Should I preload all units and heroes at map initialization? This would most likely reduce the ingame lag, but it would increase loading time by a LOT (we talk about 300%+ at least)
Not online yet, but for my tests, I just finished the bank storing stuff. Seems to work fine, so everyone will be able to save his favourite customizations when i release the next version.
It will be quite limited, though, only 2 profiles per player. I do not want to use more, because I might need bank space for other stuff.
Currently, they are toggleable to use for a specific hero or for all heroes, so you can, for example, make 1 profile for your favourite hero and 1 for all the others; the game will automatically pick the hero specific one when you pick or random the matching hero, and will use the other profile for other heroes.
@Kueken531: Go
I haven't tried attachments myself but, is it not possible (for example with the first guy in the video) to make that attachment on his hand change with the same RBG changes as the main character? The glow attachment wouldnt really need to change, but the hand could look nicer if it also changed.
Yes, easily. I thought about this myself and will probably do this for some attachments.
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I think most of them looked good, only the high templar's alternate skins looked a bit ugly to me personally. Maybe others disagree, that and the attachment on his back seemed to misplace if you move. Other than that it looks great, keep going:P
Thats why I need feedback, if many people agree on specific things being ugly, I will change them. But its all personal preference anyway, thats what all the customization is for :D
Also, its kind of hard to find good textures for the High Templar model, because it does not support most Emissive and Specular textures.
How large can you possibly need the bank to be? For each hero you want to customize set a number for each value. Say you want skin 3, with 255/255/230RGB, and 22% transparent, and those last 3 opens are on/off/on. I say make it easy! The bank value for Montag would look like this: GM:325525523022101 But this is just my opinion of making it "simple", and is probably far more complicated, but still. Dumb it down to basic values for each one without labels, because it just has to find the values, not what each stands for... Anyway. Enough of my craziness.
You can store all of this in different number systems and compress it all into one giant string, but still, these are (fields x number of heroes x profiles) values to be saved. If I keep in mind there were almost 40 heroes in WC3 later on, this number will be HUGE. Also there is other stuff I would like to store later on, as well.
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The customization looks awesome, and what were those skins? Especially the first one you changed it to! That looked WEIRD! O_o
first one:
body: dark assimilator
arms: Zhakul'Das Obelisk
second one:
body: Char Rock Large
arms: Char Crystals
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Either Raynor or a Zerg hero (probably one with a Kerrigan model) should get a zergling dog "pet" :P Either as a skill or just for decoration. WC3 Terms: Locust swarm, single locust, no damage, Zergling model (but really big and on ground).
We will see ;)
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PS: For Raynor's gun swap, is there no way to have slightly different models for that? Like the Sniper Rifle one, can't you swap him to his Char model or something?
Try it out, you will see it actually works exactly as you want. Raynor uses his marine model for gauss rifle and shotgun and the commando one for sniper and plasma rifle. He also swaps the model based on the skill he performs (for penetrator round, he uses the sniper rifle, for the grenade, he uses the throw animation of his marine model)
There is just a small bug at the moment, causing the model to reset after reviving. To fix this, simply swap the weapon once after dying.
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PPS: Oh, and for Thor, have normal model normally, and CE model as somethign to change to. That's nice and easy :P. And of course, Goliath as the other model. SC1 homage required. Lol. (Part of PPS): And for Raynor, for customizing, probably Marine and War Pig models. Or Tauren Marine (but that'd be a little weird....)
We will see :). I could probably do that, but I'd like to play around with other possibilities.
Using different models however will be complicated when using different textures as well. For example, the ThorCE model does not work well with modified textures, while the usual Thor works just fine.
Its also a huge amount of work to make the stuff working for all heroes. I was not sure, if this is worth implementing just for eyecandy.
However, I am getting very positive feedback, so I will most likely do it :)
Note that it will come with some limitations, though:
Banks have a limited size, so I will probably not be able to store profiles for each hero per player. So you would have for example 2 profiles, which have to suffice for all heroes.
Also as seen in the video, the attachments and skins will be limited as well, you cannot add any attachment or skin you want to your hero, just a limited set I will select (some models do not support certain types of skins anyway, so I will try to select working and cool looking options for each hero).
Feel free to suggest attachments or textures for specific heroes, though (maybe even more customizable options, if you have any ideas. For example, a friend suggested adding a "pet", a small version of your favourite hero following you around :D)
For the last few days, I have been working on some options to customize your hero, for example setting the tint color, adding some attachments or selecting an alternative skin.
When implemented, these customizations should be saved and restored, when you play another game, so you don't need to repeat this every time you play.
Also in the future, I might make these changes unlockable by achievements or something similar.
First, maybe it's just SC2, and maybe it's the map: my laptop was going so hot the keyboard was a bit warm. Seriously, I could probably cook dinnir with the heat from this thing.
HLW for WC3 always had performance issues due to the high amount of units on the map at most points in time.
