[WIP] Monoliths- The Divided Goal

[Zack1996]

Map Basics
Size: 128 x 128 (Small)
Tileset: Ashenvale
Player Limit: 8 Human Players, 4 Computer Players
Match-up: FFA
Type: Hero Arena / Scenario
Current Stage: Alpha xD
Special Features: Creep Movement, Goal

Background Story

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After the destruction of the Four Main Mystical Monoliths, their magical energies disrupted the thoughts of the other creeps bound to lesser Monoliths. As a result, the creeps divided themselves into armies and started clashing against each other. You are one of the last heroes who can rebuild a Monolith and restore the unity between the creeps, can you do it? Or will you be crushed by the others who aim for the same glory?

The Original Monoliths

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You can test the Blizzard version, its just in your Frozen Throne -> Scenario folder. I'll just explain the gameplay here:
In the Blizzard version of Monoliths, you select a melee game race. Based on how many players there are, you will face the same amount of creep enemies. Each creep owns a Monolith, which your team will has to destroy. The creeps basically have a simple Tech-Tree and is controlled by an AI, each of its units are from the basic Ashenvale creeps.
There are also Monolith Shards in the Blizzard Version. If picked up by a creep player, they gain lumber, allowing them to build a rather powerful defensive tower. If picked up by a player, it turns all the creeps players into enemies of each other, and gives some of their units to the Neutral Hostile player. This is where I got the idea of the creeps clashing.

Idea Behind the Map

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Monoliths, does this name ring any bells? It should, because it was a map that Blizzard made in hopes of teaching mappers about the more advanced features of WC3 World Editor. However, it leaks and got boring after a while. After some weeks of planning, I have finally embarked on a new project three days ago. Note that the following are merely plans for the future.

Gameplay

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The game is played similarly to any other hero arena, with some twists.
You start the game with a "Start Location" sort of thing. You then choose a hero (most of which come from the original version of Monolith, with JASS triggered spells). Your Start Location will turn into the building which fits the race of your hero.
There will also be 4 lesser Monoliths, each spawning a set of random creeps (they are determined at the beginning of the game), consisting of 1 Commander Creep with an aura, 3 melee creeps, 1 caster creep and 1 ranged creep. These creeps have no set path and will wander the forest in search of enemies. Your hero will gain EXP and Battle Points (its basically a form of score) when near a battle. Participating in a battle grants him more of the two stated points.

When you feel like ending the game/when your thrashing the enemies but feel that they will turn the tables around, you can take your hero to look for some Monolith Shards. They can be found on little critters that run around, you just need to take it form them. You can then charge the Shards by going near a lesser Monolith for 5~10 seconds (undecided). Simply bring the Monolith Shards to the middle of the map (marked by a Circle of Power) to place the Shards in a circle. You will have to gather 16 shards (4 charged by each Lesser Monolith) to end the game. The scores will then be tallied and the players will be ranked based on overall, monolith or battle points.
You gain Monolith Points whenever you do somthing Monolith related.

Charging Monolith Shards

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Let's first take a look at this screenie, which shows a hero charging his Monolith Shards:

As you can see, there is a Blue Lightning Effect between the hero and the Monolith, this shows that the hero is charging his shard. Charging is done by using the Monolith Shard item on a Lesser Monolith. The Link breaks if the hero dies or leaves the area (500), cancelling the charging.

Here's another screenie which I will use for more in-depth explanations.

As you can see, the hero has 6 slots, all filled by icons representing Monoliths. Each of these slots are filled at the beginning, with their charges at '0'. The slots are as such:

1st slot- Neutral Monolith Shards
2nd slot- Monolith Charging Progress
3rd slot- Charged Monolith - Gray
4th slot- Charged Monolith - Light Blue
5th slot- Charged Monolith - Dark Green
6th slot- Charged Monolith- Brown

Whenever you acquire a Monolith Shard, you gain 1 charge for the item in your first charge. This is the one you use on the Monolith to charge. When you begin charging a Monolith Shard, you lose 1 charge for the item in the first slot. The item in the second slot also starts gaining charges, until it reaches 100. When it does, you gain a charge to the item which shares the same color as the Team Color of the Lesser Monolith you used to charge it.

