Been grinding out all of the items in the object editor. Making 200+ items is... slow.. painful.. very painful. Well, I guess triggering all of them to work with my dialog system of upgrades is what is really killer. If I get some alone time this weekend, I should finish up all of the items. I need them finished before I can make abilities, creeps, or bosses. The game needs to be balanced around stat progression so it is never too difficult or too easy at a given time; and so that abilities mana cost and affects are still more important than stats at most stages of the game.
In terms of game progression, I have decided (and this may change before any form of an/a alpha/ beta is out) that stats will outlast level. By this I mean, the level cap will not be too difficult to hit. Say, 30 minutes of play time to reach the max level; but games last for 50 minutes.
Items cannot be sold/swapped out once you have decided on an item path. For those who haven't read above, every item, of 8 starting items, will have 3 upgrade paths. Once you start down an upgrade path, there is no way to change the path of that item. As the game goes on, you pay more minerals per stat point on items. To push hard early game, it is in your best interest to upgrade all of your items evenly; for maximum stats. End game though, you are stuck in those decisions, which may not be the best later game choices. If I get all intelligence and spell damage items, but neglect armor and life, then late game when I can no longer level, I will be stuck with an armorless build. An opponent who still has a lot of item choices, can gear to counter me; despite the fact that I may have been winning a lot early, there is a good chance I wont win late game.
Off the topic of SOPA there are so many.. stupid... stupid.. comments about politics and governments in general.
True that politicians owe favors. They owe a lot of favors. They have always owed favors; as long as presidents have played a role in government (there was a period when they didn't). Our economy is one of the strongest. China is our rival, and I'm not entirely sure if anyone here knows the conditions in china, but I will assume you do. In terms of human rights, we aren't too high on the list. You wanna know where you can go for unlimited power? Somalia. then all you need is a lot of guns, and a lot of friends with guns. If you would like the ideal benefits of Switzerland, you need to taken into account that their population is MUCH smaller than ours, and they pay 64% of their income to taxes. Which personally, I wouldn't mind, considering what is offered in return.
It is easy to make one paragraph suggestions as to how a country should be managed. Really easy. All of our laws and rights are contradictions of each other. 50% of our politics hate 50% of the others. to get anything passes is pretty amazing really. Two party politics split the country. I think we have had higher than a 50% support rate for 2 presidents since vietname.
Bash on the mentality of Americans, bash their foreign policies, bash the fact that we are having a permanent Civil War with our politics, or bash lobbiests; but really, our governmental system is about as good as it gets for a population of this size. If we were a country of a solid mindset, it would be different. Always remember that half of us hate the other half. We are like Canada and French Canada. (I cant think of any Asian or European countries that are similar, without suggesting militaristic arms)
/end rant, SOPA never had a chance; and within 2 years, it will be back up.
I recently started actually playing games on bnet; and played both desert strike and nexus wars. I am a little impressed with their popularity, considering they are both worse than castle fight (for WC3) except are built on a much more advanced system. It is sad to see games where all of the units are just default game units. Toooltips are bland, missing, empty, wrong. "Creates 1 Goliath" Alright, what exactly does a "Goliath" do? For those of us who haven't played SC1 or 2 enough to know DPS and attack types of all units. Units is both games have almost no upgrades, nothing to make any player unique in any way.
I haven't looked at your map idea Darc, but if you are using generic game units with slight alterations, then your map is going to suck. If you manage to give players a truly unique feel, on a per-game basis, then you will have a good shot at it. And for the love of god, make tooltips that will allow new players with a desire to know how to play the game, to do decent.
I have a shitload of knowledge, and as I said many times before, if I had already released all my tutorials/information that is stored in my head - no one would talk shit ... but until then such is life.
Its the same for mapping here ... I see a lot of people with a great motivation but simply a lack of ability ... if they want to learn then I along with others who have the knowledge will teach, but the majority simply come here expecting us to make their maps for them
Simply because someone could have more to offer in terms of tutorials, doesn't mean they should be held to different standards. Whether a noob comes on here ranting, or a moderator does; it should not be allowed. It is a community site, and if your opinion is not for the better of the community, it is the responsibility of the mods to remove your post and punish you; even if they might agree with what you say.
Also, glad everyone can agree that there are too many people who want everyone else to make a map for them. Angry rants about it wont help. The easiest thing to do would be to promote a few special mods to overlook the "project workplace" thread, and have to "allow" any new topic made.
