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Look at my avatar. A few of you may know what this is from. Most will not. Probably because it shut down several years ago. But those were fun times while they lasted.
Finally got around to playing The Undead's Return by Ty, here's my review for it:
==ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE==
Okay so first off, I was going to comment on having to deal with enemies right out of the gate without a weapon, but since there's lava you can punch them into I guess it's not too bad. The block var in this area seems a bit plain, but I'm not an expert on aesthetics (especially natural things) so I'm not sure if you could've used something else. Maybe endstone in the walls? I dunno. Anyways, the red sand bridge part was a bit unnerving, but kinda cool.
==BREATHING DESERT=
The little structures are kinda neat, they aren't too elaborate but not plain either. I should learn from these. I see that chest down there in that hole. How to get it... welp, guess I'm digging. Fortunately you gave me a handy new pick right when mine was running low. How nice of you. ...Or not. Dangit Ty, you made me waste some of my pick. >:( Oh hello bow guy, I was wondering when ranged skeles were going to come into play. Unfortunately for you, I have a shield. Mwahaha. Man, another pick right when mine was running out. Are you psychic or something? Ah-ha, finally a bow. Not only do I have a shield, I got range now too. Who's laughing now, boneheads? Moving on... Sharp 1 book in the ender chest, huh? Neat. Oh hey, an anvil, how convenient. And an enchant table? Really? It seems really early for you to give one of those out. I mean I can't use it because no lapis, but still. I'll just take that stuff with me, thank you very much. Hi there blaze. Have some arrows to the face. I'm assuming that's the woolbox over that way. Okay there are like six blazes here and I'm out of arrows and I can't really progress much at all because they're all shooting me and ugh. Ty pls. Y u do dis. I was enjoying the map until this point. Took me forever to finally push through them and now I'm basically out of food, plus all my armor's almost busted. Fortunately I got two carrots from the zombies so worst case I can farm carrots (assuming I find dirt somewhere), but that's annoying.
==ROWDY VILLAGE==
Officially ran out of food like 2 minutes into the area, and I see no dirt anywhere to grow carrots. Seriously guy. I would honestly trade this lapis for food right now. Okay finally found some bread, sheesh. Would it have killed you to put it a bit earlier? I kinda needed it. Aesthetics are pretty nice, again somewhat simple but they work. Hel-lo enchant table. Left the area with a sharpness 3 iron sword, efficiency 3 iron pick, power 4 bow, and protection 3 iron pants. Awww yeah baby. By the way, never fell down in the first part. Skillz.
**SERENITY?**
The bridges here seem really plain. Just thought I'd note that. Oh god, silverfish? Seriously? You know silverfish in 1.9+ are terrible. Holy dang these jockeys are fast. And witches too? Please guy. Spectral creepers, eh? With short fuses, ouch. Sharp 1 iron sword? Pssh, I have sharpness 3 iron. Get on my level scrub. Man, a power 4 bow is awesome at this point, I can two-shot basically every single mob. Two witch spawners practically next to each other? Not cool man. Especially when one hits you with 45 seconds of poison and you have other crap to deal with. Ugh.
==Green Wool==
I missed the area completely at first, so I think the entrance might be a bit too hidden. The opening swimming section felt empty and just boring, there was really nothing there. At least it wasn't that long. The outdoor portion was alright, but to be honest it felt a lot like gray wool. I liked the interior portion though. The fact that I came back for this area later meant my gear was pretty OP, so I kinda steamrolled this area lol
==Yellow Wool==
Again, I think the entrance is slightly too off the beaten path; I never even looked up here. Oh, I'll tell you what this reminds me of: Legendary. I forget the wool color, but there was one area where the entrance passageway was filled with cobwebs. Ugh. Combine this with Zombie Apocalypse and you practically have Legendary Nah, jk. Anyway, pyramid itself is pretty cool. I kinda wish I would've played this map before the jam, it likely would've helped my interior design quite a bit, at the very least to make it more varied.
