Paired Mapping Contest #4 - Dungeon

[Kwah]

I declare this thread roflz.

RagingPoot for the win!

 

[Kwah]

[Long Term Double Post]

Bobo and I are going on a two day mapping spree. Expect to see something.

EDIT:What are the chances of an extension till Monday?

 

[Bobo_The_Kodo]

Yes Plz

 

[Hawkwing]

I've already given an extension. Is it not possible to finish by the end of tomorrow?

 

[redscores]

No extension please... I am already waiting like on fire...

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

We've had enough extensions already, let's get this bitch over with. I'll submit our map in a few hours from now after a few last bug-tests and balance-changes.

 

[kewlthis]

there really isnt any reason to give extension to people who hasnt shown any progress.

 

[Kwah]

How about a 1 day extension?

Bobo has got something like 6-7 spells done yesterday, and I'm working on the levels.

Still, by the end of today I should be complete 2 levels, and 1 boss.

 

[Bobo_The_Kodo]

It won't really be possible for us to finish by the end of tonight, so unless theres an extension, were out

Bobo_the_Kodo never does anything... I had a project with him and he did just nothing....

Redscores, thats because you just wanted me to be a code minion for you and you wouldn't let me have any input about anything in the map

 

[Kwah]

Till after Fri would be best, seeing as we/i Get it off school

 

[FamousPker49]

Quick end it before raging submits! D:

 

[Hawkwing]

There's still time yet.

 

[PurplePoot]

I wouldn't mind much either way:

• On one hand, people have had a lot of time.
• On the other hand, when raging and I submit, we'll have a total of two contesting teams if I counted correctly.

 

[Linaze]

There shouldn't be an extension in my opinion. This has been hosted to long as it is, let's summ this up and get the poll up.

 

[Kwah]

And one of them exploded?

 

[Bobo_The_Kodo]

There shouldn't be an extension in my opinion. This has been hosted to long as it is, let's summ this up and get the poll up.

Whats wrong with hosting a (mapping) contest for a long time? It (usually) leads to better/more maps submitted

 

[Linaze]

It prevents other contests from getting hosted, simply put.

 

[Kwah]

What contests did you have in mind?

That is true, though.

 

[Linaze]

This isn't really the place to discuss this matter, but very well. Some examples are Phoenix, Music, Terrain, Writing etc. There are always contests to host, but not possible when the majority of people that do enter contests are already active in a hosted one.

 

[kewlthis]

I wouldn't mind much either way:

• On one hand, people have had a lot of time.
• On the other hand, when raging and I submit, we'll have a total of two contesting teams if I counted correctly.

You would be 3rd.

When people havent posted any progress on their map, its impossible to tell when they are gona submit it/ if they are going to submit it at all. So no more extensions.

Hurry up and submit your map even if it aint finished (you get third place?).

 

[PurplePoot]

kewl, I was under the impression your submission had... issues.

Anyhow, as I said, I don't mind much either way. I'm not convinced I'd be very motivated to do any work tonight even if I could.

 

[Kwah]

And even if it is epic fail, you get third and -- ten rep?

No wai!

 

[kewlthis]

kewl, I was under the impression your submission had... issues.

Anyhow, as I said, I don't mind much either way. I'm not convinced I'd be very motivated to do any work tonight even if I could.

Iv talked with hawkwing about it and he said he will give airandius the credit if we manage to get to top 3 even tought he wanted to leave the contest.

*edit* Well you all seem to want to finish it in 1day or so? can it really get that much better/finished?

 

[Hawkwing]

He did contribute and their submission wouldn't be the same otherwise.

 

[Kwah]

So, you are forcing credit upon him! That seems strange.

 

[FamousPker49]

Funny, I had a similar chat with Hawkwing at one point. ;P

 

[kewlthis]

So, you are forcing credit upon him! That seems strange.

I think he wants the credit anyway. So its fine with me.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

~ragingspeedhorn & PurplePoot presents~

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

---

Exiled from heaven, banished from gods kingdom for eternity, forced to tread the earth among the weak and gullible humans, Lucifer, the fallen angel, created a fortress where he would prepare himself for the judgement day, the day where he would once and for all show these weaklings' god who was meant to rule, and who was meant to serve.

