Heaven's Fall: Melee Gameplay Mod

[Retera]

In an alternate Warcraft universe, giant relics left by the Titans that had once orbited the world have fallen upon Azeroth and changed the world forever.
New races have arisen, twisted and changed by the magic of these old relics, and many have sought to claim the true power of the relics for themselves.

Playable Races

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Zear are a semi-nomadic Orcish race. They are notable in that almost all of their "buildings" are mobile wagons that perform their upgrades and carry around their resources. They can build an army of tough Orcish fighters or tech up to build mighty Sky Cannons to purge their enemies from the world.

Lore
Originally, the Zear was a small Orc sub-clan that had followed Gul'dan on his quest for power as he went to raise the Tomb of Sargeras from the depths. However, because they had crashed on an unknown island prior to Gul'dan's entering the Tomb, they were left severed from their former master when he met his undoing.
The power of the Titan relics that fell to planet twisted the Zear, causing them to become the orange-skinned spike-growing Orcs that make up the Zear Fallen.

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Enlightened Tide can be played by building a tough force of upgraded small units such as their basic Coastrunner mur'sophs and Snap Dragons, or can be used to build a mighty army of the greatest water-beasts imaginable. Their Pyramid of the Serpent and Shrine of Ancestry open up the ability to train such units as the Ancient Hydra, the Mur'soph Myrmidon, and the Sea Giant Royal Guard.

Lore
The magic of a Titan relic that fell near the Stranglethorn Vale region created the intelligent Mur'sophs out of Mur'guls that were affected by its power. With their new-found intellect, they created the Enlightened Tide civilization by unifying and controlling the beasts and creatures from the depths of Azeroth's oceans.

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Voidspawn are a race with fairly simple economy mechanics that allows the player to focus on building and micro-ing their military. They mine gold and harvest lumber with energy beams from their town center, the Shrine of the Aether. In addition, they build buildings by warping them in with the Shrine of the Aether. However, to make up for the advantage they gain from this, their food (after the first 45) is obtained by sacrificing their units at a Vortex of Sacrifice.

Lore
The Voidspawn were attracted to Azeroth around the time of the Titan relics' falling. Although none are as of yet certain exactly what drew their attention, some say that it was the power within the relics. The Voidspawn have warped in their essence-draining army of shadow beings, seeking to corrupt and devour the lands of Azeroth.

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Lost Tribe are a tribal group of shamanistic Draenei. They can train such units as the Disciples of Fire, who can Ascend to the Flames to become draconic fire spirits. The Tribe's Master's Lodge building also trains Assassins that can be upgraded to be invisible and Battlemasters that can enter a state of empowered Rage, making them nearly unmatched in combat.
The Crystal Spire is also quite a notable Lost Tribe building; it is a spell-casting semi-defensive building at the height of their tech-tree that can heal nearby allied units, summon Volcanoes in enemy cities, shoot lightning across vast distances, and more.

Lore
The Lost Tribe found their way to Azeroth in search of a homeland. As portions of the land are torn apart by the meteoric Titan relics and the growing conflicts for power, this becomes and increasingly challenging task. But the Tribe is strong, and will stand fast against the other races on their conquest for power.

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Freezing Legion is a race filled with specialist units. Even their basic bottom-tier Frostwolves can be upgraded to travel at a stealthy Windspeed and to Leap through the air upon their enemies.
Such units as the Freezing Revenant, which has attacks that encase enemies in ice, and the Dungorian Translocator that specializes in relocating the Legions' army, also add to the player's options for play.

Lore
When one of the Titan relics landed upon the imprisoned Ner'zul in the frozen north and filled Northrend with a large, destructive energy storm, the creatures of Northrend were forced to find a new homeland. As they expand outward on this search, they bring with them their Frost Spirits to summon snow to cover their newly claimed lands.

Gameplay Image

Techtree

Playstyle
The Final Alliance is a race that offers many different unit options. They have more buildings than any of the other races, and each group of units has its own set of weapon and armor upgrades. A player can begin the game with either Archers, Swordsmen and Militia, or Scouts depending upon whether they choose the Archery Guild, Barracks, or Stables as their first building.
As a Final Alliance player advances, they may feel that their units are in some cases slightly weaker than those of the other races, but their powerful economic advantages can be used to give them a hefty upper hand. Their Mining Camps are cheap to construct, and can upgrade their gold supply so that they mine at accelerate rates.

Lore
As chaos spread across the torn lands of Azeroth, a new Alliance formed to stand fast and survive in the world. Calling themselves the Final Alliance, these defenders gathered what was left of the Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes, and built a civilization all of their own.

Technicalities

How do I play Heaven's Fall???
Playing Heaven's Fall is designed to be as easy as possible. The mod can be downloaded in a simple .exe program file, installed, and run. It will attempt to locate your Warcraft III installation (if it cannot, try putting it in your Warcraft III folder), and will start the game in modded mode (This combines Justin Olbrantz (Quantam)'s MPQ Draft system with dumpling's MultiRace Template -- many thanks to them both!).
So, to play, just download and run the mod EXE program at this link:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...e-gameplay-mod-221137/index7.html#post2397186
If you wish to play the mod in windowed mode on your computer, you no longer need to download a separate version. Open the Heaven's Fall Launcher, and in "Options" select "Play in windowed mode."

