Banks are stored to the same place every time they are saved, currently no way to change this, as for encryption thats gonna be fun to toil over, As for hashing, you need to PRELOAD each bank for all players in the map before it can be opened, preloading takes a literal string and player, which means you cant use variables or expressions like WOSBANK + player name , and so on, which pretty much sums it up to your gonna have the same Bank Name, in the Same spot, everytime.
The only limitations I can gripe about right now are that
There is no current way to make the camera NOT slightly choppy when following a character and being rotated with the mouse (Panning it and bounding it both create chop in conjunction with camera yaw manipulation)
Small Player Limitation, and no ability to supply my own servers to combat such.
I know you said aside from it, but it's that bad, the lack of a built-in security features for banks.
I would truly like to see some form of a UI editor built into the trigger editor so that creating the outline of dialogs wouldn't be such a pain in the ass
Foreseen and accepted speed bumps are that the sheer content required to make this map fun will keep me up at night :D
The dialog background and buttons were all just generic when using the Dialog in triggers, the Text was done by adding styles to text through the Text pane, and the special images, like units and such were all icons which can be found by using search for names like marine,hydralisk,darktemplar. The blue outline was an image I found in the UI section of the Textures/Assets folder
Just updated my project page with 4 more screenshots showing what I've been working on all of tonight/morning, the Character Creation/Selection Screen, all UI graphics are temporary and should be taken as placeholder images. This has also jump started my work with the bank structure of my game, and I've found a lot of ways to keep track of characters for creation and deletion. Pictures of the Selection Screen coming soon, after this is done I will be focusing on creating the skeleton of the UI that players will see when controlling their character, and shortly down the road is the spell/combat system.
Great ideas, so far I am working hard on cranking out more features and a second demonstration video, as of right now I am creating the account structure for banks, and the character login/creation/logout features. As for inventory, each race will have its own unique way of utilizing gear and loot, I am experimenting with making it graphically represented on a character but so far it doesn't look pretty. I am also spending lots of hours brainstorming the way the 3 different races become their own unique experience, and class synergy between them. I've also begun testing on my combat system, which uses custom actionbars to keep track of and use abilities, and a selection system that allows you to select objects and have them be the targets of the combat system. Finally I am also implementing a rough group UI.
I would defintely Advocate staying true to the original, but I highly doubt Icefrog would bother manually porting over another one if yours is already there. He'd just endorse it if it were well made.
dun be so negative man.
Icefrog already said he isn't doing a Starcraft II port because Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends took Dota as far as it could go. The "dota" if you will, of starcraft II will be a new and original Aeon Of Strife style map, not just a port. Because no matter how well done the port is, it will never have a Game Engine, matchmaking, etc built specifically for it. So people who want to play dota will play one of those two games, and the rest will be playing whatever brilliant substitute takes the bnet throne.
I am not being negative, I am just being honest, and hoping Neo's project flows with originality.
@Pandaros_Brewmaster: Go
I think the only way you can have success with a project like this is to be completely original in making it, porting over heroes and items is exactly what hundreds of other people will be doing.
If you aren't original I can only imagine your project will be drowned out by the flood of others like it, and I am sure that there will be an endorsed port of it by the current manager of dota out there eventually, limiting chances of success greatly. It's a harsh truth but it needs to be said.
It may be more helpful for people to compare this conceptually to the "open RPG" maps with save systems in WC3 rather than conventional MMOs. It's not an MMO, although it borrows elements from them. The idea is to create a fun RPG map experience for b.net custom game fans that focuses on persistent character features to allow long-term character development, hunting for new phat lewt, the pride of reaching endgame content, the replayability of pvp with persistent stats and rewards, etc.
I agree that it's important to keep options open for new players. A map designed for single player that functioned as a tutorial slash early game quest line for newcomers to the series could help, as could bundling certain important endgame content on a 'main map' that includes lowbie zones.
