I am curious to see what Meph says about this, as we are pretty good mates and get along really well. When he released Smashcraft, Tofu was already long under way and most of the features you see here had already been implemented, for the first few moments I was disappointed because I said to Dryeyece, look he just released what we are going to release, but after playing Smashcraft with him, I understood that the games are no where near similar, from the UI to the mechanics and gameplay style itself. There is no better map, just different, but I personally like Tofu a lot better because I have that 1 second Australia-USA delay and Tofu is more forgiving, where Smashcraft needs perfect delay-free timings.
Both Dryeyece and I agree that the map will be locked - a closed platform - however, this is simply because we do not want people copypasta our hard work, and seriously at the height of the project we pulled 16 hour days, 6 days a week for a couple of months. Now things are nearing the end I personally am taking it a bit slower, to make sure everything is as perfect as it can be for release. But, that being said neither of us are against the idea of sharing our knowledge, so instead of releasing the map open sourced, we will answer pretty much any question about it - after all, there is nothing we did that anyone else can't do, there are no special tricks or anything used, its actually really basic stuff.
The User Inteface is all custom art, and after release when I have some free time I will write up a tutorial about it. It took me about 2 days to draw it in Photoshop, pixel by pixel with the pen tool (yes, it is pixel art) and about 3-4 days to implement. It took me about 5 hours to make the five custom ability icons that you saw in the video for Moomba, this was my first time doing art on this scale (pixel) and I am pretty impressed at what I achieved, in the screenshot you can see the detail that went into the Menubar at the top, and yes - it is all dialogs with some Sc2Layouts to "hide" things I don't want shown.
As shown in the image above, RPS strategy plays a unique part in the gameplay of Tofu. Whilst this can be used as a guide to decide which battles to fight, it is not unbalanced in a way that would result in stale and unfair gameplay.
Starting from top - Clockwise
Armoured (Strength) is greater than Light (Agility) but is weak against Psionic (Intellect)
Light (Agility) is greater than Psionic (Intellect) but is weak against Armoured (Strength)
Psionic (Intellect) is greater than Armoured (Strength) but is weak against Light (Agility)
Portals
Portals are an essential part of Tofu gameplay, and whilst not included on every Arena or in every map, the majority of maps will include at least a few sets of portals. There is a 10 second Portal cooldown, which means you are locked on a level after porting unless you have another means of escape.
Blue Portals port you up a level.
Orange Portals port you down a level.
Green Portals port you to the same level.
Rainbow Portals port you a long long way away.
Ramps are also used in Tofu, and are not affected by the portal system.
Global Cooldowns (GCD)
There is a unique feature within Tofu and that is what we call the Global Cooldown. The GCD exists to balance out abilities and combos, and is shown by a vertical black cooldown over the ability icons. The GCD does not effect every ability and differs from hero to hero, however, the GCD is always 1 second long (1.38 gametime).
Most abilities that are on the GCD both use and set off the GCD - However, some abilities can set off the GCD for other abilities but not use it themselves, and some abilities need the GCD but do not set it off.
Shown in the image above, the normal ability cooldown can be seen along side the GCD.
Quickshield (Forcefield) + Status Bars
The Quickshield or Forcefield is a shield that your hero can deploy at anytime, regards of status (ie - stunned), that blocks all damage for 1 second and has a 15 second cooldown - inclusive of the time the shield is active.
It is shown by an orange bar above your shield bar when ready, which will turn white while the Quickshield is active, and blue while it is on cooldown.
Your Shields are shown on the top bar, which do not regenerate, and instead are collected using Shield Powerups.
Your Health / Hitpoints is the green bar in the middle, which does regenerate, the amount depending on the hero level, items and other factors.
Your Energy / Mana is the purple bar at the bottom, which uses an extremely unique concept of regeneration which will explain in further detail closer to the release date.
Tofu is not one single map, and it is not one single arena, idea, gameplay or concept. In the video below you can see some action in Waterforts Arena, a dynamic and extremely fun and engaging Team Deathmatch Arena, as well as seeing a preview of our unique custom UI.
