Dungeon Keeper

[Darkholme]

Looks great! But doesn't teamcolor only work for units? And what about adding some gold stuff on the gold walls? I presume that we are going for units so I'll create a system that creates walls all over a 180 x 180 playable map area.

The Gold Walls Have lots of gold stuff. But the team color kindof hides it. And yeah, Units seems to be the better way to go cause of the teamcolor. Gold can't be like a gold mine though, we need to make it so it drops gold on the ground when it takes x damage.

And the dirt should take a level 1 imp 2 hits to drop. They tunnel fast.

I'm not sure if there's a way to do it, but if you could make imps get a bonus against walls, or walls a weakness to imps that would be awesome. Cause normal units can't tunnel nearly as fast. Even the ones that CAN tunnel.

I'm gonna look into keypresses. I just reinstalled Keeper (took me 1 h to find all the patches and configure it to run on XP) and I think it would be cool to use keeper's cam system instead of wc3s. It has rotate and zoom. Using Home, End, PgUp, and PgDown.

 

[redmarine]

You can make the camera system and I'll make the map generator. So the imps will gather the gold once they destroyed the walls and return after they've dropped it on a gold deposid.

 

[Eleandor]

So I take it we're not using my digging system?

I'm not sure if there's a way to do it, but if you could make imps get a bonus against walls, or walls a weakness to imps that would be awesome. Cause normal units can't tunnel nearly as fast. Even the ones that CAN tunnel.

Easy solution: make walls "ancients", and make "ancients" only targetable by imps...
As far as I know, the only other creature that could tunnel was a "human" dwarf...

I'm gonna look into keypresses. I just reinstalled Keeper (took me 1 h to find all the patches and configure it to run on XP) and I think it would be cool to use keeper's cam system instead of wc3s. It has rotate and zoom. Using Home, End, PgUp, and PgDown.

Not possible without RTC. With RTC, you won't be able to play the map over battlenet.

How are we doing "ground claiming" by imps? You should only be able to drop creatures / new buildings on ground owned by you... How does it detect whether you own ground or not?

EDIT: another question: are imps going to harvest like peasants harvest from trees or are the goldpatches just dropping gold? I'm trying to make some sort of AI now...

2nd edit: Perhaps make a more asymetric (all sides being the same, thus being tileable, but still being different from a normal quad) wallmodel with teamcolor only on the top face, so you still can see a difference between gold and normal sand.
Also, if you still decide to use my diggingsystem, I'm probably only going to use a teamcolored version. Alternativelly, have a "marked" and "unmarked" animation rather than having teamcolors.

 

[NoNZealot]

I wish you good luck on making this. DK was one of my favorite games so I will keep my eyes on this thread. -May the patience be with you-

 

[redmarine]

Eleandor, I thin your system worked fine. My meet up the requirements.

 

[Darkholme]

So I take it we're not using my digging system?

I actually did not figure out how to actually dig in your system :S
I just saw the spawned dirt...

Easy solution: make walls "ancients", and make "ancients" only targetable by imps...
As far as I know, the only other creature that could tunnel was a "human" dwarf...

I like it.

Not possible without RTC. With RTC, you won't be able to play the map over battlenet.

I'd like to actually see what RTC is and try it out but I can't find it anywhere (I just looked for 40 minutes) Although it's really too bad that it won't work with just TFT

How are we doing "ground claiming" by imps? You should only be able to drop creatures / new buildings on ground owned by you... How does it detect whether you own ground or not?

I have yet to figure this part out. Possibly as walkable doodad type things? I'm not sure. I'm open to suggestion

EDIT: another question: are imps going to harvest like peasants harvest from trees or are the goldpatches just dropping gold? I'm trying to make some sort of AI now...

As stated above. Gold Patches drop gold when they take damage. The gold dropped and damage taken won't be the same of course. Each block holds about 1000 gold. In DK it was 1024. I think 1000 will work better though. Nice round number. So 1000 gold. It shouldd take 1 imp maybe 3 trips to break a gold block if he's returning the gold (I'll actually time it later today)

2nd edit: Perhaps make a more asymetric (all sides being the same, thus being tileable, but still being different from a normal quad) wallmodel with teamcolor only on the top face, so you still can see a difference between gold and normal sand.
Also, if you still decide to use my diggingsystem, I'm probably only going to use a teamcolored version. Alternativelly, have a "marked" and "unmarked" animation rather than having teamcolors.

