multi-map RPG concept

i have had the idea of an epic sized RPG map, with variating terrain, routes to teleport for gold, many neutral camps and cities, aswell as 2 main towns wich are guarded by high level units. the players of the map would split in 2 groups, 5 players for each town, and be able to play in a vast landscape, with weather effects and a shitload of fancy triggered events (for example on breve idea being: every night when theres rain at a specific lagoon theres a dude wich sells a special kind of fish that is very valuable and can be traded for something fancy - stuff like that). players could battle each other in real time, or go to the arena (sort of in the middle of the landscape) to duke it out 5v5 in a turn-based-fight mode (wich i have been working on for ages and it works fine - and yes it considers hero cooldowns so it is not in any way imbalanced when compared to real time fights) with bounty for the winning team. there would be only trading-based or rescue based quests in THIS map. but one of the important things you could do, would be (by solving certain riddles or some of these trade-talk-trade quests) get a password, wich you need to enter a dungeon.

dungeons now, are completely different maps. therefore every player would have to input his hero-save-code at the beginning, then all players would have to step on X glowing buttons, to verify if the required amount of players for the dungeon are present, and then one player would have to enter the dungeon password, upon wich the gate opens and the dungeon may be played trough. obviously all spell mechanics and triggered item effects would still aply. death heroes would revive after a certain amount of time at the start of the dungeon, and loots could be found. there would be quite a lot of dungeons, for heros of specific level ranges (but without actually restricting heros of lesser levels, so that high level buddies can help our lower level players to level up fast (but therefore having to play a dungeon with 1 hero less wich could be very hard).

the map would have to have a very complex item system, wich i have also been working on for quite long and it works just fine (the amount of items in the game would also be very very high [but without feeling unorganized], to increase the feel-of an rpg. if you are interesting about the diablo-inspired item system scroll down.

now one of the questions i have is,
is there a hero save/load system, that saves items, skills, hero level and player gold? can that be done?

another question would be
despite the fact that such a project would require an immense amount of time, testing, updating and dedication to complete, do you think the basic concept could gain popularity?

i have the feeling that this thing could become really really big and popular, if done well. up to this point i dont have anything as w3x, but i have a shitload of formulas, calculations and concept work on paper.

any comments, ideas or tips are greatly appreciated.

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in case you are interested: the item system

first theres normal items, and then theres special items.

special items can have 1 to 4 magic attributes, enhancing them with specific features. the amount of attributes also indicates the rarity class of the item, wich is relevant for calculating its drop-probability. for example:

normal item:
longsword (+36 damage)

now a rarity-class-1 special equivalent:
flaming longsword (+48 damage, sets target on fire for 6 seconds dealing 6 dmg per second)

[the attribute "flaming", would then increase a weapons damage by 33% and set the target on fire for X seconds, dealing X damage per second, where X is 50% of the bonus damage acquired]

now a rarity-class-3 special equivalent:
giant flaming longsword of the vampire (+48 damage, sets target on fire for 6 seconds dealing 6 dmg per second, grants +5 strenght, grants a 7% life steal)

now you get rarity class 4 i guess.

obviously the gold-value of these items would shoot to the sky (increasing exponentially) the more attributes and the stronger the item.

one important note that is actually a critical aspect of my RPG-concept:

one thing that could upset players, would be the fact that they would have to enter a dungeon with some empty inventory slots, in the hope to find new items. to prevent that, one (of many) professions heros could learn will be the "goldsmith" profession. that enables players to directly convert items lying on the ground to pure gold (equivalent to 40%, 50%, 60& ... of the items actual selling value - according to the professions level) therefore enabling players with full inventory to get rid of an old item, when they find a stronger replacement during a dungeon raid.

bump1

do not double post / bump within 2 hours, do that only after 48 hrs.
Yes i believe there is such saveload code.

I've been having same ideas like you, but never succeed to make such a map... Guess I'm too lazy. :P

If you are going to make such map i advice you not only to make dungeons as your other maps but to divide whole leveling map into parts with epic size. Of course, it takes loads of time.

One more thing is inventory. Try not to limit it to 6 slots, but check some systems in spell section on hive. But, note that save/load will be much harder to make.

thanks for commenting, i have also rarely finished what i started, it seems my dexterity is disproportional to my creativity =D

so if you are interestid i invite you to start the project with me. checkout my post in the "preoject recruitment" subforum if you are interested.

and what you mentioned with inventory, yes, that is troubling me greatly aswell. i had planned not to incorporate anyone of those complex inventory-systems, due to the fact you pointed out, they ruin the save/load systems wich is what the map(s) would live from.

at this point, i intent limiting the inventory somewhat like this:

slot1: weapon
slot2: torso armor

only 1 of those can be carried at the same time.
all the other slots can be used for additional items like boots, gloves, shields (again only one of each type), or jewelry, or potions (without limitation)

obviously that would limit the arsenal a player group can take into a dungeon, but the "profession" system might compensate for that (aswell as the possibility to stack potions of the same type.

Again it is proven that WE and Warcraft are not perfect... I wish there is a way for map to create (encrypted) outputs instead of save/load code. Of course there would be another system that imports those texts back when you start new game. :S

Speaking of your project, I haven't made up my mind yet. But, beware that even though my GUI skills are quite good, I am only begginer in JASS.

Well, I did have a map project that I had halted for 2 years that is just about the same as your idea, except for the item system. The work involved is so much that I don't find enough patience to finish it myself. Since I no longer have use of the map I'm uploading it here. In map resources are all taken from Wc3sear.ch.

Hope you will find this useful. Good luck with your project. :)