- Joined
- May 24, 2016
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- 753
Quick introduction to Reversed Campaigns:
Reversed campaigns are a genre where you take the original campaign apart mission by mission and modify (or in my case remake each mission from scratch) to let the player play the mission as the opposite faction while the faction you normally play as is now controlled by AI. This concept comes with many creative challenges where you need to remake the missions objectives that gives the player a true, worth-while goal (instead of just hold out til you die), but with minimal change to the original events of the mission.
The Culling:
Is going to be a masterpiece in Reversed edition!
You WONT be playing as Malganis, youll be playing as STRATHOLME ITSELF!
And it won't be a hold-out in the slightest, the map is gonna be massive, but the city will be divided in bordered off (but connected) districts so its kinda easy to keep track of happenings within destinct districts, easy to tell apart.
Goal won't be just to defend the city, no no no.....
You get a Special Unit; The Town Crier -- who may rally and order around groups of villagers!
Interactive City Buildings will work like Transport Ships; with the villagers pre-loaded inside, you wont need to micro the villagers themselves, but through Town Criers you get indirect and versatile control over them.
Four instant-cast abilities; (like Roar, Starfall, Scroll of Protection, ect)
Rally! -- Makes villagers in 900 AoE leave their homes and follow the Town Crier.
Hold! -- Villagers assume defensive positions around the location its cast; treat the area like a rendezvous, armed or not, they'll put up a fight.
Back to your Homes! -- Villagers take shelter in their corresponding homes (or among the ruins of them).
Call to Arms! -- Villagers will attack-move to and gather around the nearest player-owned Town Hall to equip themselves (gain enhanced stats).
The Town Hall itself can issue more direct orders to the (now armed and organized) group of villagers. Like telling them to all attack-move out to a specific point on the map or return back to the Town Hall. (only affects Armed Villagers who've visited that Town Hall before.)
Infection Mechanic:
Rather than villagers turning instantly upon touching air,
There are 4 "levels" of infection among villagers;
Normal - The Villager isn't infected (yet).
Afflicted - Stage 1 infection; Villager can still be cured by Priests. Their behavior is unchanged.
Plagued - Stage 2 infection; Villager can no longer be cured, behaves Neutral toward Undead and won't obey Town Crier commands. Leaves house on own initiative and wanders the streets.
Turned - Stage 3 infection; Villager turns into Zombie and becomes allied to Undead and hostile to the rest. Zombies won't attack City Buildings, but will instinctively gather in large mobs and sweep the streets for any exposed living targets.
On a periodic timer, a random villager will be picked among the ENTIRE map (loaded or not) and progress into the next stage of infection.
Environment:
The map starts out at 12:00 fixed time, sunny weather effect, full of birds and a light fog
Every time a City Building or Villager dies or turns, the map's time of day will progress by a few minutes...
Eventually at certain milestones, the birds start to disappear, the fog becomes thicker and more gray, the rays of light turn off.
At 17:00, light rain starts to fall, the fog keeps getting thicker
Past 18:00 the fog starts turning gradually more red
In the coming hours, parts of the city begin to burn, villager infections become more rapid, where were once birds are now flocks of bats, heavy rain starts to fall along occasional lightning strikes
Finally, at midnight, the time stops progressing further, lightning strikes are frequent, fog is now thick and blood-red and the entire city is engulfed in flames!
Mission Goal:
If you manage to cure villagers 150 times and at least 50 City Buildings survive, get the good ending; Uther and Jaina show back up, destroy Mal'ganis for once and for all and will then arrest Arthas and his troops, Stratholme endures thanks to your amazing healthcare and quarantine procedures!
However, if there are at any point less than 200 Villagers total alive or fewer than 50 City Buildings left around the map, your perspective will swap and you will take control of Mal'ganis. Through him, you get to destroy the troops you formerly commanded along with the remainder of the city. After that, you get to wreck Arthas' base to win lol.
I plan for ~125 interactive city buildings and ~800 Villagers total, but the number may change drastically.
Few other design notes:
Reversed campaigns are a genre where you take the original campaign apart mission by mission and modify (or in my case remake each mission from scratch) to let the player play the mission as the opposite faction while the faction you normally play as is now controlled by AI. This concept comes with many creative challenges where you need to remake the missions objectives that gives the player a true, worth-while goal (instead of just hold out til you die), but with minimal change to the original events of the mission.