The process takes about 5 seconds (might be changed).

Races

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The creep races are ripped from Blizzard Entertainment's Monolith(aka Monolith: When Creeps Attack), since they were pretty good. They are as such:
Furbolgs
Satyrs
Wolves
Beasts
Dark Trolls
Spiders
Thunder Lizards

Plans and Progress

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Progress
Progress is curretly fairly good, but temporarily slow.
An alpha version is downloadable at the bottom of the post.

Things Done

• Randomly Generated Terrain
• Monolith Spawning
• 4 Heroes (UPDATE!)
• Shard Charging System (5/09/09)
• Creep Movement System [Improved] (04/10/09)
• Battle EXP System [Grants EXP when you/someone else does damage] (25/09/09)
• Revival/Hero Choosing System (03/10/09)
• Regeneration System (03/10/09)
• Critters and Shards

Plans for Beta

• 7 Heroes
• Monlith Shards and Winning Condition
• Game Modes

Plans for the Future

• Unit Help Hiring System
• More Heroes

Screenies

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Credits

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magIc_seeKer - Suggestions + Support
Blizzard Entertainment - Original Map Idea and Warcraft itself.
Bloodcount - Support, Ideas, Help
BlackRose - Support, Help, Testing, JASS Help, Beta Testing
Damage- Support, Suggestions, Beta Testing
FhelZone- Beta Testing
Damage- Beta Testing
Dragonson- Beta Testing, Support, Terraining
Tyrande_ma3x - Handle Counter

Comments are appreciated!

Visit the forums!

DOWNLOAD HERE!

 

[magIc_seeKer]

wow a continue after the blizzard map monoliths i play that map a lot and i love it can't wait to play this one.

suggestions?

-yeah maybe you could do a better job with the spells that blizz did with the creep heroes in the original map

 

[Zack1996]

Thanks for the reply! I did decide to trigger at least 75% of the spells in the map. The spell you see in the screenshot is somewhat like Healing Wave, but yet different 0_o

Currently, what it does is: Bounce to an ally, heals him. Bounces to an enemy, damages him. Bounce to ally, bounce to enemy and so on. When all units in range (increases per level) are hit, it bounces back to the hero, healing him if the last unit hit is an enemy.
The damage and heal are not extremely powerful, since it should be a spammable ability.

To those who worry about the gameplay being complicated, don't worry. I will try my best to make sure that everyone gets how to play the game on first try.

 

[magIc_seeKer]

lol cool spell, yet a bit complicated. do you use JASS or GUI to make spells?

 

[Zack1996]

JASS. I plan to JASS the whole thing since I found out that it was awesome and uses less lines of code, GUI is hard to edit too.

Anyway, the spell can be put simply this way:
Summons a chain of life, which bounces, alternating between healing an allies and damaging an enemy. When there are no valid targets, the chain will then return to the caster, healing him if the last target was an enemy.

Don't worry, though, the other spells will be simpler (I hope 0_o)

BTW, I'm not sure if I should use the Loading Screen that Blizzard used for their version of Monoliths. The story is kinda different and it would be weird if the creeps "worshipped" the Monoliths together. So... Any ideas for the Loading Screen?

Just for the knowledge of those who want to know, I probably won't be importing many things in this map, so the map size should- hopefully- be below 1MB for the early Alpha (let's hope I can get the basics and at least a hero done by then xD).

PS: magIc_seeKer, I've added you in the credits for supporting this and giving suggestions

 

[magIc_seeKer]

hmm the screenshot should represent maybe the battlefield where units fight, or maybe a ruined monolith with some magic runes around it that should suggest that...even tho the players destroyed those monoliths, some of the powers were kept hidden and now are looking for a way to rebord the monoliths or something like that >.<''

a cool thing would be to add a new race to the map...and change the story line maybe like this :

After the destruction of the Four Mystical Monoliths, creatures that were bound to there power have been realesed. By time passes by, other creatures that heard that the Monolith Evil is over decided to return to there beloved homes...but things are not allways the way you expect. Some of the mystical powers of the Monoliths faded within the Earth Mother, waiting and growing untill the day they will get there revenge. Now that day has come ! But...the question is...Are you ready for it?