Installer Program

About Installer: Images

Download link: here
The main page of the Heaven's Fall installer should look like the picture below.

When installing an update to Heaven's Fall, you should see an updater that looks like the picture below:

If the update occurs instantaneously or does not work, it is possible that a bug occurred. In such a case, contact Retera here on the forums for help.
The simplest fix is often to Run as Administrator for some versions of Windows.

Current Version
Heaven's Fall has been a running home-brew project over the past several years, which I (Retera) have at this point facilitated almost entirely by myself, with back story and gameplay concept support from Worldtree91. Other credits are available in the "Credits" menu while playing the mod, and can also be found in the Readme, which comes with the installation provided by the new installer.

What All Does the Mod Include?
Heaven's Fall modifies every melee map that you play to have the above listed six new races, and we plan to add two more races eventually for a total of eight.
You can play Heaven's Fall with friends on LAN, or play versus computer AIs in a single player game. However, be warned: the AIs are not the smartest in the world, and while they understand the tech-tree well enough to make units you may find that different races have differing levels of difficulty to fight because the AIs are unequal in how they "think" and "play".
Currently, Heaven's Fall does not have a custom campaign but one may be created at a later date.

Support and Updating
Thanks to inspiration and support from the hive, work on this mod continues.
That said, I've worked hard to create the techtrees and 3D art for the game, but some of the races have varying degrees of customization. For example, the Final Alliance was originally created in only three days, while the Voidspawn took somewhere in the neighborhood of three years to fully put together to where they are now. The Voidspawn have many more custom scripts, abilities, and systems, and the Final Alliance are mostly unit data modifications using normal Warcraft III models.
That is to say that if you find any tooltips, hotkeys, portraits, or other aspects of the game to lack polish, feel free to list what you have observed and make suggestions about how to fix them.

In addition, stat balance issues absolutely exist in the mod, and you may feel free to provide your thoughts, comments, or opinions regarding changes that you feel would make the mod better. Depending on the time of year and issues in the rest of life, updates may be slow -- but they'll come!

Download the new Internet-based Heaven's Fall Installer and Launcher:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...e-gameplay-mod-221137/index7.html#post2397186

Previous Versions

Download old (outdated) Heaven's Fall (Fullscreen version):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92572084/HeavensFall.exe
Download old (outdated) Heaven's Fall (Windowed version):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92572084/HeavensFallWindowed.exe

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

I dont know why anyone hasnt posted here yet.
All I can say is that THIS. MOD. LEAKS. AWESOMENESS.
I can see much hardwork placed here.

 

[Codric]

It looks good so far.
But the Idea of messing up the warcraft lore it just doesn't seem right to me (well that is my opinion) but i can see alot of work going in to this.

 

[TaShadan]

didnt try it yet but looks good. Problem with the hive is that most of the people dont care about melee or altered melee. They prefer RPG or other fun maps.

 

[Retera]

The way the races came together it felt like they would work best with lore that was derived from the original wc3 lore. Part of that may be because a lot of the art is wc3-art-derived rather than being created from scratch.

Would you suppose that letting the Final Alliance have economy upgrades (i.e. gold mine rate) makes them overpowered? If anybody plays some of the mod and has any feelings on stuff like that, let me know.

 

[Da Fist]

Well. Boy, that escalated quickly. You are a one of a kind map maker. +REEEEP. Also which Warcraft timeline is this? After First War? Second? Lich King's Merge w/ Arthas? Fall of Arthas? Fall of Azeroth? Or just purely fan made?

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

I believe its fan made.

 

[Retera]

The general idea for Heaven's Fall's storyline is that it takes place at about the same time in Warcraft history as Warcraft III's original campaign, but in an alternate universe where many of the events of Warcraft III never occurred.
For example, because Ner'zul was destroyed by one of the falling Titan-made artifacts shortly after arriving in Northrend, he never had the time to kill all of the Nerubians, nor time to form the Scourge, etc.

Edit: I finally got around to testing this experimental new version of Heaven's Fall, and found the Freezing Legion in particular to have many exceedingly broken elements -- I had reorganized the MPQ completely and missed changing a small handful of filepaths.
In testing a few other errors were discovered such as a disconnect glitch when town centers were being built -- I have fixed many of these issues and will provide an updated version in the future.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Holy cow... Normally I don't like crazy races, but this makes sense (nothing from the real game, so it's almost like a whole new world! to explore.

Are those resources available for download as well? You could really make bank (lol) uploading them here and at Wc3C. I mean, wow. Did you make all that stuff?

 

[PROXY]

I really like this one. Took the time to read through everything and must say, there shurely stands tons of work behind :O Respect for you Sir, you've done things I've always wanted to Keep it going!

 

[takakenji]

did you make all the models?

 

[Retera]

It's great to hear positive feedback from you guys! As for models, I made all except a select few:
The LegionGrandmaster in Demon Form's wings were not made by me (borrowed from Cookie's Wraith), and the hero glow attachment art model used for hero units with non-hero models came from the old WEU version of the editor.

There are also three made by Worldtree91:
LegionGrandmaster
HarvestersMill (Lost Tribe)
CrystalSpire (Lost Tribe)

Also, the loading screen arts are just edits from images found on Google image searches -- see "Credits" menu in-game in the mod for a list of the web URLs that the images came from.

