21:53, 17th Aug 2009, by Rui(#24):
You're wrong if you think you're about to download a "Spellcraft". "RuneForce" is an original and very interesting map once you get used to it! Approved with 3/5 rating.

Cool

I really like this mod. It takes some time to get use of it and more time to master it, then don't give up. You will be rewarded with great game experience.
And I hope you will like it and we will be finally able make battle with full teams.

Maybe the map should be improved. It's little bit boring and looks same everywhere. But it's first version

So this is pretty much a copy of Spellcrafters or whatever it's called, just with a new twist?

If you mean the "Spellcraft" map, or "Invoker wars" or anyting like that, then not. It's something way different: there aren't any predefined spell, from which player chooses by combining elements. This is more like "programming" your spell for the right situation using set of parameters you can change( whom the spell affect, in which way it moves, it's AoE and so on)...

Despite the fact it's only beta version, I see pretty nice possibilities in combination of spells in a team play. The system of creating new spells seems to have huge amount of variations. I liked this map and I hope, if the final version will offer some more event's (artifacts...), this map will be exciting and awesome.
I hope you'll finish it asap...

Don't know if you've already noticed but the ring of regeneration makes you fairly invincible since you can just keep running away from anyone who tries to or gets you close to killed. The creeps also get mana from the fountains which lead to blue gaining 60% rather quickly.

Only managed to defeat them because they tried to level past a corporal demon and all 3 teams decided the restores should win and were running around with Move and vision and then just stacked on as many life fires as possible. There were some fairly massive aoe bubbles that just one shotted the trees to normal. The trees also seem to give a ton of mana when you drain them. Is there anyway to convert trees back to dead?

It also seemed like our moving fire spells didn't do any damage to anyone early game as well. Is it required to put a LF on for an AoE bonus?

I think it would balance it out some more if you got xp from creeps and gold from hero kills if thats not already planned. And possibly make the fountains only work for one team so you cant spawn camp.

Great Map none the less. I love the mechanic for the spell crafting and am looking forward to new versions. Now if you'll excuse me i have to go get a friend to try this.

thx a lot for testing, you see, you are the first person here who gave me some constructive critisism.

The mana regen for creeps is a bug (actually it's a relict from older version, without the creep growth system, where it wasn't an issue).
Trees should restore tons of mana, but there will be an issue (which obviously isn't included yet): if there is any mana left over (like when you are on full mana and still draining), an invisible unit creep will spawn (level 0 creep), which will then later grow into normal creep and even further, so you end up with a powerful demon standing right beside you.
You can convert trees back by giving them mana(FW) (i think you can read this somewhere in the map help, if not, i will surely add that)
I will surely add a mod for creep xp and hero gold, to test it, and if it works, i can add it to the map permanentely.

Btw, how did you manage to fill all teams? I managed to play with 6 players top, when i was really lucky

I didn't XD i played with me and my brothers and one of our friends so we had a player to each team. So thats what i meant by "teams" XD. I'll have to experiment with names to see what helps fill it up. I tend to add a at the end. Seems to help get people to join(Credit to Blanket_Thief44 since i stole that from him).

I don't think a good name will be that hard but I've got a feeling that keeping people from leaving after they are exposed to the crafting system will be hard. I'd suggest a tutorial but the people of today are so impatient. And people just can't seem to grasp the idea of reading tips that are bold, red, and have 3 lines of IMPORTANT MUST READ!!! before and after the body of the tip. Your best option may be to just lock their camera and display the tip in flashing colors with a half off price sticker in the top right. Ok but seriously camera lock them and tutorial is probably your best bet.

Just wondering are you planning to add additional runes? Special runes or something like that? And what's your server and account name? In case anything hits me while im playing.