It's the same model, just with small alterations to make it useable. It's not going to be the final model. I dont think we want to use dirt that explodes as a finished thing but it works better than the dirt you guys were using before. I'll change the skin on the gold so teamcolor doesn't stop it from being recognizable as gold.
Amking animations isn't my area of expertise in modeling. I can do modeling, but I'm still kindof limited. I can't make things from scratch as I haven't learned max yet, and I've never made animations before. I think I could do the dirt thing, as it doesn't sound that complicated, but can we use the model we have for now?

 

[Eleandor]

I actually did not figure out how to actually dig in your system :S
I just saw the spawned dirt...

There's actually no spawned dirt in my map, it's all preplaced because I was just testing the digging system rather than map generation system. All you need to do is select a dirttile and it'll be digged by imps... It doesn't work over there?
The pro's are mainly that it works for any player, rather than having to use playerslots for the dirt...

 

[Darkholme]

There's actually no spawned dirt in my map, it's all preplaced because I was just testing the digging system rather than map generation system. All you need to do is select a dirttile and it'll be digged by imps... It doesn't work over there?
The pro's are mainly that it works for any player, rather than having to use playerslots for the dirt...

Hmm. I'll test that again. All the dirt will end up being Neutral Passive in the end if we go with Units, so they won't take up slots.

Hell, I'm thinking about maybe making all units neutral passive, and just have you be able to pick up the ones in your unit group. That way there is no way to give them orders and they do it all by AI. O.O You can still manually teamcolor them, so it just might work.
---------------
Now, Eleandor: How does your digging system work? I mean, yes, they dig. And you said it doesn't take up a player slot. Do you just have it give orders to all the imps to dig? or does it make the block hostile? I did notice that if they're digging and I deselect the dirt they keep attacking it. Care to explain the mechanics?

Nevermind. I looked at the code and figured it out. I think your digging system actually does work better. It uses NeutralPassive as the controller too. Well done. The peasants keep digging after you deselect the blocks though.

We'll make all the creatures be heroes. That will work great. I'll just add abilities via scripts and it'll be good. I'm working on Units and the Leveling thereof. - Presently as they level they get bigger. (That's how this whole Keeper project started actually, me trying to figure out how to make the heroes in EntSeed scale as they level like creatures in Keeper. rofl

I'll see if I have time to work on this tonight. I haven't studied since thursday. I've just been working on this and EntSeed. (And finishing my skin for the Comp #7)

 

[redmarine]

Finally! I've created a system which works nicely! Though there is a small lag because of all the walls or there might be a leak which I haven't noticed. All the walls are neutral passive but it is all subject to change.
Remember the playable map area has to be 180 x 180 or it will get a bit messy.
Edit: I've discovered a leak I'll fix it later.
Edit2: Fixed! The new attached map has been updated with no leaks!

 

[Darkholme]

Finally! I've created a system which works nicely! Though there is a small lag because of all the walls or there might be a leak which I haven't noticed. All the walls are neutral passive but it is all subject to change.
Remember the playable map area has to be 180 x 180 or it will get a bit messy.

Eleandor, if you make your pickup reselect the sacrificial pit like .1seconds after the pickup it's much more convenient. I like that it comes from the building, as we can just make that building be the dungeonheart.

- I think I just figured out another scaling thingy. I'm gonna make the hart scale according to the percentage of its hit points it has, like in DK.

So. Marine. I take it we're going to use Eleandor's dig and pickup systems and you're gonna concentrate on map generation? That works.

Let's see... It takes a long time to load. That's the only big downside I can see. In the Actual Map we're going to want fog of war and black mask, just so you know. I think you just turned them off for visibility, but just in case.

Umm. Replace your sleep commant with a line of custom script "call PolledWait( 0.0001 )" It's a smaller wait. Why does it generate so much slower on this map then in your layout 2?

 

[redmarine]

I've edited my post.

 

[redmarine]

Perhaps because it tries to create like 180 units every 0.01 seconds? lol... It requires a lot.

 

[Darkholme]

so creating less units per second was faster then yes? Mayhaps we should do that then? Maybe cut it into smaller chunks or something?

We need lower poly chunks of dirt... I just noticed they're 900 polys each.. lol.

 

[Eleandor]

Eleandor, if you make your pickup reselect the sacrificial pit like .1seconds after the pickup it's much more convenient. I like that it comes from the building, as we can just make that building be the dungeonheart.

Actually, the heart already gets selected automatically in the latest version, but I haven't uploaded my progress yet. I can't either at the moment because I'm on another pc...

I think I just figured out another scaling thingy. I'm gonna make the hart scale according to the percentage of its hit points it has, like in DK.

