Aight, here's my two cents. Well, perhaps 10 dollars worth.
From the beginning, I will tell you in detail everything that happened to my poor butt. You asked for it
Teams
When I started the game, I see four forces, with different numbers of players each. Understand I've never played it before, so I didn't know if those were for other people, or if I should put computers in, but I just left it default. There's no way to describe the teams though I suppose.
Opening screen
I like your aspect of the story, its creative and original. I think you need to clean it up though. I am really picky about run on sentences, so you might think about splitting it into a couple of sentences or even paragraphs. Just for proper grammar.
Cinematics
I really like what you did with the camera. No-go on the last line said, just seamed out of place. I mean, I really like the camera action happening there. The only thing about that, is when you stop the camera, all my units are at the very top of the screen, so you might want to adjust it a little.
Gameplay
The terrain and layout is great. I see A LOT of artistic ability here. It took me two tries to get past the first point. I managed to use paralyze enough to make through it though, with decent units left. Challenging is good
I received my first quest. I'm not sure what to do here. It says, to basically plunder the place and get 1000 gold. So we'll continue on this in a moment.
(Comment - Comparison)
You've played the single player campaigns, right? Think about when you get a quest, and think about how blatantly obvious it is what you are supposed to do. Blizzard reveals areas, points arrows and lights up a paths. Just some food for thought during your development. Its fun to figure out what your supposed to do, but the real fun comes from the challenge of doing it. Like that last level of the undead campaign.
(Off the topic comment)
You know something? That trucker took me 6 tries to beat. When you guard Kel Thuzad? Man. Then guess what? The ex gets there, and she beats it on the first try! I was in denial. Heh - I used death coil to heal my units left and right... never thought ONCE to heal KEL THUZAD! AHHH! But she just skimmed though... heal heal heal - WIN. Jeez.
Then I found the barracks. (Neat training puppets. I killed them
I like death.) Lost some more men there, but not many. I was able to buy a boat from the wrong side of the river, so I wasted some money there. I couldn't get on it - LOL - my bad.
Because I like to reveal areas first, I started plundering at the far end of the map. Where the farmers are, and the patchwork ground texture. Got some bounty there. Then I found the other two places. When I finished killing the other two places, gold appeared. Now what's funny is, gold was laying around the places I've already been. Now, I am pretty sure I didn't MISS that, the gold appeared long after I had bust everything up. So I had to walk around and collect it all. Mostly 50's... a 100 piece here and there. ( I love gold!)
So I plundered the village. I reached no where near 10 grand. That's quite a bit. So I crossed the bridge. Died miserably. Real miserable. They have knights. I tried, honestly
So the second time, I went back for more units. Me and my 1000 bucks. I was disappointed to see all the units I could buy looked the same. I know they are not, but the icons are the same; left hand and right hand. The real disappointment, is that only half the units were ready to be purchased at this point, maybe 5 or 6, and there was only one of each available. So I just clicked wild until I bought everything. (Because, they have knights). I died three more times trying to cross the bridge.
Seeing as I don't have 10,000 gold yet, its the only thing I can do - right? I searched around for alternative places to go, but with no success.
I figured since its a new map to me, it would take some practice, research, try and die. But I was never successful. So I tried my favorite melee tactic. Rush past all the units and go for the weak spot. Eh, they blocked the bridge. That didn't work out to well.
That's as far as I got. I mentioned before, the game keeps locking up on me. It locks up so hard, I have to hold the kill switch down. (XP wasn't very happy about that)
When it locks up, 3 out of 3 times, I was walking around (no fighting) and I would hear this "swoosh" or "whoosh" sound... which it would continue to repeat/loop. Whoosh...whoosh... whoosh... dead pc... whoosh.
So maybe something's happening there. Last three days, I've been on battlenet and I haven't locked up. I don't lock up play-testing my maps either, so I really think you have something going on there. I am sorry this prevented me from continuing my map testing, but I can't get too much farther.
As long as it crashes, I'll never get a full, real feel for the map, and that's not fair to you
All things said, you DO HAVE a great development here. I appreciate the people who come here and stick with it, as discouraging and tedious maps can get. I am certain a lot of people start something, struggle with it, and never MAKE it something. Work on things and when you get to a point you feel you need another, I'll do it. I betcha I can get the roomie into it also
But he won't study it as hard - promise - LOL.
DANG... Since I'm talking a lot, I'm going to keep talking. Kay? LOL.
Now you gotta play Ryoko TD and let me have it.
(I am developing the new update, which I will not release soon. I just got 1.0 up on the map site; too soon for an update.)
This new one will have "Tag Team" levels, having two types of creeps with different types of armor. (Gotta love hero and fort! ha ha) The multiboard, improved level balancing, and more mini games. Fortunately, I have enough games now that I set up an array to keep track of the games played, so It will never play the same one twice. So the next development should be good <grin>
I learned some valuable lessons on this map. I tried so hard to make it serious, challenging and fancy. You know what? Maps like that, I host on battlenet, and I'll get maybe two takers. It seams like the majority of players are young, and don't appreciate anything complicated or thought heavy.
You know what they like the best? X-TD. This game, if you have it, is so unbalanced, its not funny. The creeps have no collision; they fly by in a big ball. Towers are either way way under cost, or outrageously powerful. There's spelling errors, hacked up triggers, and its easy as hell.
.....You know why they love it? BECAUSE ITS FUN! It is! There's 4 copies of it hosted every moment on the east gateway. "I" play it too! Its fun to effortlessly build things, blow things up, see funny tank towers and ultimates that fill the ENTIRE screen! It JUST is. So I've tried to develop new mentalities - not one way or the other - but a different perspective. I don't host my map anymore, I join it. That's a nice feeling. I come home from work and the peeps are on my computers, playing my map online. You can never make everyone happy, but I like these results a lot better than before.
My hero siege is work. Its tough. It takes teamwork. But no one plays that. They play the outrageous hero sieges, with about 600, 1HP units flocking in, and tomes that give you 1000 agility.
(Wow, outlook spell check recognizes whoosh... heh)
Food for thought.... By Ryoko.