I have good experience with "join all", but it's true that about half of the players leave if they don't understand the system within first minute. I wanted to add a tutorial, but never got to it, i guess the guide in loading screen isn't of much help.
I am not planning new runes, but as you propably noticed, many of the combinations don't do anything yet (F in secondary pair, W in primary and so on..), and i am planning to add some more functions there.
My battle.net account name can be found in the public profile (it's m0rt on Northernd)

WHY WON'T IT WORK!!!!!! I Press start game, and the thingy goes up, but then it comes back down again and it's blank! Please Help!!!!!

sry for that, that was some kind of Heavy Lock failure, i have fixed that by now

I created a thread to discuss this map, so please leave comments there

A very creative and interesting map!
There are just SOOO many spell combinations!!!
Its a pity that most people cant be bothered learning how to play and just end up quitting
5/5

PS Do not double post

well id like to see this map geting an AI cause there is noone i can make to play it (noone understands how to create spells )

but the spell system is just great, keep it going 5/5

there has already been a map like this, but way better , no offence.

it was an RPG, on war3incgamers ... it had a rune system where yu can create monsters and shit with special elemental abilities with different stregnths...depending on when you cast the spell and summon runes ( its mad complicated )

i still give it a 5/5 though...

Well, AI would be incredibly complicated with all the combinations you can use. But I am working on some better guide, something that would let players instantly join the game, and enable them to learn all the complicated things later.

thedeathunterxx: If someone new the name of that map, I would like to know it. I hoped my map was completely original, and I would like to see how much alike the other map is.

o well i phrased my post wrong.

Your map is good and it is original. Its just there is another map that has the idea of using runes to create stuff ( in their case, monsters instead of spells )

oh, and its called " The Runes of Daerk " here is the link to it : Runes of Daerk - RPG - Warcraft 3 Mods, Addons, and More!

just a note though, when you download it, ITs supposed to be 1.30 Megabites. Sometimes, the download stops at 263 KB, or some other shit. I dont know why, but i think its the site, cause it only happens on that site.

Very Good 6/6

Haha, problems writing Dærk there eh? Both of these maps sounds nice, I'll try em both and give some feedback on this one

Anyone has an idea on what happened to the preview screen? It works fine in-game, but here it's somehow corrupted

Eh, it looks cool

Anyone has an idea on what happened to the preview screen? It works fine in-game, but here it's somehow corrupted

Click to expand...

, there probably went something wrong when they modified the layout of the site or something like that. Maybe updating your map will do the trick.

Mmh, didn't see this when I skimmed through the thread and I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but you can create an infinite mana-drain type of deal by placing two QW's ontop of eachother. I personally think it's nifty that you can power other runes through QW's, but yeah, might be a bug.

Edit: Yeah, it's possible to do some really crazy things with this, since you can make any combo of runes last indefinitely, Gogo super-fountain that's only usable by allies? While it's possible (In theory, mind you) to fudge up these rune-combos with some ingenuity, it does create some fairly imbalanced features (Like an infinite unit-spawn+Kill trap). Like I said, it's really really cool and would love for this feature to stay, but ya know.

Out of curiosity, is there any way of speeding up a runes rate of travel?

Edit2: Giving it some further thought, if you put enough effort into one of those it's (Theoritically again) possible to make them un-fudgeable (Since you can add in counter-fudging methods), I suppose if you added a more anti-rune-ish primary effect (Or even a secondary attribute to give the rune what ammounts to as magic immunity could work, would only be useful in rare cases like this though), let's say one that prevents runes from effecting/working targets in the AoE, that would work as a fairly good hard-counter to all the scenarios I can think of)

Edit3: Of course, you can just choose to stop the mana-loop by let's say, not allowing the QW output to be greater then it's input, or just not allow it to power runes (Which would make me a sad panda). Either or would work

Problems
The whole primary secondary thing is confusing and needs better ingame description. Took me ages to find out what you meant by that.
Fix the item bug on the mask. It adds + 300 life not +30.
Also explain the victory system better and how each race achieves it.
Movement of the runes also seems bugged, acting in random and vaired ways which make little sense.
Add notice informing player how to kill mana badies. Some people may not know they can only be killed via mana.

