Witch Tag: Beta release

[Dialupman]

Hello Everyone! This map is the first map I have ever made that was could considered playable enough to be hosted on any website (in my opinion). Early 2006, a friend of mine wanted to make something we could play together. I told him that I could make Warcraft 3 maps and 1 hour latter, I had a full story line, unit types, and a list of abilities. I looked at what he had written down, and it looked like a Tag game, thus Witch Tag was born!

It took 2 weeks to edit and script a working version of the game. Several playtests latter, the map seemed to have a love-hate relationship among the early beta testers. You either loved it, or left when you got put to sleep and lightning bolted. Four years latter (June 22, 2010) I discover the file still in my map directory and decide to complete. Spreading the word and getting feedback is my main goal, as playtesting was never done on a large scale.
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Witch Tag

*The name might change once its out of beta, but Witch Tag will still be part of the name.

Creators of the Map:
*We all lived near each other at the time, so initial progress went quick.

Dialup_Man - Scripting and Balancing *My WC3 Name
Afterlife_Adam - Terrain and Project Leader
Lord_Sparta - Idea Factory and Alpha Playtester

*I am the only remaining member of the original team working on this project. Without the guidance of Afterlife_Adam, this map may stray from his original Idea. Throughout this post, the current description is the closest to that Idea. ​

Progress of the Map:

This is a playable, working map for Multiplayer only. Due to the nature of the game type, significant testing cannot be done single player. Indeed, the game works, and victories can be reached for both teams, but no playtesting has been done on this version (having hosting trouble).
*Besides the Minimap Preview, no custom data has been imported. Map remains under 1mb after protection.

Terrain: 70% *Was done in a matter of Days, hesitant to redo (I'm bad at terrain). Doodads and Path balancing needed
Units: 80% *Major Balancing of units is needed
Abilities: 90% *The right abilities are on the right units. Strength may need to change
Scripts: 60% *Scripted in GUI, Memory Leaks Exist: will fix latter. Some weird issues still exist with current features
Overall Progress: 75% * Once map has been finished, the Open source will be released.
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Gameplay:
*Most players should be familiar with Tag games. The twist Witch Tag adds is the relative strength of the Taggers compared to average.
The storyline is fairly simple and straightforward. In Afterlife_Adam's words:

The three evil witches are going to make a potion to fatten up inocent children to eat, but thats not the worst part of it. They will need to gather several woodland creatures for ingredients. Its up to these creatures to stall the witches long enough for all the children to escape. However, they must not be caught themselves to stay out of the witches soup!​

Critters:

The goal of the Critters is to escape from the witches any means necessary. They have the ability to create blocking structures that are meant to stall the Witches. Stronger structures require more gold, which is earned periodically for each income producing structure that is built. However, the Witches are powerful and no defense will stop them for long. If the critters are captured, all witches become more powerful. Luckily, each critter has a unique ability meant to stall the witches. The key to the critter's victory lies in teamwork and proper use of terrain and buildings. *Hint: Massing weak buildings in open areas does not work. Once max level, the Witches are unstoppable without teamwork.​

Witches:

The goal of the Witches is to hunt down each critter and add them to their collection. Once their collection is complete, the game is over. However, if a critter reaches their collection, they are allowed to free their teammates. To stop this before it happens, the Witches have many tools and abilities necessary to detect, or remove the advantage of the critters. Invisibility, ranged attacks, and teleportation are just a few of the many utilities at their disposal. As they are greatly outnumbered, the key to the Witches victory is teamwork and effective pairing of Witches and the critters that are weak versus them. *Hint: Unless intended, too many witches in one place leaves your critter collection vulnerable. Do not camp.​

Features:

What will stand Witch Tag apart from other tag maps is the execution of how the Witches and Critters use their abilities. Every player will have a unique unit with custom abilities focused on that units strength. Short highlighted areas are given if you feel like glancing over it.

