Fortress December Open Beta Test Commencing.

[Jaggy]

Ladies and gentlemen, gamers and developers, all those who share passion for what many people consider to be one of the greatest games ever created and we call simply "Warcraft", the pre-final release of "Twilight of Fortress December", a customized fortress defense map of ArmCPL is ready to be played, enjoyed and judged by you.
This is a first release of this map to the public, before it was available for beta-testing by only select few people, and releasing it was far not an easy decision, but it was made for the public, and only feedback from gamers can help it become better then it is now, because now it’s quite everything I alone can think of.

Developer’s notes:
• More than 5 years in making. The map was originally started when even TFT was a mere myth. It evolved and adapted itself and the final stage of adaption to the needs of the public (manual JASS scripting of hero spells) has begun only recently, and is currently incomplete.
• The map features a song of well known heavy metal band, Manowar as a soundtrack. The first question all of you might have is whether I have their permission, and the answer is, to my great displeasure, no. I fairly tried to contact them to obtain their permission, but I failed for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, the map is not commercial, is protected by Vexorian’s map optimizer and the soundtrack is recoded to appear in ridiculously low quality (48kbps). Besides, Manowar is my favorite metal band, and lots of content in the map is inspired by their music, so the entire map is a kind of a tribute to them, because the song that inspired it creates an essential part of map’s atmosphere, and it just won’t go without it. I hope that (at least partially) atones my crime . The song is “Hand of Doom”.
• Currently there are only few heroes playable on the map, 12 to be certain, but I always intended them to be few, distinct and recognizable, with valuable and unique abilities rather than many, faceless and sometimes outright banal, like in all out hero battle maps with 100000 heroes and repeated abilities. Nevertheless, Many new heroes are planned to be added to the map, including Manowar, a King of Metal, with abilities like Hand of Doom, King of Kings, The Power and Fight Until We Die! Also currently only Guardian of Death hero has fully script-assisted abilities and the others mostly stick to standard ones, but in near future all of them shall be redesigned or enhanced with custom scripts.
• Items are also quite few, and there are no combinable items this time, although I plan to add DotA style recipe items later. The map is more about units then about heroes, that’s why units may use items, and even heroic awards.
• Ability Tooltips are currently classic Warcraft style, rather than more detailed DotA style. That issue is a subject to change as well. Also, currently no map preview or loading screen artwork is available, mostly because I am no artist. If you're an artist, you played the map and liked it and feel like contributing an artwork, I would gladly accept.

The map file is quite large because of loads of custom content and the included mp3, sorry about that. I would welcome any suggestions, overviews, bug reports, new ideas and any other kind of feedback fellow members would offer. Also, currently no credits are written anywhere, because the list of people I would like to thank would be really very long, but I'll make it for the release version. For now I would like to thank authors of all great tools that made development of this map possible, and authors of all scripting and art tutorials on this site that helped me learn new skills in no time.

And finally, you can download the map here. Enjoy.

 

[Hegemuffin]

I liked the story you gave on that site; I'll try it out when I have a chance. You may want to include a similar description here - even though it's a "mapping" site you seem to be trying to interest people to play, no? So, yea, it was a good description, so use it.

 

[substance]

A short-n-simple feature list is something people like to see in these types of posts.

I want to quickly read an overview of what you map is, why it's unique and what it has to offer before I deciede whether to download or not.

 

[WindexGlow]

It's not unique. You have a spelling mistake, instead of having '5 years' you should have put '2 weeks'. It's a hero defense.


The terrain is horrible (some raised ground, trees, that's it. No terrain elevation, no doodads, nothing.

I highly doubt you spent more than 5 weeks with this, I highly doubt it. I played it on single player, and there was only 3 units (and a handfull of heroes, didn't look through them) to choose from (priest, archer, footman).

So I'll make a small list:
-crappy terrain
-low amount of units to choose from (defending side)
-poor placement of structures (oh wow, 4 towers and 2 gates in the same place as all the other defense games)
-low amount of items (oh wow, 2 shops. about 24 items in total, half of which are just variations for the 'dark' side or something)


I would have more, but that's all you have in your map. Seriously, there isn't much more than those 4 points. I've seen better maps made in 2 weeks.


What this means: Quit lying about the time it took to make this map. And use that list I just made and improve it.

 

[Jaggy]

Ok, here is some additional information.

Introduction.
As first snow fallen over Lordaeron in early winter, King Gerdred the Bright has taken his hosts and his chief Praetorian, Kelon Sunstalker, to a remote border outpost, the Fortress December, with orders to prepare everything to defend the Fortress against a siege. While setting up defenses, Kelon continues to wonder about King's intentions and the urge to take his best warriors to such a quiet place. He does not yet know that Demon Zenedar, the King's old nightmare, has returned to claim his rightful treasure - the King's life...

