Everybody loves elves!

[BlargIAmDead]

While looking for my next project's inspiration, this thought popped into my head: everybody loves elves! (At least Blizzard seems to, what with Night, High and Blood Elves running around all over the place, not to mention all those dwarves, goblins, gnomes, kobolds...)

So I made a map very loosely based on traditional elf folklore (including that classic, Midsummer Night's Dream), whipped up a few custom units, and voila!

Meant to be a two-player map, "Elfhame" has three teams:

The Light Elves
An alliance of pale, graceful elves and grim, stout dwarves, the Light Elves under Elf-Queen Titania are renowned for their mobile settlements and long-range striking capacity. With the presence of an Earth or Water Elemental on the battlefield, they can research augmentations to their healing and defense. Light Elf economy, however, is complex, split between gold-mining dwarves and forest nymphs who bond to trees.

The Dark Elves
Led by the Elf-King Oberon, the blue-skinned Dark Elves lord it over the "lesser races" of the fairy lands: ogres, kobolds, sprites, and most particularly goblins. The strength of their buildings allows Dark Elves to shrug off most attempts at a siege, and in alliance with Fire and Air Elementals, they can research devastating new methods of fast melee attack. While they are heavily dependent on lumber, their all-purpose kobold peons are more than up to the task.

The Oneiroi
At this point, the Oneiroi, or "dream-folk", are just low-level creeps for your heroes to gain a level or two with. If this map gets good reviews, it may be expanded into a campaign, where the Oneiroi become a third playable race with magic-heavy insectoid creatures!

So, if you've got some time on your hands, PM me for a copy of the map and test it on Battlenet!

 

[Rabarber]

High and Blood Elves running around all over the place, not to mention all those dwarves, goblins, gnomes, kobolds...)

High Elves are Blood Elves. And dwarves aren't elves at all.

 

[NiKaNoRoU_GR]

Ok.
So you need help with your map?

 

[hellmonja27]

it's a bit vague. i mean i know now the characteristics of each faction but i don't know much of the gameplay. i have an impression its kind of a traditional WC3 "destroy the enemy base" type of map. it's still remains to be seen. can't you just post a link here for the map?...

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Rabarber: Not on Azeroth, no. But before the Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons established a vice-like grip on the definitions of fantasy creatures, all of the beings I mentioned were virtually indistinguishable. (Google the Norse word "svartalf" as a for-instance; these "dark elves" combined modern concepts of WoW night elves, DnD drow, and LotR dwarves.)

Nikanorou_GR and hellmonja27: Yes, I'm basically looking for people to test the map. Once I know that the units are balanced and the kinks are worked out, I might expand it into something more ambitious then just "kill the other guys". To make the process easier, I'm posting the map here.

Thanks to everyone for their comments so far! Keep 'em coming.

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Hmm. I've tried hosting the game on Battle.net myself, but for some reason nobody can join. Is this a problem for anyone else?

 

[hellmonja27]

Once I know that the units are balanced and the kinks are worked out, I might expand it into something more ambitious then just "kill the other guys".

this is what i've been telling people. nooby mapmakers like me need a platform 1st that we're comfortable to work with. then when that's done and all the bugs have been fixed we can now go all original by adding more stuff. ignorant peoplecan be so frustrating! anyway, would test this later after work and give a quick report hopefully in the night (2:30 PM here)...

 

[AgentPaper]

Hmm. I've tried hosting the game on Battle.net myself, but for some reason nobody can join. Is this a problem for anyone else?

You can about 5 million other people. You can try a couple things to make it work, such as turining off your firewall. (search this site for more troubleshooting)

Not on Azeroth, no. But before the Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons established a vice-like grip on the definitions of fantasy creatures, all of the beings I mentioned were virtually indistinguishable. (Google the Norse word "svartalf" as a for-instance; these "dark elves" combined modern concepts of WoW night elves, DnD drow, and LotR dwarves.)