==GATEWAY TO THE END==
The darkness effect was cool at first, but it got kinda annoying fast because it made it hard to tell exactly where enemies were. Case in point, spiders were pretty much invisible, so I had to basically swing blindly. This was after I had gotten swarmed by the zombies and was down to like 3 hearts. Then the ghasts came, and somehow I was out of arrows even though I swear I had a bunch. I'll be honest, this is giving me Pneumatica flashbacks, except even worse since I'm practically blind (in case you don't remember, Pneumatica is cyan wool from Painter). It got a lot better near the end with the glass, but it kinda made my eyes hurt after I got out. I do appreciate that you don't take any knockback though. Without that, this area would've been a nightmare.
Overall really fun map, though a few spots were a bit hairy and questionable for me. I feel like my mapping skills have improved slightly just by playing the map. Kinda want to build a new map now lol. Anyways, here's a screenshot of victoriousness:
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Speedrunner and Let's Player. You can see my speedruns here.
Alright, so this thread being the place to talk about CTM, I thought I'd share a little.
...no, I'm not a map maker... I sort of wish I had the skills and time for that, but...
I've never beaten a CTM map. Sure, I've attempted several, but never actually completed that monument.
The closest I've ever gotten that I recall was Vechs' Sunburn Islands going solo, and of course that sounds pathetic, but yeah. Other maps I've attempted, some alone, some with a friend, include Simulation Protocol 2, Uncharted Territory 2&3, The Painter, and even Pantheon (mostly just to see how brutal the beginning was... and it certainly delivered), among many others, all of varying amounts of progress and legit play.
Most of the time, it's the same story: I (or my friend) gets bored, and we/I move on to something else, thinking we/I might come back to it later, but never actually doing so.
...so now here I am, starting Vinyl Fantasy I & II, once again mostly for kicks and nostalgia, paying no heed to their supposed difficulty.
Actually, I was gonna try Ragecraft III, but those herobrine zombies in the first area are just too much for me ;-;
TL;DR I'm an individual sitting on the fence between "n00b" and "veteran," who now plays maps not for a serious attempt at completion but for casually trying new/old things for the heck of it.
What are some of the maps you guys might be attempting, maybe seriously, maybe just to see how much pain you'll find yourself in? Or is this more of a builder's thread, rather than a player's thread? I was never quite sure...
One map I could recommend for being fairly easy and fun is Terra Restore, for 1.8, by Mithey.
This can include simple stuff like tools and wood or more complicated stuff like a well-balanced difficulty curve and an introduction to the style and themes of the map.
I see this thread is not as lively as it used to be. For those who are on the CTM discord (from what I have read, I suppose there is one), are things any better there or has the CTM community died?
Nevermind, I found the discord and there seems to be some hope. Yay!
I see this thread is not as lively as it used to be. For those who are on the CTM discord (from what I have read, I suppose there is one), are things any better there or has the CTM community died?
Nevermind, I found the discord and there seems to be some hope. Yay!
Yeah, the discord is much more active. It would be nice if more people kept up to date here as well, since the discord is not as visible and gives people the wrong impression that the community is dying/dead, when really it just sort of moved.
I think that a good starting area sets the tone for the map. Lately I've also felt that first areas should be more survival oriented. I think it is hard to do that throughout a map now just because it would be hard to balance really limited resources throughout a full map, but for a first area I think you can really keep things scarce to keep the player on their toes. Eventually in a map the player will either be really good and have a ton of extra gear, or really bad and have lost everything except maybe the basic gear, but in the first area both players would be on the same level gear wise.
Yeah, for those worrying the thread is dead, we have over 160 people on the Discord with loads of discussion happening daily, map-making, map-playing, map-discussing, and fun community events happening all the time!
Yeah, for those worrying the thread is dead, we have over 160 people on the Discord with loads of discussion happening daily, map-making, map-playing, map-discussing, and fun community events happening all the time!
When you talk like that, you almost make me want to come back to the community.
