Hi everyone,
Thank you all for your patience and continued interest in MMRPG II. I am very anxious for releasing it too, but things will be end up being delayed a bit longer.
The motherboard of the Windows PC I run WC3 in has been fried (neglect on my part) and my other Windows machine is also in repair (a hard drive problem).
I'm using my mac to write this. It can actually run WC3 Frozen Throne (via Wine) but it's not a gaming computer, and I haven't been able to make the World Editor work with it.
However, because I've made all the code (vJass and custom objects) portable, I have been continuing to work on the map, although only systems which don't require referencing the world editor.
As for the good news: I'm going to continue polishing and adding code to what I can. Tomorrow I'm heading to the repair shop and will hopefully get a working windows machine by the end of the week.
Some things about what to expect when the alpha is released:
1. The terrain will be ugly and boring. I am no fool to call myself a terrainer, but my hope is that a terrainer will join the project once people try the alpha out.
2. There might be game breaking errors--I wouldn't be shocked if I had to roll out a quick fix immediately after releasing the alpha.
3. There won't be any breeding or saving.
4. There won't be any PvP. I might add a command to allow players to unally each other just to fool around.
5. There will be a handful of quests, with 1-2 "bosses."
6. The story line / plot won't be complete.
7. There will be a modestly sized over world to explore, with wild monsters.
8. There will be about 10 monster species in the first world (excluding bosses).
Note that these are features that
will be present in the actual game (beta or whatever), but are absent now.
Now to address everyone's excitement, comments, and questions:
@Deathly God
I intended to actually have a level "0" (like in Starcraft 2), which would still means 100 levels if capped at 99. Since WC3 starts counting levels at "1," however, that would only mean 99 levels. Still I do want to pay homage to Dragon Warrior Monsters and stick with 99, but it won't really matter for awhile.
This is good to know about robbepop's first versions of MMRPG I. I shall not feel so lacking when the alpha is finally released.
As for bosses, the majority of them will be scripted unlike MMRPG II, where they were just really overpowered units that had high DPS.
Most of the bosses will tie into the main story or at least a side quest. I have two bosses sketched out for the first world, but I'd rather not mention the details. I am very excited about the big boss too, though as you've said it would be wise not to wait until I am done with that. So they won't be in the first released alpha.
Lastly, I will also bring back another awesome thing from Dragon Warrior Monsters. In that game, some of the bosses would actually join the player after being defeated. And a rare few of them might be tempted to join if fed a lot of meat. So yes, there will be a few bosses which might offer to join you if you defeat them. Most will not be recruitable (even with meat), but some will. Naturally most of the recruitable bosses will be in the early part of the game (before the bosses have 'unnatural stats'). There will be at least one recruitable boss in the alpha release.
@hopop201
I think you are right and I will not worry too much on finishing the boss API, but there will be a half baked event API (started writing it up a week ago).
Pre-alpha/alpha/prototype/gamma/delta/whatever you want to call it--it's not a beta certainly.
So the way the ability system works currently is that all skills have
6 levels. There is no fusion level requirements (I have not put in FLs yet because there's no breeding system yet). A monster learns a new ability or levels up an already learned one when it reaches the required intelligence and hero level.
As for ultimate abilities, there will actually be ultimate abilities. I think I outlined my idea in the first page or so. But basically a monster can acquire an ultimate ability like a recipe--if they know the other required abilities, they will learn the ultimate ability automatically.
This works nicely, because it uses up all the slots on the command card like this (letters are hotkeys as well):
Above row: [T] [Y]
Bottom row: [Q] [W] [E] [R]
[Q] is the attack ability all monsters get. [W], [E], and [R] are the three abilities each monster learns due to its species. [T] and [Y] are each abilities inherited from the mother/father (one from each). And is the slot for an ultimate ability the monster can learn. It just so happens also is the first letter for "ultimate."
I made 94 abilities, but no ultimates yet as there's no breeding system, yet.
@aris87
Yes everyone has told you correctly about how old codes will not work or be compatible with the new map.
Or we could go back with our promotional random tier 5 monster codes and 1 monster the entire game
Or die trying!
I have not forgotten this at all. I am still debating how those will be given out. I was thinking to save the hand out for the beta, which is far off. I also was thinking of giving them out to the alpha testers, but then they might go to show off their 0 fusion level tier 5 monster haha (which is otherwise impossible to get), and not get to the testing part of the alpha.
