This looks promising..
I was slightly disappointed to see that it will beta test in the next few months only, But I suppose you cant rush a good thing ;).
I am the only person working on it atm so, yeah, dev time is going to be long unless some people jump on board :). As for beta I will do some closed beta testing once all the characters are set with skills working as intended. The map actually gets played daily right now by a few people :).
Ok, so yesterday I put out the first video for Mercenary Battles. It was actually also my first captured video and my first youtube upload.....ever :0 . I know, crazy right? Well, today I figured I would continue the trend of firsts and release the first "dev journal" for the project. (btw this isn't going to be a daily thing. I am just having too much fun right now and work is slow :P)
As you may know I mentioned that we will be using Ninja Core Studios' "Diablo Attribute System" for Mercenary Battles (from here on referred to as MercB or McBsauce if you prefer). I quickly ran through some of the attributes in the video yesterday but didn't really talk about them at all. Well, today I am going to rectify this error and give you the low down on attributes in MercB.
A couple of weeks ago I was having a discussion with some friends in vent (they congregate in my vent for some reason...freeloaders) about the game they were playing, League of Legends. Now, I have played over 400 hours of league of legends since it came out. Towards the end of my tenure playing that game I became disillusioned with some of the core mechanics. Specifically, the length of games, the reliance on going back to base to buy stuff, summoner skills and rune pages. When I finally got my grubby paws on my brand spanking new copy of Starcraft 2, I said goodbye to LoL and dove into the bliss that is this editor. But my friends did not leave me alone in vent to map in solitude. They continued to play LoL, whilst I was mapping, and I sat through hours of them complaining and raging over the game before I finally spoke up and said, "Yo, brosefs! Screw it, I am making my own DoTA." To which they all replied, "Yeah sure, right dude *epic 5 person eye roll*." So that is how MercB came to exist and from that point on I have been pretty much all hands on deck in developing it. I have used LoL as an example of some good things in the genre and some bad things. The latter of which is what drove me to attributes.
So, I wanted to make a game that played faster than LoL and didn't require going back to the base to buy items. I also knew I wanted some character progression in the game so, I decided to use attributes as a substitute for gear. In MercB when your character gains a level you will get 1 ability point (for skills) and a set number of attribute points (# still in flux). You can then open up the inventory box for attributes, distribute your points how you want and then continue fighting. Its quick, which matches my goal, and I liked it. The attributes themselves come in different varieties. Some are straight increases and others are push/pull. A push/pull attribute gives you a positive in one thing and a negative in another. As of right now the attributes are:
Health: Gives you a 10 hit points per level
Stamina: Gives you 10 Energy per level
Strength: Increases your armor level by 1
Agility: Increases your movement speed by .1 and decreases your armor by .3 (push/pull)
Intellect: Increase Energy Regen by .1, increases Spell Power by 5 and decreases Armor by .3
Mutation: Increases Health Regen by .05, increases armor by .5 and decreases Energy Regen by .3
Weapon Damage: Increases your weapon damage by 3
Spell Power: Increases your Spell Damage by 10
There are few others in the works (critical chance, attack speed, dodge chance added to agility) but this list will give you a good idea of the system we are going for. To clarify, weapon damage will add damage to your basic auto attacks and a few abilities that are linked to it. Spell Power adds damage directly to all abilities that cause damage (most abilities scale off of spell power).
Anyways, that is the current system that we are using in game. Numbers are, of coarse, subject to change and as are names/effects. I hope this journal gives you a little insight into MercB. Feel free to ask questions :D .
Well from what i gather, your NA (judging by your voice on the video) so i couldn't participate in any sort of beta/balance, but the public is always full of wisdom so you will never run out of ideas or guidance :)
Also i like the push/pull mechanic, really does make the leveling and attributes for this different to all the others.
omg u play LoL, HoN all the way man, HoN all the way :)
I was just gonna ask how u wud be earning money in this game? aside from hero kills of course.
Do u have to get a last hit to get money?
If so, i suggest u do something about the hp bars of the marines/creeps if its possible, because those hp bars are very vague on how low the units hp actually is and its hard to get last hits off on low levels.
Two things which i believe i am most happy with in ur map:
1. Its bright, its not depressing, when i look at it, i get a kind of fun feel where i know i will have fun playing it
2. U havent terrain hacked the whole map. Everything has a purpose, no useless details. but that doesnt mean u cant add more, just as a fellow custom map player, i beg that u ensure u get PLENTY of testing on the map so u know it doesnt lagg under too much detail :D
Correction...played LoL :P. As for the money who needs it? You wont be buying anything with my item system. Like Halo items will spawn on the map in various places and once somebody picks them up they will respawn after a set amount of time. All items are consumables as well (think grenades healthpacks, etc.)