Blizzard has been kinda vague about the various features they plan to add for customs, but it's pretty likely that some form of server-side data storage will be possible, IMO. Obviously, if that happens, it would solve a lot of the data tampering concerns. Any system relying on the local XML file feature will, at the very least, be vulnerable to 'backups' to avoid any negative consequences of death, losing in pvp, etc., as well as an easy way to dupe items by trading and then overwriting the character that gave it away with a previous XML file. If you are stuck with encrypted local XML, I don't know how you could prevent that sort of copying abuse. Hopefully there is some sort of server-side tool you can leverage if not an outright server-side version of the data bank feature.
I really like the direction it sounds like you plan to take this project - PvP focused endgame, with character progression based on lots of customization options via ability/talent builds, and lots of loot to acquire and upgrade to further improve your character.
I recommend having around 3-4 classes per race tops, and making each one truly unique in some way. For Terran, one generic Marine/ground soldier type unit makes sense, along with Ghost as a specialist psi-based combat unit. Maybe a vehicle-oriented class as well? It's hard to imagine playing Terran in a World of Starcraft project and not being able to pilot Hellions, Siege Tanks, Banshees, etc. in some fashion. The really big vehicles would probably be limited to roles in PvP arena type instances, but I can imagine Hellions or Vultures or other light ground vehicles being the basis for a Terran class, where they would always have access to their vehicle as an item they could upgrade or replace with better ones later. As the gear and combat mechanics evolve, maybe there could be two 'normal'-ish soldier classes, plus Ghost and Pilot or whatever.
Protoss technology uses the bearer's innate Psi energy as a power source, which seems like a natural awesome unique mechanic for Protoss characters. All Protoss classes, including Zealots, would have a Psi pool, and depending on the class they would have various options for both gear that uses that energy (either passively just to operate, or when activated to do something cool) and spells/abilities that use it (Templar seems like a natural caster class, for example, whereas Zealots may have a couple abilities that directly use Psi but would mostly use it to power combat gear). I'm imagining my heroic Zealot using a burst of his Psionic willpower to activate leg enhancements to Charge impossibly fast at my opponent, then slashing his face with psionic blades whose power is directly proportional to my remaining psi pool. Of course, my shields are powered by psi as well, so I have to balance my use of activated abilities with my need to keep shields up, and there'd always be the temptation to risk skimping on shield power to boost those lovely blades... With Zealots it may feel a bit more like Rogue energy than mana, but with the added twist of it interacting heavily with your gear as well. Templars, on the other hand, would have a much larger psi pool for their expensive spells but less access to psi-powered combat gear, so they would play more like Mages with a mana pool, treating it more as a mid- or long-term resource rather than a short-term limitation on burst damage and skill usage.
With Zerg, it seems like taking an iconic unit (e.g., Hydralisk, Zergling) for a base class and then having upgrade options focused on evolving new traits would be cool and thematic. It's kinda hard to imagine most Zerg units using any sort of gear, though. Perhaps they could have two 'true Zerg' classes that are entirely evolution-based with no regular items but some unique mechanics to add a similar random loot hunt type appeal to the evolution process (maybe unique drops of 'parts' from defeated foes that would be used to unlock new evolutionary traits, so rare parts drops would partially dictate the options available to you?), along with an Infested Terran and a Protoss Hybrid, which would have some Zerg-y abilities and whatnot but would use Terran or Protoss equipment, respectively. I'm kinda unsure about all this... Maybe the *only* playable Zerg should be infested humanoids of some sort so they can play more like the other races without it making no sense, but then one or all of them could also raise a Zerg 'pet' or two of the hive-minded, all biological variety? A Kerrigan-esque sentient infested Terran who at first learned to spawn a pathetic Broodling but by endgame could command her own mini swarm of Zerg units could be pretty badass.