Yeah, for those worrying the thread is dead, we have over 160 people on the Discord with loads of discussion happening daily, map-making, map-playing, map-discussing, and fun community events happening all the time!
And only half of that discussion is complaining about jam themes, the other half is all good stuff!
Hey, I want to play a classic style CTM, but, there's any of this kind recently created? A map like SP, UT or Ragecraft, of this year, I want to play them again but I don't know what happened to the community this months
Hey, I want to play a classic style CTM, but, there's any of this kind recently created? A map like SP, UT or Ragecraft, of this year, I want to play them again but I don't know what happened to the community this months
(Sorry if I had a bad english, I speak spanish)
Most of the community is on the Discord, and we have most discussion there these days!
-Whirling Phenomena (Map Version 1.1, Minecraft Version 1.11)
Difficulty: 11/10 Overall Enjoyment: 1
A short summary of my experience with this map.
This map is huge! That means it has huge guts! RIP AND TEAR!
…*ahem*
This map is a horrific, bloated, and terribly unbalanced mess – a map with very little checks and balances, excessive mob spam, randomized loot and so many other problems that I can only feel sorry for any poor soul who thought this would be a good map to play. This map is one of the worst maps I have ever played, and you should know exactly why.
Comments: Warning - Map Spoilers (duh) and Wall of China.
Good lorde, where do I start with this map? A map with problems that pile on more problems to try and create “difficulty.” A map that thinks inventory wipes in the early stages of the game with very little resources is perfectly okay. A map that proves that size does matter in that if it’s super large and long, then you’re not going to have a good time.
This... is Whirling Phenomena. Now let’s rip through this mess of a map.
The first problem is one that becomes obvious once you start the map: Everything’s too big! The starting area (Surface Blast) has more space than a football stadium, and there’s nothing to break up the emptiness except for a couple of dilapidated houses. Later areas continue this trend, with areas like Alchemical Cove and Floodgate Fortress being way too large for their own good.
This is just one massive, long bridge of Floodgate Fortress. There's more where that came from.
That only exacerbates the next problem: The map doesn’t give you enough resources. While at later stages in the map there are ways to circumvent this problem, at the early stages (think First intersection) this can be absolutely lethal. Extremely large areas with plenty of darkness for natural spawns makes traversing and dungeoneering a chore, and that’s also not helped by the occasional inventory wipe traps that exist.
It also doesn’t help that the loot is completely randomized. By a loot table. Yes, the loot you get in most chests is determined by RNG. You could be hoping to find a bit of bread in one of your chests, though you’ll usually just find 7 Powered Rails, 11 Regular Rails, 27 Brick Blocks, 3 Spider Eyes and 2 Gunpowder. Any food that does come out is handed in morsels, which doesn’t help when areas are as large as football stadiums. Chests are just loaded with garbage that I’d never use in any stages of the game, and better equipment and gear is randomly doled out. Not even Yogg-Saron can help you here.
Yes, these Flower Pots and Daylight Sensors will really help me. Yes, really. Such a help.
It’s also a pain in the bum to build railways everywhere due to the sheer scale of the map. Yes, you heard me right, Railways. You think after being able to start using teleportation in MC 1.4 and beyond, we’d finally be able to start teleporting people instead of having players waste eons creating railways that only prolong the playtime in an extremely un-fun way. Due to the size of areas and location of railways, building them and making them is its own kind of pain and suffering. At one point, the railway location to/from one area was so long that I just cheated in a command block and made coordinate teleporters because it is that bad.
Actual map balance is also something that is basically non-existent. There’s no honeypots to limit natural spawns, loot is usually handed in a box of RNG, and mob swarming is a common thing in this map. The mob swarming in this map is made worse by the fact that it uses 1.9 combat, so either you spam click doing little damage in hopes of escaping, or you slowly time your hits and wait for the mobs to consume you like slime. Also, there’s no shields in the first four dungeons. Yes, you heard me: NO SHIELDS – something that is basically absolutely required in the early game due to the broken skeletons. (Do note that if there is actually one this early in the map, please tell me since I never saw a shield until Intersection II) Thankfully, Fort Tomber (the third dungeon) plentifully makes use of skeletons by the boatload, so… there’s that.