A task impossible for one, Lucifer would build up his army of willing servants and abominations alike in preparation for the day he longed for beyond the imaginable.

God, who had taken Lucifers threats lightly, finally came to realise this, but it was too late. No longer able to directly destroy Lucifer, he made a bold move: he would trust in the good of mankind. He picked 3 lost souls trapped as prisoners in Lucifer's dungeons and gave them the opportunity to change the world, to destroy the fallen angel...

---

The map can be played in single-player but is meant, and balanced, for 3 players. Atleast you'll need good micromanagement skills to control 3 heroes at once in singleplayer, so good luck with that.

It contains 3 finished heroes and 3 finished levels, each with a major boss at the end.

Features a fancy library in which you can buy things from wizards and warlocks.

Have fun, vote for the best entry and so on and so forth.

 

[Kwah]

Comments Before Playing:

The three player limit, forced upon you is rather harsh. Something more scalable would have been nice.

From what I've heard from poot, you're terrain is win. I'll look at it in one second.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

I know. However I think most people should be able to find atleast 2 other people to play with?

And we had a tough deadline, so balancing for 2 or 1 person was out of the question, there were more important things to get done like actual game content. In later versions (if any) we'll be raising the cap from 3 to 4 or 5 players most likely.

 

[Ribenamania]

-.- What should I do when the map was started, I don't find any place to go... I'm stuck in that C shaped starting place..

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

You could... try and destroy the gate?

 

[Kwah]

Those tricky gates. Never knew you could open them.

 

[HappyTauren]

Cause it's hard to actually use brain?

 

[Hawkwing]

Well. I played two public games on Battle.net and got the following information.

I really like how each player starts separated, and has to fight there way to each other. As long as you don't remain separated for too long that's fine. I found that there was a lot of WOW based, or similar to it, stuff in the game. Such as the charge spell and resurrection system. Though I don't approve of the lack of originality I did think that it was a good idea to use the "turn to ghost" system for resurrection. It's definitely very functional and all in all a good idea.

Now, for some reason my hero constantly "died". He would play his death animation and blood would spray everywhere, but he would remain alive and you would just get back up and continue walking. I saw no purpose in that.

Strategy was needed to win the game, that's a plus. Instead of just trying to get to the end as soon as possible we had to kill every enemy we could find to get the experience for the following boss. But the way was clear and no heavy instructions where needed. We were a bit thrown off at the first boss because the instructions, and this goes for all the other bosses, before the fight, told by the guide, came and went much too fast.

I like the theme very much, and the terrain fit it very well. The doodads and such were chosen well. The minimap also helped maintain the theme and made it look more professional, more than your standard B.net map. It might have also helped the theme if you had made it mandatory to be undead. The music and UI would fit it very well. All imports made sense. Though the warrior seemed a bit out of place. The other two heroes were very undead and hellish, while the warrior just seemed like your everyday dwarf.

The bosses were great. Their spells and such were very interesting, but fairly cliche. I thought the final boss, the great eye, was a tad too fast to kill and easy to beat. My team did die, all at different times, but near the end of the fight, and without healing beforehand.

I also wanted to mention that the merchant in the area before the portals, who sold potions and whatnot, was a very clever idea.

A problem I encountered twice, that was quite annoying, was after going through portals from zone to zone it takes about 45 seconds for the camera to move to my hero. This only happened to me, red. When leaving the Desert, after killing the boss, this happened, and when going to the third zone.

Speaking of which, the third zone's design was very original. Quite bland, but there wasn't much you could've done to improve it. The only major downside was seeing the "destroy all units to go to open the next portal" hint come up so many times.

Overall it was a great map. Best of luck!

 

[Bobo_The_Kodo]

I also wanted to mention that the merchant in the area before the portals, who sold potions and whatnot, was a very clever idea.

Though I don't approve of the lack of originality I did think that it was a good idea to use the "turn to ghost" system for resurrection.

Those are actually both directly taken from OD, RisingDusk's new map

(I know the ghost thing is widely used, but the exact mechanics are the same as in OD)

 

[Hawkwing]

Oh well. Either way, it was smart to include such things.

