Hey everyone,
after my first maping expirience with a Towerdefence game i've long thought about my next Project. I wanted to do something that involved Heroes or something similar. I am fairly new to mapping, so i didnt wanted to do something too big like dota with many spells. but nothing came to my mind.
Then the Bossfight-contest started, and that was exactly what i wanted to do. but which boss? The most epic Battle ive ever fought: Kael'Thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep from WoW. This will be my second Project EVER, so i hope it will work and that i will be able to do that.
I've put this in the Project Workplace and not the Tutorial, cause, well, i don't want to just give a overview of what to do in which way, i just want to share my impressions, problems and ways to solve them with you, and i dont think that will be a tutorial. If im wrong and this should go into the Tutorial section... ok, move it there, my misstake XD.
Basicly the map will contain the following Units:
5 unique Boss Units (Kael'thas and his 4 officers), each with his own set of abilitys
some basic Units (the fightable Weapons and the Phoenix)
5 typs of Units which you control (tank, meleedps, rangedps, caster and healer)
maybe ill add more units to control at the end, like a better healer that uses more mana, and one that heals worse but can restore mana. but its just a idea
abilitys/mechanics:
various Fireballs
various stuns/fears
mindcontrol
dieing phoenixes spawn eggs which will hatch into a new phoenix
killed weapons will drop themselfs and each hero can pickup one weapon of choice
- each weapon will give a unique buff/ability
one Boss that chases random target.
throwing units into the air and removing the gravity (will see how to do that)
that should cover the basics.
Now, The Planing stage has started. Every map should be planed BEFOR starting it. It makes many things easier if you know what you want to create, rather then just creating a random game. But Planing not just covers the overall gameplay, you also should plan how many units you'll need, which spells and such things.
Also i think its important to think about when doing what. for an example, you shouldnt have hundrets of spells done before u create the actual hero/unit. its easier (for me) to create one unit after another with the basic mechanics and get them working like you want and then add more complex things to them.
so here is my plan:
Datamining - the first thing i have to do (well, i actually did that alread) is find out what you need. in my case its rather simple. i read a guide to the bossencounter and just saved all important infos. i wrote all abilitys/mechanics into one .docx. so now ihave a nice overview of what i have to do
Priority - you should have set your prioritys in orde of what you want to achive first/whats most important. i've given the 4 Generals the highest Priority. Why not Kael'thas himself? Well, i thought, kael has so many abilitys, and im too new to do that all,
Implementing
- so i start with the small bosses. they all have different mechanics/spells, so by slowly working my way through these bosses i hope to know enough to have not too much problems with Kael'thas.
- After i've dont the 4 Minibosses, ill do the basics of kael, like the fireballs and his absorbing shield.
- The next logically step is to implement the own Units. with them i can already test my bosses.
- With that in place, i'll add the Weapons that attack. that should be rather simple.
- Now the first round of balancing starts. All units shouldnt do too much dmg (or too less), and shouldn't die too fast.
- when that is done the hardest part will start, the mechanics of the weapons when equiped.
- the next sep will be, putting all the bosses into a own phase, so one ofter another comes to live. at that point the battle itself should feel not too far away from the wow fight.
- as a last point comes polishing. ill redo the terrain, models will be edited and balancing has to be done again.
ok. that was MUCH text, i know, but for the rough planing is now done. now i'll start with the actual work.
I will probably update that thread every day (at least once a week, sometimes im realy busy :/ ) with the work ive done so far.
Please remember that the whole setup for all the hero classes will take much time, even if its only a few abilities per class, ontop of that, you want a good arena, triggered abilities used by the bosses and so on.. you might reconsider actually using such a big project for the contest and either build up your very own interpretation of the fight, or simply reconsider using it for the contest at all. One of the bigger parts of actually making a map is having realistic goals. Do not discourage yourself by not reaching your goal to participate in the contest, rather have a reachable goal and keep yourself motivated by actually reaching your goals.
