Dwarven Monster Slayer

[MoCo]

Hey,

this is a map project of mine I've been working on since a long time. I don't know when it's gonna be finished since I want to take all the time I need to put it on a level of quality, balance and polish so that I can say now it is done. Here we go.

EDIT: This game has become a hosted project and is to be found here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/project20/

MAP DESCRIPTION

In a nutshell, Dwarven Monster Slayers is a fast paced 1-5 player coop survival arcade rpg slasher game.
The map features a massive load of completely new monsters, a detailed and atmospheric dungeon scenario, a considerably amount of gore and for the best: DWARVES!

In this map, you need to work as a team to defend the halls of your forefathers and yourselfs against various waves of monsters like undead cave trolls, savage werefuls and mighty demons form hell itself. The enemy portals are spawned at random locations so you may need to strategically re-adjust your battle tactics to acquire a good defense position. During the game progress, new areas in the map are unlocked for your team to explore. The game is divided into 3 chapters which are each finished with a challenging boss encounter. Moreover, there is a little storyline that is told in some cut scenes. The heroes are carefully designed, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, each different to play. The damage and item system is very similiar to Aeon of War, which enables a flawless level scaling as the power of spells/abilities infinitely scales with the heroes attributes. Alongside the battles, there are many little things and secrets to discover, like unique items, map details etc. The look and feel of this map is characterized by a careful choice of high quality custom art from the wc3 community.


VIDEO TEASER

The five greatest heroes of the ancient dwarven kingdom of Berethil are returning from a long journey.
When they finally arrive in the halls of their forefathers, they find their people murdered and dead...
At least one thing is for sure: someone's gonna pay!


THE MONSTER AND WAVE SYSTEM

The difficulty of the game automatically scales with the number of playing heroes. In particular, the difficulty affects the toughness of monsters, their spawning rate (which I call density) and their total count. The respective arrangement of monsters is generated randomly since each type of monster has its own chances of spawning in a particular wave. Usually, the higher the wave, the higher the chance that more dangerous monsters will spawn more frequently respectively that they will spawn at all. This system has been inspired by the game Killing Floor that uses similiar randomization mechanics to create different playing experiences from game to game. In addition, there are some rare minibosses which may or may not appear during a game. While they can make a game harder they also reward players with valuable loot. To provide a comfortable playing experience, dead heroes are automatically revived at the end of each wave so you won't run in situations of being unable to beat the game after one hero has died. Moreover, if your team runs into a complete whipe, you may just restart the last round. However, a whipe costs your team a big amount of score so if you're up for a good high score, you better try not to whipe.


THE HEROES

This map features 5 Heroes: Thorin the Champion, Borgo the Battlepriest, Gotrek the Slayer, Alrik the Engineer and Durin the Hunter.

Portrait	Character Profile
	Thorin is the leader of the group. He is a brave warrior who uses the ancient powers of his forefathers to smash his foes and protect his friends. Since he is the toughest one of the five dwarves, it comes handy that his offensive abilities draw decent monster aggro. His healing spell may allow him to survive even if the priest is currently off duty. Though he migh not be the fastest dwarf on earth, with all of his abilities, Thorin is just as solid as a rock.
	Borgo is a guy of inestimable value. Being a priest, he is equipped with a potent healing spell and he is even able to resurrect dead teammates. Moreover, being a Battlepriest, he also features a lethal curse and the most powerful AoE spell in the game. Last but not least, he can use a CC ability that may help when things went out of control. This amazing combination of spells makes Borgo a perfect supporter in any situations.
	Gotrek is a battle fanatic. Most of the time he is up to hack & slay stuff which is fine because he's the best in what he does (forget about wolverine). He cuts through enemy mobs like warm butter and is the best hero in the game when it comes to raw dps. He is very fast and good at both, single target damage and aoe damage. However, since he is a melee warrior and not as tough as Thorin, he is also comparatively vulnerable. Fortunately, his superior combat agility helps him to survive in battle and he can take care of his own wounds using rune-blessed bandages.
	Alrik is the mastermind and tinkerer of the group and a good allrounder. He is able to craft different technical gimmicks which include a gattling gun, a sniper gun, a walking bomb and the mighty darksteel golem. The golem makes up a decent tank and with all of his gadgets, Alrik can cause a considerable amount of damage. On the downside, his turrets are quite fragile and stationary so he is not too flexible when fast movement is required. Fortunately, besides his gimmicks, Alrik is able to overload his electrical weapon resulting in an AoE exposion which does not only zap nearby enemies but also reanimates dead teammates via electric shock therapy. A real nice to have, especially when the rest of the group is down. Fair enough, he uses his energy shield to stay alive so the healers do not have to care too much about him.
	Durin is a truely exceptional dwarf. Being raised by elves, he has a strong affiliation to nature which actually is kinda rare for his kind. Due to his special origins, however, he has brought the arts of marksmanship to perfection and, moreover, he is even able to summon three mighty pets to his assistance - he may just choose the one that suits best for the situation: Smokey the bear (tank), Fang the wolf (damage) or Deadeye the falcon (ranged support). While AoE damage is not his best discipline, Durin is fast, has an unrivaled attack range and deals some serious single target damage allowing him to quickly take out dangerous foes from long distances. Moreover, he is able to set up magic seals which slow down approaching enemy groups making him an excellent choice for hit & run tactics.

