Defense of the Undead [AoS + TD]

[AlienAtSystem]

The Idea behind the Map was quite simple: Have a Tower Defense that leaks and let those survivors fight against heroes. Originally started as small freetime project, it has since grown into an highly ambitious and time-consuming work that has no longer much things in common with the map it started from.

The Map takes place in an alternate timeline, where the Great Alliance of Horde, Night Elf and Alliance instead of parting ways after the battle of Mount Hyjal sets sail to Northrend to remove the last evil: the Scourge. The fate of Azeroth now hangs on the outcome of the assault on the last undead fortress in front of the Icecrown Glacier. The whole map is gameplay-driven and is playable without knowing the story.

The map combines a Tower Defense with an AoS. The units of the Alliance first pass through the Tower Defense, where they are weakened and some of them killed. Then, they enter the undead land, where defenders will spawn to fight against them. Here, the 6 Undead players and 3 Alliance players can control a hero that has to help their corresponding side. The Alliance wins when the players manage to destroy the Undead Citadel on top of its mountain in the 20 waves of units that spawn. The Undead win if they manage to hold the line until all waves are defeated.

The tower defense is the first part of every wave and is solely played by the Undead. The Alliance can not interfere with the actions of the Undead players in that area. The defense strength is designed so that about 30 Alliance Units make it through to the undead land, and their HP and numbers are adjusted so that this number is achieved no matter how many Undead players there are in the game.
The towers are pretty standard towers you will see in most TDs, mostly meant for dealing damage, and only a handful have special effects, mostly slowing. We plan to include more in the future, but since this became a minor part of the actual game over the development, it has not really high priority.
The towers are paid in wood, which is given to the players at the end of every round and can not be obtained in another way.

After the TD, the units enter the undead land, and their HP are changed to values fitting for an AoS. To make things interesting during later rounds, the Units are getting stronger over time and can always endanger a hero. The Alliance Heroes, while fewer, are also stronger and more versatile than their undead counterparts. They can take advantage of the large amounts of units that enter the battlefield at once, as well as their superior quality. The undead players have more heroes which are alone no match for the Alliance, but can, due to their highly specialised roles, wreak large havoc when working together. The Undead defenders are spread thin and will come in a steady stream instead of one wave, but they have defensive positions erected along the way and have often an advantage in the terrain.

The Forward base is the first battlefield. It offers shops, healing and unit-producing buildings, but when the Barricades and Towers fall, it is easily destroyed. To speed the game up, a portal is spawned after the Forward Base falls, which transports the units deeper into the undead land.	The second battlefield, the Ford, is one of the most important in the game. Here, the Alliance has to battle uphill and inside a bottleneck. If the Alliance heroes do not push at this point, the Undead can easily decimate enormous amounts of units without losing ground.	The path splits after the Ford, with a large forest between. Here, surprise attacks and the right distribution of heroes can make all the difference.
The Main Base has several unit-producing buildings and even multiple shops, but is difficult to defend due to the large space.	The last point of defense for the Undead is the Fortress Hill, with only a narrow path up that offers many chances to delay the attackers while ranged heroes can rain destruction on them from the top of the hill. When the attackers reach the top, they have to destroy the Necropolis to win, but should first kill the Master Lich guarding it.

There are 36 Items for each race, ordered in three shops. The Potion Shop offers (obviously) potions of all kinds, from small healing vials to antimagic potions. Additionally, it also offers runes, small items that have to be dropped onto a weapon to add an orb effect to it. The basic shop offers permanent items of all kinds, from attribute bonus over damage to aura effects. The boni are different from race to race, and each of them has strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Human Basic shop offers items with high boni for magicians, but lacks in terms of offensive power. The Recipe shop offers recipes for the basic items. The recipe items can not be bought without the basic items. If you do not fulfill the requirements, your money will be refunded. Items cost gold, which is dropped by enemy forces and given to the one dealing the killing blow. The bounty gathered by the army will be distributed equally between the players of that side. It can also be won by performing extraordinarily, which will be rewarded with a small bonus.

At the moment, there are 9 Undead, 4 Human, 2 Orc, 1 Night Elf and 3 Neutral Heroes implemented. Each player can only choose heroes of his race except for the neutrals, which can be chosen by all Alliance players. For detailed information, I defer to the database on our website.

We probably won't upload the map to the Hive database soon. You can download the newest version from our website. Download will open on March 29, when we finished our current debugging phase.

PS: Yes, the name is chosen badly, but my teammate had already registered the website name when I joined, so we're now stuck with it.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

The presentation is awesome and I love the concept.
Just wondering, what do you do at the tower defense?
Like your character tries to go to the check point if youre not undead or something else?
Also, add more variation to those tiles. Dont just use snow and dirt.

But, I dont really like the spells.
They seem too common, and lack originality.
Say the Behemoth, it looks like standard wc3 spells in my opinion.
Add some more sizzle in the spells and but more thought to it.

But, even though they lack originality, I see that they are good in synergy.
Most spells help in the killing of units.
Like the Weaver, use the Web ability then poison the unit.

Either way, cant wait to test this out, good job.

 

[sonofjay]

Nice idea there, and just like what Drunken said, the spells aren't really original. Also the terrain on the screeny doesn't look good.

 

[WaterKnight]

If the Tower Defense has a minor role and is very simple, why bothering to implement it then? The players have to do some decision-making balancing resources between the TD and AoS. There is no use if those 30 leaks form the same initial situation for the AoS everytime. At least you have to be able to pick out the spawns that are more disadvantageous to your AoS side. Then again, the attackers should also have the possibility to alter their TD force.

