PolyMD - Raising the bar for Tower Defense

PolyMD, short for Polymorph Matrix Defense, is for once a "unique" Tower Defense for Warcraft 3.
I will briefly list some information about the map in this post, because the bulk of the info can be found here:

http://wc3wiki.game-advance.net/wiki/PolyMD

PolyMD has 4 modes of gameplay, each of which use a different terrain. Gameplay can be further modified by applying Mutators, similar to Unreal Tournament 2004's Mutator design. Players use a combination of careful placement of towers, and careful selection of which towers, to defeat waves of oncoming creeps.

Again, a much more detailed description is available on the Warcraft 3 Modding Wiki article.

Download the latest version here:
Version 10 released: 2006-01-09 19:15:00 PST
Version 11 released: 2006-01-13 02:00:00 PST
http://svn.game-advance.net/wc3/Release/

PLEASE NOTE:
This map is in an alpha stage, many things do not work or are unfinished. Please leave any extensive or important comments or bug reports in the Talk page, located here: http://wc3wiki.game-advance.net/wiki/Talk:PolyMD

I'll throw it at my brother, he loves cunning TDs.

This sounds...intriguing. Get busy!

update released, it's got 5 playable levels now, which loop theoretically infinitely. Still only two towers, though. Also, Bounty Mutator works.

Wow, this is an extremely intriguing TD. Just tried it out then. I hope this doesn't become a failed project because I can see it being right up there with my favorites (Dirthoars back in RoC and Element/Green TD in FT)

Been atleast 6 months since ive posted here o.O

Version 11 has been released. It has Two-Way mode added...barely. Still many more releases to go, then even more for balance testing, before it becomes "done".

PS. My version numbers dont contain decimals...this is not version 0.11, its just version 11.

Still working on this... got the loading screen and minimap preview done:

Loading Screen:


Minimap Preview:

(preview says Version 15 because that is for the development version)

Unfortunatly, the map is now 1.46MB due to the images.

more soon.

What size are the images? Quality should definitely be sacrificed for size. (Are you using the one model loading screen?)

I tried several ways, none of them were acceptable quality. Converting the .tga image to a blp with quality set to 95 in Wc3 Image Extractor II created more artifacting than a jpeg saved from photoshop with "Low" quality, as well as being over 10 times larger than that jpeg. Right now i'm using the method with 4 seperate .tgas and using LoadingScreen.mdx from the Monolith map by blizzard.

Also, I'm point blank going to refuse to sacrifice quality for size. The loading screen is either going to be there with flawless quality, or not at all.

I have to disagree. If his map doesn't have a lot of imports, the size of the image shouldn't matter a huge amount.

You should try using Photoshop's "Save for Web" feature and save it in jpeg.
It greatly reduces the size without sacrifycing quality.

Why do ps noobs love masses of text in horrible fonts?

yeah except.... Warcraft 3 doesnt read jpegs, so that wont work.

and Whitehorn: if you dont like it, dont play it. i'm not forcing you to. but kindly keep it to yourself.

the font is Anrion (from Lord of the Rings). It's my first Photoshop work i've done. And what else would i put on it but text?

1.46 MB? 90% of which is for a loading screen? I can think of much better things to use that much import space for.

I was just in an Angel Arena game where about 8 people decided to stay and download the map, which turned out to be 3.08MB. needless to say, it took quite a while, however people will still willing to wait even though 99% of every Angel Arena map out there is totally rigged to hell. I think i'm safe with a 1.48MB map.

Also, an interesting note: After using vexorian's Wc3 Map Optimizer on the map, using compressed tga files makes the map archive bigger than using uncompressed tga files.