Ardent Heroes - ORPG

[Craka_J]

∙•● Ardent Heroes ●•∙
A multiplayer RPG map.

Suggested Players:	2-10
Map Scale:	480x480
Tileset:	Ashenvale
File Size:	5.6MB

Development Team

Developer Name	Job(s)
Craka_J	Project Leader | Terrainer | Story
Yabooer	Designer
PurgeandFire111	vJASS Triggers
Forgotten_Warlord	3D Artist
Switch33	vJASS Triggers
Wolfe	Beta Tester

Description:

Ardent Heroes is a Roleplaying Game that will focus on a multitude of elements that makes RPGs enjoyable for players. A vast amount of quests, items, levels, customization, and other great features and systems will be included to ensure the map appeals to RPG fans.

Story: (Story isn't complete and is subject to change or be redone completely)

You arrive in the to the great land of Lodethan, only in time to discover that it has been suffering from ruthless invaders and is gradually falling to its demise. With the path to go back and escape this part of the world being blocked off by unfortunate impassible wreckage, you and your friends proceed into the destructive world, seeking the answer to ending Lodethan's main source of opposition. Despite how overrun Lodethan may be with unexplainable evil invaders, the people of villages, towns, and cities have bravely held their ground. But as the days go by, the defenses of Lodethan are being penetrated more and more, and the morale and fate is dropping drastically. The land needs not one hero, but a band of ardent heroes whom vow to preserve the security and general strength of Lodethan and its people, no matter what great dangers lie before them in their path.

Features:

Choose one of three core classes. (Tank, DPS, Healer) Choose your own skills from multiple archetypes, such as Thief Mastery. Items your character has equipped will be visible on your character. (Armor & Weapons) Banks to store items safely. Fullscreen inventory/equipment system. Tons of items. (Equipped items are visible on your character!) Tons of quests. Some of which are repeatable! (Over 50 quests!) Enough dungeons and boss-fights to keep players of all level brackets (10, 20, 30, 40, etc.) happy! (At least 5 major boss fights) Level cap is set to 65. Travel from towns to cities (vice versa) with ease by paying for a Gryphon to take you down a Flight Path! Buy a mount and travel around twice as fast! Get a mount at level 35+. Rewarding PvP system. Challenge the lord of a city over its ownership and benefits as its leader. A massive world to explore, complete with elaborately detailed landscapes and a story behind it all!

Screenshots

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Website	Forum
Official Website	Official Forum
Blogs	Development Progress
---	Dev. Updates Threads
---	Lore

BETA Tester Applications

Are you capable of discovering issues with RPGs (or games/mods in general) and then reporting them efficiently so that the development team behind the RPG can effectively work on improving the game? Well, if you're interested, visit the BETA Tester Application thread at our forum and sign up now! BETA Tester Application thread here!

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[Yabooer]

To update this thread a bit further and clue people in what was happening from our old thread.

Anyways... Back to the quest that is going to be implemented. Hero Status! The Hero Initiation quest (Idea used from my favorite MMO [AC2] if you don't know it, it is gone. You missed out) Basically it is a VERY hard and LONG quest that you will have to do in ONE game, you can't save any of the progress you make. Only one person can do the quest per game, you fail you'll have to retry in a new game.

If possible we will try to make it after 5 times of failing you can't become a hero anymore (I'd like it lower, but was told it would cause too much ragequitting etc...)

Anyways... Back to the point, THOUGH it IS a very hard quest, it does not come without great rewards. After finishing this quest you'll gain Hero Status, allowing you to go into the last city, and giving you access to some of the best Gear/Weapons available in the game. The city also sells the fastest mount and is where the cap. level PvP gear is sold.

The other reward is another skill point, giving you 66 skill points to choose from, though it might not seem like much, it will be VERY useful in competitive PvP.