But it's ironic that the undeads are the defenders considering their aggressive and obsessive nature and they usually have lots of units but are not known for their construction affinity. So which models do you take as towers?

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

^ True on that its weird that the undeads defend.

Also, what should the TD use be for the game?
It would be good since the undeads defend, you cling along with the incoming waves and try to reach the checkpoint with the waves.

Also, please think of an alternative title other than Dotu.
Defense of the x is overused and the term "of the" in titles are also overused.
A one word or two word title would do.

 

[Aeroblyctos]

Excellent presentation and the website looks awesome. Great job.

The terrain doesn't look that good however.

 

[AlienAtSystem]

Just wondering, what do you do at the tower defense?
Like your character tries to go to the check point if youre not undead or something else?

The Alliance Players use teleporters to bypass the Tower Defense. The difference between the HP values for AoS and TD make it nigh impossible for a Hero to go through the TD part and survive. (In early versions, it was possible to walk with the hero into it. The players ignored the teleporter, their hero died in the TD and the ragequitted.)

Also, add more variation to those tiles. Dont just use snow and dirt.

The Terrain is not that good since neither of us has really any experience in Terraining, and would appreciate help in that matter. But I'll punch anyone who begins with the words "ugly blizzard cliffs".

But, I dont really like the spells.
They seem too common, and lack originality.
Say the Behemoth, it looks like standard wc3 spells in my opinion.
Add some more sizzle in the spells and but more thought to it.

In my opinion, a spell has to be easy to make the standard bnet player able to use it. But we also tried to make some more complex heroes with better abilities so that experienced players can find some joy in it. (See for example Giant Turtle or Skeleton Mage)

If the Tower Defense has a minor role and is very simple, why bothering to implement it then? The players have to do some decision-making balancing resources between the TD and AoS. There is no use if those 30 leaks form the same initial situation for the AoS everytime. At least you have to be able to pick out the spawns that are more disadvantageous to your AoS side. Then again, the attackers should also have the possibility to alter their TD force.

I may have been a bit unclear at that point. The HP adjustment isn't correcting a player's effectiveness of the Tower Defense, it merely adapts to the number of players. For example, if there are 3 Undead Players, each of them will face 20 Units while his Towers have overall the capability to destroy 10. If there are now 6 Players, each of them faces 10 Units with enough firepower to destroy 5. If a player is performing poorly during the Tower Defense, the higher amount of Alliance units will make it more difficult for him in the AoS.
And skilled players are in fact able to pick off important targets. Since all units have the same amount of HP during the Tower Defense, it is the fastest way to get rid of Mountain Giants or Naga Royal Guards.

But it's ironic that the undeads are the defenders considering their aggressive and obsessive nature and they usually have lots of units but are not known for their construction affinity. So which models do you take as towers?

A mix of buildings and units. And that the Undead are defending was a mood decision, but since they are hated by all three other races, it seems the logical choice to me.

Also, please think of an alternative title other than Dotu.
Defense of the x is overused and the term "of the" in titles are also overused.
A one word or two word title would do.

As I said, the bad choice of title has been noted. And I just had a chat with my teammate, and we'll change it as soon as we find a better alternative (It will take some time until it will be changed everywhere, with the Website and all that)

I may host a game today to get some gameplay screenshots. I'll be in the chat if you're interested.

 

[AlienAtSystem]

Finally found the time to upload the Screenshots. The Download is open, and there is a Bot hosting the map regularly, so maybe some of you find the time to test the gameplay.

We are recruiting at the moment. We search for someone with Terraining skills who can create Terrain that is functional as well as good-looking, and preferably is able to improve our map without having to restart from scratch and should have basic triggering knowlegde for both GUI and Jass to help us fix imbalances and bugs.

 

[pred1980]

Hi,

at the moment we're looking for some help in many parts of our Project. If u like to help us, just contact AlienAtSystem or me.

What we're looking for?

- one Terrainer
- a Moderator for our Forum
- someone for our Facebook Fanpage
- a Trigger with good skills in vjass/GUI
- 1-2 people for creating Hero Guides, Game Mechanics
- and some beta testers!!!

If you're interested and you like our concept please contact us!

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

How big is the map?
If its smaller than 160x160 I would love to polish(not start from scratch) the terrain.
Also, I could beta test for you guys, if I find people to play with.
Guides/Mechanics would be easy for me though.

 

[pred1980]

Tileset: Northrend
Dimensions: 160x160
Playable Area: 159x158

So, welcome as a beta tester and maybe terrainer - Btw, please send us some pictures of your last created terrains!

We announce all the information in our forum... so just reg. there and we will tell you when the next test will be.

Btw my friend AlienAtSystem wrote some informations for the Terrianer

We search for someone with Terraining skills who can create Terrain that is functional as well as good-looking, and preferably is able to improve our map without having to restart from scratch and should have basic triggering knowlegde for both GUI and Jass to help us fix imbalances and bugs.

 

[pred1980]

For all:

We have a hostbot for our game. The Game-Name is "Defense of the Undead" + #current number of the hosted game.
For the moment it's "Defense of the Undead #83"

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

I've PM'ed my latest terrains. Those are for my projects, so dont use them
I have an easier time at forests, but ill use this as an experience for snowy terrains.

Also, if you have a Garena, we could try and test.
Also, dont double post.
Use the edit button.

 

[pred1980]