Weeding out the paragraph long "I'm gonna make a game like dota, but it will be DBZ and gogita is gonna pewpew a lot, and flying zealots. I need help making flyuing zealots, and creating characters, and skills, i know what i want, but cant do it, and i need a terrainer, even though i spent almost a whole hour making the terrain, someone could touch it up for me. And triggers, I dont know what they are. When i press "test map" it ends suddenly."
It would be a mild fix. Would allow for better orginization. Higher quality projects would take priority. It is silly to think that dozens of hours should be spend helping someone making a flying zealot, as you explain every step of the process to him, when that time could be spent investing thoughts/opinions into better projects.
And to add to the discussion of people who make worthless posts as answers:
I have a thread asking if there are any "hero arena" type maps, that I can look at, to see the competition. In 7-8 places I say "NOT AOS/DOTA/SOTIS style maps" Sure, a bunch of people suggested just that. Me and dogmai were discussing it, other people occasionally poped in to say that there really aren't any. So, I posted a conclusion that there aren't any classic "hero arena" style games. A guy posts "There's tons, dont know what you're talking about." and leaves it at that. At least people who suggested DOTA style maps were trying. This guy was the opposite of helpful. Saying nothing would have been more helpful.
On the other hand, we have the "overly helpful +1 posters. Someone asks a question, someone posts a good answer, that fills the question completely. Someone else, posts almost the same exact answer, again. And it isn't like 2 minutes later, and maybe they were typing it up at the same time. Like 3 hours later, you will see the same exact answer from someone else. Yay, +1, so helpful.
Use the catalog "Effect" type. You have to reference the effect that handles the damage for a weapon ("Amount", field). For the period, you have to reference the weapon itself.
If you're confused and need specific instructions, I'll follow up shortly.
As said above, damage is not on the unit, it is an effect. The easiest way to find what you are looking for is to click on it in the data editor. Then (i forget which tab, VIEW i believe) click "view as raw data". all of your fields will change to be what you would want to put in that function...
Say "Zealot Attack (damage)" was the name of his attack effect, it would most likely be affect;ZealotAttackdamage;Amount
There are many things you cannot change. if you get the error "errorcatalogfieldnotwritten" it usually means that is a field you cannot change with that function.
just saying that there are "tons" and giving no examples, does not in fact mean that there are tons.
Have you any examples that ARE NOT a DoTA-style map, and not smashcraft?
What I am asking for in this thread is examples, so I can look at them, test them, see how they work; learn my competition, and create something different.
so, examples please? 3-4 of your "tons" would be enough.
The easiest way to add/remove abilities is to add all of the abilities to the unit, and then show/hide specific ones. There is a limit to 32 abilities this way though. Which makes for about 28 usable abilities (stop, walk, attack, learn, ect take up ability slots). If you need to pass the 32 limit, the best thing to do would to make 2 similar abilities out of the same one, and just use requirements the launch the correct events.
I can name a couple, StarBattle, and Hero Attack, 2 very popular hero arena/attack maps
I have played hero attack (it is somewhere in my wall of text) and it is a DOTA style map. Which yes, does involve heroes killing each other; but is a tug-of-war or AoS style map; not really considered a hero arena by WC3 terms.
Dogmai is banned, so no point in writing up a long reply; but I will say that arena games were pushed aside by AoS style games. Arena games still did "alright" there was usually 1 of them in the top 10 hosted maps. Because there are no "classic" hero arena type maps anymore; that opens the door more for my map then. Well, assuming a lot of wc3 players also play sc2. Add the popularity of all hero arena's together, and they would be 2nd or 3rd most hosted on wc3.
@anyone else:
I have heard quite a few times about how important first impressions are with the popularity system. Why exactly is that? I can understand the need to not have a terrible map when you release it; but in terms of spending months working on custom icons and such; is it needed to give your map enough push to be noticed? Personally, I was planning on just getting my game running; 20 or so heroes, 35 or so abilities, and the basic "hero arena" gameplay going. Then, once it is balanced and bug free in my eyes, letting the public play it in a beta, while I work on making pretty graphics and icons. No game can be released as a "balanced and bug free" product. Once thousands of games have been played by people who do not think like you, something will pop up. I haven't released any sc2 maps, and haven't played a lot of them; so am pretty new to the map system. When you re-release a map, is it given the same popularity as an older version? Do you have to start over from zero and hope the updated version of the map is seen enough to replace the older version?
