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[Hive's Battlefield] - A community Map

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A community map with member heroes

So, what exactly?
Hive’s Battlefield will be an AoS based map which features community members as heroes.
Each hero has his own special abilities and looks.
Customization is one of the main attributes to this map. The plan is making it more outstanding than just a regular AoS.

Featured Systems
Warcraft III can be edited more than regular users know. And we are going to take that advantage.
However, we will take note to create “easy” systems, making it understandable in game for the so named “newbies”. Systems which we’ll probably going to include are:
  • Hero Selection System
    - At the start of the game you’re allowed to pick one community member hero.
    “Choose your Destiny”.
    We are still searching for a system which we will use in our map.
  • Spawn System
    - Without the friendly forces the game would be boring, no? Our Spawn system exists out of creating different units for the battles. More information can be found at the creeps.
  • Move System
    - We need a good movement system for our ally creeps/forces. While they are issued to do an action they also should react when doing nothing and after casting a spell.
  • Upgrade System
    - A system which upgrades creeps over time. Important to keep the game balanced.
    We need to take care of different upgrades because we have different units.
    Perhaps heroes will gain updates too in order to replace the current attribute effect.
  • Customized Attribute System
    - We will completely separate the original attribute effect linked to the main hero stats (life, mana, regeneration, attack, attack speed, armor, and anything else I’d miss). Hero stats will be updated manually each time they gain a level. Using this technique allows us to add a new dimension to heroes and their abilities by making “Strength, Agility and Intelligence” seriously mean something. Each attribute could increase resistance, damage done by spells and eventually more. The effect with be based on the current number (a higher number adds more effect).
  • Kill System
    Everyone hates kill stealers. Well in our game no more.
    Anti Steal System engaged! The hero which damaged the source the most will most likely get the kill meanwhile allies who helped up gain assist kills.
    Beside this, we’ll include the lovely killing spree system like most of you know it.
  • Death System
    Its just dumb when a hero dies and disappears. To add a twist we’ll add a system which makes the hero fall upon battle right on the spot it got owned. In the meanwhile you’ll gain a spirit which can resurrect your hero by going near its body. You can compare it with the WoW death system.
    Wait time is also included: your spirit is slowed for each level a hero gains. Distance takes an important note too.
  • Multiboard System
    Almost each map has it! A multiboard! Important to track the current status in the game.
  • Item Recipe System
    We’ll be using an item recipe system in order to fuse different items together into greater ones. It makes the map more advanced, and grants a better quality when playing with items.
    After all, items mostly cause the win.
  • Weather Change System
    We will include a nice and swift system that automatically suits the weather like it should be. Variation is an important matter when gaming.
  • Custom AI
    Creeps, NPC’s and more will be controlled through Artificial intelligence. It is important that when you play everything is running perfectly.

Map & Terrain Information
Most AoS games have lanes. In these lanes allied “creeps” will spawn to continue and push to the enemy roads in order to conquer more and more, ending up eventually owning their total base.
I’d like keep the same method as it should be. However, to keep it more interesting we will add a twist in the middle lane to create some unique tactics out of them.
Below you can find a link to our current terrain look:

The terrain will be highly customized and a damned hot eye candy to play on.

Battle System – Attack & Missles & Missiles
The plan is to get a good customized system for battles. This means that each attack is moderated by the attack system. This way allows us to create things which have never been done in a map before. Using it in this way we can easily control damage, creating other systems out of it and eventually combinate it with advanced abilities.
Also, we’ll include a custom missle system which grants 100% control about missles fired.

Heroes
Heroes are the most important part of the game. They bring the extra weight upon enemies to win battles or to lose them against others.
It is important that each hero is highly customized.
Each hero in this game will have additional 3 spells, 1 ultimate and 1 attribute spell.
Beside the fact of having spells, a custom attribute system is also added to the hero which has been explained earlier. Also, we’re planning to add double casting events. This means that heroes who are near may cast together at the same time (or around) and then executing a move together.
For example: Hero 1 casts Holy light, Hero 2 casts Heal. Together this becomes Holy Heal and doubles the effect. Still under construction and in discussion though.

