Rise Of The Trolls 1.0

[Fire.Troll]

The human king captured me and slaughtered my family he thinks he can be usin us as war slaves against the Orcs! We will play along with his Errands and be earnin his trust, then when the time be right we be rippin him limb from limb!

'Changelog'

Update Version 0.9A:

Fixed multiplayer Testing!
Added Map Preview
Added More Weather Effects
Added Region Sounds
Added more doodads in most regions to add effect
Added new Area Bandit Camp
Edited First intelligence ques
Edited Terrain in Murloc Area.
Edited the Cinematic Boat trip to Cursed land and back.
Edited anti lag system
Edited Fog to add to effect of game.

Update Version 0.9B:

Added Elf Region and Sacred Temple Region
Added Tauren Village and Hidden Tauren Lair
Added Tauren Boss and elf boss
Added Human Race with 10 Heroes
Added Optional cinematic to start (after cinimatic type -Repick as i uploaded slightly older vers)
Added Potion/Weapon/Armor shops
Edited more General shops now 5 per race (excluding Neutral)
Edited Hero Start Fixed left/Right function. now shows all 12 heroes
Edited Starting village. Increased size, added healer

Update Version 1.0:

Fixed Paths widened for multi player
Fixed Pet names
Fixed Bandit re spawn
Fixed wolf.Troll Spells
Fixed moved creeps for exit of cave (Cursed land)
Added Map Preview
Added Region Blockers to restrict access until quests completed
Added New War Training Mission
Added Uber Cave! (Requires lvl 40)
Added new Area Night elf Temple
Added Brick paths leading to next town
Added Stone paths leading to Required Quests
Edited Quest system
Edited Expanded Murloc Area
Edited the Cinematic Boat trip to Cursed land and back.
Edited Bandits now re-spawn
Edited Item descriptions
Edited Hero and spell Balancing
Edited anti lag system (Again)

'Coming Soon'

Orc Race (Neutral)
Elf Race (Neurtral)
Create System Neutral Heroes can Follow Neutral Quests or Choose a Race to side with.
Pets to be controlled by spells. (e.g will have spells called attack, follow, wait, stop)
All Troll models to be edited To Remove weapons (when weapon is picked up you can see it in trolls hand)
More cinematic Scences. (mainly for quests)
Compress map to save space

'Known Bugs'

NONE

'Features'

100% Custom Items
100% Custom Units
Custom xp system
Custom Bounty system
Custom Models
the game has 3 sets of Quests -Troll, Human And optional
The game Has 10 Boss's Each with unique ability and great fight scenes.
12 Chooseable Troll Heroes
12 Chooseable Human Heroes
Custom Spell System With Over 50 Spells

NOTE: Human Heroes are in the game and will be released in version 1.1

'Troll Heroes'

'Human Heroes'

'Regions'

Currently looking for 1 Writer/Triggerer PM me!

Download here - http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/pastebin.php?id=da71wq

Please post feedback on map on this page!

 

[Riptokus]

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for finally listening to what I have been trying to say for about a week now reguarding respecting the Reputation of THW.
I'll get into much better detail here in a few days about individual problems, but I'll try to address a few things I mentioned when I reviewed the map right now.



Dialog:
I didn't write down the dialog for the story, since it was just a simple pass/fail in a review, but there were some spelling mistakes (not deliberate, for flavor, but things that didn't fit), as well as places where it wasn't a good choice to make it what it was. This is something I will address later, on an individual basis, as I play and re-encounter it. For now, let's address the loading screen.

The human king captured me and slaughtered my family he thinks he can be usin us as war slaves against the Orcs! We will play along with his Errands and be earnin his trust, then when the time be right we be rippin him limb from limb!

There is nothing inherently wrong with doing this (besides the run-on sentence, but it's not good for a map description. Your map description explains the map to people who haven't seen it from The Hive Workshop. This is the very first thing most people will see when they see your map. What you have to show people that the map will be worth playing is a statement that goes from first person singular (me) to first person plural (we). While that is perfectly allowed, since you aren't changing the point of view (first person), your troll king comes off as someone people don't want to associate with. He is telling the player all his personal problems as a way to enlist them into his forces. This from the loading screen.
So, my suggestion is to change the loading screen to something else, like "Welcome to Rise of the Trolls RPG. In this game you play a troll attempting to break free from human-induced slavery" or something that comes from you, the mapmaker, and not the Troll King, a character in the game any new player won't have encountered yet. People who play often ignore the loading screen anyway, so use it to draw in new players.
Also, I recommend that the troll king not explain about how his family was killed, unless it is in a quest that has something to do with his family.
Like I said above, I'll go into more depth a little later, immediately after playing the map when the exact details of problems is fresh in my mind.



