Recoding Process

[Craka_J]

Since the vJASS Experts are recoding Wc3:WoW from scratch, here's a fun list of all the things that need to be recoded, though maybe this time around we should make it look and function better. Please program each trigger in a test map (if able) so that multiple people can work on the actual campaign file at the same time and make progress in more than one area. The following is a list of systems we need to recode before we consider reopening Closed BETA again:

• Start Map: Character Creation, Character Customization, and loading previously saved characters. The Character Creation this time around will be more like WoW where you simply choose the faction, race, and class all in the same map before you actually play the character. The customization part doesn't need to be fully done, but it'd be cool to have it partially complete so we can have a head start on customization for the future. - Yixx
  
  
• Zoning: Probably need to recreate regions on the map where the player will need to enter to exit the current zone and move on to the next. - Yixx
  
  
• Player-Bots: A big part of what makes Wc3:WoW unique. The Player-Bots. Or we can just call them Bots. I'd like it for random Bots to enter the zone and pretty much do whatever a player might do once he is in the zone. We'll have regions all over the map (probably twice or three times as many as before) for areas the Bots can randomly decide to venture to to grind for experience and I'd also like Bots to be intelligent enough to purchase useful items such as armor and weapons. When we add quests to the game, I'd like for Bots to go to quest givers and sort of do the quest. Even though I know that Bots technically cannot accept or complete quests, we can sort of simulate as though he were doing a real quest. The AI will need to be much better as far as how to use spells and how to attack things, but right now that isn't a main focus as I believe it may take us too long. - Yixx
  
  
• Groups: When Player 1 (Red) selects a Player 5 (Yellow) Hero (not just a unit since they can summon pets which are classified as units) and types "\inv" or "\invite" initiate action "Wait 5.00" and then make a trigger which randomizes the response of the bot. For example, when Player 1 tries to invite a Player 5 Hero to his group, there's a 50% chance that that Hero specifically will decline the player's invitation. If the Hero declines the first invite from Player 1, that Hero will continue to decline Player 1's invitations FOREVER! But Player 1 can always try to invite another Hero that he/she sees running around.
  Keep in mind that Player 1 is the real player and Player 5 (as are all other players except for Player 1) is a computer.
  
  
• Party System: This system will get more complex later, but for now, Bots in your group (Gray) should follow you but not constantly try to get to where you're standing. Bots should also know when to heal themselves or when to heal you.
  
  
• Experience System: Don't think this should be difficult, although it was a problem in Wc3:WoW before the trigger wipe. Player Red should only have shared experience with Gray, and Gray should have shared experience with Red. Previously, Red had shared experience with almost everyone since he's allied with Gray, Yellow, and Brown. Also, aside from sharing experience only with Gray, the player should not receive any experience at all from mobs that are 5 levels or more below the player's level.
  
  
• Spells: Another major part of Wc3:WoW will be the spells. We need them to be as accurately made as possible according to wow.allakhazam.com and we need them to function and look the same too. I'm pretty sure we have a ton of spells already recreated, but I'm sure they all need adjusting.
  Don't forget that we need to use a sort of spellbooks system or perhaps something easier to use if possible for storing all the spells in Wc3:WoW. - Yixx
  
  
• Professions: Not a priority at the moment. Don't worry about this.
  
  
• Class Trainers: When a player runs up to their class trainer and Left-Click's him, the Class Trainer should be able to sell new spells/spell upgrades to the player. Because there are so many spells the class trainer has to sell (although you cannot purchase the ones that you do not meet the level requirement for) we'll have to make a window on the left of the screen come up with a long list of spells which you - the player - are eligible and ineligible for. Since the list is long, we'll have to make a scroll bar or next/previous button for pages worth of new spells and upgrades.
  
  
• Mailbox System: Players should be able to use a mailbox to send money, items, and/or a text message to their other saved characters. MUCH further down the line, we might make this system more complex and allow the player to mail stuff to bots and bots can receive the items and use them, but not until we've mastered the AI and many other systems.
  