=EDIT=

ow and ty for adding me in credits for supporting

 

[Zack1996]

The map has barely progressed, so I didn't show any battling yet
I'll remember to add a fight scene hopefully by the end of the week.

Adding a new race would be good. I'll think about it when I'm finished with the gameplay and stuff.

I have done the area around the Middle of the Map (only bit of terraining I've done) and I'm still stumped on what to use to mark the placements of the Shards (I want to make it look like a Ritual Circle)

Anyway, I thought the Monoliths granted the creeps wisdom and allowed them to build and stuff? It was kinda what kept them united to attack. That's why their destruction brought about the creeps raging war against each other.
The story isn't very important anyway, I doubt people read it :S

Thanks again for the response! It was golden

 

[magIc_seeKer]

hmm ritual circle ? try one of these, maybe you will like one :

1
2
3

i will try and look for better ones if you don't like them

 

[NoAmmoSrry]

I never played the blizzard version, whats the gameplay like?

 

[scorpion182]

i want see more custom spells in this map

 

[Zack1996]

I never played the blizzard version, whats the gameplay like?

You can test the Blizzard version, its just in your Frozen Throne -> Scenario folder. I'll just explain the gameplay here:
In the Blizzard version of Monoliths, you select a melee game race. Based on how many players there are, you will face the same amount of creep enemies. Each creep owns a Monolith, which your team will has to destroy. The creeps basically have a simple Tech-Tree and is controlled by an AI, each of its units are from the basic Ashenvale creeps.
There are also Monolith Shards in the Blizzard Version. If picked up by a creep player, they gain lumber, allowing them to build a rather powerful defensive tower. If picked up by a player, it turns all the creeps players into enemies of each other, and gives some of their units to the Neutral Hostile player. This is where I got the idea of the creeps clashing.

i want see more custom spells in this map

Don't worry, there will be I plan to give each hero 3-4 triggered abilities at the very least. You can see a custom spell in the screenie, I'll just quote myself about what it does:

Summons a chain of life, which bounces, alternating between healing an allies and damaging an enemy. When there are no valid targets, the chain will then return to the caster, healing him if the last target was an enemy

Tell me if the description is hard to understand.

Thanks for the replies

PS: I've started the Monolith spawning and will leave the creeps as they are for now, I'll tweak them next time

 

[magIc_seeKer]

if you need any ideas for races, heroes, or other stuff like that just let me know

 

[Zack1996]

if you need any ideas for races, heroes, or other stuff like that just let me know

Thanks, but I'm fine for now

Updated first thread with new screenies. I shall explain the Monolith Spawning System here.

Firstly, we must understand that units spawn once every 2 minutes, and they do so as a "party". Each party consist of 2 sets of melee units, 1 set of ranged units, 1 set of caster units, and 1 leader unit.

The unit in each set is randomised at the start of the game. Each set can hold only 1 type of unit, and the number of them increases for those units of lower level. Therefore, it is possible to get a small army with many powerful creeps, or a bigger one with many creeps. This allows players to look for the Monoliths more suited for them to tackle (the creeps are supposed to wander around and look for fights, so its no advisable to clash against a creep party with a single low levelled hero).

There is a limit to the amount of parties per Monolith, so as to decrease the chances of a player getting ambushed from all sides and dying in seconds.

Check out the new screenies on the first post or in my album.

 

[Zack1996]

BUMP!
This isn't dead yet.
I was slacking, but I managed to make a Monolith Shard Charging System and a Creep Movement System (the party of creeps thing). Neither are polished yet though.

 

[NoAmmoSrry]

Nice new screenies just checked em out now.

 

[magIc_seeKer]

so how is the project going ? i'm nervous can't w8 for it

 

[DanThanh]

Nice concept and screenshots, good luck to you !

