Ok, so in LoL terms, Walls are tanks, tanks are bruisers and supports are supports, and sweepers are sort of glass cannons. I'll keep these classes in mind. Looking at all my starmon, we seem to have a lot of "bruisers".
I'll probably be nerfing all base stats at some point so that all starmon have a certain weakness and aren't too all-round.
Thanks for the explanation :)
as for help - What I meant was that if you want a specific type combo and/or class, I need a model that fits it. I can come up with fitting base stats and move lists myself, and I already have a large selection of models. But if you want me to make something specific, I'll need a fitting a model.
What I meant is that I don't want starmon to be useless, not that I'll be adding less starmon. I can still add a ton of starmon without intentionally making them worse than other starmon by giving them lower base stats (Currently all base stats for final stage starmon always add up to 520, with the exception of the bug starmon evolving at level 10 having lower stats and (pseudo-)legendaries which have a stat total of 600. I think starters are sitting on 525, not sure)
Ill do my best to make sure no starmon is rendered useless by another starmon (I don't mean hard countered but plain simply outclassed. (Why would you take X if Y does everything it does, but better?))
As for Corsola, could be cool :) Also, I'll post a screenie of your other model that you already sent once I'm done with HotS and actualy add it to the map.
"Rerolling" may be the wrong word for EVs, since they aren't randomized in any way but acquired linearly. You'll be able to remove EVs for a price (Probably not a very high one), as well as actually see them. In the original pokemon games you had berries that could reduce a certain EV by 10, so I don't see why not add this option but as another piece of the lab.
As for constantly increasing prices, it means we need to save more values per starmon, depending on how we allow rerolling and how we increase price, but it means a lot more is added to the bank, and we want to avoid that. Up to Zelda ultimately. But I'd like to have the price high enough by default that you can't just reroll IVs 100 times in a row.
Could you maybe define "Tank", "Support" and "Sweeper" a bit better? I get the general idea, but what did such pokemon need to have to be classified as such? I'm guessing sweepers need Atk or Sp.Atk to be high (130ish) plus probably high speed.
Right now I'm trying to have starmon follow certain themes. Ezeahls for example are called "elusive" in their lore section of the stardex, and their moves reflect that - They have a ton of defensive moves to screw over their opponents. Merahns are supposed to be very durable with their combination of psychic defense moves and grass sustaining moves. Im guessing both of these might be classified as tanks? (Well, ezeahl would maybe be closer to support)
Also, considering we doubled health at max level, sweepers should overall be less effective I think? The game will be less about oneshotting and encourages status moves to be used more (hopefully)
As for stardex info/sorting: Entirely Zelda's domain. All I do is put all the info into a User Type (Database), he's the one who can comment on adding more functionality to the stardex (Something I think is a good idea and we should do once we have time. not really necessary for alpha testing)
Currently they're all sorted by ID, which means its the order I created them in since the stardex creation trigger just goes through the entire list. There is really no easy way to restructure that list - I can only move one index by one spot at a time using a button, and new entries are created all the way at the bottom, so if I made something that belonged into the first group, I'd have to click the button over 100 times to get it there. If we decide to make a second map as a sort of generation II /gold-silver thingy, it'll become even more annoying, so I don't think we can do that. I'd rather have one or more functions that makes the stardex more flexible than to change the default order.
Ok, I hope I answered everything, time to spam cliff jumping zerglings!
Haha, how soon can I catch my Paterkie? :P. I like having a butterfree equivalent since they were so awesomely rounded and easy to use. For kanto and johto you could get them fairly early, they fly (avoiding ground moves), and compound eyes made sleep powder fairly easy to pull off.
Those are definitely interesting different types of starmon but deciding on base stats sound tough. I hope the game won't end up with 'useless' starmon. If you don't know what I mean it's like the first round of battle tower battles and it's not just under-evolved pokemon. Hopefully there's a fairly even distribution of starmon types like zone 1 has tanks and sweepers (in terms of EV) and zone 2 has walls and rounded (also in terms of EV) in the wild. I don't want to wait until after I beat the star league and have access to every zone before I can carry and battle with a strategically chosen/trained team :P.
I'm personally not a fan of those type of posts. It did reveal some cool starmon and info but I kinda like to wait until I play the game before I start considering their strengths/weaknesses. I don't suppose you or Zelda will do what the internet has done for pokemon, which is setting up a searchable database of starmon which we can sort by moves, types, name, base stats, zone, etc. If you do I'll be extra happy ;)
Yea, I'd like to not have useless starmon, but that will only really be possible to be determined once many people start playing, which is when I will be able to see which starmon are more or less used, and can hand out nerfs/buffs to base stats accordingly, as well as modifications to abilities and move lists.
And I also want as many starmon to be available to players as soon as possible. You don't have to catch everything in the first two zones ("Route 1" and "Probablyisgoingtohaveitsnamechanged Forest") as the next few zones will open up shortly after the tutorial period (First few quests introducing mechanics and story, probably ending by the time you beat the first milestone trainer at level 15). You should ideally be able to get a balanced team before levels 25-30. Also, having one by the time you beat the "Star league" (i.e. the Arena Champion and Arena Elite Four, trainers #96-100 in the list (Technically 5-1, list goes in reverse order logically) is kind of a must, since those trainers are going to have level 100 starmon and hopefully a very challenging AI.
