'Less War... More Craft' Custom Games

[Alethos]

Unsure if this or the concept creation forum is best for this. Not that anyone would respond either way but... xD

Here are a few things I've been ruminating on that at first I thought I'd propose as a contest idea but thought better of it because I don't actually do them. Ideas are the best part anyway right?

Less War

I mean, I’m admittedly pretty meh when it comes to violence, and bored to tears by FPSs. Which, video games seem to be lately very much all of this. Not that I’m anti-violence in video games or whatever, I just think personally there are more interesting themes and messages that games can explore, or that they can do so in better innovative ways. Seriously, almost every game has a war-esque/fighting aspect to it, yet there is so much else to be explored! Games/WC3 custom games are mainly war (melee, castle fight etc.), defense (TDs), survival, or arena focused.

Just try and think of something that isn’t... Animal Crossing/ Harvest Moon? Else?

More Craft

I would guess most everyone on a modding-devoted site is drawn to the ‘creating’ apsect of gaming, why not let the gamer share more in some of that creative process? Sandbox games- games like minecraft and, well, the world editor are great at these.

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Does anyone have project/map ideas making one or both of these suggestions? Let’s hear them! My own are as follows; feedback is always cool.

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Spoiler: Alethos’s neverending psuedo-Projects-ideas

1) Interactive Cinematic (IF- story focused- blurring visual novel/rpg)
1 player custom map


Dialogue/character choices- mabye movement with forced camera perspective. I started development on this idea before but abandoned it, may pick it up later.



2) (Movie/meme/theater/cinimatic Maker--)

Multiplayer bnet game

Hidden

There are many craft-like aspects to wc3 melee and custom games, such as base-building, rpg ‘crafting’, maze-building, LOAP... whatever it is you do in loap etc. but I’d argue nothing that really hits on a sandbox level of ‘creating’. Enter movie maker. Hire your own actors (units) create the dialogue, scene, control cameras and action!! Successful/liked directors will earn more money to get access to better actors and props. You can join in and help other people’s projects during the pitching stage and then when the results are ready there is a festival where everyone’s submissions are then watched and cheered (or booed) on by the spectators!


This would be pretty tricky- but doable. Just designing a more restricted ‘editor’ to be used quickly ingame and then displayed. But just think of how much more exciting /meme-y battle.net would be...

3) Druidism (Shaminism?)
Multiplayer Bnet game

Hidden

This is the project most likely to see some actual development- provided I find oodles of time laying around (currently unemployed--- so check) and motivation (*crickets*).


A great forest has become stagnant and beginning to produce miasma. Young druids are invited to plan out and grow their own gardens (maybe even tend to a young ancient) by attending to the ancient forest, healing it in the process. Each druid has to ascribe to one* of the four elements; earth, air, water, fire, in an effort to ‘go back to basics’ to heal the land. Life- (Rejuvanation) is the combination of all these elements when they work together.


*initially at least

’The big idea’

The premise would be to explore altruism and ecological benefit vs a opportunistic and shortsighted gain. But not shown necessarily through (just) theme or story, which would come off heavy handed (ala Cameron’s Avatar) or just awful and fake, but instead through gameplay. Balancing cooperative vs opportunistic playstyles would be the main objective, and although there would be incentives and rewards for cooperative play- the competition would no doubt drive many to ‘burn the forest’ for their own gain and for other’s expense.

The ‘less war’ aspect to this project takes an entirely different flavour. In contrast to the other projects, it is less the focal point and more just a theme- however there is still a great deal of pvp interaction.

Essentially gameplay would be a hero arena where you’re focused on picking up the best items to make your own garden (maybe eventually to power a chao-like unit Ancient bonsai thing?) which everyone will vote on the best one at the end of the game (or other end game variations). You can work with people, form teams or even cliques to get better items, or just screw others over and take some of their stuff.

