[Miscellanous / Other] "The Summoner" - a casual analysis of existing projects

[Cokemonkey11]

I recently played ~10 games of "The Summoner". There are a lot of hacked/stupid versions floating about, but it's easy to get a full house match of one of the classic versions.

I'd like to play better versions of Summoner, so I took a dive through epicwar. Here's a casual analysis...

How many maps?

$ find . -name '*.w3x' | wc -l
57

I downloaded over 90 different map uploads on epicwar before using md5sum to find only the unique ones.

I found 57 different (unique) mapfiles uploaded to epicwar (sure, there are probably more).

How many breeds of map?

$ ls -Al | wc -l
28

The naming scheme for these map files roughly splits into ~27 different projects with different authors. Some of these mapfile name styles are shared among different authors, so there's more like 30.

In addition to freeform notes, I've marked each map with an overall summary on three categories: quality, design changes, and tooltip changes.

Distribution of quality?

$ find . -name '*.txt' | xargs -I {} bash -c "cat '{}'" | grep quality | sort | uniq -c
      6 quality: above average
      3 quality: average
      4 quality: below average
      4 quality: low
      8 quality: poor

6 of the ~30 projects are better quality than the average mod; using the original map as a rough bar for average

Distribution of design change quality?

$ find . -name '*.txt' | xargs -I {} bash -c "echo '{}' && cat '{}'" | grep design | sort | uniq -c
      4 design changes: above average
      5 design changes: average
      3 design changes: below average
     13 design changes: poor

4 of the ~30 projects made design changes that improved the gameplay/replayability.

The majority just made awful changes. A common theme seen here was just adding random creeps, effects, items, etc all over the map.

Distribution of tooltip change quality?

$ find . -name '*.txt' | xargs -I {} bash -c "echo '{}' && cat '{}'" | grep tooltip | sort | uniq -c
      5 tooltips: above average
      2 tooltips: average
      9 tooltips: maybe no change
      9 tooltips: poor

A similar theme emerges - 5 projects made clear improvements over the original

I consider tooltips to be very important for hosting/playing, but less important as the basis for makig a new fork project.

Which maps made above-average design changes at above-average quality?

$ find . -name '*.txt' | xargs -I {} bash -c "echo '  {}' && cat '{}' && cat empty" | grep "quality: above average" -C 5 | grep "design changes: above average" -C 5


  ./super summoner x/2009 edit by dastyruck and winterwarrior.txt
quality: above average
tooltips: maybe no change
design changes: above average

- based on "Super Summoner" by "original creator"
- X terrain layout, with center lane empty
--

--


  ./the summoner demon/edited by dragon--demon.txt
quality: above average
tooltips: average
design changes: above average

- [email protected]. "fixd bugs, add new heroes, added creeps"
- hidden heroes made selectable
--

--


  ./the summoner remixed/quietly edited.txt
quality: above average
tooltips: maybe no change
design changes: above average

- Incremental changes
- similar to PE version

Three versions qualified - "X" verion that makes an interesting terrain change, Demon verison that changes to one lane, and the Remixd verison, which changes very little whatsoever.

Overall, two are good options to play for something fresh, but none make a great base for a new fork project.

Raw notes (and mapfiles) attached.

 

[Cokemonkey11]

After having now tested many of the better variants online in real matches, here's my TL;DR:

Recommendations in bold.

- Original summoner (- The Summoner v6.4 -) - classic map, some of the best balance and most interesting heroes. Open source.
- Summoner Revolution - one of the best edits. High quality. Terrain changes improve gameplay. care has been put into new heroes. Balance is nice, gameplay is good. Protected.
- Super Summoner (The SUPER Summoner v2.5 - beware shitty edited version with same filename)- Popular/original update. gold balance overall makes the game different, but still interesting. Gameplay is a lot different, slower, longer games in this version, in spite of the game still feeling 10 years old (stale). Open Source.
- Super Summoner X(- Summoner X -) - Terrain changes are interesting, but summon cooldowns and teleport cooldown make the game awkward and laggy. Open Source.
- The Summoner Demon (- The Summoner v6.8b DemoN -) - Terrain changes had potential, but there are space issues, and summon rate + tower balance are very problematic. Open source. AOS spawns are mostly inconsequential, but silly.