[Hive's Battlefield] - A community Map

[Xarwin]

Or.. We use the simple lanes like said before but prepare such a system for later.
I think that this might be the best option for now.

We can test with the non-changing lanes. If everything goes well we can simply re-edit the map to change lanes.

 

[Pyritie]

this is my lane plan i think its the best


jpg artifacts are part of the design

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Looks brilliant, and I believe there's a few hidden nachos in that work of art if you look hard enough

 

[watermelon_1234]

Has the setting for the AoS been decided yet? (Will it be in some kind of forest/mountain/city/modern place?)
I think that should be decided first since that will influence the lanes.

 

[MortAr]

Has the setting for the AoS been decided yet? (Will it be in some kind of forest/mountain/city/modern place?)
I think that should be decided first since that will influence the lanes.

I was thinking of making bases somekind of old-style high-res cities, and, along the lanes there will be a mix of beatiful forests and some mountains with rivers and waterfalls .. (thats too gayish I know) ..

 

[Fussiler1]

Why a beautiful forest?
It's a war map,
Make a burned forest?

 

[Xarwin]

Well that hasn't been decided yet.
However I still think it would be more important getting the shape before the tileset.

We can always bend the tileset to the terrain but not the tileset to the terrain.
Anyway I was thinking to take the suggestion of Anachron's terrain idea and then adding a future preperation for WherewolfTherewolf's ideas.

However MortAr- came with the point terrains should be simple, and thought that my second posted image terrain (first post) would be the best to start off since updating is always possible.

Any comments on that?

Beside that guys, I would like to start thinking of the two teams we'd be creating.
Do we have something here around the hive which exists out of two forces? All I can think off is "Moderators & users/respected users. Suggestions!

 

[Fussiler1]

Hmm.. what about..

The Triggerers, Terrainers, Coders..

versus..

The Artists, the Icon Makers, the Modellers, the Skinners?

 

[Anachron]

Guess that would be a cool idea.

 

[M0rbid]

Hmm.. what about..

The Triggerers, Terrainers, Coders..

versus..

The Artists, the Icon Makers, the Modellers, the Skinners?

I see some problems in that solution, even if it doesn't sound tooo bad for me:

1. Some guys here are hard to put in those categorys, because they do both!
2. Somehow terraining belongs to arts more
3. This would be hard to balance in the game, if the heroes have spells that fit their activity here on the hive, like it was suggested before.

I think the question of the alliances or teams goes along with the question who the heroes should be, because it makes it more easy to find alliances if we have a clue who is supposed to be included in the map!

 

[Lore-Wolf]

I do agree with M0rbrid.
Its really hard to put every one in one like terrainer, skinner...
But what needs to be done first now then?
The lanes or the heros/teams/forces?

 

[Xarwin]

The terrain needs to be done in order to create the start points.
Once we have playable/test terrain we can start moving out.

MortAr- is going to start working on the terrain soon (added to the first topic) after a talk with me.
And indeed, we shouldn't rely on things like "he's a skinner, he's a terrainer, etc etc".
I think we should focus on making classes for heroes and rename them.
For example: A Terrainer could be renamed to Barbarian. This is a poor example of course, but think about it. We'll need to create a lot of classes though if we want to do it right.
Terrainer & Skinner combinated = ?. Icon creator & Modeler together = ?.
However, it doesn't need to be that way. We're open for more suggestions and comments.

Now, the two forces will be a hard thinking time. BUT it doesn't need to be 100% Hive like. We can always create something of our own, a special touch of the team.

For the creation of data: each member which needs to create something will be given a specific timeline.
This is necessary (Septimus told me) to finish the project.

 

[dead-man-walking]

Seems interesting to be followed. Subscribing.

 

[Traxamillion]

I'll help if you need me, I can do a bit of everything probably best at terraining and hero creating/balancing, I'd rather not model btw, i can do it but i really dont want to.

 

[Septimus]

Instead of the usual 3 lane aos, you could try to do 5 lane aos

Of course, you could make a command mode that allow 3 lane genre style play as well.

At this image, the blue line indicate a path that connected every area.