The very LAST reward of this quest IS! A mount, the 2nd fastest mount that will be in the game (First will either be sold at the Hero city, or dropped [VERY low chance] off of the final boss in the Hero dungeon)

Wrong, you will gain no help from other players. It will only be YOU. But since these mobs in there are pretty hard, there will be help. A NPC will be in there either a ghost or something (Not figured out yet).

This ghost will help you out in this dungeon. Once clicked on he will ask what role he needs to play. (Tank/DPS/Healer) once chosen control will be give to you, or it might be AI, that will be the only help you get within the Hero Initiation process, after doing this part there will be another part afterward. Once that part is completed you will gain your mount from him, and your skillpoint/Heroism.

If you suck and can't do it, you'll suck for the rest of the game!

Not exactly, you can continue to PvP and do mostly everything 95%, though the BEST items from PvP will be sold at the hero town. You will have to create a new character, if you want to get another 5 shots again. You will have to learn from your mistakes to get through this, it is MEANT to be hard. You won't be seeing many heroes running around until one of the fans who made it through creates a guide for you guys.

Good news! The whole team has been working very hard to get things in production.

I have finished the last boss fight which means all the bosses are done for the first test, he will be an optional boss and I will post a preview of them.

Anachron has run into a bit of trouble in his computer and everything but we will hope that gets fixed soon, he has been doing amazing work and I really want everyone to thank him for the time and effort he has put in for us...

To check out the rest of the post, visit our forums at

http://ardentheroes.freeforums.org

We are still needing 2-3 more testers so please sign up on our forums and post for a beta position!

Also remember, posting on the forums, giving your opinions, participating in some of the polls that are currently up, and just chatting in general, will give you that bit of an edge to be accepted into testing.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

As for the preview I promised on the other page it will be posted here to save space on our update thread.

There will be 4 bosses, all which will fight you in different orders, there will be the main boss, Dath'Remar, the tank, Varo'then, the healer, Lestharia, and of course the dps, Illyanna.

They will all have unique abilities that will make you think on your toes, because they are an optional boss fight they have had their difficulty and strategies taken to the next level to provide a unique and fun fight. Positioning, stunning, dpsing at the right time, conserving mana, will ALL be key in this fight and making one wrong move will cause a wipe no doubt.

You will need to play smart or else this boss fight will eat you up instantly, though of course with great difficulty comes even greater rewards. Upon defeat of them you will receive a guarantee of 2 items at the minimum for each of the players participating in the fight.

 

[Yabooer]

Well boys and girls the time has come our LAST update before we go into beta.

From the development side I have a bunch of things I'd like to share with you guys...

Check out the full post here at our newest Updates forum!

http://ardentheroes.freeforums.org/updates-f12.html

Stay active on our forums guys, as progress is going to just flow soon, we would also appreciate some input on ideas, etc... That are already put in as a thread, and of course if you haven't signed up, sign up at our website at ardentheroes.freeforums.org

Also, we will be needing 5-6 more beta testers as we have lost our old ones due to inactivity, more may open if we do not receive word from them.

KEEP US WORKING! Show us your love, let us know there is a population out there watching us to keep us motivated!

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

sounds very interesting, and looking at the screenshots made me want to play, however, im not sure what makes this map much different from other rpg's besides mounts (which sound like a lot of fun hehe)

Edit: Id love to be a tester, it would be a lot of fun to help a group of experienced modders. I might even learn a thing or 2 for myself while i test it haha, but this thread will probably get very busy very fast.

 

[Yabooer]

Ah, the reason that makes it different than others, is the skill system, it is based on AC2 (Asheron's Call 2) a bit more simple than theirs was, but none the less let me give you details on it.

- You choose one of 3 roles, either a tank, DPS, or healer.

In each role there is 6 trees to go down into, 2 melee, 2 missile (ranged) and 2 magic.