There's nothing like mob swarms in 1.11 to really dampen the mood.
In addition to the regular monument, there’s also the bonus banner monument, that when all gathered together reveals a special secret, and by secret I mean coordinates. Coordinates that lead to a special trading place that let you buy all the stuff you want. FOR STICKS. Yes, you can buy diamonds, mob spawners and spawn eggs, and Intersection V loot boxes with all the RNG you could want FOR STICKS. I didn’t even fully complete the banner monument. I only had about twenty of them when I guessed where to go and found it. The moment you find this area is the moment the balance for the map pretty much shuts down as you can buy whatever you want or need for some tree branches.
The only hard thing about finding the banners is you need to get one to be able to start gathering the others. I only got one because I happen to spot something obvious in one area of the map – some other banners you’d never know were there unless you had the clue. Example: The one at the monument is super obvious when you see it, but the one at Intersection 1 has no indication as to where it is. At the point you find your first one, you get a clue that pretty much spells out the location of the next one for you. You’d have to be an idiot to not know where the clues take you to – they’re not cryptic, they’re not mysterious, and not subtle in the slightest way.
Anyone want to take a guess? Anyone? I don't think you could guess it, could you?
Two boss battles exist in this map, and the difficulty variance is super high. The first one (in yellow) is super-easy: Nothing but a wither skeleton with some added health and whatever natural spawns appear. The later one in red, on the other hand, is absolutely hellish. In addition to a boss that deals about 2.5 hearts with full diamond armor while wearing Protection FIVE diamond armor, is immune to arrows and had enough health to be considered for a role in The Division as a boss fight, he spawns in a bedrock diamond-shaped room (way to be creative) that also has Flame Bow specter skeletons (a.k.a strays) that ride on bats, charged creepers and witches. Put that all together and you have one of the grind-iest bosses I’ve ever faced in Minecraft: he’s so grind-y he belongs in a bad MMO.
This map also loves to just kill you and clear your inventory. There are plenty of traps where you run the risk of dying and losing everything, either to lots of TNT, lava or void. There’s no in-between as to the danger of the traps in this map. They are either super obvious and easily avoided or disarmed, or super hidden and you won’t see coming at all. Even the final dungeon has an inventory wipe, and it involves a bed and a floor of glowstone. You can already guess where this is going.
Aesthetically, everything is either too bland or too colorful. The walls of most places are only of one kind, and when they’re not they are a terrible mix and mish-mash of blocks without rhyme or reason like in Cemetery of Ash. Caves and caverns were either over-smoothed or had obvious brushstrokes – no middle ground. Also, most of the buildings are boxes – nothing but boxes with some little ornaments like rail-guards and archways. The only thing I did like the look of was the building in Alchemical Cove, but even that was still box-y and blandly colored. But other than that, everything else was either bland or an absolute eyesore – so bad that I wouldn’t be surprised if I need to see an Ophthalmologist in the next few days.
You were destined for... greatness? No, I meant blandness. Extreme blandness.
On a brief side-note, some people may ask me: Is this map worse than NTWICCTM? Well, I’m gonna say yes, it is. NTWICCTM started good and got worse as it went on. This map started terribly… and got worse as it went on. The final dungeon of this map was on a level that matched NTWICCTM’s horrid slugfest, though I imagine some could see it as being even worse. And I’ll tell you all about it.
1. The first part is climbing a poop volcano. This part is fairly easy if you’ve got the wing set in Cemetery of Ash, which I did.