I have never been big on DoTA style maps; but have tried a few. Is "Hero Attack" one? something like that? I played that one more than once. And what all of them have in common is that, me, being a noob at that style of game, but better than most gamers at most games, was better than a lot of my allies. My ability to read tooltips set me above. the noob/pro scale ratio was insane, with very little built in learnings for the game type. I guess with a copy/paste+purple of DoTA, you don't need to explain too much. Overall, they were all lackluster games, and did not offer power to players, so much as power to team pushing. I do like teamwork, but when a game is based entirely on momentum that is easy to achieve; it throws the balance off for the common game.
ANYWAY, I looked up what I could about TOFU on the forum, and watched the videos. Very impressive game. I wasn't entirely sure how the leveling system worked in it (Maybe I didn't read something). Are you still working on the project, or is it on hold still? The arena style/setup is very unique and impressive. Portals to everything. The video was catchy, but didn't really show much, in terms of how the game is played. Just abilities being cast. The fighting system, as you said above, is sort of based around the classic "street fighter" style of arcade game. I would much like be given a walkthrough at some point.
What interests me, and I will look up in tutorials anyway, is the Custom UI. How are they made? do you just hide the UI, and create dialogs and such to replace them? That is the idea I was thinking of going with; but then, showing a players life bar move when they take damage would be tricky, and possibly laggy. If 12 people are being attacked by 30 things in a given half second... A short answer of "A custom UI is a massive undertaking and not suggested for the weak of heart" would be acceptable, if that is the case.
Lastly, none of the maps above seem too much like the arena styles of the classic, cut/paste arena styles of WC3. After searching more, I found a lot of requests, and a lot of topic about them. What seemed to be a game ender for most of them was the massive amount of abilities and items needed to support that style of hero arena. to me that seems more like no serious editor has taken on the task. Grinding out easy, but painstaking work in the data editor shouldn't be so demotivational as to end a project, or kill off a map style.
this post was all around; if anyone new checks this and knows of a working, hero arena, lem'me know. If anyone has attempted and failed and has words of advice, that will do also.
I have been working on Custom Hero Arena for a while now; and wanted to look at other "Hero Arena" style maps to make sure I am not making anything too similar to existing games. "Smashcraft" is the only game of the sorts that I can find, and that is more of a "Gladiator" arena, where it is just fight-fight-fight. I know I am far from that. WC3 had a lot of reasonably popular arenas through the years though. Angel Arena was a major one; the closest thing I could find to it was an alpha of a map that looks like it was worked on for a month, a year ago. The search function on here doesn't... work.. too.. well... So I hope I am overlooking something.
For those of you who have no idea at all what a hero arena is; it is a healthy combo of farming and fighting. there are creeps you need to kill, as a team, to get money of sorts, and experience. That makes you stronger. While doing this, you and your opponents might randomly fight each other in the field; take each others creeps, and speak mean-mean words to each other about how whatever they are using is completely overpowered, because they are losing. Usually, there is also a timer that forces players into an enclosed area, to fight it out until only one team is alive. Victory is generally set on a number of kills. There is a hint of RPG to game play, in that as you progress there are usually bosses who are intended as a team effort, and offer bonus money, items, quest status, ect along the way.
Are there any existing examples of this type of game out there, and completed for SC2? or, close to it? Similar in a non-DoTA way?
As an editor; it is often very difficult to take suggestions, if you were already planning on doing something a different way; or worse, have already done something. It has been mentioned a few times; but it is a lot harder for (us) to openly admin "Yeah, you are right, this system that I spent 30 hours on is not that good. I should delete the whole thing and start over." It is a lot easier to say "welll, I can't do that, but maybe I can change this around, and make it not so bad?"
I wouldn't really call that "falling in love with your work" or anything, but it is a measure of pride. Anything you invest, hopefully, hundreds of hours into is not the kind of thing you should be willing to scrap on a whim. It is hard to draw the lines sometimes. It is easy to give and read and understand advice from an outside point of view. I am sure no one here can deny trying to work around scrapping a system, to replace it with a nicer looking one, that accomplishes the same ends.