But hell, let’s talk about the next, the good stuff! Each hero is a community member. For now, we will just pick the community members which will be inside of the game (+ team members in this project).
The beautiful on this part is that members can start creating their own ideal self in games and add a storyline to it.

Items
Next on topic, items!
Items are awesome and mainly a great support to heroes in game. It is my intention to add a lot of different items to the game which have a LOT of features.
Beside that we’re planning to implant a custom item recipe system in order to combinate different items. It will surely increase the amount of choice in items and what’s even more important: more strategies to play with your hero!

Creeps/Spawns
Like all dumb AoS maps, we will have a spawning force of creeps.
However, like I said that’s just dumb. We will be adding an advanced way of creep creation in an unique way. For example a barrack first would train a weaponless unit. Once this unit is completed it will pick up a random weapon and aims for his battle.
So by all means creeps are always unique and will have balanced ways of pushing to the enemy base. A clash of weapons might be swords, axes, shields <-- warriors , staffs, rods, spheres <-- magicians, Bow, glaives, bomb <-- ranged, and so on.

Hero List (WIPS)
Heroes are coming up soon!

Layout
Custom layouts will be added by all means that the original warcraft 3 Graphical Interface inside the game will be changed to something unique. Custom icons, skins, models and more may be added as well.

Members
The project grew with a huge speed in members which is great.
Each member contributes with his own skills and awesomeness.
Member NameWork field
XarwinProject Leader
AnachronLead Scripter
MortAr-Lead Terrainer
MidnightersIdeas, Secondary triggering
RedscoresCoding
DondustinModels
The_Reborn_DevilCoding
General FrankModels
HailFireerBeta tester, Idea's, Doodad models
SeptimusBeta tester
watermelon_1234Coding
WherewolfTherewolfBeta tester, Music, Grammar, Idea's
M0rbidTerrain
supertoinkzIcons & Models
Lore-WolfBeta tester & Idea's
Trax. Terrain & Hero Creation/Balancing
Mr.GoblinIcons, Map Preview Image
krisserz Beta tester
ShiiKSkins & Graphics
Red ShiftGraphics, Loadingscreen Artwork

To join our project please make a post in this topic, talk to me in the chat or PM me.
Please mention your work field. I've added work fields of the people I know. If I'm wrong, please contact me.

Member NameWorking on...Estimated Finishing DateFurther ActionsStatus
MortAr- & Anachron (& Xarwin)Terrain02/04/2010Map pass to M0rbid (taking over) & Xarwin (checking, backup)Under Construction
DonDustinPing Model05/04/2010Model pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Finished
Mr.GoblinCommand IconsunknownData pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Under Construction
XarwinDeath System11/04/2010backupUnder Construction
AnachronMissle System07/04/2010Data pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Under Construction
AnachronSpawn System/Data pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Finished
AnachronMovement System/Data pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Finished
AnachronWindow SystemunknownData pass to Xarwin (data collect and backup)Under Constructions
Remember that members will get their deserved credits for all of their hard work and time spend on the map.

This is the second time I’ve updated the post big time.
Thanks for checking it out and hopefully you’ll be joining us either by following us or aiding us.

This post is updated time by time.

P.s. I apologize for my lack of English at certain spots.

-Xarwin
 

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Last edited:
Level 5
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As much as I like the idea of community themed maps, I've never seen a single well executed one (doesn't mean the same will happen to this one though).
Your post left me with some open questions:

What exactly do you mean by highly customizable? I don't really get this part as of now. Might be good to add further information (custom armor system for example tells me nothing about what your idea of customization is).