The Culling:
Is going to be a masterpiece in Reversed edition!
You WONT be playing as Malganis, youll be playing as STRATHOLME ITSELF!
And it won't be a hold-out in the slightest, the map is gonna be massive, but the city will be divided in bordered off (but connected) districts so its kinda easy to keep track of happenings within destinct districts, easy to tell apart.
Goal won't be just to defend the city, no no no.....
You get a Special Unit; The Town Crier -- who may rally and order around groups of villagers!
Interactive City Buildings will work like Transport Ships; with the villagers pre-loaded inside, you wont need to micro the villagers themselves, but through Town Criers you get indirect and versatile control over them.
Four instant-cast abilities; (like Roar, Starfall, Scroll of Protection, ect)
Rally! -- Makes villagers in 900 AoE leave their homes and follow the Town Crier.
Hold! -- Villagers assume defensive positions around the location its cast; treat the area like a rendezvous, armed or not, they'll put up a fight.
Back to your Homes! -- Villagers take shelter in their corresponding homes (or among the ruins of them).
Call to Arms! -- Villagers will attack-move to and gather around the nearest player-owned Town Hall to equip themselves (gain enhanced stats).
The Town Hall itself can issue more direct orders to the (now armed and organized) group of villagers. Like telling them to all attack-move out to a specific point on the map or return back to the Town Hall. (only affects Armed Villagers who've visited that Town Hall before.)
Infection Mechanic:
Rather than villagers turning instantly upon touching air,
There are 4 "levels" of infection among villagers;
Normal - The Villager isn't infected (yet).
Afflicted - Stage 1 infection; Villager can still be cured by Priests. Their behavior is unchanged.
Plagued - Stage 2 infection; Villager can no longer be cured, behaves Neutral toward Undead and won't obey Town Crier commands. Leaves house on own initiative and wanders the streets.
Turned - Stage 3 infection; Villager turns into Zombie and becomes allied to Undead and hostile to the rest. Zombies won't attack City Buildings, but will instinctively gather in large mobs and sweep the streets for any exposed living targets.
On a periodic timer, a random villager will be picked among the ENTIRE map (loaded or not) and progress into the next stage of infection.
Environment:
The map starts out at 12:00 fixed time, sunny weather effect, full of birds and a light fog
Every time a City Building or Villager dies or turns, the map's time of day will progress by a few minutes...
Eventually at certain milestones, the birds start to disappear, the fog becomes thicker and more gray, the rays of light turn off.
At 17:00, light rain starts to fall, the fog keeps getting thicker
Past 18:00 the fog starts turning gradually more red
In the coming hours, parts of the city begin to burn, villager infections become more rapid, where were once birds are now flocks of bats, heavy rain starts to fall along occasional lightning strikes
Finally, at midnight, the time stops progressing further, lightning strikes are frequent, fog is now thick and blood-red and the entire city is engulfed in flames!
Mission Goal:
If you manage to cure villagers 150 times and at least 50 City Buildings survive, get the good ending; Uther and Jaina show back up, destroy Mal'ganis for once and for all and will then arrest Arthas and his troops, Stratholme endures thanks to your amazing healthcare and quarantine procedures!
However, if there are at any point less than 200 Villagers total alive or fewer than 50 City Buildings left around the map, your perspective will swap and you will take control of Mal'ganis. Through him, you get to destroy the troops you formerly commanded along with the remainder of the city. After that, you get to wreck Arthas' base to win lol.
I plan for ~125 interactive city buildings and ~800 Villagers total, but the number may change drastically.
Few other design notes:
- Mal'ganis, from his base passes through a poverished area, has a 33% chance to go to the Harbor District, Market Square or the Festival Row.
- Mal'ganis wont under any circumstance teleport.
- By design, you won't be able to spawn-camp Mal'ganis easily (you'll need to spread towers over 3 possible paths or keep an active, mobile force in that area, can't just camp one spot)
- Arthas' troops always spawn at the Southern Entrance, but he's by design more powerful than Mal'ganis, but moves slower and respawns less frequent.
- Zombies will gather in hordes and sweep the streets, I have a GREAT plan in my head that I'll be able to trigger most of
- Zombies will NEVER be teleported away (fuck that)
- Zombies will NEVER attack City Buildings!!!
- A variable-based algorythm will be applied to both Mal'ganis and Arthas when seeking out City Buildings to target, they wont just attack-move and wont destroy everything on their path
