Introducing RAIDMASTERS

[DarkFarmer]

-=raidmasters=-

Movies:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBG1xwCmFZQ

Download Alpha Version:

http://www.darkgamedesign.com/RaidmastersDuelptcd.w3x


Raidmasters is a new series of maps , the first of which is Raidmasters Duel, for The Frozen Throne. In these maps, each player controls a five man raid on a mission to destroy the black dragon Shadowwing the Blinder, who has taken over the ruins of the city of Andorhal in Lordaeron.

After choosing his raid from five heroes from the nine different classes featured in World of Warcraft, each player begins fighting up his own lane towards Shadowwing. The object is to clear the mobs fastest, and slay Shadowwing before the other player.

Normally, a player cannot cross into another player's lane, but along the path to Shadowwing are three waygates taking heroes to do battle with one of Shadowwing's three dragon lieutenants. During these battles, both parties can meet and do battle with each other while they try to be the first to slay the dragon. The player who slays the dragon boss is rewarded with a dragon's lair which can be used to purchase dragon units to harass the other player as he tries to make his way through his own lane.

Players can purchase items at 3 shops along the way up their lane, as well as level up and spec out their heroes with various abilities.

CLASSES
Warrior: Primary Tank. Send this Tauren Warrior in first to soak up damage while DPS destroy the most dangerous mobs.
Paladin: Secondary Healer, Secondary Tank. This class also has Auras which boost the entire Raids performance.
Druid: Secondary Healer, Secondary Tank. This class has Tranquility, a great Heal Over Time, and can transform into Bear Form to tank if needed.
Priest: Main healer with the important Mana Burn spell for extended boss fights.
Mage: Main DPS caster with potent nuke and crowd control spells.
Shaman: Backup DPS caster and secondary healer. An extremely strong multipurpose class.
Warlock: DoT class with pet summoning abilities and some direct damage.
Rogue: Melee DPS with stealth and sap abilities.
Hunter: Ranged DPS with pet summoning abilities.



The gameplay is intended to be extremely high caliber, with much micro required, throwing down heals, using spells against the correct mobs at the right time, aggro control, tanking and offtanking when needed, and keeping an eye on your opponent. There are thousands of different ways you can play, since you can compose your raid of any mixture of the 9 WoW classes, and within those choices there are even more different ability specs you can choose.

After Raidmasters Duel, which is 2 players, is finished, 4 and 8 player maps will be created using the same rules.

Understandably, this is a very large project and requires many designers and testers. I am currently looking for designers to help me design maps, configure mobs, choose and balance abilities and items, create new items, and even create new abilities.

If interested, please contact me. DarkFarmer on google, LittleSceneStar on AIM. The map is not yet Beta, and is not yet available to the public but I have been playing and testing an internal version for several weeks now.

Thanks - DarkFarmer


Screens:

 

[Chaos Overlord]

I like the idea, though the main objective is a little foggy. Once you kill the Mian dragon, the game isnt over? So say player 3 kills the dragon. Do all the other players have to keep attacking him until he dies, making the killer the new leader? And that would continue on until on one was left?

 

[DarkFarmer]

When the boss dies, it drops an item(The Tome of the Dragonkin) that, when used, grants that player victory. This means that its possible you could score the killing blow, but if you dont pick up the item and use it first, you could still lose. The intermediate bosses are killing blow = victory.

After a player uses the Tome, he wins automatically and the other player loses.

Right now, its not certain if a more complicated method is needed to determine who kills the bosses, so its just killing blow at the moment.

 

[Chaos Overlord]

So... whats the point of the dragon lair where they can build units to harass the other people AFTER they kill the final boss?

 

[DarkFarmer]

the final boss does not give you the dragon lairs. The three mini bosses do, which players encounter before they reach the final boss. If you look at the overhead map shot, you see the mini boss dragons w/ the lairs in the square rooms in the middle.

When one of the miniboss dragons is killed, all heroes are teleported back to their lanes. The player who slew the dragon gets the dragons lair teleported into his lane. This allows him to summon the dragons he can use against the other player.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Nice idea but your terrain needs some loving.

 

[DarkFarmer]

Yeah, I totally agree. . . the terrain is basically completely junk at this point. But, I figure the terrain should be done after the basic tenants of the game design are hammered out and maybe even a little more finalized.

On that topic, anyone who has kind of an eye for design I encourage to shout out so we can get together and play the map a few times and share ideas. Its working well so far, I enjoy playing it, but with 9 classes and 36 abilities and 12 mob groups and 4 bosses and 30 items, there is alot of balancing and design work that needs to be done.

 

[Gilles]

I agree, it's good to get the nitty-gritty out first, before terrain.

 

[DarkFarmer]

updated

hey guys, added a movie and a download of the alpha version of the map. The movie isn't really great, its just to give an idea if you're interested but need to see the game in action before trying it out.

Movies:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBG1xwCmFZQ

Download Alpha Version:

http://www.darkgamedesign.com/RaidmastersDuela1prtd.w3x

 

[DarkFarmer]

Hints

I added some scripts to help people pick a better party, and made some changes to how gold works to make it more possible to come back from a wipe. Also just made the mission objective more straightforward (just kill the dragon!)

 

[DarkFarmer]

Final version of RaidmastersDuel link added to main post. The next Raidmasters map will include the same objects and a similar game objective, but an all-new map and triggers featuring much more frequent and important interaction between players.

This new map will be featured on a new thread when it is released.