What is going to set this map apart from other AoS maps? You mentioned customizable systems and different Hive sections involved in the battle
(I by the way, would prefer having the forums fight each other instead of something like North vs South Hive, as there is no such thing. If you go for the forums idea, you could have the terraining section fight the modeling section and give the heroes belonging to them abilities fitting to the theme (quick example: A terrainer hero has an ability that turns the surrounding terrain into water, which drowns nearby enemy units, a modeler has a skill that allows him to cycle through different weapons aka attachments which give him different combat styles, the most basic difference being ranged and melee combat) but apart from that, there is no real information given - and this is the most crucial part. There are enough "standard" AoS maps out there, another one isn't really needed, so you need to make this unique.

I'll definitely follow the development of this, you got me interested - but right now I'm a bit doubtful about whether this map is going to make it or not. Nonetheless, I wish you best of luck with your project (and hope that it is going to be finished).
 
Level 19
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As much as I like the idea of community themed maps, I've never seen a single well executed one (doesn't mean the same will happen to this one though).
Your post left me with some open questions:

What exactly do you mean by highly customizable? I don't really get this part as of now. Might be good to add further information (custom armor system for example tells me nothing about what your idea of customization is).

What is going to set this map apart from other AoS maps? You mentioned customizable systems and different Hive sections involved in the battle
(I by the way, would prefer having the forums fight each other instead of something like North vs South Hive, as there is no such thing. If you go for the forums idea, you could have the terraining section fight the modeling section and give the heroes belonging to them abilities fitting to the theme (quick example: A terrainer hero has an ability that turns the surrounding terrain into water, which drowns nearby enemy units, a modeler has a skill that allows him to cycle through different weapons aka attachments which give him different combat styles, the most basic difference being ranged and melee combat) but apart from that, there is no real information given - and this is the most crucial part. There are enough "standard" AoS maps out there, another one isn't really needed, so you need to make this unique.

I'll definitely follow the development of this, you got me interested - but right now I'm a bit doubtful about whether this map is going to make it or not. Nonetheless, I wish you best of luck with your project (and hope that it is going to be finished).

Well, it really depends on the community how they will help me creating this.
Alone I won't be able to carry the burden through time to finish it.

However by highly customizable I mean for example a custom attack/armor system (for example, elemental TD).
Secondary I would like to add customization of attacks. Meaning missiles are custom attacks made by scripts/triggers and which can be manipulated in many ways.
Although the idea of giving "terraining", "modeling" abilities it will lack later on. We have a lot of terrainers, modelers and others out of here which can't have the same abilities. I would like to make them as unique as possible.
Thanks for the idea though.
Those names of Hive north, east, etc. would be examples, I know those don't sound right.

+ As I mentioned, I will update the post.
It was a quick, rushy post which requires a big update soon enough.

Thanks for your interests in it.

Maybe you could name different kinds of spawns as social groups, like the Lore Lovers, the Fall of Draenei, the Jury of Awesomeness, etc?

That would be a good idea however if I'd need to do so it would only be logical adding users of that group only. That's not possible, we'll seek on!

And of course, everyone is welcome to help as long they support this project.
Thanks!
 
Level 22
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Lol, just an idea. Since you're going to have members of the community as heroes maybe you could use some of the heroes from the Hero Contest going on, where the participants are basically making themselves :D
 
Level 19
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I can probably help as map tester.

Maybe this map could use some boost.. for example, if your opponent heroes kill are 20% more than your kill..the unit would have 5% increase in movement speed.

it would be awesome if i am included in this map as a mad scientist :p

by the way, can you change the formation lane?

Of course we'll include you too :p.
And I'll add you to the team (tester).

And yes I can, but I have no other idea's yet about it. Feel free to suggest some.

CAN U USE MAH SPELPAK?l

NO CAN DO SIR.
ASSEMBLE UR HERO, PUT UR HAT AT UR TAIL AND LAUNCH.
 
Level 31
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Well, here is a few thing that we need to include it

1) How long it would took to accomplish this work?
2) What kind of command would be included?
3) What kind of unique formation lane we could use instead of the soo bored DotA lane style?

I also suggest you to ask those user who you want to include into the map of what kind of ability they prefer their hero should have and how should their hero look like. Of course, you got to ensure the ability ain't too hyper strong either.
 