True, but nowadays elves are as much those tall, handsome (or beautiful) people with pointy ears as ants are those little 6-legged bugs that everyone hates. If you try to state otherwise, It would most likely just confuse (read: anger) players, who have gotten used to the norm. Of course, if you called them something else, there wouldn't be a problem no matter what they looked like.

 

[hellmonja27]

ok i tested your map and i've come across some bugs and things need fixing early in the game. sorry if i get too blunt along the way.

• first, i can't entangle my goldmine. the ability disappeared from the tree of life. this alone hampered my progress and i couldn't test your map anymore.

• anyway i did continue. what i noticed was the units aren't really that original. they don't have to be heavily triggered to be original or anything, but they feel like they only changed models and you just scrambled the abilities so we couldn't tell which is which.

• terrain is a bit dull. sorry but that's just it, ppl like eye candy and it's a bit discouraging if you don't have a well terrained map. it doesn't have to be very beautiful though, just a bit lively.

• then again, the terrain might be simplistic coz you're just laying out the foundations. but the cross shape really bothers me. it's a bit cramped and it feels i'm just stuck in the island with nowhere to explore to.

• the World Tree in the middle, although cute, is just plain obstructing. imagine having a battle behind it, you can't see anything. a more suitable center piece is needed.

• finally, it really feels so simplistic. simplicity for me isn't really a bad thing and most people tend to forget simplicity nowadays. but too much of anything is bad and this IMO is too simplistic. as if you didn't take the time to change anything.

ok so that's that. sorry if i was too blunt. i know it's a platform for you to implement some originality but uploading it like this, i can't see anything to review. it feels like a map done only in a couple of hours and needs more work. will check for updates.

PS: i did like the names you used. they're not like "Aspiration for Death" or "Wrath of Heaven" or anything like that. one ability in paticular that i really liked the name was simply called "Grace".

goodluck and happy mapmaking...

 

[BlargIAmDead]

The terraining DEFINITELY needs improvement; right now I'm more focused on the units, but I'll try to make the second version of the map easier on the eyes. Also, there was originally a purpose to the giant tree, but the techtree has made it obsolete, so I'll see if there's a less obstructive centerpiece I can replace it with.

Light/Night Elves don't entangle gold mines; they send dwarves, which bring the gold to their barrows. Nymphs are supposed to only gather wood, though I'm not sure that's clear in their tooltips. I'll try and make that clearer in the "dwarf" and "nymph" tooltips, and check the nymph's gather ability to make sure it doesn't say they can gather gold.

Also, apparently the "Burning Blades" tech doesn't work properly for Dark Elves/Orcs; it's based off an item ability, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Just a heads-up.

Unoriginal units...aw, man. Any ideas on how to fix that? (I'd happily give them new skins, or even make new models, but I'm terrible at that...)

 

[NiKaNoRoU_GR]

I can suggest heroes, units and such

 

[Anything.]

Warcraft lore is based highly off of Norse mythology, too much I guess. The dwarves (those who are skilled with stone from Nioavvllr), night elves (Svartalfheimr), and high elves (Alfheimr) are all from the same place, but have had their histories messed up a little bit. Also, Warcraft also features the World Tree and alot of other Norse stuff. Soo...

Edit
So I tested it out and here are my comments:

• Improve terrain. Use more texture variation.
• Although it's minor, sink that tree into the ground a bit. It's floating.
• Decrease costs?
• Balance a bit more
• Fix the trees, they are all lined up unnaturally.
• Change the spells a tiny bit more, most of them can be easily identified.
• Use better icons. Use the Research upgrades instead of the normal passive ones for activate buttons / upgrades.
• Fix buildings. Your buildings stack.
• Fix the 'sprites' skill, or remove it completely.

 

[NiKaNoRoU_GR]

I can suggest heroes, units and such

And I can test

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Nikanorou: If you have any skinning or modeling skills, that's where I need help with units and heroes. But since I've gotten a few complaints about the units' abilities and spells, suggestions for improvements would be welcome.