Also, I'll be putting a large variety of starmon in every zone - It's not like I have 20+ zones I can distribute them across. I'll still try and keep the list somewhat short for every moment of time - What I mean is that it won't be 1 of 10 possible starmon spawning when you walk into grass, but more like 1 out of 4, and that there is one set of those 4 for day, one for night, and then another few starmon that appear under special conditions or are fought in a special way (Only appears during rain, or the Aravon encounter I showed earlier)
I can put those "reveal" posts into a spoiler button if you want to (Mod powers ftw). And the strengths/weaknesses are only what I assume they will be, maybe people will figure out some other way to make those guys work ;)
And yea, we weren't planning on a wiki, which is why we put as much info as possible into the Stardex itself (If we made a wiki, we would essentially be rewriting everything we put into the game, time I think would be better spent actually working on the map instead). I do have an online spreadsheet with a list of all moves (Well, all except for the last five which I didn't add to the list yet due to lazyness) which I plan to update with more info like power, accuracy, class, etc. (List of starmon that learn it is unlikely as that would be a bit harder to put together plus take up a ton of space, but generally, since there aren't nearly as many moves as in the pokemon games, check the moves class (Special/Physical/Status) and type then look for a starmon of the same type with fitting base stats and chances are it learns that move. It's status and normal/dark/psychic moves that get thrown around a lot and are less predictable)
If the map does become very popular though, a wiki can probably be set up and players themselves might be able to actually fill it out (I can make things like the User Type xml that has all the relevant data available, but I will most likely not have the time and - probably more importantly - the motivation to fill out a wiki)
If you do wanna make models for things other than Starmon, go ahead - could become a valuable skill ;) No harm in learning! And once you do get the hang of it and decide to make a model for starmon, I'm sure we can sneak it in somewhere ;)
Also, just posting here regularly is already doing enough for us ;) We wouldn't be nearly as motivated to work on the map if we wouldn't have the continued support of everyone in this thread :) I just hope that we can make the map as amazing as you guys expect it to be.
Making models is relatively hard I think, or at least takes a while to get into to be able to produce something of decent quality. "Organic" models are even harder to get right :( So while I really appreciate your enthusiasm, I don't think you'll be able to help out this way unfortunately - By the time you get skilled in 3D modelling, we will probably have released the map or at least finalized all the starmon.
If you still do want to learn 3D modelling, head over to the Artist Tavern section of sc2mapster, people there are more likely to be able to point you into the right direction than me :p 3DSmax is I think the program most people use (That and Blender, but 3DSmax has the official startools from blizzard for exporting)
As for uploading - You can attach files to posts (Its right beneath where you write, big orange letters, "Add Attachment") or you can upload them to different file sharing/storage sites like google drive/docs (part of your gmail account if you have one), megaupload (Its back up, right?) or you can use a program like Dropbox.
Any models you were making or planning on making, just go on. I don't mind having similar starmon / type combinations. We can use all the models we can get :p
As for the ghost mammoth, feel free to finish that one :p it wouldn't be the first ghost starmon that looks similar to a living one! I completely forgot about fossils altogether >.> But I'd definitely like to use some.
As for using WoW Models: I don't think they look off at all - Mostly because majority of SC2 unit models aren't being used. We'll have marines/spectres/ghosts and maybe marauders for armed/dangerous people like guards/police/Cipher agents, almost everything else will just be doodads and WoW models. The few SC2 models we will use apart from those will be civilians and some starmon, and we won't have any super strange starmon that look like firebats or colossi (Alright, we do have observer/phoenix... Should probably change those...) I think the combination of models will look fine.
And yea, I don't have a million people making models for me so that I can actually use anything else :p
Apart from setting up an epic wild encounter, I've also been busy adding more starmon. Currently we're at 84, one of which won't be revealed until a related starmon is added as well as the features that unlock both, and another one won't be revealed until we're done with adding all starmon to the game. But that still leaves a good amount for me to reveal!
My last reveal ended with Batzu and Batol, the bats, which are #64 and #65 respectively, and now i'll go through #66 through #82.
Starmon #82 forgot to join the party, so there'll be a seperate image for it later on.
I also put in the trainer in his temporary outfit for size reference.
Let us start on the left! (These starmon are not ordered chronologically / by ID)
Elkor and Elkophant! (70-71)
These normal starmon heavily favor physical stats, and... Oh, right, health! Elkophant is one of the very few starmon to have a base stat of 140 - in this case, it's health. Combined with 100 base defense, this guy will be hard to take down with physical moves. It's special stats are lacking though, so if you manage to find yourself a starmon with high defense and special attack, these guys should be no real issue - Especially if you consider Normal type attacks aren't super effective against anything.