 

[PurplePoot]

Such as the charge spell and resurrection system. Though I don't approve of the lack of originality I did think that it was a good idea to use the "turn to ghost" system for resurrection. It's definitely very functional and all in all a good idea.

Charge is more of a stock spell than specifically WoW, though there was a bit of WoW inspiration into the warrior. As for the ghost system, I'll have to give credit for that idea to Rising_Dusk's Obsidian Depths; we planned to add some support spells to ghosts (including a powerful heal which increased your time before resurrecting) but ended up prioritizing on more important game elements in our limited amount of time.

Now, for some reason my hero constantly "died". He would play his death animation and blood would spray everywhere, but he would remain alive and you would just get back up and continue walking. I saw no purpose in that.

I never encountered this bug, and thus can't say why it happened. Could you give me a bit of a context?

Strategy was needed to win the game, that's a plus. Instead of just trying to get to the end as soon as possible we had to kill every enemy we could find to get the experience for the following boss. But the way was clear and no heavy instructions where needed. We were a bit thrown off at the first boss because the instructions, and this goes for all the other bosses, before the fight, told by the guide, came and went much too fast.

So basically, give you a bit more information and a few more seconds to contemplate the information given?

I like the theme very much, and the terrain fit it very well. The doodads and such were chosen well. The minimap also helped maintain the theme and made it look more professional, more than your standard B.net map. It might have also helped the theme if you had made it mandatory to be undead. The music and UI would fit it very well. All imports made sense. Though the warrior seemed a bit out of place. The other two heroes were very undead and hellish, while the warrior just seemed like your everyday dwarf.

To be honest, we couldn't find a warrior skin which fit as well with the hardened criminal theme, but I guess perhaps the other two were a little too hellish - we were more trying to get across the feeling of a rough-and-tumble type.

The bosses were great. Their spells and such were very interesting, but fairly cliche. I thought the final boss, the great eye, was a tad too fast to kill and easy to beat. My team did die, all at different times, but near the end of the fight, and without healing beforehand.

Alright, we had the least time to balance him, so yeah, it's likely he's a bit easy. I'll try upping some values and changing his behaviour to fix this for future versions.

A problem I encountered twice, that was quite annoying, was after going through portals from zone to zone it takes about 45 seconds for the camera to move to my hero. This only happened to me, red. When leaving the Desert, after killing the boss, this happened, and when going to the third zone.

That's also odd (like the death bug), as it never happened to me. So this happened all the time when going through those areas?

Speaking of which, the third zone's design was very original. Quite bland, but there wasn't much you could've done to improve it. The only major downside was seeing the "destroy all units to go to open the next portal" hint come up so many times.

So many times? It should've only came up once. Guess I messed something up.

Overall it was a great map. Best of luck!

Thanks!

Those are actually both directly taken from OD, RisingDusk's new map

(I know the ghost thing is widely used, but the exact mechanics are the same as in OD)

The ghosts are, as I said above, inspired by OD. However, the merchants are... merchants. I don't see what makes it unique for OD to have merchants and no other games to.

 

[Airandius]

Iv talked with hawkwing about it and he said he will give airandius the credit if we manage to get to top 3 even tought he wanted to leave the contest.

Lol, people never tell me stuff, I feel very very sadz.. xD

So, you are forcing credit upon him! That seems strange.

Lol, I think I said in a early post that I would not really much care if kewlthis would still want to continue, but I would not do anything about the trigers anymore, since the issues started there.
Besides original plan was, I make terrain, he would do triggers. I would also make items, and I did but I had to change triggers for it so meh, I think it got removed. Idc though. xD

I think he wants the credit anyway. So its fine with me.

Hell yeh I want credit for the awesome terrain I made, if u don't want my triggers that's fine by me.
I'm in the terrain department anyway.. I just brushed up my trigger knowledge as well for I arez a solo mapmaker but meh. xD Idc =D

So all is oke, our map is entered the kewlthis version I think. So without me fixing stuff. 9And according to him killing stuff as well, but that's my second nature anyway.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Bobo_The_Kodo I don't see how our way of placing various merchants into a library relates to OD's way of having a single vendor in each boss area? It's not the same at all? Unless something different happens after the second boss, which is the longest I've ever gotten in my few tries on the map.