I, too, am not posting this to discourage you, but to make sure you do not abandon your project and thus loose interest in mapmaking.
thanks for the reply, but im not doing this fot the contest, forgot to mention that.
the contest just gave me the idea =)
my current goal isnt that high as it sounds.
the units the player control are not meant to be real heroes. i dont plan to add many abilitys to the own units (for now), just a stun, a castinterrupt and maybe a manarecharger.
the focus is more on the bossside. ive picked this fight cause the fight seems pritty large, but the actual mechanics aren't that hard.
And... all i do is to lern the editor and have fun with that.
I have to say, yeah, its pritty funny working with abilitys and behaviors, and i have a good progress.
added the first 2 bosses, actually, just the raw mechanics, no fancy graphics/effects.
what they do till now:
Thaladred the Darkener
- picks every 12 seconds a new target. that target gets a debuff with a small timerbar. i plan to increase the size of the unit sothat u instantly see wich unit it is.
- on attack the target get dmg and a debufff that add 25dmg every 2 seconds for 30 seconds.
Lord Sanguinar
- every 20-40 seconds casts his fearability. every enemy unit in the range (7 for now) gets stuned. will rework that to a real fear so the units walk in random directions
thats it for now. done all that with a combination of trigger/data. will explain some things tomorrow, my bed calls XD.
so, good night to all the maper and mapplayer and see you soon,
Syl3r
Here i am, as promised =)
havent finished many things today :/ still working on the offset on the feareffect.
first about Thaladred.
his mechanics were rather simple. i created a buff that just shows up on the targeted unit so the player sees wich unit is the current target, sounds obvious right?.
ok, now, how to set the new target? first i thought i should create a ability for thaladred, but its much easier to do that by triggers.
i have a trigger that runs every 12 seconds and randomly picks any of my units. then that unit is given the behavior(buff) and gives sanguinar the order to attack that target. there was the first problem. there are many ways to give orders, at first i used Unit - Order unit with targetitem (or something like that, sry got the german client and dont know the exact english name) but all that happend were errormessages. by digging around the forum i found that there also was a order action that required units, wich i just didnt saw. with that, it worked exactly like i want to. thaladred follows the target and chooses a new target every 12 seconds. if the target dies he just chooses the next close target. perfect! =)
now to sanguinar
first i created just a stun that got applied after he casted his ability. the first problem i got, i didnt knew how to acomplish that all creeps in the range get targeted. first thing i did was adding a trigger that added the stunbehavior to all units within a range of sanguinar. that worked perfect. today i wanted to change the stun, to a actual fear. i read http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/map-development/3884-issue-order-move-offset/#p8 wich explained that pritty good, so i tried to copy that. but when i was finished and used that spell ingame.... the creeps got the debuff but didnt do anything else.
after playing around i found out that the walkorder wasnt properly created (in the thread, did exactly what was told there). what i did so the creeps start walking stand in that thread. but it wasnt right. the creeps JUST walk to the bottom left :/
i figured out that whenever i add the offset to the target, the units walk to the bottom left. without the offset, they move properly to the specified target. but i didnt want them to walk TO the boss, i wanted them to walk AWAY from them. no matter what i do in the offset effect, they just walk to the bottom left the moment i add that offset to the target :/
so... thats it for now, still working on the fear, i hope i figure out how to do that.
soooo, after long 8 hours of work on the map, i can proudly say that the 4 minibosses and 3 of 4 unit typs are created. just the units/weapons, no visual effects/modells till now.
it feels awesome for now =)
on working of the healer, ive faced some problems, have to dig in it deeper befor i can create it (will do that tomorrow/next week) after that a small work of UI so the player can his units. with that i'll do a first step of balancing.
also one thing that will be awesome: it will be druids only :> so u basicly will play with bears, cats, moonkins and trees (still, just graphical, no real classskills for now)
so, till next time.
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Hey everyone,
after my first maping expirience with a Towerdefence game i've long thought about my next Project. I wanted to do something that involved Heroes or something similar. I am fairly new to mapping, so i didnt wanted to do something too big like dota with many spells. but nothing came to my mind.
Then the Bossfight-contest started, and that was exactly what i wanted to do. but which boss? The most epic Battle ive ever fought: Kael'Thas Sunstrider in Tempest Keep from WoW. This will be my second Project EVER, so i hope it will work and that i will be able to do that.