  
• Saving/Loading: Same as before. Every minute or so the game should autosave the progress of the character. The game should be able to detect which save slot to save in, instead of forcing the player to type which save slot to save in first. How will it be able to know? When creating a character, the characters are saved in the order they're made. The player can make up to ten characters. When a character is finished being made and customized in the Start Map and the player enters the first playable zone, the game will instantly automatically save that character in slotX. The first character made will be in save slot 1, second will be in save slot 2, etc. When the player has created ten characters, filling up all save slots, the option to create a new character will not exist until the player selects a character slot and types "DELETE". - Yixx
  
  
• Allies and Hostiles: A fairly simple trigger to redo. Even I did it in GUI. Simple make it so that Gray treats Brown, Yellow, Red, and Blue as allies (vice versa) and Orange is treated as hostile by pretty much everything except for Blue. Blue is friendly with everything except for Neutral Hostile. - Yixx
  
  
• Mob System: A new system I've come up with, since I realized that Wc3:WoW was way off without this. There's a mob type in World of Warcraft that is neutral, making their name appear in yellow. In Wc3:WoW, everything is hostile, which can make even the noob zones in Wc3:WoW a real bloodbath. We need a system where if a unit which is neutral and the unit is a Plainstrider or a Mountain Cougar or whatever and it gets attacked, it becomes Neutral Hostile. Neutral units are never attacked by guards from towns and cities, but Neutral Hostile units will be attacked. That's kind of also why we need this system. The guards at the town in Southern Mulgore (Red Cloud Mesa) keep killing the Plainstriders, which we don't want unless of course if they were attacked to become hostile. - Yixx
  
  
• Mob Respawn System: Two minutes after a mob dies, they will respawn as Neutral, but if it is naturally a Neutral Hostile unit, it will return to being a Neutral Hostile unit after the respawn phase is over. When a mob first starts respawning, the unit is 100% transparent (invisible) but over 3 seconds the unit becomes less and less transparent until it is fully visible. This is how mobs respawn in World of Warcraft, and so we'll have the same system. - Yixx
  
  
• Field of View: The player can adjust their Field of View by typing "\1500", "\3000", "\5000", "\7500", "\10000", "\15000", "\20000", "\25000", or "30000". Each defines the field of view. 1500 is the lowest value the player can set, while 30000 is the highest value. This is a totally necessary feature to add since it allows Wc3:WoW to perform smoothly according to the player's settings. - Yixx
  
  
• Third Person Camera: When the player presses the + key, the camera toggles through one of two camera modes. The first mode (enabled by default) enables the player to move his character with the arrow keys and can scroll to zoom in and out; the camera is set in third person and adjusts itself automatically to avoid terrain and objects. The second mode disables the freedom to move the character with the arrow keys and instead the arrow keys are used to manually adjust the camera angle. Scrolling zooms in and out. - Yixx
  
  
• Arrow Key Movement: The player can use the up arrow to move forward, the down arrow to walk backwards, the left arrow to turn left, and the right arrow to turn right. If the player holds down X arrow key, the player's character will continue to move in X direction until the arrow key is released. Walking backwards reduces movement speed by 30% compared to forward movement speed. - Yixx
  
  
• Custom Menu: Our own custom menu system will be required for this mod. The player should be able to adjust Field of View, Unit Range (How close you need to be to units for you to see them; when they come in range, they fade in from 100% transparency to 0% transparency), and other options to allow the player to adjust the mod's settings for the sake of their own entertainment and their computer's performance.
  
  
• Currency: Gold, Silver, and Copper will be used as currency in Wc3:WoW. Every 100 copper = 1 silver, 100 silver = 1 gold. The maximum amount of gold is 999999, though it would take years to achieve that much gold probably. Gold, Silver, and Copper is used purchase items, new spells and spell upgrades, repair items, flight paths, auction house, mail, and can also be used to trade. The player can accumulate Copper, Silver, and Gold by completing quests that reward the player with money, looting chests and corpses that have money, selling items, be mailed money by another player, or be traded money by another player.

