New maps have arrived!

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:56

Thank you for your comment concerning Mutare's Return, Artas. It's good to hear that you enjoyed playing the map. Please give us (me and Maygwan) feedback. I can assure you that all feedback is appreciated and humbly received. As map makers, you yourself as well as me and others around here know how valuable it is to hear from the players and get to know what they think of the hard work that was done. I agree that it feels great misjustice to receive low ratings, but what can the map maker do about it? Nothing. We just have to hope for the best. But in the end, it is not the rating that matters but the feedback in general.

A few words about Mutare's Return. I have a version (update) here in my harddrive that Maygwan says he got from me and has forwarded it over to the CH Staff. That map file is somewhat bigger ( by 0.4 kb and dating from 24.11.08) and it features many small fixes as well as graphical "facelifting" by me. Some balance issues were also dealt with (well, they were minor ones). According to my map maker team mate, the update is, like I said, in the hands of the CH Staff waiting to be uploaded. Let's hope that, despite all his hurries, Akul has received the map file. If not I still have it.

Akul · Unread postby **Akul** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:21

@Yurian:

Angelspit didn't forward it to me (Real Life is a jealous guy and likes to make people very busy).

You can send it directly to me: luka.gerovac@hotmail.com
Edited on Wed, Jan 14 2009, 16:21 by Akul

Artas1984 · Unread postby **Artas1984** » 14 Jan 2009, 22:11

Yuri, your and your friends map is detailed and realistic! Great gameplay value. The only reason i never gave a 10 to any map ever, is because the map that is worth 10 has to be extremely realistic in my humble opinion, meaning certain terrain types can't just change all of the sudden from sand to snow or, for exampe, some resource generators can't just be placed anywhere too... For example look at my "Clashing Trilogy" or "RTDFP" maps and see what i mean..

Anyway i just looked at your "US Cilvil War" and noticed that some towns are missing names. Hence i realy am not intelligent in the history of US, but should they be unnamed?

Btw, coorect me if i am wrong, but "Regina", if there is such a town in Canada, is also one of the names of Brakada's HOMM3 towns?

Koni · Unread postby **Koni** » 15 Jan 2009, 09:04

I'm sure, that all towns will get a special name, which fits to history, once the test phase has ended.

Akul · Unread postby **Akul** » 15 Jan 2009, 15:59

Mutare's Return has been replaced with newer version.

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 16 Jan 2009, 02:11

@Artas: I agree with you about realism being an important factor when judging maps. I also tend to give higher ratings to maps that feature realistic scenery, have above than avarage gameplay and good replayability. Some of your maps fall into this category as well, including the aforementioned "Clashing Trilogy".

I would personally reward the updated "Mutare's Return" (thanks Akul) with a 8.5/10. Of course this is just me. I'm well-known for being a strict judge, especially towards myself. That is why it takes so long for me to release a modest M sized map, not to mention L and XL size projects.

Regina is a city located in the southern parts of the Saskatchewan province, Canada. As I recall, there is a town by that name under the list of Bracadan town names category. A funny coincidence.

@Artas & Koni:

"American Civil War" as featured on the CH's map testing service page, is a mere Demo version, which means that many things found on the release version are still missing. As such, some of the towns remain unnamed in the demo version. Please note that these are on the "Indian terrtory" area of the American West and thus are likely to be named "Tribe settlement this and that" and not by their modern counterparts. It's all still on the planning board, so to speak.

Vlaad II · Unread postby **Vlaad II** » 16 Jan 2009, 02:37

Yurian Stonebow wrote:Regina is a city located in the southern parts of the Saskatchewan province, Canada. As I recall, there is a town by that name under the list of Bracadan town names category. A funny coincidence.

"Regina" means "queen".

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 16 Jan 2009, 02:46

Vlaad is right: Regina is Latin for Queen. The city of Regina was named in honour of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Such a royal name also fits nicely in with the Bracadan style. The fact that I chose Tower to represent British Imperial Canada in "American Civil War" and that the faction has indeed a town called Regina, this is what I was referring to when I said something about the whole thing being "a funny coincidence".

maygwan · Unread postby **maygwan** » 16 Jan 2009, 16:10

I am from the uk so i know all about queens lol. Anyway nice to see the map is getting some play. Yurian i almost have a version 2.0 of the dragons heart map. i have played this new version 3 times now and also watched the ai movement for 6 months. the first version and the 1.7 certain ai players were not doing what they should so i have gone through extensive fixes to the ai. also added lots of new quests none interfere with the 1.5 version. should have a release for this version in a week or so. just wan't to run a few more tests so the ai is more challenging.

