Party Based RPG

[RoboHippo]

Unnamed Campaign:
------------------------ Ooh, sounds exciting!

What is it?:
[unnamed campaign] is essentially a third person view RPG. What makes it somewhat unique, however, is the party mechanics.

What's so great about these "party mechanics"?:
I'm glad you asked that. With this system, you will only ever control one unit, yet you will have several. This works by having the rest of your party follow you wherever you are going. This may sound boring, and it should; because I haven't finished explaining. The interesting part is that you may control any other member of your party as well. When you select a unit in your party that you are not currently controlling, your control switches to that unit, as does the camera. The previously controlled unit will then act as the selected one had.

Party Mechanics:

He's following me:


And now I'm following him:

But following units don't attack!:
That's a good point. In [unnamed campaign], your party will have its own AI. For that specific problem, whenever a unit in your party is attacked, all party members (not including your controlled unit) that are not doing anything useful will automatically join the fray.

Define "something useful":
Your party members aren't stupid. They will cast spells, and attack important targets, just as an AI should.

Teamwork:

A fight that will not occur:


A handy feature:

Does it have plot?:
Of course it does. Though I won't reveal any of that yet. Mostly because I'm still deciding what's going to happen.

Some Early Terrain:

In the town:


At a farm:

How do I know that this isn't some elaborate illusion?:

Okay, here's a test version of the map:

This version does not have any manner of player restraint, so please just follow along. All of the mentioned features are demonstrated.

Remember that this is nowhere near complete. The map has been left unprotected because I am a trusting sort, and those that are more noobish than I could learn.

View attachment campaignthing.w3x

Progress:
Spells:

Systems:

Heroes:

Terrain:

Plot:

 

[Japut3h]

Nice idea, I like it. It's just that you should describe more about the map, you're only showing us one system, we don't really know anything else about it.

 

[TEC_Ghost]

Alright dude, I got a little gem for you, I played this out and it was a cool idea, but I couldn't stand not being able to see the status or size of my party. So what I want you to do is add this bit of Jass to the game setup stuff.

call SetPlayerAlliance(Player(2), Player(0),ALLIANCE_SHARED_ADVANCED_CONTROL, true)

What this does is setup so you can see your current party on the left side like a hero you control, but you don't actually have control. Your main hero will be positioned on the top left, and your party (up to 4 units) will be positioned in the bottom left of the screen.

 

[TheBlooddancer]

Lol, that following feature isn't that special, you know?
Its just the order 'patrol' to a unit. Anybody should be able to do that.

Edit: I like the name

 

[RoboHippo]

@ TEC Ghost: Thanks! I've been working on a way to do that, but your idea is far better!

@ TheBlooddancer: Patrol isn't actually used in this. The problem with patrol is that if an enemy is outside the acquisition range of the patrolling unit, they'll just sit and do nothing, while you get thrashed.

Everything's better with fog!

 

[~Void~]

Hmm, a party-based single player game? Like NWN? Sweeeeeeet.

 

[RoboHippo]

New Features!

I have added not one, but two new features to the game, with an emphasis on combat.

Battle Music: Now, when you enter combat, it triggers battle music which plays until combat ends, and then fades out. (There's no way to show screens of this)

Battle Camera: With this feature, attacking or casting a spell on an enemy unit will designate it as your "target". While you have a target, the game camera will continue to follow your unit, yet it will face towards your target.

Screens, so it did happen:

Trust me when I say that battle music is playing in both of these.

I punched the murloc, so the camera faces the murloc:

I actually have a fully playable map now, with cinematics and all. I'm thoroughly testing it, and trying to make it into a bit more of a tutorial level.

 

[LSI.Foley]

Looks awesome ^^

My only complaint is that the town terrain could use some variety.
You know, different buildings, maybe a winding road.

 

[TEC_Ghost]

Is there anyway to unlock the target if you want?

 

[RoboHippo]

Is there anyway to unlock the target if you want?

Well, it does unlock when the target dies, or if you attack or cast a spell on another unit. It also unlocks when combat ends.

Maybe I'll add an option to turn it off.

 

[TEC_Ghost]

Ya maybe have like the ESC key unlock target.

 

[RoboHippo]

Okay, the player can now turn off the TargetCam by typing -tcam

It was actually quite annoying to do, because some of the triggers are very interwoven.

 

[RoboHippo]

Mini Dungeon

Sorry for the double post, but this is completely separate from the last one.

I made a small dungeon for demonstration of the party stuff. It is unprotected, so anyone who is more noobish than me could learn. It has many leaks in its current stage, which I intend to remove. It's impossible for me to notice on my computer (I just upgraded almost everything), but they're quite frequent.
Zey vill be krushed!

EDIT: I've removed all of the major leaks. If your computer crashes from storing a few angles from a cinematic, then there's something very wrong. 640kb is not enough for anybody!
View attachment party mechanics.w3x << That still leaks, but the real version doesn't as much.

 

[Lord_of_sausage]

Great map, but i dont like that you can't "shift" hero by clicking the icon.
Anorther thing i always do, is posting updates and new versions in the main post , and instead of doubble posting, just copy/paste the text from your old post, into a new one. and then delete tthe old post.

 

[RoboHippo]

The shifting thing is definitely a problem. I'm still unsure of how to fix it, though.

 

[Lord_of_sausage]

Okay, and maeby you should be able to turn off the camera lock. When having a party on 5, it is very difficult to send your "tank" in first, shift to the healer, run a little back with the healer, and start healing. Very difficult, when your healer is a melee paladin, and just want to beat the crud out of other.

Another thing could be to set the AI of a party member, lets say i got a priest hero, and a Warrior hero, and i want to controll my warrior, while the priest heals. With your AI, it seems like all are just "All out offensive". I didn't see my paladin cast a single holy light on me, when computer controlled him (He only casted it at the undeads i added in your map to test if it worked).

So, maybe adding an Offensive, Defensive, and passive ai (attacking, healing and buffing (Like bloodlust))
else a 4/5

 

[RoboHippo]

He really didn't cast holy light on you at all? He kept me up at high health the whole time... The AI mode thing was already planned, just not implemented yet.

And, maybe I will make the camera possible to unlock. It kind of removes the rpg effect, but it would make it more functional. But then I'd have to make the terrain look good from a normal view as well.