If you want me to describe how to do the other systems which aren't necessarily being REcoded, such as the Quest System or Loot System, I will. Just let me know.
Other important systems we need to add that weren't there before are the Inventory/Bags System, Bank System, Quest Log System, and Character Info/Equipment System.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT USE GUI TRIGGERS OR JASS, JUST USE vJASS!

 

[Eleandor]

Start Map

Before you can get to this, you first need to create a decent framework that stores all this information such as strength, arcane resistance, or "Paladin".

Zoning

The regions should still be there. The triggers that provide the functionality are gone

Player-Bots

Even though they're important, I'd much rather have all spells and a lot of items finished, as well as enough quests before implementing an AI.

 

[Craka_J]

I'll ask Vexsin from The Kingdom of Kaliron ORPG how he got all those stats for his RPG and what he used for them. My guess is that he created his own values such as "Set variable X to Strength" and then added that variable to the hero, and whenever that hero enters combat, the variables are used for extra attack damage or whatever. We can do that for Wc3:WoW probably. Make a variable called Stamina which adds to the max health of a unit, Intellect which adds to max mana, Spirit which increases health and mana regeneration rate, Strength which increases attack power (I guess this can increase overall damage by a damage point? Not sure how it works exactly; looking into it), Armor (we need one for armor because in WoW you can have up to or even over 5,000 armor) to reduce damage taken?, Defense which will increase the unit's chance to block or parry an attack, Dodge which will increase the unit's chance to dodge an attack, and Attack Speed which should be obvious what that does.

[EDIT]:
Added and . The represents a feature which needs to be added ASAP and are very important. The represents a feature which needs to be done after all of the features are completed.

[EDIT]:
It's been a while, but I believe Vexsin said he used variables for arcane, strength, armor, etc.

 

[Yixx]

Ok, so I guess things with my name behind them are my job? Then i got some questions.

• Start Map: Character Creation, Character Customization, and loading previously saved characters. The Character Creation this time around will be more like WoW where you simply choose the faction, race, and class all in the same map before you actually play the character. The customization part doesn't need to be fully done, but it'd be cool to have it partially complete so we can have a head start on customization for the future. - Yixx

You want it to be more like in WoW (I watched some videos)? Or still the same concept of choosing side,race,class while the camera changes with every choice?
EDIT: Maybe send me the current side/race selection map? So I can adjust that one and give it back then? Might be easier for me.

• Zoning: Probably need to recreate regions on the map where the player will need to enter to exit the current zone and move on to the next. - Yixx

A system to move to the next region? What is wrong with the current? (Not vJass?)

• Player-Bots: A big part of what makes Wc3:WoW unique. The Player-Bots. Or we can just call them Bots. I'd like it for random Bots to enter the zone and pretty much do whatever a player might do once he is in the zone. We'll have regions all over the map (probably twice or three times as many as before) for areas the Bots can randomly decide to venture to to grind for experience and I'd also like Bots to be intelligent enough to purchase useful items such as armor and weapons. When we add quests to the game, I'd like for Bots to go to quest givers and sort of do the quest. Even though I know that Bots technically cannot accept or complete quests, we can sort of simulate as though he were doing a real quest. The AI will need to be much better as far as how to use spells and how to attack things, but right now that isn't a main focus as I believe it may take us too long. - Yixx

That is gonna be tough i guess,, good thing it doesnt hold a ! mark

• Spells: Another major part of Wc3:WoW will be the spells. We need them to be as accurately made as possible according to wow.allakhazam.com and we need them to function and look the same too. I'm pretty sure we have a ton of spells already recreated, but I'm sure they all need adjusting.
  Don't forget that we need to use a sort of spellbooks system or perhaps something easier to use if possible for storing all the spells in Wc3:WoW. - Yixx

Ok, i got Silvenon's map, going to watch videos and recreate spells as good as possible.