Flei, Ragnos and Roknarr (67-69)
Stat wise, this is a bit of a strange evolution chain - Flei is pure fire type and favors the special stats. Once it evolves to Ragnos, it gains the Rock type, and its stats shift towards the physical side more, favoring health and defense. But trading a Ragnos makes it go through a nervous meltdown- No, wait, wrong - a physical meltdown, turning it into a Roknarr, giving it a massive spike in its special attack and health, and allowing it to learn Fire Blast (Either at level 70 or via TM). This also makes it the fourth and final 3rd stage starmon to be evolved via trade, the other three being Mortem/Mortessus (Liches), Ughondo/Thangur (Two headed brutes) and Shelo/Shelob (Ice+Rock spiders). There are at least three more three-stage chains planned at the moment, not including the bug chain that'll be mentioned a bit further down, that will evolve either via level, item or happiness. (Undecided for now)
Izhal and Ezeahl (77-78)
I managed to find a working version of the Ethereal models from WoW. These two are elusive little guys, naturally learning only five offensive moves. These guys can become incredibly annoying if you want battlefield control - Reflect and Light Screen reduces damage, Confuse Ray and Hypnosis are some of the most annoying moves in the game in my opinion, after protect - which it can learn as well! If that's not enough, it will steal your stats with Body Swap, hide it's health bar via Psyche Shield and then give all those stats it stole to another starmon in your party by using Baton Pass! And if that isn't enough, it's got Fade to increase its evasion. (Fade is practically Double Team from pokemon)
If it wasn't apparent already, they're psychic types.
I look forward to players using Ezeahl ;)
Ferrok (66)
This guy will be a tough nut to crack, sporting the excellent defense all Steel starmon do, and the fact that it has Fire Wall (Burn on contact), Iron Defense and Taunt will make it a nightmare for all other physical starmon - If you don't see why: High Defense + Steel Type (Resistant to most types) + Burn from all its fire moves halves physical damage dealt. It also doesn't evolve, meaning it is a powerful early game starmon if you can get your hands on it, as it has the base stats of a fully evolved starmon!
Meylir and Merahn (75-76)
These guys are grass+psychic types. Their attack and speed are pretty bad, but in exchange all their defenses, health and special attack are sitting around the 100-110 mark. Merahn will be able to take quite a beating by using Psychic's defensive moves (Light Screen, Reflect, Psyche Shield, Amnesia, Calm Mind, etc.) together with Grass' sustaining moves (Ingrain, Giga Drain, Synthesis), and don't let it hit you with a solarbeam after it has used one too many Calm Minds!
Yetus (79)
This massive creature will only be found high up in the mountains - I recommend you bring a jacket or ten. Another one of those rare 140 base stats - Health again, coincidentally, and some really good base attack and defense, and all that one a stage one starmon! Don't worry, you won't see these guys on too low levels, similar to Aravons these guys will never be found below level 25, at which point many two-stage chains are already evolved and match its stats.
This guy is ice+fighting, its moves leaning far more on the fighting side - Mostly because I haven't actually made a decent selection of Ice moves, sorry. Once I add Blizzard (Xcorbo made a great model for it using Startools) and hail, it'll learn those as well - I'm just focusing more on filling out the list of starmon at the moment.
Paterkie, Petamod and Washb (72-74)
Another bug evolution line, the first two names are most definitely not a reference to Pokemon, and the last one is definitely not a reference to Washburne, the pilot of the firefly-class transport ship Serenity.
As you would expect, sub-par stage 3 base stats in exchange for being able to be captured in the first zones and finishing its evolution chain at the early level of 10. Washb is also Bug+Fire type, offering you a moveset fairly different to that of Muty and Squiddy. The fact that it has high speed and learns Overdrive naturally can make it viable on higher levels by giving it a quick boost to make up for its lower base stats, throw a fireblast at the enemy and then U-Turn out before Overdrive times out.
I might give it a unique version of U-Turn and call it Crazy Ivan, and give it a special side effect maybe...
Vesir and Vaeris (80-81)
These two Wind Serpents are Fire and Flying type and boast incredible speed. Their health and defenses might be lacking, but its attack stat is good. As with most naturally fast starmon, they can learn Overdrive after level 50 or via TM, as well as U-Turn, allowing them to strike fast and hard, and then leave before the enemy can take advantage of their low base stats.
How these will be found in the wild I haven't decided yet, but I've got a pretty cool idea...
and here comes our shy #82
Gramite, #82
This incredibly strange ring worm is Rock Psychic type, rocking strong physical stats and decent health. It only learns one offensive psychic move, as there is only one physical psychic move and its special stats are useless, but it is capable of learning a good amount of its defensive moves, and handles its offense with rock moves such as Rock Slide and Ancient Power.
This concludes this weeks starmon reveal/preview, and I'll hopefully do these more regularly now! (Unless you guys don't like em, I can stop then :p not like it takes about 1.5 hours to write this damn thing)
Dunno whether we'll make a quest like that, but I'll definitely include some more subtle references to Firefly ;) Could name a mercenary Jayne (Or hero of Canton?)
Maybe there even already is a firefly starmon called "Washb"...
Let's see what we have for now...
Ground Fire (Evolves from Ground Bug)
Fire Fly why did it have to end D: .
Poison Grass
Water Rock
Electric Flying
Electric Steel
Ghost Ice
Rock Ice
Fly Poison
Bug Fly
Bug Dark
Grass Water
Grass Fight
Fire Rock
Fire Dark
we'll likely have a dark/ghost or dark/psychic combo.
