structures. Goblin sappers could have added a lot of flare to taking out buildings as well, and would make keeping the re-named goblin zepplin more fitting.

Book of the dead was an intertaining spell on the hero and fit it well. Brilliance aura didn't make much sense on it though, the human race is very magic dependent with every elven unit having a mana poll and access to a wide range of heroes. With one hero and only one really spammable skill on the mage (that required a decent amount of tech to access) the utility of brilliance aura seemed to not fit the less is more stratagy by offering any synergy.

It's amazing the duration of hex is so long when compared to sleep. Polymorph was a pretty stellar move and an incredibly useful ability on the hero. Paired with book of the dead it put brilliance aura to use at doing at least something, and the synergy with all the hero's skills on the hero himself was rather well done.

Being able to load brigands in the hideouts seemed a decent way to emphasise the less is more stratagy, though considering the brigands can have their weapons upgraded it would be nice if the upgrades effected them when inside the hideout. It's a little depressing to see their dps drop by 45% when hiding in a building at max weapons upgrades. Nice you at least have envenomed spears working on them in there though.

Icon choice for defend was pretty good.

It would have been nice if more buildings than the town hall had some sort of build animation. Base management with this race was incredibly dull.

The hero costs money to summon initially, while all other races get the advanatage of summoning their first hero for free. The lumber cost on the altar/caster production building also significantly delayed summoning the hero.

Would have been nice if you did something unique with the zepplin as well, claiming changing it would seem cliche' but leaving it as exactly the same thing as a zepplin is sort of...way more cliche'? Something as simple as allowing peasents to give it an orc-burrow attack would have been awesome, some sort of mana-usage to put brilliance aura to some use, any attack at all (could be limited to only air), truesight to make it at least a useful scout. It just needed something defining it as a unique unit to the race, as all the other units seem different from their parent unit in some way.

Every unit and every building in each melee race has a unique soundset to further distinguish each unit as a unique unit from one another. Giving the same soundset to three of the units seemed to really marginalize the whole less is more theme, and make the units feel rather simlilar and boring.

Having instant-hire build and actual build times split on the race's units was a little wierd, you should have just gone for one or the other. Training a golem doesn't make much sense either, perhaps it's tooltip should have been phrased as "constructing" rather than "training".

The tooltip on mana flare still refers to faerie dragons.

Overall at least all of the units had a purpose, but this race seemed rather bland. Rather than less is more it seemed more like less is, just less. Considering the bandit and brigand are vertually identical a morphing ability that swaps their attack and armor type could make them very useful and emphasise the type of synergy in your phylosophy, allowing one form to be good at range and against air and the other at least respectable against heroes and structures. The bandit lord seemed like it should have been a hero as well, the overall aesthetic of the bandit lord seemed less bandit-ish and more lord like. Generally only one of them is ever in the same camp as a creep as well. Outclassing one melee unit with another doesn't fit much into the less is more theme as well, especially considering they can be produced at the same tier. If you gave the bandits evasion it could have increased their survivability in a rather unique way and allowed them to be more on-par with higher tier tanks, allowing them to fulfill a happy medium between bandit lords and the bandits as they currently are. There seemed to be a decent amount of overlap in the melee units as well, (they were all different enough to merrit being a different unit, especially if in a larger race though) the limited unit choice made them seem more like a more useful unit was missing from the racial linup instead of having a selection of efficent units covinering the race's spectrum of combat needs. I did like the underlying philosophy of less is more though, which did shine through enough of the unit's drawbacks to be at least noticeable. The functionality of the structures in particular was rather well done, strategically they seemed rather refined.
 
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Level 4
Joined
Oct 9, 2009
Messages
50
67chrome raises a very interesting point about the Batacists. That would explain why they would destroy anything relatively unharmed, combined with their higher-than-gargoyle health. With their controlled stun, their stacking DoT, high mobility, and great survivability, they are my favorite unit. It's like flying Dryad-Tauren-Gargoyles. Yes, they are a little too powerful, but I really like them regardless. Even if they lost every fight against an equal amount of ranged units (like most flying units should), I would use them because they are useful for what I need them for.

I also realize that using the Blizzard races as a standard to judge your race by isn't a great idea, since improvement is a theme. I only meant that controlled stuns were an aspect that Blizzard avoided because of how easily they could trivialize key units.