Hearts scale indeed, I'm not sure of units though, but then again, while we should remain close to the actual DK gameplay, it's *our* mod, not bullfrog's, so I'm fine with scaling units

I've got to check out Marine's system and see what I can use from his

Let's see... It takes a long time to load. That's the only big downside I can see. In the Actual Map we're going to want fog of war and black mask, just so you know. I think you just turned them off for visibility, but just in case.

I didn't open the map yet (like I said, no wc here), but I think I know already what causes a very long loadtime, and I might be able to shrink it a bit. Redmarine, once your system is done, if you don't mind I'll try optimising it a bit.

Darkhole, as I understand it, the borgcube is a placeholder anyway... I think it'd be better to just leave the model as it is and find (someone to make us) a better model when we have a playable version

Some questions that don't have much to do with the project:
Where are you guys from / do you have MSN for easier contacting?

 

[redmarine]

I agree. My system will work better if the poly wasn't so high. Perhaps someone could add some gold stuff in the walls or something to make it look more like gold?
Eleandor, you are welcome to tweak my system.
Just to remind you guys that I did update the map and fix all the leaks.
Shall we just MSN our e-mail to each other?

 

[Darkholme]

Well, My MSN is [email protected]. My Email is different, so you know. The address I use for MSN get's checked about once a month in regard to email.

I made lower poly Dirt and Gold. I'm not sure what the problem with the gold is, I think it does look like gold, just didnt when teamcolored. If You guys don't think so, then I'll just make the gold more yellowish. I think it's unnecessary but meh.

*Done*

There's no way you guys can say it doesn't look like gold now.
Also. Made the gold/dirt take up half the space, and made the teamcolor less obvious/made the original colors show more. The dire would be totally usable if someone fixed a couple small texture wrap issues and made a new death animation. Also, it looks more like dirt now, is less symmetrical, and looks far less mechanical.

And in Keeper the creatures definitely scale. I'll put up a screenshot so you guys can see how much. (and so I have a reference to make sure I don't scale them too much).

Redesigning
I was thinking it might be cool to add in a hero for each creature type, that wanders in depending on how you build your dungeon. (room sizes, empty space, number of imps) And then this hero is not picked up and moved, but is actually a hero you control normally (maybe, or maybe also AI instead, but just a better unit).

Attached is a screenshot showing imps of 2 different level. The big one is like level 3 or 4, the tiny ones are level 1
Maybe another Idea that could be cool is allowing a player to play as the heroes (of course after the keepers are finished). Heroes couldn't claim new land but would start with a big cleared area where they can build hero rooms. They would also always come from the edge of the map because they come from the surface and just set up camp in the caves. - It could eb a cool addition for when we're finished.

 

[redmarine]

Well, are we going to make it more like Dungeon Keeper 1 or 2? Because they are different.
Mine is [email protected]

 

[Darkholme]

I'm gonna say DK1 because DK2 kinda sucked. It looked pretty, but the gameplay paled in comparison. But we can spice it up and add things we think are cool that were not in the original game, I just think we should start with the original style stuff because it'll be easier.

I thought I said that on the first page. I at least said that I didn't like dk2. And all the info I've been bringing etc is dk1 stuff. and will continue to be.

However, if you're a fan of DK2, it wouldn't be hard to mod the DK1 map system into a dk2 map system.

It's like with Heroes of Might and Magic. 2 was better than 1, and then 3 was ok, but not great, and theyve been getting worse each subsequent time.

and In my opinion (people will disagree with me) same with every ff after tactics(starting with 8) and every seiken densetsu game after legend of mana for ps1 started going downhill too. Each one being a bit worse than the last.

 

[redmarine]

There are many features which are cool in Dungeon Keeper 2. I think we should take the best from both games but mostly from the original Dungeon Keeper.

 

[Eleandor]

DK2 had essentially exactly the same gameplay as DK1. That's the only reason one can say DK2 was bad, because it didn't have the same inovation DK1 had... But it did add some new units and rooms, which were interesting to me. So basically everything we've made so far can be used for both DK1 and DK2. All we need to add is a few more unit types and rooms and we're closer to DK2.

A few examples:
The Guard Room, which attracts Dark Elves, can be just one square in size. Put a small hatchery and lair nearby so that they don't ever have to leave.

The Casino is used to keep creatures sweet or to get their gold off them (the latter's at the expense of their happiness, of course). It needs to be 3 x 3 as a minimum, but should only be created if you have spare cash and space.

The Combat Pit is the only way to get creatures to experience levels 5 to 8 (without a genuine war, that is). It's also a free source of training. Friendly creatures will fight until one is knocked unconscious, whereupon he's dragged back to his lair to recuperate. Drop an enemy in there and it's a fight to the death.