The biggest issue is models - I can't just slap random types on random models. Most of the types atm were picked to match the model. Skarr is a big light brown scorpion with glowing orange pincers that look almost fiery, so he's ground fire. If you know any WoW models that would fit any of the type combos you like, post a screenshot and their names so that I can find em.
Also, definitely planning on a dark+electric (Starmon's version of Eevee is dark, we've got Ice, Fire and base already, just missing the electric one. Worst case scenario I'll retexture the Predator to be yellow+black.)
EDIT: I seem to have run into quite a big issue... WoW Model Viewer hasn't been updated since September and can't load the version of Mists of Pandaria that I have >.>
Yea, most likely that way. Currently we're thinking of late April, but it might be later if we don't get much time to work, or earlier if get a lot of time.
Zelda was writing a post but had to go, so I'll take over :)
First of all, sorry if I didn't comment directly on your ideas >.> It either slipped my mind or there were just too many posts to reply to (There's been quite a lot more posts here lately :p ) I'll try and comment on everything from now on though.
For the mentor again: There'll definitely be people all over the place giving helpful hints or directing you to quests, and if we have time we might make some more elaborate ones like the main mentor. But putting very important NPCs into the zones kind of puts them out of the way (We're not saving your position in banks atm, so you always start in the main city. That's one of the reasons why we have the teleporter system), we'd like to keep all the important NPCs you want to repeatedly visit inside the main city (Doesn't mean we won't put any interesting NPCs you want to visit multiple times outside the city - If you have some cool ideas for some dude we can stuff in a hut somewhere, feel free to say so :p )
Quote from Zeldarules28:
We're not going to be giving too many details to spoil pieces of the plot here, but I will say that one of our goals when designing the "bad guys" was to make them feel threatening. In starmon, the criminal gang goes by the name "Cipher" (we felt that team xyz felt inherently childish). We found it silly that a criminal organization was taken down by a 10-year old brand-new trainer. So we're taking steps early within the game to make Cipher to feel scary, like you would feel with a real criminal gang. They use guns, they shoot and kill people, the police are constantly on lookout, etc.... We want them to feel scary, and we want them to feel like a real threat.
Zelda explained that pretty well before he had to leave.
There might still be idiots with the bad guys like in the real pokemon games, but the organisation itself won't be composed entirely of morons :p
Another thing is that guns are used in this universe. Guards will have guns, bad guys will have guns. But guns aren't very effective against starmon - They are naturally extremely resilient, which is why they are able to fight as much as they do, survive lightning strike, etc. You can shoot an entire clip into a Larvy, and yea it'll bleed like hell, but there's a good chance it'll survive and possibly even jump on you and chew your face off. And that's one of the weakest starmon in existence. Good look taking down a Venostalk, Blasturtle or Skarr, let alone ghosts like Mortessus.
Alright, no problem. I'll ask Zolden or xCorbo instead once I get my hands on the model. Thanks a lot for the help you already gave to the map :) Some more furniture could be cool, and Mozared should probably post a wishlist if he has one. Once we start filling out the arena trainers, I'll make sure to add you as one of the milestone trainers ;) If you have any preferences, post em!
Just to elaborate on something Zelda missed since he didn't check the map before posting:
Night lighting is implemented already.
SoulFilcher already made an amazing model for the teleporter =D (Top left corner) He is working on some modifications to it though, so that it's not completely gray
Also, what Zelda did for the teleporter is flippin' amazing. It's so much fun using it =D Just simply a good sound and visual effect.
To be absolutely honest, I feel as if an alpha/beta test is incoming. We've got a LOT of stuff implemented, we just need to add more zones and quests, and I need to do some more data work for a couple of the quests which will hopefully be a pleasant surprise for you guys ;) I'd give us another month though - Can't really estimate well how quickly this phase of development will go, as we heavily rely on each other (We need Moz's terrain to make quests, and we need me to... Well, I kinda do whatever the fuck I want and no one really relies on me too much. We need Moz to make the terrain, then Zelda and I start adding quests, and I set up anything special necessary for the quests)
Oh oh oh, SoulFilcher, how hard is it to change the way textures are applied to an existing model? To be more specific, are you able to make the Human male/female model from WoW use multiple textures? One for legs, one for upper body + arms + hands and another for the head? The few human WoW models I have on this laptop all use all textures in one, but these don't seem to be the models player characters in WoW use so the textures on those might be split up. But in the case they are not split, are you capable of splitting?
EDIT: Yea, we're gonna remove the weird table, don't worry.
EDIT 2: Zelda, you did not only miss your 4000th post, but also the 500th post in this thread :) Dammit we've been doing this for a while, we should hurry up!
Sounds absolutely cool, but Mozared is the main terrainer. It's incredibly rare that I manage to do something not-horrible in the terrain editor :p I'll tell him to check this thread and reply to you the next time I see him (tomorrow probably)
EDIT: Just took a look at the triggers that handle our quest system, and I must say Zelda did a really neat job ^.^ 90% of the actions necessary for quests seem to be the conversation box related ones :) He even made the phasing system really easy to use!
I should start making some quests myself soon :) Just need Mozared to finish up a couple of zones (or at least get their basic layouts done) so that we have space to make the quests in.
EDIT 2: SoulFilcher, right now we're using an ugly sensor tower as our Teleporter. You maybe have some ideas for something you could make for us to use? Some form of platform could be pretty neat.