 

[Xarwin]

I'll help if you need me, I can do a bit of everything probably best at terraining and hero creating/balancing, I'd rather not model btw, i can do it but i really dont want to.

Welcome to the team Trax. !
Awesome to have a balancer and concept creator aboard!


@ Septimus:

Creating five lanes would kill the teamplay instantly.
Everyone is split up with no pardon.
Beside that, the map would become outstanding big for an AoS.

 

[Anachron]

I think 3 lanes is best.

 

[Midnighters]

Stick to three lanes... But put the bases in a random spot and then make lanes between.

 

[HailFireer]

Ok, since everyone is suggesting, so will I.

Things to know:
Red lane: Creep path
Blue and green circles: Towers
Blue and green square: Bases
Orange circle: Tower indestructible till other destructible towers of its lane are destroyed.

Since center has 3 and other have 4 towers, maybe central one should be little bit stronger.

Also if a tower of 1 line gets destroyed, maybe some creeps from it get diverted to other one, making tower killing a gamble.

Lover left is supposed to be on some mountain like suggested by Xarwin (I think) few posts ago.

Upper right has 2 lanes with only 1 side having a tower. I thought that maybe side that doesn't have the tower has more creeps coming that way. And when tower is killed some creeps are redirected to other lane, and only left same amount as opposing side which had the tower. That will then put pressure on team that lost the tower to kill other one faster, especially since that side will have more creeps coming now and having an advantage of a tower. Also path that creeps have to take will have to me same to balance it cuz there are towers missing.

I hope you understood anything. If not, I will explain again

NOTE: Paths can be zigzagged more and wobbled, this is just a really rough sketch.

 

[Xarwin]

Great to see you guys still thinking about it but we've put our heads together (me, anachron, MortAr, M0rbid & Midnighters) and we came to a conclusion for the terrain.
A fast example can be found at the main post + the estimating time of works has been added.

 

[Mr.Goblin]

Good luck with your project and I'm keeping an eye on this

 

[watermelon_1234]

Should there be some kind of idea discussion thread so that this thread could be reserved for those that want to join the project?

Also, I'm curious if the story for the map has been thought about, like what's the reason for a battle in the Hive Workshop?

The lane plan looks good so far. Do you think there will be some kind of way to make it easier for the player to move from the base directly to a lane? (Like teleporting)

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

About classes, I think the class name should be up to the person, though with some tweaking and approval.
-Like if someone wanted to say their a terrainer, well terrainer is a lame name right?
-Instead of terrainer, renamed it like Geo Master or Terraformer

so something for a skinner could be like:
-Chameleon (if anyone wants to do a Chameleon based hero for a skinner that would be a sweat concept).


Btw, ugh what job do you want me to do? I'm kinda ambiguous as to what my actual role is on the first page - I'm a good terrainer so I could do some of that (maybe me and morbid can take turns working on the terrain perfecting it as we go along or something - I see he's starting it, but we could keep passing it back and forth after the layout is finished for more of the eye candy things).
-I could also work with hero concepts and triggering spells

 

[Xarwin]

Well that's an idea.
But what about things like this:

Warrior class are fightning heroes, Rogue class is ranged, Magician class is intel heroes, and things like that.

So we can make a table out of it.

And hey WherewolfTherewolf your comments and idea suggestion mean a lot.
Your english is perfect. I'm pretty sure you can point us on mistakes in the map and perhaps on grammer mistakes too. And trigger skills uh? What can create?

Oh and I'm searching for someone with music/sound talent. I'll be doing stuff like that too but its better to have someone else on my side too.

Guys about the hero concepts: lets take this on a hold.
I'll post soon about it.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Sorry it's just that I really so far don't really have a job - I'm part of the team but I don't know what to do for a start as I can see the project is already under way. I was just making sure I'm not missing anything and not holding you up by not doing something.