Unit Features

*Critters

• Red: Boar *The Boar runs faster than any unbuffed unit in the game. The Witches cannot keep up without items.
• Blue: Crow *Using his wings, the Crow can fly over obstacles. Can transform at will. Only builds on ground.
• Teal: Fish *The Fish can swim in deep water. There is an area on the map that can steal the focus of 2 witches.
• Purple: Dog *The Dog uses his legs to jump short distances. It can be used to jump over obstacles and cliffs.
• Yellow: Newt *The Newt has the ability to see into the future. The ability's radius is large and can prevent ambushes.
• Orange: Hare *The Hare is very lucky! It can dodge attacks, slow enemies, and make itself invulnerable temporarily.
• Green: Trent *The Trent has the power to transform trees into defenders. They cannot rescue critters.
• Pink: Rat *The Rat has unique buildings that are more powerful than others. Also builds a shop for rescuers.
• Grey: Toad *The Toad can use his camouflage to become invisible for long periods of time. Must be revealed.

*Witches
The Witches are purposely far more powerful than the critters or anything the critters can produce. So much so, that some some might find the game unbalanced. The large map size and the small time limit offset this. The critters are not meant to build and defend, they are meant to stall.
*Each Witch starts with a unique item.

• Light Blue: The Alchemist: Starts with the Philosophers stone. It increases gold income.
  
  Abilities:
  

  1. Invisibility - The Alchemist becomes invisible, only to be seen by watch towers.
  2. Slow - If caught in this spell, even the fastest critter will be slow enough to capture.
  3. Metamorphisis - The Alchemist transforms into a Monster, sacrificing speed to be capable of ripping the strongest buildings apart with ease.
  4. Chain Lightning - This power punishes critters that stay too close. Capable of capturing several critters at once at the highest level.
• Dark Green: The Seer: Starts with a Crystal Ball. It will reveal an area on the map.
  
  Abilities:

  1. Far Sight - The Seer looks into the future and reveals a large area of the map. Potentially can reveal half the map at one time.
  2. Sleep - Any critter caught in this spell is put into a deep enough sleep to be captured.
  3. Metamorphisis - The Seer transforms into a stag. Not only can she run faster, *at max level, she can run through the cracks only the critters could previously use.*
  4. Teleport - Opening a gap between dimensions, the Seer can instantly appear within her radius.

  [*]Brown: The Summoner: Starts with a Staff of summoning. It creates a Illusion that is invisible and can see invisible.
  

  Abilities:
  

  1. Summon Spider - The Summoner creates a Spider that can capture critters and Web the crow. Moves slow.
  2. Summon Ogre - The Summoner creates an Ogre that is powerful enough to demolish buildings. Cannot capture.
  3. Metamorphisis - The Summoner transforms into a Naga warrior, which has the ability to swim in deep water. Also, higher forms gain a small ranged attack.
  4. Avatar - The Summoner builds up the strength her body to become a massive force immune to spells. This can be use at the same time as Metamorphisis.

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Other Gameplay Features

• 20 minute Time limit.
• When a Critter is Captured, all witches gain the same Exp. *Be careful Critters!
• Killing a building gives the killing Witch Exp and Gold *Both features prevent bad or unlucky players from never getting stronger, and thus outliving their usefulness.
• An Anti-Camp system is in place with progressively worse penalties for repeat offenders (BUGGED may accidentally trap a witch passing through without warning if the area is busy with different witches. Known cause, Cannot solve without scrapping the system altogether)
• Rescuing a critter gives lumber, which can be used in the Rat's shop
• Witches can buy items for skills they need to capture certain critters (speed, web, etc.)
• Critters are discouraged from buying Witch items, as all hotkeys are removed and you deselect the building when it is selected. If a critter does manage to buy one, it drops on the ground and the witches are informed.
• When the Rat upgrades his unique tower to max, it produces a skeleton that can rescue critters.
• Admin Commands are in place (right now for only me) that can start or stop win conditions and free the critters. Used for testing purposes only.

Misc. Info

Right now, this post is the most information about this map in one place. It took me about 6 hours of typing and formatting text, but the in-game help is lacking and this post takes the cake. A Changelog is available in game as well, but this post is still better. I changed my version numbering system and the changelog/Start Screen does not reflect this.Attached will be screenshots of my minimap preview, the units you play with, an overview of the entire map, and of course, the Map (protected for now). I hope you enjoy playing and I look forward to hearing what you have to say so this map can be made better!

P.S. I don't know JASS, except to remove memory leaks. Please do not post trigger solutions in JASS right now, as this will probably confuse me... ​

*version 1.0.9b fixes some bugs/exploits and adds more ramps/cover