Yea, nothing about the city or starcenters is even close to finalized at the moment. It looks pretty horrible in there to be honest :p But we'll be working on that soon (Moz, mostly)
EDIT: Was bored! Imported a ton of SoulFilcher's doodads and reorganized the Starcenter a tiny bit. Definitely not the final version, but it's a prettier draft than it was before.
It's a terrain editor shot, so the healing machine is white instead of blue.
Also, in the pokemon games the main color was red, here it's blue, which is why the tiles are blue. Might end up changing it though.
Ok, so in LoL terms, Walls are tanks, tanks are bruisers and supports are supports, and sweepers are sort of glass cannons. I'll keep these classes in mind. Looking at all my starmon, we seem to have a lot of "bruisers".
I'll probably be nerfing all base stats at some point so that all starmon have a certain weakness and aren't too all-round.
Thanks for the explanation :)
as for help - What I meant was that if you want a specific type combo and/or class, I need a model that fits it. I can come up with fitting base stats and move lists myself, and I already have a large selection of models. But if you want me to make something specific, I'll need a fitting a model.
Time for a long reply... But first of all: No updates on the map for now, HotS campaign 2 gud.
@SoulFilcher: Go
What I meant is that I don't want starmon to be useless, not that I'll be adding less starmon. I can still add a ton of starmon without intentionally making them worse than other starmon by giving them lower base stats (Currently all base stats for final stage starmon always add up to 520, with the exception of the bug starmon evolving at level 10 having lower stats and (pseudo-)legendaries which have a stat total of 600. I think starters are sitting on 525, not sure)
Ill do my best to make sure no starmon is rendered useless by another starmon (I don't mean hard countered but plain simply outclassed. (Why would you take X if Y does everything it does, but better?))
As for Corsola, could be cool :) Also, I'll post a screenie of your other model that you already sent once I'm done with HotS and actualy add it to the map.
@Trieva: Go
"Rerolling" may be the wrong word for EVs, since they aren't randomized in any way but acquired linearly. You'll be able to remove EVs for a price (Probably not a very high one), as well as actually see them. In the original pokemon games you had berries that could reduce a certain EV by 10, so I don't see why not add this option but as another piece of the lab.
As for constantly increasing prices, it means we need to save more values per starmon, depending on how we allow rerolling and how we increase price, but it means a lot more is added to the bank, and we want to avoid that. Up to Zelda ultimately. But I'd like to have the price high enough by default that you can't just reroll IVs 100 times in a row.
Could you maybe define "Tank", "Support" and "Sweeper" a bit better? I get the general idea, but what did such pokemon need to have to be classified as such? I'm guessing sweepers need Atk or Sp.Atk to be high (130ish) plus probably high speed.
Right now I'm trying to have starmon follow certain themes. Ezeahls for example are called "elusive" in their lore section of the stardex, and their moves reflect that - They have a ton of defensive moves to screw over their opponents. Merahns are supposed to be very durable with their combination of psychic defense moves and grass sustaining moves. Im guessing both of these might be classified as tanks? (Well, ezeahl would maybe be closer to support)
Also, considering we doubled health at max level, sweepers should overall be less effective I think? The game will be less about oneshotting and encourages status moves to be used more (hopefully)
As for stardex info/sorting: Entirely Zelda's domain. All I do is put all the info into a User Type (Database), he's the one who can comment on adding more functionality to the stardex (Something I think is a good idea and we should do once we have time. not really necessary for alpha testing)
Currently they're all sorted by ID, which means its the order I created them in since the stardex creation trigger just goes through the entire list. There is really no easy way to restructure that list - I can only move one index by one spot at a time using a button, and new entries are created all the way at the bottom, so if I made something that belonged into the first group, I'd have to click the button over 100 times to get it there. If we decide to make a second map as a sort of generation II /gold-silver thingy, it'll become even more annoying, so I don't think we can do that. I'd rather have one or more functions that makes the stardex more flexible than to change the default order.
Ok, I hope I answered everything, time to spam cliff jumping zerglings!
Yea, I'd like to not have useless starmon, but that will only really be possible to be determined once many people start playing, which is when I will be able to see which starmon are more or less used, and can hand out nerfs/buffs to base stats accordingly, as well as modifications to abilities and move lists.
And I also want as many starmon to be available to players as soon as possible. You don't have to catch everything in the first two zones ("Route 1" and "Probablyisgoingtohaveitsnamechanged Forest") as the next few zones will open up shortly after the tutorial period (First few quests introducing mechanics and story, probably ending by the time you beat the first milestone trainer at level 15). You should ideally be able to get a balanced team before levels 25-30. Also, having one by the time you beat the "Star league" (i.e. the Arena Champion and Arena Elite Four, trainers #96-100 in the list (Technically 5-1, list goes in reverse order logically) is kind of a must, since those trainers are going to have level 100 starmon and hopefully a very challenging AI.