Sugestions
Add a "recast rune" ability, which will try and recast the last rune (using mana) to reduce the ammount of micro needed to play. The mana cost should be the same as manually creating the rune.
Add additional rune effects to the spell just for using it in the chain or so that if an odd number of slots occurs, that effect can be used instead of the final slot rune being wasted due to no partner.
When respawning, you should be unkillable for a brief period of time, this will prevent respawn camping and badies camping you.

Overall seems an OK map, I think ballence may be a bit messed up but still some people may find it fun. Hard on learners and unhelppful help does not help this map. Certainly approvable however and some people should surly enjoy it.

I would rate it a 3/5 with aspects leaning towards a 4/5.

Rui's review on "RuneForce" (0.8.3c), a map by M0RT

If you think you're just about to download a "Spellcraft", you are wrong. "RuneForce" is not a game with predefined spells, but simply the basic effects of damaging and healing and the possibility of manipulating them to either affect a huge area of effect or put your enemies to run with a damage ward following them.You are in the possession of five runes as abilities: the Life Rune, the Fire Run, the Move Rune, the Vision Rune, and the Target Rune. You can make various combinations of two runes to create a set that generates an effect (that you can activate by pressing G and left-clicking a location on the field). The map has a board that not only displays the teams and their members but the runes you have activated, which is quite helpful.For example, you can combine two Fire Runes to place a ward on the ground that will create a small fire, damaging everything in its short area of effect. Even though you can have multiple combinations (with a limit, defined by a hero attribute), this first main set is the spell's effect. All others are called «secondary effects», because they do no more no less than enhancing your spell.Another example: if I start my set with a combination of two Fire Runes and complement it with two Target Runes, the fire I just spawned will only damage enemies.Explaining what each rune does and its subsequent effects would take me forever, and I have already written a piece of text that is quite long. All the information regarding runes' main and secondary effects can be easily checked reading the descriptions, which are written in a way that is easy for the player to check.
What I wrote up there is confusing, because you cannot simply imagine something like this. But believe me that without these tips, it will take you a while to understand it. I tested this map with four people and after an hour or so of gameplay, I was the only one who had the system figured out. The quests (help guides) do not do a very good job helping you.Not surprisingly, this poses a huge threat to the game's fun factor. I could imagine this game being fun if played with full house, but the majority of the people just don't bother learning or even trying to. On my second session with this map (with three people, including myself), it couldn't have been more boring. This will result in "RuneForce" becoming boring rather quick.
At this point, it probably feels ridiculous to go back to the start, but with all this conversation regarding the gameplay, we got a little lost in the sequence of things.The loading screen simply states that the latest version is acquirable here at The Hive. As soon as the game starts, you are then taken to a hero selection system, using arrow keys, before beginning the actual game.I have critiques for these as well. The loading screen could give a few hints about the gameplay. Right now you need to combine two fire runes (and thus burn yourself) in order to have them. As for the hero selection system, why is it so formal if all the heroes are the same? I'd question the existence of so many heroes to start with, considering they differ in nothing except the model. While it serves a diversification in visual terms, it also gives an unclean idea of the Object Data. Look "Warlock", for example: a great map where all the sorcerers share the same model.There is yet another thing that bugs me about the heroes. I have to disapprove of heroes being able to use so many sets right from the start. I believe leveling should be easier and more valuable on this particular point, so that the game starts slow and becomes a major battle late game.
In a default mode, all four teams have a different goal to achieve. The Restorers need to restore the blighted trees by casting healing spells or mana draining ones, the Battlemage Guild's aim is to kill other players, the Cult needs to strengthen the creeps, while the Treasure Hunters's goal is to kill hostile units.The first team can be countered by giving mana to the trees, which blights them again. The third is probably by killing creeps... but I don't see an (apparent) way of denying the others.
Time to criticize the terrain. All of it is blighted. Did it need to be that ugly? I'm sure the trees could have been corrupted without blighting the whole map.As for the shops, two of them sell Healing/Mana potions and they're standing right beside one another. These shops could have different locations all over the map. With fair locations, of course.
As a BETA, bugs were expected. I found various: there is an item supposed to add 30 HP to the hero that actually adds 300; the Target Rune for living beings also affects Ghosts, who are usually considered dead, and heroes of players who have left don't disappear, allowing people to use them to level up to the maximum. Killing a lvl15 hero also turns you lvl15. The Runes' movement doesn't learn towards a single target; sometimes it'll bug and go on a dilemma on which target to go after. Additionally, the siphoning was quite weird, but I did not delve deep into that so I won't comment.On the second game, the Cult also got stuck at a certain percentage, unable to go any further. Overall, their objective was quite difficult to achieve, since players naturally kill creeps and strengthening them makes them so strong they'll have you killed in a few seconds.