Another thought just occurred to me while thinking about how to balance that last idea, along with Terran vehicle classes. Each race could have a class like this that would have a large battlefield presence but less powerful anti-hero abilities - Pilots, maybe a vehicle-based equivalent for Protoss, and the Kerrigan-esque brood leader Zerg class. They would be useful to have on your team in a big fight but also high priority targets for enemy heroes like Ghosts and Templar - kill the puny human/protoss pilot/infested brood leader and disable their big vehicle or turn their brood into neutral hostiles, attacking each other and former allies like. Maybe they could be a 'prestige class' sort of feature, unlocked based on progress on a 'regular' class, who could only use some of their unique class features on certain maps / in certain situations? No bringing your tanks or swarms to a small pvp arena map, but if it's a big battlegrounds type affair or maybe even an AoS type scenario with CPU armies of creeps/mobs/neutrals/whatever you wanna call em clashing and opposing teams of heroes trying to give their side the edge, it could be designed to allow a set number of these classes per team. I dunno, I haven't fully thought this out, just an idea to float out there - it would be cool but also really hard to balance with 'regular' classes to have classes that could do things like pilot larger Terran vehicles or command their own mindless, loyal brood of Zerg units, so this is a first attempt at a way to make it possible in some fashion without breaking the rest of the game that isn't designed for that kind of thing.
That is an abundance of clever ideas and sound design philosophies, some of which I have already thought about, and a lot of which I am now considering. I will be sure to credit you if your ideas are used :) One thing I considered for gear based progression is some kind of token system where each race would have its own specific use for those tokens, because as you said there is a fundamental difference between upgrades for different races. Any concerns about duping are instantly shot down because trading tokens will not be in place and most gear will be soulbound.
Also on the topic of XML storage. I would be purely amazing if blizzard allowed any kind of server side communication, but I have already thought of a lot of safeguards against item duping.
First, the xml categories and keys will all be encrypted to a point where they are unreadable. I also plan to timeStampID each and every item when it is generated for the first time(not any subsequent times it is loaded) so that if there are 2 items of the same timeStamp in a map at any point I could find a clever way of punishing the offenders for doing some funny business. Security will be as big as a concern for me when working on this project as the other facets of gameplay. Because any abuse and it is no longer a fun game to play.
So far all of these suggestions are immensely helpful for me shaping my ideas, and anymore clever ways of working around my XML storage are appreciated so I can counter them haha
This is pretty impressive, man. To what extent do you plan on emulating the class/level/progression structure used in WoW or other RPGs, or rather, what are your plans for game design of the project beyond the technical aspects?
As far as game design past the technical aspects, players will be leveling to a maximum level of 60, there will 3 races, terran, zerg, and protoss. All 3 will have a number of diferrent classes that aren't available to the other two. Abiltiies will be limited to about 10-20 depending on how well I can implement shift modification. Talents will be implemented but not as they are seen in WOW, instead of tweaking the abilities of the hero they will open interesting options to them, of which I havent decided yet, but an example talents might effect your xp gain, your ability to hunt the other races, your travel methods, etc.
There will be PVE bosses and such in the game but I don't plan to make them group content, rather I will treat them as a method to improve a player's gear if they can best the strategy of a particular boss, without getting killed by another player in the process. PVE content will be for levelling and getting the occasional piece of gear, while PVP will mostly just improve your character's gear, and since there are essentially going to be 3 factions, it will open up VERY interesting ideas for battlegrounds. Now, world pvp will be abundant and will allow players levelling to get xp from it, battlegrounds^vArena however will be for the end-game where players build their characters further.
The reason this game will focus mostly on the PVP at end-game is because of the sheer nature of the game, it will have a finite amount of players and will be made re-playable more with pvp than pve. A player can only level up enough characters and kill enough bosses before they get bored, it takes alot more for them to get bored with besting other players.
Did you start working on banks/saving yet? If you save a unit in a bank it doesn't save the experience/kills/items, just the current HP, energy and unit type, which is useless for rpg maps, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get/set the experience of a unit, or the items. Seems like saving your hero with the exp and items is not possible right now, with banks at least.
The save unit feature is just for some people with less complicated data to save, I wont be utilizing it, Instead the data I will be saving will be pure variables. My unit in my pictures and video for right now is just a glorified actor, all of his health, stats, and even abilities will be stored, checked, and manipulated through the trigger editor, making banks a perfect storage system for my project.
It sounds like a big project. You'll need lots of people helping. Me? You want me to help? Sorry, I'm no good at collaborating on one big thing online.
When you have a big project, you'll need lots of people helping. And the more people you have helping, the more people you'll have looking to you for answers. And that can be stressful. And that's why I don't plan huge projects that require lots of helpers. Just a word of caution.