I haven't ever gotten in enough play-testing for this mod, and my most recent test a few weeks ago showed me that despite the great model work I've put into it there's still a lot that could be improved with the actual gameplay. As of making this post I've updated the .exe filed linked on this thread with various changes and fixes (Freezing Legion Blue Moon no longer screws up screen!), but there are still several broken custom auras and the such that were lost in the translation to version 1.26.

If you're interested in getting your hands on any of the mod's custom art/resources, here's a link to the entire mod archive as an MPQ instead of an EXE:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/92572084/hfmod.mpq
Feel free to use whatever you want from it, but please do give credit to me or the appropriate authors (noted above in this post or in the Heaven's Fall credits menu).

 

[Kyrbi0]

Excellent! Many thanks, Retera.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Is this still being worked on? There are some bugs that detract from the game (which is otherwise awesome).

 

[Retera]

Absolutely; but I have been working on it alone and have been a bit busy.

Most recently, the worst bugs that I've been aware of were:
• All Custom Passive Spells (Auras, etc) broke with the changeover to 1.26
• Players who are Void can lose via script error before all of their buildings are gone (I modded scripts so that Children of the Nether wouldn't count)
• When a player loses their Town Center, has a reveal timer, then builds another, all players are disconnected from the game.

I have some of these issues fixed in a development version on my computer here, and you make a good point that I should upload them soon.

Edit: I've also been planning to incorporate this brilliant system: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/warcraft-editing-tools-277/mulit-race-template-217700/
Which will mean that you can select your race before the map begins, and that there will be a custom UI for each of the six races.

I started on a Zear UI, which is missing one of the UI buttons and needs some work, but it's a start.

Image

In-Game Image

 

[cleavinghammer]

Okay, that removes one (the Warlord's bounce attack aura).

* The Hydra's Acid has the same hotkey as the Attack command.
* The Tentacle Prison doesn't trap units inside, you should change the description.
* Zear dragons don't start out with mana (they get it with the upgrade, but it looks weird to have the ability but no mana).
* You can't build more than one Skycannon at a time per training camp, as the icon is replaced with the "cancel" button.

 

[Retera]

Thank you for your input!

-I had heard another report from a friend about that Acid Splash hotkey and not gotten around to fixing it. I've just changed that in my data-map, and it should make its way into the next version of the mod.

-I just ran a test of Tentacle Prison. It's working about how it did before the code migration to 1.26, so I guess that one's just a tooltip error; it can trap larger units and heroes, but it depends upon the size of the unit as to whether it can fit through the tentacles. Currently, I'm changing the tooltip as follows:

Old Tooltip

N of the Maw of Oblivion's tentacles burst out of the ground in a ring around a target unit, imprisoning it until the tentacles are killed.

New Tooltip

N of the Maw of Oblivion's tentacles burst out of the ground in a ring around a target unit, attempting to imprison it and attacking nearby units until the tentacles are killed. Smaller units may be able to escape between tentacles.

-The Zear Dragon's Roar was designed to be that way, but I realize that it gives the appearance of being a data mistake. To fix it, I have added "Zear Mana" to the Requirements list of the Zear Dragon's Roar, and modified the upgrade's tooltip accordingly:

New Tooltip

Imbues all Zear units with magical power, giving them all mana and increasing mana capacity and regeneration rate for those that already had mana.|nThis upgrade will also enable Zear Dragons to use the Roar ability.

Subsequent Level Tooltips

Further increases the mana capacity and regeneration rate of Fortifiers, Zealots, Blade Throwers, Forgotten Ones, Ogre Maulers, Ogre Slingers, Blood Magi, Energizers, Spell Shifters, Zear Dragons, Chaos Demons, and Sky Cannons.

New Zear Dragon Unit Tooltip

Ranged flying unit that can be upgraded with Zear Mana to use the Roar ability. |n|n|cffffcc00Attacks land units.|r

-The Zear were originally designed by my cousins back around 2003 (before any of us knew how to make 3D models) as tinted Chaos Orcs. When I asked them about the Sky Cannon/Cancel issue and how best they would see it fixed a couple of years ago, their response was that it was a deliberate decision to limit the production of Sky Cannons to only what a human could click, because Sky Cannons are so powerful.
However, I recognize now that in terms of game balance, requiring more micro is not an entirely good excuse for tremendous power. I haven't thought exactly how best to fix that issue at the moment, but here's one idea:
I had a suggestion from Worldtree91/Naresh to revisit the Zear Dragon and Chaos Demon units, to make them more interesting. Essentially, what was recommended was that Zear Dragons be purchased as an egg that heroes could carry, which would hatch after a short amount of time passed, or something like that (use charges on an non-consumable item for a countdown, perhaps). For Chaos Demons, he recommended that they become a larger, more powerful but more costly land unit (that could still attack air for Sky Cannon-protecting strategies). Then, when they were purchased, instead of training the cost would activate a ritual ability that would summon the Chaos Demon from the training camp to a target location, make some flashy spell effects and damage happen, then summoning the Chaos Demon and incurring a cooldown, or something like that.

If I were to make those changes that Naresh suggested, I could plop the Zear Dragon egg for sale at something like the Air Wagon, freeing up the Cancel Button space in the corner and fixing the sky cannon issue. That will probably happen when I have more time, though.