• Saving/Loading: Same as before. Every minute or so the game should autosave the progress of the character. The game should be able to detect which save slot to save in, instead of forcing the player to type which save slot to save in first. How will it be able to know? When creating a character, the characters are saved in the order they're made. The player can make up to ten characters. When a character is finished being made and customized in the Start Map and the player enters the first playable zone, the game will instantly automatically save that character in slotX. The first character made will be in save slot 1, second will be in save slot 2, etc. When the player has created ten characters, filling up all save slots, the option to create a new character will not exist until the player selects a character slot and types "DELETE". - Yixx

I guess this shouldnt be that hard, only i need to know how current saving goes, so maybe an export of the current save system would be nice?

• Allies and Hostiles: A fairly simple trigger to redo. Even I did it in GUI. Simple make it so that Gray treats Brown, Yellow, Red, and Blue as allies (vice versa) and Orange is treated as hostile by pretty much everything except for Blue. Blue is friendly with everything except for Neutral Hostile. - Yixx

Easy, should be done in a minute.

• Mob System: A new system I've come up with, since I realized that Wc3:WoW was way off without this. There's a mob type in World of Warcraft that is neutral, making their name appear in yellow. In Wc3:WoW, everything is hostile, which can make even the noob zones in Wc3:WoW a real bloodbath. We need a system where if a unit which is neutral and the unit is a Plainstrider or a Mountain Cougar or whatever and it gets attacked, it becomes Neutral Hostile. Neutral units are never attacked by guards from towns and cities, but Neutral Hostile units will be attacked. That's kind of also why we need this system. The guards at the town in Southern Mulgore (Red Cloud Mesa) keep killing the Plainstriders, which we don't want unless of course if they were attacked to become hostile. - Yixx

This is something i dont really understand. Currently everything is hostile? You want to make some Mobs Neutral, but when they are attacked make them hostile (so they attack back?).
IDK if this is also in WoW, but maybe that when a (former neutral but now) hostile units isnt attacked for X seconds, make it neutral again?

• Mob Respawn System: Two minutes after a mob dies, they will respawn as Neutral, but if it is naturally a Neutral Hostile unit, it will return to being a Neutral Hostile unit after the respawn phase is over. When a mob first starts respawning, the unit is 100% transparent (invisible) but over 3 seconds the unit becomes less and less transparent until it is fully visible. This is how mobs respawn in World of Warcraft, and so we'll have the same system. - Yixx

Easy, not much to ask about for me.
EDIT: Should they respawn at their initial place or where they died? And should the be attackable while fading?

• Field of View: The player can adjust their Field of View by typing "\1500", "\3000", "\5000", "\7500", "\10000", "\15000", "\20000", "\25000", or "30000". Each defines the field of view. 1500 is the lowest value the player can set, while 30000 is the highest value. This is a totally necessary feature to add since it allows Wc3:WoW to perform smoothly according to the player's settings. - Yixx

Ok, so should any value be accepted? Or only the ones you defined here?

• Third Person Camera: When the player presses the + key, the camera toggles through one of two camera modes. The first mode (enabled by default) enables the player to move his character with the arrow keys and can scroll to zoom in and out; the camera is set in third person and adjusts itself automatically to avoid terrain and objects. The second mode disables the freedom to move the character with the arrow keys and instead the arrow keys are used to manually adjust the camera angle. Scrolling zooms in and out. - Yixx

I do not think the + key can be detected, but the rest should be possible (although scrolling for zooming could give some problems with making things look smooth)

• Arrow Key Movement: The player can use the up arrow to move forward, the down arrow to walk backwards, the left arrow to turn left, and the right arrow to turn right. If the player holds down X arrow key, the player's character will continue to move in X direction until the arrow key is released. Walking backwards reduces movement speed by 30% compared to forward movement speed. - Yixx

Sound ok, should not be too hard i guess.

I hope i can do some stuff before going on vacation this week. But i guess some of this can be done easily before that.

 

[Craka_J]

Assignments that are for you to do have your name at the end in bold text.

Start Map - I want it to function and look as much like WoW as possible. This is a recreation of World of Warcraft after all y'know! We'll need custom images for this part for sure which will show itself on the far right (class, race, gender, etc.) and far left. Also can rotate character in the center by using the little "<-" and "->" arrows. I'll give you some screenshot references if needed. The Campaign seems bugged at the moment, so I'll have to get someone to fix it first.