It is a big project, but nothing that can't be done with one person that has time.
I don't think guild wars servers as a great example, their leveling system basically handed out max level characters to anyone and when that happens, a persons pride in their own character becomes diminished. The pacing has to be just right, not too long and tedious to never finish, not to short so as to create a sense of accomplishment when you finally reach the goal. As for the XML issue, this game isn't an mmorpg, there is no economy to worry about, If a player decides to abuse the game and give themselves enormous tons of currency (If I even decide to have such a thing in the end design), they wont find much to spend it on. Gear will not be purchasable, it must be earned through playing. The only possible XML abuse that could be gamebreaking is if some cryptologist deciphered my key for the XML encryption and decided to release it and let everyone remove the aspects of the game that are actually the fun parts. As for BGs I plan to have them as an alternative to PVE leveling in terms of getting gear and experience, I am still heavily weighing pros and cons of a single map as opposed to multiple maps to be able to really make any decision about it.
It really comes down to what kind of options will be made available in the coming weeks before the end of beta and the soon after release.
0
@s3rius: Go
Banks are stored to the same place every time they are saved, currently no way to change this, as for encryption thats gonna be fun to toil over, As for hashing, you need to PRELOAD each bank for all players in the map before it can be opened, preloading takes a literal string and player, which means you cant use variables or expressions like WOSBANK + player name , and so on, which pretty much sums it up to your gonna have the same Bank Name, in the Same spot, everytime.
0
The only limitations I can gripe about right now are that
There is no current way to make the camera NOT slightly choppy when following a character and being rotated with the mouse (Panning it and bounding it both create chop in conjunction with camera yaw manipulation)
Small Player Limitation, and no ability to supply my own servers to combat such.
I know you said aside from it, but it's that bad, the lack of a built-in security features for banks.
I would truly like to see some form of a UI editor built into the trigger editor so that creating the outline of dialogs wouldn't be such a pain in the ass
Foreseen and accepted speed bumps are that the sheer content required to make this map fun will keep me up at night :D
0
@Voxglhf: Go
The dialog background and buttons were all just generic when using the Dialog in triggers, the Text was done by adding styles to text through the Text pane, and the special images, like units and such were all icons which can be found by using search for names like marine,hydralisk,darktemplar. The blue outline was an image I found in the UI section of the Textures/Assets folder
0
I've updated my project page with an all new video and screenshot demonstrating my character selection and creation system! Check it out at: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/smooth-3rd-person-movement/
The system was created using banks, functions, and triggers.
0
This is absolutely amazing what you did with the lighting thus far, great project, please finish it :)
0
Just updated my project page with 4 more screenshots showing what I've been working on all of tonight/morning, the Character Creation/Selection Screen, all UI graphics are temporary and should be taken as placeholder images. This has also jump started my work with the bank structure of my game, and I've found a lot of ways to keep track of characters for creation and deletion. Pictures of the Selection Screen coming soon, after this is done I will be focusing on creating the skeleton of the UI that players will see when controlling their character, and shortly down the road is the spell/combat system.
0
@NamesAreUseless: Go
Great ideas, so far I am working hard on cranking out more features and a second demonstration video, as of right now I am creating the account structure for banks, and the character login/creation/logout features. As for inventory, each race will have its own unique way of utilizing gear and loot, I am experimenting with making it graphically represented on a character but so far it doesn't look pretty. I am also spending lots of hours brainstorming the way the 3 different races become their own unique experience, and class synergy between them. I've also begun testing on my combat system, which uses custom actionbars to keep track of and use abilities, and a selection system that allows you to select objects and have them be the targets of the combat system. Finally I am also implementing a rough group UI.
0
Icefrog already said he isn't doing a Starcraft II port because Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends took Dota as far as it could go. The "dota" if you will, of starcraft II will be a new and original Aeon Of Strife style map, not just a port. Because no matter how well done the port is, it will never have a Game Engine, matchmaking, etc built specifically for it. So people who want to play dota will play one of those two games, and the rest will be playing whatever brilliant substitute takes the bnet throne.
I am not being negative, I am just being honest, and hoping Neo's project flows with originality.