Also, I'll be putting a large variety of starmon in every zone - It's not like I have 20+ zones I can distribute them across. I'll still try and keep the list somewhat short for every moment of time - What I mean is that it won't be 1 of 10 possible starmon spawning when you walk into grass, but more like 1 out of 4, and that there is one set of those 4 for day, one for night, and then another few starmon that appear under special conditions or are fought in a special way (Only appears during rain, or the Aravon encounter I showed earlier)
I can put those "reveal" posts into a spoiler button if you want to (Mod powers ftw). And the strengths/weaknesses are only what I assume they will be, maybe people will figure out some other way to make those guys work ;)
And yea, we weren't planning on a wiki, which is why we put as much info as possible into the Stardex itself (If we made a wiki, we would essentially be rewriting everything we put into the game, time I think would be better spent actually working on the map instead). I do have an online spreadsheet with a list of all moves (Well, all except for the last five which I didn't add to the list yet due to lazyness) which I plan to update with more info like power, accuracy, class, etc. (List of starmon that learn it is unlikely as that would be a bit harder to put together plus take up a ton of space, but generally, since there aren't nearly as many moves as in the pokemon games, check the moves class (Special/Physical/Status) and type then look for a starmon of the same type with fitting base stats and chances are it learns that move. It's status and normal/dark/psychic moves that get thrown around a lot and are less predictable)
If the map does become very popular though, a wiki can probably be set up and players themselves might be able to actually fill it out (I can make things like the User Type xml that has all the relevant data available, but I will most likely not have the time and - probably more importantly - the motivation to fill out a wiki)
@SoulFilcher: Go
If we get models that visually fit those themes, we'll make em into such starmon :)
@BladeOfAiur: Go
If you do wanna make models for things other than Starmon, go ahead - could become a valuable skill ;) No harm in learning! And once you do get the hang of it and decide to make a model for starmon, I'm sure we can sneak it in somewhere ;)
Also, just posting here regularly is already doing enough for us ;) We wouldn't be nearly as motivated to work on the map if we wouldn't have the continued support of everyone in this thread :) I just hope that we can make the map as amazing as you guys expect it to be.
@BladeOfAiur: Go
Making models is relatively hard I think, or at least takes a while to get into to be able to produce something of decent quality. "Organic" models are even harder to get right :( So while I really appreciate your enthusiasm, I don't think you'll be able to help out this way unfortunately - By the time you get skilled in 3D modelling, we will probably have released the map or at least finalized all the starmon. If you still do want to learn 3D modelling, head over to the Artist Tavern section of sc2mapster, people there are more likely to be able to point you into the right direction than me :p 3DSmax is I think the program most people use (That and Blender, but 3DSmax has the official startools from blizzard for exporting)
As for uploading - You can attach files to posts (Its right beneath where you write, big orange letters, "Add Attachment") or you can upload them to different file sharing/storage sites like google drive/docs (part of your gmail account if you have one), megaupload (Its back up, right?) or you can use a program like Dropbox.
@SoulFilcher: Go
Any models you were making or planning on making, just go on. I don't mind having similar starmon / type combinations. We can use all the models we can get :p
As for the ghost mammoth, feel free to finish that one :p it wouldn't be the first ghost starmon that looks similar to a living one! I completely forgot about fossils altogether >.> But I'd definitely like to use some.
As for using WoW Models: I don't think they look off at all - Mostly because majority of SC2 unit models aren't being used. We'll have marines/spectres/ghosts and maybe marauders for armed/dangerous people like guards/police/Cipher agents, almost everything else will just be doodads and WoW models. The few SC2 models we will use apart from those will be civilians and some starmon, and we won't have any super strange starmon that look like firebats or colossi (Alright, we do have observer/phoenix... Should probably change those...) I think the combination of models will look fine.
And yea, I don't have a million people making models for me so that I can actually use anything else :p
Apart from setting up an epic wild encounter, I've also been busy adding more starmon. Currently we're at 84, one of which won't be revealed until a related starmon is added as well as the features that unlock both, and another one won't be revealed until we're done with adding all starmon to the game. But that still leaves a good amount for me to reveal!
My last reveal ended with Batzu and Batol, the bats, which are #64 and #65 respectively, and now i'll go through #66 through #82.
Starmon #82 forgot to join the party, so there'll be a seperate image for it later on.
I also put in the trainer in his temporary outfit for size reference.
Let us start on the left! (These starmon are not ordered chronologically / by ID)
Elkor and Elkophant! (70-71)
These normal starmon heavily favor physical stats, and... Oh, right, health! Elkophant is one of the very few starmon to have a base stat of 140 - in this case, it's health. Combined with 100 base defense, this guy will be hard to take down with physical moves. It's special stats are lacking though, so if you manage to find yourself a starmon with high defense and special attack, these guys should be no real issue - Especially if you consider Normal type attacks aren't super effective against anything.
