The Battle For Aran-Hyjal Grove

My new project, while I take a break from cinematics.

It's closest to an AoS *shame* but it isn't.

Units spawn, but rush down randomly chosen paths across an open(ish) battlefield (no lanes), towards the enemy castle.

There are lots of random events, varying from a big boss monster spawning (which attacks everyone), to a necromancer spawning, which causes the dead to rise as Zombies until you kill him, to reinforcements for either or both sides (depending on who's winning).

It uses a third person camera system (which is why it'll be unpopular), which you can rotate around with the arrow keys (which means it is actually playable).

There are three hero "Classes", melee, ranged, and mage.
You select which one you spawn as. When you die, that hero is gone, and you respawn at level one, with no items, but you can if you wish, choose a new class. The heroes won't grow that much in stats from level one to level ten, so it's not as big a loss as it might be.
Ultimates only become available at level ten, so they're very powerful.

CLASSES:
Mage:
VERY low health, good mana, int based caster.
Pulse Nova: Deals damage to a target and all units around it.
Energy Wave: Summons a wave of energy bolts which fly fowards from behind the hero. (Basically stampede, but with all the bolts coming in about half a second.)
Shining Aura: Grants greatly increased mana regen in a small area around the hero (Basically this turns him into a walking mana fountain.)
Heaven's Wrath [ULTIMATE]: Basically a short, high damage starfall. (May be replaced.)

Ranger:
Medium low health (Is probably going to be lowered more), medium mana, agi based range attacker.
Penetrating Shot: Deals great damage in a very thin line.
Stunning Shot: Stuns a unit for 0.5 seconds, and deals slight damage. Very low cooldown and mana cost.
Mistrun: Removes collision, allowing you to run through units, greatly increases movement speed, and looks awesome.
Troll Unguent [ULTIMATE]: After a three second delay, it heals you for 500 health over 10 seconds.

Champion:
Highest health of all, low mana.
Crescent Slash: Deals damage in a semicircle in front of the Champion. (Will get serious reworking, currently the area is too wide.)
Focus: Greatly increases attack rate for a short duration. No mana cost.
Deathblow: Deals large melee damage and stuns. Single target.
Thunder Fist [ULTIMATE]: Deals great AoE damage around the champion, and slows movement speed and attack rate by 90% for five seconds.

Screenshots later.

Hey looks like a good map. Can't wait to try out the map once it's released. Will you be adding more classes by the way?

I like the idea of an interactive (open) battle scene.

AOS & lanes is too static and getting dull for many people.

True. It could be really neat, especially because of the other refreshing element, less focus on heroes (with very few (but not too few!) hero classes, limited leveling and no ressurection). This could really be used to shift gameplay from the usual hero battles to tactical troop management. Like, if you added some banners or something with which you could affect troop movement in some way. If you like the idea, check my Era of War map, where I already tried to implement troop management into an AoS with the command hero classes.

Hmm.
My main aim was to create the feeling of being just another soldier in the huge battle, which is why heroes are so weak.
(I did however ensure that heroes only take half damage from spells, so it wasn't easier to kill another player than it is to kill a normal unit.)

There are two ways of winning: You can capture five Starstones, which spawn at a random point in the center of the map, one every five minutes. Once one spawns, it's pinged on the minimap. If someone picks it up, they will be pinged, and their movement and attack speeds are GREATLY slowed. If you kill the carrier, they'll drop the Starstone, and you can take it.

OR you can win the boring way, by destroying your opponant's base.

I plan to include the ability to buy upgrades for your army.
I MIGHT set it up so that when one team captures a Starstone, the OTHER team gets something they can put towards upgrades... Hmmm.

The starstones idea sounds like a map called ruins of domination (forgot the spelling) if i am not wrong. But its a nice idea. I love the 3rd person view idea in your map. I always wanted to make 1, it lets me imagine that i am in WOW battle grounds!

You should play mine. :)