One note about 67chrome's suggestion however, basing abilities off of Heal is a very bad idea unless the ability in question has no cooldown. More often than not, the unit in question will actually stop performing actions, waiting to heal again, until it is out of mana, or there are no longer any wounded targets nearby (if left on auto-cast). Chain Heal the way it was wasn't too bulky for me personally (tab is my best friend in WC3), and aside from massing spirit wolves, they seemed fine. Granted, the wolves are a lot weaker than I gave them credit for initially, so they may not be overpowered against actual players (as opposed to the AI battles, which I decimate). It is in the nature of the AI to run away from fights it will lose. When you spawn 2000 HP worth of Wolves, the AI will always try and run away. Your race excels at stopping people from running away, thus they don't fight back, and I win. Against players who react with reason, the Old Horde is not able to dominate as easily.

The Avatar's stun was actually more potent than I realized, and having two or more (or thirty) made them very impressive. Combining them with the aura from the Axemaster increased their attack speed by quite a large margin, making them (and Destroyers) much less weak than I originally thought.

---

Also, as I'm not an official judge, I'm removing the scoring section of my critique. I just realized how pretentious it looks, and it was mostly just a tool to show why I voted the way I did, and how I thought each entry could be improved. At the end of the day, I still only have one vote, and it should not upset someone how I choose to spend it, nor should it feel like my opinion has any more weight than any one else because of how I present my review.

Apologies to any who did not appreciate it. It was never my intention.
 
Level 38
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
854
Hmm, even with the poll ending relatively soon I still feel the urge to supply some screenshots for my race and a brief overview - better late then never.

atm the Illidari are overpowered, so any strategy should carry you to victory. Produce enough survivable units (bonechewer brutes, Dreadmasters, or Coilskar Reavers) to re-direct damage from crocadons and heartseekers/siegebreakers and you should be good.
Alternatively, astromancers with high reserves of mana can nova units into oblivion while healing themselves in the process.

Use control groups to remain in control of large quantities of units (hold down ctrl and press any number between 1 and 0 to assign one, then simply press the number to access the group later on)
Order control groups to fallow a survivable unit into combat to allow forces to move in an quickly overwhelm opponents.

The Illidari advance through tiers by constructing new buildings rather than upgrading their town hall.
All troops are produced from the same building, and each tier has a tech structure to both enable production of units and research upgrades for them. This allows the Illidari to produce troops quickly without having to sacrifice time for upgrades.
The food production building doubles as a base defense and can recharge lost mana. The damaging aura nether foci have stack with each other as well, allowing multiple foci to damage the same unit.

00.jpgMurloc Toiler
Basic worker unit. Can build structures (Orc build style) and harvest gold a lumber. Toilers are 25% faster than their peon and peasant counterparts.
Toilers will turn invisible 30 seconds after exiting a gold mine, attacking, or dropping off resources. They may be used to scout opponent locations and are fast enough to fallow encumbered armies. Sending a few on reconnaissance missions can offer helpful tips on when to attack and defend.

01.jpg
Crocadon
Basic DPS unit with a powerful ranged attack. Each attack burns the target with powerful acids, and each attack increases the acid damage a target takes. The acid damage will build with other crocadons, allowing them to grow stronger in numbers. Order multiple crocadons to focus on a single target to quickly build acid damage, and switch to another target when the acid is built up enough to finish the target off.
Crocadons are cheap to build and effective against most unit types. Their attack range may be upgraded.

02.jpg
Bonechewer Brute
Primary tank, brutes are meat shields for the more fragile members of the Illidari. Bonechewers may have their speed upgraded and charge hostile forces, rapidly closing the distance to their targets and slowing them down for a short duration.

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Sparkwing
Light air units, sparkwings have a bouncing attack that builds in power with each bounce. With small armor sparkwings take bonus damage from piercing and magic, making them very frail. Sparkwings generally don't deal enough damage to be worth using against one target, make sure they can get one or two bounces with their attack.

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Dreadmaster
Fel orc unit that will ferociously attack spellcasters and heroes. Dreadmasters take highly reduced damage from magical sources and receive a slight reduction to piercing damage. They will cause mana to combust with each attack, making them ideal at taking out heroes. They may be upgraded to dispel magical effects on hostile units and damage them in the process.

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Illidari Heartseeker
Heartseekers are powerful ranged attackers that deal siege damage. Their damage is based directly on the distance to their targets, so keep them as far from their target as possible for the best results. Heartseekers may be upgraded to siegbreakers, granting them bonus range (and through that distance higher possible damage) and health.

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Illidari Siegebreaker
Siegbreakers are the upgraded forms of heartseekers, and the damage they deal is directly based off the distance to their targets. More distance means more damage. Siegebreaker's attack will cause flames to spawn at their attack location which damage targets over time. This effect may be upgraded to negate the armor bonus of any target effected by the fire.