Level 19
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Well, here is a few thing that we need to include it

1) How long it would took to accomplish this work?
2) What kind of command would be included?
3) What kind of unique formation lane we could use instead of the soo bored DotA lane style?

I also suggest you to ask those user who you want to include into the map of what kind of ability they prefer their hero should have and how should their hero look like. Of course, you got to ensure the ability ain't too hyper strong either.

1) I have no time limit/date limit set yet.
2) what do you mean by command? Hero command, creep commands?
3) I'm still thinking of that too. Perhaps some elemental lanes or something. I'm not sure.

And we'll get to the hero submissions/creations later. Let's get the basics up first.

Hmmm.. How submitting own heroes works?

There is no information on this yet. As I said before, We'd better get the basics up first and then get heroes of others.
 
Level 14
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How about like...4 lanes : Water lane, Wind lane, Earth lane, and lightning lane. Each has something special about it?
 
Wow, this idea just keeps popping up, at least this time it seems like the team can most likely actually finish the concept (Still waiting on Darkhorse) -
Well I'd be willing to assist you any way possible, and I would also be more then willing to help beta test.

As for suggestions:
-To make the game interesting, you could make it not work on a level of who leveled who's base first, as that eminently makes only the end game important (example: Team in btanks is losing terribly to the other, all other players on the team except for 1 rage quit, the final player boosted by leaver gold annihilates the other team - this is hypothetical of course), but instead who did so most masterfully.
-To accomplish this, make the goal to be to accumulate the most points by the end of the match (destruction of a base).
-Points are gained through obvious, yet skillful execution of normal tasks - kill an enemy hero, get some points - kill them fast or use teamwork + synergy and get more points. In this way, it not only encourages teamwork instead of just going solo on a single lane.
-Destruction of the other base is the ultimate goal in any AoS, so of course this will yield large amounts of points to the victor team.
-In the way that this encourages good strategy, it should discourage bad strategy. Die a lot and your team should lose points, this way a noob will get support of his/her team instead of being left to die as all the noob does is feed gold to the other team - assisting a noob or letting a noob assist in a kill will also warren more points then normal. Always go it solo and your kills will give you less and less points.
-To discourage simply kicking noobs, a multiplier should be added for each player involved in a kill - will killing a good player with 1 person will get you some good points, having 2 players in the process may give you like 1.5 and so on - thus the larger your team, the higher your point potential.
-I've been focusing on kills here, but there's more to that. Things like destroying towers and creating epic items (assuming theirs recipes) should also give rewards.

If you want to connect this with THW, you could simply call the points "Rep" - to add more depth to the story, it could be like a war between the rep haters and rep supporters in an effort to determine the sites future
 
Level 19
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Sounds like a plan, great idea.

However, points to win will "bore" users more quickly.
I'd say this: Each base has a certain set of reputation.
Reputation will boost creeps and grants them a better "weapon" with abilities.
Reputation is gained only through playing together and perhaps killing enemy heroes.

For the level system I'm not sure. Its great to hear you'd think about that and new styles are always welcome. But we should also think of the noobs. If we make the map too advanced nobody will play it.
I'm open for suggestions replacing the level system.

I've also added both of you to the team.
 
Level 11
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So I can be ideas and Beta tester.
Also, I can make unanimated models, that is doodads and attachments.

I'm not so good at coding and terraining.
 
Level 19
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Great!
Thanks guys.
But hey, we're stuck on a discussion now.
Since it is an AoS we will have 2 forces. Like the image I've put in the first post lanes like that would be the most simple way.
However, I'm searching for something refreshing new.

Suggestion around that are the main topic now!
 
Level 11
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Ok, I had this idea for some time.

Basically both sides start at one place, like outnalnd and northrend (example follows the war3 universe. it can be changed for the map of course). They are theyr bases like in dota that higher ground.
Then there are portals that lead to other places, barens, lorderon summer, islands and so on. Each of them acts like one of thos lines in dota (up, center, down).
But they don't have to be just strait, they can go zigzag and stuff.

