Natural Selection v1.4b

[syltman]

Intresting, I'll check this map out. I played solar conquest and loved it so you probably won't let me down

 

[Youknowho]

It was fun playing the map and I liked it.

But you should add so host can in the begining of the game choose how fast everyone should evolve. For example if they should evolve twice as fast or as it is now.

 

[irock9645696]

My brother played this and asked why is there no fish or birds? I would like to see some animals could hide in the trees

 

[Teldrassil]

So uh, I was playing, evolving my creatures, then when I saved and loaded, a couple abilities were replaced.

My units were size 85 reptilian carnivore lone hunter turtles with immolation, drain life, breath of fire, and shadow meld.

When I loaded them Drain Life and Shadow Meld were replaced by Electric Shock and Silence.

Also, sometimes my turtles would give birth to another player's units. For example, my turtle just gave birth to an electric phase shifting spider. It's second offspring was a poisonous zombie.

oh and the other species were giving birth to mine, some of the litters from the fast breeding mammoths were pumping out my dragon turtles.

 

[Tleno]

Also, sometimes my turtles would give birth to another player's units. For example, my turtle just gave birth to an electric phase shifting spider. It's second offspring was a poisonous zombie.

And that was bad because?..
Actually I understand thats a bug but it sounds pretty hilarious.

 

[ShootinPutin]

Also, sometimes my turtles would give birth to another player's units. For example, my turtle just gave birth to an electric phase shifting spider. It's second offspring was a poisonous zombie.

I guess the babies aren't the father's.

-----------

As for a suggestion, it would be nice if you can name your creatures in-game. As opposed to simply "Mammal" or "Reptile".

 

[Daveydude]

I constantly find the codes not to work. They work one game, load the next and didn't work. No change in the code or version. Just to verify a code of mine:
y&KM-hMKS-nKch-KKvv-vnvM-vvMnv

EDIT: More specifically, in some games codes do not work at all. In others they work. It still generates codes, it just won't load them.

 

[callex]

Your code worked fine for me. It sounds like the stack overflow limit is bugging it again... Basically when the map has too many functions running at once, it stops running new functions properly. I've tried to optimise the loading to reduce the chance of it happening, but it's just a natural wc3 limitation... I wouldn't be surprised it was behind the weird crossbreeding issue aswell.

One of the reasons I'm so keen to get the galaxy editor lol.

 

[Teldrassil]

Probably, as the crossbreeding didn't happen until the game was running for awhile.

 

[Daveydude]

I figured it out. When the first species is created there is a lag spike, I would assume from wc3 loading materials. If someone attempts to load before that, all loading will cease to function from that point on. It all works if done after that initial like spike.

Something else thats bugging me. I found a really sweet species, but your AI sort of blocks its functionability. Basically I looked at your triggers, could you put drain at the start, and other spells such as roar at the end. It is preferable to use channel abilities last, and other abilities that have a passive effect such as roar first.

My guys have an awesome chain lightning, but they don't use it because they always drain first. Much less preferable.

I admire your workmenship on this map, I was going to attempt something a little different but similar on SC2, where there is a civilization and your their god. Seeing this has given me some ideas, so I thank you for that.

 

[Phoenixman]

I'm pretty useless at terraining, but if anyone wants to make a terrain I'd be more than happy to give credit for it

ill give it ago
i sent you a private message asking a few questions about the map

 

[duke-zip]

custom models is a good idea, but i agree that itll make the map size much bigger. Maybe when u get a near gold version you can think about custom models!

 

[GoblinShoD]

I've played this map pretty much, and I really like it. So, I thought I might aswell give you my review of it

Positive:
- I like the idea
- Gameplay
- Loading and saving
- A large variarity to species, even tho the differences could be bigger

Negative:
- Some creatures behavior seems not to be working. They are just standing still in their base sometimes, and in some cases starv to death.
- There's no real way to influense your creatures, you can do "Add to Pack" and gather up a bunch of units, but when you got around 200 creatures, the 10 that you have added to the pack can't do much.

Ideas:- You should add a massive "movement" command, something that moves (for example) all units with less then 40 energy(as they can't give birth) to the selected spot, for example an enemy camp. It would give the player a lot more influense and coordinated attacks.
- I've read all the posts here, and it seems like a lot of people would like a alliance system in some coming version. I think it's a great idea, but it might get imbalanced if two strong creatures ally. So therefor I got an improved idea: If you got time (and think it's a good idea, of course) you could make a inter-species breeding. When two creatures of the simular kind (carnivore/herbivore) and from different players mate with eachother, they get one inter-species egg each, and form some kind of alliance. Not quite an alliance either, as that would be too imbalanced. More of a truce, where they do not attack eachother, and those two teams can breed their two different species to combine the best of them to create a totally new race.
But it should only be possible to make a truce of two, if a player that already has a truce with someone tries to breed with another species, the truce is broken and its war between the two again.
Another thing should be that the two players with truce will attack their ally if they comes close to a nest.
- Another idea is to make a maping contest. Make a contest who can make the best new Natural Selection map, where the judge will choose the best map after the originality, terrain, and other things. The winner will have his/her map in a new Natural Selection map with new terrain and species (for example a island-map with amphibious creatures). That will both give attension to your map so more people get to know about it, and a fun thing for people to try their skills against other players.