ITEM SPOTLIGHT

The legendary items in this game involve unique and character-specific ones as well as some with really cool scripted effects. For instance, if you find and ring the Horn of Berethil, you will be able to awake the epic eternal warden statues to assist your group in battle. Then, there is a magic flute that can be used to charm a monster so that it fights for your team for the rest of its life. And rumors are, the nether merchant sometimes sells an ancient treasure map leading to a hidden burial place.. Finally, if everything else fails, it's good to know that you can always buy a pack of dynamite from your trusted merchant to blow your foes to pieces.


FEATURES OVERVIEW

• Fully playable with 1 up to 5 players
• 5 unique and carefully designed dwarven heroes
• In single player mode, you may choose any number of heroes to control simultaneously
• A total of 16 waves (divided upon 3 chapters)
• 4 challenging boss encounters and many rare mini-bosses
• More than 20 new monsters (incl. new art)
• Each chapter has its own theme and set of monsters
• There are some special 'interlude' waves with their own minibosses, like the Call of Cthulhu (yes, this map features some Lovecraft elements)
• A little story that is told in some cut scenes
• Many items and map details to discover
• A significant focus on teamwork
• An atmoshperic and detailed dungeon scenario and overall careful art design
• Monsters killed with crits usually explode in spectacular bloody ways
• The power of spells/abilities immediately scales with the heroe's attributes (which enables a smooth balancing)
• High replayability value due to many randomizations
• High score system and achievements
• The difficulty automatically scales with the number of playing heroes
• A massive load of high quality custom content from the wc3 community
• Fully written in vjass

SCREENSHOTS

CREDITS

JASS libraries/systems/scripts:
Ammorth (MultiBars), Darkwulfv (XP system), Vexorian (Table, TimerUtils, IndieSummons, etc.), Rising Dusk (GroupUtils, IntuitiveBuffSystem, IntuitiveDamageSystem, Pool), grim001 (AutoIndex, AbilityPreload), Anitarf (Stack), The_Witcher (Shield System), Earth-Fury (UnitMaxState)

Custom Art (models, skins, icons):
Dionesiist (3D art, most of the demon models), oGre_ (3D art, ruins, walls and decoration models), 67chrome (2D art, skeleton skins and others), Norinrad (3D art, champion model), General Frank (3D art, orb & potion models), Kimberly (2D art, undead ogre skin), skrab (3D art, Battlepriest model), Urkdrengi (3D art, Slayer model), Ampharos_222 (3D art, Engineer model), Radagast (3D art, Hunter model), Juice_F (2D art, EvilDwarf skin), Pyramidhe@d (3D art, Deep One, Flying Carcass & Maggot models), Sellenisko (3D art, dead & undead dwarf models), shiiK (3D art, Overlord model), Tarrasque (3D art, Firestarter model), HappyTauren (3D art, Skeleton King model) Mc ! (3D art, FX art, lamp and potion models), Nasrudin (3D art, indoor doodads), Kuhneghetz (3D art, Werewulf models), SuPa- (3D art, Wortling), donut3.5 (3D art, Reaper model), The_Silent (2D art, Darksteel Golem skin), Forgotten_Warlord (3D art, Dwarven house model), Crazyrussion (2D art, command buttons, icon art), Dan van Ohllus (FX art), JetFangInferno (FX art), shamanyouranus (FX art), sc_freek (FX art), sPy (FX art), Szythe (FX art), WILL THE ALMIGHTY (FX art), judash137 (FX art), JesusHipster (FX art), Champara Bros (3D & FX art), Metal_Sonic (FX art), N00byStance (FX art), !!GORO!! (3D art), RetroSexual (FX art) alaslayer (icon art), KelThuzad (icon art), AlienAtSystem (icon art), Paladon (icon art), NFWar (icon art), PeeKay (FX art), ChevronSeven (FX art), epsilon (FX art), Domokun (3D art, Gattling Gun model), Kitabatake (3D art, sniper gun model), Sin'dorei300 (icon art), Matareal (3D art), Kwaliti (3D art), Yayoi (3D art), crl (FX art), RightField (3D art), xXm0rpH3usXx (3D art), oBs3rv3r (3D art), olofmoleman (3D art, Moria doodads), Daelin (FX art), Deolrin (3D art), Power (FX art), Em! (FX art), Boogles (FX art)

Finally, thanks to all helpful people at hiveworkshop.com.