 

[Dragonson]

This is awesome zack! If you need help with something, i'm up! I'm a Tweaked-Hero Arena fanatic yaknow =P I might not be that good at most mapmaking stuff exept from ideas and concepts, but flack. If anything comes up, i'm ready! (unless life is playing one of its tiresome tricks on me. Again.)

+rep ftw!

 

[Zack1996]

Thanks dude! I'm glad that you're interested

I've encountered some problems with my computer and its getting fixed ATM. The map is safe, but I can't really do much without that computer (this one is slow).

Thanks for the support, everyone! I really hope that I can produce a nice game for all!

 

[Gaisler]

Hmm, nice ideas...interesting screenshots...

 

[Damage]

I've got to say this does look something very interesting.

Back when I was self-teaching my way around the Warcraft 3 Editor I did a total overhaul of the original Monolith Map by adding some more units and tweaking with the AI a bit here and there.

I'd love to see what you can bring to the table here with this project and will look forward to its completion.

Offtopic

Also, thanks for testing my map

 

[Zack1996]

Just a tiny update. I added 2 spells and done the Battle EXP and EXP gaining system.
I'll try and get the Creeps Movement polished asap.

Thanks for any feedback!

PS: Check the first post for Screenies

 

[Patio_111]

Looks really nice! I love Blizzard's one, can't wait to see how this one comes out. I'm sure it will be as great ^^

Good Luck!

 

[Zack1996]

Made some progress: Finished the first hero. Started on the Second hero.

There is also a hero selection/revival system. I've also done the regeneration thing, but I shall not reveal it yet

Any comments are appreciated! Supporters will be credited and sent previews of the map before the rest.

 

[Dragonson]

Great work zack =D
I hope i'm not suffering from some accident when the beta comes out!

 

[Zack1996]

Thanks!

The beta probably won't get released so soon, somewhere at the end of the month- an alpha, perhaps.

I'll send you some previews of the new hero in the meanwhile. So far, he owns. A lot. In terms of power, that is xD

To the rest, I've added some helpful hints and stuff, so that new players can get started more comfortably.

 

[Dragonson]

=)*

*(Not a normal =) that is, this is a =) that is made of 100% Pure Awesome! They are very expensive, and are only used in places where nothing else can describe the situation.)

 

[Crazed_seal2]

Looks like its coming along great.

 

[Zack1996]

Its going along pretty well. I've kinda gave up updating the first page. I'll send you the current map if you're interested.

 

[Damage]

Oh wow, that test map really whetted my appetite.

I've sent you a little feedback via PM. Overall, looking awesomely good fun.

 

[Dragonson]

Hello zack =) I'm back again.
I'm sorry i haven't been on for some time, but the Flu got me.

Anyways: If you could, i would LOVE to take a look at the current map =)
I can't wait to see what this is turning into.

 

[Zack1996]

Sure, I'll send you the link to the latest stable pre-alpha.

For everyone else, I'm still working on this, but don't expect any updates. I'll update when there's something worth mentioning.

As for the progress, I finished the second hero and enhanced the Creep Movement system. I'm trying to fix the leaks etc in my triggers and all that while I do the 3rd hero.
Expect a unique new map from this project. If you are interested to test out the map, feel free to contact me.

 

[Dragonson]

Okay zack, i've taken a look at the map, and it seems pretty awesome =)
Here's my reveiw:

Good Stuff:
The map is generally cool, and it seems that it should be able for a beta release soon =) To put my finger on some of the good stuff i'd like to say:
+The Heroes are awesome. The abilities, the setup, the polishing, the system, everything. You just need more of them
+The point system is really nice =)
+The Battle Points idea is not too original, but it works, and that's good =)
+The Monolith points are cool too, though i think that the monolith shards should respawn after some time. If it only takes the 6 shards to reconstruct the monolith, its gonna be a fast game, since charging them isn't that hard if you avoid the creeps.