However, for most people it works out quite well currently, as long as their system does not just barely fulfill SC2's minimal requirements :)
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Second, I had 3 skill points left over when I maxed out my skills, and I thought it said advanced skills had like 3-4 levels, not 5. Anyway...
Yep, I will probably change the max level, the spell levels or add an attribute bonus or something in the future. We will see.
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Third, I love the single player like mode, but when you run out of lives on that, do you lose? Didn't play long enough to tell.
In singleplayer, debug mode gets activated by default, so you cannot lose. The lifes will drop to zero, but the game will continue.
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Fourth, either the heroes are far too weak, the mobs are far too strong, or the income is far too much. Or perhaps a combination of those. Because I had crazy high amounts of cash and mobbing level 1 creeps could overpower me easily.
With your crazy high amounts of cash you could easily buy enough items to stay alive and kill tier 1 units, though.
Some tier 3 units are really strong, but at map night we already proved, that good teamwork can kill masses of tier 3 units as well.
Still, the balance needs major rework. Also I will add much more spells used by the mobs, which will shift the balance as well.
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Fifth, why are some heroes disabled already? O_o
They are not finished, and I didn't really hav the motivation to finish them yet.
Don't worry, I do not plan on implementing heroes you have to unlock over time.
For a team vs team game, I really dislike having to unlock certain gameplay features (anything, which has an impact to the balance will be available from the start, however, maybe I will add unlockable visual features or something)
For Coop vs AI games, this is another story, but, in my opinion, for a game, where you play against other players, having to play the game several times go get access to all gameplay elements is a design flaw.
If other people can use stronger heroes or better weapons against you, just because they already played the game before, this is just wrong. The game should be decided by how you actually play the game, not how often you played it before (well, those 2 usually are correlated anyway, but should not be forced)
The more we play it the higher it will go up in popularity ranking, but with this small community it will go up slowly but not to the top lol. You can play this by yourself. Keuken made a solo mode which is automatic when you start by yourself. Its basically to test the game out for yourself.
Keep in mind, that the solo mode will not boost the popularity. Popularity is only counted for public games, as far as I know.
Basically the less it's played the less you seem to be allowed to play it? That's just stupid. What could get kicked from top of the ladder if people play the same stupid games forever? Granted some games take a while to get old, like this, but still!
Welcome to BNet 2.0 :)
Some weeks ago, HLW was on page 1 with about 3k hours played for about 2 days, so its not entirely impossible :)
Well I was able to find the game I think, is the author supposed to be nevjmac? Is that you?
I have no access to the NA servers without buying another copy of the game, so I asked nevjmac to publish the map on NA and SEA servers.
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But Whenever I click join game I see no1 in the game and noone joins so I dont think I can ever play it. Oh well :/
Ah, the glory of the popularity system. As long as a game is not popular, it will not be played.
You have no choice, but to find mates, either by using your friend list or chat channels.
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I wonder how to get on maybe EU server to try it maybe more people play it on there.
On EU its on site 6 of the popularity list with about 30 hours played.
As you said, most of the points are indeed different. The balance is way different than in HLW RoC. Currently, there are no dedicated killer creeps, they just gradually get stronger. They are not limited by a start cooldown or slow recharge time, the strongest units are just like any other unit in this regard. Well, some of them are quite strong (the mothership is probably game ending currently), but the difference to the normal units is nowhere near the avatars/dooms (during a longer game at EU map night we have proven, that strong mothership pushes from players with higher income can be killed with good teamwork, even without really great lategame items or the possibility to buy attributes)
I have no idea yet, how the balance will work out finally, but I don't want this to be another HLW RoC. I will probably make massive changes to the balance, and eventually it will establish a solid gameplay, but in its own way.
A small question:
Should I preload all units and heroes at map initialization? This would most likely reduce the ingame lag, but it would increase loading time by a LOT (we talk about 300%+ at least)
v0.7 beta released.
Changelog:
(does not move the camera when clicking)
(each sentry can use force fields only once, also added a cooldown to the target)
Picking a hero manually is not restricted
Feel free to ask anything, I gladly share the information.
Roach 2nd attachment:
(about 15 minutes of trial and error -.-)
The skins:
(order: diffuse/emissive/specular)
Hydra var1:
Hydra var2:
Unfortunately, the hydralisk model does not support emissive textures.
@deathkad: Go
Not online yet, but for my tests, I just finished the bank storing stuff. Seems to work fine, so everyone will be able to save his favourite customizations when i release the next version.
It will be quite limited, though, only 2 profiles per player. I do not want to use more, because I might need bank space for other stuff.
Currently, they are toggleable to use for a specific hero or for all heroes, so you can, for example, make 1 profile for your favourite hero and 1 for all the others; the game will automatically pick the hero specific one when you pick or random the matching hero, and will use the other profile for other heroes.
And another bunch of customs:
Unfortunately, neither the roach, nor hydralisk or raynor support emissive textures, so they don't look that great.
Not sure, last time I checked it had about 60 hours played @ EU.
Yes, easily. I thought about this myself and will probably do this for some attachments.