Zoning: Well the issue is that there aren't any triggers. The only triggers that I got my hands on are the ones by Silvenon, which are just spells. Still waiting for Eleandor to respond; hopefully he still has his stuff and can send me it soon for you to work off of if he isn't on the team anymore. The zoning system is pretty much fine though.


Player Bots: Yeah, not entirely a priority, but it is pretty important that you get started on a very vague version of this. We don't need really smart A.I. player bots until the other features with icons next to them are done. For now, just make Alliance and Horde classes spawn near where the player would naturally leave the zone and have the new entering class (Player Bot) Attack-Move to a random region setup on the map. All maps will have at least six regions to make their choices seem smart and differentiated. Eventually we'll start making them move to certain NPCs, buy items, sell items, train abilities (if trainer is in zone), get quests & complete them, and probably most importantly give them advanced A.I. depending on class to know who to heal and when or who to attack and with what abilities. Stuff like that. But don't worry about that advanced stuff yet. Basics are fine for now for testing purposes and we'll extend the A.I. when we're ready for it.

Spells: Websites like 'http://www.wowhead.com/?spells=7.4' and 'http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/spelllist.html?class=Rogue' are really great to base your spells' stats off of. But you might want to watch videos of WoW to get an idea how the ability is used and what it looks like.

Saving/Loading: We save characters and everything through Game Caches. There aren't any up-to-date versions of Wc3:WoW that you can view (due to patch 1.24) but they had a similar saving system in the super old Wc3:WoW version... maybe not. I haven't played it in a long time since it sucks, but it has some basic concepts that we're building off of, except nothing will be in GUI and we're going for a bit more advanced stuff.

Allies & Hostiles: Yeah, definitely easy to do. Even I can do it, but only in GUI. So that's why I need you to do it! (vJASS only! )

Mob System: About names appearing in different colors, I totally forgot to mention that I want floating names to appear for the player (in this case, Player 1 (Red)) above creatures and any moving units that are killable such as a rabbit or a Dwarf Warrior within a certain range of the player. The player can press a key (V is the default key in WoW, so if you can make it so the player presses V to toggle floating names, that'd be perfect) to toggle it too. When toggled on, a health bar and name sits above the unit's head. Not sure if the health-bar part is completely necessary in this stage, but definitely need floating names above units, especially for NPCs with quests and monsters and all that. My friend complained that there weren't any floating names, so that's why I want them in... little details like that can actually help a lot.
And the reason for the floating names within a certain range thing is necessary is so that the player doesn't see all names in the entire map, blinding them with text. I'll explain how this works more elaborately if you need.

About mobs being neutral, mobs in WoW that have a yellow name are Neutral until you attack them (except for critters like rabbits, frogs, etc.) so all Neutral monsters in the mod will work this way too. And when a monster runs too far from where it first started chasing the player, it will run back, be Neutral, and have full health and mana again... until he's attacked again, he'll become Hostile again until he runs too far from his camping area or kills the player. The reason why I don't want the unit to become Neutral again after X amount of seconds is because you can be fighting something, almost kill it finally, and then it goes Neutral with full health and all that.

Mob Spawning: Ah good question about spawn location... well, probably best to respawn them where they were originally placed so a Dragon doesn't die in Orgrimmar and then respawns there because it was where he died.

Field of View: If you can make it so the player can define their own values, that's even better than my idea. Otherwise, use the values I've provided.

Third Person Camera: Our former JASS guy who quit WarCraft III modding made a system that allowed the player to press the + and - key to toggle through camera modes!

Arrow Key Movement: This system was a pain in the ass to get done right. Try to make it as leakless as possible. That used to be a big problem before.

 

[Yixx]

Assignments that are for you to do have your name at the end in bold text.

Start Map - I want it to function and look as much like WoW as possible. This is a recreation of World of Warcraft after all y'know! We'll need custom images for this part for sure which will show itself on the far right (class, race, gender, etc.) and far left. Also can rotate character in the center by using the little "<-" and "->" arrows. I'll give you some screenshot references if needed. The Campaign seems bugged at the moment, so I'll have to get someone to fix it first.

