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2007

05 of January 2008 10:03 AM

Posted by:Nightmarjoo

The month and year ends and here we have our 12th MOTM for 2007. This MOTM is a tag-team map, in fact with the very same tag-team as before: Crackling and Testbug. However, the tables are turned for this map, and it is Testbug's very unique map which is given a make-over by Crackling into the solid, playable, and very standard map you see before you now.

The map is fairly simple with mains in the corners, regular 9 block main, gas expo nat, min only, then another expo with gas. However the execution of this familiar theme is unique. The mains are on lowground with the nats on highground, something rarely seen in maps like Requiem or Reverse LT. The mineral only is on the main layer of the middle of the map, are large lowground plain which encircles a large highground plateau with ramps for easy mobile-access, like the middle of longinus. The mineral only expo is close to the nat, but is certainly not a "free" expansion site. Past the mineral onlys are highground plateau expos, lead-to by 2 seperate large ramps, one larger than the other.
The smooth expo layout of the map is fairly standard and supportive of the common macro-oriented play. The expo layout favours a push or creeping style expansion, taking one base at a time as you head towards your opponent, but fluidly allows players to pick one expo over another. While perhaps not the most exciting and strategically oriented expo layout ever, it certainly is player-friendly, and makes scouting quite imperative, with expos so easy to "hide" in.
A smooth transition from open to tight exists in this map, with the open not being too large, and the tight not being too constricting. Many chokes and ramps allow for strategic play without disrupting unit movement in any manner. Your armies can easily march around, with players flanking eachother and cornering eachother, without getting lost in space.
With a very for-the-player expo layout, large but not vacuous mains which allow players to comfortably fit their buildings in the space without feeling as though they have to be master architects to fit everything and still have room to breathe but without making the players feel agoraphobic, and a familiar but still unique execution of the map's placement and altitude variation, Crackling and Testbug's Shakras is a great map, well worthy of the title: Map of the Month.
Spam the map's thread here.
Grab the map itself to pwn your pals here, and observe and be observed on the map's observer version here.

Almost all of the votes this month went either toward Shakras, or Ptar's Lost Soul.

This older map of ptar's was one of ptar's early small-big-hit maps. The map itself might be described as being fairly standard and "macroish", but the map's unique size and proportions keep it from being "just another map". The map has a lowground main, standard lowground nat, not far from the nat lies a lowgruond mineral only, and a riskier but with-gas-expo on the map's large middle highground plateau, and farther from the linear action lies a lowground expo with gas.
The expo layout is comfortable and easy to grasp for players. There are a lot of expos, especially for a small, 2 player map, but Ptar counters this with fewer mineral blocks at each expo, and with many blocks modified with lower values. The main features 8 blocks, the other expos have 6 blocks each.
Though the map's size limits it somewhat, the lower monetary value of the expos, and the spread between the map's gas along with a fairly open middle allow players to feel comfortable and not terribly cramped as they try to macro their way through a smaller, more micro oriented map.
Spam its thread here, download it here, and get the obs version here.

The two maps tied for third have relatively few votes each; if you combine the two third place maps' votes the resulting sum is still less than both second and first place maps; in the past we have had some very close third place maps. The maps were Titanwing/Moebius' Orpheus, and flothefreak's Frosty Fortress, a map I am so god-damned tired of seeing it'll drive me insane if I see it again, a map which has failed to get MOTM but managed its way into the top three a fourth of a dozen times, and you can read about it in recent MOTM threads below this one.

Also to note: 2007 is over, Happy New Years Broodwarmaps.net! I hope 2008 brings sc some great maps before sc2 comes out (whenever that may be (cough ghost cough)).
With the holidays ending, I hope the site will see some more activity, it's been a little slow as of late. Hopefully we'll see many new great maps, and a lot of testing of maps by various people. Remember to bring your friends to op bwmn to test maps. I've seen basically no one in the channel through the bot since I started hosting the bot again.

With the year having ended, the 12th MOTM doesn't quite conclude the year, but MOTY does. Please bring your votes to the (2)MOTY, (4)MOTY, and Experimental(E)MOTY. You'll find these competitions near MOTM in the lower right side of the site's page.

...Next time on Newsposts with Nightmarjoo: Nightmarjoo meets the paragraph break! (just kidding -.-).

Happy New Years/2008!
Congratulations to Crackling/Testbug and Ptar.

Comments:

Nightmarjoo
Adding a comment because no one else did>
LGI
Spammer, god will rape you.

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