Yo ultimo I was reading this and thought of a solution to improve the interface of your gateway.

You described how the DT's function was unlocked later in the game and I got that, but YOU COULD just remove the DT completely since it does pretty much the same thing as HT does. However, once you unlock the ability to use the DT's function, have the HT do that instead. To do this though, the transmutation of a soul would have to be free when you did it.

Just a thought to simplify things I dunno if you'd wanna do that, but meh.

I'm not sure how balanced transmuting souls for no mana cost would be. Right now, the gain is 150% of the normal minerals received for a kill. Though one can argue that breaking a soul will yield the same amount of minerals (from killing stuff), transmute has no cooldown. Though what would I use the DT for then? Having an extra function for the gateway really isn't issue because the HT and DT aren't really used for high intensity battle situations.

I was just saying if you wanted to cut back on the number of controls to simplify things...

Well I'm not sure if people find the interface confusing as of now. There's only three things that you need to actively pay attention to throughout the game. The storage area of souls (which is pretty self-explanatory), the soul capacity boxes (a little more confusing), and the soul interface system (gateway). I think the systems flow together well once you're used to it. All you need is a hotkey on your gateway for managing souls in your boxes, and a hotkey on your dropship for quick casting. It's fairly easy to manage the boxes without looking at them by looking at the mini-map, but I think once people get used to the system, it's very efficient.

There's nothing wrong with the interface...flows nicely with your map.

Note: I haven't tested this in a long time...feels like I'm being left out. (Weekend tester)

Okay, need more new soul ideas. I need an spell idea for a ghost and a hydralisk (not involving lurkers preferably). If it's a good idea, I can put it in. Can be anything, damage spell, passive spell, crowd control spell, support spell. (I actually love the ideas of support souls)

Edit: Oh, progress update. The ship area is almost done, once that is finished, the last area of the water temple will need to be finished and then the boss of the temple. Once done, the main quest is done, and you can fight the last boss. The last one (maybe two) dungeons are completely optional, so is the next town, so technically, you can go fight the last boss once the temple is done. I also have a question, would people prefer that I make my map an open source/beta type thing, where I update the current map uploaded every 1-2 weeks until I finish, or wait until I've completed the map and then just upload it once.

Quote from Taylor Swift

I also have a question, would people prefer that I make my map an open source/beta type thing, where I update the current map uploaded every 1-2 weeks until I finish, or wait until I've completed the map and then just upload it once.

Depends on what you want. Do you want an incomplete version of your map, with various versions of it, running around Bnet, or a nice and polished RPG on Bnet? For me, I'd say upload it once it's finished. Use your faithful testers to help rid bugs and all.

And for spells, do you have a stun spell yet?

Not in particular, poltergeist is sort of a pseudo stun, but that's about it. Well Vrael is doing that with his RPG, and it's enjoying moderate success. I'm just thinking about doing it his way or just releasing one finished product.

I'll come up with spell ideas once I give your map another go...

I was thinking of more spells while I was on the bus today, came up with a couple, tell me what you think.

Collapsable box

Starcaller - Call down a meteor shower all around the hero. Hitting 1/9 random locations, a meteor landing on an enemy will spawn wraiths. 9/12/15/18 meteors.
Polymorph - An weak enemy is reverted to a harmless critter for a extended duration. If the critter is killed, the enemy returns to normal. Expires after x seconds.
Mana Spring - Spawns an immobile ward that provides +mana regen
Fire Statue - Spawns an immobile statue that attacks nearby enemies.
Guardian Angel - Protects an allied hero for 10/15/20/30 seconds. If the hero dies while under protection, he will be respawned with 1%/5%/10%/50% health and gains +10/+30/+50/+70 mana. Cooldown is 15 minutes.
Lightning Rod - The Unbound Shell becomes a beacon of electricity, harnessing the power of lightning throughout his body. Lightning will randomly strike near the Unbound Shell, either damaging himself/allies and enemies.

Still need more spells though.

Quote from Taylor Swift

I was thinking of more spells while I was on the bus today, came up with a couple, tell me what you think.

