ABOUT W3ARENA MAPS

First of all, thanks to all people of good will who are helping out with this maps improving project. Beside great W3Arena admin team, Pad and DeathWing, there are several players who are daily testing the maps that I edit and their games and suggestions are very helpful.

I decided to write this article to give you heads up about stuff I am going to change and how and why I am going to change it. 

After more than 10 years of existence, gameplay in Warcraft 3 has became pretty much monotonic. This rarely happens in games that have higher attention from its developers, but in our situation in which our developer, Blizzard, haven't done a single change for last 8 years or so it is pretty safe to say that we are playing the very same game in the very same ways like it was done 8 years ago. Sure, people are playing better and certain strategies have been improved, but in most cases maps and races have been exploited to the maximum and players are stuck on the same way of playing. To be exact - META game has nowhere to go and no room to expand unless we change something.

Only two aspects of the game can be changed - game preferences and the map pool. By changing game preferences such as armor types, unit costs and similar things we would change the game completely. Nobody wants that simply because it is a nonsense task because our main interest is to improve the game and not to change the game. That's why the only aspect of the game that make sense after being changed is the map pool. I wrote this to explain some of those who don't understand why are we doing this.

It is not easy to change the map and to improve it. It is not just - put this tree there, put this shop there, change that item to this one and so on. To improve the map, one has to possess great experience and perfect game knowledge of past and current versions, races, META games, popular strategies and ability to look forward in specific match ups. Without any modesty I'll say that I am the perfect man for the job. I really think very deep before making any changes and I only make changes which will, in my belief, change the game so it becomes better.

To make it clear to whiners who will definitely whine about changes - I do accept constrictive criticism and suggestions. I do that every day on W3Arena when testers finish their games. I ask them what they think about specific positions, objects and items. You are all welcome to play the map and say what you think about it. However, you have to compare it with the previous version and not to the imaginations you have in your head. It is impossible to make a perfect thing but it is very likely to make better versions of the current maps.

I understand that people will have hard time accepting some changes. Most of players have hard time adapting to new ways of playing, have hard time learning and hold guard to other people's ideas. I understand that. What I want you to understand is that I am editing these maps to make them better and by making them better your games and your play will be better.

I talked to Pad about expanding the map pool. He agreed that it is a good idea. Right now there are 10 maps to be played on W3Arena ladder. I searched through my old maps database and found some good old maps which have potential to be edited. Without them, I've made the list of the maps that will surely take part in the new map pool once their edit is finished.

Maps created by community members

1. Outskirts made by ZeN
2. Rift Valley made by S_A_I_B_O_T
3. Ruined Rainbow made by MBoHeRo

Maps imported from the expansion 

1. Secret Valley
2. Twisted Meadows
3. Turtle Rock
4. Echo Isles

Maps from battle.net ladder map pool

1. Lost Temple
2. Gnoll Wood
3. Tranquil Paths
4. Scorched Basin
5. Legends

When I started to study maps I realized that maps made by community members are pretty amazing and that Outskirts and Rift Valley are outstanding maps. Even now, without any changes, these two maps are pretty ready for amazing games. Last few days I spent some time thinking about improving Ruined Rainbow from MBoHeRo (I hope he wont mind) and I think I found the way to make it better, wider and playable for all races.

The hardest task will be maps that are imported from the expansion. These maps were made for TFT gameplay and bringing them into ROC without good changes only make boomerang effect. When I firstly brought Secret Valley into ROC 4 years ago for the sake of W3CUP I was the one to put Goblin Lab in that middle simple because I didn't know what else to put there. Now, after years of certain race dominance and popular strategies there were exploited there I realized how I want it to be changed. I think I succeeded and I hope that I will be that successful with other TFT maps. Talked with S_A_I_B_O_T yesterday and we both agree that the active ROC version of Twisted Meadows is the ugliest, most imbalanced, useless map and needs drastic changes. In my opinion next to it is Turtle Rock and right after it Echo Isles.

Last but not the least are the maps from battle.net map pool. I am sure that 99% of ROC players believe that Lost Temple is the most balanced and the best map. Guess what, I found the way to improve it and I am still trying to find the way to balance some things on it. Testers were also thrilled by the changes and they agreed that this new version is much better than the official one.

That's it for now. Come on W3Arena and test out the maps and share your opinion about the maps.