-English: well I'm a native English speaker so yeah I can help with that
-Trigger Skills: Well it's not approved because its only MPI (and MPI is no longer accepted) but my Tracker Boomerang spell I uploaded is a good example of my triggering (I've just either been busy or too lazy to update it as the triggers will take a bit of reworking to use hash tables).
-Music: Sure I can help you with music - I have some music samples in the link on my signature of what I've done so far, but I don't feel those represent my style very well because:
1: Those were mostly made in boredom and thus didn't take too much time and consideration into composing them.
2: I don't really care how their used or if anyone takes the idea (well I do care but not as much as some of my other stuff) as I feel safe in putting them on THW - I have many other things I've written that I haven't uploaded.
3: My actual intentions in using my recording system are to create Hard Rock/Alt Metal music by recording live instruments - the VSI songs are more of my messing around with the Virtual Instrument capabilities of Pro Tools.

I can definitely help you create the Music/Sound scape in your map, and I assure you my serious work is much better.

 

[HailFireer]

As for sound, yesterday a guy in chat said that if anyone needs sounds done on guitar or voice, hes up to it. Complicated name, but I can track him down and see if he can do anything.
But I think we are going to need someone who can also do sounds on a generator. That way, almost anything can be achieved.

 

[dead-man-walking]

WherewolfTherewolf?

 

[Xarwin]

WherewolfTherewolf, so then I'll change your workfield to 'beta tester, music & grammar.

Those are important parts for the map too.
Also, you can follow the map its way in the first post.
I will always update this about what's going on and what someone is doing.
If something is needed I'll discuss it with those people (of the section that is needed) or I'll make a post about it.

 

[Viikuna]

Good lucks with project.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

As for sound, yesterday a guy in chat said that if anyone needs sounds done on guitar or voice, hes up to it. Complicated name, but I can track him down and see if he can do anything.
But I think we are going to need someone who can also do sounds on a generator. That way, almost anything can be achieved.

Well I'm not entirely sure of how good my voice is so I wouldn't say anything about vox - but I can do guitar.

For music I use Pro Tools 8 software which allows for clear input signals for mics and line instruments (things like Guitars, Bass). I don't have drums, but for that I use the VSI plugin's (Right now I have Boom and Xpand!2 plugins, boom's a bit techno sounding so I probably won't use that depending on the style, and Xpand!2's sounds are a bit dry to me. I can use the external drum program Hammerhead which has some pretty good heavier sounds, but the only thing is it only handles 4/4 timing and currently has no good Tom samples for it. Another option can be to piece together a drum line from real samples, but I'll get to that when the need is there).

But yeah I do use a generator, but someone willing to vox could be helpful

 

[Xarwin]

Well I'll create some voices and effects later.
But I don't think game music is really voice-aimed.
By the way, you plug in your guitar uh?
I have an electric guitar myself but I never tried to plug in it.
In which hole does it needs to be plugged?

Its great to know you're experienced with music stuff.

I'm awaiting for Ralle's respond on the Hosted Project request.
If he doesn't respond before monday I'll search other measures for us creating this Project in an easier way. Because we need to start with something more than only the terrain.

 

[Septimus]

You can start working on heroes apart from the terrain as well.

 

[Xarwin]

We can, but I'd like to speak with all hero concept creators first just as I did with the terrain creators.
It makes us understand each other and prevents us creating heroes twice or creating mistakes.

We could start with many things however I'd like to keep things organized and start step by step and not rushing things.

Also guys, I've added something new: a customized death system.

 

[HailFireer]

I can start concerting all the creeps that are gonna be there and the amount that will be sent in battle.

 

[Xarwin]

That's great.
You can, but remember the original idea.
Our creeps spawn, pick up a weapon and go to battle with it.
Beside that "reputation" will make them more effective and take up other weapons.

You could say creeps can have: a sword, axe, shield, bow, staff, rod, ..
Its up to you to think about it now!

 

[Viikuna]

Sounds cool, but it does take some animating.

Even if you use attachments for weapons, you still need different attack animations for each weapon.

Weapons should probably not be too similiar in terms of effects. Its good to keep things simple. ( Sword - melee physical, Bow - ranged physical, Wand - ranged magical, Shield - armor )

 

[HailFireer]

Ye, but I will just concept how the thing should work. We shall se how to make things look good latter

Also a question? Should I divide trained units in to 3 groups: Fighter, Ranger and Mage. Because if its all just one same unit with different abilities, then it could happen that one side gets all melee and other all mage, resulting in to too much unbalanced things.