To gain entrance to the base of the enemy you need to destroy theyr tower or building that is just near the portal in thos other realms (berrens etc.).
Of course there are PC and neutral creep spawns, towers and other stuff that you can think off. Merchants too.
 
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@ HailFireer
Your ideas for portal isn't bad. However, each lane a different tileset is pretty hard I guess. Since the full map needs to fit all. Well, I'll keep your idea in mind.

@ Septimus
That middle Lane rocks, Septimus.
That one is definitively in! It adds a new twist to the AoS style and players need to team up indeed.

Now we still need some idea's for the sides. I was thinking to create a "giant" cliff/mountain on the left side so battles on there are on a top.
Idea's about that?
 
Level 11
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I think that's too twisted. Remember that the map is meant to be played by players of average IQ not just us on Hive >:D
 
Level 20
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To make it unique (lane-wise) have you though about an evolving map?

E.g. depending on how fast and which base is destroyed when.. things happen like a rockfall/landslide blocks off one lane but creates a ramp up to another, higher one.
Or perhaps a bridge is raised (elevators) across a river, that allows for side attacks on one of the main paths, the bridge could be on the side of the winning team.. or perhaps losing as a kind of 'counter-attack'/balancing event?

This would be really cool although perhaps quite hard to do/map size etc...

Like the idea in general though :)
 
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Well for a path, symmetry is a very common, very boring sight in an AoS.

Perhaps to change things up you could create a more modular setting, say that the map is semi set up like this: (Demonstration image, this is way too simple right now, big circles are bases)

73b4b26ab3f41fdbef85c4f47bdc8654_26270.jpg


At the beginning of the game, the player can choose a complexity rating and or some presets for the map, and the game will construct the paths so you might get something like:

0f809dbdd13355e71a999adbe5f5d0e9_26271.jpg



Though this is very simple right now, imagine many more nodes in it and the many, many patterns you could get through random creation. Of course to keep the confines of the lanes normal, the area's will have "zones" which won't cross (so all the lanes stay seperate). But with this, the map could evolve with the players, starting on very simple maps for noobs and becoming very complicated for advanced players. Since it's constantly changing everytime you play it, it wouldn't get old fast and make the players consider each round slightly differently.

Of course you can get more creative with this, you could make the lanes change up every so many (5 -10 maybe) minutes creating a more hectic situation.

Though the paths and walls change, things like creep spots shouldn't change and should stay in recognizable areas, so the players can examine the new routes and see where the good ambush spots would run through or where the best creeps are.
 
Level 19
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That's even a better idea.
However... Did you think about how to create it?

So we'd need to make a lot of spots which can be a possible 'checkpoint' for creeps.
other 'checkpoints' which are not in use are disabled.
Disabled checkpoints can have creeps or something else?
 
That's even a better idea.
However... Did you think about how to create it?

So we'd need to make a lot of spots which can be a possible 'checkpoint' for creeps.
other 'checkpoints' which are not in use are disabled.
Disabled checkpoints can have creeps or something else?
Something like that. I highly deny the idea.
I mean, it's not noob friendly and is kinda hard to do. It's not worth the efford (yet).

Well I would think this is more noob friendly as the system allows the players to tailor the actual map itself to their playing level.

As to creating, I was thinking a sort of "node system". Each node is placed at a certain distance away from the others in checkerboard fashion. Upon the start of the match, a direction to start for the path will be chosen randomly. Once it chooses a direction, it will clear the way/set the path for the node in that direction. At the next node the same action is repeated. To make it a fluent path, it will be separated into 3 sections based on how close they are to the bases. My thinking is that it will start from one base, and move its way to the other - close to the bottom base, it will have a tendency to move outwards, in the middle it will have tendency to move straight, and near the other base it will work to finish up the path at the other base.

Unoccupied nodes could simply be walled off for paths, or could be filled with creeps for use in creeping.





Edit: Of course there would be a few preset maps, like the basic shape for most AoS's - then when they finally get some skill and want something more interesting, they turn up the complexity for random maps.
 
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