Xel'gralah

Available on EU
Non EU players can Download here
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

Theme
Basically I went for an ancient Xel'naga Shangralah.
Textures are mainly a mixture of Monlyth and Aiur tilesets, though one texture from belshire (light grass) is used.

Change Log
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Fixed build grid in 11 and 5 positions
Fixed Spawn that where XWT allowed for blink up
Moved Spawn expo closer to the front

Map Stats

2 player
size: 144x144
x10 blue expos
x2 gold expos
x4 Drox (1 on each gold and 2 blocking routes)
x2 XWT
Ramp2Ramp rush time = 38secs (Marine speed)

Map Features
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Destructible Xel'naga Debris
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High Ground
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These high ground areas are there for 2 reasons.
1. Most obviously, the one at the gold can be used for tank drops (and such). The one at the XWT if used can allow you to permenantly hold the tower.
2. They both serve defensive purposes as well, helping cover the micro areas leading into your part of the map.
Both high ground areas can be seen if someone gets the XWT.

LOS
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LOS bushes, though the waters edge is there to further indicate the LOS line, this is to break up the large micro area visionwise to make things more interesting and to allow players make use of during micro battles.
The trees are also LOS and Path blockers. These are physically there to break up the large micro area a little bit.

Map View
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HQ Image Here

Game View
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HQ Image Here

Map Analyzer
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old analyzer+ Show Spoiler +

Expos

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Spawns
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Natural
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Third
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Gold Expo
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Other Expos
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Aesthetics
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HQ Image Here
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HQ Image Here

zeross

France310 Posts

April 10 2011 00:41 GMT

The map is good

i like the layout

I think the aesthetics of the water base is a bit weird. there is a little problem with the very botom right expansion (a building grid that seemed quite strange to me).

And you should move a little bit the XWT because you can blink from the low ground with one :

[image loading]

Zestypasta

United States61 Posts

April 10 2011 04:14 GMT

nice, i would recommend making it bigger thus spreading everything out.
reminds me of match point. great map

Yoshi Kirishima

United States10292 Posts

April 10 2011 04:43 GMT

Wow, very interesting map...

just from looking at it (meaning this may be completely inaccurate) the middle looks too tight/hard to break, but the layout of the map allows air to be useful, given how the bases are layed out

this seems really great :D

For the middle, consider putting the towers on the low ground? (same location)

That way the lower ground will have an easier way to fight there? just to throw out ideas

Archivian

United Kingdom362 Posts

April 10 2011 05:22 GMT

On April 10 2011 09:41 zeross wrote:
The map is good

Those issues have now been fixed. Thanks for noting it.

SaltyDog

Uganda73 Posts

April 10 2011 09:38 GMT

The first time I had the idea of putting pathable ground under shallow water, I was so exited I almost soiled myself. On reflection, the game isn't designed to have units running around in water and consequently there are no ripple animations making it look kind of odd in-game.

Huzzah for destructable anything that isn't rocks or standard debris btw (as long as it isn't too easy to destroy).

Nice map x

Archivian

United Kingdom362 Posts

April 10 2011 17:33 GMT

On April 10 2011 13:43 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Wow, very interesting map...

just from looking at it (meaning this may be completely inaccurate) the middle looks too tight/hard to break, but the layout of the map allows air to be useful, given how the bases are layed out

this seems really great :D

For the middle, consider putting the towers on the low ground? (same location)

That way the lower ground will have an easier way to fight there? just to throw out ideas

By middle do you mean the center on the path? If so, that was not designed as a for micro battles(thats pretty much the rest of the map) instead its more of a through way between both halves of the map. It can be held, at which point it can be hard to break, and from there you can strike out at both sides and gain some serious vision advantage, but if you concentrate physically your toops there then it opens up the rest of the map.

I was going for alot of movement on this map, with easy ability to switch up your route. The more of the path you own, the better chance you have of cutting off the route "switchability" of the the opponents routes. The hardest route to cut off would of course be the path of expansions.

On April 10 2011 18:38 SaltyDog wrote:
The first time I had the idea of putting pathable ground under shallow water, I was so exited I almost soiled myself. On reflection, the game isn't designed to have units running around in water and consequently there are no ripple animations making it look kind of odd in-game.

Huzzah for destructable anything that isn't rocks or standard debris btw (as long as it isn't too easy to destroy).

Nice map x

I was thinking that about the water, but I found I didnt tend to notice the non rippling during battles and focused more on the water effects when looking at my base and not much was going on. That being said it would be nice if the workers rippled the water, though you do see reflections in the water.

The destructible Xel'naga Debris has the same HP/armour as 6x6 destructible debris/rox. so destroying it will be the same as normal rox. The difference is purely asthetic in being xel'naga and in its death animation (its a bit of a bigger boom as it is Xel'naga tech

McCain

United States187 Posts

April 10 2011 17:58 GMT

I could be wrong, but it looks like it takes a TON of creep tumors to connect the main and the nat. Not the easiest thing for Zergs to deal with.

Archivian

United Kingdom362 Posts

April 10 2011 18:57 GMT

On April 11 2011 02:58 McCain wrote:
I could be wrong, but it looks like it takes a TON of creep tumors to connect the main and the nat. Not the easiest thing for Zergs to deal with.

it takes 3 tumors to reach the nat. I was thinking about bringing the minerals more forward to make space for drops behind the minerals, it would also decrease the tumors to 2. There would also still be enough space for terran to build. But I wasn't sure if doing something so players can drop your base a little easier is a good thing.

any feed back on this idea?

EDIT:
I just watched a QXC match... serious drops. Awesome.

Im gonna change it :D

Edit:
Map has been updated and uploaded, DL link has been updated, Analyzer images has been updated.