Collaborative RPG

[Yogi-Sothoth]

General Idea:
A fantasy RPG with interesting lore and a fun questing system, that is developed by the community. (Single Player or Multiplayer undecided)

Story Wants:
Different Magic Types/Cosmic Forces
At least two major threats, as well as some minor threats
Multiple Kingdoms/factions
Ability to expand into other continents

Things I cannot do:
Modelling, Texturing, Building Tools (can do some coding so more like stuff like Sharpcraft)

Gameplay Wants (but very flexible):
Use of a backpack to allow the player to hold more items
A text box popping up for quests or some items to deliver lore
Each zone and dungeon gets a different map

Tentative Zones and World Map:

Map (20)

• Yogi-Sothoth
• Mar 16, 2019
• 3

Arthion Highlands
Borzir Swamp
Darkwood Forest
Darkwood Pass
High Mount
Human City
Ladora Jungle
Riden'Dell City
Riden'Dell Grassland
The Dead Swamp
The Lowlands
The Scorching Sands

Final Info:
Please let me know what you can do. Models, Terrain, Story, Sound, Code, Etc...

Join our official discord if you want Join the WarCraftIIIRPGmap Discord Server!

 

[Edhel-dur]

Hello,

How is the map going? Any updates to it?

I have a couple of week and would like to help with Story

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

Hello Edhel-dur thanks for replying
Thanks for being the first to reply

 

[Dr Super Good]

3rd person or 1st person camera with single unit keyboard control (arrow key movement is fine)

Not recommended. Gameplay is clunky, especially in multiplayer due to latency. Also can cause performance issues since the Warcraft III engine is not optimized for such camera angles.

That said it looks like Chinese are pulling it off (maybe?) so it might be possible with 1.31. However without knowing the features that the patch adds in detail I would be cautious of including it as an intended feature early on.

Use of a backpack to allow the player to hold more items

Custom inventory systems might also work to remove the need to hold so many items.

Use of a spellbook to allow the player to use more abilities

Does the player need to use a lot of abilities? Often RPGs end up where the player spams a small selection of abilities.

Being able to pick a class and a sex (possibly faction)

This can be counter productive for immersion or design effort. Making the player more generic either limits how involved the player can be with lore, back story, etc or it results in exponential complexity when it comes to story, choices, etc.

Keep a continent on one map. Dungeons, islands and other continents can exist on separate maps.

Hot swapping maps is not possible in multiplayer so this would potentially interrupt the flow. Or are you referring to making a single player campaign similar to the TFT Orc bonus campaign? If so you should really state that the RPG is intended to be single player.

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

Not recommended. Gameplay is clunky, especially in multiplayer due to latency. Also can cause performance issues since the Warcraft III engine is not optimized for such camera angles.

That said it looks like Chinese are pulling it off (maybe?) so it might be possible with 1.31. However without knowing the features that the patch adds in detail I would be cautious of including it as an intended feature early on.

Custom inventory systems might also work to remove the need to hold so many items.

Does the player need to use a lot of abilities? Often RPGs end up where the player spams a small selection of abilities.

This can be counter productive for immersion or design effort. Making the player more generic either limits how involved the player can be with lore, back story, etc or it results in exponential complexity when it comes to story, choices, etc.

Hot swapping maps is not possible in multiplayer so this would potentially interrupt the flow. Or are you referring to making a single player campaign similar to the TFT Orc bonus campaign? If so you should really state that the RPG is intended to be single player.

Thanks for the input. Modifications have been made

 

[Razielx5]

Any possible openings on the help needed? I'm a decent terrain maker... nothing spectacular but I have a little few unfinished works I can send you just as an idea of where my skills are at. None of my works ever got finished in the passed due to lack of drive working alone

 

[Cespie]

This can be counter productive for immersion or design effort. Making the player more generic either limits how involved the player can be with lore, back story, etc or it results in exponential complexity when it comes to story, choices, etc.

Isn't this how 99% of all RPG games go? Take Diablo for example. The characters are completely detached from the story. It doesn't matter if you were controlling a 4 meter tall baby or a four headed elephant, you always fulfil the role of character that solves everyones problems.

Granted this may not be desirable in a story-driven setting, but it's pretty standard in a lot of RPGs.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Isn't this how 99% of all RPG games go? Take Diablo for example. The characters are completely detached from the story. It doesn't matter if you were controlling a 4 meter tall baby or a four headed elephant, you always fulfil the role of character that solves everyones problems.

Actually most RPGs go the other route. For example in Final Fantasy (pretty much all of them but the MMORPGs) each character is named and has very specific events happen to them.

 

[Cespie]

Actually most RPGs go the other route. For example in Final Fantasy (pretty much all of them but the MMORPGs) each character is named and has very specific events happen to them.

Well, given that he wants gender and class to be selectable options, my guess is that he is going for more of a Dungeons and Dragons kind of story progression, where your actions determine the nature of your character. That is, if the map is supposed to be story-driven at all. It could also just be a hack-and-slash quest based adventure RPG.