Overall:
Overall I think this is one of the best maps I've seen in a very long time. Totally the Map of the Month in my opinion Due to some bugs and things that could be introduced to the map I'll give it 9/10. +REP
Keep up the good work!

 

[ZiggyMcjoney]

Terrain is really bland to be blatantly honest, but this map is really, really fun!

I love the idea, and the gameplay is just really cool, watching the species play around together. At certain points in the game we had hugely thriving herbivorous species, and smaller packets of carnivorous ones that were living off picking out groups of herbivores. The first time we played an enormous army of skinks dominated the map and began to level rapidly. The second time, we had mammoths slowly growing in the bottom half, while a colony of 'zombies' (we liked to call them humans) inhabited the top right, and preyed upon the vast amounts of herbivorous turtles which, although they had four level 5 spells each, were submissive and often retreated when attacked, making them easy prey. There was a small pocket of ghouls at the top too, which would've died if it weren't for the masses of turtles. And we had a small furbolg colony in the middle of the map that was beginning to grow too.

I could go on and on about all the cool little things that happen in this map. It's fantastic, a really really fun map to play.

There are a few things that could make it even better though. Heres a few criticisms:
When I'm evolving a creature I like to see it grow and become really unique and different, and this game really does do that. I didn't get much/any advancement in size, but I don't know whether that was the games fault or mine, or just bad luck.
However, there were some things that took away from the experience.
The first thing was that there weren't many abilities, and some of the abilities weren't that good either. We had many species which had almost the exact same abilities. In addition to that, the species wouldn't often change abilities either. Every single turtle on the entire map had Web, Forked Lightning, Chain Lightning and Spiked Carapace. Every single one. It was a bit annoying that none of them grew different abilities. Our mammoths on the other hand were a bit more interesting, but still some more variety couldn't hurt. I understand it's something that takes continual work but I'm just raising awareness of it

It would be cool to see some ultimate abilities, very rare ones that you're really lucky if you get, so that if you can make them thrive you have a really powerful species.

The second criticism of mine is that the game doesn't really look that good. Terrain is pretty ugly, it's very blank and simple. Also, when units evolve, some attachments just look weird. Some of them jsut suffer from not being very prevelant, so the units don't really get a very unique identity. They might have a small glowing orb hiding away somewhere, but it doesn't give them a unique appearance (when coupled with the fact that many units had the same abilities, it made the gameplay a little less exciting than it could've been). With attachments and the like that is unavoidable, but some of them could potentially be changed. One thing I didn't like was Spiked Carapace - the only unit that looked good on was turtles. On others it just seemed odd.

I'd like to see creatures grow in strength a bit too, abilities on their own don't change the unit as much as they could. My turtles had alot of health and their chain lightning was fairly strong at that level, but they still only hit for five damage which made their offensive capability questionable.

Some more creature types would be cool too. Water creatures and flying creatures would be really fun if it were possible. Oh, also, where are the omnivores? Creatures that both eat plants and meat would be cool. Some extra kinds of activity would be fun as well, for example a Defensive behaviour - one that doesn't engage in fighting but fights back if attacked - I noticed sometimes my turtles would just sit there cowering in fear when attacked, when they could easily fight back if they wanted to.

Anyway, that's a fairly long list of criticisms, but they are really just minor despite the immense length I put into describing them

All in all, I love this map! Keep working on it! 5/5 from me!

 

[Declipse]

Hello there- This is an interesting map you've got going, although a bit disappointing.
First of all the most serious issue- It doesn't feel like natural selection's going on at all.
Sure, you got that new +2 size critter which was magically born with a new ability, but it's easily outnumbered by lesser beings and then killed off. That leaves you simply "unnatural selection". Which's how most people play.
You generate a new population, wait for a positive mutation then save and load this new stage. Hooray for Darwin!... not.
Other than that, the controls seem to be way too simple- mostly the fact that you have close to no control at all. This leaves you a game where you simply wait, read a series of number and then type it out.
Sounds fun? No.
It actually is interesting for the first minutes, but once you get tired of the bland landscape and evolution system (which seems to make it impossible to get a new ability once you've leveled the others-because really, if i randomly evolve my windwalk the rest should go up too).
The attributes are also pretty hard to balance, it seems that fast spawners win at the start and get killed off later on. Which brings us back to evolution- small creatures tend to become smaller and smaller only because they're able to reproduce faster. Is this new creature suited for survival? No, but it can get some kids to feed my hungry carnivores before it dies.