This map is quite original, I had never seen its kind. With enough people who take the time to learn, it'll no doubt be an interesting match.My rating is 3/5 (Acceptable). I'd rate higher, but the bugs need to be fixed and the map needs to be polished on certain aspects (all of them mentioned in this review, of course). I cast my vote for Approval.I played this map with Billy the Cat, Nichita and Ungerbla on a first session, and with Dr Super Good and mare on a second session.

EDIT: I have removed the Arena and Offense types to replace them with Hero Arena and Miscellaneous/Other.

Downloading now, sounds like spellcraft but hopefully itll be better.

Thanks for review, I am aware of some problems in the map ( for example, if battlemages have only one player, his level limit won't let him get enought experience to win), but that's mostly because development of this map was stopped a while ago, when I started to work on my other main map (Dungeon Lords, link in signature). However, I still consider it main main project, and I hope to resume work asap.

I realize that, besides obvious bugs, the greatest problem is the crappy guide I made. I know I am not very good at explaining things, using foreign language and lack of images really don't help. There was a brief guide in previous versions, but no one ever read it and it mostly only scared the players when they saw how it's complicated. But it could be something like Rui wrote in the first article, just to give the players idea on how the spellcasting looks like.

Add additional rune effects to the spell just for using it in the chain or so that if an odd number of slots occurs, that effect can be used instead of the final slot rune being wasted due to no partner.

Click to expand...

Odd runes aren't useless, the mana used to cast them is added to the spell's mana pool, thereby making the spell a little bit more powerful. But maybe the odd rune could have same effect as a pair of those runes (pairs of same runes all the most common effect, atleast they are supposed to be(EE-more power, TT-target enemy, WW-wait 1.75 seconds....) )

When respawning, you should be unkillable for a brief period of time, this will prevent respawn camping and badies camping you.

Click to expand...

I already thought of a system, upon death an invisible "ghost" will spawn and the player will be able to move him to desired location, where the hero will respawn. That would prevent anyone from corpse-camping.

Heroes - upcoming feature, somewhere in the forums it's already mentioned, that each hero will have different DISadvantage (it's certainly more original than having each hero have an advantage ), so far they are really only for the model. I didn't realize it made such bad impression

Terrain - you may have noticed, I am not a skilled terrainer, but even I should be able to make something better with the terrain than this. I will certainly try, there were some more complaints about the terrain already.

Anyway, I thank you both for reviewing, you just gave me the "kick" to resume work on Runeforce

What if you had a simple spells like a fireball that u could pick and cast in a spell book for simple spells. But it would tell you what to click and why. What happens when you click fire rune twice and why. it would help teach new players so they learn the basics. When i host everyone says wtf is going on i click on a fire,target,move rune and nothing happens. they think the fire is supposed to move to the enemy target because of how it looks. They wont understand in the beginning that the first rune is the base and they will get frustrated and leave, Always happens...

Quest Log.

naww i mean a book that gives simple spells the quest log hardly teaches just confuses wont make new people want to play...

