Haha, after seeing this map I was certain that your icon would be zerg. Well, playing zerg myself I would love to play this map, however I think that tzhe extreme open middle and the big distances between bases might make it difficult for terran and protoss players to get a good attack going.
Very nice design though.

forelmashi

421 Posts

January 06 2011 23:16 GMT

looks nice

NullCurrent

Sweden245 Posts

January 06 2011 23:26 GMT

I like the general layout, but I think it might be a bit too open in the middle though.
Have never tested the watchtower + rock combination, so I have no idea how that will effect early gameplay, will be interesting to test (but the rocks limit early openness a bit, which is a plus).

Never thought about using the terrain tools like that to do mountains/hills outside the map, that is a really good (and nice looking) idea! And the blue fog looks really atmospheric, I like that (also the minor details around the sides of the map, I never really got the hang of that last time, I think).

Finally some critique on the texturing, it looks a bit one dimensional and rushed (but getting it done in time is better than nothing

).
It is good that you have chosen a separate texture style for the non-pathable cliffs, but I think you should have mixed in more different textures there too, from what I can see it looks like you've used the area fill tool a bit too much.

A question though; why do you have so many weather doodads around the sides of the map? Seems a bit excessive.

PS. MotM #1 will be very very interesting, wishing you good luck!

Antares777

United States1971 Posts

January 06 2011 23:31 GMT

Great design, and as always, nice to see another ice title set! There are really cool! Aesthetics on this map are amazing and really have blown me away, nice job!

@ Slunk - I do not think that the middle is as large as you may believe. I think that Terran and Protoss will stand a good chance on this map, even in the middle.

Two high yield expansions are ok, but on this map, I think that the one out farther away from the spawns should not be a high yield expansion because of how difficult it would be to scout and how it only comes into play later game. When I run into this on my maps, I usually put a nine mineral two gas expansion on the location that seems less likely to be a high yield expansion.

The high ground expansions are a nice touch to this map, and something that I haven't seem in SCII maps that much yet. I really like the idea!

Good luck for the MotM!

FlaShFTW

United States10025 Posts

January 06 2011 23:36 GMT

It looks beautiful.
Can a tank on the 4th high ground next to ur nat do damage to anything? id like to see the range. can the ledge directly out of the 3rd hit nething?

sob3k

United States7572 Posts

January 07 2011 02:02 GMT

cool, but I dont like the ridiculous glowing decals. They only look appropriate at the watchtowers.

I would also move the raised 3rd/4ths slightly more into the center to make it slightly harder to sit on 4base and use the map space in a more balanced way. Just a little though.

WniO

United States2706 Posts

January 07 2011 03:25 GMT

#10

really unique Barrin

prodiG

Canada2016 Posts

January 07 2011 03:35 GMT

#11

The fact that the map looks sort of like Glacial Spike is actually fucking sick. +999 points for that.

Koagel

Austria167 Posts

January 07 2011 14:06 GMT

#12

The best looking snow map I've seen so far.

Keep it up!

mangoloid

100 Posts

January 07 2011 17:33 GMT

#13

This map is badass. I hope it plays well.

I am torn between seeing the map as a glacial spike or a yeti face. :/

Oh, are the spike areas pathable?

Randomaccount#77123

United States5003 Posts

January 09 2011 04:05 GMT

#14

--- Nuked ---

Antares777

United States1971 Posts

January 09 2011 04:44 GMT

#15

^The most smily faces ever used in one post, directly above. No doubt about it.

Randomaccount#77123

United States5003 Posts

January 09 2011 06:30 GMT

#16

--- Nuked ---

KooKraw

United States8 Posts

January 09 2011 23:17 GMT

#17

The two offset mains remind me of scrap station, but I really like that the naturals are easily viewable from the high ground fourth, I bet that terrans and toss can use that to their advantage by making it hard for the Zerg to hold onto that first expo. I'm assuming you could hit that expo with a decently ranged unit.

mangoloid

100 Posts

January 12 2011 09:39 GMT

#18

I just played a game on this map (against a v easy comp, just to check out the terrain and the like). I discovered that if you build in those terrain depressions where the water is, the terrain shifts. That was distracting, and I am not sure I like it, tho the puddles add to the glacier atmosphere.

You did a very good job making it feel glacial. Having an ice tileset would obviously be better, but I was impressed with the overall aesthetics while playing this map.

However, having played around on it, I am now hesitant about the layout. I did not play a real game, so this is based on first impressions, but as I was wandering around the map trying to decide where important battle would take place, I felt that there was a lot of dead space, and that any given game would use only a very small section of the map, namely the shortest path between natural and natural. There is not much incentive to fight in the upper left portions of the map, and even tho players will be expanding there, they will probably feel most comfortably attacking towards the natural rather than towards the 3rd/4th, since all that space between naturals is so vulnerable to counters.

I will have to see some real games played on this before I make my final judgment. Hopefully I can find some in the map of the month chat channel.

baskerville

541 Posts

January 15 2011 23:14 GMT

#19

blatant MotMT bump