Music:
Don't ever play music as sound effects. Many players have their music off because sound is an important. You can set the music of a map without triggering it as a sound effect. As a sound effect, it cannot be turned off individually without the loss of all sounds, so if the music is unwanted, you just annoy players. Nothing makes a new player leave quicker than having a freedom that is standard to most Watercraft 3 Maps (control over the music playing or not) taken away.



Quest Objectives
This one is a biggie. Everyone I played with so far has agreed, figuring out what buildings are enterable and where they are, as well as the direction to go, is difficult. You say "Go Southwest". Well, southwest leads to a cave where there is a giant tentacle creature, level 15. It enters into a cave with a bunch of ghost-things, which are easy to blaze through until you reach the range of the level 9 boss and his 2 friends. Also to the south is two trolls, which say nothing. Near them is a log that shoots bolders if you get too close. It also disappears when you get far away from it, allowing a different player to walk through it. The cause of this is unknown, but the whole situation leads up to "Okay, what the heck do I do now?". There is a quick, 1 time minimap ping, which doesn't help unless you are watching for it and remembering where it is.

You need some way to re-generate that ping on a player's command. You also need to use waygates rather than triggered regions for building interiors. The reason to use waygates instead is because of the difficulty in finding the exit. For example, in the Inn, it is buried under the floor.
The pings also only ever give an "approximate" location. The "Inn" ping could have easily been for the little micro-village there, where the barn is. The barn, being an environmental effect, by the way, is also difficult to understand as the objective, and had we not literally stumbled into it, it would have never been identified.



Hero Selection
Hero selection is much better from when I first played it, but it still requires foreknowledge. That is the #1 problem with your entire map, the fact that if you aren't playing with someone who has played before, you are screwed. You need to tell people how to use the tools available. Tell them "Use the left or right arrows to view different units". Also keep in mind that "Waits" are the enemy. Most people will already experience a little lag. You need as close to instant response with things reguarding movement as possible. If you cannot do this, turn it into "ability based", so they are clicking arrows. In fact, a primitive "Hero Selection" UI might be better, with 4 commands. "Next, Previous, Visualize, Accept." With next or previous switching between heros, Visualize allowing you to see a "fully upgraded" one, and accept picking it. It'd make selection a little more attractive.



Terrain Errors
The only thing to say about these is they are nasty, and should be fixed. You can turn water off, don't skimp on your terrain development. Make sure every square inch is how you want it. Don't use blizzard cliffs if you can help it. Lots of other tips can be given about this, but the bottom line is every time someone can "see through" a piece of terrain, you made a major blunder. This has to be addressed on a case by case basis, but please do me a favor, turn off the water and go examine the merloc area.



Oddities
I have no clue why, but occasionally my portrait would change to something else, and my HP and mana would vanish. The only way to track my health then would be to watch my hero bar in the top left corner. I don't have any clue what could have caused it yet, and only just noticed it. I'll give more details when I figure it out.



Quests are Dialoged Stupidly
Quest: Go get me a beer.
Dialog: Go get me a beer.

Your quest log wants a beer?
How about instead "A Strange hermit in the woods north of a small farm next to a cave wants a beer brought to him. He suggested purchasing one in -village name- and bringing it to him.
Of course such actions require some form of letting players know where they are, but if you had that, it'd be easier for players to find quest objectives. "Find the Merlocs in the Merloc Swamps" or "Find the Ogres in Walking Woods" is easier than "Go east to find the ogres". That way, when you see "Mountains of Eternal Death", you know you aren't in the location that has the quest



Feel free to ask for details about anything I said.

 

[Fire.Troll]

Thanks for response

i have fixed the error with the Hp and mana bar it was to do with a cinematic being set off by a neutral unit.

also i have updates the quest dialog a fair bit to give a little more detal.

i will work on the loading screen message And definatl the log which shoots boulders i thought i had already dealt with it.

Im not sure which version you tested but most recently i added a brick path which leads to The next town/village and a Stone path which leads to required quests.

Also the music had been removes now it was only added temporarily because i couldnt figure out how to play it as music effect instead of sound effect.

Any idea on how i can make the Barn more identifiable?

I was thinking of making an updated anti-lag system, which, when you enter a new region would say Now Enetering *Name Of Region* ... And it would show all of the units in that region. The current system i have hides all of the units in the entire map untill you walk into the region contaning them, but it is a little glitchy.

At the moment i am trying to get this map done but i dont have a great deal of time as i have to do a test for a job as a level designer ^^

the reason the map is so hard to follow is because i updated it so much from a traditional Pathway map where you had no freedom to go any other direction than that of the quest. Tried to give the players too much freedom.

If you want to have a look at the map in the editor feel free to as it isn't protected yet.

Edit: for Barn and buildings to be recognisable I could modify the 'bobs guns' sign to read the name of the building or something along those lines

 

[Snarewave]

The human king captured me and slaughtered my family he thinks he can be usin us as war slaves against the Orcs! We will play along with his Errands and be earnin his trust, then when the time be right we be rippin him limb from limb!