The commands are also not explained that well, I once tried to limit the number of creatures to 50 and then stood there, watching every single creature die after 5 seconds. Then I raised it, and it simply didn't limit anything at all.

So to conclude- This concept has a lot of potential which honestly hasn't been put into good use. I hereby vote 3/5
Good luck with your project.

 

[Chipawapa]

First of all I love this map, its very fun to play and I've been playing for the last 2 days. But like many users suggest this map is very simple and changes are really needed(I'm just gonna go with what has not been said).
What if:

-You could divide the spells into some categories like: Frost, Fire, Nature, Arcane etc. This way you could make ultimates that are created when certain spell combinations are made. For Example Shadow Strike (nature), Poison (nature), Permanent Immolation (fire), Breathe Fire (Fire) create Vulcano (Nature/Fire). This was just an example but the really good thing would be if the ultimate actually had synergy with the spells.
-You could make leader's of the pack. These special creatures would be a little bigger than the rest, stronger, faster, and posses an aura (e.g devotion aura). Of course they would spawn in the start of the game, when/if they die you could select another leader.
-You could create an arena of 1v1 just for the laughs and creature testing.
-The creature shape choosing wouldn't just be aesthetic. I mean a mammoth shouldnt be as fast as a wolf, and a wolf shouldnt have as much HP as a mammoth. Additionally the creatures would have racials such as:
Wolf-20% to crit for 1.1x-1.2x of normal damage
Ghoul- 10-15% increased attack speed
Turtle-Damage taken reduced by 1-2
Scorpion- Deals 1 extra poison damage on attack
Etc.

Just my opinion. You get a 5/5 regardless.

 

[callex]

Saken finished his terrain, so I've glued it in for all to see ^^

Also, I've uploaded the unprotected versions for this, cruiser command and solar conquest here.

I've moved onto the galaxy editor, so people can learn from/use these projects as they see fit

 

[Cihparg]

The new terrain is too flat.

 

[clockwork2]

fun game but could you allow players to load their creatures through typing their name i keep on trying to load my creatures codes but it says code rejected!!!

 

[clockwork2]

wait did someone say a turtle gave birth to a poisenius zombie!!!!!!!!!!.wow.that never happens with my animals.although the computers eventually have an empire of animals.

 

[clockwork2]

for some reason when i'm in controll of a animal i can't do everything other animals can.also my mana drains itself automaticly!so i can't mate with others.

 

[clockwork2]

oh nvm i found out.

 

[clockwork2]

eeeerrr.one of my spiders gave birth to a troll!!then another egg became a turtle WHAT THE THOSE ARE TWO COMPLETLY DISIMuLAR SpeciES!!!!

 

[clockwork2]

and they became enemies too.

 

[Cihparg]

Clockwork2, please, Do not double post. And you did even more than double, so please, read the goddam rules!

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[mustang_]

Good map.
4/5

 

[Krl70]

Really enjoyable map, but it gets boring after a pretty short amount of time.

I think if not to difficult and time consuming; how about technology advancement? like in spore, you start as a cell or creature, evolve to a tribe, then a city and in the end, end up flying around in space

total 4/5

 

[mkmr]

cool map! its really good

 

[Saken]

I left out height for a later version. I just wanted to get a new terrain done for Callex so people didn't have to play the old one. I'll be adding more height variation to the island to make it more realistic and natural looking.

 

[zapleaf]

Me and a few of my friends are very addicted to this game!!

A few notes:
At some point you start to birth for enemy units.
More possible Spells.
Add a transparency feature to go with the new spells. Like maybe a dodge/crit rate with transparency.

 

[Tank-Commander]

While playing I observed that my codes from 1.35 weren't working in 1.4, any reason for this or am I doing something wrong?
(I did load after the initial lag spike)

 

[Saken]

I believe the load codes do not save over from version to version. Also note that Callex has discontinued all work on his Warcraft III maps. I will still try and update the terrain though.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Looks interesting, maybe some screenshots? +rep for a colorful description.

 

[threeright]

Terrain Problem

Hello theres a problem in the terrain that is messing up my herbivores



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

theres a plant in the rock which is unpassable so my herbivore creatures are stuck there trying to get the ungettable plant

 

[Saken]

A plant as in the food that the herbivores eat? Because I made sure to place pathing blockers everywhere on the height raised cliffs to make sure animals don't get spawned in there or get stuck if that is the case. Though if a plant is somehow in there and the herbivores are trying to get it, Callex was the one who placed the food, not me. I'll try and get him to look into it for you.