And that goes for any other readers too!

Anything: Talk Viking to me.

"Poison" references aside, you'll be glad to know that I'm planning a major overhaul of terrain, especially as regards textures and that darn tree. (I'm thinking of replacing it with a Fountain of Life.) I also fixed the buildings, which was just sheer absent-mindedness on my part, and I'm thinking about removing the Dark Elf "Sprites" ability, which does seem a bit redundant on such (relatively) powerful buildings.

I'm curious about the "balance a bit more" comment. Is there a specific problem we haven't already addressed?

 

[NiKaNoRoU_GR]

Ok, then I shall suggest improvements.
And count me in as a tester, will you?

 

[NewMapper24]

hay sounds like a good idea cuz everyone does love the night elves

idk who said it but the dwarfs don't really have any thing to do with elves.

also the high elves are the blood elves

i might sound kinda like a dick with all of this things but i would like to help

maybe change the name of the high elves to the blood elves

i would like to test it and have a look at the progress

 

[Anything.]

Nikanorou: If you have any skinning or modeling skills, that's where I need help with units and heroes. But since I've gotten a few complaints about the units' abilities and spells, suggestions for improvements would be welcome.

And that goes for any other readers too!

Anything: Talk Viking to me.

"Poison" references aside, you'll be glad to know that I'm planning a major overhaul of terrain, especially as regards textures and that darn tree. (I'm thinking of replacing it with a Fountain of Life.) I also fixed the buildings, which was just sheer absent-mindedness on my part, and I'm thinking about removing the Dark Elf "Sprites" ability, which does seem a bit redundant on such (relatively) powerful buildings.

I'm curious about the "balance a bit more" comment. Is there a specific problem we haven't already addressed?

Talk... Viking? Oooh. You mean Norse I can't speak it, but I've wandered astray on Wikipedia a couple days at a time. It's really fascinating, it really is, that Wikipedia.

I've learned so much stuff which will probably never benefit me, but is so damn interesting (Provided I don't get graffiti or incorrect data).

Umm... How about a smaller tree inside the Fountain? That would be cool, haha. Uhh, balancing in the aspect that when you mass a single type of a unit like a Fire Elemental, you can virtually lay waste to everything and lag up the game with Volcano, or other spells of the such.

Also, did you fix those icons and the costs of everything? It's really annoying me

 

[BlargIAmDead]

Here's the latest version! Burning Blades is still off, and unit costs haven't been changed (except for the food cost of elementals, which is now 10 instead of 4), but the terrain is a little less bland now, and a few of the icons were switched to their "normal" picture (where there was one available).

 

[NiKaNoRoU_GR]

Ok, then I shall suggest improvements.
And count me in as a tester, will you?

OK, if you want beta test, here I am.
Um, I think the Elemental take too much food, use 6-7

 

[hellmonja27]

Light/Night Elves don't entangle gold mines; they send dwarves, which bring the gold to their barrows. Nymphs are supposed to only gather wood, though I'm not sure that's clear in their tooltips. I'll try and make that clearer in the "dwarf" and "nymph" tooltips, and check the nymph's gather ability to make sure it doesn't say they can gather gold.

ah sorry about that. but you are right, it wasn't clear that the dwarves are suppose to mine the gold. will play it again (probably later) and try out more stuff.

Unoriginal units...aw, man. Any ideas on how to fix that? (I'd happily give them new skins, or even make new models, but I'm terrible at that...)

no, no. you don't really need custom stuff. maybe make use of other not commonly used model units and take time to see which set looks good together. i hope i'm not advertising by saying this but i've seen this done in Skeletal Rage. the maker didn't make use of custom anything but it gave a very refreshing feeling to the map by making use of other model skins.

i'll test the map again. although i didn't know about the dwarves it still wasn't a fair review...