Thanks again for you comments!

 

[cleavinghammer]

Huh. I actually thought that was the reason for the Skycannon being limited.

Have some more:

* The Final Alliance has a problem: I can't find the final upgrade anywhere (I was trying to hire the neutral hero, but it said it needed a Castle Age).
* Using the Tiny Haven (as Voidspawn, I don't know about the others) gets you a Haven.
* The Invoke the shadows tooltip says one more creature is summoned than actually is (2 instead of 3 at level 1, etc.)
* The Demonling dog doesn't have an attack animation.
* A dummy ability on the Shadow Phoenix would be useful to know how much damage it's Phoenix Fire does.
* Two of the Aether Flameweaver's abilities refer to it as "Champion of Death".
* The Armistice countdown stays onscreen after it's done.

Also, is there a way to use the World Editor on this?

 

[Retera]

I just put this together from the most recent version of the mod files that were compiled on my computer, which I think means it might have some development scripts in it, but it'll let you look around the Heaven's Fall Editor. Note that this thing can break and will override standard mod units with customs due to overlapping data codes... but it should work for the most part:
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/1r9mip44o1uh8is/HeavensFallEditor.exe?dl=1

First look at issues:
*The "Castle Age" is tier 2, I've seen that problem before and have checked and double checked the dependencies list. I just ran a test, and am now convinced that Blizzard specifically programmed the Dependencies for town halls only to count the first 5 options (in case they made naga a full race or something) as everything beyond the fifth on the list appears to be ignored (I may be able to script the crap out of the game to fix this -- i.e. invisible building spawned for all races that is the only entry on the list)
*The Tiny Haven is bugged, and could also have given you Risen or High Elf bases (unfinished races partially left from the 2003 mod). Because it was taken off of the list on the Stash building, the ability to obtain it was overlooked. For now and for lack of a better option and due to the four-race-limitation of the wc3 system, I'm going to make it always make Havens. This also could probably be fixed via scripting
*Invoke the Shadows tooltip has been changing in my working data set
*I imported the Attack Slam from the Feral Spirit onto demonlings. They had an attack animation previously, but it was a small non-obvious waving of the head left from the dog model.

New Demonling Attack Anim Pics

*Added the suggested placeholder to the Shadow Phoenix.

Passive Tooltip

Shoots nearby enemies with shadow energy four times per second. Each strike deals 1 damage per hit.

*Fixed Æther Flameweaver tooltips.
*Fixed Armistice timer in working script file (this should make it into next compiled version)

 

[cleavinghammer]

So I tried the Blizzard campaign in the mod (half expecting it to crash), and to my surprise there were entirely different races for humans and undead (the Undead one has awesome buildings). Will they be playable?

 

[Retera]

I can't say for sure about the newer Humans (High Elves), but design of the Risen as a new undead is under way.

teaser image

(Edit: Nothing pictured in this model-work-in-progress image is certain to be in the final mod, but it was a picture I had on file from work I'd been doing that gives the general idea of some of the future units and heroes.)

Speaking of progress, I've also been working on implementing Dumpling's MultiRace Template DLL hack into the mod, so that you can pick your race outside the game instead of on the dialog. This also means you can fight computers of any race (although I have not, as of yet, programmed in a Voidspawn AI, nor can I think of any simple way to do so)

Picture of Dumpling's DLL Hack in Action

 

[cleavinghammer]

Sounds awesome.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Looks dead sexy. How did you get that output?

 

[Retera]

What are you thinking of when you say output?

As is usual for Heaven's Fall, the working models for Risen heroes/units were all made by me, using the latest version of the MatrixEater modeling software I've been working on (and notepad++/oinkerwinkle tools/etc).

The DLL hack for the main menu made by Dumpling is simple; the game allows for 1% to 100% handicap (with the proper 98 or so options in between) and then your handicap setting determines which of several extra MPQs the game loads. So, you put races listed in place of handicap, and handicap values listed in place of races, and then you script it with JASS to determine your race based on your handicap value when the game starts then reset your handicap back to the proper value (which is now based on your race setting, which visually looks like handicap but only has the original 5 options -- originally as races, we called them the 4 + random).

The extra MPQs, then, are just for eye candy like loading screens, UI borders, and "not enough gold!" type error messages. Thus, every of the six races can have its own loading screen, UI border, and error messages, and the computers can be easily set to play any race that you choose and JASS can pick between the proper six AIs.

Right now I have the UI border and loading screen for the Zear done in this new system and working properly, and a working temporary UI border (in case I don't get around to making a better one -- it's mostly a blue undead border with some blue NE leaves) and loading screen for Freezing Legion in this system. All of the races pick properly (except unfinished Risen) and are playable, and you can now play a Random race as well.

Random, however, is the one thing that dumpling didn't see a way to fix -- your Random race is defined in-game, and your UI information MPQ is loaded before the game starts, so the Random race works properly but does not use the correct UI border or error messages (like "Not enough gold" soundset).

Edit: Since that's a mouthful of text right there, here's a graphical representation of what is working right now:

Image

 

[Kyrbi0]

Wow. That's way more complicated than my "handicap" method for race addition. I just have one custom MPQ for all the custom stuff... Man, are you an artist as well as a modeller? Who made those splash screens?

