The Crawl - Looking for active helpers.

[Clay_More]

After spending a considerable amount of time playing around with the Editor and the related programs, I've come to a stage where I think I can begin working on an idea I've had for a long time. It is though a daunting task and a hand or two would certainly be appreciated.

The Concept

The map that I've begun working on is called The Crawl. It is a mix between map genres, with the dominant genre being RPG. The players are divided into two sides.

"The Good Guys" - A side with six players as maximum, where each player controls a single hero.

"The Bad Guys" - A side with a computer controlled opponent and three players who each control a dungeon.

The map is divided into 10 zones, 3 dungeons and 1 starting city. The objective of the six players is to progress through the zones. Each zone has a specific theme, in regards to terrain and creeps found therein. At the end of each zone there is a boss mob. Killing the boss mob will open up the next zone. In zones 3, 6 and 9 the "Good Guys" will be able to enter one of the dungeons controlled by the opposing players.

The way the game is player for the 3 "Dungeon Masters" is a bit similar to the Dungeon Keeper game, the player can recruit a hero (which is slightly stronger than those heroes controlled by the good guys), they can build units and they can construct traps and obstacles to combat the good guys.

The Dungeon Masters will be able to monitor the progress of the players as they fight their way through the zones, as they are allied to the computer-controlled opponent that the players face. While the good guys are fighting their way towards the dungeons, the Dungeon Masters will have time to construct defences and ready themselves. They will even have a training room where their hero can train and level up. The income of the Dungeon Masters depends on the number of Good Guys in game, the more players they are fighting the greater income they have.

At the core of each dungeon is the heart. If the heart is destroyed, the Dungeon Master is defeated. Being defeated does not mean that the Dungeon Master is removed from the game. The Dungeon Master will be given a weaker hero that is placed in the next dungeon in the line. For example, if Dungeon Master 1 is defeated, he will be given a weaker hero that is placed in dungeon 2, where he will be able to assist his ally when the players reach the next dungeon.

The Dungeon Masters will be barred from leaving their dungeon, so they will not be able to go out and combat the players as they are fighting the computer-controlled mobs and bosses.

Selling Points

What are the selling points of the map?

- Complex Heroes: I have realized that a lot of the re-playability of a map comes from trying out a new hero, so the heroes are made to be very versatile and interesting, each hero having a very unique set of abilities. Each hero has one base ability that they get for free from the beginning, three abilities that they can pick from level 1, a level 6 ability and a level 10 ability. In addition to these abilities, each hero also has a class-specific Trainer that is created when the hero is picked, where you will find 11 class-specific upgrades. Each upgrade costs 1 lumber, which will be renamed "Training Points". These upgrades a somewhat similar to the Talent system you see in MMORPG's like World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online. Each upgrade has 6 steps, for a total of 66 upgrades for each hero. Some of these upgrades provide bonuses to one of the hero's abilities, while other upgrades give a general bonus of some kind to the hero.

How do you gain Training Points? Well, each time you gain a level, you gain a Training Point. Each time you kill a computer-controlled boss, you gain a Training Point and you gain two points each time you defeat a Dungeon Master.

I am dedicating a great deal of time in making these heroes as they will be a central selling point of the map. The heroes I have finished so far have taken from 100 to 150 hours of work each.

- Scripted Boss Fights: The bosses that the players will be facing are not just "creeps with many Hit Points", they are scripted and unique fights that are supposed to reflect the flavor of the zone in which they take place. Naturally, the fights will start out being quite easy, but the difficulty increases as the players progress. The Zone 10 boss, as well as the optional boss you can fight if you have cleared all 3 dungeons and all 10 zones, are both very complex and challenging fights that will require a group of players that can really cooperate.

As with the upgrade system, the boss - fights are indirectly inspired by MMORPG's, and to beat the harder bosses the players will need a group composition similar to what you see in MMORPG's, with a tank, at least one healer, at least one support class and damage-dealers. Some classes will be able to fulfill several roles in a group. For example, the Fighter hero can be both a tank or a damage-dealer.

- Fast Gameplay: The map isn't going to be a long-winded RPG map. My experience with playing RPG maps over Battlenet is that most players rarely have the time to play a map for many hours. Therefore, my plan is that the map will take between one to two hours to complete. There will be no save-codes or anything of that kind in the map. While I do realize that it might take a little while for players to fully master their hero, my experience so far has been that the people who've tested it have been able to figure out the concept and heroes relatively fast.

