The Big Chill AoS: Public Beta!

Note that recent information info will always be the bottom post :)
Most Recent Version (As of 6/15/04)
TBC: The Oculus Wars v0.42

That's right, you heard us. Think of it as an early Christmas Present...

This is the reason you haven't heard a thing about the map in god knows how long. Couple of things to note before you download though. First, it's still effectively in it's BETA phase. That's B E T A incase you didn't hear it the first time. Things WILL be imbalanced, and some spells may be buggy. Most won't though (hopefully) however because we debugged the crap out of the map, and tested it through the roof.

Anyways, use this thread here for any suggestions/complaints/comments. Feel free to go nuts, but remember that we don't respond well to flames or over-excessive whining. If you think something sucks, or is busted, or over/underpowered than make a suggestion on how to fix it.

Feel free to host the map on bnet, infact we WANT you to. It wasn't meant to be played in singleplayer. And above all else have fun...


The Big Chill Features

16 Heroes (More will be added with time)

Over 60 trigger based spells and 6 triggered items.

The Occulus System:
7 buildings are scattered throughout the land. Capturing (destroying an enemy one) will give your side special abilities.

The Occulus: You side will be able to spawn super units (Minotaurs and Voidwalkers) that deal chaos damage. Its located in the central part of the map. Stays invulnerable for 3 minutes after capturing.

Obelesks of Control: Capture both of these, and you get control of the Occulus. There's one each on the top and bottom paths of the map. Wonder why these are useful? Well it allows you to take control of the Occulus, even while its invulnerable.

Obelesks of Power: Capture one of these for a global aura that increases the damage of all friendly heroes. Not only that, but it also acts as a tower. There's four of these, 2 on the top, and 2 on the bottom paths.

Obelesks of Protection: Capture one of these for a global aura that increases the defense of all friendly heroes. It too acts as a tower There's four of these, 2 on the top, and 2 on the bottom paths.

I don't know why you're still reading this. Download the map already and play!

Check farther down the thread for change in this version.

excellent map Sage and UltraM, I know you did all the spells and they were superb.. Its rare to find maps with such unique spells..

One thing I noticed while trying to play this on bnet was that 1 guy failed to load.. He was stuck during the loading screen for 10+minz, this forced me to close war3 and played it SP.. Unfortunately this also happened on my map occasionally, if you ever figure out what cause this, I would like to know.....

Played with 3 heroes, no bugs found......

Is Intensity in jass?? I've made a similar spell but I cannot get the movement animation right. If you have the time could you decode it for me?? I can PM that demo map.....

Gorgeous terrain and pretty fine gameplay, fellows. A nice map.

There were a couple minor spelling errors and Event messages at confusing times. Otherwise, the only problem I saw the first time through was that if the side that controls the Occulus destroys it, it displays both a "The Army of Whatever has gained control of the Occulus" and a "The Army of Whatever has lost control of the Occulus" message.

The evil army units seemed to do generally a little bit better than the good army units.

Slick selection system.

I couldn't find a way into the areas that seemed to lead to something interesting, generally because of a tree wall. Looking through the things that I could purchase, I didn't come across anything that would let me deal with that. What's the deal with these areas? Is there something else I haven't discovered yet, or are they waiting development?

Try harder :)

I only played the map single player but i did notice the occulus control pillars randomly change side occasionally. I found it odd because i wa son the other side of the map and the spawn units were fighting it out some distance down the path from it. Just thought ya migth like to investigate. Other wise an excelent map, the spells were excelent but i feel havign such long cool down on spells in an AOS can be a pain. Early on you often can only cast a couple of spells a minute which is a bit zzzzzzzz

Very nice spells, and a great original hero selection system.
Havent tried multiplayer, but it looks like pillar/occulus thing works well.
A working bouncing glaive hero ability 0_o0_o , nice terrain to

Changes in v0.30

MISC/GAMEPLAY:

-Lowered the cooldowns on Mostly every spell
-Added a host of new items. Over 10 new ones with new effects to choose from
-Fixed a bug that was not reselecting a unit upon teleportation
-Added timers to show how long until you respawn after death.
-Made 'Occulus' units a bit tougher.
-Unit upgrades have been added. For every 5 hero kills a team makes, their spawn units will gain a +3 base damage and a +35% hp increase. Each side can be upgraded 10 times. Upgrades happen automaticly.
-Spread towers out and made them tougher/last longer. Only 1 per position now however.
-Obelisks of Control now have a slight hp regeneration aura.
-Gold share is now in effect for people who leave. Whenever a unit of a person who has left the game gains gold, their remaining active temmates will recieve a % of it.
-Non-hero units now recieve upgrades every 5 hero kills: +2 damage and +5% hp.
-Fixed a bug that wasn't making Obelisks of Control invulnerable after The Koz'ak-Dramul takes over the Occulus
-Teleportation now has a 3 second charge time, down from 5
-Fixed a bug that was causing the notification message for taking an Obelisk of Control to only display 'Southern' no matter what obelisk it was.
-Restructured some triggers, this may cause an increase in map performance.
-Fixed a bug allowing the Burning Blade to select a hero.
-Fixed a bug allowing the Shokodan Master to become invulnerable.
-Fixed a bug that prevented the Desecrator's Damage from stacking.