 

[Retera]

Well, the proper splash screen credits are in the F9 menu of the current version I think, and I haven't made any more since.
Essentially, since I made the 3d model of a Zear by taking a pre-existing orc model and adding spikes coming out of it, I made the Zear splash screen by taking a pre-existing orc picture (from google) and adding spikes to it and making it orange.

So I modded the pictures out of other peoples' pictures for Warcraft characters (and the Void God picture is from WoW).

So, no, I'm not really an artist, although perhaps at some point it might be better if I got images from somewhere more professional, or made them myself, or something.

Edit:
Source Examples (NOT by me!):

Freezing Legion Source

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/051/1/d/Kel__Thuzad_by_thuzadin.jpg

Zear Fallen Source

http://us.media.blizzard.com/wow/media/artwork/warcraft3/grom-hellscream-full.jpg

 

[tomlakerveld]

help!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it will not WORK i can run it but i can't start the maps and i can also can't choose my race!!! i placed it in the warcraft 3 folder but i will not work!!

 

[Retera]

Is it a problem that looks like this?
(Deliberately downgraded my WC3 installation then ran the mod to make this pic)

Image

I'm guessing that your problem is probably due to a script error conflict between the mod and your installation of warcraft.
The most probably cause is that your Warcraft III game is simply the wrong version. You can easily update on Battle.net. In order for the mod files to merge with your game, you need to be running version 1.26.0.6401. When you first open the Frozen Throne, your current game version number will display in the lower right hand corner of the screen. If it is anything lower than 1.26.0.6401 (i.e. 1.24.0.xxxx) then all you need is an update to Warcraft itself for the mod to work, which you can get online or by logging into Battle.net.

But, if you are running 1.26.0.6401 and it still doesn't work, then I probably just broke something in the mod for certain platforms. In that case, let me know and I'll be happy to look into it when I have the time.

 

[tomlakerveld]

Thanks!!!

it now works THX!!! its great it get a 9 out of 10!!!

 

[Spellbound]

This mod is AMAZING alone from the sheer amount of work that went into it (and still is, apparently). I've always wanted to make something like this (with it's own executable, not just an altered melee map) but I honestly haven't the faintest idea how you do something like this. Does it take substantial programming know-how? Is it a painstaking workaround to created a modified MPQ or something? Is there a tool that allows you to do this?

I'd love to pick your brains on that matter if you don't mind. I've been making an altered melee on my own for over a year now and I'm close to completion, but who knows, if it's not too much trouble I might convert it (or part of it) into it's own .exe

But this aside, I'm really digging the new races. Only tried Lost Tribe and Voidspawn so far, and I must commend your creativity on the Voidspawns, even thought it does feel a bit confusing at first the way Food and unit-production is handled, I'd say you have something real solid going on there. Maybe needs some fine-tuning (and that jarring lumber-beam @_@ ), but great, great job on the content.

All in all, amazing work.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This mod is AMAZING alone from the sheer amount of work that went into it (and still is, apparently). I've always wanted to make something like this (with it's own executable, not just an altered melee map) but I honestly haven't the faintest idea how you do something like this. Does it take substantial programming know-how? Is it a painstaking workaround to created a modified MPQ or something? Is there a tool that allows you to do this?

I'd love to pick your brains on that matter if you don't mind. I've been making an altered melee on my own for over a year now and I'm close to completion, but who knows, if it's not too much trouble I might convert it (or part of it) into it's own .exe

As a fellow "faction-creating/race adding/total conversioning" modder, I will just throw out my 2 cents here and say yes, you want to learn & use custom (SE)MPQs. It has been a godsend for my modding & is really not hard at all.

I was introduced to it via an ancient total conversion that was heavily researched & archived by yours truly ( /tootingownhorn), wherein they avoided all the issues of coordinating the many custom resources they had by simply making one big custom "MPQ" that replaced the never-used "war3mpq.local" with all their stuff. Then, the maps they made just had to reference these locations, and voila! Instant, easy success.

It lets you put things where you need them (your own file-organization system), makes your whole "mod package" that much more streamlined and efficient (just replace the mpq with your own, and all your maps are good to do; can even be left in if you do it right; won't mess with the in-game stuff!), and so on.

However, it's been quite a long time, so I have no idea how I did it for my projects (see my signature). >.> I just know it works, and works well.

 

[Spellbound]

Hmm, I'll do some research on SEMPQs then. I've heard the term before but I'm not quite sure what it means lol /noob

 

[Chaosy]

this will be a awesome map I belive if you would need triggers feel free to PM me.
reped +2

 

[Retera]

I used MPQDraft for making the EXE for Heaven's Fall -- and it really didn't take any programming know-how.

The most complicated programming task for Heaven's Fall was overcoming the fact that Vexorian's caster system uses vJASS, which works very well in custom maps but was not designed to exist in mods.

If you want to convert your map into a mod, here are the steps I would suggest taking:

1.) Object Data: Go into the Object Editor and export all of your unit data, ability data, item data, buff data, etc. separately and name them all war3map.<whatever extension that type of data normally uses>. When you export unit data, the exported copy saves text-based information without using a .wts string file, which is the long way of saying that all of your names and tooltips will show up in that data regardless of where you move it to.