- Interesting Items: Items are acquired in one way only. You buy them. The way you earn gold is by killing creeps, bosses and defeating the Dungeon Masters. Each time a unit controlled by the computer or one of the three Dungeon Masters is killed, all of the Good Guys receive an equal amount of gold. The reason why all players receive equal gold, is because some classes will not be as adept at killing mobs as other classes, since there are healers and support heroes who are lacking in damaging abilities. I don't want the players who decide to play a support or healing class to be punished for their decision to play a class which benefits the groups ability to overcome bosses.

There will be eight sets of items in the map, divided into four categories: Attack, Defence, Healing Caster and Damaging Caster.

Each set consists of four items: Helmet, chest, gloves and boots. The sets will also feature set-bonuses when you acquire two and four items from a set. Each of the four categories of sets will come in two tiers, with the second tier being significantly better and more expensive than the first tier. All items can be sold back to the vendor for their full purchase price, meaning that you won't be tempted to "skip" tier 1 to save up gold for tier 2, since you can just get your tier 1 set and then sell it for the full price if you get enough gold to start collecting the second tier set.

In addition to these sets, there will be Main-Hand and Off-Hand items available, also divided into several tiers with each tier being more expensive and potent. Each class will also have a Unique Main-Hand item that is the most expensive Main-Hand item they can acquire in game, an item that not only grants significant bonuses, but also a class-specific bonus.

Now, you might notice that with all of the above-mentioned items, you will fill up all six item slots on your hero. This is intentional, as the map will have no potions or consumables in it. I find it somewhat dull when you play a RPG map and you basically have to rely on potions to beat the tougher opponents. This means that the potions becomes pointless, since you can only win if you have them. It just becomes a somewhat boring and repetitive task to click the potion icon whenever the cooldown is ready.

Many of the heroes will have abilities that enable them to either recover mana or heal themselves or their team-mates.

- Core Abilities: Two abilities will be given to the heroes from the beginning, namely Dodge and Critical Strike. Both of these abilities will have a fixed 1% chance of activating. The player can improve their chance to either Dodge or Critical Strike with items, abilities or upgrades. Both abilities will also increase with the hero's Agility.

- Artwork and Perfection: A close friend of mine is collaborating with me on the project, a skilled painter who will be responsible for making a custom load-screen, and possibly a number of custom portraits of the heroes that will be used to make an online guide. In general, I am striving to make the map as aesthetically pleasing as possible. I have worked hard so far to make the ability and hero descriptions as clear as possible, to avoid spelling and grammatical errors and to make sure that all of the icons and models fit together.

What is needed?

What do I need at the present time? Well, I have worked on the project for a couple of months by myself, and I realize that it is indeed a big undertaking. The reason why I'm asking for assistance is twofold. First of all I do indeed need a few more hands to lighten the work, and secondly my experience with working on projects is that you have a tendency to be more ardent and dedicated if you are working with a group, and not just alone. Anyways, what tasks do I need assistance with?

- Terrain: I still have a number of zones and dungeons that need to be finished, as well as boss arenas.

- Heroes: I have completed 3½ out of the 12 heroes that I intend to make for the "Good Guys", so anyone with experience in making really interesting and complex heroes will be greatly appreciated.

- Icons: As I have quite a great number of abilities, upgrades and items available to the players, I am starting to run out of icons, even though I make use of the great supply of icons found in the Hive (Crazy Russian in particular is a brilliant icon-maker). If anyone has experience with icons, any help would be greatly appreciated.

- Play-Testing: An integral part of making a good map is having good feedback from play-testers, so if any of you out there have some time to spare, and you know how to give constructive criticism, then let me know.

Requirements

Naturally, anyone who is interested in helping out must be able to communicate flawlessly in English. Since I am quite active with this project, those who wish to assist would also need to be highly active. Naturally, if you want to help out by play-testing, your activity doesn't have to be high, but anyone who helps out with any of the other tasks must be able to put in a considerable amount of work. I know this sounds a bit harsh, but having 20 people help out who each has an hour or two to spare each week is not an option, it just wastes my time as I have to organize and delegate tasks.

If you want to help out, you must also have some way to communicate with me and the others on a regular basis. This means that you have access to MSN or IRC.