This is a brief overview of what you can expect from this map.
I'm looking forward any kind of feedback.

Thanks and cheers!

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

This is just dead awesome.
However, maybe you could add more spells? Since becominh level 50 with 5 spells is boring. Maybe make it 6 or 7? If theyre is no space, ditch the patrol.
Also, love the terrain, but the creeps looks too sized up. Maybe tone them down a bit.
Also, maybe try planning to add more heroes for future versions.
Anyway, im expecting a lot here since I enjoyed AoW a lot.

EDIT

Also, I think you could benefit a more creative title.

 

[Da Fist]

...Also, love the terrain, but the creeps looks too sized up. Maybe tone them down a bit....

I actually think that dwarves are small compared to others, so I think that reason is pretty right about the size of the monsters.


PLUS - completely vJASS? Woah. Teach me~ XD

ALSO - How about a Final Explosion type of skill? Drains all mana? Or just for show? I don't know. The three(?) of them cast the ultimate skill and deals X to all units in 1000(?) AoE for all of their mana(?). Damage dealt deals 1/2(?) to boss.

The (?) and X is for you to decide. In the other hand, great job XD

 

[sonofjay]

Lovely terrain. thats all i can say.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Ah yes, I forgot that we are talking about dwarves.
Well maybe just tone them down a bit, like similar sizes to standard warcraft creeps, such as Jungle Stalkers or those big ones.

 

[Wolfe]

Looking quite fine I must say, however I agree with Jackal's sentiment. Level 50 with the same 5 skills is quite tasteless. Perhaps if players could pick and choose out of a selection for their own class, or maybe even adding some items like runes or something dwarven that players can buy/pickup and use whole new spells.

I think also give us a bit more of a run-down of the heroes as individuals. Backgrounds, playstyles, etc. Also, is the Battlepriest ranged or close-ranged or melee? I think a mix of melee/range is a good thing for a 'battle' priest, that way you have room to add a proper ranged hero like a Rifleman or an Engineer?

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Yeah Rifleman and Engineers seems good. Engineers may be proficient at creating these golems you stated.
Also, you should add those nukers since its wave by wave.
Lastly, maybe you could add more classes and maybe reinforcements?

 

[Sin'dorei300]

Very nice! I like the terrain! If u want help, let me know!

 

[rcshaggy]

I got to say I'll be looking forward to playing the full version of this map.

 

[MoCo]

Hey everone, thanks a lot for the feedback.

@Drunken_Jackal:
Actually, I'm not quite sure about the number of spells. Right now, each one got 4 active and 1 or 2 passive abilities. There were more spells at the beginning but somehow it felt like being just too much making the battle to confusing. So I reduced the spells to the essential ones that are really necessary. I hope players don't get bored too soon, but maybe this aspect should be further discussed after some more playtesting.
Concerning the sizes: some creeps on the screens are really heavy ones that are faced in the later levels.. so they are supposed to be big..

@Da Fist: I like your idea of something like a shared ultimate spell that is casted by all 3 dwarfs. It could work like this: one starts the spell and the other 2 have to join in a certain amount of time. If they do, something really epic happens. Sounds cool indeed. I first thought about something AoE like, however each hero got an AoE spell by default. Maybe a powerful but short timed buff or something.. [edit:] What about a buff, that drastically increases crit chances for everyone?

@Wolfe: I think adding new spells/abilities that are bound to specific items sounds like a good idea. That adds more abilities to choose from in the later game but keeps the basic spell pool clear and focused.

Another aspect I'm not quite sure about is adding more than 3 heroes. First, I have to say I really like the idea of the Rifleman and Engineer as heroes. However, the 3 hero design has some advantages. More heroes will make balancing even more pain-in-the-ass than it is already; it will require a lot more rebalancing. And the 3-hero synergy seems like a good compromise of complementing each other while still being able to keep track of each other (i.e. for healing). I'll think about this aspect. However, a 4th hero probably wouldn't be an addition for the first release I guess. Another variant would be professions to choose from (like engineer, arcanist or something). Hmm.. let's see..

Anyway, thanks for some great suggestions so far!

 

[MoCo]

First alpha version 0.4

Hey again.

I've just uploaded a first playable version of this map (see initial post). It is exclusively uploaded in this thread because it is currently just a first and limited alpha version; It only includes the first chapter because the other chapters still are not at a state I want to release yet. Consequently, my further work will focus on finishing the other chapters so the map soon becomes fully playbale. Later, I'll probably add two more heroes (engineer and hunter), achievements and more stuff.