Dark Elf:
Elves are happy to patrol your base. Possess them and use them in Sniper mode and they'll excel in a big rumble. You can get a dark elf by sacrificing two skeletons in the temple. They can thus be had in infinite numbers.

Salamander:
They're immune to lava, so in some levels salamanders become your front-line soldiers. Build 'em a lair close to the hot stuff. If you sacrifice two of them, you get a mistress, a good trade later on.

Rogue:
While rogues are invisible to the enemy (although not to traps), they shouldn't be left near unguarded gold. Genuinely.

Black Knight:
These are all-round fighters, attracted by the bloody thrills of the Combat Pit and Torture Chamber.

Dark Angel:
Once you have a temple, you can get yourself a Dark Angel. These creatures can attract skeletons at will, and they're fantastic to possess.

Some new spells and traps and enemies

Edit: and a vampire / graveyard, I'm unsure if this was there in DK1...

I've just come to notice that the system requirements will probably be relativelly high... The wallmap alone increased my consumed RAM from 580 to 891... My guess would be that you're gonna need 512 Mb ram at the very least...

 

[redmarine]

Well, people now days should know better and get a computer which has like 2GB+ ram. Otherwise their computer are useless. There could be a sign in the description about the systems requirements.

 

[Eleandor]

Ofcourse, but not everyone does have that... So I think people who don't fit the requirements will crash few seconds after game creation... People might not like to host this on Bnet because of this

 

[redmarine]

We could make my system a bit slower and let the players wait a bit while letting the map load. Or we could just decrease the playable map area... Which I doubt we will.
Edit: Darkholme, could you perhaps decrease the poly more? It still lags a bit lol. We need the explosion.blp to make your decreased models work.

 

[Eleandor]

A simple wait doesn't help there. All those units consume 200 Mb, and they will always do, no matter what you do. Unless you just create less units.

At map creation, some of those units will be removed for empty area's. Over time, other units will simply be digged away, thus decreasing the load on your machine. At the same time though, rooms are created and creatures join your dungeon, so... I wouldn't count on decreasing the memory load in any way...

 

[Darkholme]

Hmm. OK. We can take the Good things from DK2. what Iremembered from DK2 was the gameplay was similar but just wasn't as fun (there were specific things I disliked but I don't remember them as that was like 7 or 8 years ago now) Perhaps I'll get it and play it for a half hour to see. I remember I hated that the Horned reaper was no longer a unit, but there was more than that.

I'm not a fan of having locked ways to level. However, I'm not opposed to having multiple ways to level. But I think they all need to work all the way up (or at least all work from start to X). So like anything works at level 1-6 or 7, and 7-9 maybe combat pit and real combat only.

I thought the casino was stupid, and I think it breaks the theme. It's nifty to have a way to get the money back from your creatures, but I don't want it to be something as cheesy as a casino.
You can use the same explosion blp, I didn't change it.

I could shrink the textures, maybe that would save some space. It might be noticeable though.

----------------------------
I Compressed the model size to like 1/6 of what it was, and also shrunk the textures. How do you like THIS for filesize!
----------------------------
From 262k to 80k INCLUDING Textures(108k when out of rar). from like 680 vertices to 121 This should make less Lag. If it still lags alot I can try to shrink it more, but there isn't that much I can do now besides cutting off bits and stretching them.

 

[Eleandor]

The casino was fun And then again, there were other things that were cheesy or completely wrong in the DK concept . Anyway, a "casino" wouldn't have been one of my top priorities either, so...

It's been a long time since I played DK1, so I don't know... do keeper spells cost mana or gold? I didn't see a mana indication on the screenshot you posted earlier, so...
DK2 does use mana, and if there's one thing I certainly liked (although you may differ from opinion), it was manarequirement for spells, rather than a goldcost. Summoning imps did cost additional gold after the 7th one I think. Anyway, you slowly regenerate mana, and get additional mana when warlocks are studying in the library. Spells cost mana, for instance heal just transforms mana into hit points for your units.

The horned reaper is still a unit... His name was just changed into "Horny", but the rest is completely the same

I consider the "digging" system done now, but as it is now, it doesn't work correctly without the terrain generator, so I'll be awaiting redmarine's results and then implement the system in there.
I've also done most of the preparations for unit AI, I'll be messing around with that for some time and then see if you guys agree with how I plan to do it. If you don't agree, I'm expecting to see an alternative plan for AI though

Since I consider those 2 jobs done (some tweaking might follow later), I'll be working on something else now... Any suggestions? It's too soon for a complete and decent AI I think, cause we'll need all other things to be finished first...