Flei, Ragnos and Roknarr (67-69)
Stat wise, this is a bit of a strange evolution chain - Flei is pure fire type and favors the special stats. Once it evolves to Ragnos, it gains the Rock type, and its stats shift towards the physical side more, favoring health and defense. But trading a Ragnos makes it go through a nervous meltdown- No, wait, wrong - a physical meltdown, turning it into a Roknarr, giving it a massive spike in its special attack and health, and allowing it to learn Fire Blast (Either at level 70 or via TM). This also makes it the fourth and final 3rd stage starmon to be evolved via trade, the other three being Mortem/Mortessus (Liches), Ughondo/Thangur (Two headed brutes) and Shelo/Shelob (Ice+Rock spiders). There are at least three more three-stage chains planned at the moment, not including the bug chain that'll be mentioned a bit further down, that will evolve either via level, item or happiness. (Undecided for now)
Izhal and Ezeahl (77-78)
I managed to find a working version of the Ethereal models from WoW. These two are elusive little guys, naturally learning only five offensive moves. These guys can become incredibly annoying if you want battlefield control - Reflect and Light Screen reduces damage, Confuse Ray and Hypnosis are some of the most annoying moves in the game in my opinion, after protect - which it can learn as well! If that's not enough, it will steal your stats with Body Swap, hide it's health bar via Psyche Shield and then give all those stats it stole to another starmon in your party by using Baton Pass! And if that isn't enough, it's got Fade to increase its evasion. (Fade is practically Double Team from pokemon)
If it wasn't apparent already, they're psychic types.
I look forward to players using Ezeahl ;)
Ferrok (66)
This guy will be a tough nut to crack, sporting the excellent defense all Steel starmon do, and the fact that it has Fire Wall (Burn on contact), Iron Defense and Taunt will make it a nightmare for all other physical starmon - If you don't see why: High Defense + Steel Type (Resistant to most types) + Burn from all its fire moves halves physical damage dealt. It also doesn't evolve, meaning it is a powerful early game starmon if you can get your hands on it, as it has the base stats of a fully evolved starmon!
Meylir and Merahn (75-76)
These guys are grass+psychic types. Their attack and speed are pretty bad, but in exchange all their defenses, health and special attack are sitting around the 100-110 mark. Merahn will be able to take quite a beating by using Psychic's defensive moves (Light Screen, Reflect, Psyche Shield, Amnesia, Calm Mind, etc.) together with Grass' sustaining moves (Ingrain, Giga Drain, Synthesis), and don't let it hit you with a solarbeam after it has used one too many Calm Minds!
Yetus (79)
This massive creature will only be found high up in the mountains - I recommend you bring a jacket or ten. Another one of those rare 140 base stats - Health again, coincidentally, and some really good base attack and defense, and all that one a stage one starmon! Don't worry, you won't see these guys on too low levels, similar to Aravons these guys will never be found below level 25, at which point many two-stage chains are already evolved and match its stats.
This guy is ice+fighting, its moves leaning far more on the fighting side - Mostly because I haven't actually made a decent selection of Ice moves, sorry. Once I add Blizzard (Xcorbo made a great model for it using Startools) and hail, it'll learn those as well - I'm just focusing more on filling out the list of starmon at the moment.
Paterkie, Petamod and Washb (72-74)
Another bug evolution line, the first two names are most definitely not a reference to Pokemon, and the last one is definitely not a reference to Washburne, the pilot of the firefly-class transport ship Serenity.
As you would expect, sub-par stage 3 base stats in exchange for being able to be captured in the first zones and finishing its evolution chain at the early level of 10. Washb is also Bug+Fire type, offering you a moveset fairly different to that of Muty and Squiddy. The fact that it has high speed and learns Overdrive naturally can make it viable on higher levels by giving it a quick boost to make up for its lower base stats, throw a fireblast at the enemy and then U-Turn out before Overdrive times out.
I might give it a unique version of U-Turn and call it Crazy Ivan, and give it a special side effect maybe...
Vesir and Vaeris (80-81)
These two Wind Serpents are Fire and Flying type and boast incredible speed. Their health and defenses might be lacking, but its attack stat is good. As with most naturally fast starmon, they can learn Overdrive after level 50 or via TM, as well as U-Turn, allowing them to strike fast and hard, and then leave before the enemy can take advantage of their low base stats.
How these will be found in the wild I haven't decided yet, but I've got a pretty cool idea...
and here comes our shy #82
Gramite, #82
This incredibly strange ring worm is Rock Psychic type, rocking strong physical stats and decent health. It only learns one offensive psychic move, as there is only one physical psychic move and its special stats are useless, but it is capable of learning a good amount of its defensive moves, and handles its offense with rock moves such as Rock Slide and Ancient Power.
This concludes this weeks starmon reveal/preview, and I'll hopefully do these more regularly now! (Unless you guys don't like em, I can stop then :p not like it takes about 1.5 hours to write this damn thing)
@OceanFlex: Go
Dunno whether we'll make a quest like that, but I'll definitely include some more subtle references to Firefly ;) Could name a mercenary Jayne (Or hero of Canton?)
Maybe there even already is a firefly starmon called "Washb"...
@Trieva: Go
Let's see what we have for now...
Ground Fire (Evolves from Ground Bug)
Fire Fly why did it have to end D: .
Poison Grass
Water Rock
Electric Flying
Electric Steel
Ghost Ice
Rock Ice
Fly Poison
Bug Fly
Bug Dark
Grass Water
Grass Fight
Fire Rock
Fire Dark
we'll likely have a dark/ghost or dark/psychic combo.
The biggest issue is models - I can't just slap random types on random models. Most of the types atm were picked to match the model. Skarr is a big light brown scorpion with glowing orange pincers that look almost fiery, so he's ground fire. If you know any WoW models that would fit any of the type combos you like, post a screenshot and their names so that I can find em.