The death bug, like you mentioned Hawk, is VERY annoying. Me and Fulla tested the map a few tries but never found out as to why this keeps happening to red, but it seems to start appearing after his first real death. Fulla checked out the model and found no problems there. If it is unfixable we'll just replace him.

Ghosts were not inspired by WoW, but from OD. Like Poot said, we would have wanted to add some more spells for it so you could support while being dead.

About the third boss, this is kind of funny, because I was afraid it was too hard, both with boss and creeps since I just gave them some higher values than the previous levels and then hoped it was balanced, because I never got to play it! In my test runs there were always complications and what not so I only ever made it to the Sand area once and the other times just the prison.

I am glad that you liked the map, though the "lack of originality', does that apply to the map as a whole or to that paragraph? Because we tried to be original with most things such as the Heretic, which the design of I really like and find to be unused so far, atleast in Warcraft 3 as far as I know. Also I think that our bosses was cleverly designed and brought something new to the table, made in a more plateform-style fashion the way that they react and perform actions and never actually do any standard attacks.

Thanks for the thorough review, most of the points I find very valid and the bugs/problems will be addressed as quickly as possible so a new version can be released which is bug-free. The death bug especially is a torn in my eye as it is so damn unnescesary!

 

[Airandius]

Didn't the contest finish already?

The contest shall begin on 9/23/08 and conclude on
11/26/08, 12:00 AM

 

[redscores]

raging, your map misses somehow really impressive spells.

And your mobs die even slower as the one in Ice Forge.

No problem for me, but maybe for others.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Airandus that does not mean we cannot release new versions, it just means that the version we released in this thread will be the one that gets judged, no one can force us not to work on our own map if we want to

And "ok" redscores, what is your point with this? If it is just to try and put down the map then whatever, I don't see why you feel the need to do that. We have spells that is there for practical reasons, not to have super many effects. They fit each hero and the theme. The only one I feel could look better would be "charge", else I don't get your complaining, should we have made it so the world trembles and hell arises everytime we do a heal spell or what?

 

[kewlthis]

Airandus that does not mean we cannot release new versions, it just means that the version we released in this thread will be the one that gets judged, no one can force us not to work on our own map if we want to

And "ok" redscores, what is your point with this? If it is just to try and put down the map then whatever, I don't see why you feel the need to do that. We have spells that is there for practical reasons, not to have super many effects. They fit each hero and the theme. The only one I feel could look better would be "charge", else I don't get your complaining, should we have made it so the world trembles and hell arises everytime we do a heal spell or what?

Thats just matter of opinnion.

I like killing creeps fast with flashy spells and some people like tactics and dont care how the spells look. If you are refering that healing spells cant be flashy, then you dont have imagination.

People really get "angry" with such small things

 

[redscores]

No, but a bit more intelligent and impressive spells, look at the cleric from Ice Forge, he has no real direct heals, he need to place his spells situational, so he needs a bit of skill to be played, especially because he has no long ranged heals.

But Ice Forge features flashy spells, which are strategical, with strategical fights, you can put both in the same box...

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Our heal spells do require skill? Just the fact that to heal the healer has to take away from his own HP is a pretty big factor I'd say and several of the heal spells is based around aiming properly aswell, like you boost about yours being, redscores.

And I did not comment on the whole creep thing at all kewlthis, I know there is different opinions on this and each is intitled to his own. However I don't think our fights lasts all that long, creeps die in a few attacks each for the trash-mobs, but it might be longer than for some other maps, I don't know, I don't play RPG maps.

And I see you continue to try and put down our map and make your own seem like the king of it all, well whatever redscores, not everybody has a good competetive spirit I guess. Feel free to call our spells dumb and unimpressive if that makes you feel better about yourself.

 

[Airandius]

All stay polite now. =)
And I know that u can still work after a map even though the contest has ended, I was a bit confused..
I thought u wanted to release it for contest. xD

 

[HappyTauren]

HappyTauren owns redscores at owning. MoreThanJustAClassic. But seriously, I don't remember ONE post of your "constructive criticism" that didn't start with "ya dood spels suxx"

 

[Pyritie]

Not really, HappyTauren shouldn't write in a thread just to flame...

You don't have to respond back.

 

[Bobo_The_Kodo]

So did he end this or is it still goin on?