Attributes are taking the place of your classic DoTA armors, cloaks of whatever and boots of you know what. :P
As for the map itself. Man, if you like it from the video you would LOVE it now. I have recently redone the lighting and it looks way better. I made it much brighter and the shadows are amazing looking now. Basically, the map in that video is at about 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon. The map as it stands now is High noon and there are virtually no dark or depressing areas (hated that about SOTIS).
After redoing the lighting I removed some trees and other doodads to make it feel even less cluttered. I want this map to rely heavily on skills shots for a lot of the heroes so lag has to be cut down. Hopefully blizzard gets their crap together too in order to help nullify lag as well.
Alright well, its Monday and I figured today would be as good a day as any to do another dev journal. With today's journal I would like to talk a little bit about some of of the lore attached to this map and also give a brief glimpse into MercB's 18 heroes.
Lore:
First of all, Mercenary Battles has all original lore that has nothing to do with starcraft at all. Also the lore has little to no effect on gameplay and will mostly not show up in gameplay at all. When you chose a mercenary at the start of the game there will be a brief description of the character detailing their playstyle, faction, a tiny blurb on backstory and tips on how to build the character using attributes. That's it. No lengthy paragraphs of data, just a few pieces of pertinent information that the player might find useful and then its time to fight.
But, with that said, there is going to be lore outside of the game for those interested. You see, I want to be a writer. Yeah, you know, I want to create those book things that you probably try to avoid at all costs :p. To be more specific I want to be a science fiction writer and I will be taking writing classes this fall (and next spring) to help myself achieve that goal. So, for those of you that scoff at the idea of creating lore for a multiplayer hero defense know this; I'm doing it for practice (as a break from my book) and I'm doing it for those that might care. So with that out of the way let me go ahead and delve into some other MercB info.
Factions:
Factions have very little effect on gameplay but they do exist in MercB. Basically if members of the same faction are on the same team there will be small buffs for those characters. Nothing that will be completely game changing but it will be something helpful. The factions for MercB are as follows:
I will go into more detail on factions when their effects are implemented.
Heroes(aka. mercenaries):
We are about 50% done with the mercenaries right now. In fact, only 2 mercenaries still need skills at this point in time. After those two mercs are taken care of we will move onto adding levels to the skills and tweaking actors/animations. As characters become more finalized I will be releasing Mercenary Bios that will go into detail about each mercenary. These bios will consist of video showing what the character is capable of as well as my aimless written babblings. For now I will just give you a general idea of who and what each mercenary is.
Cash- Ranged dps with some cc and debuffs
Chuck- Tank, uses his shotgun effectively in close quarter combat.
H.A.V.O.K- Ranged dps in assault mode. Scout and support in fighter mode.
Mr. H - Ranged dps and tower pusher
Nadia- Support, CC and pet handler.
Lazlo- Support, lane pusher and more support :D.
Van Helfire- Ranged tank, burst dps
Trina- Healer, support and debuffer.
Malaci- Ranged burst damage, lane pusher, carry
Derrij- Melee burst damage
Zemit- Melee dps, CC, destruction :P
Xar Chun- Support, healer, CC
Sevril- Ranged burst damage
Bruga- Melee tank
Wrath- Melee dps, ranged burst
Nug- support, Nuganator-support, dps, Nugathon-DPS, dps and a little support (yes this is all one character too btw ;) )
Karul- Ranged burst dps, AoE dps, death dealing awesomesauce
Greg- Zombie tank, can infect others and make them zombies......seriously.
That's all for now, look out for a video later this week and some more lore stuff :) .
@Redfox777: Go
All I needed to see was "man cannon." Win!
@xenrathe: Go
HAHAHA, I wish I could use apply force and not the "trick" I am using with triggers :P. Would be much funnier yet lead to some terrible outcomes!
@Redfox777:
This looks promising..
I was slightly disappointed to see that it will beta test in the next few months only, But I suppose you cant rush a good thing ;).
All the best.
@EternalWraith: Go
I am the only person working on it atm so, yeah, dev time is going to be long unless some people jump on board :). As for beta I will do some closed beta testing once all the characters are set with skills working as intended. The map actually gets played daily right now by a few people :).
Alright, thats it. You inspired me to get back to work on my old DOTA map.
