(12) The Desert of Exile

The Desert of Exile is a custom AoS map for WC3: The Frozen Throne created by Rising_Dusk with the help of a bunch of happy artist friends. It's a relatively new map as far as AoS maps go, and didn't aim to reinvent the idea of the AoS so much as just make what we already know funner.

The story is set 20 years prior to the events in Advent of the Zenith, my first AoS map.

Cool Features:

• 6v6 gameplay! (Whee)
• A condition system inspired by RPG games of old (Using GWs icons) that forces a higher level of teamwork in the map.
• 39 items in total!
• Nearly a dozen unique heroes for each team, some names might be from AotZ!
• I fixed all those nasty handle corruption bugs that AotZ had to deal with.
• A more graceful way to hire units, making huge pushes or spreading them out over time.
• The map is based around PvP, but done in a way that the game starts at level 1, and ends at level 18.
• Assistance given for hero kills! (Whee)
• Fun, hero-driven gameplay that keeps you interested!

The map features many exclusive skins created by members of this very community.
Special thanks to KrewL_RaiN, AnemicRoyalty, and Nirvana_87 for all the hard work they have put into the map.
The list of who did what is all in the map credits.

Bugs are rather infrequent in DoE.
Because of that, report anything you find fishy, it probably is something I've never known about.
Any help in making it better is appreciated.

The code is much cleaner than AotZ, and it lags far less.
It's the pinnacle of my ability as a mapmaker, and I'm damned proud of it.
Give it a try and tell me what you think!

I'll attach some screenshots when I remember to take a few.

DoE 1.08b Download

looks interesting...and with items, will have to give it a try


where do you go from here then...?

Well, if I ever make another AoS, it would be nothing like any AoS ever conceived before.
I'd change all of the basics, no more expos, no fountains, no assistances, hell, the goal wouldn't even be to kill the enemy base.
That's just a sample of what I might do.

However, there are other things I could do too.
Who knows?

Undead heroes aren't powerful enough and/or human heroes are too powerful.

(We did win, but hey.)

I was the Lich man... His abilities are fine, perhaps a little weak, but I never once used the... third one? Buffs an ally anyway, gief moar nuekz plz.

Fountains have no portrait camera, you lazy doodad-using scum.

EDIT: Ho yes, too many blood mages. And don't tell me they're reskinned, they're still blood mages inside. :<

EDIT TWO: Ho yes, it was quite fun otherwise. Was about ten hit-points off a double-kill by comboing all my abilities on two AI heroes. :<

Fun map, beautiful skins, cool spells and awesome effects.

Just wish you'd either:
-Broaden out the heroes a little bit, an innate or extra hero ability.
-Add a few more items (recipes would be nice), but then I know how you're against that.

Every other in-game model of a walking, male mage fails miserably as a hero.
And neither of the heroes that are blood mages would look half decent as a Furion edit.
Hence the use of 2 blood mages.

You'd be surprised how equal it is between people who think the human ones are too weak --
And those that find the undead ones too weak.
It's kind of amusing to see. :p

And Fulla, certain heroes may have potential for extra, but not every hero needs an innate or a 5th ability.
I find it silly to have so many things on a hero, having less means each ability needs to be more focused on a specific job.
That's better in my opinion than a bunch of obligatory spells, yanno?

Dang... I go away for a few months and come back to find you've already finished another AoS... I guess you've been working on it for a while and you've had the summer...

I'll definitely have to give it a try when I get back home.

I played this once when I saw it hosted on east, I played the runebear. I like him quite a bit, hard to anticipate because his immolation thing is every 4 seconds, not 1 so you cant see ur health draining it goes in big chunks and that with the axes and his ultimate can make for a few good kills. I had an 8 kill streak going until I had to die because there were no fountains to heal at.

What I really didnt like about the map was that you were completely crippled if you lost 1 lane. You lost a fountain and you lost all the spawns. I mean I realize this makes it a faster game but it also focuses a lot of importance on 1 push. I think it would be better if you had like half-spawns or something like that.

Actually, a lot of the games I play can be taken back from a loss of one base.
The point though, is that if you lose both bases you lose virtually all of the time.

Generally games end quickly though.
That was the original plan.

I'm curious: has Toink actually been helping you with this map... or is he just deluding himself into thinking he has?

At any rate, I played the ethereal-run guy (Elder of some sort; can't remember the name) and rather enjoyed it. It was 2v1 in my favor, so I wasn't really in PvP combat too much but the map was still grandiosely enthralling!

The latter, Toink has done absolutely no work on the map.

Wow... someone go smack him straight, then.

I downloaded the map and took some screenshots single player. In the last one, I think a word is cut off of the map description and this could probably be fixed by moving the website onto the same line as your name.

Actually the last screenshot is a result of your resolution for the game.
It shows perfect on my WC3.

Thanks for the screenshots, by the way.

Uhh.. what?

I never claimed to have helped, nor have I even mentioned DoE since wc3c came back up.