The best thing, IMO, is to get feedback BEFORE you start to make a system (or general area of your map). I have lucked out with many of my ideas, and encountered problems early; and been given suggestions of other ways to do it. What I ended up doing is much better than what I had planned. I know that if I spend all the time doing it my way, I wasn't gonna go back and do it a different way. This is why I am trying to get a review team for "map ideas" rather than just finished maps. People can be told that their ideas are bad before they spend the time following through with it. It would make them much more open to change, and in the long run, add to the number of "high quality" maps floating around. (see that little plug I did there, for my idea? wink wink, get in on it)
Because someone doesn't like their score (not saying kara dislikes his score, more that he doesn't like what he thought was a critera) is no reason to swap out game raters. What would work much better would be to (and easier said than done) get a few more recruiters, and ask each recruiter to type up a paragraph, or even just a sentence, to explain their general thoughts on the game and their experience with that style of game; and not post who wrote what review.
If you have 8 people who love TD's reviewing a TD, it will get good scores. If you have the same group reviewing a DoTA clone, it will get bad scores. This is of course a generalization. A hardcore DoTA player might also say "this sucks, it isn't nearly as good as DoTA" Knowing what type of gamer gave what review would be helpful. If an Expert TD'er says something, it might weigh more than someone who simply loves explosion grapghics and headshots.
Any chance you "guys" would be interested in rating map ideas, rather than finished products? I think it would give your reviews a lot more power. Yeh know, impact on the design of maps. Of course, a map would need a lot of information, and be reasonably well laid out. The more information given, the more accurately you could rate it.
I seem to see a lot of generic DoTA clone map ideas, "Purple DoTA" "I take dota, make it purple with a custom tileset, give the ability names anime references, and play a Justin Beiber song in the background." Sums up about 1/3 of the maps. If a panel of people told them at the start that it is a bad idea, they might take the hint.
On the other hand, I see a lot of very unique ideas. Some of them, many of them, have weak areas, despite being good in theory. A good review would include ways for editors to greatly improve their map. that is, assuming that a review might also offer a better way to do things.
Come up with some score sheet of importance, and grade map ideas. I personally do not feel like I would have the experience to fairly rate a lot of map types, or would offer to do this; hopefully there can be a qualified team or something, maybe?
Unique Game design: 30 points
The most important thing. Is this game different from a lot of other games? If it is similar, does it stand out more than other games? Is it a copy/paste of dota with the color purple?
Variety: 10 Points
Is there a difference in what players do? will everyone always have ABC, or are there 10,000 ways to play the game? If it is a game type that doesn't use variety, is there at least a lot each player can do? (A-9)
Custom Systems: 10 Points
Dialogs, health bars, shops, cameras, movies, ect. Is everything plain and generic, or does your map have specific systems in place that other maps dont?
Easy to Understand: 10 Points
Is there a way for new players to get "into" the game? Does the game start in a warzone with everyone getting headshot? Is there an interactive, instructive introduction that will teach a first time player the basics, without spending too much time doing so?
Replayability: 10 points
This is what makes a map popular. If it is an RPG, will it be constantly updated? Will it be broad enough that people will want to play every class? Will 9 outta 10 players be a "rogue" class, looking for a healer that NO ONE wants to play? It is a TD, is there something to it that even after you beat it, you join it again, and using the same set-up can lose?
I am overlooking somethings, I am sure. 30 points left over to allot into what you will. Rating out of 100. If nothing else, it will help potential editors get everything on paper before they start.
darx, you shouldn't take it personally when someone testing your map is negative about it. I know it is hard when you invest a lot of time into something, and a small bug equal to .2% of your work is the only thing being talked about, or causing someone to be negative; yeh gotta take it with a grain of salt. Be happy that someone will help you test, and find flaws. If everyone who helps you test is clueless what to do; take it as a sign. Every game that gets played without you, you wont be there to explain what to do. Even if you have a wall of text, it is clear that the average player would rather ask than read. Make an interactive tutorial, a short video, force someone to read a wall of text for 30 seconds before they can play the game. Have a mini-quiz.
Editing on WC3 for ... 3.5 years, I had a solid group of testers, about 10 core tested, and 20 come and go testers. The core group was always "rude" in my eyes (overlooking 50 hours of work, to tell me a graphic looks like shit) but they are the ones who made my map better. People who say "ohh, this is great, I love this!" make you feel better, but aren't really contributing.
Just a mini-rant. Don't take it personally when someone is rude about an unfinished product.
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11 Day bump!