 

[redmarine]

Perhaps make a systen for creating paths?
Edit: I'll implement your system in my generator now!
Edit2: Here it is! Though I found a terrible lag which made the map almost unplayable but that might be because I was defreagmenting my computer...

 

[Darkholme]

It's been a long time since I played DK1, so I don't know... do keeper spells cost mana or gold? I didn't see a mana indication on the screenshot you posted earlier, so...

Straight up gold for spells in DK1. Something I liked. Imps just gradually increase in gold cost (based on how many you currently have).

The horned reaper is still a unit... His name was just changed into "Horny", but the rest is completely the same

From what I remember in DK2 they made the Horned Reaper just show up at the end of the level and "claim" it for you, and he wasn't a unit you could just have a bunch of, which bugged me.

I consider the "digging" system done now, but as it is now, it doesn't work correctly without the terrain generator, so I'll be awaiting redmarine's results and then implement the system in there.
I've also done most of the preparations for unit AI, I'll be messing around with that for some time and then see if you guys agree with how I plan to do it. If you don't agree, I'm expecting to see an alternative plan for AI though

Oh. I started on some basic AI. but if you want to do it that's cool. Let's see what you've got. So hat exactly should I be doing then. lol. Graphics and what? Is it cool if I do spells? And I'll make the autoleveling scripts? And Design the units (stats etc)?

Since I consider those 2 jobs done (some tweaking might follow later), I'll be working on something else now... Any suggestions? It's too soon for a complete and decent AI I think, cause we'll need all other things to be finished first...

True on the AI. hmm. Want to work on room placement?

Perhaps make a systen for creating paths?

Like digging? or do you mean like tunnels that already exist. Can you alter terrain height with scripts and triggers? I think if you can that would be a good thing to work on.

What happened to MurderMode? Is he out? or has he just been gone a couple days?

Edit: if you go to my post before this, I put up an EVEN SMALLER dirt model. (replaced the one from about 15 minutes ago)

Edit 2: and Now I am off to class. I haven't slept for like 30 hours though so we shall see if I stay for the whole thing.

 

[Eleandor]

Horrible lag on that map, redmarine... I'm just going to copy your trigger into my updated system and see if the lag is still there... I'm fearing the worst though, that ... 32 000 units on 1 map is too much...
I'll let you know the answer later, when I'm on a wc pc

Straight up gold for spells in DK1. Something I liked. Imps just gradually increase in gold cost (based on how many you currently have).

I liked mana more

From what I remember in DK2 they made the Horned Reaper just show up at the end of the level and "claim" it for you, and he wasn't a unit you could just have a bunch of, which bugged me.

It's true that he showed up on the end of the map (in some sort of cinematic), but he could be summoned in-game by sacrificing a mistress, bile demon and something else (forgot what). There was also another way, but I forgot what... I think it was something like your heart becoming strong enough to be able to summon him... But he was playable for sure. To be honest, it would be a very very bad idea not to include a mistress, bile demon or horny in any DK game

Oh. I started on some basic AI. but if you want to do it that's cool. Let's see what you've got. So hat exactly should I be doing then. lol. Graphics and what? Is it cool if I do spells? And I'll make the autoleveling scripts? And Design the units (stats etc)?

Show me what you have, I might learn from it, or you might simply be better for the job

True on the AI. hmm. Want to work on room placement?

I think room placement is easy. It'll be harder to get a land claiming system to work... (I think that's what marine meant with "path creation"?)

EDIT: ok, I checked the map and found what causes the lag: the 'sand' unit I'm using is larger...
Solution: set blockvalue = 192
loop from 1 to 120 instead of 180.
Something is wrong with my latest build of the digging system... I have no clue what, but I'll investigate it. But I'm leaving home now, and won't be here until the day after tomorrow

 

[Darkholme]

Horrible lag on that map, redmarine... I'm just going to copy your trigger into my updated system and see if the lag is still there... I'm fearing the worst though, that ... 32 000 units on 1 map is too much...
I'll let you know the answer later, when I'm on a wc pc

I'll ask around, maybe someone has a way to do it with less lag.

And just cause I forgot to say earlier, there Were Vamps and graveyards in keeper 1.

Show me what you have, I might learn from it, or you might simply be better for the job

I just have notes on paper. Nothing in Jass yet.

I think room placement is easy. It'll be harder to get a land claiming system to work... (I think that's what marine meant with "path creation"?)

I figured they would be the same system. You need to detect the tile of the ground you're on (or possibly the pathable doodad/unit). Or in the case of building rooms, the tile of the room you want to build.