Why this thred?
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/8841-map-making-tips-tutorials/#p16 inspired me.
I want to share the knowledge i gain in this Project with everyone who is interested. Maybe it will help some of the beginners to lern things from the perspective of a newbe (that would be me....).
I've put this in the Project Workplace and not the Tutorial, cause, well, i don't want to just give a overview of what to do in which way, i just want to share my impressions, problems and ways to solve them with you, and i dont think that will be a tutorial. If im wrong and this should go into the Tutorial section... ok, move it there, my misstake XD.
For everyone who doesn't know the fight, here is a good video, from the perspective of a caster:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=40799
Things to do:
Basicly the map will contain the following Units:
5 unique Boss Units (Kael'thas and his 4 officers), each with his own set of abilitys
some basic Units (the fightable Weapons and the Phoenix)
5 typs of Units which you control (tank, meleedps, rangedps, caster and healer)
maybe ill add more units to control at the end, like a better healer that uses more mana, and one that heals worse but can restore mana. but its just a idea
abilitys/mechanics:
various Fireballs
various stuns/fears
mindcontrol
dieing phoenixes spawn eggs which will hatch into a new phoenix
killed weapons will drop themselfs and each hero can pickup one weapon of choice
- each weapon will give a unique buff/ability
one Boss that chases random target.
throwing units into the air and removing the gravity (will see how to do that)
that should cover the basics.
Now, The Planing stage has started. Every map should be planed BEFOR starting it. It makes many things easier if you know what you want to create, rather then just creating a random game. But Planing not just covers the overall gameplay, you also should plan how many units you'll need, which spells and such things.
Also i think its important to think about when doing what. for an example, you shouldnt have hundrets of spells done before u create the actual hero/unit. its easier (for me) to create one unit after another with the basic mechanics and get them working like you want and then add more complex things to them.
so here is my plan:
Datamining - the first thing i have to do (well, i actually did that alread) is find out what you need. in my case its rather simple. i read a guide to the bossencounter and just saved all important infos. i wrote all abilitys/mechanics into one .docx. so now ihave a nice overview of what i have to do
Priority - you should have set your prioritys in orde of what you want to achive first/whats most important. i've given the 4 Generals the highest Priority. Why not Kael'thas himself? Well, i thought, kael has so many abilitys, and im too new to do that all,
Implementing
- so i start with the small bosses. they all have different mechanics/spells, so by slowly working my way through these bosses i hope to know enough to have not too much problems with Kael'thas.
- After i've dont the 4 Minibosses, ill do the basics of kael, like the fireballs and his absorbing shield.
- The next logically step is to implement the own Units. with them i can already test my bosses.
- With that in place, i'll add the Weapons that attack. that should be rather simple.
- Now the first round of balancing starts. All units shouldnt do too much dmg (or too less), and shouldn't die too fast.
- when that is done the hardest part will start, the mechanics of the weapons when equiped.
- the next sep will be, putting all the bosses into a own phase, so one ofter another comes to live. at that point the battle itself should feel not too far away from the wow fight.
- as a last point comes polishing. ill redo the terrain, models will be edited and balancing has to be done again.
ok. that was MUCH text, i know, but for the rough planing is now done. now i'll start with the actual work.
I will probably update that thread every day (at least once a week, sometimes im realy busy :/ ) with the work ive done so far.
Thats it for now, thanks for reading =)
cu, Syl3r
@Syl3r: Go
Please remember that the whole setup for all the hero classes will take much time, even if its only a few abilities per class, ontop of that, you want a good arena, triggered abilities used by the bosses and so on.. you might reconsider actually using such a big project for the contest and either build up your very own interpretation of the fight, or simply reconsider using it for the contest at all. One of the bigger parts of actually making a map is having realistic goals. Do not discourage yourself by not reaching your goal to participate in the contest, rather have a reachable goal and keep yourself motivated by actually reaching your goals.
I, too, am not posting this to discourage you, but to make sure you do not abandon your project and thus loose interest in mapmaking.