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Illidari Spellsword
Spellswords will turn invisible when out of combat for 20 seconds (may be upgraded for 15). Attacking units from stealth will deal bonus damage and silence the target. Spellswords have two weapons, a flaming and frosty sword. Attacks with their main hand will deal a bonus amount of fire damage, and the damage will increase with each strike. Offhand attacks deal 50% less damage but will slow target's movement and attack rate, and further slow them with each strike.

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Illidari Astromancer
Airborne caster with powerful aoe spells. Astromancers may initially blast air units with twin meteors or assault ground units by causing a comet to crash into the ground, spawning magical flames. Astromancers may be upgraded with nova, an ability that both heals and damages nearby units at a hefty mana cost. Their final spell will allow them to shield a unit from up to 200 points of magical damage and cause attackers to be blinded.

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Coilskar Deepseer
Poweful spellcaster that may augment troops. Initially has snake eyes, which increases damage by 20%. May be upgraded with strangle, an effect that causes a hostile unit to take damage each time they attack. Deepseer's final ability allows them to enlarge a friendly unit, filling them with more health and damage for a moderate duration.

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Coilskar Reaver
Heavy tank that specializes in taking massive punishment. Reaver's initially have a splash attack that causes them to damage targets adjacent to their primary target. They may be upgraded to benefit from both armor upgrades, gain 33% magic damage reduction, and be considered a hero for the purposes of being targeted by spells and abilities.

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Coilskar Predator
Supportive flying unit that increases friendly movement speed. Predator's attack by throwing sea elementals at their prey, and can devour hostile targets whole. Predator's may have their attack speed upgraded, enabling them to keep more elementals out at once, and can also have their aura enhanced.

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Illidari Demon Hunter
Melee agility hero. Demon hunters excel in hit and run tactics with their shadow burn ability, and their final demon form will allow their attacks to stun multiple targets when paired with martial focus.

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Naga Bowmaster
Ranged agility hero. Bowmasters are good at disabling and annoying opponents, and are generally a good late game annoyer.

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Naga Warlord
Strength hero. Warlords are a powerful supportive hero that may increase allied attack speed as well as shield allies from one spell while restoring health and mana. Warlords are a good tier 1 hero.

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Nethermacer
Reckless and powerful intellect hero. Nethermancers are capable of widespread devastation, and must be carefully managed to insure the devastation does not afflict allied units. They are quite capable one on one, and can both damage opponents and heal themselves.

67chrome: race creation; triggers; skins for the murloc toiler, crocadon, sparkwing, bonechewer brute, dreadmaster, heartseeker, siegebreaker, astromancer, spellsword, deepseer, reaver, reaver (armored), predator, basilisk, succubus, naga warlord, naga bowmaster, and nethermancer. Also the Icons for all above mentioned skins, durance, nova, solarous, fel orb, hydra, and elite badge icons

Blizzard: Bulk of custom icons are from World of Warcraft.

Misha: Naga Warlord (high warlord najentus) model.

Darkholme: Illidari demon hunter skin.

shamanyouranus: Crocadon Missile

JetFangInferno: Enraging Aura, Enlarge buff

Dan van Ohllus: Seduce Buff and Sucubus life drain effect

Ochibi: Triggers to get Reaver and Siegebreaker upgrades to work.

FrIkY: Martial Focus icon.
 

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Level 8
Joined
Jan 22, 2010
Messages
115
Really nice aesthetic to this race, the environmental themes for weather and surroundings are very well done.

Good overall model usage. The only model that seemed a little off was the rain druid, his face looked like it was unfinished.

WC3 crashes on my computer every time the ballistas' attack trees (with the impaling bolt upgrade researched). Not sure if that's a hardware incompatibility on my end though.

The units seemed to fit their roles rather well, the normal-damage melee units had abilities targeting heroes, could reduce their damage against heroes and buildings to tank, and in general every unit's abilities seemed to emphasis their role.

With all the day/night changes it would be nice if their was a way to shift the time of day beyond moonstone-based abilities. Maybe a hero ultimate that shifts the time of day 12 hours forward?

There is a bandit creep camp located in the middle right side of the map. Why is that there?

It would have been nice if you caused the plants placed in random locations around the map to be available in a different way. Perhaps making an item available in the shop (like a seed package or something similar) with multiple charges and randomized plants summoned from it. The random plants throughout the map didn't blend in very well, and several spawned in largely useless locations. For a campaign they would fit nicely in pre-placed locations, and doing things like placing plant X by tree stumps, plant Y by stream-beds, and plant Z in open fields could work out nicely. It would also be nice if they could be moved and positioned in advantageous locations, it was a little depressing finding one in a good spot only for it to be destroyed when I had other uses for the wisp.

