entry-level dev team needed for ROC Purist Reversed Campaign -Unknown Time Traveller

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This is simply editing the original campaign maps.

I'll be attempting to finish the first human map in a month to show what I'm aiming for. Need help mainly for "base" maps. There's a lot of ideas and excitement about reversed roles in campaigns, however, my campaign has a specific story about a character that works in the shadows. In normal and Hard modes, its really just the original campaign difficulty and its more of a pseudo "second-person" perspective that doesn't pay much attention to the character. Also, as someone who made over ten movie quality maps but lost it all to dead pcs and harddrives, including a wedding map, simple execution and successful releases matter to me. I'm not trying to make a quality game. It will be the most basic non-polished game made. You could always patch it afterwards.

Therefore, the game will attempt to lean closer to the "purist" within the spectrum. Not changing anything unless required, especially when its too easy to win as the opposing side. Yet adding units and quests is almost a crime. This is so that the game is released much quicker and it feels like the original campaign but there's an uncanny feeling to it because of the Time Traveller. There's almost no extra content until you choose very hard mode, where there is tiny bread crumbs for the enigmatic main character, a significant change to the cinematics !possibly! and slight change in game dynamics, mechanics and just a little bit of sin in adding units and occasionally AI upgrades. Even the first chapter does NOT add any enemies but merely recycles Uther's forces, no we're not cheaply spawning them in, we're preventing them from exiting the map because of the change in timeline story. Is there a difference? As a scientist I'd say no. But to the soul there is xD. That's right, even the enemies you are killing are the ones the original creators of WC3 put in there. It's not cloned. Have fun killing them. Purist is the MO here.

Overall the campaign should be similar to the original Normal difficulty. I want any player be able to have fun and get the meat of the story. Generally the bad guys are stronger so shouldn't be difficult. For players who want a challenge (tiny bit) and see the true ending cinematic, they have to select very hard mode (which is just a minor increase in difficulty; it's only called very hard because its relative to the original campaign's difficulty settings). For some chapters, very hard mode is basically just normal mode. For some chapters, maybe not because depending on game mechanics, I would just balance it around "hard" mode.

There's a million ideas to reverse the campaign, what am I looking for in the spectrum? For "non-base" maps, no building units, we're not going to make the first map about playing as orcs or bandits, who have quests to kill a required number of citizens before arthas reaches there or, locks the house, or evacuates them, or a defense mission at the village. No its not a bandit quest that delays arthas, or steals a certain amount of money, or having a bandit base where you build units. These and hundreds of other ideas are great, but it gets tedious, complicated and honestly the campaign might not finish in time. In a pseudo second person perspective, we basically want to see arthas doing what you would have done for the first time and not really change the flow. The most minimalist and purist yet simplest approach for coding are quite many still but for my time traveller story, it will be similar to when you had to rescue Illidan in TFT or Plants vs Zombies 1 (zombie side). Basically the most time consuming thing on these non-base maps is cinematic and AI. For base maps, we still want to keep it as simple as a stick insect.

This campaign is merely an inspiration and very basic -probably- buggy game to bring back many serious devs that want to make a true and epic reversed campaign (there's several hundred posts about this since WC3), or anyone who wants to make a twist of their own, or people who just want to make versions of this game. The key is completion. Anyone can improve on this later. Ideally we want to release one map a week if possible without even stressing. Spending 30min or 1 hour per day should be enough in our busy lives.

This also means, no we're not waiting until all of them are done to release a full campaign. Sure it's cool, but that's just it. Let's focus on completion. I've seen too many half done campaigns that aren't released just because it isn't done. Even now I have super ambitious ideas, but no. Even a single idea could force you to code for a day or two. Just let it go. Get the bare minimum. You can make your own version or patch it afterwards. As long as you credit me and others helping me.

What I'm looking for: As many people as possible to make all our lives easier.


For base maps, we need a reverse campaign editor (easiest): only switching the triggers, scenario details text, changing starting player camera points, changing player perspectives, quest, original difficulty swaps, removing the bad side's gold conversion advantage where taking 1 gold from a gold mine adds 10 or 20 gold at the town hall and other such completely unfair advantages ( original unit placements shouldn't be touched, nor original advantageous triggers) and making sure it works.

AI attack editor: I think in most cases, simply just activating the computer script and making sure the tech tree limits are the same as original for it. Not fancy AI either when manual AI development is needed, usually copying what the bad guy AI in the original map does but making the good guys do it. Doesn't have to look polished, could literally look like barracks ordered to train units and them just standing there until they group up and attack lol.

Player AI simulator: Making an AI that acts if it was your first time playing the good side, completing main quests optimally (even ignoring waste of time quests) but not ignoring side quests that make the Heroes tougher but sometimes the Heroes will complete side quests in very hard mode when the heroes are strong enough to do so to give the time traveller a handicap. Its part of the second person perspective. An uncanny feeling. But I always liked watching AI sitting in the player seat. Maybe when I played WC3 as a child, I got beaten up a lot and now im sadistic and want to see the player suffer for the unfair advantages on the evil side.


Cinematic director: If anyone would be kind enough to follow the dialogue script, basic cinematic triggering. Doesn't need to be movie art. For bigger cinematics like chapter 5? where Uther arrives, probably best to have a separate map and combine it with interludes for the time traveller character, for a cleaner and spacious editing and if needed, patches so to not affect the gameplay maps.

Gameplay mechanics: If you ask, I could let you do it but under some supervision. It has to be very simple, let's not add too many crazy custom units. I'm basically just using original ROC units, Unfortunately I couldn't keep it to ROC only since I practically needed Neutral hostile Charm ability without making some complicated copy within ROC... But if you can sure. Honestly I'm just more concerned about how many people have access to WC3 expansion.

So if you think you can reign in your ambitious impulses, work well in a team, take one of these roles and is inspired to continue the original vision, style and niche tone of the game I'd like to build. Please come help me! I believe that if we finish a very simple base game, we can inspire a "horde".

For a simple map like chapter 1, I feel like it would take me a week to finish it without spending a whole day every day on it. As a team, I don't want anyone to feel like this is a chore. An hour max, a day should be enough if we had these numbers. Also there's no need for terrainer either. Anyways stay tuned for chapter 1. What's a good title for this series? Human Campaign Reversed Chronicles? Anything nice and short.

"It's time we summon the Horde"

P.S. It's going to be an emotional pain for me to rebuild chapter 6 again. I fully built an AI where arthas kills the villagers and identical reincarnation timer just for myself to race against years ago. You had to defend against the human base as well. It's all gone though.
 
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