Been grinding out all of the items in the object editor. Making 200+ items is... slow.. painful.. very painful. Well, I guess triggering all of them to work with my dialog system of upgrades is what is really killer. If I get some alone time this weekend, I should finish up all of the items. I need them finished before I can make abilities, creeps, or bosses. The game needs to be balanced around stat progression so it is never too difficult or too easy at a given time; and so that abilities mana cost and affects are still more important than stats at most stages of the game.
In terms of game progression, I have decided (and this may change before any form of an/a alpha/ beta is out) that stats will outlast level. By this I mean, the level cap will not be too difficult to hit. Say, 30 minutes of play time to reach the max level; but games last for 50 minutes.
Items cannot be sold/swapped out once you have decided on an item path. For those who haven't read above, every item, of 8 starting items, will have 3 upgrade paths. Once you start down an upgrade path, there is no way to change the path of that item. As the game goes on, you pay more minerals per stat point on items. To push hard early game, it is in your best interest to upgrade all of your items evenly; for maximum stats. End game though, you are stuck in those decisions, which may not be the best later game choices. If I get all intelligence and spell damage items, but neglect armor and life, then late game when I can no longer level, I will be stuck with an armorless build. An opponent who still has a lot of item choices, can gear to counter me; despite the fact that I may have been winning a lot early, there is a good chance I wont win late game.
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Off the topic of SOPA there are so many.. stupid... stupid.. comments about politics and governments in general.
True that politicians owe favors. They owe a lot of favors. They have always owed favors; as long as presidents have played a role in government (there was a period when they didn't). Our economy is one of the strongest. China is our rival, and I'm not entirely sure if anyone here knows the conditions in china, but I will assume you do. In terms of human rights, we aren't too high on the list. You wanna know where you can go for unlimited power? Somalia. then all you need is a lot of guns, and a lot of friends with guns. If you would like the ideal benefits of Switzerland, you need to taken into account that their population is MUCH smaller than ours, and they pay 64% of their income to taxes. Which personally, I wouldn't mind, considering what is offered in return.
It is easy to make one paragraph suggestions as to how a country should be managed. Really easy. All of our laws and rights are contradictions of each other. 50% of our politics hate 50% of the others. to get anything passes is pretty amazing really. Two party politics split the country. I think we have had higher than a 50% support rate for 2 presidents since vietname.
Bash on the mentality of Americans, bash their foreign policies, bash the fact that we are having a permanent Civil War with our politics, or bash lobbiests; but really, our governmental system is about as good as it gets for a population of this size. If we were a country of a solid mindset, it would be different. Always remember that half of us hate the other half. We are like Canada and French Canada. (I cant think of any Asian or European countries that are similar, without suggesting militaristic arms)
/end rant, SOPA never had a chance; and within 2 years, it will be back up.
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@DarcZaFire: Go
I recently started actually playing games on bnet; and played both desert strike and nexus wars. I am a little impressed with their popularity, considering they are both worse than castle fight (for WC3) except are built on a much more advanced system. It is sad to see games where all of the units are just default game units. Toooltips are bland, missing, empty, wrong. "Creates 1 Goliath" Alright, what exactly does a "Goliath" do? For those of us who haven't played SC1 or 2 enough to know DPS and attack types of all units. Units is both games have almost no upgrades, nothing to make any player unique in any way.
I haven't looked at your map idea Darc, but if you are using generic game units with slight alterations, then your map is going to suck. If you manage to give players a truly unique feel, on a per-game basis, then you will have a good shot at it. And for the love of god, make tooltips that will allow new players with a desire to know how to play the game, to do decent.
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I was going to apply for Genesis, but assume that it was going to be full of people like that, and didn't want to deal with them, so didn't apply.
Simply because someone could have more to offer in terms of tutorials, doesn't mean they should be held to different standards. Whether a noob comes on here ranting, or a moderator does; it should not be allowed. It is a community site, and if your opinion is not for the better of the community, it is the responsibility of the mods to remove your post and punish you; even if they might agree with what you say.
Also, glad everyone can agree that there are too many people who want everyone else to make a map for them. Angry rants about it wont help. The easiest thing to do would be to promote a few special mods to overlook the "project workplace" thread, and have to "allow" any new topic made.