2.) Triggers/JASS: Go into your triggers and use the editor to use the "Convert to Custom Text" feature on them all in a backup clone of the map. Then, use an MPQ editing tool like WinMPQ or Ladik's MPQ Editor to extract the "Scripts\Blizzard.j" file from the version of War3Patch.mpq from the version of warcraft that you want to mod. Copy all of the code of all of your triggers into this, and in the "globals" section add "trigger" and the codename of each of your triggers, as was generated by the editor (i.e. "gg_trg_Untitled_Trigger_001"). Also, go into the function specifically named "InitBlizzard" and add calls to the "InitTrig_Untitled_Trigger_001" type initialization functions from your triggers. I'm jumping through this a bit fast, hopefully it makes sense if you have a good understanding off JASS -- the main idea is that all of your triggers end up inside the game engine's Blizzard.j file instead of in your map code.

3.) Art/Icons/Models: Copy all of the art assets from your map into a folder with the object data and scripts. Essentially, all of this data that you're building up somewhere on your computer will be much easier to deal with if it's organized with the object data directly inside a folder, and Blizzard.j right inside a folder named "Scripts," as it was in the MPQ that you extracted it from. All of the models, icons, and textures in the folder should be in sub-folders representing the path that they existed at in your original maps important manager. For example, if you had "war3mapImported\dummy.mdx" in your map, you should make a folder inside your overall mod folder called "war3mapImported" and put "dummy.mdx" in that folder specifically.
Here is a picture of the folder that I used for this process in creating Heaven's Fall:

Image

4.) Build Mod: Use an MPQ program like WinMPQ or Ladik's MPQ Editor to compress this giant folder of models, scripts, and object data into an MPQ. It's really about as easy as making a ZIP file with something like 7zip, except that it's an MPQ instead.
Then, last and finally, use MPQDraft on that MPQ and when it asks what program to build the EXE for, tell it to use Frozen Throne. MPQDraft automatically makes the EXE (like that one for my mod with the gear icon) that will inject all of these archived files into the game.

There are a million little details and tips that I could say about this process -- things that could go wrong, like the fact that Melee data and Custom Map data differ, and one uses relative upgrade costs, and in your map editing you might have edited Custom map data and the game will expect Melee data when you're done with this, but... in a nutshell, that is a four-step process describing how I made Heaven's Fall, and I'll bet you could do it too for making your map a mod -- and anyone could do it, for any map!

Let me know if you have any questions about any of that stuff.

Edit:
Found this on google, it looks like the same MPQDraft program I was using (works only on Windows, though, probably...):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpqdraft/

WinMPQ, although I had to do some fishy stuff with command prompt that I didn't understand to make this one work after I went from Win XP to Win 7:
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/tools-560/winmpq-v1-64-a-62969/

This is where I got Ladik's MPQ Editor:
http://www.zezula.net/en/mpq/download.html

 

[Spellbound]

Oh wow, that is quite thorough! Thanks for the quick reply, I'll be sure to give the process a try once my map is out of beta

Zear Fallen
I checked out all the races of your mod and so far my favourite has to be the Zear Fallen with ALL the wagons. I love how you integrated their nomadic nature into gameplay, that was really neat. The flying attack barge thing is overpowered though. You should increase its cost or make it less destructive. I'd shoot for a higher cost imho.

Final Alliance
The Final Alliance was quite fun as well, but that damn Castle, so much grievance @_@. I love turtling in RTS, and when I saw you could build a giant defense structure I was kinda over the Moon... except when the Frozen Legion decided to attack and took out TWO fully-manned Castles and a small army around it in a few seconds. It might just be me being a terrible RTS gamer, but either Castle are underpowered for their cost (500 gold and 300 wood are not easy to come by .__. ) or there's something about the Frozen Legion that makes them OP. I find my heroes die way to fast when I'm fighting these guys.

Voidspawns
The massive structures of the Voidspawns is kinda jarring, and maybe you could scale them down a little. The shadowy larva things being all over the place was initially confusing but I feel this can easily be overcome by playing the faction a few times.

Lost Tribe
Don't really have anything to add to these guys, they're pretty much A-ok if you ask me.

Frozen Legion
Do these guys not have a defense tower? The spiders are kinda fun but don't feel like they do much tbh - no that a turret is necessary, just curious in case I missed it. I love the particle effects on the wisps and the aura obelisks, must say that's cool. Oh and, knockback on the Orbs of the Frozen Legion, you really should lower the distance (and probably add a ministun to it too) because everytime I tried killing something with my heroes attacking they would just shove it away and give it plenty of opportunities to escape.

Enlightened Tide
Royal units feel kinda OP, but then again I wasn't playing against human players so it may just be the computer sucking. This faction feels pretty solid, nothing else to add to it.

All in all, amazing job!

 

[Retera]

The Castles used to be godly defensive structures, and I took on multiple human players and freezing legion ai players that were on those human player's team with only one or two castles and crushed all of them. So, it may be that they have been over-nerfed, I'll see if I can look into that at some point.

Somehow I feel like my experience playing my own mod makes me think that your comments are incredibly accurate, though, and I'll look in to all of them as I have time. Worldtree91 has complained on numerous occasions about the Orb of the Freezing Legion, for example.