Good luck with your project
thanks for the reply, but im not doing this fot the contest, forgot to mention that. the contest just gave me the idea =)
my current goal isnt that high as it sounds. the units the player control are not meant to be real heroes. i dont plan to add many abilitys to the own units (for now), just a stun, a castinterrupt and maybe a manarecharger. the focus is more on the bossside. ive picked this fight cause the fight seems pritty large, but the actual mechanics aren't that hard.
And... all i do is to lern the editor and have fun with that. I have to say, yeah, its pritty funny working with abilitys and behaviors, and i have a good progress.
added the first 2 bosses, actually, just the raw mechanics, no fancy graphics/effects.
what they do till now:
Thaladred the Darkener - picks every 12 seconds a new target. that target gets a debuff with a small timerbar. i plan to increase the size of the unit sothat u instantly see wich unit it is. - on attack the target get dmg and a debufff that add 25dmg every 2 seconds for 30 seconds.
Lord Sanguinar - every 20-40 seconds casts his fearability. every enemy unit in the range (7 for now) gets stuned. will rework that to a real fear so the units walk in random directions
thats it for now. done all that with a combination of trigger/data. will explain some things tomorrow, my bed calls XD.
so, good night to all the maper and mapplayer and see you soon, Syl3r
Here i am, as promised =)
havent finished many things today :/ still working on the offset on the feareffect.
first about Thaladred.
his mechanics were rather simple. i created a buff that just shows up on the targeted unit so the player sees wich unit is the current target, sounds obvious right?.
ok, now, how to set the new target? first i thought i should create a ability for thaladred, but its much easier to do that by triggers.
i have a trigger that runs every 12 seconds and randomly picks any of my units. then that unit is given the behavior(buff) and gives sanguinar the order to attack that target. there was the first problem. there are many ways to give orders, at first i used Unit - Order unit with targetitem (or something like that, sry got the german client and dont know the exact english name) but all that happend were errormessages. by digging around the forum i found that there also was a order action that required units, wich i just didnt saw. with that, it worked exactly like i want to. thaladred follows the target and chooses a new target every 12 seconds. if the target dies he just chooses the next close target. perfect! =)
now to sanguinar
first i created just a stun that got applied after he casted his ability. the first problem i got, i didnt knew how to acomplish that all creeps in the range get targeted. first thing i did was adding a trigger that added the stunbehavior to all units within a range of sanguinar. that worked perfect. today i wanted to change the stun, to a actual fear. i read http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/map-development/3884-issue-order-move-offset/#p8 wich explained that pritty good, so i tried to copy that. but when i was finished and used that spell ingame.... the creeps got the debuff but didnt do anything else.
after playing around i found out that the walkorder wasnt properly created (in the thread, did exactly what was told there). what i did so the creeps start walking stand in that thread. but it wasnt right. the creeps JUST walk to the bottom left :/
i figured out that whenever i add the offset to the target, the units walk to the bottom left. without the offset, they move properly to the specified target. but i didnt want them to walk TO the boss, i wanted them to walk AWAY from them. no matter what i do in the offset effect, they just walk to the bottom left the moment i add that offset to the target :/
so... thats it for now, still working on the fear, i hope i figure out how to do that.
hope u enjoy reading,
cu tomorrow.
Forgot to meantion where i got good help:
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/8990-data-multi-phase-spells-advanced-difficulty/#p10 just awesome, but hard for beginners, but it isnt meant for them. but i got help with creating the fear spell.
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/8361-data-creating-units-weapons-and-more/#p15 realy nice to understand how a unit with a weapon is build together. better then just editing a unit.
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/11851-data-introduction-to-ability-creation/#p10 very good to understand how behaviors work and got applied to the target
soooo, after long 8 hours of work on the map, i can proudly say that the 4 minibosses and 3 of 4 unit typs are created. just the units/weapons, no visual effects/modells till now.
it feels awesome for now =)
on working of the healer, ive faced some problems, have to dig in it deeper befor i can create it (will do that tomorrow/next week) after that a small work of UI so the player can his units. with that i'll do a first step of balancing.
also one thing that will be awesome: it will be druids only :> so u basicly will play with bears, cats, moonkins and trees (still, just graphical, no real classskills for now)
so, till next time.