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First thread. Be gentle on me, ya'll. Zhakul Sacrilege is a cross spawn two-in-one map created for the TL Map Contest. Rocks block the quick route through the center of the map. The idea was to create something of a hybrid with long scouts initially, but quick army movements mid to late game. This makes timing attacks very powerful, and encourages early expansions without ditching the need for good scouting. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GaNs4qG.jpg) The scout timings are also consistent across both spawn positions on the map, Which I felt was important to making a map of this kind predictable enough for competitive play. 75 seconds for mains, 60 seconds for naturals. Uploaded: NA, EU, KR Gameheart ready + Show Spoiler [Screenshots] +
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To preface I am, at best, a bad novice map maker so take what I type with a grain of salt, or whatever the age old ass saving cliche is.
First, the good.
I like that you made the gold and nat distance kind of long between the NW and SE spawns. It allows air harass to run back and fourth between the two bases, while defenders by ground will have a bugger of a time going back and fourth. That makes taking that third base a very calculated risk.
Terrans are forever in your debt, because you made all of the spawns difficult to blink into, but you balanced this out by letting toss have an easier third base in all of the spawn locations.
Both sets of towers seem to be really cool. However, I feel that only one set is necessary, having both seems like it would just be too easy for the player who is already ahead to super win because they are omniscient.
Your texturing and doodad use is actually kind of cool to look at. 
The bad.
When it comes to map making, generally long straight lines are not very pleasing to the eye. For instance, your NE and SW spawns nat. It has all of the pieces that a nat should and it should be a very good nat, but it feels too square. The bridge between the nat and the rest of the map doesn't feel... natural. The texture is green, which indicates that it's mostly natural area. I understand that you counterbalance this by making the cliffs manmade cliffs and even have an obvious manmade lake next to it, but if you are going to keep the land bridge in its current form you are going to have to change the texture there to something that screams "this is a bridge". Try bricks there or something. Or maybe keep the current texturing there and just widen up one end of the bridge.
I understand that you are trying to use the lake to make attacks at the natural 4th (5th?) base of the NW and SE positions a barrier to keep attacks by ground at bay, but once again the long lines just make the lake and the base seem just odd to look at.
The next biggest violator of aesthetics, but not necessarily wise map design is the SW and NE spawns natural 3rd (4th?) bases big thing that juts out. It looks like a solid place to put siege tanks that would be supported by the watch tower, but... it just looks ugly. Maybe shrink it down a bit, to open up more room for armies to move.
Overall the base layout seems fairly decent and the mix of cardinal and normal ramps is commendable, but I feel that most of your maps problems are just coming from the way the shape of your bases look. Instead of being the familiar and comfortable round shapes, which makes little sense, your bases are more squared. Once your map is a little more round, then a whole new set of problems will expose themselves (simply, because thats how map making works.  ).
I like how its coming thus far though. I know it will take time to retexture stuffs, but don't worry, you can do it.
EDIT: Check these maps out and take a look at how their bases look.
http://teamcrux.tistory.com/
The maps are at the very bottom in a line.
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Nice name. I think you could give it a little back story by having some Protoss religious statues and things, or sacred pools or something, to make it seem like a place people shouldn't be mining.
I agree about the straight lines. The top right base and its mirror feel really awkward and small.
Textures, aesthetics are awesome. Layout awesome too.
How about some shrubs and things to block line of sight?
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A few notes...
- Mains can be larger since there is no need to have such a large chasm between main and low ground; the main concern would be blink play but in poth positions stalkers need to take a detour so the defender can reposition reasonably quick anyway.
- I like the position of the golds; maybe add another ramp to the base at the edge of the map though? For ling runbys etc.
- I like the backdoors because I always like backdoors.
- I'd use organic cliffs in the centre of the map and make the cliff shape there a little less straight.
- Texturing is great, mostly because of the use of local lights.
- Mineral line shapes are unusual. They don't look bad, but there is an established standard and I'd suggest following it. If only we had square or circular minerals...
- Horizontal ramps are fine, vertical ramps are not. Diagonal ramps are always better.
- 20 bases seems a little much; I think this map would profit from being smaller.
- Analyser picture?
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Awesome texturing, I'll need to play it to comment on the layout
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BhYvgQU.jpg)
It has all of the pieces that a nat should and it should be a very good nat, but it feels too square. The bridge between the nat and the rest of the map doesn't feel... natural.
Fixed. The temple wall now breaks away into natural cliff to add some curves, and the bridge has been spruced up a bit.
Mains can be larger since there is no need to have such a large chasm between main and low ground
I expanded the main slightly, enough to add room for an additional producing structure or two. Any more and I feel blink would be too hard to control for Terrans.
I like the position of the golds; maybe add another ramp to the base at the edge of the map though? For ling runbys etc.
I like this idea but I want to mull it over a little longer before I commit to a layout change. Thanks.
How about some shrubs and things to block line of sight?
Already in. There are LOS blockers by the Watch Towers. The temple walls and trees near the NE and SW thirds also act as LOS blockers.
Thanks to all for constructive feedback. Additional suggestions are always welcome.
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Really beautiful and unique impression with the aesthetics, nice job, I find it quite striking.
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Candy for eye and mind alike. Wow.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
I'm no expert, but looks pretty nice to me
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This is a very good first map, though I do agree with most of the criticism others have posted. In my opinion the biggest flaw is the number of bases - 20 is definitely too much. The lower- and uppermost bases at 12/6 can easily be removed. From here you could leave it at 18 bases, but personally I think you should then find 2 sets of bases to combine to get the base count down to 16 (more consistent with existing 4p large macro maps such as Whirlwind/Frost).
Also the top right/bottom left mains are small and awkward. These can easily be expanded into the unused space in the corners to fix this problem.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ROo8GFy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Rnp3WdM.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N3Mhzgn.jpg)
