• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

The Death Sheep

I have modified the original Death Sheep map by Blizzard to account for some much-needed quality-of-life changes. Following my objectives in fixing WarChasers, I wanted to do the same with this simple map.

Improvements added 16 November 2015:

  • Units are now recycled instead of removed, improving performance throughout the game.
  • Changed SFX for special move to Phoenix missile/death art.
  • Sheep now blow up when they run against one of the doodad walls instead of running around the walls (female villager still runs around)
  • Merged the two unit-in-range events into one GroupEnumUnitsInRange call per 0.05 seconds to improve performance.

Older Improvements:

  • Memory leaks are accounted for.
  • Instead of stop/holdposition, use the left and right arrow keys to move.
  • You can now collect multiple special moves. The bonus amplifier increases the more special moves you have collected! To try to balance this, I've made it so you get a special move half as often.
  • Paladin stays selected no matter what (previously engineer struggled to find ways to keep it selected)
  • Merged duplicate events to improve performance

Before these changes, performance on my netbook went from laggy in the beginning to unplayable later in the game. After these changes, I can play for as long as I want and there is no degradation in performance the longer I play.

Movement is insanely improved. I will do a side-by-side comparison video some time soon between the original movement in the map and the improved arrow key movement that I use. For now, just download the map and see for yourself!

Keywords:
Death, Sheep, Blizzard, Bribe
Contents

The Death Sheep (Map)

Reviews
13:23, 29th Oct 2015 Orcnet: Map Approved due to adjusting the triggers stored for the old map, enhanced, and given a proper functionality. Just don't forget to add change logs if you plan to re-adjust some stuff eh? :D

Moderator

M

Moderator

13:23, 29th Oct 2015
Orcnet: Map Approved due to adjusting the triggers stored for the old map, enhanced, and given a proper functionality. Just don't forget to add change logs if you plan to re-adjust some stuff eh? :D
 
Level 30
Joined
Jul 31, 2010
Messages
5,246
Is there anyway you can add another player? I mean sure if they are both stationed next to each other it could be problematic, but say let the other player be on top while the other is below? it could be a neat feature until I start getting back in moderating.
 

Bribe

Code Moderator
Level 50
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
9,456
I've thought about that, but it would require literally the entire script to be re-written as the variables are scalar and not array-based; the leaderboard also would have to become a multiboard which would take up too much screen space unless it was collapsed or I used other means to display that data, instead. The high score is also saved into gamecache so you can compare your scores even after closing the map - which would require a save/load system in multiplayer matches. There is also an issue that the ending cinematic involves many sheep eating the paladin, which as you said would require them to be on 2 different lanes (which also would need terraining work).

TL;DR - too much work for a map that wouldn't be worth the investment due to the fact that Blizzard designed it with single-player as the only possibility.
 
Level 21
Joined
Jul 6, 2014
Messages
6,791
Hey man,thanks for these
Are there more blizzard scenarios that has problems like this?If so,do you intend on fixing them as well?
 

Bribe

Code Moderator
Level 50
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
9,456
For the most part, they addressed memory leaks in The Frozen Throne. The coding for, say, Blizzard Tower Defense is much more memory-efficient.

The next thing I want to do is work on some spells. I only have one spell on The Hive, and it's very old, inefficient and limited. I want to create some simple but cool stuff.
 

Bribe

Code Moderator
Level 50
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
9,456
Added some really neat improvements, cleared up the code quite a bit, and added more humor by having sheep explode on walls (in Blizzard's original, they simply ran through the walls). Check the resource description for additional improvements.

This update is recommended to all users, especially due to the immense entertainment of sheep exploding on walls.
 

Bribe

Code Moderator
Level 50
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Messages
9,456
Thanks WF.

+ I just updated the map again after playing for a long time. The PlayerLives integer in the leaderboard wasn't updating when struck by a pig/sheep right away, so I fixed that. I also seem to have improved performance even more on my little Eee PC by using MoveLocation instead of creating/removing locations. It must be due to the terrible way in which my CPU allocates and deallocates memory, but maybe this will help some others.
 
Top