Tank Tree
DPS Tree
Healer Tree

You receive 65 points (66 on completion of the hero quest [Described above]) To put it in anything you want (There are tiers to the trees so to get to the bottom you'd have to go from the top)

There are 7 actives, and 7 passives in each tree (168 spells/passives all together in each role)

Meaning you can only go down a fraction of the trees with your points, making a class suitable to YOUR play style, which is one of the main features that makes this game unique.

- The boss fights are 100% customized, every boss fight (even mini bosses, sub bosses etc..) have a unique strategy to them. Which makes instances not a "farming tool" but more to test your skills and to have fun.

- We are keeping quests minimal, most quests will die out after the 2nd city, which hidden quests will come into play, I may or may not divulge such information at the moment and leave it for a secret, but they will come and be very helpful for leveling.

There of course will be other things that we are planning to add for quests, such as a timer, if completed under a certain time and posted with a replay we will give said players a title and a reward (Not to mention if completed in a certain time you will get a token)

You may only get 1 token per instance which when getting all the tokens will unlock a secret dungeon in the Hero area, meaning it will require EXTREME requirements to even get to the dungeon.


If you have any other questions please just ask, I will not hesitate to answer for you =).

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

wow, give me a sec to digest all that information...

Ive never really played a wc3 map that gives you that many choices while leveling, but im a bit worried that new players will find it a bit 'overwhelming' and not know what to choose. And when they do choose a tree, what if they dont like it? Is there any way you could add a one time use item (or ability) that resets the path your hero took, letting you keep the levels already gained and choose a new path rather than restarting?

When you mention the word 'boss', it makes me want to team up with a bunch of people on b.net and kick the shit out of them... But seeing as battle.net is a dieing world, im a bit scared that players who play on their own (like me) or with only one other person will have trouble fighting the bosses :/ I personally have stopped playing online because of the sheer amount of auto-host bots that drown out all the other custom games, and there are at best 5000 people online, most of them playing dota or risk. Its become nearly impossible to get a full house

 

[Yabooer]

As for testing purposes we will be definitely using Battle.net as that is where the game is most vulnerable in terms of bugs, lag, etc...

For when the game is actually released we could go about getting a hosting bot, and of course will have a Garena channel as well (seeing as that is here a mass majority plays)

You bring up a great point, in any sandbox really what you choose is permanent but we may or may not add for the first 10 levels everything can be reversed (except your class) Hasn't been decided yet though.

 

[Kricz]

Smells like WoW to me
When i saw the third image, the first thing, that came into my mind was: "Zul'Gurub"
Mounts and Flying System also refer to WoW, but anyway... terrain looks pretty good and a PvP System is also something new, I've never seen before in a real rpg in Warcraft III.

 

[Yabooer]

Mounts are definitely NOT from WoW, and please do not reference it to being the creator of said things. Because people like me (Who hate it due to its easy play style and no creativity) will get angry.

It is an RPG, and have taken other elements from many ORPG's, EQ, AC, AC2, DAoC, etc...

The PvP system will be worked on shortly and be very polished at that when the game is actually released to the public, we have a lot of ideas on how to make it work.

 

[Bugz]

Need to keep updated.

 

[indomitable1319]

No, I did not notice.
Anyway, great presentation!

 

[Craka_J]

The flight path system was actually an early feature we were going to add. But now we're thinking of just keeping it simple: teleporting! We'll probably just have a portal at every town that you need to discover first before you are able to teleport to it from another portal. That's the plan for the beta at least. We might end up changing it back to flight paths later, but for now, it's just more convenient and less time consuming to keep it to town portals.

[EDIT]
And to followup on Yabooer's post, we are not trying to recreate World of Warcraft, nor are we heavily influenced by that game. As he said, we've been getting much inspiration from a good variety of MMORPGs like Everquest, Warhammer, Mortal Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Age of Conan, and a few others that Yabooer has already listed.

 

[Wolfe]

ew. I hope you're only factoring the good aspects from Warhammer. =P

 

[Yabooer]

Ew Wolfe is in our thread =)

Anyways don't worry we aren't incorporating anything in our game that is featured in Warhammer due to the fact that it is made from Mythic.

