[Role Playing Game] Imago's Everglade - RELEASE out now [11/01]

[Lockheart]

Everglade (by Imago_)
Download here

Map Info – welcome to everglade

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Greetings. It's been quite a while since the last activity. I'm excited to announce the current Project of Imago_. (For those who might be interested he's the one I support while he does the job. For further information check the signature.) I'll add some description, details, further screenshots and eye-candy-graphics step by step yet soon. It's still a lot to do but feel free to give constructive criticism and suggestions. #Plot: You start your journey in a little village called Everglade beneath the woods. As you have chosen your hero you'll get directed by your village commander to help those that are in need for it. Unfortunately you will learn soon enough that behind the surface of that sleepy village there's a lot of hidden pain and mortal suffering. An evil curse is spreading and it's in your hand if all or only some of these villagers will survive or fall to dust. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Features – the best one is the terrain

A beautiful designed Terrain Enjoy the atmosphere and area as every corner was designed with love. We set camera panning for different areas – each in its own angle, too. Customised Map Customised stats, models, skins, music, spells, sounds and much more. It contains everything that was needed to create an exciting RPG area with a tad of creepyness. Multiplayer Mode Grab a friend and get some snacks! This adventure RPG is for up to 2P. You can still manage it without backup by choosing a fitting difficulty. Difficulty Selection Choose if you want to play easy, normal or hard and with up to 10 lifes. The harder the difficulty the more creeps may lurk around unseen. Scripted Gameplay Events Beware of falling rocks, poison, storms, crushing thunder and much more environmental improvements to maximize your gameplay feeling. Scripted Spells Your heroes spells fit a certain set of skills so they work well combined. Each adventurer has its own kit – make sure to find out your favourite. Scripted Bossfights As the heroes each Boss has its own pattern of actions and appearance. You should rather fight wisely because else your journey may end deadly. Talents and Trees Choose your talent tree and improve as you want to. Each hero has 3 different trees to choose. Golddrop and Pick-up-System Treasures, corpses (you can loot them) and more may drop a pile of gold. Getting in range of a pile of gold is enough to auto pick up the money. Quests and Sidequests There are plenty of people in aid out there waiting for a helping hand. If you think you may have missed a quest check the Quest Log down here.

Heroes – to be written

Strength based Hero 'to be named' Lorem impsum dolor sit amet. Agility based Hero 'to be named' Lorem impsum dolor sit amet. Intelligence based Hero 'to be named' Lorem impsum dolor sit amet.

Screenshots – because a picture is worth a thousand words

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Recorded scenes– because a video is worth a thousand pictures

Quest Log – to be written

Quest log Main Quest: Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Accessable with Lvl.1 Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Accessable with Lvl.5 Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Accessable with Lvl.10 Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description Accessable with Lvl.15 Title: Description Title: Description Title: Description

Feel free to give us some feedback.
Meanwhile we would like to know about your opinion.[/COLOR]

Download here
11/01 - final release out now

 

[Imago_]

Alpha version is available here

 

[aeman]

for some reason, i cant play it

 

[Rufus]

I knew I knew it from somewhere!
I loved your "Forsaken Island", and this is looking epic so far aswell! Good luck!

 

[Chaosy]

Nicely presented and the terrain looks dope.

All we need now is a TLDR story.

 

[Lockheart]

Thanks for your opinions.

To be honest we recognized the current version contains some level up tomes that obviously should not be there. lol... this imago_.
You may use them if you can't progress on your own anymore. However, they will be removed in the next update that's comming out soon.

 

[San]

I played as a Defender, consumed about 7 or 8 tomes and only progressed until the Spider boss.
I'll share my thoughts here.

Not very unique story and quests, it's straightforward and easily understandable. The same applies to item.
Took references from some maps, not a bad thing but maybe too similar.
The way how enemy approach to us is interesting and nicely done. Except for some part where enemies like Murlocs is coming to you from the sky, that is kinda weird.
As you stated, very good and clean terrain without unnecessary confusion, the first village is kinda cozy and I like it.
Not a big fans of Rest, I miss potions.
Readable signposts, I love it.
Killing more wolves and Orc to become a ''champion'' in a bloody arena to proof and strengthen ourselves while the village is in trouble, is kinda off from the early part of the story.
So many icons from PrinceYaser.
Decorative corpses have health bar, why?
No idea how to open the chests, maybe we require keys like we do in Sunken City?
The enemies will never give up chasing me, that's a certain death if I'm in a bad condition and I have no potions. NPCs wouldn't lend a hand at all.
The sound effect when you consumes Blood/Mana Globes(Or HP/MP Gain in combat?) is too loud while Defender's Bleed have no sound effect at all.
The ability Bleed, striking an enemy's fatal point shouldn't be just causing some minor bleed, maybe a 0.1s ministun too? Maybe make the ability as a passive? It's a very simple ability compared to the rest.
Charge and Cleave is cool!
Although I've chosen the Path of Fighter, some of the abilities should be relating to my beautiful shield, also to be more fitting with the only model we will be using through the whole game. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
Life system is a pain in the ass especially when I can only have 10 at max.
Spider Boss shouldn't be absolute invulnerable just because she summoned more spiders to help. (Also she become 'Villagers' teamed during the invul-state)
Respawning on where you died can be...game breaking. I died in the Spider Boss area and there's no way to escape, I keep dying until I have no more lives left.