^^ Thanks for the thoughts! A lot of things are already implemented ;) The plant seeds are already available in the racial shop, the lame random spawning was only there because we weren't allowed to edit the ugly terrain and the campaign will surely feature various biotopes to abuse (Although modelling new vines and treants is taking forever).
The ballista thing is a bit embarrassing; I replaced a corrosive ability by the impaling bolt one only 6 hours before the deadline, thinking: what could possibly go wrong?. The 12 hour thing, was something I couldn't really give a place on a unit or abillity. It will be different on the campaign anyways.

As for the bandit creeps: I put them there to test the Track ability (they shadowmeld at night). I just forgot to remove the bastards. My bad!

@Matt: Love the graveyard idea. I'm making the Sylvan Armory spawn a plant every 30 seconds healing all units in a large area (following Life Blaze) to a maximum of 5 plants. I'm also animating a water dripping vine that can replenish like a moonwell.
 
Level 16
Joined
Jun 17, 2008
Messages
550

67chrome, thanks for spending some time to write your thoughts down about my race :) Several points you raised immediately caught my interest, so I'll address these first.


1. The Solidarity 12-unit cap. I am openly considering your suggestion, and I really think that it would work very well either way. But while I like the touch of novelty that higher tier units should have a lesser solidarity unit-cap size (and lower tiers get more), I prefer the abusable-ness of a universal 12-unit cap here. Apart from the familiarity towards a single number cap, it makes abusing 'higher-end' abilities more challenging, like the Flying Prototype's 10 damage bonus. Almost everyone thought the prototype sucks when they trained it, but the challenge is to make that 10 damage bonus into a 120 damage bonus. I fear having a decreased stack size for higher tier units would make the game play too predictible; as of now it still isn't viable to collect every type of bonus, forcing players to focus only on their preferred ones instead.

2. The Paladin's ultimate (Prayer) is overwhelming, yup. There are many times where I felt a little nerfing is due ;] However I'd like to think that in comparison to other blizzard heroes' ultimates, Prayer has a liability in the form of a.. 'dependency requirement', as in it requires the player to have a decent sized army for the Prayer to work. Without an army, or when the army has been routed, Prayer's effect is miniscule. This is quite unlike some stand alone ultimates like Starfall or Earthquake which has the same effectiveness under any given condition.

But I concede that when it works, it is almost a guaranteed sure-win during large scale battles. I plan a small adjustment to the Prayer's calculation, which hopefully will reduce the stacking abuse.

Scenario 1
Spearman x2
Chariot x1

+ 10% Attack speed
+ 1 Armor
Scenario 2
(+1 Genius, doubles bonuses)

Spearman x2
Chariot x1
Genius x1

+ 20% Attack speed
+ 2 Armor
Scenario 3
(+1 Genius, doubles bonuses;
with Paladin's Prayer, triple bonus,
cumulative stacking with genius' bonus)

Spearman x2
Chariot x1
Genius x1

+ 60% Attack speed (maxed)
+ 6 Armor

In Scenario 3 I understand the Paladin's Prayer is too powerful- it has already managed to reach the maximum bonus of 12 units, using just 1 genius and 2 units of any same type (in this case the spearman). I am planning to have Prayer NOT stack with genius' solidarity-increment.

Scenario 4
(+1 Genius, doubles bonuses;
with Paladin's Prayer, triple bonus,
NOT stacking with genius' bonus)

Spearman x2
Chariot x1
Genius x1

+ 40% Attack speed
+ 4 Armor


3. As for the other points, all of them have been helpful ;D In aesthetic matters I believe I have little choice but to bow down to your advise lol.. I admit I never paid a lot of attention to my buildings and the overall look of the race; I'll be sure to look into the stuff you mentioned.

Unmounted gryphons lol. Initially I never expected players would still want to use that after once they upgraded the mounting option. But I guess you are right that they need a little more anti-air punch to at least be on par with hippogryphs. I'll tweak the gryphons.

Recycle upgrade on the town hall sort of make sense too, never thought of that. I'll see if I can reduce the clutter on the town hall to warrant the switch.