The most challenging part in designing this map seems to be the balance. I do all playtesting in singleplayer mode controlling all three heroes. Unfortunately, I do not know how the SP experience relates to the MP experience in terms of difficulty. For instance, on the one hand, taking care of the heroes health seems to be more easy in SP. On the other hand, it can become very stressful to skillfully and simulteanously use hero abilities in combat. As a result, I'm not quite sure wheather the game will be easier or harder to beat with 3 human players. At the end of the day, I think it is a bit harder in MP because hero actions may be less synchronized unless you got a real good team. Finally, the current alpha 0.4 hasn' been tested in MP at all so far! Well, these are just some of my thoughts on the balancing. Let me know what you think about it.

Playtesters are very welcome and I'm looking forward any feedback.

Thanks & cheers!

 

[MoCo]

Hey, here is a little status update on this project.

All things have taken much longer than expected. Fortunately, I recently found some time to further work on the map in the last days.

I've changed/improved many things, but there is one thing that some of you may appreciate the most: I've added the Engineer as a 4th character. I very happy with him and I think he really makes the group complete. I've also updated the map information in the first post.

Stay tuned and expect a playable version soon!

 

[Marsal]

Pretty nice terrain. What model set did you use?

 

[MoCo]

Most of the terrain art has been made by oGre_, look here: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/terrain-board-267/refuge-ruins-163309/

I guess he's one of the most outstanding WC3 terrainers there are.

 

[Marsal]

Ah, thanks

 

[MoCo]

Just a short update:

- The map is still in development and it will take some more time til it's finished
- Finally, I've decided to add a fifth character: the hunter
(A good choice afterall because I already enjoy playing him very much in the test sessions)

 

[sonofjay]

I thought this was dead. Thank goodness its not.

 

[Orcnet]

the dwarf concept reminds me of blizzard's old game the lost vikings, anyways this is awesome

 

[Wolfe]

I am absolutely in love with the feel of this game. If you need a tester, just ask me!

 

[MoCo]

Sounds great. I'll get back to you when it's time. Maybe we can put together a small testing crew then.

 

[Skopetski]

This looks truly amazing!

 

[TinyTeaser]

Ahh this looks so epic!! Im in Love with this, keep it up bro! If you want help testing it out, please pm me! xD

 

[Binsu]

A realistic terrain and I can see the game itself has interesting gameplay and also I love RPGs. Looking forward to your project!

 

[MoCo]

Hey, here's a little update: I've improved the map description and added a bunch of new state-of-the-art screenshots.
While the balancing is quite tough, there's some good progress on the project and I'm optimistic that I can release a playable beta soon - stay curious.

BTW: If a mod accidently reads this, maybe he could change the title of this thread to The Dwarven Monster Slayers

 

[Binsu]

Hey, here's a little update: I've improved the map description and added a bunch of new state-of-the-art screenshots.
While the balancing is quite tough, there's some good progress on the project and I'm optimistic that I can release a playable beta soon - stay curious.

BTW: If a mod accidently reads this, maybe he could change the title of this thread to The Dwarven Monster Slayers

Very nice update, thought this great project is dead but looks like this is making good progress. Will be looking forward to the playable BETAs, good luck!

 

[MoCo]

Hehe.. nope, it's definitely not dead, even if there were no updates for several months. This is just a longterm project, but it will be released, sooner or later.

In fact, much of the game is actually finished so far (like terrain, systems, hero design, monsters, items etc.). However, there are some things left that still need further work, including the balance, boss battles, adding achievements and maybe some more items.

BTW: I'm open to original ideas on the boss abilities!
I'm also considering to add the bosses to the map description to enable some public discussion..

 

[Veritas 117]

This looks really great, I like the screenshots as well as the descriptions of the dwarves. I'm guessing this one will be a lot of fun to play. Good luck!

 

[MoCo]

Hey there, just want to let you know that the project has really made some great progress in the last time. Achievements, restart system and much more is implemented, many new monsters have been added, etc. I've also made a litttle update to the initial thread, giving a brief preview on some interesting items. In the next time, I want to further work on monsters, bosses and their particular abilities. Any cool ideas for epic boss battles are very welcome!

Also, while throwing some TNT has been an ability of the engineer in the first place, I've now changed it so that it is an item effect, usable by any hero. As a result, I'm in search for new ability for the engineer. Please let me know, if you have a cool idea. To provide you some more information, the engineer already involves the following spells: a ranged lightning zap (single target damage + slowdown), Energy Shield (self-protection), Overload (a big AoE explosion that damages and slow enemies and resurrects dead dwarfs), Repair (ability to repair mechanical units and structures), Engineering options (brings a menu with all the stuff that the engineer can build). Since all dwarfs involve 6 abilities and the engineer lost his TNT, one spell is missing now.

Thanks and cheers