EDIT: ok, I checked the map and found what causes the lag: the 'sand' unit I'm using is larger...
Solution: set blockvalue = 192
loop from 1 to 120 instead of 180.
Something is wrong with my latest build of the digging system... I have no clue what, but I'll investigate it. But I'm leaving home now, and won't be here until the day after tomorrow

It's cool. Have a good time.

Edit: According to HappyTauren, it's largely because they're units. Maybe we need to go back to destructibles? Can we do what we need with destructibles? I know units are easier, but with so many it lags like a bitch. We aren't going to use most of the stuff there. It means I need to find a different way for selecting than teamcolor, at least visually.

Can an effect be applied that will only show to one player maybe? then we can just make the dirt glow, but only to the player who selected it, and then they don't need teamcolor as you'll only see your own selections. What do you guys think of that?

 

[redmarine]

I like that idea Darkholme. But how will you do it? The lag which accour was because Eleandor's sand unit didn't fit my trigger math. If it doesn't work out anyways I still got the destructible map wall generator.
Edit: The map has been attached and works nicely now. The digging highlight/workers thingy works too.

 

[Darkholme]

I have most of the Bile Demon Done. Now I just need to skin it. I took artistic liberties with it. He has feet. And non-scrawny arms. And no balls and chains hanging from the horns (I wouldn't be able to animate it so it would look ridiculous when he moved.)

I have a 12 page essay due tuesday, so I doubt I'll do any work for wc3 till its done. So I shall tell you when I am once again available. - Class cancelled today, so my hiatus starts tomorrow.

 

[Darkholme]

Here's an Idea. What about Not generating all the dirt at map creation? Maybe generate starting location spaces like in DK1 (heart+1tile all the way around it, and then an extra 1 in the middles) - will put up a screenshot when i get back from class, and then generate like 5 tiles thick around each dungeon heart. Maybe 10. Then just generate more as they dig?

That way only gold needs to be generated in advance.

Bile Demon Screenshot. Based on the Abomination. Face Still needs model work, and then there's the skin. Took Inspiration from the butcher, Diablo 1.

 

[redmarine]

You mean like they'll get created once they are seen? It will indeed remove the lag but I won't be able to help you there...

 

[Darkholme]

I wasn't thinking when they are seen, but pretty much. Create like so many past what is seen. For getting rid of lag. you don't have to detect when they are seen, you just have to create blocks when someone digs. Eventually we would have to save which areas have already been dug so you don't respawn dirt there, but that may be a solution.

 

[redmarine]

Here is an already made Dungeon Keeper but it is quite poor. Though I love the bile demon! It is quite cool

 

[Darkholme]

That is exactly what I want to avoid making. It's awful, It's nothing like dungeon keeper, though you can tell that's what inspired it, and although the rocks look more like rocks, it still doesn't look like it's underground. I unlocked the map because I didn't intend to actually play through a whole match of it after seeing the . way it was implemented. I don't think it has any of the rooms, and there are no custom models. I hope when you say you love the bile demon, you mean mine, not the thing in here.

What we already have (dirt generation and a pickup script) is better than this.

I like my bile demon so far too though. Still needs some work, and I need to figure out what I'm going to do with the face, but it's coming along nicely.

 

[Eleandor]

My german is rubbish... so what is the bile demon in that map? Well, I can't recognise anything that looks like it, so...

Anyway, I do agree with Darkholme. The main reason I'm helping here is because I want to create a DK successor that stays loyal to the original game mechanics and gameplay. I'm sure the creator of that map's intentions are good, but I think I want more

I'm back from hospital (one hell of a day... nothing as boring as waiting with nothing to do), so I'm going to see how I can redesign the digging system... Right now there's some sort of bug in it that causes it to stop working. Rather than searching for the bug, I'm going to redesign it with destructibles, because 32k destructibles are probably easier to be able to handle...

When I'm done with that, I'm posting my progress in this thread. Perhaps it'll be done today (it's 9 pm here), but don't count on it

 

[redmarine]

Of course I meant yours Darkholme. Perhaps you could also create the goblin? Eleandor, you can just use my map because there is already a system made for creating destructibles.

 

[Eleandor]

Ok, using destructables have some serious problems:
1) Could slow down the system, not sure if it's much, but then again, using 32k destructables rather than units probably speeds it up again.
2) No events to detect destructible selection.
I see 2 solutions to this, none of them are extremely appealing to me, but hey, it's probably the best shot we have:
a) Not leftclicking the destructable, but using an ability on it (such as sentries, without any duration or cooldown) and then detecting the target of the ability.
b) Not sure if this can work, but your heart is probably selected 95% of the time. So we could add a "harvest" ability to it. Then, whenever we rightclick a destructable, the harvest ability should target the destructable. Next, we detect which destructable was targetted. In other words: leftclicking would now be rightclicking the destructable, but only works when the heart is selected...
3) as I see things now, a maximum amount of marked destructibles of around 680. Should be enough, until someone wants to select 681... Well, I can probably prohibit the map from crashing, but the destructible wouldn't be selected...