2. The next part, once you reach the top, is Pain Waters 2.0. Yes, that area from Legendary by Vechs, but much worse because:
a. There are Guardians that swim in the water and lava, so you’re getting blasted by lasers from every direction. Hope you got some good food and armor!
b. There’s no air pockets. There’s no chance of getting air so you better bring some Water Breathing potions (or just have a creeper in Lime Wool explode and get infinite water breathing from that)
c. You’ll also want fire resistance since the Guardians with all their lasers will be shooting you all over the place. It’s impossible to keep straight when you have ten lasers locked onto you at all times.
Fun.
3. Once you get through that and fall into a pool of lava (or, if you’re like me, used an ender pearl), you cross a big bridge over void with natural spawns. Nothing too hard.
4. You then reach a fake wool box that has a path behind it with lots of pressure pads and brown carpet. I imagine some of it is booby-trapped. There’s also a bed at the end of this hallway… in the Hell biome. Over glowstone. Over the void. Another inventory wipe, and right in the middle of the final dungeon!
5. Next comes a square plaza-like area with lots of square buildings and cubes in the middle. Lots of natural spawns and mob swarming here! Behind that is a bedrock castle, as in just bedrock. Oh, and all the mineral blocks you could want. And more mob swarms with ghasts, blazes and custom zombies. Exploration is easy if you still have the wings.
6. Once you reach the top, you have to go down into a room full of punch skeletons and charged creepers. One of the spawners hides the path downwards into a room full of shulkers and shulker spawners. Hope you brought some TNT.
7. After that, you enter into bedrock halls with many charged creepers and charged creeper spawners. Note that if you’re wearing the Protection Five armor from the Red wool boss, you’re still likely to be one shot from the creepers here. Bring a lava bucket/a lot of shields and plenty of ladders/blocks.
FUN.
8. Once you get out, you’re outside the halls with empowered ghasts that can blow up the available stairs. You’ve also got blazes shooting you from every corner, so bring more fire resistance!
9. Once you climb back up, you enter into a checkerboard floor room with half the blocks being holes into the void. If you have feather-falling, you can just fall and want ahead to the next room – not really hard, even with the ghasts shooting at you.
10. After that, you enter a big empty room. But it’s not. Nope, it’s everyone’s favorite: Barrier mazes! Yes, mazes in which you have no idea where you should be going or if you’re going the right way without an excess of torches. Get out of that (and mind the gap) and you are now staring down a dozen blaze spawners and a couple super-powered ghasts.
FUUUUUN.
11. Once done with that, you enter a long fall and head down into a hallway with barriers as the floor. It’s completely safe except for the last bit right by the final room with the wool, which is just a hole.
12. Congratulations, you’ve finally made it! The black wool is yours and so is this great treasure! By the way, you do know you have to travel all the way back, right? Through the painful waters, bedrock castles, and exploded hallways? No teleporters or railways. (Even NTWICCTM had a shortcut out of there once you finished the final area.)
Oh yes, I just loooove those blocky, chunky bedrock castles. So much FUN!
I don’t know how anyone could think this was okay. I don’t how anyone could think this is balanced. This map is an unbalanced, ugly and absolute mess; a dumpster fire not even the fire department could put out; a guide on how not to build a CTM map. Problems upon problems that pile on to create an absolutely atrocious experience. The only reason I beat this map is so I could tell you just how truly awful it is. Please, spare yourself the agony of this map: You’d get the same amount of pleasure playing this map as you would hugging a cactus.
At this point, the thread is primarily used for archival purposes, reviews, and new map announcements. Most of the actual conversation has moved to the discord channel here: https://discord.gg/kQdrZkv. It has over 160 members of all mapping skill levels, active community projects, and other stuff like random mapping challenges or UHCs, and is pretty much where the community is now. If you're already on there, of course ignore this, but I'd encourage you and any lurkers who want to make maps to join the channel.
Actually, not really. Thanks for the suggestion!
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Look at my avatar. A few of you may know what this is from. Most will not. Probably because it shut down several years ago. But those were fun times while they lasted.
RIP http://playcrafter.com
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Retired StaffReminder that the first wave of the next Strawberry Jam starts today!