Youtube 720 HD Trailer
Quote:
Screenshot
Below is a screenshot we thought we would include for fun, it is the aftermath of 5 hours capturing videos to create the youtube video. If you notice, I, Dogmai, was Moomba through-out the whole video, and yeah ... feelsbadman.jpg
Project TMA is an amalgamy of all the great PvP titles of our time, from Mortal Kombat, and Call of Duty, to DotA and WoW just to name a few. It is not a copy of any one game, instead takes inspiration from all the games we ever played and turns it into something completely new and unique. In Project TMA, numerous different game modes exist that do not only change the winning conditions, but drastically change the way the game is played. Kill enemies, defend key points or allies, secure valuable resources, or even hunt down a particular High Value Target all whilst collecting powerful items and powerups, to overcome your enemies in all Project TMA's explosive combat and bloody glory.
We are keeping a lot of things underwraps until the day of the release, which is coming quite soon - when all will be revealed. There are so many unique concepts that have not been seen before that we wish to surprise the Starcraft community with, and we wish for the Beta Testers to be completely in the dark - allowing us to test how easy/hard the game is to pick up from the standpoint of a new player that doesn't know anything about the game in particular. We will obviously post videos a week before release, and give everyone else a chance to understand our mechanics and how to play the selected game modes.
Features:
18 Unique Heroes
Each with their own set of highly interactive, and combinable abilities.
Numerous Unique Game Modes
Including but not limited to ...
Team Deathmatch
Team Survivial
Bounty Hunters
Capture the Flag
Bomberman
FFA Phantom
FFA Survival
Over 40 Unique Items
Over 18 Unique Powerups
Not just damage modifiers ...
Closed Beta Test
Over the next two weeks Project TMA will be accepting selected trustworthy Beta Testers to help balance the game. Whilst the game is quite balanced at this point, in a 1v1 Arena setting, the creators would like to see how the heroes handle in a multiplayer Arena setting.
Although the maps will be available on most servers once released *Including EU*, the beta test is limited to the NA (North American) server.
How to apply for the Beta Test
You can apply by expressing interest in this thread, and you will be contacted by a representive once chosen. Testing times will be around the following times ...
USA EST9pm - 12am / 7am-10am
AU EST11am-2pm / 9pm-12am.
We apologize for the delay in Closed Beta Status (It was due for release April 2nd); as it was one of the numerous maps that sustained unforeseeable damage by Patch 1.3.
Blizzard commented on this I believe last year, saying they might add support for it in a future patch. I.e, query the server to find out current time / date. I personally would love this, as if you ever made an RPG map, a.k.a Pokemon, you could have it played on real time.
Relax mate, theoritically the way it is written, if it works for 1v1 it should work for a full house game, I highly doubt there will be any major bugs with the code, more so just testing for balance purposes. :)
Project TMA is an amalgamy of all the great PvP titles of our time, from Mortal Kombat, and Call of Duty, to DotA and WoW just to name a few. It is not a copy of any one game, instead takes inspiration from all the games we ever played and turns it into something completely new and unique. In Project TMA, numerous different game modes exist that do not only change the winning conditions, but drastically change the way the game is played. Kill enemies, defend key points or allies, secure valuable resources, or even hunt down a particular High Value Target all whilst collecting powerful items and powerups, to overcome your enemies in all Project TMA's explosive combat and bloody glory.
We are keeping a lot of things underwraps until the day of the release, which is coming quite soon - when all will be revealed. There are so many unique concepts that have not been seen before that we wish to surprise the Starcraft community with, and we wish for the Beta Testers to be completely in the dark - allowing us to test how easy/hard the game is to pick up from the standpoint of a new player that doesn't know anything about the game in particular. We will obviously post videos a week before release, and give everyone else a chance to understand our mechanics and how to play the selected game modes.
Features:
18 Unique Heroes
Each with their own set of highly interactive, and combinable abilities.
Numerous Unique Game Modes
Including but not limited to ...
Team Deathmatch
Team Survivial
Bounty Hunters
Capture the Flag
Bomberman
FFA Phantom
FFA Survival
Over 40 Unique Items
Over 18 Unique Powerups
Not just damage modifiers ...
Closed Beta Test
Over the next two weeks Project TMA will be accepting selected trustworthy Beta Testers to help balance the game. Whilst the game is quite balanced at this point, in a 1v1 Arena setting, the creators would like to see how the heroes handle in a multiplayer Arena setting.
