(previous comment:
Titan Land: LoP 1.0.3)
Loading screen is blank/black.
Is there anything wrong with that, though? I much prefer a black screen over the one in KoT for example, which is very pixelated. I also prefer it over a default loading screen, because it's much easier to read the colored text in a black screen.
The space I am using for a custom loading screen is competing with the space for custom models, code and custom object data. For a map like this, with the objecting of amassing as many models as possible, so that people have as many options as possible, a loading screen is not a priority, and any space allocated to it taking away from the main purpose of the map. I think a black screen is the most fitting loading screen possible, in this case.
Cosmosis' hero icon is his .blp texture... and it turns green on game pause.
Summon Cosmic Dragon creates a builder tent...
Cosmosis is a really inconvenient unit to have. All he really does is occupy a hero icon. His abilities are archaic, since there are now much better tools to remove units from the game. You barely ever RP with him. In over 200 games of Titan Land, I have seen Cosmosis used in roleplay no more than 5 times. And all the times in which that RP did not suck was in private games. But I can't remove Cosmosis, since he is such a constant in all TL games. I don't like the idea of calling the map "Titan Land" without Cosmosis in it.
So my idea of keeping the Cosmosis icon the way it was in TL:TBotE is: the icon is weird, and it's different from all other icons in the game. So you know it's Cosmosis, and you can't accidentally click it, thinking it is another hero. This is especially clear because the icon is of a different "style" than all the others in the game. I could import a custom icon to achieve the same effect, and thus have a DISBTN, but then there is the same "competing for space" issue of the loading screen.
I bundled the second quote in this response just to demonstrate how little people actually use the guy. I knew this was the case, but I never felt the need to fix it, simply because there was NO reason to use this ability in an actual game. Even people that are new to LoP, but have played other TL maps, ignore Cosmosis, since I had never received this complaint before. I will be removing the ability in for version 1.1.0, like I did the Titan Tower in 1.0.3.
A lot of units have the same icon.
This again runs into the issue of "competing for space". There are only so many icons in Warcraftt III. If I only use the default icons, then I eventually will find myself in a situation where an icon needs to be repeated. Of course, this could easily be remedied by importing custom icons. You will notice, however, that almost all RP sandboxes, like SotDRP and RotRP, have few or zero custom icons in them.
Now, let's imagine the map is at the 256MB limit of B.net. I want to add more models. What is the first thing I'm going to remove? The icons. Now, I need to change the icons for a ton of units, because I was reusing the same custom icon in those units. All the work I had spent downloading, placing the icon in the correct folder and setting the icon for the units in the world editor was wasted. Can I really justify doing work that I KNOW will be wasted, in the "ultimate" form of the map (if that can ever be reached).
KoT is really the only map in this genre that uses custom icons on most of its units. That map has 11.5 MB of imported icons (compressed value) in it. I could fit hunderds of models and their respective units' data in that in that space. Hundreds of different options for players to RP with. Icons have little to no direct effects on roleplay.
What I do try to achieve is different icons across units in the same race or in the same hero tower. Most races are already like this. There are also some exceptions, like keeping both Arthas versions in the same Tower, for simplicity.
A very similar issue exists with portraits, which is why I generally only import portraits of heroes. But portraits are a lot more convenient, since they are bundled with the unit and removing them is as simple as deleting the portrait and editing the model if it doesn't have a camera.
Units like Medusa, Trydentyr, Slave, Dwarf Mason etc. don't have a tooltip
The Pit Lord has no "attacks land and air units" type message.
That is a deliberate development decision, for a few reasons:
- This is a sandbox roleplaying map, which does not have any custom lore. People are supposed to make up their own stories. Having no story in the tooltip is supposed to incentivize that.
- Strings make the object editor slower, and they have a much greater effect than reals, integers or booleans. The same is true for increases in map loading times.
If you open the map and edit it with the world editor, the first thing you will notice is how long the Object Editor takes to update when you create a new unit. Or that editing any field which takes unit types (like 'Upgrades to' or 'Trains') is extremely impractical, unless you are using pure rawcodes, due to how slow it is. I actually wanted to do something like having the names of each ability on the unit's description, but until Blizzard makes the Object Editor not suck, or until I have a way of only ever editing object data outside of the World Editor, I am afraid I am too hesitant to do anything that would make it even slower.
How to reduce loading times of Object Editor data (see the benchmarks section)
Keep in mind that the current number of units is still not even close to the total that I'm aiming for. Which is: as many as I can possibly fit into the map. Once I have implemented the in-game terrain editor and negative flying height for decorations, I will start working on adding every model in the Ultimate Terraining Map as a decoration (in a separate class of deco builders). That's already another 1k units.
Additionally, most descriptions aren't going to be viewed (much less read) all that much. Mostly once per map, to create the first few units. After that, you can use -copy to create as many copies of a unit as you need.
Finally, descriptions are required in may maps because you can't take back your decision to make a unit: once you've made it, the resources are spent. So you need to know what you are getting beforehand. In this map, you can simply make a unit and see if you like it. If you don't, just -remove the unit. Descriptions are pretty limited in that they cannot display the unit's model. Making the unit and removing it doesn't cost the player anything.
Bloodlust and Frenzy on the same faction?
Usual Warcraft III abilities everywhere.
Little to no difference between Incursor, Assassin, Whaler and Myrmidon.