Improveable Stuff:
+/-The reputation point system is a great idea =) They do though, not seem to work =( I leveled my hero to the max, but nowhere i could hire any kind of units. I don't know if this is not added yet or what, but you should really add some more information entries.
+/-The terrain is catchy, and it's most possibly better than anything i could come up with =) But it is TOO green. Or well, too LIGHT green. Add some dark-green fog effects, put in some fellwood trees around the place and make the general lighting abit more dark. Since in my experiance, people don't need extreme eyecandy to fall in love with a terrain, they just need some relaxing colors, mushrooms and nice round ashenvale trees. ^^
+/-In the beginning, there seems to be NO WAY to beat the monolith creeps. If that is not something very important to the map gameplay, it should be fixed.
+/-Add more mushroms. You can't have a forest based map without loads of mushrooms.

BAAAAAHD Stuff:
-The only thing in this map i can find that can be described with the word Bad (and is not a obvious result of this being an alpha) is that you need "Moar Epicx!". The spells, even though they are baddass, can seem abit fragile and weak. They need more Pow, and the easiest way to do that, is to add cooler sound effects. Boot up the audio abit =)

I hope that this is not too wrong, and that i have not missed too many core facts to the gameplay.
This is a surface reveiw, not a in-depths. =(

 

[Zack1996]

Ok, thanks for the feedback.

+The Heroes are awesome. The abilities, the setup, the polishing, the system, everything. You just need more of them
+The point system is really nice =)
+The Battle Points idea is not too original, but it works, and that's good =)
+The Monolith points are cool too, though i think that the monolith shards should respawn after some time. If it only takes the 6 shards to reconstruct the monolith, its gonna be a fast game, since charging them isn't that hard if you avoid the creeps.

Thanks. I'm glad you like some of those. The Monolith Shards are placed there since I haven't started to make the spawning system xD. I was too caught up on making the heroes and stuff.

+/-The reputation point system is a great idea =) They do though, not seem to work =( I leveled my hero to the max, but nowhere i could hire any kind of units. I don't know if this is not added yet or what, but you should really add some more information entries.

Thanks. Its still being worked on. I plan to add some nice units for each race that will (hopefully) help your hero in combat by slowing opponents, disabling them etc. Your hero will still be dealing the most damage.

+/-The terrain is catchy, and it's most possibly better than anything i could come up with =) But it is TOO green. Or well, too LIGHT green. Add some dark-green fog effects, put in some fellwood trees around the place and make the general lighting abit more dark. Since in my experiance, people don't need extreme eyecandy to fall in love with a terrain, they just need some relaxing colors, mushrooms and nice round ashenvale trees. ^^

Ok, I gotta work on the auto-generated terrain. I'll use some doodads and stuff in the new alpha, since it wasn't working when I tried it a while ago.
Also, The terrain is sometimes too green, I do agree. Will try to generate more kinds of different terrain and stuff, so the terrain is better

+/-In the beginning, there seems to be NO WAY to beat the monolith creeps. If that is not something very important to the map gameplay, it should be fixed.

Your not supposed to fight the creeps, your supposed to let them fight each other. Many people seem to miss that point, I should add that in. Thanks for the reminder

+/-Add more mushroms. You can't have a forest based map without loads of mushrooms.

Will do. They'll mainly be auto-generated but I may manually place some.

-The only thing in this map i can find that can be described with the word Bad (and is not a obvious result of this being an alpha) is that you need "Moar Epicx!". The spells, even though they are baddass, can seem abit fragile and weak. They need more Pow, and the easiest way to do that, is to add cooler sound effects. Boot up the audio abit =)

That's so true! I do need more badass sounds
I probably won't be importing anything, but I'll see what I can do with the in-game sounds. All Ultimates should probably have some form of battle cry or something.

Thanks for the feedback, you raised many good points!

BTW, I'm working on a new hero. He'll be rather different from the current heroes, but hopefully just as good

 

[Dragonson]

Glad you like my reveiw =)
Always happy to help a freind yaknow =D

 

[Dragonson]

So... anything new on the project?

