A game project that I started, Project Warcry, has hit an obstacle that we cant overcome with the engine we chose to work on. If you are not familiar with Project Warcry, you can check it out on our website, moddb, wiki and bblog.
Basically, the commercial game is dead. But, I don't want to waste all that effort we invested, so I'm looking to move the project to Starcraft 2. We have 60% of our 3D assets complete and still more concepts that have not made it to 3D.
I'm learning the galaxy editor (I've made one map) but help is wanted from experienced members of the SC2 community. If you are interested, post here or email me at "theycallmebrandon"_at_ yahoo.
Right now I'm just considering the possibility, but hopefully with advice from seasoned members of the forums I can decide if the move is worth it.
Is it possible to get more info on all of your planned gameplay concepts? That way we can evaluate how difficult it will be to do.
For instance, what sorts of special abilities will your units have? How do you want the tech tree to work? What are the mechanics of resource gathering and use?
Edit: I looked over your wiki, and here's some notes:
Accuracy: somewhat hard to do if you want shots to actually miss (f.e. inaccurate siege guns with AoE). If you just want shots to sometimes not hurt, that's easy.
Squads: Possibly doable but kinda tough, and i'm not entirely sure how it would fit (or whether it would work well in starcraft).
Damage system: shouldn't be a problem.
Veterancy: Not a problem either.
Jump Jets: This might be a bit difficult but it is doable.
Garrisoning/Shields/Transport/Stealth/Teleport: All easily doable.
Burrowing: Your specific implementation idea might be a bit difficult, but certainly possible.
Force Attack: Not sure if this is possible. It might be, though I really don't know.
Population cap: Not sure if it's possible to have type specific poulation caps. It ought to be possible to detect a player being over population caps and apply penalties though.
Throws/Knockdowns: If you add animations to your models for this, it should be possible.
Persistent wreckage of units: Should be doable, though would need separate models and data files for all of the dead stuff (including code to spawn them on death).
Thanks for the info, RCIX. It seems most of what we want is doable. As for abilities, many of them are already in SC2, with minor alterations it shouldn't be a big issue. Finally, I've attached images of the Tech tree layout for each race.
Air1, I haven't decided to move the project yet. Right now I like what I see but I will need to find an experienced SC2 mod developer to work with me on the project. Thanks for your interest, though. I'll keep your contact information for future possibilities.
Drop me a note if you have any questions. I'm too lazy to read through an entire wiki like RCIX does, but if you ask me specific stuff, I'll gladly answer it ;)
I wouldn't recommend this engine for large-scale productions for several reasons.
- To play the mod in multiplayer, you will need to enter SC2 and start it from there, with a pretty bad publishing system in place.
- The limit size for a published map is 10MB, which is not enough for what you want to do.
- If you are making a campaign (single player) as a part of it, you need to start it from the editor - or drag it to the SC2 icon. Unless you want to create a program that does it for you. In any case, people will have access to your mod files if it's not protected somehow.
- Blizzard has reserved the right to ban published maps if they violate their user agreement (e.g. if they contain a swear-word)
Apart from this (which most of it would be pretty unacceptable if I wanted to release a large-scale mod), the level of detail your models contain would feel out of place in SC2's very low-detail geometry (which is hardcoded), or would lag with many units on the screen at once. (nearly all models in SC2 are less than 20k polygons, most are less than 5k)
If you are ok with all this, it might be possible to do in the editor. I'm not trying to bash the engine or blizzard's publishing system, but its better that you know of the limitations from the start, rather than after you've decided to move.
Check exactly what blizz means by original graphics if you wanna make money off it...
Prepare to buy x number of sc2 (this maybe for each subsequent versions of sc2) because of low capping (not arguing it wouldn't be worth it though, just saying)...
