[Role Playing Game] Foreseen consequences

[proudmer22]

Hello everyone!

RELEASED
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Foreseen consequences
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I am making a new RPG-map inspired by "Groundhog day"(movie) and "Mother of learning"(fanfic).
In this one you can't right-click your way to victory. For instance - this is the first boss:

Also a couple of screenshots:

The purpose of the map is to make a fun story-driven experience and introduce new interesting mechanics. The main feature of this story is that the main protagonist is stuck in a timeloop and that gives many new opportunities for me as a mapmaker. For instance you can see how same situations play differently, in dialogues characters often say something to themselves so you can understand how thet react to particular situations. Also I'm a fan of good cinematographic experience and try to make cutscenes as cinematic as possible. No static cameras, no boring angles etc. etc.

And because of that comes the main problem of the map which I'm facing right now - not enough content. Right now gameplay\cutscenes ratio is about 50\50 and the story is about 30% complete. But it's not my way to just pre-place enemy units on the map and make plater go through them. I'd like to get some advice on how to make gameplay more variative and not spend an eternity making this map. I would also welcome any help if you're a mapmaker yourself(I am bad at making new locations look beautiful). I would also welcome a scripter so we can finish the map twice as fast. And a dialogue editor too(I'm not a native speaker). If you're interested - please contact me.
And if you have any feedback on what you saw I'd be glad to take it into consideration.

About me:
I've got some experience in making mods. I made mods for another game and mostly I was scripting\writing dialogues\testing all by myself but there were rare chances of working in team and I savoured that time.
After reading "Mother of learning" I got excited of making a mod which would involve a "timeloop" mechanic. Wacrarft 3 engine allows that.
When I finish scripting this map I plan to get voiceover for it (in my experience it's not as hard as it might seem).

 

[stan0033]

Just by the name I assumed it's a situation game where different choices lead to different result until you figuire out the right way to achieve the results you want.

 

[proudmer22]

Just by the name I assumed it's a situation game where different choices lead to different result until you figuire out the right way to achieve the results you want.

The map is about that. There's going to be 4 chapters, 3 of them will be linear, 4th one should give you some amount of freedom.

 

[proudmer22]

Ok I'm posting a demo for everyone to see what the fuss is all about.
With the release I'm removing DEMO.



-This DEMO includes
1)1st chapter - 100% + BOSS
2)2nd chapter - 60% + MiniBoss

Disclaimer:
-This is a DEMO
- It's BEST PLAYED IN REFORGED MODE. I tried to play it Classic W3 and I got some music mising in cutscenes. Also in overall cutscenes look much better in Reforged.
- I don't know if it's going to launch in Classic Wacraft 3(Public test which you could stil download on Blizzard.com)
-This is not tester-proof which means if you want to break it specifically (like killing friendly units or letting main characters die in combat) you'll stuck. Save often, make manual saves, bosses might be hard.
-Dialogues are up to revison;(I'm looking for anyone to help me with them)
-I hope to get custom models for main characters.(Will be happy for any help with them)
-I hope someone will help me with terrain(making it more lively)
-And finally if anyone wants to continue making this with me(For instance - you have an idea for a next level and you're ready to implement it or you're ready to create new territory for the next level) - please contact me.
-Any feedback.

All scripts are free for use, no credit needed.(almost all of them except Store\Restore units are taken from forums).
Thanks for the help @Uncle! Could not have done this without you.


If you're stuck after you received your gear(the only non marked quest in Demo)

Spoiler

you need to go to the northern part of the city and find a girl with exclamation points above her head. This is the only "non marked" quest yet.

 

[proudmer22]

Well, demo no longer represents the end product lol. I've changed some dialogues and reworked some of Chapter1 cinematics. Be ready for some heavy Prince of Persia references.
2 chapters out of 4 are almost ready(I decided to add a little quest in the first chapter so 100% progress became 80%). Still need that terrainer though. I'm making empty dummy locations for someone to fill them later. Because I really suck at it.
I also added "Hero glow" to characters and bosses units so they look better.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Giving it a bump - I'd be happy to test it myself and provide some feedback, but I do not have Reforged (which might also be why you didn't get many replies - quite a lot of Hive users stuck with Classic W3).

The little I could gather from the video and screenshots:
- The terrain looks really flat in a lot of areas - use cliffs/terrain elevation tools to counter this
- I think you forgot to set the sky box, hence the black horizon thing - this can be done via triggers, search for "set sky" action and put it in initialization trigger
- Camera movements in the video... i.e. it's very easy to tell when and how the camera was "ordered" to move, which feels artificial, you should aim for more organic and seemless camera movement
- You should do a spelling pass as there appear to be some tiny mistakes Like "Bandit leader" in the video (yes, I think "leader" should be capitalized).
- Calling your hero unit Mott - I don't mean his proper name, but the hero unit name that appears inside the experience bar - is a bit silly... Like - Mott, level 3 Mott?

On the other hand, the boss battle seemed pretty cool, so there's obviously some potential here

Good luck!

 

[proudmer22]

Giving it a bump - I'd be happy to test it myself and provide some feedback, but I do not have Reforged (which might also be why you didn't get many replies - quite a lot of users stuck with Classic W3).

The little I could gather from the video and screenshots:
- The terrain looks really flat in a lot of areas - use cliffs/terrain elevation tools to counter this
- I think you forgot to set the sky box, hence the black horizon thing - this can be done via triggers, search for "set sky" action and put it in initialization trigger
- Camera movements in the video... i.e. it's very easy to tell when and how the camera was "ordered" to move, which feels artificial, you should aim for more organic and seemless camera movement
- You should do a spelling pass as there appear to be some tiny mistakes Like "Bandit leader" in the video (yes, I think "leader" should be capitalized).

On the other hand, the boss battle seemed pretty cool, so there's that

Thanks! More interesting scenarios are to come in the release. I tried to do something different for every scene. It takes a lot of work, testing, scripting but in the end it's worth it.
For the tip for the set sky - I didn't know. I just tried it and sky looks bright even when it's supposed to be night. Also I like applying some close-up camera angles and in these shots I can see they sky on the horizont but it's not supposed to be there).
These camera angles are used only in 2 cutscenes and I get your point. Other cutscenes look better and I'm proud of camera work there. When I started making this map I tried to do "one-long-shot" camera mode like in God of War(2018) but it doesn't quite work in W3.

I decided not to continue development due to the lack of people who can help me with terraining and dialogue editing(it's allright, I'm not complaining). First 2 chapters make a short finished story by themselves with a solid ending(no cliffhangers). However I'll leave an option to play an alternate ending for those who interested. I'll be releasing it tomorrow in the map section.
Also - this map plays fine in Classic mode but cutscenes lose their beauty and animation for some characters looks way too funny =). However it's quite playable but if one has a choice one must play this in Reforged mode. Music works fine but in classic mode ambient sounds are too loud for some reason and in some scenes music fades before them.


This looks worse than the scene in the video in my opinion.

Meanwhile a couple of screenshots:

 

[MasterBlaster]

I use 1.31.1, so SD mode in 1.32 is not really for me

This looks worse than the scene in the video in my opinion.

I'd say it looks a looooot better as in way more natural.

 

[proudmer22]

I use 1.31.1, so SD mode in 1.32 is not really for me


I'd say it looks a looooot better as in way more natural.

Agreed... I edited the camera and now it looks like this which is not perfect but better. I'll leave Sky set for daytime. In night time in forest locations "'no sky" seems like a better choice for now.
Thank you!

 

[noob]

How does Mott creates explosions?

 

[proudmer22]

How does Mott creates explosions?

It's the boss who spawns them