I know a system that might be perfect for it, but it is known for BIIG CPU-usage and is only to be used for one player at a time (or the buttons are see-able for everyone, since they are units.)
http://www.wc3c.net/showthread.php?t=102351
that is DGUI, i think it is awesome, but I dont think it should be used for anything else but little systems like the race picking.

Oh, and the Campaign is bugged because it uses SaveGameCacheBJ, and some other function that is defined as a Square :S, so it cannot open, should be able to be fixed with an MPQ editor and JASSCraft or such program.

Zoning: Well the issue is that there aren't any triggers. The only triggers that I got my hands on are the ones by Silvenon, which are just spells. Still waiting for Eleandor to respond; hopefully he still has his stuff and can send me it soon for you to work off of if he isn't on the team anymore. The zoning system is pretty much fine though.

So what is there i should do about it? Or we gonna leave it this way? (Maybe, just fade out a black screen, because now it goes to loading screen without any fade or such.)

Player Bots: Yeah, not entirely a priority, but it is pretty important that you get started on a very vague version of this. We don't need really smart A.I. player bots until the other features with icons next to them are done. For now, just make Alliance and Horde classes spawn near where the player would naturally leave the zone and have the new entering class (Player Bot) Attack-Move to a random region setup on the map. All maps will have at least six regions to make their choices seem smart and differentiated. Eventually we'll start making them move to certain NPCs, buy items, sell items, train abilities (if trainer is in zone), get quests & complete them, and probably most importantly give them advanced A.I. depending on class to know who to heal and when or who to attack and with what abilities. Stuff like that. But don't worry about that advanced stuff yet. Basics are fine for now for testing purposes and we'll extend the A.I. when we're ready for it.

I'll look at that later.

Spells: Websites like 'http://www.wowhead.com/?spells=7.4' and 'http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/spelllist.html?class=Rogue' are really great to base your spells' stats off of. But you might want to watch videos of WoW to get an idea how the ability is used and what it looks like.

Thanks for the sites, and Youtube shall also help me alot i guess, spellmaking shouldnt be that hard, except for debugging maybe ><

Saving/Loading: We save characters and everything through Game Caches. There aren't any up-to-date versions of Wc3:WoW that you can view (due to patch 1.24) but they had a similar saving system in the super old Wc3:WoW version... maybe not. I haven't played it in a long time since it sucks, but it has some basic concepts that we're building off of, except nothing will be in GUI and we're going for a bit more advanced stuff.

But in the current demo (which is unopenable), there is a good vJass save system?

Mob System: About names appearing in different colors, I totally forgot to mention that I want floating names to appear for the player (in this case, Player 1 (Red)) above creatures and any moving units that are killable such as a rabbit or a Dwarf Warrior within a certain range of the player. The player can press a key (V is the default key in WoW, so if you can make it so the player presses V to toggle floating names, that'd be perfect) to toggle it too. When toggled on, a health bar and name sits above the unit's head. Not sure if the health-bar part is completely necessary in this stage, but definitely need floating names above units, especially for NPCs with quests and monsters and all that. My friend complained that there weren't any floating names, so that's why I want them in... little details like that can actually help a lot.
And the reason for the floating names within a certain range thing is necessary is so that the player doesn't see all names in the entire map, blinding them with text. I'll explain how this works more elaborately if you need.

About mobs being neutral, mobs in WoW that have a yellow name are Neutral until you attack them (except for critters like rabbits, frogs, etc.) so all Neutral monsters in the mod will work this way too. And when a monster runs too far from where it first started chasing the player, it will run back, be Neutral, and have full health and mana again... until he's attacked again, he'll become Hostile again until he runs too far from his camping area or kills the player. The reason why I don't want the unit to become Neutral again after X amount of seconds is because you can be fighting something, almost kill it finally, and then it goes Neutral with full health and all that.