Prepare to patch like crazy (checking if anything is wrong is ooooo so long, and blizz is patching very frequently both game and editor (while this seems a good thing, it goes without saying that it adds a lot of work for mapmakers... and many patches get their bugs uncovered later rather than sooner... sigh that is the way of things)
Disturbing bits:
no "new" races can be published as of last patch i checked it, even though the functionality is there in the editor, using it prevents mods from being published (i got sick of checking myself so i stopped), for multiplayer, you will have to somewhat "follow" the rails...
sc2 is buggy, no doubt about it... maybe that's just my subjective roaming of sc2 forums that make me say that...?
but if you are going for mass units play, i don't think it's that good... and i mean this from the internet lag and 200/200/200/200 "blizz polished"melee point of view... edit: f..k no lan!
good luck and hope you "finish" it (on any platform)
A game project that I started, Project Warcry, has hit an obstacle that we cant overcome with the engine we chose to work on. If you are not familiar with Project Warcry, you can check it out on our website, moddb, wiki and bblog.
Basically, the commercial game is dead. But, I don't want to waste all that effort we invested, so I'm looking to move the project to Starcraft 2. We have 60% of our 3D assets complete and still more concepts that have not made it to 3D.
I'm learning the galaxy editor (I've made one map) but help is wanted from experienced members of the SC2 community. If you are interested, post here or email me at "theycallmebrandon"_at_ yahoo.
Right now I'm just considering the possibility, but hopefully with advice from seasoned members of the forums I can decide if the move is worth it.
i could help with terrain, in about a week at lest ?
Is it possible to get more info on all of your planned gameplay concepts? That way we can evaluate how difficult it will be to do.
For instance, what sorts of special abilities will your units have? How do you want the tech tree to work? What are the mechanics of resource gathering and use?
Edit: I looked over your wiki, and here's some notes:
Thanks for the info, RCIX. It seems most of what we want is doable. As for abilities, many of them are already in SC2, with minor alterations it shouldn't be a big issue. Finally, I've attached images of the Tech tree layout for each race.
Air1, I haven't decided to move the project yet. Right now I like what I see but I will need to find an experienced SC2 mod developer to work with me on the project. Thanks for your interest, though. I'll keep your contact information for future possibilities.
The tech tree looks doable as well, though it might take a little finagling to get the mutually exclusive tech paths working. :)
Drop me a note if you have any questions. I'm too lazy to read through an entire wiki like RCIX does, but if you ask me specific stuff, I'll gladly answer it ;)
I wouldn't recommend this engine for large-scale productions for several reasons.
- To play the mod in multiplayer, you will need to enter SC2 and start it from there, with a pretty bad publishing system in place.
- The limit size for a published map is 10MB, which is not enough for what you want to do.
- If you are making a campaign (single player) as a part of it, you need to start it from the editor - or drag it to the SC2 icon. Unless you want to create a program that does it for you. In any case, people will have access to your mod files if it's not protected somehow.
- Blizzard has reserved the right to ban published maps if they violate their user agreement (e.g. if they contain a swear-word)
Apart from this (which most of it would be pretty unacceptable if I wanted to release a large-scale mod), the level of detail your models contain would feel out of place in SC2's very low-detail geometry (which is hardcoded), or would lag with many units on the screen at once. (nearly all models in SC2 are less than 20k polygons, most are less than 5k)
If you are ok with all this, it might be possible to do in the editor. I'm not trying to bash the engine or blizzard's publishing system, but its better that you know of the limitations from the start, rather than after you've decided to move.
Great work/project,
at the top of my head, before you jump in:
Check exactly what blizz means by original graphics if you wanna make money off it...
Prepare to buy x number of sc2 (this maybe for each subsequent versions of sc2) because of low capping (not arguing it wouldn't be worth it though, just saying)...
Prepare to patch like crazy (checking if anything is wrong is ooooo so long, and blizz is patching very frequently both game and editor (while this seems a good thing, it goes without saying that it adds a lot of work for mapmakers... and many patches get their bugs uncovered later rather than sooner... sigh that is the way of things)
Disturbing bits:
no "new" races can be published as of last patch i checked it, even though the functionality is there in the editor, using it prevents mods from being published (i got sick of checking myself so i stopped), for multiplayer, you will have to somewhat "follow" the rails...
sc2 is buggy, no doubt about it... maybe that's just my subjective roaming of sc2 forums that make me say that...?
but if you are going for mass units play, i don't think it's that good... and i mean this from the internet lag and 200/200/200/200 "blizz polished"melee point of view... edit: f..k no lan!
good luck and hope you "finish" it (on any platform)