 

[redmarine]

Hm... This mean we should probably just use a smaller map for like 8 players? We can always make the map bigger later on.

 

[Darkholme]

I think your heart will be selected 100% of the time. (with the exception of when you're possessing a creature, and you cant target gold then)

Any time the heart is deselected it will reselect it immediately after. hell. if we have nothing selected we could have it autoreselect the heart


Harvest sounds like it will work perfectly. I'm not sure what's wrong with that. you can detect harvest right?

what about using both ideas. destructibles, and generation of dirt. by digging.

I think I just figured out a way to do dirt generation!

2 dimensional integer array.
length/width. it counts the tiles. As the map is tile based a tile counting system with various states would be useful for room placement too. I don't know why I never thought of it before.

so like every tile has a bunch of int numbers which mean different things.

0-dirt
1-gold
2-gems
3-dug

then 12 for each "claimed" type, and 12*#ofroomtypes more for each room.

The game uses tiles, so why don't we use tiles to find things. it just makes sense. This way we can decide to load only areas which need to be loaded!

 

[Eleandor]

Ok, here's the most plausible approach. I'm not going to spend an aweful lot of time implementing this if you don't like it, so please tell me first...

Gold / gems are targetted as trees / debris. Since they're trees, "peasants" will automatically return gold when they're filled
Sand is targetted as wall / debris

A dungeon heart has the ability to attack debris. Whenever it attacks debris, a trigger runs, ordering the heart to stop attacking (thus not inflicting any damage), and by attacking the destructable, I now have a way to refer to the targetted destructable and can add it to the marked list.

How does the system *feel*? Basically the same, but you target land with your right mouse button instead of your left mouse button. You also must have your heart selected. When a unit is taken into your "hand", your heart is automatically selected, and I wouldn't know how else you can "deselect" your heart accidentally (thus not on purpose), so the only problem would be the small delay that occurs when reselecting the heart instead of the unit...

Feedback please so I know if it's worth trying this out...

EDIT: on the dirt generation: care to further explain this? Also keep in mind that 2 dimensional arrays don't really exist in wc3 on default...

 

[Darkholme]

Ok, here's the most plausible approach. I'm not going to spend an aweful lot of time implementing this if you don't like it, so please tell me first...

Gold / gems are targetted as trees / debris. Since they're trees, "peasants" will automatically return gold when they're filled
Sand is targetted as wall / debris

A dungeon heart has the ability to attack debris. Whenever it attacks debris, a trigger runs, ordering the heart to stop attacking (thus not inflicting any damage), and by attacking the destructable, I now have a way to refer to the targetted destructable and can add it to the marked list.

How does the system *feel*? Basically the same, but you target land with your right mouse button instead of your left mouse button. You also must have your heart selected. When a unit is taken into your "hand", your heart is automatically selected, and I wouldn't know how else you can "deselect" your heart accidentally (thus not on purpose), so the only problem would be the small delay that occurs when reselecting the heart instead of the unit...

Feedback please so I know if it's worth trying this out...

EDIT: on the dirt generation: care to further explain this? Also keep in mind that 2 dimensional arrays don't really exist in wc3 on default...

I think it would be a bad Idea to make the dirt like trees. If you do it that way since you can't detect which are selected, imp AI won't send an Idle imp to go dig if he's not inthe vicinity.

I'd say do both so they're "harvest" via the heart, at which point they would be added to unit groups. unless you can detect the selection of trees via triggers, in which case I don't care.

but if selecting trees is right click, then that's good, cause you can't accidentally pick up units by right clicking them if they get in the way of the wall. then right - dig/spell target, and left pickup units.

We can also make a timed selector to check every 2 seconds to see if the heart is selected, and then if its not to a) make sure a trigger isnt running which needs it deselected, and b) if not then reselect the heart.

as for the 2 dimensional array, at map generation, instead of spawning all the dirt/gold, you initialize the array. fill the whole thing with 0s, then spawn the gold in clusters, possibly the gems, but they would have a % chance of being spawned. Then, set the areas around the hearts to be claimed dirt, and upon digging a wall, once it falls, set it to unclaimed dirt. After its set to unclaimed dirt, run a trigger, and makes sure that like 5-10 tiles out in all directions of that newly dug tile have whatever they should have. This also provides the building blocks for claiming rooms/floor and building rooms. building rooms would be a spell that is target ground. then it checks the status of the tile (out of the 180x180) and if its claimed but indeveloped it builds a room tile there imps would do the same thing, but turning dirt into fortified walls, and turning unclaimed ground into claimed ground.

the 2 dimensional arrays would refer to the ground space covered by the blocks, as though the blocks were spawned everywhere.