Spoiler: Project 3 TLDR - if you are one of the few people who grew up playing gamecube that is

It’s really just Kirby Airride’s City Trial mode meats Sonic Adventure 2 Battle Chao Garden and FF:CC multiplayer magic system.

 

[Kyrbi0]

This is interesting; kinda like a Settlers of Catan but in Warcraft?

 

[ISL]

I had an idea of what can be best described as a fantasy feudal lord simulator, or a serious medieval Sims with more realism to it.

I even wrote a whole system that would keep track of every Peasant in your possession, assign them their own individual housings and jobs, and allow them to complete various different tasks (Harvesting crops or Smithing for example).

The main idea it all began with was that you wouldn't need to control your units manually in the map:
If you want someone to forge some tools for you - you click on your Smithy and make an order, then a spare peasent/blacksmith is automatically chosen and sent to complete the task ;
If you build a Farm - then your peasants will soon start harvesting the crops from it (as soon as they are grown), all by themselves.

As a result, your mind would be occupied with task managment and planning your next few steps towards the wealth, riches, or sheer power, all while establishing your very own kingdom.

Soon I thought about implementing a Resource->Material->Product thing, and in addition to the Smithy there appeared a Mine and a Smeltery, and the Farm was soon joined by a Windmill and a Granary. So now you could order your loyal serfs to work in the mines to get you some Ore, which could be either sold as a raw material at a Trading Post or turned into Metal using a Smeltery. Then the metal could be brought to a Smithy to be crafted into tools for use or weapons for sale. And there were other things like that in regards of Food Production, Woodworking, Magical crafting, etc.

Sadly, I lost my interest after about less than a week of working on this little 'project' when I had to rewrite my cool fancy system from scratch (for the third time) and it still had bugs in it.

Not so soon afterwards, I discovered a game that looked kinda similar to what I had in my mind - Northgard (it has a lot of 'war' in it, however.)

Now I am not sure if I'm coming back to this idea any time soon...

 

[Alethos]

This is interesting; kinda like a Settlers of Catan but in Warcraft?

Yeah, kinda, but not really... Maybe I'm just biased against how other board games have been translated to custom maps (Risk). I do love me some Catan though.

I had an idea of what can be best described as a fantasy feudal lord simulator, or a serious medieval Sims with more realism to it.
Now I am not sure if I'm coming back to this idea any time soon...

Neat! Yeah, sounds like a looot of work. It reminds me somewhat of Stronghold- the economic side of it at least. You'd definitely need to program random plague, wolf attacks, and fires that would burn all the things even if you spend all your moneys on wellboys.

Which by the way- did anyone else play free build on that game and make bear+bunny (because everyone knows bears and bunnies get along) vs wolf vs swordsman vs fire? Just me? Good times xD

 

[Kyrbi0]

Yeah, kinda, but not really... Maybe I'm just biased against how other board games have been translated to custom maps (Risk). I do love me some Catan though.

Well, I'm not talking about adapting the board game for the actual game.

I meant more philosophically/thematically: SoC is a board game that, uniquely, features no real "combat" or inter-player warfare; it's got rival factions but it's more of an economic & (to an extent) political struggle, with players vying for resources & positions & ports & trade & routes & all that.

"Less 'war', more 'craft'."

 

[Alethos]

Ah yes, I understand your reference now. Exactlyish. I love those types of interactions. I haven't seen many video games that underline that power/resource sharing/struggle dynamic, but I guess I don't play them all that much outside of really old games anyway. Do you have any ideas/implementations for emphasizing this sort of interaction between players?

Derailing my own topic somewhat, the Mafia map that was adapted for WC3 is a pretty good representation of the real-life social behavior game (mafia/werewolf), but I always felt that the online 'presence' detracted in a significant way the best parts of the game. You can't observe people's behavior via physical 'tells' or what have you, just through the actual text. Which is interesting in and of itself- if you play multiple games with the same people- but the elimination aspect of the game has always created problems where mostly it just boils down to luck.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Ah yes, I understand your reference now. Exactlyish. I love those types of interactions. I haven't seen many video games that underline that power/resource sharing/struggle dynamic, but I guess I don't play them all that much outside of really old games anyway. Do you have any ideas/implementations for emphasizing this sort of interaction between players?