Runeforce 0.8.3c

Well I enjoyed the game a bit more after I figured the basics out the majority of the people in the game left pretty quickly after seeing how complicated it is. Another thing I liked was the different objectives for each team.

I only found a few things I didnt like:
Creeps spawn camping
Nothing to spend gold from kills on?

Anyways, its a good map

I was more thinking about some "training" area, where new players could train casting basic spells before they "jump" into the game, where everyone is going to farm experience on them. The spellbook is not a bad idea, that could be some sort of lead-in to the training, afterwards they get to cast their own spells. Also if anyone got any ideas for the loading screen... I will change the current screen for the old with the guide, but I don't think it's helpful at all

I played this yesterday and I'd like to say that it's defintly an interesting mechanic for making spells but frankly it's just too hard to learn! Especially considering the illiteracy of about 80% of Bnet *cough*dota*cough*.
I hosted a full house and most people had left within the first 5 minutes or so (something about not being able to choose a hero). The rest followed suit because at first the game really does make ZERO sense! To learn this properly in a single game, which you should be able to do, is impossible if your with people who know what they're doing.

You hosted with a full house? How the hell did you do that?

Yeah the leaving again... I am now working on a training are with properly explained mechanics, so maybe it could help a bit.

A training mode would be pretty cool, something that properly laid out how to play the game properly.

I like it, it feels fresh and new.

i must admit it took me awhile to learn how the spells works and how to make them.
i just spawned ghosts in the begining.

i hope you make more spells and more combinations. since there is still combinations where nothing happends. oh and parhaps make more runes so that there can be even more spells

4/5

The map is great, but its abit too hard to learn, i liked the idea of a training area very much, it would be very VERY helpful.

4/5.

I agree with ungerbla, more runes would be good, perhaps ones that add special abilities to the spells?

I have serious problems with effects for the runes that are already present, maybe if I somehow got a milion ideas, I could add new rune (don't forget it would have new primary and secondary effect and it would be usable as paramater of all existing runes, so it's about 26 new effects for a single rune)
For now are life, target and half of the vision effects incomplete, that's still space for ~12 new spell effects

special skills - fire rune does that, so far only invisibility, if you had any idea, it could be implemented

M0RT said:

I was more thinking about some "training" area, where new players could train casting basic spells before they "jump" into the game, where everyone is going to farm experience on them. The spellbook is not a bad idea, that could be some sort of lead-in to the training, afterwards they get to cast their own spells. Also if anyone got any ideas for the loading screen... I will change the current screen for the old with the guide, but I don't think it's helpful at all

Click to expand...

YAY one of my ideas were good
yea training area would be good.
i would think of telling them the buttons they need to press in order to do the spell
Tell them why the main and secondary cause if you switch one rune spot in a 10 string spell...
its over. They would then again get pissed off and leave...
Confusing guide...
Mind of peeps who first play and look at quests...
(FF) (QQ)
wait what FF? QQ? im not crying... are you? What the hell does that mean?
ok fire rune x2. ok type -fr to finish spell? wait WTF IM DIEING! WHATS GOING ON!
OK OK OK i get it now. 1 fire... 1 move... 1 target... ok now a fireball should move to the ENEMY target. WHY DOESNT IT F***ING WORK!
thats what went through my head... for sure this is what went for others too.

{EDIT}

Thick_Armor said:

I played this yesterday and I'd like to say that it's defintly an interesting mechanic for making spells but frankly it's just too hard to learn! Especially considering the illiteracy of about 80% of Bnet *cough*dota*cough*.
I hosted a full house and most people had left within the first 5 minutes or so (something about not being able to choose a hero). The rest followed suit because at first the game really does make ZERO sense! To learn this properly in a single game, which you should be able to do, is impossible if your with people who know what they're doing.

Click to expand...