Names shouldnt be that hard. For Heroes the proper name? Or hero-type?
So for Quilboar hunter it will show in yellow "Quilboar Hunter" , and for (for example) Rexxar the beastmaster, will it show "Rexxar" or "Beastmaster"?

Mob Spawning: Ah good question about spawn location... well, probably best to respawn them where they were originally placed so a Dragon doesn't die in Orgrimmar and then respawns there because it was where he died.

That is what i thought, then it needs some 'adjustments' xD

Field of View: If you can make it so the player can define their own values, that's even better than my idea. Otherwise, use the values I've provided.

Is Field of View the only adaptable value? Or should it hold another command like "\fov 10000", because if more values are adaptable it would give some problems.

Third Person Camera: Our former JASS guy who quit WarCraft III modding made a system that allowed the player to press the + and - key to toggle through camera modes!

GIMME GIMME GIMME! I want to know how he did that! Well that was about the only problem, because the camera itself should not be that hard (though it takes some time)

Arrow Key Movement: This system was a pain in the ass to get done right. Try to make it as leakless as possible. That used to be a big problem before.

You want it to be done with "SetUnitX/Y" or "IssuePointOrder", because there is a difference: SetUnitX/Y makes it not really move, but places it in the 'next position', and IssuePointOrder really makes it walk there.

Im excited to do this

 

[Craka_J]

1. (Start) Do whatever you need to do to make Wc3:WoW as much like World of Warcraft as possible. If you haven't played World of Warcraft, I recommend you download the 10-day-free-trial for it and learn from it so you can replicate it all into our mod. The character creation, mailing system, quests, etc. Whatever helps you and make the mod work best is good.


2. (Zoning) Basically, there will be at least one Enter Zone and Exit Zone region in every playable map (except for maps like the Start map that don't really include much character playability) and the Exit Zone region is the region a player's character must walk into in order for the game to begin loading the next zone. The Enter Zone region is where you start in a map when coming from another zone. Some zones have multiple Enter and Exit Zone regions, but they're never in the same area. For example, in The Barrens, there's an Enter and Exit Zone region at the South of the map, East, West, and North of the map.

To explain how loading to the next zone works, a player must first walk into an Exit Zone region. As an example, lets say the player is in Southern Mulgore and walks to the Exit Zone region at the very top of the map. As soon as the player enters the top Exit Zone region in the Southern Mulgore map, the game pauses instantly and fades out to a black screen over two or three seconds while the game saves all the necessary information about the player and character, such as the character himself. After saving it all, the campaign then loads the necessary map (Central Mulgore) and puts the player in the necessary Enter Zone region in that map... in this case, it's the South Enter Zone region.

Keep in mind that Player-Bots also know how to enter and exit zones. Well... the only real ones we save are the Player-Bots in our Party, but we'll have Player-Bots randomly enter (spawn) in the Enter Zone regions and make 'intelligent' choices such as choose to Attack-Move to one of a number of regions on the map to kill mobs or maybe walk to a town to get quests, buy items, sell items, etc.


3. (Player-Bots) Yeah, no problem. Again, making them intelligent right now isn't exactly the most important thing to be focusing on.


4. (Spells) No problem. Oh and Blizzard Entertainment tends to change a couple spell stats every month or so, but don't get anal on that until this project is nearly complete. Just create spells based off of the sites I had provided and you should be fine.


5. (Save/Load) Actually it's mixed with JASS and GUI. A bad idea from the start. FYI, you can open the campaign if you have patch version 1.23 installed. If you've already installed 1.24, reinstall WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne and install patch version 1.23a! You won't be able to play WarCraft III on multiplayer without it forcing you to download 1.24, but that's just something you'll need to sacrifice until we get this campaign to work with 1.24.


6. (Mob System) For Heroes (AKA, Players/Player-Bots) the name will be of their name. For example, an Orc Hunter named Koraak will have only his name "Koraak" appear above his head. The player can toggle this on and off with the V key. (default key in WoW too) and do not show Player 1 (Red) name above his head since that'd be pretty annoying probably... however, the player CAN toggle their own name on and off in a custom options menu that I believe we'll have no choice but to make soon. The name of mobs such as Scorpid Worker or Quillboar Hunter appear above their head as "Scorpid Worker" and "Quillboar Hunter".