Overall it's an above-average RPG map, I know it's still on Alpha.
Again these are just my thoughts and opinion.
Keep up the good work and good luck to both of you.

 

[Marston]

Oh boy, you are still alive. Awesome!

Since your last map was the still unfinished Curse of the Horde, how "complete" is this map in comparison? The Horde map ended a bit after the first boss, what about this one?

I will look at this in the next few days, maybe with a friend. But just looking at the screens I already know I will love this again. <3

 

[Valenvai]

I just played it with a friend. Really lovely map with the familiar style of Imago. Tidy stats and ability system, convinient ability interface (although I was never a fan of the 'spellbook' style, I understand it is very handy).
The Diablo 3 style of enemy spawn looks great and the music fits well (maybe a theme or two more would be great to avoid the musci being repeatitive)

Bugs: the quest for gathering 11 herbs was not marked as Complete after I completed it.

What I didn't like:
1. Respawning at the same position is indeed not really nice. Makes boss fights not challenging. Better to repsawn back at the village and start the fight again.
2. Most bridges and narrow passages allow only one person at a time.

Keep the good work and expand it!

 

[robizeratul]

Loved dark times and Forsaken Island. Played it years ago when it got released...Will check out this when I have the time. It is similar to these two?

 

[Imago_]

First of all, thank you all for the feedback!
As usual I will try to implement your suggestions in the map and the gameplay.

@San:
-More items will be added in further versions, so i hope there will be more diversity
-I know the way how enemies approach is not flawless yet, but I will try to make it more "natural"
-Thanks for the compliment
-At first I was also not sure about the Rest, but then I decided it's more comfortable in this map, since you need to heal after almost every fight
-Corpses have lifebars and have to be selectable, cause they will have a "plunder" ability later
-Yes you need keys for chests <- coming in next update
-I'm also a little unhappy with the bleed skill, maybe I can replace it with a skill relating to his shield
-If you play the map solo, I suggest you to play it on easy
-At which level did you challenge spider queen? I suggest you to try her at level 10

@Marston:
Unfortunatly I had to do a break in mapping (Busy with education), but now I'm back again!
I planned to make the following things:
-Another area with an end boss and ending
-Another playable hero (Rogue), with class-change quest
-More items
-General balancing and bug fixing

@Valenvai
Thank you for the lovely feedback
I hope you can arrange with the spellbook, since it's really necessary for the class change
Yeah..the music is a bit sleepy, Lockheart is already looking for more themes to bring more diversity to the music
The bug with the herbes quest is solves with 2 clicks, will be changed in next version
The narrow passages are annoying, if you play with a friend, but they also look so good

@robizeratul
Yes, this map is quite similar to the other ones, but I would say the terrain and scripting is better
Hope you enjoy it!

 

[San]

Ah-hah, I played it on Normal, I was at level 12 or around if I recall correctly.

 

[Lockheart]

Well hello there. I gladly announce the 3rd release of Everglade.
You can download it at the top of the topic or check this link.

I seriously have to update the hero section because within the 3rd release a greedy thief joined the heroes group!
So there is a total of 4 full playable heroes each with 3 unique available classes. (And a 5th is already planned.)

Furthermore imago_ managed to fix the arena so it should work fine now.
Hooray for bloodshed.

 

[xXxMKDxXx]

Holy... So realistic..

 

[Marston]

Okay, I just took a really quick look at the new version, since I wanto to play it with a friend in the near future.

- Unless I got a key for accepting a quest, I was able to open the first chest in the Riverlands (near the first Murloc spawn).
- It's no longer possible to move the turn the camera, but if you hit one of the two buttons, the game zooms out a bit. Can you fix this or at least add a command so you can manually fix the camera?
- I was wondering if you could spawn endless mobs, tried it with murlocs who followed me over the whole map - the guards didn't do anything, wich seemed strange.

Also, as I asked before in the other map, do the different difficulties only change enemy stats or also do other things, like more/other enemies or even give some of them new skills?
Finally, what does the spawning additional mobs mean?

