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Beyond the Throne: Tides of Darkness

Level 3
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
51
This is pure, unadulterated insanity of a mod. Literally Warcraft IV. What I would like to emphasize is the visual design and clarity - it feels like an extension of WC3, most units and buildings do not strike me as from some other game, they do look at home when compared alongside the original roster. At the same time, they are not simple recolours, with so many new styles and mechanics they do pretend to be something more, something that needs a good story to correspond with it and to explain it, to draw the player into it.

I have just learned of this mod (or should I say, a compilation of maps, because WC3 does not allow multiplayer mods, unlike C&C: Generals, for example) from Grubby.

I shouldn't have been surprised that you started working on it in 2002. The quality of your work is outstanding. You went through so much stuff already in the game and respectfully integrated it into your creation (i.e., the Wand of Neutralization). The vocabulary is mostly clean, precise, stylish and inventive. The moment I noticed the masterfully crafted custom UI, I knew it was not an ordinary trash modification.

My complaint would be that the hired catapult's splash effect looks overly big, and the circling flaming stones above the teleporting buildings of the Lost race are placed too high. Grubby mentioned that the ordinary T1 unit of the Lost race may be confused for a summon (they are too thin, I guess?).

Also, some rare tooltips do show inconsistent style or are just not good enough. For example, you've improved the description of Sleep (by adding missing info).

"A sleeping unit can be awoken by attacking it". > Why not "by being attacked", or, even better, "is awoken be attacked"?

Another case is Derelict's Palette spell, "Proxy summon units as needed at the cost of mana and charges". Do the words "proxy" and "needed" have a place here, from the point of style? And, about mana and charges, if units do take fixed amounts, you might change it to "required mana and charges", but I'm not too sure about how it works anyway.

P.S. Is Kael'thas dead? :(
 
This is pure, unadulterated insanity of a mod. Literally Warcraft IV. What I would like to emphasize is the visual design and clarity - it feels like an extension of WC3, most units and buildings do not strike me as from some other game, they do look at home when compared alongside the original roster. At the same time, they are not simple recolours, with so many new styles and mechanics they do pretend to be something more, something that needs a good story to correspond with it and to explain it, to draw the player into it.

I have just learned of this mod (or should I say, a compilation of maps, because WC3 does not allow multiplayer mods, unlike C&C: Generals, for example) from Grubby.

I shouldn't have been surprised that you started working on it in 2002. The quality of your work is outstanding. You went through so much stuff already in the game and respectfully integrated it into your creation (i.e., the Wand of Neutralization). The vocabulary is mostly clean, precise, stylish and inventive. The moment I noticed the masterfully crafted custom UI, I knew it was not an ordinary trash modification.

My complaint would be that the hired catapult's splash effect looks overly big, and the circling flaming stones above the teleporting buildings of the Lost race are placed too high. Grubby mentioned that the ordinary T1 unit of the Lost race may be confused for a summon (they are too thin, I guess?).

Also, some rare tooltips do show inconsistent style or are just not good enough. For example, you've improved the description of Sleep (by adding missing info).

"A sleeping unit can be awoken by attacking it". > Why not "by being attacked", or, even better, "is awoken be attacked"?

Another case is Derelict's Palette spell, "Proxy summon units as needed at the cost of mana and charges". Do the words "proxy" and "needed" have a place here, from the point of style? And, about mana and charges, if units do take fixed amounts, you might change it to "required mana and charges", but I'm not too sure about how it works anyway.

P.S. Is Kael'thas dead? :(

Thank you for the comment! It's wonderful to read that you hold BTT in such high regard. I am already making changes based on the commentary from his stream. There is lore available here for the Lost. Anytime you have feedback please let me know. We can set up a time to play as well if you'd like to.

This is a timeline separate from WoW as I've imagined it so he would be alive.
 
So @Kam approached me a little over a month ago to do some work on the trigger side of things for Beyond the Throne. My primary focus has been to replace periodic map-wide enumerations to check for buffs with less performance-intensive methods like dynamic indexing. I also made a point to reduce the number of event calls with things like Bribe's SpellEffectEvent/OrderEvent. There's some more work done on the codebase itself to allow for things like abilities to be better organised per folder (for example, a passive ability being activated onIndex in one trigger file but the rest of the abilities exists in another folder; this allows me to have everything concerning that ability in one single folder). Finally, some abilities have been modified aesthetically, mechanically, or both. Here are a few previews:

Nether Fold

Sustain

Palette

Deteriorating Breath

Seraphic Blade

Submerge

Aside from the visual changes, Nether Fold now allows the Ravager to carry 4 non-hero units with it.
Sustain functions mechanically the same way but it's now a persistent beam as opposed to a stream of rockets.
Palette has recieved a significant overhaul. It will now automatically activate when a nearby friendly Lost unit takes fatal damage, consuming it. Infinity Core charges are now visually displayed above the Derelict so you won't just easily forget you can spawn in an army. Army spawn is done via 'building' so the Derelict needs to be in range.
Deteriorating Breath will now release a small puff of corruption that will affect the first building it hits.
Aside from the visual indicator for bonus damage, Seraphic Blade now applies the damage bonus when the buff is applied as well.
Submerged Argonauts will now knockback smoothly when moving into shallow water.

There were many changes done to the codebase and while I've tested each change, there could still have been things that slipped through the cracks, so report back any bugs you find here.
An update will be available soon.
 
Hello again!

The next step for this project is HD support. To that end @Raddazong and I iterated on a test unit to help narrow the style/complexity expectation for models.

Ravager Battleship - HD Version

I am looking for an artist to help continue the process. If you're interested please let me know!
 

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Level 4
Joined
Jun 20, 2019
Messages
69
Really great map but where do you take these model, look nice
 

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Kyrbi0

Arena Moderator
Level 44
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
9,487
Along with the usual balance changes this updates contains a refactor of unit and building tooltips. You'll find them far more usable.

View attachment 415984

I've also setup a Discord:

View attachment 415982

And a donation method:

View attachment 415983
Pack it in, boys; Kam has gone full 'modern-game-design' with his tooltips. Sad day. v_v



; )

//EDIT// Also apparently there's a unit called the "Draken"? Maybe I need to download this again...
 
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