As for color of names, here's a list:

• Player & Player-Bots: Depending on the faction of your character (Horde or Alliance) floating names above Player-Bots will be different. Same for guard NPCs and killable NPCs that give quests or merchants. For example, if you make an Orc character, Alliance Player-Bots, Alliance Guards, and Alliance NPCs will have red names while Horde Player-Bots, Horde Guards, and Horde NPCs will have green names. HOWEVER, there is an exception. If a Player-Bot is "Not Flagged" (PvP-Mode is turned off for them because they aren't in a PvP zone and haven't attacked a hostile Player or Player-Bot) then their name will appear in light blue, regardless what team they are on. However, if the Player-Bot whom is not flagged decides to attack someone who "Is Flagged" (PvP-Mode is turned on for them and cannot be turned off for 5 minutes; usually is turned on either because the player typed "/pvp", because the player entered a Battleground or Arena, because the player entered a zone that makes you flagged no matter what you do there (flagged as soon as you get there), or because the player decided to attack a Player-Bot when the Player-Bot was flagged) then the attacking Player/Player-Bot's name will become green if the attacker is friendly with YOU (the Player) and if the attacker is hostile with YOU then the attacker's name is red instead of light blue.
  
  
• Merchants and NPCs: Depending if you're Horde or Alliance, the color of an NPC's name such as a quest giver or a merchant will be different. For example, if you're a Horde Orc character and walk near a Horde NPC such as a guard or quest giver, their name will be lime green. But if you're Horde and walk near an Alliance NPC such as a guard or quest giver for the Alliance, their names will be in red and you can attack them.
  
  
• Mobs: All mobs are either yellow or red. Yellow named mobs are neutral (don't attack you unless you attack them) and red named mobs are hostile (attack you if you attack them or if you come within their aggro-range.
  
  
• Look at Color of Names
  Unflagged & Friendly Players
  Flagged & Friendly Players (Also applies to friendly NPCs such as merchants on your faction such as Horde; green friendlies technically appear as red to hostiles)
  Flagged & Unfriendly Players & Mobs (Also applies to unfriendly NPCs such as merchants on the opposing faction such as Alliance)
  Neutral Mobs (Can be attacked and will attack back if you attack them, but will naturally never engage in combat unless they are attacked)

7. (Mob Respawning) Oh and keep in mind that whenever a unit spawns, they fade from 100% transparency to 0% transparency over 2 seconds so it looks like they are fading into the game.


8. (Field of View) Field of view is just one of the options we allow the player to adjust to make the game run for their satisfaction. If you're able to make the player type in a FoV value such as 10231 then that's fine too. Helps players adjust the Field of View to their liking. Could we have a Click-And-Drag Bar that allows you to adjust the FoV value by dragging a bullet on a bar from left to right (like WarCraft III allows you to do for Sound Effects and Music) 'cause that'd be great. We'll actually have to create our own menu for this mod that will allow the player to adjust some things that change up Wc3:WoW for the sake of the player's computer's performance and quality. I'll create a new task in the first post soon.


9. (Third Person Camera) This camera system is probably the best third-person camera for this mod. We'll need to have a system that allows the player to quickly toggle between a mode that allows them to use arrows to move their character and another mode that allows them to use the arrow keys for adjusting the camera.
[This camera system works on any level of terrain and is great!


10. (Arrow Key Movement) I prefer SetUnitX/Y since it feels more controlled to the player and IssuePointOrder can cause issues, such as if you're facing a way and try to run forward, you'll try to run around the wall rather than just being unable to move forward (though a run animation should still play even if something is in your way) and the only issue with SetUnitX/Y is that the animations sometimes get a bit skippy and so if you can fix that issue, SetUnitX/Y is pretty much perfect from there... however, I think there's an API from Reinventing the Craft project that we can use for both the camera and movement! Look into that for me.