Weeding out the paragraph long "I'm gonna make a game like dota, but it will be DBZ and gogita is gonna pewpew a lot, and flying zealots. I need help making flyuing zealots, and creating characters, and skills, i know what i want, but cant do it, and i need a terrainer, even though i spent almost a whole hour making the terrain, someone could touch it up for me. And triggers, I dont know what they are. When i press "test map" it ends suddenly."
It would be a mild fix. Would allow for better orginization. Higher quality projects would take priority. It is silly to think that dozens of hours should be spend helping someone making a flying zealot, as you explain every step of the process to him, when that time could be spent investing thoughts/opinions into better projects.
And to add to the discussion of people who make worthless posts as answers:
I have a thread asking if there are any "hero arena" type maps, that I can look at, to see the competition. In 7-8 places I say "NOT AOS/DOTA/SOTIS style maps" Sure, a bunch of people suggested just that. Me and dogmai were discussing it, other people occasionally poped in to say that there really aren't any. So, I posted a conclusion that there aren't any classic "hero arena" style games. A guy posts "There's tons, dont know what you're talking about." and leaves it at that. At least people who suggested DOTA style maps were trying. This guy was the opposite of helpful. Saying nothing would have been more helpful.
On the other hand, we have the "overly helpful +1 posters. Someone asks a question, someone posts a good answer, that fills the question completely. Someone else, posts almost the same exact answer, again. And it isn't like 2 minutes later, and maybe they were typing it up at the same time. Like 3 hours later, you will see the same exact answer from someone else. Yay, +1, so helpful.
/end rants
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As said above, damage is not on the unit, it is an effect. The easiest way to find what you are looking for is to click on it in the data editor. Then (i forget which tab, VIEW i believe) click "view as raw data". all of your fields will change to be what you would want to put in that function...
Say "Zealot Attack (damage)" was the name of his attack effect, it would most likely be affect;ZealotAttackdamage;Amount
"Amount" is the field for damage. There are a lot of other neat things you can change, some of which are difficult. I know there is this same post on here, but I have the one from the hive bookmarked; http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/trigger-gui-galaxy-ai-scripts-657/catalog-functions-178518/
There are many things you cannot change. if you get the error "errorcatalogfieldnotwritten" it usually means that is a field you cannot change with that function.
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@Operation51: Go
you put the youtube number junk between << >> with youtube so without creating a huge white box,
< <youtube A49gbutI >>
where A49gbutl is the youtube link
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@tordecybombo: Go
just saying that there are "tons" and giving no examples, does not in fact mean that there are tons.
Have you any examples that ARE NOT a DoTA-style map, and not smashcraft?
What I am asking for in this thread is examples, so I can look at them, test them, see how they work; learn my competition, and create something different.
so, examples please? 3-4 of your "tons" would be enough.
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The easiest way to add/remove abilities is to add all of the abilities to the unit, and then show/hide specific ones. There is a limit to 32 abilities this way though. Which makes for about 28 usable abilities (stop, walk, attack, learn, ect take up ability slots). If you need to pass the 32 limit, the best thing to do would to make 2 similar abilities out of the same one, and just use requirements the launch the correct events.
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I have played hero attack (it is somewhere in my wall of text) and it is a DOTA style map. Which yes, does involve heroes killing each other; but is a tug-of-war or AoS style map; not really considered a hero arena by WC3 terms.
Dogmai is banned, so no point in writing up a long reply; but I will say that arena games were pushed aside by AoS style games. Arena games still did "alright" there was usually 1 of them in the top 10 hosted maps. Because there are no "classic" hero arena type maps anymore; that opens the door more for my map then. Well, assuming a lot of wc3 players also play sc2. Add the popularity of all hero arena's together, and they would be 2nd or 3rd most hosted on wc3.
@anyone else: I have heard quite a few times about how important first impressions are with the popularity system. Why exactly is that? I can understand the need to not have a terrible map when you release it; but in terms of spending months working on custom icons and such; is it needed to give your map enough push to be noticed? Personally, I was planning on just getting my game running; 20 or so heroes, 35 or so abilities, and the basic "hero arena" gameplay going. Then, once it is balanced and bug free in my eyes, letting the public play it in a beta, while I work on making pretty graphics and icons. No game can be released as a "balanced and bug free" product. Once thousands of games have been played by people who do not think like you, something will pop up. I haven't released any sc2 maps, and haven't played a lot of them; so am pretty new to the map system. When you re-release a map, is it given the same popularity as an older version? Do you have to start over from zero and hope the updated version of the map is seen enough to replace the older version?