I am always very open to ideas, so if you decide that you are interested and you are willing to help out, we will cooperate in making this map work. It won't be me giving you orders, those involved in helping out on the map will work together on an equal basis. Naturally, the helpers are more than welcome to add their own flair to the work they do, as long as it doesn't deviate from the concept of the map.

Contact

If all of this has gotten you interested in giving a hand, you can either:

- Reply with a post
- Send me a private message over the forum
- Contact me over MSN at the following adress: [email protected]

Naturally, anyone who collaborates with me on making the map will be credited when the map is released.

 

[Rising Evil]

I only have one question: what do the Dungeon Masters do while they're not fighting the Good Guys? Nevermind! I need to learn to read better...
Other than that, I can do a bit of JASS, concepts, and Icons (I've never done an icon before - but I do draw). I also would not mind play testing! :3

 

[Clay_More]

I wanted to describe a sample hero from the map, to give people an impression of what I am aiming for. I hope it is okay to do it in a second post, to avoid my first post becoming far too long.

The Rogue

The Rogue is an agility-based hero, inspired by the Rogue from World of Warcraft as well as Dungeons and Dragons.

The model I've decided to use for the Rogue is the Undead Assassin model made by Wingednosering.

Abilities

Base Ability - Stealth
The Rogue becomes invisible for a long period of time and his movement speed is reduced to 25%. Stealth is an integral and important part of the Rogue, since his ability to sustain damage is worse than that of the other melee heroes in the map. It does though take a few seconds for the Rogue to enter Stealth, and all of the bosses will have the ability to see stealthed units.

Level 1 Ability - Envenom Weapon
The Rogue learns how to apply a variety of different venoms to his weapon. The Rogue has four different venoms available to him when he learns this ability. Dire Hollow Venom increases the damage caused by the Rogue, Hydra Blood Venom causes the attacks of the Rogue to slow the attack and movement speed of his opponent, Black Lotus Venom gives the Rogue a chance to stun his opponent with each melee attack and Nymph Tear Venom gives the Rogue the ability to drain mana from his target when he attacks. The Rogue can only have one type of venom applied to his weapon at any given time. The effect of the venom increases when the ability is leveled up.

Level 1 Ability - Thirsting Flurry
A potent offensive ability that increases the attack speed of the Rogue by 500% for a very limited amount of time (the duration starts with being 3 seconds, and increases as the ability is leveled up). The ability is especially potent if combined with Envenom.

Level 1 Ability - Malignant Strike
An offensive ability that is basically a modified Shadow Strike. The ability has the same range as the melee range of the Rogue. The special thing about Malignant Strike is that it gains a secondary effect in addition to the initial and damage over time components of Shadow Strike if the Rogue has a venom applied to his weapon when he uses Malignant Strike.

If the Rogue has Dire Hollow Venom applied to his weapon, the ability will cause greater initial damage. If the Rogue has Hydra Blood Venom on his weapon, Malignant Strike will cause the target to be rooted for a medium amount of time. If the Rogue has Black Lotus Venom on his weapon, the ability will cause the target to be stunned for a short period of time. If the Rogue has Nymph Tear Venom on his weapon, Malignant Strike will silence the target for a medium period of time.

The power of the secondary effect depends on the level of the Rogues venom, not the level of Malignant Strike.

Level 6 Ability - Shadow Passage
Shadow Passage is a greatly modified Blink ability that gives the Rogue some much needed survivability. Not only does the ability allow the Rogue to move instantly to a nearby location, using the ability also puts the Rogue instantly in Stealth and resets the cooldown of all of his abilities. The ability has a rather long cooldown itself and it removes the Rogue from the material plane for a short period of time when it is used.

Level 10 Ability - Whispers of the Grave
The Rogue is a somewhat sinister class with an undead influence in some of the abilities, and this is evident in its ultimate ability. Whispers of the Grave is a passive ability that not only gives the Rogue a bonus to his melee damage as well as the ability to decrease the armor of his opponent when he attacks, but also increases the Rogues vision when it is night.

While the Ultimate ability isn't as interesting as the other abilities of the hero, I decided that I wanted it to be passive since the class already has such a great variety of options available to it from the other abilities that it can be a bit overwhelming to manage 6 abilities. Most if not all heroes will have one passive ability, to make them somewhat easier to control.

Upgrades

All heroes have 11 unique upgrades available to them, and the Rogue is no exception.