Though we will have great PvP areas and places to battleground it in.

 

[SanD3R]

hello
why me didnt beta tester?
i write application 1year ago
and not inactive ;D
follow progress, and check main site alltime

 

[Yabooer]

We cleared the thread of testers really except for a couple.

As I PM'd you a while ago to see if you were active and you didn't respond, we took you off, if you're still interested PM me.

 

[Craka_J]

The screenshots that have been attached to the first post are somewhat outdated and are all WIP, but they're done enough to get the point across.

Despite how quiet the official forums (and even the thread in the Map Recruitment section) may seem, there is actually a lot of activity from myself, Yabooer, and of course our lead coder PurgeandFire111.

There's progress being made mostly with the RPG's terrain, coding, and story. Even work on the designs for spells and much more is moving forward thanks to the team's dedicated designer, Yabooer!

Expect screenshots some time this week? Perhaps not by Friday, but this weekend for sure!

 

[Craka_J]

Khar'got Palace [First-Look]

Just a couple sneak-peaks at the finally completed Khar'got Palace. I had to redo this dungeon about three times, but it's finally done enough to the point where we like it.

This dungeon is designed for players around level 10. It is the first dungeon players will get to experience in Ardent Heroes, so hopefully it makes a nice enough impression. Any suggestions to make it look better is appreciated.

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

it looks great, although adding some grass or shrubs would be nice.

 

[Craka_J]

it looks great, although adding some grass or shrubs would be nice.

Oh yeah, totally forgot to do that to the Arena! The other rooms do have some vegetation already. Thanks!

 

[Yabooer]

Well Craka vegetation wouldn't go very well in the arena if you remember the boss fight lol, wouldn't really make too much sense.

Also don't worry the Goblin is an optional boss fight and won't be needed other than for just a challenge.

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

i smell something fishy here... He wouldnt happen to be a fire boss would he? hehe

 

[Yabooer]

No fire lol, but good guess.

 

[Craka_J]

He has a sawblade?

 

[PROXY]

There is no vegetation needed, but some height variation wouldn't harm :>

 

[Craka_J]

I kept the arena flat because arenas tend to be on flat grounds. However, I suppose it couldn't hurt to elevate the ground where the walls are, sort of making the arena seem like it is in a ditch or on lower grounds.

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

It just seems like its a bit 'empty'... Im not sure whats missing exactly, but i think something is...

 

[Yabooer]

Don't give it away Craka , but it will be extremely filled once you initiate the boss fight, as well as making it into a ditch would make the arena seem a lot better.

Making it look like a ditch would be no problem really, would make it a lot more interesting as well, we will work on ideas on how to make it look better for you guys, but as Craka said, arenas are usually flat.

 

[Craka_J]

IRL terrainers are terrabad.

[Pictured: No tile variation, height variation, or vegetation. FAILTERRAIN!]

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

That picture is interesting because of the dust in the air, the crowd of people watching, theres a few monk dudes in the back, epic music in the back... Sadly, you cannot do a third of that in warcraft :/

Edit: "you cannot do a third of that in warcraft " to the same scale as in the movie.

 

[PROXY]

Well, don't look at rl arenas, take a look on the WOW arenas, they are a very good place for inspiration with pillars, bridges, movable fire etc etc.

 

[Yabooer]

^ Ew

 

[Bugz]

Nah the arena's look good..

 

[Yabooer]

^ No, WoW is garbage, but that is off topic, anyways great work coming along. We have conducted some testing with a select few testers to try out some things, and check for starting bugs etc... So far they are doing great!

Expect to play soon beta testers, we will bring you in shortly!

 

[SanD3R]

I rdy =D

 

[Batopi]

I tried to get into contact with you yabooer awhile ago, you told me to get on msn or skype but the time differences caused some problems. If you guys still are in need of more testers let me know.