 

[threeright]

To Clarify:

Yes, there is a plant which herbivores eat that is underneath the rocks there and my mouse cursor is on top of the plant and it is red to show that something (plant) is there. I know its a plant because my creatures all gather around that place trying to get it.

 

[Saken]

Alright. Problem solved. Callex will be working to fix it some time today.

 

[threeright]

I don't know if its intentional or not but
Phase Shift Level 2 is broken.

My creatures randomly mutate Phase Shift Level 2 and when it does, it gets instant Cooldown Phase Shift that has like 0 second phasing time.

Also, the phase shift level 2 cannot be saved or cloned, I haven't seen rather or not it can be bred however.

I guess, this can somewhat be seen as intentional as it can represent a "bad mutation", though it is most-likely a bug.

Suggestion: Smaller creature corpses should give lesser food then bigger creatures, if they already do than the creatures corpse size should scale similar to the size of the animal that it came from. So it is more noticeable.

 

[ACdestinydream]

i played this game many times, and i noticed something real bad about it:

Hidden

i had nearly 400 creeps (yellow and purp are my friends while blue is computer) so i felt that u should have a creature limit. i went to over 550 in the end when they wanted to quit. next, herbivores are more dominating than carnivores. i played many rounds and i found out this. the rate that herbivores are reproducing is alarming: this was only less than half an hour into the game. 390+ creeps already. blue, the carnivore, is dying out due to my pressure. so, i feel that balancing is a great issue here.

and what clockwork was saying was correct. further in the game, my unit reproduced 4 eggs (as expected) but whats not expected was that 3 of the eggs contains nothing and 1 egg contains blue's units. this is stupid. then, the game messed up and every1 couldnt reproduce and had less than 10 units.

 

[Saken]

Did you check the quests? I'm pretty sure there is a way to set a cap on units for every player. As for the reproducing bit, I'm not too sure about that.

 

[Daveydude]

I think Carnivores need an attack/hp bonus. Maybe even more mana recieved from meat as well. Carnivores are designed to kill, they need to act like it too.

Also the bit about eggs not hatching at all needs to be fixed, even before the wrong spieces hatching problem.

 

[Fiorth]

I love this game , the bugs dont bother me much, but when i host it with multiplayer i cant use my codes much because of new players joining. (gotta give them a chance xP.)

also i agree that carnivores should get a hp or attack buff, because right now they are weak compeared the the expanding on herbivores.

anyway, if anyone wants a game with codes come to Clan smeg (europe)
^^

 

[threeright]

I made a pwnt species and its code is
SoKM-SMKy-vKSK-vKKM-vSyv-nyvcvMMy

However, when I use this code, the game bugs and someone else's creatures gets all the abilities of my loaded creature if the creature they loaded has no other abilities. Its really annoying.

 

[Tank-Commander]

Ah yes that bugs been around for a while, abilities transfer from the last loaded creature to a loaded creature who doesn't have 4 abilities, which then fills all those ability slots.

Out of intrest, why publish your code if they're so 'pwnt'? seems a bit illogical if u ask me =P

 

[threeright]

wtf u talking about.. the fun of the game is breeding an epic creature from bottom up and watching how it does against other creatures and then tweaking it so that it performs well.

I do not see how publishing my creature would in any way affect how I have fun in this game.

The creatures arn't that fun once you've actually made it as all you do it watch it and brag about how pwnt it is.

 

[Tank-Commander]

I am aware of that - I myself raised scorpions from size 40 to size 145 with maxed out abilities, but publishing the code does mean somebody could just take your creature then change it in a matter of size or something, have all the abilities yours had and then take credit for creating the species or something along those lines.

 

[threeright]

I am aware of that - I myself raised scorpions from size 40 to size 145 with maxed out abilities, but publishing the code does mean somebody could just take your creature then change it in a matter of size or something, have all the abilities yours had and then take credit for creating the species or something along those lines.

lol.. take credit.. u make it seem as if its all serious business, like you get alot of respect for making the best creature evar...

Doesn't make much sense as people can do that now... when host and create my creature all they have to do is save their blank creature and load it in that same game and then save the loaded creature... boom he now has all my creature's abilities plus the model he wants to use for the creature with abilities which he took...

 

[Hivoyer]

Cap not working!!!

I tried -cap 50 and -cap 050 and whatever and still my creatures go to 999999 and it starts to lag and everyone quits

 

[Darkkranko]

Very good map.
but i'd like some more Evolution.
And Variety.

 

[Mouzyy]

Awesome!
i havent played this for some and i had one game saved from version 1,1 or something and when i opened it i could control creatures like normal units! That was like (few times) better than normal when you can take small group of your animals and order them to attack or just move to different place to create new "colony".

Anyway, i like this map but, one thing- Ally system. After hour i had my herbivore scorpions everywhere so i created some carnivore ghouls for 11 enemy players to destroy me, but they attacked each other and so on.