On a related yet slightly tangental note.
I personally think that RPG games with railroaded characters needs to have very strong writing to be compelling. There's nothing more obnoxious than controlling a character that you generally dislike. I have a burning hatred for the archetypical angsty/whiny main characters, for example, and I think just about everyone on the ladder side of their teenage years hates the Mary/Gary Sue characters. My immersion is also completely wrecked the second that my character forces the storyline towards a constant higher moral ground, or forces the narrative to have a certain point of view, that I may not at all care about or agree with. A great example of this being pulled off in a great way is the visual novel Tsukihime. The main character behaves in erratic, unpredictable, and occasionally dissociative ways, and leaves the reader wondering how much of his behavior is actually caused by the events of the game, and how much is his actual jaded personality, as you feel like you are cut out of his internal monologue at times. I can't for the life of me remember any other interactive story that has succeeded in making the player character this much of a wild card. It seems like every other story either makes the main character a blank slate, or takes all of their decisions out of an ethics 101 course on your behalf.

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

Well, given that he wants gender and class to be selectable options, my guess is that he is going for more of a Dungeons and Dragons kind of story progression, where your actions determine the nature of your character. That is, if the map is supposed to be story-driven at all. It could also just be a hack-and-slash quest based adventure RPG.

On a related yet slightly tangental note.
I personally think that RPG games with railroaded characters needs to have very strong writing to be compelling. There's nothing more obnoxious than controlling a character that you generally dislike. I have a burning hatred for the archetypical angsty/whiny main characters, for example, and I think just about everyone on the ladder side of their teenage years hates the Mary/Gary Sue characters. My immersion is also completely wrecked the second that my character forces the storyline towards a constant higher moral ground, or forces the narrative to have a certain point of view, that I may not at all care about or agree with. A great example of this being pulled off in a great way is the visual novel Tsukihime. The main character behaves in erratic, unpredictable, and occasionally dissociative ways, and leaves the reader wondering how much of his behavior is actually caused by the events of the game, and how much is his actual jaded personality, as you feel like you are cut out of his internal monologue at times. I can't for the life of me remember any other interactive story that has succeeded in making the player character this much of a wild card. It seems like every other story either makes the main character a blank slate, or takes all of their decisions out of an ethics 101 course on your behalf.

Personally for a collaborative RPG or Multiplayer RPG I wouldn't want to go the named character route. I think collaboration would probably get bogged down by trying to figure out who the playable character is.

 

[Cespie]

Personally for a collaborative RPG or Multiplayer RPG I wouldn't want to go the named character route. I think collaboration would probably get bogged down by trying to figure out who the playable character is.

Yeah, unless there's a designated writer for the singleplayer campaign, or at the very least some people that are good at collaborating on the writing. For multiplayer, there definitely shouldn't be named characters, that would either be limiting or a total mess.

 

[The_Messenger]

Judging from the "Story Wants", I believe this campaign (in my personal opinion) will most likely be a single-player back-to-back kind of action where a player controls heroes or a custom RTS kind of action (such as Malfurion's Quest by Turnro, you also have a Backpack system there that can also be upgraded via side quests you can do). I' having trouble seeing how a collaboration between players would result in the map since there are other maps that indeed require players to finish it (such as Hero Siege) since soloing it isn't exactly possible at one point.

I find it difficult to picture fitting an entire continent on one map alone. Wouldn't it be better to cut a continent in regions and have loadable maps instead like in "Defenders of the Light" or "Fire and Blood"?

I can help you story-wise also with grammar and proofing. I'm a fairly skilled writer myself and if you need examples you can see "Defenders of the Light" and "Alliance Ashes" for examples on the story editing I've done (Alliance Ashes isn't 100% done).

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

I was unsure about the one big continent. That came about later for possible multiplayer, but if single player (preferred at this point). Muitiple maps. YESSSSS!!!!

 

[The_Messenger]

Even if you were to use the maximum size for a map I don't think you can properly fit an entire continent there. I remember playing some epic sized maps and they were heavily crowded with things and weren't exactly immersive. They were decent things you could do to grind some free time, but other than that it wasn't anything special.
So if the map actually has a story then it needs to be immersive and feel alive. So that means assigning a certain space for a region and then decorate it till satisfaction is achieved. But to prevent overcrowding I think a region from a continent can be placed in one very large map size. So for example you can have up to 3-4 geographical regions of "The Lowlands" such as the Upper Lowlands, The River and Lower Lowlands.

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

Thank you. I think we will now go for separate maps for zones now. The world map was something to go off of not a concrete.

 

[The_Messenger]

I've taken into consideration when the map planning mentioned co-op, so I tried to see how it would have functioned as a co-op but it didn't exactly click in my mind (mostly because of the game engine and that you'll need a serious investment in scripting and coding to make it work).

If there are any openings I'd like to offer my services as a writer\editor. I can also test and review the map should you need to.

 

[Yogi-Sothoth]

thanks there is a lot of openings. Its meant to be collaborative