@zeldarules28: Go
Awesome man....or you could jump on board the mercenary train. We have cookies! :D
Dev Journal #1 (Attributes)
Ok, so yesterday I put out the first video for Mercenary Battles. It was actually also my first captured video and my first youtube upload.....ever :0 . I know, crazy right? Well, today I figured I would continue the trend of firsts and release the first "dev journal" for the project. (btw this isn't going to be a daily thing. I am just having too much fun right now and work is slow :P)
As you may know I mentioned that we will be using Ninja Core Studios' "Diablo Attribute System" for Mercenary Battles (from here on referred to as MercB or McBsauce if you prefer). I quickly ran through some of the attributes in the video yesterday but didn't really talk about them at all. Well, today I am going to rectify this error and give you the low down on attributes in MercB.
A couple of weeks ago I was having a discussion with some friends in vent (they congregate in my vent for some reason...freeloaders) about the game they were playing, League of Legends. Now, I have played over 400 hours of league of legends since it came out. Towards the end of my tenure playing that game I became disillusioned with some of the core mechanics. Specifically, the length of games, the reliance on going back to base to buy stuff, summoner skills and rune pages. When I finally got my grubby paws on my brand spanking new copy of Starcraft 2, I said goodbye to LoL and dove into the bliss that is this editor. But my friends did not leave me alone in vent to map in solitude. They continued to play LoL, whilst I was mapping, and I sat through hours of them complaining and raging over the game before I finally spoke up and said, "Yo, brosefs! Screw it, I am making my own DoTA." To which they all replied, "Yeah sure, right dude *epic 5 person eye roll*." So that is how MercB came to exist and from that point on I have been pretty much all hands on deck in developing it. I have used LoL as an example of some good things in the genre and some bad things. The latter of which is what drove me to attributes.
So, I wanted to make a game that played faster than LoL and didn't require going back to the base to buy items. I also knew I wanted some character progression in the game so, I decided to use attributes as a substitute for gear. In MercB when your character gains a level you will get 1 ability point (for skills) and a set number of attribute points (# still in flux). You can then open up the inventory box for attributes, distribute your points how you want and then continue fighting. Its quick, which matches my goal, and I liked it. The attributes themselves come in different varieties. Some are straight increases and others are push/pull. A push/pull attribute gives you a positive in one thing and a negative in another. As of right now the attributes are:
Health: Gives you a 10 hit points per level
Stamina: Gives you 10 Energy per level
Strength: Increases your armor level by 1
Agility: Increases your movement speed by .1 and decreases your armor by .3 (push/pull)
Intellect: Increase Energy Regen by .1, increases Spell Power by 5 and decreases Armor by .3
Mutation: Increases Health Regen by .05, increases armor by .5 and decreases Energy Regen by .3
Weapon Damage: Increases your weapon damage by 3
Spell Power: Increases your Spell Damage by 10
There are few others in the works (critical chance, attack speed, dodge chance added to agility) but this list will give you a good idea of the system we are going for. To clarify, weapon damage will add damage to your basic auto attacks and a few abilities that are linked to it. Spell Power adds damage directly to all abilities that cause damage (most abilities scale off of spell power).
Anyways, that is the current system that we are using in game. Numbers are, of coarse, subject to change and as are names/effects. I hope this journal gives you a little insight into MercB. Feel free to ask questions :D .
-B
This is going to be EPIC!!! Sad that no one wants to join the Merc Train :D.I hope someone will come to your aid.
Well from what i gather, your NA (judging by your voice on the video) so i couldn't participate in any sort of beta/balance, but the public is always full of wisdom so you will never run out of ideas or guidance :)
Also i like the push/pull mechanic, really does make the leveling and attributes for this different to all the others.
@fokk: Go
Aww, man thats lame fokk. How hard would it be to get someone on your side of the pond to release it after beta is finished for you guys?
Hi Redfox777,i just want remight at you to join to editor contest ,otherwise your project is realy good:)
@Redfox777: Go
omg u play LoL, HoN all the way man, HoN all the way :)
I was just gonna ask how u wud be earning money in this game? aside from hero kills of course.
Do u have to get a last hit to get money?
If so, i suggest u do something about the hp bars of the marines/creeps if its possible, because those hp bars are very vague on how low the units hp actually is and its hard to get last hits off on low levels.
Two things which i believe i am most happy with in ur map:
1. Its bright, its not depressing, when i look at it, i get a kind of fun feel where i know i will have fun playing it
2. U havent terrain hacked the whole map. Everything has a purpose, no useless details. but that doesnt mean u cant add more, just as a fellow custom map player, i beg that u ensure u get PLENTY of testing on the map so u know it doesnt lagg under too much detail :D
good luck! - SnowmenArePimps
@RageQit: Go
Correction...played LoL :P. As for the money who needs it? You wont be buying anything with my item system. Like Halo items will spawn on the map in various places and once somebody picks them up they will respawn after a set amount of time. All items are consumables as well (think grenades healthpacks, etc.)