But so far, it's more of the same and I love how you create your maps. I also like that the first area (Riverlands) is a bit bigger than some other areas in your previous games. Or at least it looks bigger, because you walk quite a bit.

 

[neku99]

Played it! Amazing Terrain! Reminds me of Gaia's Retaliation. By the way I could cast Bleed (dunno if that was the name) on the training dummy and it can die and disappear. Don't know if it's intentional.

 

[Marston]

Okay, I played this solo now. Took a warrior, here are some things I saw which may need fixing:

- The text in the beginning when choosing the difficulty doesn't fit into the box and overlaps with each other.
- The "Bleed" Icon on the enemy doesn't show the correct icon. The text is also missing a "." at the end.
- The "Path of the Paladin" has a "." instead of a "," at the Role description.
- The text "The chest is locked." at the chest directly above the Village Elder doesn't disappear.
- The "Rest" effect that appears on the hero still has the description and icon of "Berserk".

Reached the spider boss and died. I want to talk a bit about difficulty.

I made a warrior, so I am alone and a pure damage dealer. I had no problems for the first quests and actually thought it was too easy. The arena had a good difficulty (maybe a bit too hard). However, once I reached the spiders, I died over and over and over again. I lost 8 lives here before I reached the Spider Queen and then died to her when she reached 50%.

You wrote you would recommend to challenge her with level 10. The problem is, I was level 8 and had nothing left to do except grind mobs. And that's not really good, your other maps did this better. You reach the spiders at around level 5 and get totally hit by a brickwall. The only things you could do would be to grind mobs in the first part who don't even give any EXP anymore, only gold. I had no chance to beat 3 spiders (the tiny hitbox which was the reason why I clicked near the spiders so my dude moved instead of attacked doesn't really help, but I am not sure you can do something there). Another big thing is the complete abscence of potions, even consumable ones. Especially when you are alone and have no way to heal yourself you just take too much damage. My equipment was a Chainmail and a Spiked Shield btw, so I even had a bit of life regen and armor.

So, in it's current form the map is too hard to solo (for a warrior) or else requires to much grinding. Some suggestions that may help:

- Increase the EXP you get from quests (not from mobs).
- Make the enemies in the first area give EXP until level 6 or 7, so you can grind them if you REALLY can't progress at the spider area.
- Add 1 or 2 more quests after you reach the third rank, so you reach level 6-7 before you even enter the spider area. For example, have a wolf miniboss appear in the first area or a strong murloc.
- Simply reduce the strength of all spiders (enemies and boss). Especially since you are level 7-8 once you reach the boss without grinding (in the current version). You should balance him around that level and not around level 10.
- Add more difficulties, so you can play with even weaker enemies when you are alone (Dark Times did have 5 difficulties after all, so why not do 5 again?)

That's it for me so far. I may give it another got with another class or path, but so far it seems you are royally fucked if you play alone and have no way to heal.


Edit:
Oh yeah, one big thing. If you die fighting a group of enemies those enemies run away. Since they don't despawn and instead run a specific area, it can happen that they join later. I had 1 or 2 spiders attack me when I fought another group (and since they were weakend I know I fought them before). I also had 2 spiders spawn directly before the boss (or maybe they just aggroed from who knows where).

Edit 2:
Also, what exactly does the "Additional Spawn" option do? More enemies during fights? More spawn points? Something entirely different?

----------------------------------------

Edit 3:

I actually gave it another go. This time as a mage with the Priest branch. I actually finished the whole thing, even though I only had 1 live left.

- If possible, change the icon on the level 11 spell (the active aura that heals/deals damage) so you actually realize you can deactivate it.
- Imo, the level 7 (or was it 9? The active AoE around you) spell is too strong. It obliterates normal enemies. I forsee this being a problem with most AoE spells. It's definitly much stronger than the warriors Cleave because you don't have to aim.
- The Zombies again have the problem if a very small and hard to click on hitbox.
- You can actually go to sleep and rest during the Gravekeeper fight when he turns neutral and uses his AoE attack. I wouldn't be suprised if the same could happen during the Arachne encounter.
- Once you finish the quest from the priest (the Holy Water stuff) no text appears when you talk to him to complete it (the quest still finishes, there is just no "story").

I played without additional spawns this time. The difficulty is still way to high, especially on bosses. Especially when you are alone.

So, without additional spawns I actually only reached level 3 after the first area. So I had to do my class quest at 3. At level 3, I couldn't beat the spirit without dieing once. Reached level 4 after. At 4, I no longer got any EXP from the first area and died to groups of 2 spiders unless I started to kite (thanks to the slow of my Q spell). So I have the problem of either dieing repeatedly or killing monsters only for gold to buy better equipment, since I can't gain EXP. This got a bit better after I reached 5 and got my first healing spell, but it barely heals the damage the spiders + poison deal, so it doesn't even really help.