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 19 Jan 2009, 14:27

@Akul: I noticed that there's an error in your introduction to Mutare's Return. Please let me help you fix that mistake. There are four factions available for the players to control: Castle, Rampart, Stronghold and Fortress. Dungeon is a CPU only faction (playing colour: Purple) under the leadership of Mutare and her second in command. There's also a sixth player, a CPU only faction with Necropolis troops under the Orange banner.

@Maygwan: I would like to take a look at that "Dragon's Heart" version 2.0. Your work so far suggests some major changes and redesigning of the map. As always, I offer my help to "polish" your work for release.

Akul · Unread postby **Akul** » 19 Jan 2009, 15:26

@Yurian

The news post has been changed. Feel free to point at other mistakes I may make as well.

ByteBandit · Unread postby **ByteBandit** » 08 Feb 2009, 10:05

First, it's good to see Akul on the CH Staff. My congrats to you. And without him here, new maps may have had a harder time of finding it's way here quickly due to outside work needed done by members here .
As for me, off and on, I have been working on a new powerful eye candy H4 map. It's been taking me forever to do, but it'll get done eventually. (I'm really taking my time doing this one.) It's so massive, I've been working on it for months now, and still no storyline in the map, but I do have an idea what it will be about. (The story will deal with Astral Projection, I believe). Anyway, the map is over 60 per cent worked on. Each town is visually unique in it's own way.
But I thought I would stop by and give my congrats to Akul!
Hope to be doing business with you soon! :-)
Keep those maps coming, my friend!

Salamandre · Unread postby **Salamandre** » 08 Feb 2009, 11:08

American civil war lacks events, story, historical names (take Los Angeles with Crag Hack?), rumors, customization and every thing else which has to be considerate when creating such an historical scenario. Just a map among others. Needs much more work to survive.

If you can't find a real name for all heroes, then disable most of them and keep those which you named.

The author also used the brush "obstacle tool" on some terrains and of course it is far from being beautiful.

Also, the neutrals are not aggressive thus a good diplomat can get them all. you can use this feature to imagine a charismatic general or just change their aggressiveness level.

To much randomness can give unpredictable results and the historical facts will fail to achieve.

Koni · Unread postby **Koni** » 09 Feb 2009, 09:07

@Salamandre: you are right, but please consider what Yurian has written in his readme:
This is a Demo version only which means that many features from the release version are missing.

@ByteBandit: Glad, to hear about your new project for H4. I can't await to see it!!

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 16 Feb 2009, 11:47

@Salamandre: Listen to what Koni said, he's telling the truth, you know. I did include a line in the ReadMe (of all demo versions, so far, remind you) specifically stating that the map version available for general testing is but a Demo version, which lacks almost all the nice bits of the release version including the stuff you mentioned. The idea of the various Demo versions is to test "plain" gaming mechanics rather than special cases and features.

I keep on adding stuff as I move forward, you just have to wait a bit longer. If you wish to, I can send you the latest version called "American Civil War 0.90 North" as a reference guide to let you have an idea of the final version. Just remember that that particular version is still untested and had just been sent to Koni a mere 12 hours ago.

With that said, for more information, please see "Gettysburg (1863)" thread in the Mapmaking subforum of the Round Table. Thank You.

Chaliava · Unread postby **Chaliava** » 20 Mar 2009, 14:57

The ratings obviously are because of jelousy - some noobs just can't make their own detailed maps, so they vote "3" because they are loosers..

ThunderTitan · Unread postby **ThunderTitan** » 20 Mar 2009, 15:03

Yeah... a winner would have voted 1...

ByteBandit · Unread postby **ByteBandit** » 21 Mar 2009, 21:33

Raing a map is overated. I personally enjoy the emails I get.

Yurian Stonebow · Unread postby **Yurian Stonebow** » 22 Mar 2009, 21:16

I agree with folks here that there are some people who just vent their frustration on others and their maps by giving ridiculously low ratings on purpose. It serves only to show their lack of character, and makes me suspect that such people are incapable of dealing with setbacks in real life. Rating maps, on the other hand, requires one to actually play it through and then to deal with your findings in an objective manner. Giving scores below 5 to maps you haven't even tried is just... well, sad.

ByteBandit · Unread postby **ByteBandit** » 27 Mar 2009, 02:06

Some people will give you low ratings just because they don't like the way you post something. Even though they've never really ever met you in person to know what you're really like. Or they are jealous of your work. I always give good ratings of nothing less than an 8 if I like a map. If the map does nothing for me, I don't even bother to rate it.

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