Thats why I need feedback, if many people agree on specific things being ugly, I will change them. But its all personal preference anyway, thats what all the customization is for :D
Also, its kind of hard to find good textures for the High Templar model, because it does not support most Emissive and Specular textures.
Another video of possible customizations for different heroes:
Tell me what you think: Which ones look great, which ones need improvements?
You can store all of this in different number systems and compress it all into one giant string, but still, these are (fields x number of heroes x profiles) values to be saved. If I keep in mind there were almost 40 heroes in WC3 later on, this number will be HUGE. Also there is other stuff I would like to store later on, as well.
first one:
second one:
We will see ;)
Try it out, you will see it actually works exactly as you want. Raynor uses his marine model for gauss rifle and shotgun and the commando one for sniper and plasma rifle. He also swaps the model based on the skill he performs (for penetrator round, he uses the sniper rifle, for the grenade, he uses the throw animation of his marine model)
There is just a small bug at the moment, causing the model to reset after reviving. To fix this, simply swap the weapon once after dying.
We will see :). I could probably do that, but I'd like to play around with other possibilities.
Using different models however will be complicated when using different textures as well. For example, the ThorCE model does not work well with modified textures, while the usual Thor works just fine.
Of course, he just happened to be the one I found really cool skins for :)
Its also a huge amount of work to make the stuff working for all heroes. I was not sure, if this is worth implementing just for eyecandy.
However, I am getting very positive feedback, so I will most likely do it :)
Note that it will come with some limitations, though:
Banks have a limited size, so I will probably not be able to store profiles for each hero per player. So you would have for example 2 profiles, which have to suffice for all heroes.
Also as seen in the video, the attachments and skins will be limited as well, you cannot add any attachment or skin you want to your hero, just a limited set I will select (some models do not support certain types of skins anyway, so I will try to select working and cool looking options for each hero).
Feel free to suggest attachments or textures for specific heroes, though (maybe even more customizable options, if you have any ideas. For example, a friend suggested adding a "pet", a small version of your favourite hero following you around :D)
A small update for a future version:
For the last few days, I have been working on some options to customize your hero, for example setting the tint color, adding some attachments or selecting an alternative skin.
When implemented, these customizations should be saved and restored, when you play another game, so you don't need to repeat this every time you play.
Also in the future, I might make these changes unlockable by achievements or something similar.
Just have a look at the video:
HLW for WC3 always had performance issues due to the high amount of units on the map at most points in time.
However, for most people it works out quite well currently, as long as their system does not just barely fulfill SC2's minimal requirements :)
Yep, I will probably change the max level, the spell levels or add an attribute bonus or something in the future. We will see.
In singleplayer, debug mode gets activated by default, so you cannot lose. The lifes will drop to zero, but the game will continue.
With your crazy high amounts of cash you could easily buy enough items to stay alive and kill tier 1 units, though.
Some tier 3 units are really strong, but at map night we already proved, that good teamwork can kill masses of tier 3 units as well.
Still, the balance needs major rework. Also I will add much more spells used by the mobs, which will shift the balance as well.
They are not finished, and I didn't really hav the motivation to finish them yet.
Don't worry, I do not plan on implementing heroes you have to unlock over time.
For a team vs team game, I really dislike having to unlock certain gameplay features (anything, which has an impact to the balance will be available from the start, however, maybe I will add unlockable visual features or something)
For Coop vs AI games, this is another story, but, in my opinion, for a game, where you play against other players, having to play the game several times go get access to all gameplay elements is a design flaw.
If other people can use stronger heroes or better weapons against you, just because they already played the game before, this is just wrong. The game should be decided by how you actually play the game, not how often you played it before (well, those 2 usually are correlated anyway, but should not be forced)
Keep in mind, that the solo mode will not boost the popularity. Popularity is only counted for public games, as far as I know.
Welcome to BNet 2.0 :)
Some weeks ago, HLW was on page 1 with about 3k hours played for about 2 days, so its not entirely impossible :)
I have no access to the NA servers without buying another copy of the game, so I asked nevjmac to publish the map on NA and SEA servers.
Ah, the glory of the popularity system. As long as a game is not popular, it will not be played.
You have no choice, but to find mates, either by using your friend list or chat channels.
On EU its on site 6 of the popularity list with about 30 hours played.
@CrazyCarl92: Go
As you said, most of the points are indeed different. The balance is way different than in HLW RoC. Currently, there are no dedicated killer creeps, they just gradually get stronger. They are not limited by a start cooldown or slow recharge time, the strongest units are just like any other unit in this regard. Well, some of them are quite strong (the mothership is probably game ending currently), but the difference to the normal units is nowhere near the avatars/dooms (during a longer game at EU map night we have proven, that strong mothership pushes from players with higher income can be killed with good teamwork, even without really great lategame items or the possibility to buy attributes)
I have no idea yet, how the balance will work out finally, but I don't want this to be another HLW RoC. I will probably make massive changes to the balance, and eventually it will establish a solid gameplay, but in its own way.