Although the maps will be available on most servers once released *Including EU*, the beta test is limited to the NA (North American) server.
How to apply for the Beta Test
You can apply by expressing interest in this thread, and you will be contacted by a representive once chosen. Testing times will be around the following times ...
USA EST9pm - 12am / 7am-10am
AU EST11am-2pm / 9pm-12am.
We apologize for the delay in Closed Beta Status (It was due for release April 2nd); as it was one of the numerous maps that sustained unforeseeable damage by Patch 1.3.
Been told to post this ... so I'm just reposting some information that should have been posted along side the last set of images, Sixen must have forgotten :)
@ Mozared or any other Mod, if you have a problem with this post _please_ take it up with Sixen before deleting/editing it. I have permission to post what I am posting ...
In Regards to Mephs
Mephs is a troll, as simple as that, on the same level as Rodrigo, and it goes without saying that by the end of this post both of them will hate me, which is a shame as I have respect for both of them as fellow map makers, but the shit they continually pull because they are so butthurt about their maps not being as popular as they think they should be, I am bloody tired of it now.
I am one of the lucky few to beta test Project TMA with a few others - including Sixen ...
Smashcraft is not the most polished map on Battle.net. It is good, I will give you that, but the a lot of Smashcraft is a mere copy of TMA (not everything - TMA is a lot more unique and has better gameplay), even though I know you have never seen TMA - I personally know TMA has been in the works for nearly a year, it even had screenshots posted of it in September last year under a different name. It is a huge project, and has been having refinements made to it since perhaps November last year? After the core gameplay was already decided upon?
I was there beta testing TMA when you released Smashcraft and the conclusion that was made is that it was merely a coinceidence that you had released a map with some very similar ideas, as everyone who had been beta testing it was trusted when they said they did not show you. You do not have the best map, it is not the most polished map, fuck - it doesn't even have good gameplay IMO. Yes you have had some sponsored tournies, but anyone with a few hundreds bucks can hold one. I do not like Smashcraft - I think it is one of the better polished maps on Starcraft at this moment - but it is no where near as polished as some unreleased maps - not just this Project TMA. There are many maps which have never been given a sneak peak to the public, that people have no idea exists, TMA was one of them up until whenever the images were posted.
I know we didn't beta test for about 2-3 weeks because of Patch 1.3 "breaking" Project TMA. It took a bloody long time to fix ... and I actually feel really bad about this, because it was told that it was going into Open Beta on the 2nd of April, but due to the Patch it got postponed. If you notice carefully at the dates this would have been at the "peak" of the popularity of guessing what TMA was, and it sucks, it absolutely sucks out the balls, that the Patch broke the map, and we had to wait and wait for it to get fixed. It was something beyond everyone's control, TMA was not the only map to be broken, there are tonnes of them that have all had to get fixed.
Sixen is not behind this project, he never was, and I highly doubt he will ever be behind a huge Sc2 project simply because he doesn't have the time. How can he find the time to make a map when he is so busy running the community? Icefrog in Dota does not run the community, he is too busy with Dota, he has people to run the community for him.
Your map was featured on SEA, you should be happy instead of ditching the SEA server and crying afoul cause you didn't get your precious NA. Smashcraft was not that innovative - its only strong point was that it was released before TMA, if it was the other way around Smashcraft would have never stood a chance, it sucks mate but it has to be said. You are not the only person who can do voiceovers, nor are you the only person who can do custom UI and mechanics. I know from the screenshots posted 9 odd months ago that TMA was the first map to have custom UI (including custom Command Card panels) before Helral posted his tutorial about CCs and before we were given Sc2 Layout files to play with. Yes without a doubt it was Helral that discovered the panel trick, and he is the Godfather of Starcraft II UI - so I am not trying to take credit off him.
I presume you mean 'Pyro' by saying that they copied the hero from you. Mate ... srsly? wtf ... Pyro is the most common name ever for a fire character, stop being so butthurt. When you released Pyro they were like wtf ... you copied TMA, but then again, Pyro is such a common name (and none of the abilities are anywhere near yours) they were like ... let sleeping dogs lie.