Backstory.
Zenedar had once been a mighty Dreadlord that terrorized Southern Lordaeron, killing people and spreading corruption all over the land. Ancient paladins hunted down and slain him to rid the world of his terrible evil, but Zenedar's powers were of such magnitude, that he didn't dissipate, but became a powerful and ruthless demon. Ever since he haunted and driven to madness his murderers and their brethren, until only one last paladin remained, young prince Gerdred of Southern Lordaeron. He ambushed the prince while Gerdred was adventuring, and intended to drag him into his own world to permanently torture and mutilate the last paladin, but Gerdred tricked Zenedar and escaped, leaving the enraged demon behind. Zenedar then sworn to come to material world and finish off their business, and Gerdred lived in permanent fear of demon’s return ever since. Finally, Zenedar visited the aging king in a dream and portended their soon meeting. In return, the old king summoned all of his allies to a remote border outpost to meet demon’s challenge and end his nightmares once and for all.

Quick featurelist
• Play Fortress Defense with an objective to defend a special unit, King Gerdred. He is far not defenseless, but can be killed, especially by heroic waves.
• Command 2 of 12 available heroes, one primary, one secondary (that requires a quite difficult task to be accomplished).
• Command 33 unit types (not including summoned units) in 3 defferent categories, Fighters, Rangers and Casters, with new units becoming available once each 5 waves.
• Use more than 50 different items of which 14 are special commendations for notable deeds in combat. Also give items to your favorite units to make them more powerful than others of their kind.
• Buy books and reusable scrolls to fill free slots of your hero’s UI with auxiliary abilities to make them more flexible.
• Research rank-ups for your units to unlock additional abilities and enhance their statistics, and make them even better by upgrading their armor and weapons.
• Destroy towers that your enemies erected to support their spellcasting abilities and wipe out their leaders that bless them with auras to weaken them.
• Endure grand total of 50 waves of attackers and ultimately face the big demon boss to see if you can help the King survive the fight of his life.
• Collect rewards for outbuffed clones of your own heroes that attackers send upon you once every 10 waves.
• Use careful micro to save your heroes from early destruction and let them develop into powerful champions to be able to endure and survive the final battle.

Oh, and an answer to WindexGlow.
First, I admit that you might have seen better maps made in two weeks, but that doesn't mean I lied. The map was started five years ago, and I don't see a point in lying about it. That doesn't mean I spent 5 years developing the map 24/7, of course, there were even months of disappoinment and oblivion, but then she was always continued. I'll dismiss the the note about 3 units because you hardly played the map for more then 5 minutes (and you shouldn't have expected to see all of it in 5 minutes), and I already mentioned before that quantitiy of heroes and items is a subject to change, that's more of a mechanical work to do then creative. I'll think about improving buildings and terrain if I receive any definite suggestions I find worthy of implementing. Oh, and thanks for the feedback, bad one is better then none at all.

 

[Jaggy]

Mini update 1.15 Beta is now online.
- Added one new hero, the King of Metal, as promised,
- Researches are now cheaper, as requested,
- Map is now much more stable, as many previously omitted location-based leaks are removed.

 

[Jaggy]

Dear Administration, I seem to have a problem updating my map in the repository. I have updated title, description and the map file, but when I try to download a file, it still downloads the older version. I have just resubmitted the new file to the repository, please, look into this issue.

 

[Jaggy]

The issue is still unresolved. Don't admins read this?

 

[Ninja_sheep]

lol, this map is somehow not great... as windexglow said. You should look at his suggestions... If you upgrade your map with cool systems (as the one you can teach abilities to hero) don't make your map good if you dont have a good base.

 

[Jaggy]

Dude, it's a beta, duh. Did you also play it for some 5 minutes and left?

 

[TheDamien]

ROFL @ 5 years.

Sorry, but I agree with WindexGlow - this should not represent 5 years of work.

 

[Jaggy]

OMG.
Guys, the fact that the map was started five years ago doesn't mean I was waking up in the morning, starting to code the map and then falling asleep at night for 5 years. Usually people have a life, that is, they have a full time job, they study at a university, they get conscripted into an army service, not to mention basic hanging out and other human activities. You know, it's not always you get even 15 minutes a day for it, is it? I fairly don't know why do you all pay so much attention to those "5 years" statement instead of posting some valuable feedback.

Confess, did any of you play to get a single award or a second hero? Or do you still think there are only 3 units to build?