Starcaller - Call down a meteor shower all around the hero. Hitting 1/9 random locations, a meteor landing on an enemy will spawn wraiths. 9/12/15/18 meteors.
Polymorph - An weak enemy is reverted to a harmless critter for a extended duration. If the critter is killed, the enemy returns to normal. Expires after x seconds.
Mana Spring - Spawns an immobile ward that provides +mana regen
Fire Statue - Spawns an immobile statue that attacks nearby enemies.
Guardian Angel - Protects an allied hero for 10/15/20/30 seconds. If the hero dies while under protection, he will be respawned with 1%/5%/10%/50% health and gains +10/+30/+50/+70 mana. Cooldown is 15 minutes.
Lightning Rod - The Unbound Shell becomes a beacon of electricity, harnessing the power of lightning throughout his body. Lightning will randomly strike near the Unbound Shell, either damaging himself/allies and enemies.

Still need more spells though.

That's what I think.

The funny thing is, both Starfall and Guardian Spirit are spells that were created after I stopped playing WoW, but you did get the middle three though. So is that a yes or a no?

I just finished checking it out and I must say it's quite impressive! I still have to test/play the rest of the maps in the contest before I vote but thought I would include my notes from playing it and the result of my three attempts encase any of it is useful. Oh yea, I don't know if maybe it's just not done yet but I went everywhere in that town and couldn't fiond anyone to make the thing work after killing the golem. I did look in the editor after beating the game and noticed a high templar I was never able to access even though I went on the location to talk to him (The Sage). Or maybe it was the ghost ship captain who I missed talking too? Anyway, I played lostsoulsv0.5 version. Here is my log:

Good map preview text, nice colors on the wait screen. Good Briefing. Introduction was nice...though some of the waits felt a little too long. Good bridges, nice terrain design, a story everywhere you go, side quests fun, leveling up, a bit of a challenge surviving initially but gets easier. Revive system with the statutes...brillant! Underwater feel great, unit names for the most part good. Soul collection and Soul "points" systems good with gateway to manage system. Death penalty while waiting to revive far but not too restrictive. Boss fights, no turning back good challenge. Loved the wall, use of cloaked buildings for affects was good. Green circles for people that gave quests nice to speed up deciding who to talk to. Haunted ship system was nice. World felt large and open. First boss fight was great way to start off, took a bit to learn how to beat it (just the first time, after it we beat it really fast). Music used that changes depending on the area your in and an option is included to turn music off as well. Very good in-game tutorial system.

Attempt #1: About 1 hour, 4 players, two left (one had to sleep, another one got bored). Myself and the remaining player died taking on the 2nd boss/Robot Goliath (We both entered with low HP).

Attempt #2: About 15 minutes, 4 players, one had to go, another left, and another said it was too complicated and left right after I died. We beat the first boss but never made it far past the first town.

Attempt #3: About 2 hours, 4 players, two got confused and left before the second boss. Other one loved it and we went far (in 1100-1200 exp range) and beat all 3 bosses reaching the end. Weapons thing nobody would tell us about in town (not coded yet?). Same with the thing from the goliath we killed.

This was playing on battle.net with random players so not bad :-). The 3rd boss battle was very epic, awesome music and fight, definitely the best part of the game, though I also enjoyed the ghost ship and running around on it (even with the slight waiting) and that hidden spot you can find from the Ghost ship . Side quests were also very nice I thought.

Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked it, it's much appreciated. Introduction, I suppose I could lower the waits, but I think I'd rather let people read than have people who are slow readers miss out, but I can look at tweaking it. The ancient orb allows you to transmute souls, which can be attained from talking to the grave right behind the exit from the first area, it's kinda underpowered in v0.5. Yeah, the system is a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang out managing souls, I think it's very gratifying to kill and use souls. The weapons scroll can unlock Upgrade Weaponry #2, which can be attained from the man who gave you the first upgrade. I'm glad you liked the 3rd boss, that is probably my most creative and challenging one. Thanks for the feedback though, any suggestions are also welcome!