Diversify units. Don't make almost copies of each other.
This is a sandbox roleplaying map. The assumed form of combat is text roleplay. The only reason units have abilities at all is to support non-text RP for people who don't do it or situations where you just want to get done with a battle quickly. But there is NO deep numeric balancing going on with the unit or ability values. If someone is looking for a game where they will have complex, balanced combat with no default abilities, this map is not the answer. Especially since I want to maintain the original abilities of the default WC3 units.
Even the factions are just collections of similar models. When you are roleplaying, you don't need to stick to the same faction for your units. You can make your army with whatever models you feel like using. Maybe your army is half bandit mercenaries, half normal human units?
There's a lot of empty space.
This is a game about building your own bases, so the terrain is mostly flat because it's easier to place units in flat terrain, especially when making a quick base. And the future height-manipulation tools that I intend to implement kind of depend on the terrain being initially flat, too.
The empty space follows the same reasoning. I will place as few doodads as possible, because the player might want to place something where that doodad is. The only thing I have changed my mind on is trees, since it's come to my attention that newer players like to use the tree formations as inspiration for their base's shape. So there will be a lot more trees with the terrain overhaul of version 1.1.0.
Since trees are removable, they are not as inconvenient as doodads for people who don't want them. That's the only kind of "stuffing" I can give to that empty space, if I consider the core ideals of the map.
There are some neutral units in the Titan's land. What's with them?
Those are units that players may find useful, but which I haven't gotten around to adding for many reasons (mainly because I don't know what builder to add them to, or they still don't have a race implemented). So any player who needs those buildings/units can use the -copy command and a Rect Generator to move them to wherever they are needed.
Is there any terrain height modifier command/way?
Originally there was not because I did not like the way it was implemented in SotDRP (too inconvenient to use) and because it caused unclearable leaks. Since TL maps have never had terrain height tools, I decided they were unnecessary and more trouble than they were worth.
I have now tested it with patch 1.30, and terrain deformations now longer create any leaks that I could detect (and, boy, did I try). So they are going to be implemented on an upcoming version.
Guhun said:
Future:
- Terrain-editing framework that will allow you to work as if you were inside the World Editor!
- Unlimited terrain tiles (using images)
- Custom images (to make your terrain look even better!)
Some buildings have one or few units compared to others. Feels, incomplete.
Yeah, I agree with that. But it's also an issue of available models. Some races simply don't have that many good models available for them when compared to Trolls or Humans. So unless I simply don't add those races, this will always be an issue. Since I want players to have as many options as possible, I have decided to live with this issue.
Still, I think there is a better direction to be taken. I will probably be making a seperate tab in the Race Selector for races which don't have that many units. Hopefully that will also be satisfactory for users, since this is not the first time I have heard this complaint.
Sargeras has a small selection circle. Same with Ogre main building and probably many others. You can even pass through such big units/buildings.
Why a Peon icon for a ogre worker? Icons should be fitting.
These are very valid issues, and I will be addressing them in the next version of the map. The ogre buildings were made with the idea that you could fit an ogre inside them, but they have really given me trouble trying to get it right. I might just make them decorations so they can become unselectable.
I'm sorry if this sounded confrotational, that was not my intent at all. I really just wanted to make clear all my decisions behind the things that you pointed out. Those would all certainly be defects in a map like an RPG, Tower Defense, or Campaign.
Most multiplayer maps can afford to use icons and awesome custom loading screens because they have a more limited scope, in the object data sense. They know what they want to achieve will likely never reach the 256MB limit, so they can make what they have as beautiful and detailed as possible by importing icons and making beautiful descriptions with lore details and the like. And that's really necessary for them, since they have are a game with win/lose conditions and clear use for unit abilities and stats. So they don't need to give more options to players, they need to make the existing options as clear as possible and make sure the player gets what they actually wanted, because, many times, the player can't even go back in their decisions.
Titan Land LoP, and most other sandbox RP maps without a self-made Lore, unlike Titan Land KoT, are about giving the player as many options to RP with as possible. But really, you should think of the units as models, not as units. They are there to represent the player's image of their characters, not their stats or abilities. I could very well make a footman, give him a -size of 300, use the -makehero command to make him a hero, and -nameunit his name to The God of Swords. His measly footman stats don't matter. His -4 armor from the current implementation of the -makehero command doesn't matter. He is a god because that's what my RP demands. His footman icon doesn't matter, he is not a footman at all. What his description said doesn't matter, he's the God of Swords.
Since the units are more about their models then the unit itself, you can think of them more as a doodad than as a unit. Doodads don't even have customizable icons or descriptions. It's unfortunate that I can't make a list of names for the player to select units from, I need to use the WC3 interface of icons.
I really appreciate the time you took to review the map, and I can completely understand that you may have to apply universal standards to all maps (like in section 4 of
Map Submission Rules => "Tool-tips should have descriptions and broken icons (DISBTNs) should be kept to a minimum."). But I just wanted to point out why I think some standards you are using don't really fit with the goal this map is trying to achieve. Most maps don't have issues with space and can afford to import as many icons as there are play-controllable units (in this map, ALL units are player-controllable) in the map. Those tutorials, especially, are made with pretty different kinds of maps in mind.
Thank you for your time (testing AND reading this), and sorry for the wall of text.
Approved