Zear Sky Cannons do seem overpowered, and Voidspawn buildings are smaller than they used to be and still need some more shrinking (at one time their buildings were all upgraded to from other buildings, and there was only a small rift base and a very large town-center sized one, but that system was replaced when I wrote the town-center-as-builder scripts).

All around, I thank you for your comments, and although I've been quite busy with other things recently as I have time to work on the mod I will take time to consider them.

 

[Spellbound]

I always wondered how you off pulled the Voidspawn building thing. I actually managed something of the like in a map, but it felt a bit clunky. Did you use JASS? (I imagine you did). I'm an eternal GUI guy because I can't understand pure programming to save my life (that, and learning it just doesn't grab my attention).

 

[Retera]

Jass is limited because you cannot escape the Warcraft base system (Edit: Maybe you can, but I've not done it.), so I worked with what I had. Essentially, there are three spells for every building, and four if it requires things.
1: Charge Gold and Lumber spell (An ability that shows gold/lumber cost on tooltip, and does nothing)
2: True Sight with 0 Radius and No Targets (Shows icon, then I just give it the disabled icon to represent that there's a building that requires stuff) (Actually, this ability might have been a Channel dummy ability that just required the right stuff, but needless to say it was a do-nothing ability)
3: Spellbook for the spell that's empty except for
4: A Build Tiny-type ability with the particular void building

Then, essentially, the build is a Spellbook of the Charge Gold and Lumber abilities that updates on a trigger that counts whether you've built the right buildings. You will find that if you use "whoisjohngalt," the cheat to remove ability requirements, the system will bug and buildings that require things you have not yet made will stop claiming to require them, but still be unbuildable.

But, when you click one of the Charge Gold and Lumber type abilities, there's essentially just a trigger that refunds the gold and lumber that it immediately charges you. This, formerly, could be used to siphon indefinite amounts of gold from a currently playing player to a player that had quit and shared unit control, because it charged the player that was in the game and refunded to the player who owned the void units. But, we got that one fixed (my friend was mad about losing his 5000 gold before he figured out how it all worked).

After refunding that gold and lumber, it uses the "Force Player UI Key" action to make you as a player push like ESC out to the main menu outside build, then some letter like "M" that is the hotkey for the second spellbook that is added then and there to the town center. As soon as you have opened that spellbook, another hotkey like "M" is pushed and then the second spellbook is disabled or removed off of the town center's command card (probably with the Enable/Disable ability for player, as I recall).
Thus, your eye goes from seeing a little icon with gold/lumber costs to an empty command card with a cancel button from the build tiny ability. If you click cancel, the spellbook containing that build-tiny ability no longer exists, so you return to the main UI panel of the building.

Gold and Lumber are taken from the player when the building starts actually building on the map, so even if the system ever were to bug resources are charged appropriately. I think that if you don't have enough it destroys the building or something.

The one downside is that if you click a building to build, then click on the "Menu (F10)," you cancel out of the build tiny and into the deleted-spellbook somehow. I didn't really have a fix for that, so I figured you can just either cancel or re-click the build ability for the building if that happens -- it'll be confusing but poses no threat to game functionality in terms of costs and building what you want to build. But, if you want to see it, you can try to build something and then open the menu.

I struggled with this system and sought help on the Hive a couple of years ago, but ended up just inventing it largely by myself through trial and error of what worked and what didn't work.

 

[Spellbound]

Oh wow I wasn't expecting that lol. But with this method, you technically should be able to get a secondary build queue, like in Starcraft where they have basic and the advanced buildings :O

The possibilities O__O

My builders have to actually switch via trigger (replace unit) to another version just because I dont have enough room for all the buildings T__T

I separated the buildings into factories and like defense infrastructure like towers and walls. It's not the best but it gets the job done, and I don't think i'm gonna mess with that lol. (Who knows though, if I do another altered melee...)

 

[TaShadan]

are people playing this mod online?

 

[Retera]

I guess I don't know if it's being played online much. Certainly if it is, I'd be happy to join anyone doing so
But I have been fairly busy with real life :/

@Spellbound
Thinking of build systems... did you ever see that old unfinished Project Revolution mod? They tried to build SC 1 in 3d in the warcraft engine before SC2 was announced (at which point they stopped working) but they had normal/advanced buildings going via JASS -- it can be done. As I recall from my observations, they had two dummy abilities on the worker, and each of them would enable/disable the correct set of buildings for construction from the list, and then make the player push the build UI key. Then, they just made the build icon solid black/clear/invisible and put it off to the side where nobody would find it.

 

[TaShadan]

Which program did you use to create the install.exe?

 

[Retera]

The EXE I made was done by using MPQDraft, but I wouldn't really call it an installer. Is that the one you were thinking of?

Basically, it just temporarily injects an MPQ into warcraft on top of war3patch.mpq while the game is running. MPQDraft can do that for any of the old blizzard games -- it just produces an EXE that had the MPQ embedded inside, from an MPQ and a target blizzard game.

I think you can download it here (http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpqdraft/), but if that version doesn't work for you or you have any trouble I could just give you the old version sitting around on my computer that I used for the mod.

 

[TaShadan]

1.) Object Data: Go into the Object Editor and export all of your unit data, ability data, item data, buff data, etc. separately and name them all war3map.<whatever extension that type of data normally uses>. When you export unit data, the exported copy saves text-based information without using a .wts string file, which is the long way of saying that all of your names and tooltips will show up in that data regardless of where you move it to.