Oh, I thought this was u speakin. Freaked out for sec.

 

[Riptokus]

Okay, I looked at your map...

Doodads unnecessarily duplicated on top of each other, all kinds of random border lines with all kinds of random stuff in there. Things not concealed properly...

I can see what your anti-lag system is supposed to do, but it plays around with visibility, which is foolish, since visibility is supposed to be there to enhance gameplay and hide stuff that should be hidden.

TBH, I don't even know where to begin to help you out with this one.

A good place would be looking at your vision blocking and pathing blocking doodads. Some are unnecessarily duplicated. These (much more than Boundary) are how you control things that shouldn't be seen. Of course they are all pointless, since your anti-lag system plays havoc with vision, which eliminates the purpose of having them at all.

For the barn and other buildings, take it to a standard structure, give it "waygate ability". Put them down, then set their gate points to where they should go. Then your return can be a circle of power with a waygate ability. Right clicking on the object will have them "use" it, which allows them to not wonder if it is enterable or not. They can also move on the ground to move between the locations.

Lastly, your triggers leak.
I've been bruising my brain too much on other mapping problems to tackle these today. Attach your latest map to this post (edit your first post, pick "go advanced", click the paperclip, pick "manage attachments", delete the old attachments {if any}, upload the most current version of the map)

The regional names can be tied to your anti-lag, but probably shouldn't be. I'll think about your "anti-lag" system and give you some feedback on that tomorrow.

Edit:
This will probably work better for the Anti-Lag

Triggers

• Kobold Hide
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit leaves Kobolds <gen>
  • Conditions
    • (Owner of (Triggering unit)) Not equal to Neutral Hostile
    • (Number of units in (Units in Kobolds <gen> owned by allplayers)) Equal to 0
    • creeppausestatus[1] Equal to False
  • Actions
    • Set Temp_UG[1] = (Units in Kobolds <gen> owned by Neutral Hostile)
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in Temp_UG[1] and do (Unit Group - Add (Picked unit) to creepgroup[1])
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in creepgroup[1] and do (Actions)
      • Loop - Actions
        • Unit - Hide (Picked unit)
        • Unit - Pause (Picked unit)
    • Set creeppausestatus[1] = True
    • Custom script: DestroyGroup( udg_Temp_UG[1] )

• Kobold Show
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit enters Kobolds <gen>
  • Conditions
    • (Owner of (Triggering unit)) Not equal to Neutral Hostile
    • creeppausestatus[1] Equal to True
  • Actions
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in creepgroup[1] and do (Actions)
      • Loop - Actions
        • Unit - Unpause (Picked unit)
        • Unit - Unhide (Picked unit)
    • Set creeppausestatus[1] = False

Note that this creates a possible bug in the event a creep from the kobolds region chases a player out of a zone. It would be much better to set creepgroup[1] raw and act on it, that way if a creep is out that is in the group, it won't vanish mysteriously when all the players leave the zone. It shouldn't happen very often anyway, but the potential for it is there.

You will notice I changed the group from Kobolds to creepgroup[1]. This is because I am a big fan of arrays. Arrays make the variable list much smaller, although they require a index to track them. It's just my preference, especially since you can then use for each interger A and advance your way through them, which you can't do in other ways

Here is an example of this system done like that:

System

• AntiLag
  • Events
    • Time - Every 1.00 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • For each (Integer A) from 1 to 10, do (Actions)
      • Loop - Actions
        • Set Temp_UG[1] = (Units in CreepRegion[(Integer A)] matching ((((Owner of (Matching unit)) Not equal to Neutral Hostile) and ((Owner of (Matching unit)) Not equal to Neutral Victim)) and (((Owner of (Matching unit)) Not equal to Neutral Extra) and ((Owner of (Matching unit))
        • If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
          • If - Conditions
            • (Number of units in Temp_UG[1]) Equal to 0
            • creeppausestatus[(Integer A)] Equal to False
          • Then - Actions
            • Set creepgroup[(Integer A)] = (Units in CreepRegion[(Integer A)] owned by Neutral Hostile)
            • Unit Group - Pick every unit in creepgroup[1] and do (Actions)
              • Loop - Actions
                • Unit - Pause (Picked unit)
                • Unit - Hide (Picked unit)
            • Set creeppausestatus[(Integer A)] = True
          • Else - Actions
            • Unit Group - Pick every unit in creepgroup[(Integer A)] and do (Actions)
              • Loop - Actions
                • Unit - Unpause (Picked unit)
                • Unit - Unhide (Picked unit)
            • Set creeppausestatus[(Integer A)] = False

With that above system, you just need to set a variable for each "CreepRegion" and you have a system that every second will pause every region with no player activity in it, and unpause every region with player activity in it.

 

[UndeRCoveR0127]

i played this map before. it is really cool! 5/5