The first four upgrades available are connected to the four venoms, with each upgrade increasing the level of the chosen venom by one. Since the venoms, with the exception of Dire Hollow Venom, are a bit situational, the ability to upgrade them individually will allow the Rogue to compensate for eventual short-comings in the group. If the group lacks mana-drain for a certain fight, the Rogue can choose to upgrade his Nymph Tear Venom, if the group is experiencing problems with keeping the tank alive when fighting some of the tougher bosses, the Rogue can upgrade his Hydra Blood Venom to decrease the attack speed of the boss further.

The fifth upgrade available is Bloodthirst, an upgrade that gives the Rogue the ability to drain life when he uses his Thirsting Flurry ability. This is a valuable upgrade that gives the Rogue a decent boost to his survivability. Since many boss-fights feature effects that cause damage to targets besides the hero tanking the boss, his upgrade can be quite valuable if the group is lacking in healing power.

The sixth upgrade is Serpent Grace, an upgrade that not only increases the Rogues crit chance, but also increases the amount of extra damage he causes with each critical strike. A rather straight-forward boost to the damage of the Rogue.

The seventh upgrade is Art of Zengi, an upgrade that gives the Rogue the ability to cause additional damage with his first attack if he attacks while stealthed. Art of Zengi will not increase the total damage dealing capacity of the Rogue as much as some of the other upgrades, but it will increase his burst damage quite significantly, which can be a benefit when fighting in the player-controlled dungeons.

The eight upgrade is Greed, an upgrade that allows the Rogue to steal gold from another player each time he strikes a unit controlled by that player. A good upgrade to choose early as it allows the Rogue to save up gold faster in order for him to purchase gear.

The ninth upgrade is Deathwish, an upgrade that increases the Rogues attack and movement speed quite drastically for 6 seconds after he kills an enemy. While this upgrade isn't especially useful when fighting bosses, it is a very good upgrade for farming mobs.

The tenth upgrade is Cat's Grace, a rather simple upgrade that increases the Agility of the Rogue permanently by 4 each time it is researched.

The eleventh and last upgrade is Falcon's Grace, also a rather simple upgrade that increases the movement speed and dodge chance of the Rogue, especially useful if the player wants to design his Rogue as a hit-and-run type of hero.

Summary

I wanted to display a typical hero in my map to give you a feel of the complexity I am aiming for. The Rogue was the first hero I finished and it was made to be one of the most potent single-target damage dealers in the map. It completely lacks the ability to deal damage to several targets at a time, but it makes up for it with its ability to not only deal significant damage, but also its ability to hinder its target in one way or another.

 

[Clay_More]

Hiya Rising Evil, glad to see such a fast response!

I was just busy making the post above about a sample hero, so didn't see that I'd gotten a response already. Anyways, about the Dungeon Masters, I have to admit that the question you asked was one that I really pondered a lot myself, how to avoid it being dull for them while they were waiting for the players to reach their dungeon. This is why I decided that they should be given shared vision with the computer-controlled opponent that the opponents are fighting, so they can monitor the progress of the players.

If the Dungeon Master has played the map before, he might have tried being one of the "Good Guys", giving him an insight into what the capabilities of the different heroes are, allowing him to learn a bit about his opponents by watching them as the progress.

Secondly, the Dungeon Master will also be constantly working on upgrading his dungeons, he will have a great number of options available to fortify himself. The Dungeon Master has complete control of all gates in his dungeon, he can build units and he can train his hero while he is waiting for the enemy to arrive.

Anyways, I'm definitely interested in a helping hand and it sounds like you can help out in a good number of ways! JASS is really my great weakness, I still haven't learnt to use it properly and I've been relying on triggers to make my abilities work. Feel free to add me to MSN if you have it and we can talk more there!

 

[Velmarshal]

I wish to help you. Since I am working on a ORPG currently, I can help you with terrain, recourse finding and management. And giving names to the characters.
Oh and just a notice, I make best terrains without imports. http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/members/144490-albums731-picture5315.html

 

[Clay_More]

Thanks a bundle for the response Velm, and thanks for giving me a spot on that forum of yours! Will certainly make it easier to organize when I have secluded place like that to discuss the map and the details of it with the people involved.

Anyways, if anyone out there thinks the project sounds interesting, feel free to give a hand, even beta-testers would be appreciated.

 

[dazim666]

ill help im good with triggers and genaral units and balenceing and some heros