 

[Skycraft]

Looks good Craka, keep up the good work.
I'll be followin' this.
:3

 

[sammath]

Seems to be very nice this work you are doing so, we are waiting the day you finish to try a new experience. Good Luck!

 

[Orcnet]

this game looks great, might wait for the beta map to get released

 

[RollBoat]

hey, nice project.
is it still alive?if it is
i wish you good luck.

 

[Craka_J]

Hello again, everyone!

Ardent Heroes has been undergoing a lot of work over the past couple months quietly and we haven't had the time to report any of the news about the RPG's development. However, despite the extended period of time of us not being active on the forums, I would like to assure you all that the project is still moving and making some great progress!

I'm not yet ready to announce what's new with Ardent Heroes' coding progress, but as far as design and terrain, we've gotten quite a bit done! Millbrow is finally almost done being terrained (for real this time!) and is almost playable; a few other zones have had their gradual improvements as well. As far as design goes, me and Yabooer have been working on the story, quests, and a couple other minor things such as another mini-boss fight for Khar'got Palace. Yabooer has also worked on the skills for the classes as well; more details about that later.

PS: We apologize for not yet initiating the closed BETA. Some unexpected errors with pathing, line of sight, and incomplete triggers has held us back from feeling ready to distribute the RPG for successful tests. Hopefully these problems will be resolved shortly and the testing phases can begin.

 

[SanD3R]

Oh nice update cracka)

 

[Craka_J]

Everything seems to be moving rather smoothly. It may even be safe to assume that you can expect more landscape previews of what's been improved and added to the world of Ardent Heroes ORPG pretty soon! (AKA: new screenshots)

PurgeandFire is, as said before, currently busy reworking some core systems and spells to work more seamlessly and organize the code better so that he doesn't run into as many confusing problems in the future. However, nothing newsworthy has been completed or started on just yet. Refining what he's started seems to be a current focus, because once you go deep enough into the other systems that actually use the core systems he's working on now, you cannot easily go back and make quick changes; sometimes even small changes can cause conflicts with other triggers until you've basically made adjustments to all related triggers. So right now, PurgeandFire is trying to make it so he doesn't have to go back (or at least as much as he would if we pressed on anyway) and make these sorts of changes if we ever do run into said problems. Hope that makes sense and I didn't over-explain it.

If any of you guys ever read the Lore Thread at our current official forum, you can expect even more new content to bury your heads in very soon over there. I've planned another 3 zones that I haven't yet announced for the RPG and there shouldn't be too many more afterwards; open areas on the map that aren't "zones" will be used for instanced areas like dungeons and PVP type arenas and so on.

 

[Superz_Ze_Man]

nice to know this forum isnt dead! Looking forward to playing some wc3 again, its been wayy to long! Keep up the work!

 

[sammath]

Nice, keep going wi'll wait until been realized

 

[Craka_J]

Due to the way the Forgotten Temple dungeon previously looked (cluttered and no room to move around in) I decided to recreate it completely. So far, the results are really good! It looks better and there's more room to move around. Plus, I managed to get about 20% of the dungeon completed already --- not including the fact that I have to add a lot of pathing and line of sight blockers afterwards though.

Who knows, maybe the next post will include some early screenshots of the dungeon! I'm also getting work done in other areas of the map. I believe Millbrow is over 90% complete and pretty soon I'll be getting started with placing line of sight and pathing blockers to make the area more playable for beta testers to get started.

 

[TinyTeaser]

Cant wait for this ^^

 

[Craka_J]

Good news and bad news.

Bad news is that I'm extremely addicted to Skyrim. Good news is that it's giving me plenty of ideas and inspiration for Ardent Heroes!

 

[Kl3sk]

Good news and bad news.

Bad news is that I'm extremely addicted to Skyrim. Good news is that it's giving me plenty of ideas and inspiration for Ardent Heroes!

...Skyrim you say...

Project : F*CKED

 

[indomitable1319]

Sky.
Rim.