Pretty much the same here no one stayed and it was just way to confusing to learn for all of them. I offered to help but they just say f*** you. This is the gayest f***ing map ive ever played and leave...

For the leading screen you could always just use the pic of the runes on the map preview?

Well, new version is up, with the training area, I think it's finally working as game guide (tested on b.net - some players were actually able to understand the system) and some fixes. Thanks many times to all of you for support

Edit: I also put back the original loading screen with guide, but I don't find it usefull. I think the idea with the map preview and some standart game information could be enough.
Also, the image still remains corrupted, why could that be?

I kinda overlooked BlanketThieffs post, the answer is what you self noted, the QW rune should only add as much as it drained. If there was a way to create infinite mana sources, it would make the goal of demonic cult too easy.
You can still create pretty powerful spells in simillar way, I often create a delayed self-healing me-following spell, which I charge up by draining tons of mana from trees( FE TE WE QE followed by QW EF EF EF ).
There is indeed a way of increasing speed, it's the EQ pair

Well i tested it.
The training area was kinda helpful, though its still really hard to play first time, half of the players left before they completed the tutorial :/.
It was pretty fun, the terrain was okay and it didnt lag.
I'd say 4/5.

Save system

Where the last spell that you cast will be in a recent spell book.
It could give you the option to save that spell into a custom spell book. This book could hold not to many but enough spells to satisfy the player. Then pick the spell from your own custom spell book and the runes would be auto ordered for your guy but they wouldn't be placed immediately. It would take around 2-5 seconds depending on the length of the spell before the runes are put in order. That would keep the balance of choosing your runes manually. This would make an easier way to fight but still allow you to make spells to your liking. It would help out the new people and make it so they wouldn't leave but would stay and test out some more things. Hopefully they would get hooked.
This way i think it would keep the original point of custom spell creation and allow easy usage of the spells you have previously made.

Well there's some more of my ideas i hope you like. tell me what you think.

Dude, your map doesn't start. I have 1.23 version of WC3. What's the problem?

Jargalhurts said:

Dude, your map doesn't start. I have 1.23 version of WC3. What's the problem?

Click to expand...

It's been changed to work with 1.24. Just download the new patch :S

Yeah, it already uses hashtables, so it requires 1.24

A very nice map i've played with my friends several times. There are so many possibillities with the spells.. Really great map with alot of potential.

This has got to be one of the best map ideas I have ever seen. The spellcasting system is similar to one that I had thought of a long time ago, but has differences. I was kinda thinking about how in a lot of books or otherwise, spells were cast by saying certain words. it made me think of a casting system for some rpg where for each mage, they would chose 10 keys, and all the spells in the game database would generate a combination of those keys which would have to be typed to cast that spell. complex spells would have more letter than simple spells, so would be more difficult to cast. as you (as in the player, not the character) practiced a spell, the keystroke would become more natural, and you would be able to naturally cast it faster. also, the keys for each spell would be generated randomly, so each mage character would have their own set of keystrokes for each spell. anyway, this game has a very similar idea, and it was executed brilliantly. The only complaint i can have for this game is that most people on battlenet are not capable of reading, using logic, or even common sense, making this map unplayable for them. This a not a complaint about this game tho.


Edit:

In the case you still need a method to set max mana and life, I made a really low quality demo map that should do that. The method is from Strilanc's power towers map, though it did not initially work for mana, I had to add the second ability

Edit2:

It took me a while at the start to realize that you used pairs of runes to determine the effect. I only realized that when I went into the quest menu and found the information written there, Can you put that information in the Guide

Edit3:
If you are still working on this map, it does after all say it is your active project, Spell books
A spell-book is just another ability that stores recent spells you cast (or that you specifically saved into it). Similar to an earlier idea, However, it would only store the hot-keys to cast it. When you used the spell-book, it would show you the hotkey combo for the spell(s) you saved in it. That way, it would work like a spell book should, it would not cast the spell for you, you would have to cast it, but it would make it easier to cast.