Smashcraft will never reach the success of Dota, no Sc2 map will - because Sc2 is a closed platform, it is protected by the Battle.net login. You cannot play Sc2 on Garena, or any other custom server, therefore people have to buy Sc2 and trust me, especially within the chinese dota community, its all pirated Wc3 software. You - Mephs - without a doubt know the creators of TMA, and are friendly with them, just because they havn't opened their mouths and said hey, I am behind TMA, you attack their map? Seriously ... what are they meant to think about you?
Concerning TMA Beta Test
To everyone else all I can say is the map is coming, it sucks it is about 2-3 weeks behind because of Patch 1.3 but there was nothing anyone could do and no one saw it coming. It will be released when it is released - and I know that is coming soon and I feel really sorry that you guys have been fucked around, waiting to see what this project is without a word from the creators. It is one of those things that happen, I guess the more you try to plan things perfectly the more likely god is going to throw a spanner into the engine.
It is a bloody awesome project, hopefully you guys will be amazed - I know that they are looking for more beta testers atm, expanding the pool to see what new players who never played the game before think about it. So it might be prudent to show some interest and post in this thread "Hey I want to beta test" or something along those lines ...
As I said, I have permission to post everything I have ... relax guys. :)
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@iSaintx: Go
I am curious to see what Meph says about this, as we are pretty good mates and get along really well. When he released Smashcraft, Tofu was already long under way and most of the features you see here had already been implemented, for the first few moments I was disappointed because I said to Dryeyece, look he just released what we are going to release, but after playing Smashcraft with him, I understood that the games are no where near similar, from the UI to the mechanics and gameplay style itself. There is no better map, just different, but I personally like Tofu a lot better because I have that 1 second Australia-USA delay and Tofu is more forgiving, where Smashcraft needs perfect delay-free timings.
Both Dryeyece and I agree that the map will be locked - a closed platform - however, this is simply because we do not want people copypasta our hard work, and seriously at the height of the project we pulled 16 hour days, 6 days a week for a couple of months. Now things are nearing the end I personally am taking it a bit slower, to make sure everything is as perfect as it can be for release. But, that being said neither of us are against the idea of sharing our knowledge, so instead of releasing the map open sourced, we will answer pretty much any question about it - after all, there is nothing we did that anyone else can't do, there are no special tricks or anything used, its actually really basic stuff.
The User Inteface is all custom art, and after release when I have some free time I will write up a tutorial about it. It took me about 2 days to draw it in Photoshop, pixel by pixel with the pen tool (yes, it is pixel art) and about 3-4 days to implement. It took me about 5 hours to make the five custom ability icons that you saw in the video for Moomba, this was my first time doing art on this scale (pixel) and I am pretty impressed at what I achieved, in the screenshot you can see the detail that went into the Menubar at the top, and yes - it is all dialogs with some Sc2Layouts to "hide" things I don't want shown.
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PYRO
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Previous Threads:
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Blizzard commented on this I believe last year, saying they might add support for it in a future patch. I.e, query the server to find out current time / date. I personally would love this, as if you ever made an RPG map, a.k.a Pokemon, you could have it played on real time.
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Ugh, wheres my invitation? Give it six months perhaps :(
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Relax mate, theoritically the way it is written, if it works for 1v1 it should work for a full house game, I highly doubt there will be any major bugs with the code, more so just testing for balance purposes. :)
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I'm just going to leave this here ...
Been told to post this ... so I'm just reposting some information that should have been posted along side the last set of images, Sixen must have forgotten :)
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In Regards to Mephs
Mephs is a troll, as simple as that, on the same level as Rodrigo, and it goes without saying that by the end of this post both of them will hate me, which is a shame as I have respect for both of them as fellow map makers, but the shit they continually pull because they are so butthurt about their maps not being as popular as they think they should be, I am bloody tired of it now.
I am one of the lucky few to beta test Project TMA with a few others - including Sixen ...
Smashcraft is not the most polished map on Battle.net. It is good, I will give you that, but the a lot of Smashcraft is a mere copy of TMA (not everything - TMA is a lot more unique and has better gameplay), even though I know you have never seen TMA - I personally know TMA has been in the works for nearly a year, it even had screenshots posted of it in September last year under a different name. It is a huge project, and has been having refinements made to it since perhaps November last year? After the core gameplay was already decided upon?