Thanks for the bug reports on the genius's tooltips and the flying machine upgrades. I have found nearly 20 bugs on my submission already, though anymore will always be appreciated ;D

The lumber discount is only miniscule; I'm also about to add in a much larger bulk of lumber for purchase to make things a little bit more convenient :)

Steampunk tower.. about to throw that one into the bin lol. Plus I didn't like its 'heavy tower' role. The cheaper Watch Towers should be good enough during a defense, particularly if they receive enough solidarity bonuses.

Last but not least, I'm actually amazed that you continue to use ground units during late game; if you can find a way to win without being overly dependent on air then all the more power to you ;D I love it when a tester can find an alternate way of winning that is beyond my initial expectations.

Enjoyed reading your feedback. Once again you have my thanks :prazz:
 
Level 20
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
14,361
...I kinda would only like to point out that for some reason I didn't lose so much with my race when I tested it. I kinda even find it overpowered with "Eternal servitude" and masses of low tier units (naturally I don't wait for enemy to even reach tier 2 if I can help it). I did manage to survive through tier 3 attacks which usually were a big mess...

Anyway thanks to all reviews and I so wish I can find time (and motivation) to look at others. Kinda am feeling bad for that...
 
Level 7
Joined
Oct 20, 2010
Messages
141
All right, played through all the races at least once. I might add a few things to this (probably to both undead races and Wazz's bandits), but overall this is what caught my attention for most of the entries I tested. (the critique for GhostThruster's Naga is the same here as the one back in the contest thread, just felt like I should add all the races here in the same post). Anyways, here goes.

Zerg-style ghouls were pretty cool, though they dropped rather fast to abilities like blizzard, shockwave, flame strike, impale, and so on. One hero could easily wipe out vast quantities with ease. It would be nice if they had spell-resistance (could be an upgrade or defend-based) to help them be more viable when heroe's aoe abilities get more and more powerful. One of the main things that make zerglings so awesome in Starcraft beyond their excellent cost ratio is a big lack of any early-game aoe damage. (In SC1 zerglings small armor actually reduces all explosive damage by 50%, and considering anything that deals splash damage is an explosive attack, it helps them out).

The deathguards seemed to small for their level of health and cost, it would be nice if they were 50% larger.

The worker's should have had human or orc build style (the unit's race field controls build style). Human build style needs human repair to work btw. Summoning structures didn't seem to fit the workers.

Seeing my sylvanas skin in there was pretty cool, though the archers seemed virtually unchanged from night elven archer's stat-wise. Would be nice if they were buffed up to be a little stronger (if nothing else it would further the zerg feel), they dropped rather fast and paired with the ghouls could be decimated by aoe damage as well.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. :))
 
Level 35
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
4,552
The flying machine was rather unchanged from the goblin zeppelin available in several maps at an observatory. It would have been nice if something was done to it to make it seem more unique. You should have changed the soundset to something else as well.

The bandit, brigand, and bandit lord all had the same soundset, you should have given a unique one to each. footman would have worked well for one, the raider might have worked with the knight.

mobile lumber drop-off was pretty cool. Would have been nice if more abilities such as that were added.

I didn't really like the idea of changing the flying machine to be a generic bomber unit once again, and I only really wanted it to fill the place of lacking a flying unit. On account of how I did the buildings, I figured doing the flying unit like this could add mobility.

Of course they have the same soundset, I did that deliberately because it's coooooool.

I liek mobile lumber drop-offs, did you notice the building abilities though? I wonder if you did.

Oh, and I really didn't feel like doing triggers to make some crazy shit happen for my race, primarily because of the theme. And I recycled some existing spells, once again on account of the theme (improving the race indicates we should be able to recycle melee game material imo).

Anywho, had my own projects to work on anyway, so I hope I get some more positive feedback.

@Lich Prince: Thx for the positive feedback ^^
Exactly what I was aiming for haha
 
Level 7
Joined
Apr 1, 2010
Messages
289
i think my vote goes to...Naraqoq's Kirin Tor!

thanks: )
sadly i wasn't done balancing my race when the deadline ended: ( so it isn't quite finished.
one of the things i was going to do, was increase the cooldown of confusion to at least 15 seconds and mana cost to 100.

here is more lore on the race that pharoh asked for.
mud golems are from WC3 lore. these mud golems are the servants to the Kirin tor.
in the game the mud golems you run across have gone rogue and are no longer under the control of their masters.
void scouts I got the void walk idea from the Necrolytes shadow sight spell from wc1. where turned into a shadow and got vision of an area (note in WC1 the necrolytes did not turn into but that is what the tip says.) and the mages, interested in different magics extracted the information from captured orc necrolytes. and using this knowledge created a spell to help them explore the twisting nether.
 
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