 

[Xarwin]

Let's say that we'll make a safesystem for that.
And yes, split it in three classes. Beside that, reserve some spots for adding later some more.

 

[MortAr]

I was thinking of 3 melee + 2 ranged + 1 mage.
Ranged can be archers and rifflemans, both units will deal different damage and will have different attack speed as well.

1 mage can vary of 2 types: Cleric and Archmage. Archmages can cast negative spells on enemies and Clerics can has healing abilities, or both units just have somekind of supportive aura.

Melee's can be privates (normal footmans), captain (captain model from the human campaign) and generals (more advanced). All the 3 classes will have vary damage and different points of armor (probably 1, 2, 3).

 

[HailFireer]

Well, my idea of melees is really different. They are all similar, but are different with weapons. Plus they have a chance to have a shield as well.

Mages, my idea is that they have same armor but have auto-cast spell that is defined by the orb they are using. An Aura is a bit too much. Especially will be problematic to low level. We cant make creeps to strong.

And rangers, yeah different weapons as well.

I am trying to stick close to when Xarwin said on the first page. They will mostly deffer with weapons and abilities.


EDIT: Oppinion on this http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin.php?id=yrijul

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Well I'll create some voices and effects later.
But I don't think game music is really voice-aimed.
By the way, you plug in your guitar uh?
I have an electric guitar myself but I never tried to plug in it.
In which hole does it needs to be plugged?

Yeah I prefer to write instrumentals anyways.
-You use Pro Tools? Well what I have is the Mbox2 Mini which has 2 line unputs and an XLR one. If you look at the back of it you should see 4 inputs which look like normal guitar jacks, just plug the guitar directly into the one that says "Line/DI" on Input 1 (or input 2, if your just recording 1 instrument I would say stick to Input 1 for simplicity) and make sure the Mic/DI switch is pushed in. Plug in some headphones and as long as the machine is connected and the levels are set so you can hear it and the box will work as it's own amp - it's actually a useful practice amp if you don't want to piss someone off (as for the signal it creates a very clear sound, it really doesn't add any character to it (like if you were using a Tube amp or something) so what your hearing is the straight sound of the guitar).

 

[Xarwin]

Ah.
No I'm not using Pro Tools and none of that stuff.
I was just wondering. And I can't plug my guitar in my computer sadly enough.

Anyway, I updated the main post with terrain WIPS (done by MortAr-, check the log) + added a log about what's going on.
We will get to the hero concepts soon (I'll post about it later on today).

 

[MortAr]

Anyone who has any of suggestions on how to improve or change the terrain, feel free to post a comment here or give me a PM.

Will do some more improvements as well as adding some more detailed enviorement, effects and probably a fog.

By the way, I need a little help with the 'old burned city' which should be placed in the empty area in the bottm-right-corner of the map.

 

[watermelon_1234]

I think it's pretty good for a beta terrain (much better than I could terrain), but I dislike how the water ends suddenly in the top and bottom and lanes.

The base terrain doesn't seem to fit with the forest theme though I don't have any idea on how you can improve it.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

The tiles look way too perfect, too homogeneous. I'd suggest mixing in dirt and rough dirt where the paths are, I'd imagine after being marched on from the battle over time that grass wouldn't be so full.

Ah.
No I'm not using Pro Tools and none of that stuff.
I was just wondering. And I can't plug my guitar in my computer sadly enough.

Well I have a cable to plug directly into my computer, but I don't advice buying one. When you do that, your computers Sound card is put in charge of Audio to Digital conversion, and unless you have a top dollar card meant for recording, your going to get a less then satisfactory signal from it. External Audio Digital units work best from native recording.

 

[Anachron]

I like the terrain so far. Great work. Would like to put details to it when Mortar- is finished.

 

[HailFireer]

Looks good, but I think it needs more tile set variation, especially on the roads.
And, few more details wouldn't kill.

But its very good for a beta.

 

[redscores]

Well, if you need some stuff for the map... tell me , like systems and such.

 

[HailFireer]

Don't worry, soon you will have systems to make

 

[Anachron]

Maybe you should apply as coder or so. We already have a few coders and I doubt we will need more for now. (At least no non-vJass coders)