I was there beta testing TMA when you released Smashcraft and the conclusion that was made is that it was merely a coinceidence that you had released a map with some very similar ideas, as everyone who had been beta testing it was trusted when they said they did not show you. You do not have the best map, it is not the most polished map, fuck - it doesn't even have good gameplay IMO. Yes you have had some sponsored tournies, but anyone with a few hundreds bucks can hold one. I do not like Smashcraft - I think it is one of the better polished maps on Starcraft at this moment - but it is no where near as polished as some unreleased maps - not just this Project TMA. There are many maps which have never been given a sneak peak to the public, that people have no idea exists, TMA was one of them up until whenever the images were posted.
I know we didn't beta test for about 2-3 weeks because of Patch 1.3 "breaking" Project TMA. It took a bloody long time to fix ... and I actually feel really bad about this, because it was told that it was going into Open Beta on the 2nd of April, but due to the Patch it got postponed. If you notice carefully at the dates this would have been at the "peak" of the popularity of guessing what TMA was, and it sucks, it absolutely sucks out the balls, that the Patch broke the map, and we had to wait and wait for it to get fixed. It was something beyond everyone's control, TMA was not the only map to be broken, there are tonnes of them that have all had to get fixed.
Sixen is not behind this project, he never was, and I highly doubt he will ever be behind a huge Sc2 project simply because he doesn't have the time. How can he find the time to make a map when he is so busy running the community? Icefrog in Dota does not run the community, he is too busy with Dota, he has people to run the community for him.
Your map was featured on SEA, you should be happy instead of ditching the SEA server and crying afoul cause you didn't get your precious NA. Smashcraft was not that innovative - its only strong point was that it was released before TMA, if it was the other way around Smashcraft would have never stood a chance, it sucks mate but it has to be said. You are not the only person who can do voiceovers, nor are you the only person who can do custom UI and mechanics. I know from the screenshots posted 9 odd months ago that TMA was the first map to have custom UI (including custom Command Card panels) before Helral posted his tutorial about CCs and before we were given Sc2 Layout files to play with. Yes without a doubt it was Helral that discovered the panel trick, and he is the Godfather of Starcraft II UI - so I am not trying to take credit off him.
I presume you mean 'Pyro' by saying that they copied the hero from you. Mate ... srsly? wtf ... Pyro is the most common name ever for a fire character, stop being so butthurt. When you released Pyro they were like wtf ... you copied TMA, but then again, Pyro is such a common name (and none of the abilities are anywhere near yours) they were like ... let sleeping dogs lie.
Smashcraft will never reach the success of Dota, no Sc2 map will - because Sc2 is a closed platform, it is protected by the Battle.net login. You cannot play Sc2 on Garena, or any other custom server, therefore people have to buy Sc2 and trust me, especially within the chinese dota community, its all pirated Wc3 software. You - Mephs - without a doubt know the creators of TMA, and are friendly with them, just because they havn't opened their mouths and said hey, I am behind TMA, you attack their map? Seriously ... what are they meant to think about you?
Concerning TMA Beta Test
To everyone else all I can say is the map is coming, it sucks it is about 2-3 weeks behind because of Patch 1.3 but there was nothing anyone could do and no one saw it coming. It will be released when it is released - and I know that is coming soon and I feel really sorry that you guys have been fucked around, waiting to see what this project is without a word from the creators. It is one of those things that happen, I guess the more you try to plan things perfectly the more likely god is going to throw a spanner into the engine.
It is a bloody awesome project, hopefully you guys will be amazed - I know that they are looking for more beta testers atm, expanding the pool to see what new players who never played the game before think about it. So it might be prudent to show some interest and post in this thread "Hey I want to beta test" or something along those lines ...
As I said, I have permission to post everything I have ... relax guys. :)
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No it's not, it is entirely and utterly correct in the fullest sense of the word.
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Why would something receive so much attention if it was a remake of something else ... it has to be entirely new.
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Best Patch ever.
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It's actually one week o_O ...
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I dreamed about seeing my best mate's girlfriend naked ... ugh ... what do I win?
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100th post and 1000th view :)
I feel so special, I think I am.