It's tough to say; so much about Warcraft is optimized for combat. But I'm nearly certain it's possible.

 

[Lordlycan]

Difference in kind. Is what you're referring to.

I'm playing around with an idea for a draenei unit that has manadrain/siphon They are channeling so they can't really move or have to recast. But i'm still struggling to make sense of the editor so far.

So i'll try to conceptualize my idea.

You start in a dungeon and you have a mana battery at the starting point then you start with a maze like structure. You have to place your draenei at corners of the maze or at max casting range to create a mana siphon chain to get the mana from one battery to the other battery. In order to open a door or something.

Then at a later stage you also have a unit with disables/heals/farms. Where the enemy orcs are constantly attacking you. The player has to make choices as to where to place farms to wall of certain entry routes or delay enemy orcs long enough. But also where he will place his hero to stun/taunt/control enemy units.

and perhaps at the last stages you might also have some combat units at your disposal but never enough to guard all positions. Or perhaps the link can never be broken, and you have a unit with a magic immunity buff and enemy warlocks with firebolt. Where you have to make sure the buff is up on the unit before the warlocks stun them and breaks your chain.

Having to safeguard area's while refugees with collision(collision can be a pain in small spaces) escape and slowly some area's crumble it puts emphasis on the part narrative through play.

Dragonhawk Cloud spell to go through area's with enemy towers.

So in terms of multiplayer options:
- One player control the draenei mana siphon units. Which could perhaps also be used to chain towards certain "traps" that might kill hordes of enemies.
- One player has cloud to prevent enemy towers from attacking
- One player has Repel(magic immunity buff)
- One player has heals
- One player has a worker
- One player has disables
- One player has pickaxe (needed to clear exit but also to clear area's for a worker to place slow towers/farms etc.
- One player has a Owl scout/windwalk/Sentrie ward

Now in terms of multiplayer not sure if you ever played the boardgame pandemic but what became quite obvious is that if you want to do multiplayer make sure that not all players have the exact same information so it's impossible for 1 player to boss everyone around for optimal play. Also the best way to create true co-op is being a selfish jerk sometimes being an option if the only way to win is always do everything together its not really a Co-op game it should be a choice to min max common good vs personal gain. Allocating of resources is a key element of teamplay but having different reasons to do so.

I would recommend for OP to check out jackbox party pack. It has a couple of custom games that are very simple especially diffuse the bomb and the weird as painting game that might appease your tastes.

 

[ISL]

I love those types of interactions. I haven't seen many video games that underline that power/resource sharing/struggle dynamic, but I guess I don't play them all that much outside of really old games anyway. Do you have any ideas/implementations for emphasizing this sort of interaction between players?

Get a global map with a lot of points of interest in it and let your players in.

Think about the many different ways the players could interact with the world around them, and this basically gets the most part of 'more craft' done.

You should really put your effort and creativity in this step, however, because on top of these baseline aspects of the game you will be able to build more complecated mechanics and interactions that would later spice the gameplay up.

'Crafting&Exploring' would be the major aspect of your Player-Environment interactions, while your Player-Player interactions would most likely be like a 'race for supremacy'.

Spice up the relationships between players by adding their Roles in the game, which would determine their secret traits and abilities, as well as their goals in the game.

When you mentioned Mafia, I immediately thought about how fun it was to deduce other players' roles from their behavior, and by that predict their global goals and their next moves. In more complicated versions of it you could have other roles in a game that you'd want to secretly team up with, or some others that you'd want to be hanged or killed as fast as possible.

Also you could implement different ways to achieve their victory for players. So it won't be only "Defeat all other players". There must be something that would either suggest players to cooperate with each other and start friendly relationships between them, or make players counteract each other, causing rivalry among them.