Finally got around to playing The Undead's Return by Ty, here's my review for it:
==ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE==
Nah, jk. Anyway, pyramid itself is pretty cool. I kinda wish I would've played this map before the jam, it likely would've helped my interior design quite a bit, at the very least to make it more varied.
Okay so first off, I was going to comment on having to deal with enemies right out of the gate without a weapon, but since there's lava you can punch them into I guess it's not too bad. The block var in this area seems a bit plain, but I'm not an expert on aesthetics (especially natural things) so I'm not sure if you could've used something else. Maybe endstone in the walls? I dunno. Anyways, the red sand bridge part was a bit unnerving, but kinda cool.
==BREATHING DESERT=
The little structures are kinda neat, they aren't too elaborate but not plain either. I should learn from these. I see that chest down there in that hole. How to get it... welp, guess I'm digging. Fortunately you gave me a handy new pick right when mine was running low. How nice of you. ...Or not. Dangit Ty, you made me waste some of my pick. >:( Oh hello bow guy, I was wondering when ranged skeles were going to come into play. Unfortunately for you, I have a shield. Mwahaha. Man, another pick right when mine was running out. Are you psychic or something? Ah-ha, finally a bow. Not only do I have a shield, I got range now too. Who's laughing now, boneheads? Moving on... Sharp 1 book in the ender chest, huh? Neat. Oh hey, an anvil, how convenient. And an enchant table? Really? It seems really early for you to give one of those out. I mean I can't use it because no lapis, but still. I'll just take that stuff with me, thank you very much. Hi there blaze. Have some arrows to the face. I'm assuming that's the woolbox over that way. Okay there are like six blazes here and I'm out of arrows and I can't really progress much at all because they're all shooting me and ugh. Ty pls. Y u do dis. I was enjoying the map until this point. Took me forever to finally push through them and now I'm basically out of food, plus all my armor's almost busted. Fortunately I got two carrots from the zombies so worst case I can farm carrots (assuming I find dirt somewhere), but that's annoying.
==ROWDY VILLAGE==
Officially ran out of food like 2 minutes into the area, and I see no dirt anywhere to grow carrots. Seriously guy. I would honestly trade this lapis for food right now. Okay finally found some bread, sheesh. Would it have killed you to put it a bit earlier? I kinda needed it. Aesthetics are pretty nice, again somewhat simple but they work. Hel-lo enchant table. Left the area with a sharpness 3 iron sword, efficiency 3 iron pick, power 4 bow, and protection 3 iron pants. Awww yeah baby. By the way, never fell down in the first part. Skillz.
**SERENITY?**
The bridges here seem really plain. Just thought I'd note that. Oh god, silverfish? Seriously? You know silverfish in 1.9+ are terrible. Holy dang these jockeys are fast. And witches too? Please guy. Spectral creepers, eh? With short fuses, ouch. Sharp 1 iron sword? Pssh, I have sharpness 3 iron. Get on my level scrub. Man, a power 4 bow is awesome at this point, I can two-shot basically every single mob. Two witch spawners practically next to each other? Not cool man. Especially when one hits you with 45 seconds of poison and you have other crap to deal with. Ugh.
==Green Wool==
I missed the area completely at first, so I think the entrance might be a bit too hidden. The opening swimming section felt empty and just boring, there was really nothing there. At least it wasn't that long. The outdoor portion was alright, but to be honest it felt a lot like gray wool. I liked the interior portion though. The fact that I came back for this area later meant my gear was pretty OP, so I kinda steamrolled this area lol
==Yellow Wool==
Again, I think the entrance is slightly too off the beaten path; I never even looked up here. Oh, I'll tell you what this reminds me of: Legendary. I forget the wool color, but there was one area where the entrance passageway was filled with cobwebs. Ugh. Combine this with Zombie Apocalypse and you practically have Legendary
==GATEWAY TO THE END==
The darkness effect was cool at first, but it got kinda annoying fast because it made it hard to tell exactly where enemies were. Case in point, spiders were pretty much invisible, so I had to basically swing blindly. This was after I had gotten swarmed by the zombies and was down to like 3 hearts. Then the ghasts came, and somehow I was out of arrows even though I swear I had a bunch. I'll be honest, this is giving me Pneumatica flashbacks, except even worse since I'm practically blind (in case you don't remember, Pneumatica is cyan wool from Painter). It got a lot better near the end with the glass, but it kinda made my eyes hurt after I got out. I do appreciate that you don't take any knockback though. Without that, this area would've been a nightmare.