The next big problem is the healthpool of bosses. It's just way to high for a solo player. I died 4 times or so to Arachne and more than once I died because I had no more mana. I also died at each add wave. Since the game has no active HP or Mana regeneration you will just die during bosses because you can't heal or have no more mana to heal. You said yourself you are expected to rest after pretty much every battle, but during boss fights that's just not possible. You either have to add some active sort of healing, severly reduce the bosses damage to account for the increased fight duration or have to add "breaks" so you can rest during the boss battle. Or have several Mana and Health Globes appear every X second. As it stands now, bosses are simply not possible alone without dieing.

One other thing I really don't like is the lack of enemy variety. So far, Dark Times is your best map and that had many, many different enemies. Here you have 1-2 enemies per region which actually don't even really have any specialy abilities. The additional spawn enemies are completely new, that is nice, but I think you should maybe change the whole system a bit. My suggestions for that would be:

- "Randomize" spawns, so you can sometimes get the "Additional spawns" enemies instead of the regular ones.
- Remove the "Additional Spawns" option and bake it into hard mode, so they only but always appear there.
- Add completely new enemies with skills. What I saw so far: Spiders have poison, spitting spiders are ranged, Zombies are slow and the murlocs have a frost spell. What do the wolves and Ghouls do?

Since I mentioned enemy skills, bosses are also rather dull. Arachne has no special attacks it seems and the only thing the Gravekeeper does is his AoE. He also slows. As for Arachne, she has an intermission phase, but instead of just spawning 3 spiders (which may kill you when you are alone) I would maybe change it so you only fight a normal one in intermission 1 and a normal + spitting one in intermission 2. Alternatively, change the phase to instead spawn eggs you need to destroy in order to prevent the spiders from spawning (this would also give you a small window where you wouldn't take any damage).

Well, that's it for now. Imo, much to improve here, more than in your last (unfinished) map. But you can definitly get there. Once the balancing is a bit better, that will help tremendously.

Also, my offer from back then to maybe talk a bit more indepth still stands. Teamspeak, Skype, Discord, anything? xD

 

[Lockheart]

(11/1) - once more it has been quite a while.

We will gladly host the first release of the map as you can complete the game now.
However further game content filling updates are still planned.

The new release contents a new dungeon with bosses, additional difficulties to select, a lot of bug fixings and more.
Your feedback is approved. We hope you'll have fun.

This map is best played with 2 player. [Link]

 

[robizeratul]

The "problem" with your maps is that they are too good, don't know what I should say hehe

The only thing I would like are some zoom on the camera and fog options, however this is a personal preference.

As for the map itself, it is similar to your other maps and that is great. You found a unique way of doing thing and it obvious lt works, I liked every map you made. The only problem was that most where short and (if I remember) forsaken island was unfinished.

There are advantages to that, however maybe you try something bigger this time, with more of everything that makes your maps great.

Anyway, will be keeping an eye on this!

 

[Marston]

Ah, a new version. I will give this another shot solo. After all, it should be beatable while playing alone, even if only on easy, right?

Edit:
Finished it as a Warrior with the... charging specialization. Difficulty was Very Easy.

Overall, many improvements, but I just don't like this map as much as the others. I am not even sure why, maybe because of the length (it is rather short), maybe because of some design choices. Well, whatever, bugs and feedback.

- Even though I was wearing the Brutal Armor I still had the "Spike Shield" buff on my character.
- The Orc ran back to his spawn point after I ran back to the entrance/upper left corner of the arena.
- Penta Slash doesn't work as it should be. Most of the time I only do a single strike, the only times it worked with 5 strikes was during the final boss and during the vampires. However, at the Vampires I actually attacked them. Which leads to my next point...
- Knockbacks and charges are utterly broken. I can push enemies out of bounds so they can no longer reach me, if I charge enemies too fast I can get out of bounds myself and the only way back is to charge an enemy or use Penta Slash to get back into the regular area. I did this at the spiders and Penta Slash trapped me inside the Vampire bubble. I am not sure what to fix unless you completly change the layout and how enemies spawn to prevent this from happening in the first place.
- The Ghost near the Cathedral still offers no quest even though he has the corresponding icons (Talk and Accept Quest).

I think that's all. Died 2 or 3 times during the final boss and twice on my way back because I didn't want to fight. One thing to note, you can get killed during screen transition when you enter/leave the cathedral. Maybe make the player immune for that time.

 

[ArchDuke]

interesting, I'll give this a try soon