DEFENDERS OF THE LIGHT:

-New hero 'Righteous Inflicition' added
-Fixed a bug that would allow Burning Blade's Blaze to fire off without actually casting the spell.
-Buring Blade's Ignite passive now has an increased chance of happening.
-Shadow Bow's Decoy mana cost reduced to 60. Cooldown reduced by 15. Duration reduced by 10.
-Shadow Bow's Strafe mana cost increased to 150.
-Illuminatus' Guardian Force lvl 2 duration fixed.
-Forestwalker's Earth Fury's AoE/Damage percentage reduced.
-Forestwalker's Ultimate is no longer disabled while in Root form.
-Fast forward (Now Quantum Leap) now drains less hp and gives less of a speed boost
-Fenris Maiden's Splinter Shot's chance to go off reduced to 15/20/25% per level
-Burning Blade's move speed is 300, down from 315
-Burning Blade's agility per level is now 1.25, down from 1.75
-Treant Spellbinder's Nature's Blessing replaced with the new ability Nature's Wrath that dispells summoned units to combat the increasing amount of Koz'ak-Dramul summon spells.
-Also added truesight to DoTL towers to combat Tormentor's ult.
-Also added wands of nuetralization to DoTL shops


Koz'ak-Dramul:

-New hero 'Gore Shoveler' added
-Necroweaver's Blood Golem shares 50% of damage, down from 100%, and damage healed to the Necroweaver has also been reduced.
-Mindrender's Psychokinesis damage nerfed
-Foresight's knockback distance has been halved
-Fixed a bug that made the Mindrender unable to use mass hysteria permanently after being rewound by a Chronoshifter.
-Tormentor now has -10 base damage
-Truesight items and towers with the truesight ability have been added to the game to help balance the Tormentor's stealth abilities some.
-Infernal War Machine's Incantation spell cost lowered to 25. Cooldown increased to 30 seconds.
-The Necroweaver's Mystic Deterioration ability has been replaced with Tourtured Souls, a passive summon skill. Mystic Deterioration now belongs to the new DoTL hero: Righteous Infliction.

Now for changes in the newest version 0.31:

DEFENDERS OF THE LIGHT:

-Reduced Burning Blade's armor by 1

KOZ'AK'DRAMUL

-Changed the Mitosis units' armor to Hero.
-Reduced Astral Projection's speed penalty.
-Fixed a bug involving Foresight and a rooted Forestwalker.
-Fixed a bug that made hero glow change to red after being hit by Cadaverous Massacration.

MISC:

-Reduced the hp and armor of spawn units, as well as increased the spawn rate. This change should improve the flow of combat a bit.
-Reduced the chance Armor of Storms will stun to 5%, decreased the armor by 1 and increased the gold cost to 1350
-Fixed numerous spell bugs that occured because of v1.13
-Reduced truesight's range on towers to 595.
-Fixed a bug preventing autocast spells from working properly.

Changes in v0.32:

DEFENDERS OF THE LIGHT:

-Pandamonium damage multiplier changed to 0.75/1.00/1.25
-Temporal Rift's speed reduction reduced at higher levels
-Treant Spellbinder's Nature's Wrath changed into a devour like spell.
-Frostfire's damage increased to 3/4/5.
-Explosion now damages buildings.
-Increased damage on Element of Chaos, but reduced stun to 0.5 seconds.
-Fixed the tooltip on Fenris Protector to show that it reduces all magic damage, not just 50% of it.
-Swapped the places of Intensity and Blaze.
-Fixed a bug preventing the Multishot icon from appearing correctly.

KOZ'AK'DRAMUL:

-Tourtured Souls changed to only happen when a friendly unit dies.
-Retribution now lasts for 30 seconds, regardless of level.
-Fixed a bug that allowed the undead base to be whirlwinded.
-Fixed a bug that would give summoned units to player 2 after Demonic Rage
-Soul Crush now effects buildings.
-Increased damage on Exodus.

MISC:

-Fixed bugs with items
-Fixed recoloring bugs.
-Reduced the hitpoints of all units, towers, and buildings to speed up gameplay.
-Buildings have been given hero resistance to magic.
-Increased the cost of the +15 damage items.
-Properly color coded Rings of Regeneration to show that they are magic items.

Changes in v0.33:

Defenders of the Light:
-Fixed the double bounce of Rough'n'tumble
-Stun duration on Heros is halved from Rough'n'tumble
-Shadow Bow has given new passive - Reflex, that adds agility and evasion / level
-Fixed a bug with Frost Fire that could decrease performance unnoticable by anyone but Ultra and I :)

Koz'Ak'Dramul:
-Vampiric aura on Blood golem set to 25,35,45%
-Changed the model of the Virulent
-Retribution has been reworked. For the target to take damage, it must be within 2000 range of the caster. However, running out of range doesn't just cancel the spell, you have to stay out of range for the duration, else you still run the risk of taking damage.