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I have never been big on DoTA style maps; but have tried a few. Is "Hero Attack" one? something like that? I played that one more than once. And what all of them have in common is that, me, being a noob at that style of game, but better than most gamers at most games, was better than a lot of my allies. My ability to read tooltips set me above. the noob/pro scale ratio was insane, with very little built in learnings for the game type. I guess with a copy/paste+purple of DoTA, you don't need to explain too much. Overall, they were all lackluster games, and did not offer power to players, so much as power to team pushing. I do like teamwork, but when a game is based entirely on momentum that is easy to achieve; it throws the balance off for the common game.
ANYWAY, I looked up what I could about TOFU on the forum, and watched the videos. Very impressive game. I wasn't entirely sure how the leveling system worked in it (Maybe I didn't read something). Are you still working on the project, or is it on hold still? The arena style/setup is very unique and impressive. Portals to everything. The video was catchy, but didn't really show much, in terms of how the game is played. Just abilities being cast. The fighting system, as you said above, is sort of based around the classic "street fighter" style of arcade game. I would much like be given a walkthrough at some point.
What interests me, and I will look up in tutorials anyway, is the Custom UI. How are they made? do you just hide the UI, and create dialogs and such to replace them? That is the idea I was thinking of going with; but then, showing a players life bar move when they take damage would be tricky, and possibly laggy. If 12 people are being attacked by 30 things in a given half second... A short answer of "A custom UI is a massive undertaking and not suggested for the weak of heart" would be acceptable, if that is the case.
Lastly, none of the maps above seem too much like the arena styles of the classic, cut/paste arena styles of WC3. After searching more, I found a lot of requests, and a lot of topic about them. What seemed to be a game ender for most of them was the massive amount of abilities and items needed to support that style of hero arena. to me that seems more like no serious editor has taken on the task. Grinding out easy, but painstaking work in the data editor shouldn't be so demotivational as to end a project, or kill off a map style.
this post was all around; if anyone new checks this and knows of a working, hero arena, lem'me know. If anyone has attempted and failed and has words of advice, that will do also.
thanks!
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I have been working on Custom Hero Arena for a while now; and wanted to look at other "Hero Arena" style maps to make sure I am not making anything too similar to existing games. "Smashcraft" is the only game of the sorts that I can find, and that is more of a "Gladiator" arena, where it is just fight-fight-fight. I know I am far from that. WC3 had a lot of reasonably popular arenas through the years though. Angel Arena was a major one; the closest thing I could find to it was an alpha of a map that looks like it was worked on for a month, a year ago. The search function on here doesn't... work.. too.. well... So I hope I am overlooking something.
For those of you who have no idea at all what a hero arena is; it is a healthy combo of farming and fighting. there are creeps you need to kill, as a team, to get money of sorts, and experience. That makes you stronger. While doing this, you and your opponents might randomly fight each other in the field; take each others creeps, and speak mean-mean words to each other about how whatever they are using is completely overpowered, because they are losing. Usually, there is also a timer that forces players into an enclosed area, to fight it out until only one team is alive. Victory is generally set on a number of kills. There is a hint of RPG to game play, in that as you progress there are usually bosses who are intended as a team effort, and offer bonus money, items, quest status, ect along the way.
Are there any existing examples of this type of game out there, and completed for SC2? or, close to it? Similar in a non-DoTA way?
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As an editor; it is often very difficult to take suggestions, if you were already planning on doing something a different way; or worse, have already done something. It has been mentioned a few times; but it is a lot harder for (us) to openly admin "Yeah, you are right, this system that I spent 30 hours on is not that good. I should delete the whole thing and start over." It is a lot easier to say "welll, I can't do that, but maybe I can change this around, and make it not so bad?"
I wouldn't really call that "falling in love with your work" or anything, but it is a measure of pride. Anything you invest, hopefully, hundreds of hours into is not the kind of thing you should be willing to scrap on a whim. It is hard to draw the lines sometimes. It is easy to give and read and understand advice from an outside point of view. I am sure no one here can deny trying to work around scrapping a system, to replace it with a nicer looking one, that accomplishes the same ends.