 

[Zack1996]

Not much. Due to some unforseen issues, I had to rewrite quite some code to reduce the massive lag caused by some of the game features. As a result, there's very little progress. Sorry.

However, this rewrite of the code would hopefully lead to smoother gameplay and a more enjoyable experience. Once I get that mess cleared up, I'll finish the third hero and the Shard system. Hopefully the alpha will be released before Christmas (or on Christmas itself )

 

[Dragonson]

Ohmygawd! Before christmas is coming!
Monoliths Beta! YAYYAYYAY!

 

[Zack1996]

Lots of things have been happening lately:
Vacation, rewriting codes, and such. I cannot promise a 3-hero release, but it should feature most of the basic things of the map, including the Win-Condition and such.

Anyway, I will try my best to finish all these things by 20th December. It should be possible, since the 3rd Hero is "almost" finished. The first version of the hero would probably be rather basic, but I'll try and improve it in time.

One last thing: Watch out for Critters, they give you some pretty sweet treats

PS: I may consider a Winter-theme if this gets released on Christmas, but we have to see about that

 

[Dragonson]

Even better: A winter MODE! (Selectable winter theme ^^)

But if you need anything, like some simple spells that look epic, testing, terrain reveiwing (maybe letting me practice my terraining on your map? O.ô) or something else you think i might be able to help with, gimme a call. =)

 

[Zack1996]

UPDATE! Here's the map for those who are still interested. First post will be updated soon. Just not yet

Changes from the past:

• More efficient coding.
• 1 More hero
• Some rebalancing
• Cool way of getting Monolith Shards
• More info
• Doodads generated

I hope you like it. Bug reports and such are greatly appreciated

I do know that there are some problems with Spirit Link, as it does not set the health properly, so any help is appreciated

Download Here

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[Dragonson]

I haven't given it a full Look-Through, but The terrain sure looks better
You might wan't to mix the terrain types abit, but apart from that it's Awesome!

 

[Zack1996]

Once again, thanks for the reply! I just found out that its not possible to create Doodads via triggers, so I used destructables instead

Anyway, its kinda hard to mix terrain types. Will try to do something about it seems the terrain blends very badly ATM.

Awaiting more replies

BTW, I'll update the first post when I manage to find a screen recording device to make a video or something

 

[Dragonson]

Nice
I am currently mixing stuff in the terrain blender myself, since i am not finished with the mapmaking buisness, and think that it would be a good idea to learn 2 terrain.
If you wan't it, you can send me the latest version of your map and let me manually add a little terraining flavour

If you're interested in letting me try out my newly gained skillz, just tell me what kind of terrain you would like, and i can give it a try

 

[scorpion182]

many improvements from the last version, gl !

 

[Dragonson]

Oh and:
If you want a nice typical elven forest, i've been experimenting alot with that kind of terrain ^^

 

[Zack1996]

Sure, go ahead and test it out, I don't mind.

Take your time, since I'm taking a break from mapmaking for a while. Planning a new hero.

An elven forest is just fine, thanks for the help on terrain

 

[Dragonson]

'tis my pleasure zack!
Now... let's buff up that monolith.

 

[Dragonson]

Emm, i have one problem.
After abit of terraining i thought "Let's see how this looks ingame!"
When i entered the game, i were reminded of the trigger that places various kinds of terrain types around the map, and that randomly generates some kind of felwood trees.

The thing is: It's hard to terrain if you don't know exactly how it's gonna look ingame, so i ask you one thing:
Can you take this version of the map and turn the trigger that generates the small trees and various terrain types off? It will make my job alot easier
Half-Terrained Monoliths
(if you wan't you can also check out how it looks so far it's far from finished though.)

 

[Zack1996]

If your not going to be testing the things, you can just disable the Init Trigger. That should make the auto-generation stop.

Looking pretty good so far. The moonwells somehow seem out of place, but I'll check it out when the whole thing is done

By the way, add some other doodads like tree stumps. Those are one of the only things that I don't feel safe adding via triggers (I'm still keeping the doodads auto-gen ), since they block the way.

Thanks for the help