Overall really fun map, though a few spots were a bit hairy and questionable for me. I feel like my mapping skills have improved slightly just by playing the map. Kinda want to build a new map now lol. Anyways, here's a screenshot of victoriousness:
One map I could recommend for being fairly easy and fun is Terra Restore, for 1.8, by Mithey.
Check out my bad CTM map reviews here.
So I'm back and it looks like the thread is dead.
Community Question:
What are the elements of a good starting area?
This can include simple stuff like tools and wood or more complicated stuff like a well-balanced difficulty curve and an introduction to the style and themes of the map.
[YOUR AD HERE FOR JUST $69.69]
Can someone recommend some full-sized CTM maps for 1.9/1.10 (other than Myriad Caves)?
Best area from legendary was either East Commons or the Lava land.
I see this thread is not as lively as it used to be. For those who are on the CTM discord (from what I have read, I suppose there is one), are things any better there or has the CTM community died?
Nevermind, I found the discord and there seems to be some hope. Yay!
Yeah, the discord is much more active. It would be nice if more people kept up to date here as well, since the discord is not as visible and gives people the wrong impression that the community is dying/dead, when really it just sort of moved.
I think that a good starting area sets the tone for the map. Lately I've also felt that first areas should be more survival oriented. I think it is hard to do that throughout a map now just because it would be hard to balance really limited resources throughout a full map, but for a first area I think you can really keep things scarce to keep the player on their toes. Eventually in a map the player will either be really good and have a ton of extra gear, or really bad and have lost everything except maybe the basic gear, but in the first area both players would be on the same level gear wise.
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Retired StaffYeah, for those worrying the thread is dead, we have over 160 people on the Discord with loads of discussion happening daily, map-making, map-playing, map-discussing, and fun community events happening all the time!
When you talk like that, you almost make me want to come back to the community.
And only half of that discussion is complaining about jam themes, the other half is all good stuff!
Burial Grounds, though.
Hey, I want to play a classic style CTM, but, there's any of this kind recently created? A map like SP, UT or Ragecraft, of this year, I want to play them again but I don't know what happened to the community this months
(Sorry if I had a bad english, I speak spanish)
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Retired StaffMost of the community is on the Discord, and we have most discussion there these days!
-Whirling Phenomena (Map Version 1.1, Minecraft Version 1.11)
Difficulty: 11/10
Overall Enjoyment: 1
This map is huge! That means it has huge guts! RIP AND TEAR!
…*ahem*
This map is a horrific, bloated, and terribly unbalanced mess – a map with very little checks and balances, excessive mob spam, randomized loot and so many other problems that I can only feel sorry for any poor soul who thought this would be a good map to play. This map is one of the worst maps I have ever played, and you should know exactly why.
Comments: Warning - Map Spoilers (duh) and Wall of China.
That only exacerbates the next problem: The map doesn’t give you enough resources. While at later stages in the map there are ways to circumvent this problem, at the early stages (think First intersection) this can be absolutely lethal. Extremely large areas with plenty of darkness for natural spawns makes traversing and dungeoneering a chore, and that’s also not helped by the occasional inventory wipe traps that exist.
It’s also a pain in the bum to build railways everywhere due to the sheer scale of the map. Yes, you heard me right, Railways. You think after being able to start using teleportation in MC 1.4 and beyond, we’d finally be able to start teleporting people instead of having players waste eons creating railways that only prolong the playtime in an extremely un-fun way. Due to the size of areas and location of railways, building them and making them is its own kind of pain and suffering. At one point, the railway location to/from one area was so long that I just cheated in a command block and made coordinate teleporters because it is that bad.
