Rui's review for "The Wild Forest of Ashenvale" (melee map by Windrage)
If improved, this map could prove to be interesting, adjective I can use for the layout, with the exception that the players are not separated by the same distances.The rest of the landscape was bad: only two ground textures used, for what I could see (Grass and Rough Dirt), no elevation use, empty edge boundary, badly placed bridges...
Expansion Gold Mines and the rest of the neutral buildings (maybe I should say Fountains of Health and Mana, since there are no other structures) are all in the center. While this draws the attention to it, I wasn't too fond of the place. The fountains are almost next to each other, and so are the Gold Mines, limiting the strategies highly, as I'm about to say on the next paragraph.
Because of the creeps, which are nonexistent outside the middle area, the game becomes centered on a single strategy: rush. There is no creep-counter option. That is, if you want to have an enjoyable game. The days of turtling in Warcraft II are long gone.The creeps that exist were not totally well picked nor placed, and their drops were wrong. Shadow Orb... isn't that a campaign item? And Claws of Attack +15 and Rings of Protection +5 for relatively easy camps (compared to Gold Mine hostiles)? You've got to rectify this.My suggestion is that you add (various) green creep camps on the forest, perhaps a few yellow ones (remember to make an equal number of every player). A change to the central area also seems necessary, for the reasons I already mentioned, and, of course, a few neutral buildings such as Goblin Merchants and Taverns.
The experience I had in this map (playing with Billy the Cat, M4stah, naamloos123, mare, and water_Knight) was somewhat fun, but it truly needs fixing. My rating is a 2/5 (Lacking). I vote for Rejection until the map is updated.