Also, definitely planning on a dark+electric (Starmon's version of Eevee is dark, we've got Ice, Fire and base already, just missing the electric one. Worst case scenario I'll retexture the Predator to be yellow+black.)
EDIT: I seem to have run into quite a big issue... WoW Model Viewer hasn't been updated since September and can't load the version of Mists of Pandaria that I have >.>
@OceanFlex: Go
Yea, most likely that way. Currently we're thinking of late April, but it might be later if we don't get much time to work, or earlier if get a lot of time.
@Trieva: Go
Zelda was writing a post but had to go, so I'll take over :)
First of all, sorry if I didn't comment directly on your ideas >.> It either slipped my mind or there were just too many posts to reply to (There's been quite a lot more posts here lately :p ) I'll try and comment on everything from now on though.
For the mentor again: There'll definitely be people all over the place giving helpful hints or directing you to quests, and if we have time we might make some more elaborate ones like the main mentor. But putting very important NPCs into the zones kind of puts them out of the way (We're not saving your position in banks atm, so you always start in the main city. That's one of the reasons why we have the teleporter system), we'd like to keep all the important NPCs you want to repeatedly visit inside the main city (Doesn't mean we won't put any interesting NPCs you want to visit multiple times outside the city - If you have some cool ideas for some dude we can stuff in a hut somewhere, feel free to say so :p )
Zelda explained that pretty well before he had to leave.
There might still be idiots with the bad guys like in the real pokemon games, but the organisation itself won't be composed entirely of morons :p
Another thing is that guns are used in this universe. Guards will have guns, bad guys will have guns. But guns aren't very effective against starmon - They are naturally extremely resilient, which is why they are able to fight as much as they do, survive lightning strike, etc. You can shoot an entire clip into a Larvy, and yea it'll bleed like hell, but there's a good chance it'll survive and possibly even jump on you and chew your face off. And that's one of the weakest starmon in existence. Good look taking down a Venostalk, Blasturtle or Skarr, let alone ghosts like Mortessus.
And...
It is related to the bad guys ;)
@SheogorathSC: Go
That looks pretty cool, might use something like that if we have the space.
Also, are those chairs/tables/everything on them WoL doodads, cause I don't know those O.o
@SoulFilcher: Go
Alright, no problem. I'll ask Zolden or xCorbo instead once I get my hands on the model. Thanks a lot for the help you already gave to the map :) Some more furniture could be cool, and Mozared should probably post a wishlist if he has one. Once we start filling out the arena trainers, I'll make sure to add you as one of the milestone trainers ;) If you have any preferences, post em!
Just to elaborate on something Zelda missed since he didn't check the map before posting:
Also, what Zelda did for the teleporter is flippin' amazing. It's so much fun using it =D Just simply a good sound and visual effect.
To be absolutely honest, I feel as if an alpha/beta test is incoming. We've got a LOT of stuff implemented, we just need to add more zones and quests, and I need to do some more data work for a couple of the quests which will hopefully be a pleasant surprise for you guys ;) I'd give us another month though - Can't really estimate well how quickly this phase of development will go, as we heavily rely on each other (We need Moz's terrain to make quests, and we need me to... Well, I kinda do whatever the fuck I want and no one really relies on me too much. We need Moz to make the terrain, then Zelda and I start adding quests, and I set up anything special necessary for the quests)
Oh oh oh, SoulFilcher, how hard is it to change the way textures are applied to an existing model? To be more specific, are you able to make the Human male/female model from WoW use multiple textures? One for legs, one for upper body + arms + hands and another for the head? The few human WoW models I have on this laptop all use all textures in one, but these don't seem to be the models player characters in WoW use so the textures on those might be split up. But in the case they are not split, are you capable of splitting?
EDIT: Yea, we're gonna remove the weird table, don't worry.
EDIT 2: Zelda, you did not only miss your 4000th post, but also the 500th post in this thread :) Dammit we've been doing this for a while, we should hurry up!
@JacktheArcher: Go
Sounds absolutely cool, but Mozared is the main terrainer. It's incredibly rare that I manage to do something not-horrible in the terrain editor :p I'll tell him to check this thread and reply to you the next time I see him (tomorrow probably)
EDIT: Just took a look at the triggers that handle our quest system, and I must say Zelda did a really neat job ^.^ 90% of the actions necessary for quests seem to be the conversation box related ones :) He even made the phasing system really easy to use!
I should start making some quests myself soon :) Just need Mozared to finish up a couple of zones (or at least get their basic layouts done) so that we have space to make the quests in.
EDIT 2: SoulFilcher, right now we're using an ugly sensor tower as our Teleporter. You maybe have some ideas for something you could make for us to use? Some form of platform could be pretty neat.
Yea, nothing about the city or starcenters is even close to finalized at the moment. It looks pretty horrible in there to be honest :p But we'll be working on that soon (Moz, mostly)
EDIT: Was bored! Imported a ton of SoulFilcher's doodads and reorganized the Starcenter a tiny bit. Definitely not the final version, but it's a prettier draft than it was before.
It's a terrain editor shot, so the healing machine is white instead of blue.
Also, in the pokemon games the main color was red, here it's blue, which is why the tiles are blue. Might end up changing it though.