In addition to the regular monument, there’s also the bonus banner monument, that when all gathered together reveals a special secret, and by secret I mean coordinates. Coordinates that lead to a special trading place that let you buy all the stuff you want. FOR STICKS. Yes, you can buy diamonds, mob spawners and spawn eggs, and Intersection V loot boxes with all the RNG you could want FOR STICKS. I didn’t even fully complete the banner monument. I only had about twenty of them when I guessed where to go and found it. The moment you find this area is the moment the balance for the map pretty much shuts down as you can buy whatever you want or need for some tree branches.
Two boss battles exist in this map, and the difficulty variance is super high. The first one (in yellow) is super-easy: Nothing but a wither skeleton with some added health and whatever natural spawns appear. The later one in red, on the other hand, is absolutely hellish. In addition to a boss that deals about 2.5 hearts with full diamond armor while wearing Protection FIVE diamond armor, is immune to arrows and had enough health to be considered for a role in The Division as a boss fight, he spawns in a bedrock diamond-shaped room (way to be creative) that also has Flame Bow specter skeletons (a.k.a strays) that ride on bats, charged creepers and witches. Put that all together and you have one of the grind-iest bosses I’ve ever faced in Minecraft: he’s so grind-y he belongs in a bad MMO.
Aesthetically, everything is either too bland or too colorful. The walls of most places are only of one kind, and when they’re not they are a terrible mix and mish-mash of blocks without rhyme or reason like in Cemetery of Ash. Caves and caverns were either over-smoothed or had obvious brushstrokes – no middle ground. Also, most of the buildings are boxes – nothing but boxes with some little ornaments like rail-guards and archways. The only thing I did like the look of was the building in Alchemical Cove, but even that was still box-y and blandly colored. But other than that, everything else was either bland or an absolute eyesore – so bad that I wouldn’t be surprised if I need to see an Ophthalmologist in the next few days.
On a brief side-note, some people may ask me: Is this map worse than NTWICCTM? Well, I’m gonna say yes, it is. NTWICCTM started good and got worse as it went on. This map started terribly… and got worse as it went on. The final dungeon of this map was on a level that matched NTWICCTM’s horrid slugfest, though I imagine some could see it as being even worse. And I’ll tell you all about it.
3. Once you get through that and fall into a pool of lava (or, if you’re like me, used an ender pearl), you cross a big bridge over void with natural spawns. Nothing too hard.
8. Once you get out, you’re outside the halls with empowered ghasts that can blow up the available stairs. You’ve also got blazes shooting you from every corner, so bring more fire resistance!
I don’t know how anyone could think this was okay. I don’t how anyone could think this is balanced. This map is an unbalanced, ugly and absolute mess; a dumpster fire not even the fire department could put out; a guide on how not to build a CTM map. Problems upon problems that pile on to create an absolutely atrocious experience. The only reason I beat this map is so I could tell you just how truly awful it is. Please, spare yourself the agony of this map: You’d get the same amount of pleasure playing this map as you would hugging a cactus.
SCORE
Aesthetics: 2
Creativity: 1
Gameplay: 1
TOTAL: 4
(Apologies for the Wall of China. I did try to get it into a spoiler, but for whatever reason the spoilers don't seem to be working)
Blade I love you. That was a beautiful post.
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Retired StaffI guess I don't have to write an angry review anytime soon. Well done!
It's been a while...
At this point, the thread is primarily used for archival purposes, reviews, and new map announcements. Most of the actual conversation has moved to the discord channel here: https://discord.gg/kQdrZkv. It has over 160 members of all mapping skill levels, active community projects, and other stuff like random mapping challenges or UHCs, and is pretty much where the community is now. If you're already on there, of course ignore this, but I'd encourage you and any lurkers who want to make maps to join the channel.