Misc:
-Increased the cost of all agility items by around 25%
-Increased the cost of Longevity to 1100.
-The map now uses a loading screen.

Changes in v0.33b:

Defenders of the Light
-Fixed a bug with Strafe removing the agility bonus from Reflex

Koz'Ak'Dramul
-Blood Golem duration set to 45 seconds, down from 60

Misc
-Fixed a coloring bug for some items

Since the map is beta, I guess it would be better on maps in development

It's actually more like a public beta now, but yeah... I suppose it's not really all that finished either, heh.

Changes in 0.34


Defenders of the Light:
-Pandamonium's duration reduced to 3 seconds (down from 5), and cooldown its cooldown has been decreased by 5 seconds. In addition, it should not suffer from the 3 hits to first target bug.
-We altered the way Intensity is cast, this may fix the not always doing damage bug.
-Explosion has gotten a new graphic, to appear more lighty
-The Forestwalker's Earth Fury has been replaced with Overgrowth. When cast, it deals aoe damage and then leaves a patch of weeds at the cast point that will slow any enemies that move through it.

Koz'Ak'Dramul:
-The Biological Terror has been reworked. He has lost the ability Spawn Broodlings and gained Sludge Mastery, which improves the strength of the Mitosis forms and Incubus minions. In addition, when learned, Incubus is available to the Sludge Thrower during mitosis.
-Astral Projection now has a constant duration of 8 seconds, but increasing damage on the Astral Projection itself
-Fixed a bug that caused Psychic Smash not to work
-The Desecrator's Mark of the Demon spell has been replaced with Infernal, and Blood Fury has been replaced with Demoralize. Also, Demonic Rage now effects the caster when cast.

Other:
-Rebalanced all non ultimates to use 4 levels. This will be a nerf for some spells and a boost to others. Check individual spells for more info
-Cleaned up the code and abilities a little.
-Added One Way teleporters closer to the enemy's base.
-Boosted move speed on nearly every hero
-Implemented a voting system for game length. At the start, players will vote for their preferential game setup (strong towers, normal towers, or no towers), and the one with the most votes will be used. If there's a tie, the game setup will be set to normal
-Fixed up the tooltips
-Fixed a bug that would change the color of the player's names
-Fixed a bug with controlling the Occulus and Obelesks
-Changed the selection info to display the heroe's name, main stat, a description, and then strengths and weaknesses instead of the heroe's abilities
-Implemented a limit on the number of repicks to fix a bug.

Now for the 0.34 bugfix version changes:

0.34b:
-Fixed a bug with Death Rattle and Explosion
-Might have fixed the No ultimate problem with Rewind, will look into this further if it comes up again.
-Fixed the coloring of the Illum
-Fixed a bug that caused the damage over time on Ignite to not occur
-Fixed a bug that allowed Mystic D to target friendlies

0.34c:
-Fixed a bug with capturing obelesks while having the occulus
-Fixed a bug that allowed unlimited souls with toutured souls
-Fixed a bug that only gave Astral Projection 3 levels
-Fixed a bug that prevented the Kozak's one way teleporter from workig
-Fixed some tooltip errors

0.34d:

Defenders of the Light:
-Explosion no longer effects buildings.
-Decreased the mana cost of Spontaneous combustion to 5 per second, down from 7.
-Fixed a bug causing the Chronoshifter and the owner of the hero to be light blue.
-Fixed a bug causing the Illuminatus to be teal instead of light blue.
-Fixed a bug causing Splinter Shot not to deal damage.
-Fixed a bug causing Blaze to not deal damage properly.
-Increased the damage of Guardian by 5 per level, and it now properly deals magic damage.

Koz'Ak'Dramul:
-Unholy Artillery now properly deals magic damage.
-Subterfuge cooldown increased by 10 seconds.
-Retribution's damage decreased by 10%
-Soul Crush no longer effects buildings.
-Decreased Ionic Displacement's cooldown by 90 seconds.
-Increased the speed of the Infernal War Machine by 25.
-The Infernal War Machine can now regenerate mana at a fountain.
-Fixed a bug preventing Retribution from being cancelled by Rewind and Fenris Shield.
-Fixed a bug preventing Repulsion from throwing units out.
-Fixed a bug with Gather Shadows and the Tormentor's regeneration rate.
-Fixed a bug causing Poison Gas Cloud not to work at level 4.
-Astral Projection deals 5 less damage per level

Misc:
-Battlethirst's damage duration increased by 10 seconds.
-Gold penalty for dying reduced to 30/level, down from 50/level.
-Fixed a bug causing a double spawn at the start of the game.
-Might have fixed bugs causing certain sounds not to play.
-Fixed a bug causing the Monoliths of Power not to add extra damage.

Yep, we finally released v0.40 of the map.
Admittedly, I only have a brief overview of all the new stuff.

We've got:
New Terrain
Skins by Insomnia Graphics
4 New heroes
Improvements to some older heroes
Town Guards - Who attack enemies if they get close to your base
And creeps.
A new hero selection inspired by Lord Vexorians too!