The best thing, IMO, is to get feedback BEFORE you start to make a system (or general area of your map). I have lucked out with many of my ideas, and encountered problems early; and been given suggestions of other ways to do it. What I ended up doing is much better than what I had planned. I know that if I spend all the time doing it my way, I wasn't gonna go back and do it a different way. This is why I am trying to get a review team for "map ideas" rather than just finished maps. People can be told that their ideas are bad before they spend the time following through with it. It would make them much more open to change, and in the long run, add to the number of "high quality" maps floating around. (see that little plug I did there, for my idea? wink wink, get in on it)
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not that it is my place; but I will speak anyway.
Because someone doesn't like their score (not saying kara dislikes his score, more that he doesn't like what he thought was a critera) is no reason to swap out game raters. What would work much better would be to (and easier said than done) get a few more recruiters, and ask each recruiter to type up a paragraph, or even just a sentence, to explain their general thoughts on the game and their experience with that style of game; and not post who wrote what review.
If you have 8 people who love TD's reviewing a TD, it will get good scores. If you have the same group reviewing a DoTA clone, it will get bad scores. This is of course a generalization. A hardcore DoTA player might also say "this sucks, it isn't nearly as good as DoTA" Knowing what type of gamer gave what review would be helpful. If an Expert TD'er says something, it might weigh more than someone who simply loves explosion grapghics and headshots.
Just a thought.
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Any chance you "guys" would be interested in rating map ideas, rather than finished products? I think it would give your reviews a lot more power. Yeh know, impact on the design of maps. Of course, a map would need a lot of information, and be reasonably well laid out. The more information given, the more accurately you could rate it.
I seem to see a lot of generic DoTA clone map ideas, "Purple DoTA" "I take dota, make it purple with a custom tileset, give the ability names anime references, and play a Justin Beiber song in the background." Sums up about 1/3 of the maps. If a panel of people told them at the start that it is a bad idea, they might take the hint.
On the other hand, I see a lot of very unique ideas. Some of them, many of them, have weak areas, despite being good in theory. A good review would include ways for editors to greatly improve their map. that is, assuming that a review might also offer a better way to do things.
Come up with some score sheet of importance, and grade map ideas. I personally do not feel like I would have the experience to fairly rate a lot of map types, or would offer to do this; hopefully there can be a qualified team or something, maybe?
Unique Game design: 30 points The most important thing. Is this game different from a lot of other games? If it is similar, does it stand out more than other games? Is it a copy/paste of dota with the color purple?
Variety: 10 Points Is there a difference in what players do? will everyone always have ABC, or are there 10,000 ways to play the game? If it is a game type that doesn't use variety, is there at least a lot each player can do? (A-9)
Custom Systems: 10 Points Dialogs, health bars, shops, cameras, movies, ect. Is everything plain and generic, or does your map have specific systems in place that other maps dont?
Easy to Understand: 10 Points Is there a way for new players to get "into" the game? Does the game start in a warzone with everyone getting headshot? Is there an interactive, instructive introduction that will teach a first time player the basics, without spending too much time doing so?
Replayability: 10 points This is what makes a map popular. If it is an RPG, will it be constantly updated? Will it be broad enough that people will want to play every class? Will 9 outta 10 players be a "rogue" class, looking for a healer that NO ONE wants to play? It is a TD, is there something to it that even after you beat it, you join it again, and using the same set-up can lose?
I am overlooking somethings, I am sure. 30 points left over to allot into what you will. Rating out of 100. If nothing else, it will help potential editors get everything on paper before they start.
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@DarcZaFire: Go
darx, you shouldn't take it personally when someone testing your map is negative about it. I know it is hard when you invest a lot of time into something, and a small bug equal to .2% of your work is the only thing being talked about, or causing someone to be negative; yeh gotta take it with a grain of salt. Be happy that someone will help you test, and find flaws. If everyone who helps you test is clueless what to do; take it as a sign. Every game that gets played without you, you wont be there to explain what to do. Even if you have a wall of text, it is clear that the average player would rather ask than read. Make an interactive tutorial, a short video, force someone to read a wall of text for 30 seconds before they can play the game. Have a mini-quiz.
Editing on WC3 for ... 3.5 years, I had a solid group of testers, about 10 core tested, and 20 come and go testers. The core group was always "rude" in my eyes (overlooking 50 hours of work, to tell me a graphic looks like shit) but they are the ones who made my map better. People who say "ohh, this is great, I love this!" make you feel better, but aren't really contributing.
Just a mini-rant. Don't take it personally when someone is rude about an unfinished product.