And you can make an unofficial array.
save a constant for number of tiles across.
save a constant for number of tiles down.
then make a huge 1 dimensional array that is acrossxdown
and access it via a function that takes the across and down as variables, and returns the applicable data, or gets the applicable data. tada, multidimensional arrays.

If you'd like I can make the functions to access the multidimensional arrays.

 

[redmarine]

If Darkholme's idea works and doesn't generate any huge lags then ok but temporarly we can use the simple solution which Eleandor has.

 

[Darkholme]

If Darkholme's idea works and doesn't generate any huge lags then ok but temporarly we can use the simple solution which Eleandor has.

my idea would generate virtually no lag. instead of 32400 UNITS, or Destructibles, it would be 32400 integers. is 126 kb instead of 200 mb(204800 kb).

well, 126kb + whatever dirt is currently in use, as opposed to the map. that's like 1625x less space. also, my system would make the rooms take up little more space in comparison.

Of course the fact that we use tiles instead of standard coordinates would be completely transparent ot the end user.

 

[Darkenneko_003]

You Guys are just busy working away. =]
I Dug out my old copy of DKII, Along with my Special Fixes to it [No Crashes for me!]
And played some LAN games vs my brother, I Can't believe I Stopped playing. xD
But, some questions have risen that I want to ask.
1.Will you Include Unique Special Units featured in DKII received by building rooms in a special way?
2.How will you get doors to work the way they do?
3.EXP system for Minions? [Could use some kinda Integer system]
4.A Combat pit, I Don't care what you say, You need a Combat pit, =]
5."Convincing" the enemy to join your cause in the torture chamber.

I Didn't wanna bog you down to much with questions, =]
Now If I could remember if Horny was get able through some other way besides Summoned. x_x"

 

[Eleandor]

I think it would be a bad Idea to make the dirt like trees. If you do it that way since you can't detect which are selected, imp AI won't send an Idle imp to go dig if he's not inthe vicinity.

Right now, I'm planning to make dirt / gold both bebris (so it can be targetted by the heart) and gold targetted as "tree", so it can be harvested by imps.
The way I see an IMP AI is like this:
Every imp has a corresponding "last order" value, which stores its last order. If this was "return gold", then I check if he is still carrying gold. If he's not, then he's given the order to "dig".
When a unit has the dig order, he looks at the closest undigged marked wall, then harvests it if it's gold or attacks it if it's dirt.
The map generation sounds quite clever, so feel free to do it. You'll need a bugless system though... But I'm wondering now: gold/dirt = units or destructables? To sum up the differences:

units are easily manipulatable, and don't give many problems. A custom harvesting system is required though. They're marked by simply selecting them, aka left clicking on them. Large burden on your pc, so your 2 dimensional array system is probably not a luxury.
destructables aren't easily manipulatable, and do give problems, which I need to solve in one or another way. The default "peasant" harvest system can be used. Marking requires the selection of the heart and is done by rightclicking them. Might work just fine when they're massed (32k destructables)

Again, please tell me which you prefer.

Some answers on darkenneko's questions:
1) How do you mean? Like bile demons being attracted to much food, salamanders attracted to lava near your lair and trolls attracted to large workshops? Probably, yes.
2) No idea. Doors are probable to be in the game, yes, but it's not one of my priorities at the moment. Perhaps an alpha version won't include doors at all.
3) XP system: undetermined: for now, probably the default XP system. Minions fight and gain xp on each kill.
4) This is still not set in stone, and the "staff" is discussing it
5) See question 2. I'd love to, but right now we're still too busy with getting the core mechanics of DK to work in warcraft.

I'm starting to question too how horny was summoned in DK2. anyway, I think it's most probable that the main way to summon him is by sacrificing creatures in the temple, like in the oldschool way

 

[redmarine]

Basically I think we should just make the map playable first and then add more features like horny perhaps.
-Map Generator.
-Digging System.
-AI for imps to dig and return.
-Picking units
-Add a few basic warrior units like the Goblin in Dungeon Keeper 2.
-Portals auto generate units.

 

[Eleandor]

Oh, and one small thing: as long as there's no "marked" animation on the destructable, there will be no way to see if a destructable is marked or not.
In other words: if we're going for the destructable way (probably the best for your memory anyway), we'll NEED an additional animation on the model asap.