Attributes are taking the place of your classic DoTA armors, cloaks of whatever and boots of you know what. :P
As for the map itself. Man, if you like it from the video you would LOVE it now. I have recently redone the lighting and it looks way better. I made it much brighter and the shadows are amazing looking now. Basically, the map in that video is at about 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon. The map as it stands now is High noon and there are virtually no dark or depressing areas (hated that about SOTIS).
After redoing the lighting I removed some trees and other doodads to make it feel even less cluttered. I want this map to rely heavily on skills shots for a lot of the heroes so lag has to be cut down. Hopefully blizzard gets their crap together too in order to help nullify lag as well.
@Loveriana: Go
editor contest? I thought blizzards was over :P
This map sounds like an awesome idea and the terrain looks great so far, can't wait to see it in action.
Just wanted to announce that eternallight1000 has joined the Merc train and is going be be handling some abilities for us. Yay for team members lol!
Ah man this thing sounds so fun :D
cant wait till u get ur beta release out
this is gonna be one sexy hit :)
And i wish i had enuf editting experience to join ur team, too bad :S
Good luck!
Dev Journal # 2 (Factions, Lore and Heroes)
Alright well, its Monday and I figured today would be as good a day as any to do another dev journal. With today's journal I would like to talk a little bit about some of of the lore attached to this map and also give a brief glimpse into MercB's 18 heroes.
Lore: First of all, Mercenary Battles has all original lore that has nothing to do with starcraft at all. Also the lore has little to no effect on gameplay and will mostly not show up in gameplay at all. When you chose a mercenary at the start of the game there will be a brief description of the character detailing their playstyle, faction, a tiny blurb on backstory and tips on how to build the character using attributes. That's it. No lengthy paragraphs of data, just a few pieces of pertinent information that the player might find useful and then its time to fight.
But, with that said, there is going to be lore outside of the game for those interested. You see, I want to be a writer. Yeah, you know, I want to create those book things that you probably try to avoid at all costs :p. To be more specific I want to be a science fiction writer and I will be taking writing classes this fall (and next spring) to help myself achieve that goal. So, for those of you that scoff at the idea of creating lore for a multiplayer hero defense know this; I'm doing it for practice (as a break from my book) and I'm doing it for those that might care. So with that out of the way let me go ahead and delve into some other MercB info.
Factions: Factions have very little effect on gameplay but they do exist in MercB. Basically if members of the same faction are on the same team there will be small buffs for those characters. Nothing that will be completely game changing but it will be something helpful. The factions for MercB are as follows:
Mercenaries- Cash, Chuck, H.A.V.O.K. , Mr. H
UNSD Military- Nadia, Lazlo, Van Helfire, Trina
K'ira Tali- Malaci, Derrij, Zemit, Xar Chun
Chaos- Sevril, Bruga, Wrath, Nug/Nuganator/Nugathon
no faction- Greg, Karul
I will go into more detail on factions when their effects are implemented.
Heroes(aka. mercenaries):
We are about 50% done with the mercenaries right now. In fact, only 2 mercenaries still need skills at this point in time. After those two mercs are taken care of we will move onto adding levels to the skills and tweaking actors/animations. As characters become more finalized I will be releasing Mercenary Bios that will go into detail about each mercenary. These bios will consist of video showing what the character is capable of as well as my aimless written babblings. For now I will just give you a general idea of who and what each mercenary is.
Cash- Ranged dps with some cc and debuffs
Chuck- Tank, uses his shotgun effectively in close quarter combat.
H.A.V.O.K- Ranged dps in assault mode. Scout and support in fighter mode.
Mr. H - Ranged dps and tower pusher
Nadia- Support, CC and pet handler.
Lazlo- Support, lane pusher and more support :D.
Van Helfire- Ranged tank, burst dps
Trina- Healer, support and debuffer.
Malaci- Ranged burst damage, lane pusher, carry
Derrij- Melee burst damage
Zemit- Melee dps, CC, destruction :P
Xar Chun- Support, healer, CC
Sevril- Ranged burst damage
Bruga- Melee tank
Wrath- Melee dps, ranged burst
Nug- support, Nuganator-support, dps, Nugathon-DPS, dps and a little support (yes this is all one character too btw ;) )
Karul- Ranged burst dps, AoE dps, death dealing awesomesauce
Greg- Zombie tank, can infect others and make them zombies......seriously.
That's all for now, look out for a video later this week and some more lore stuff :) .