2.) Triggers/JASS: Go into your triggers and use the editor to use the "Convert to Custom Text" feature on them all in a backup clone of the map. Then, use an MPQ editing tool like WinMPQ or Ladik's MPQ Editor to extract the "Scripts\Blizzard.j" file from the version of War3Patch.mpq from the version of warcraft that you want to mod. Copy all of the code of all of your triggers into this, and in the "globals" section add "trigger" and the codename of each of your triggers, as was generated by the editor (i.e. "gg_trg_Untitled_Trigger_001"). Also, go into the function specifically named "InitBlizzard" and add calls to the "InitTrig_Untitled_Trigger_001" type initialization functions from your triggers. I'm jumping through this a bit fast, hopefully it makes sense if you have a good understanding off JASS -- the main idea is that all of your triggers end up inside the game engine's Blizzard.j file instead of in your map code.

Uh nice this might be interesting for my mod aswell! Thx.

 

[TaShadan]

How did you import Gameplay Constants and Interface?

 

[Retera]

I'm glad to hear that was useful for you

For gameplay constants/interface, the simplest way to put them in a mod is to open your map in an MPQ editor and pull out "war3mapMisc.txt" and "war3mapSkin.txt" and put them into your mod MPQ. It will load them just like it would from a map -- those two files are Game Interface and Gameplay Constants.

At the same time, there were a couple of things that I modded in Heavens Fall by modding other files (although I probably wouldn't have had to) just because I was looking at the other files at the time. For example, the percentages displayed on damage/armor types were modified by changing the native location in the game MPQs for the armor/damage type descriptions at "UI\FrameDef\InfoPanelStrings.fdf".
But I'm definitely sure that Gameplay Interface and "war3mapSkin.txt" should let you do the same thing more efficiently.

 

[TaShadan]

Well i tried that and it worked in single player but when i tried multiplayer the opponent always discs at game start.

 

[Retera]

Hmm... I've been using war3mapMisc and war3mapSkin in my mod for a long time, and it's worked multiplayer several times for me. Are you sure they were the cause of your disconnect?

 

[TaShadan]

war3mapskin is working because iam still using it, but war3mapmisc is defenitly the cause. I removed it and added it to the maps itself and now it works. Maybe there is something else that causes the war3mapmisc problem, but i was not able to find another problem. Also iam not using mpq files, i use the Allowlocal method to mod.

 

[Retera]

Allowlocal is responsible for the disconnect; I've run into an issue like that myself once long ago. Essentially, because everything is loaded from the various sources of files in a certain order, the order is messing you up. Your computer requests the war3mapmisc file, and let's say (although I don't remember for sure) it loads data in the order

1.) war3.mpq
2.) war3x.mpq
3.) war3patch.mpq
4.) "Allowlocal" files
5.) The map in question .w3m or .w3x

Then, your computer checks the map you're playing (say its some normal default warcraft map, like Booty Bay) against the map that your friend's other computer (also with the "allowlocal" mod) is playing. By default, BooyBay has no war3mapMisc.txt file. Your game engine, after loading the map, already has loaded your "allowlocal" mod. The engine looks in its memory, and sees that it appears to have a war3mapMisc file, so your copy of the map appears "different"! Your computer sends your friend a new BootyBay.w3m map to his downloads folder so that you're playing the same map. It includes the war3mapMisc.txt file, because that's a map-type file. But, then it compares the two, to make sure it sent them correctly (you don't want any differences in map files at all while playing multiplayer). The system sees that your copy of BootyBay has NO war3mapMisc file when it compares files directly, and the friends copy DOES. This means something is wrong in Warcraft's engine, so it disconnects you so that you cannot have a multiplayer game connected by code but running two "different" maps.

I would be curious to see if there are any default melee maps (like BootyBay) that have popped up in the joining computer's "Downloads" folder. All of this was just an old theory of mine, a long while ago.

Now, as for why MPQDraft doesn't have this problem, let's look back to that load order -- MPQDraft's "mod" MPQ is loaded on top of ALL game data, even the map itself:

1.) war3.mpq
2.) war3x.mpq
3.) war3patch.mpq
4.) The map in question .w3m or .w3x
5.) MPQDraft mod

This means that when the map is loaded, in step four, it happens BEFORE the computer loads the war3mapMisc file, and so when it tries to see if your map and the friend's map differ, it doesn't get confused about the presence of war3mapMisc in the computer memory and DOESNT send a new copy of the map to the joining computer.

Now, this is all entirely a theory of mine based upon computers strictly logical way of being, and my experiences with what files have and haven't loaded in mods I've made. It could all be entirely bogus. But, does the computer that joined and got disconnected in your tests have extra copies of the melee maps you played in its downloads folder?

Edit: Were this theory correct, then adding it to the maps themselves would fix the problem because your map and the joining computer's map would be identical (not "different" in the words I used before) after the map was sent.

Edit: Speaking of the possibility that that theory is entirely bogus... I seem to recall putting Heaven's Fall into a copy of war3patch.mpq (with its war3mapMisc) and still not having any disconnect problem, which defies the above theory. What all settings are in your war3mapMisc file? Perhaps the disconnect is due to a particular setting?