0
@Pandaros_Brewmaster: Go I think the only way you can have success with a project like this is to be completely original in making it, porting over heroes and items is exactly what hundreds of other people will be doing.
If you aren't original I can only imagine your project will be drowned out by the flood of others like it, and I am sure that there will be an endorsed port of it by the current manager of dota out there eventually, limiting chances of success greatly. It's a harsh truth but it needs to be said.
0
That is an abundance of clever ideas and sound design philosophies, some of which I have already thought about, and a lot of which I am now considering. I will be sure to credit you if your ideas are used :) One thing I considered for gear based progression is some kind of token system where each race would have its own specific use for those tokens, because as you said there is a fundamental difference between upgrades for different races. Any concerns about duping are instantly shot down because trading tokens will not be in place and most gear will be soulbound.
Also on the topic of XML storage. I would be purely amazing if blizzard allowed any kind of server side communication, but I have already thought of a lot of safeguards against item duping.
First, the xml categories and keys will all be encrypted to a point where they are unreadable. I also plan to timeStampID each and every item when it is generated for the first time(not any subsequent times it is loaded) so that if there are 2 items of the same timeStamp in a map at any point I could find a clever way of punishing the offenders for doing some funny business. Security will be as big as a concern for me when working on this project as the other facets of gameplay. Because any abuse and it is no longer a fun game to play.
So far all of these suggestions are immensely helpful for me shaping my ideas, and anymore clever ways of working around my XML storage are appreciated so I can counter them haha
0
Amazing stuff you've achieved so far Hybred.
0
As far as game design past the technical aspects, players will be leveling to a maximum level of 60, there will 3 races, terran, zerg, and protoss. All 3 will have a number of diferrent classes that aren't available to the other two. Abiltiies will be limited to about 10-20 depending on how well I can implement shift modification. Talents will be implemented but not as they are seen in WOW, instead of tweaking the abilities of the hero they will open interesting options to them, of which I havent decided yet, but an example talents might effect your xp gain, your ability to hunt the other races, your travel methods, etc.
There will be PVE bosses and such in the game but I don't plan to make them group content, rather I will treat them as a method to improve a player's gear if they can best the strategy of a particular boss, without getting killed by another player in the process. PVE content will be for levelling and getting the occasional piece of gear, while PVP will mostly just improve your character's gear, and since there are essentially going to be 3 factions, it will open up VERY interesting ideas for battlegrounds. Now, world pvp will be abundant and will allow players levelling to get xp from it, battlegrounds^vArena however will be for the end-game where players build their characters further.
The reason this game will focus mostly on the PVP at end-game is because of the sheer nature of the game, it will have a finite amount of players and will be made re-playable more with pvp than pve. A player can only level up enough characters and kill enough bosses before they get bored, it takes alot more for them to get bored with besting other players.
0
The save unit feature is just for some people with less complicated data to save, I wont be utilizing it, Instead the data I will be saving will be pure variables. My unit in my pictures and video for right now is just a glorified actor, all of his health, stats, and even abilities will be stored, checked, and manipulated through the trigger editor, making banks a perfect storage system for my project.
0
It is a big project, but nothing that can't be done with one person that has time.
0
@MasterDinadan: Go
I don't think guild wars servers as a great example, their leveling system basically handed out max level characters to anyone and when that happens, a persons pride in their own character becomes diminished. The pacing has to be just right, not too long and tedious to never finish, not to short so as to create a sense of accomplishment when you finally reach the goal. As for the XML issue, this game isn't an mmorpg, there is no economy to worry about, If a player decides to abuse the game and give themselves enormous tons of currency (If I even decide to have such a thing in the end design), they wont find much to spend it on. Gear will not be purchasable, it must be earned through playing. The only possible XML abuse that could be gamebreaking is if some cryptologist deciphered my key for the XML encryption and decided to release it and let everyone remove the aspects of the game that are actually the fun parts. As for BGs I plan to have them as an alternative to PVE leveling in terms of getting gear and experience, I am still heavily weighing pros and cons of a single map as opposed to multiple maps to be able to really make any decision about it.
It really comes down to what kind of options will be made available in the coming weeks before the end of beta and the soon after release.