WW2: World in Flames [REVISED]

[Miss_Foxy]

Omg who made those, they look so... Perfect.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Omg who made those, they look so... Perfect.

Well there's not a lot of people in our team, lol

 

[WOWWARS]

whut team?!?!?!?!?! omg u made something without me qq

 

[Vuormalainen]

whut team?!?!?!?!?! omg u made something without me qq

lol'd xD

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Hmm... I'm guessing you guys are working on another epic model.

 

[Falafelkorv]

Hey again, just checking in after being off for a few weeks. Awesome priest model!
Since ive lost my Warcraft 3 CD key, i can no longer use Battle.net. So, when will this be available to download?
I also just read through the last 10 pages or something, and Foxy, your just asking the same questions over and over.

 

[PastTime]

Great work and in addition it doesn't mess around with FPS so much. Would be cool to see polygons.

 

[Fingolfin]

@Miss_Foxy: If you were more active in the forums, you'd not have to ask theese kind of questions.

@PastTime: Current polycount is about 1300, counting the two gunners (and all the bones, since 3ds max does not discriminate those).


Here are a couple of images of the mesh with lines accenturated. It gives you a basic idea of how the model is built.
i use a lot of different techniques for saving polygons, for instance, the wheels and the machine gun circle both use planes with alpha textures on them to get perfect circles, and behind the wheels i use cylinders with only 6 sides to give it depth. Me and vuorma has as mentioned played the game with hundreds uf units at once without experiencing any kind of FPS drop.

Images

 

[PastTime]

Looks really smooth, details go good with gameplay and the units sizes in your map make the models look even more detailed. Though I haven't played it yet, I just belive in what I see for now.
Im really glad to hear that the project will be optimised as much as it can be, some maps happen to be really glitchy and laggy due to some unnecessary stuff.
Still, I bet that animating this priest was a burden on your neck huh.
Well, good job mate.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

I'm so sorry Fingolfin, please don't be mad at me...

 

[Vuormalainen]

I'm so sorry Fingolfin, please don't be mad at me...

He's soo mad at you I can hear him all the way from his house. (yea, 500km?)

 

[PastTime]

He's soo mad at you I can hear him all the way from his house. (yea, 500km?)

Wow, I belived that was my neighbour but now I understand the case is really serious now.

But on topic, will artillery tanks do any good damage against regular tanks or they will just act like catapults/glaive throwers etc from vanilla game? Sorry if somebody asked it already, didn't really pay attention to read whole thread I bet I wouldn't even remember anything.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Wow, I belived that was my neighbour but now I understand the case is really serious now.

But on topic, will artillery tanks do any good damage against regular tanks or they will just act like catapults/glaive throwers etc from vanilla game? Sorry if somebody asked it already, didn't really pay attention to read whole thread I bet I wouldn't even remember anything.

They do best damage in the game vs heavy tanks but are mainly for breaking through fortifications and doing damage being defended by either fortifications or heavy tanks

I hope this was what you wanted to know.

 

[Fingolfin]

Yeah, as vuorma said, they are pretty great at taking down heavy tanks, but are hardcountered by light tanks (partially because of the damage tables, but also because the light tank range is lower than the minimum range of artilleries, so they can't even fire at them!).

 

[PastTime]

Exactly, seems really realistic. That was kinda haunting Me all the day since I started to play World of Tanks and noticed the role(power too) of artillery tanks. Making them efficient only against buildings would be kind of waste so it's a really good move. Especially when they did really good as support in reality. I think there are many ways and tactics of military stuff in your map then. And finally I hope there is some kind of prevention against building five hundred(lol) bunkers next to each other.

 

[Vuormalainen]

And finally I hope there is some kind of prevention against building five hundred(lol) bunkers next to each other.

Well first of all you need engineers for it who die easily but they also cost a lot. Something I thought of was making it unpossible spamming up bunkers close to eachother by giving it a sort of range limit like I did in one of my maps so that bunker walls wouldn't exist.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Hmm... Maybe charge some extra building fees? Like some sort of tax?

 

[Falafelkorv]

Just make bunkers expensive. If someone would make a bunker wall it would break their economy.

 

[Hugomath]

Unless the guy had entire Europe and North Africa (Germany) lol.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Unless the guy had entire Europe and North Africa (Germany) lol.

idd, id rather come up with a 'dynamic' solution.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Also, I read somewhere about Britian, they sent some secret well trained force of people who did damage and survived within the enemy bases, would it be possible for it to be an extra unit for Great Britian?

PS: I think it was the SAS or something, I heard that it took down planes fairly well and drove around with fast jeeps and some small (sub-machine) gun.

 

[PastTime]

In my humble opinion it would be lame and abused much if player did it constantly to some camping units, at least it could give him somekind of sight instead of destructing/killing anything. But of course there could be a unit for every nation that has truesight aura effect. Still, it would be better to have a unit like radioman/NCO which has binoculars and kinda bigger range of sight.

 

[Fingolfin]

Yeah. Actually, someone asked for SAS-operatives earlier, and i personally don't think they are very important compared to other classes we could add. As i said then, it's not like nations trained batallions of SAS agents and sent them to the field; and seeing how they DID train large quantities of other types of units, like machine gunners, mortars or paratroopers, i think they'd have a significant priority over special agents.

On the other hand, i'm thinking of maybe adding an extra "Waffen-SS" unit to the germans. It could be made really simple, i'd just have to add an extra attachment point to the left arm and make an little model of a red band with a nazi insignia on it, like theese. Then i could make an STG-44 model to give them some weapon differentiation.
The red band would make them stand out clearly among the other soldiers so that you can easily recognize them in a crowd.

And PastTime, i'm glad you brought up the radio operator concept again, i believe xRiotZx was trying to promote the idea earlier, and i think it has a lot of potential, i'm just not sure as to how we should make it play. A large sight radius is good, but it takes away the purpose of the light recon vehicles (a.k.a. the land transports) which have the role of scouting. Spotting enemies would be another potential use, but i'm not sure how that would work either (a system like the sensor tower in SC2 would be great imo). Optionally, they could give some kind of buff, but then i'm unsure of what the nature ofthis would be.

I would like your opinions on this.

 

[Hugomath]

SAS: Yeah I think I asked for that some time ago

Waffen-SS: Sounds pretty nice, then perhaps the Tiger could also be a SS unit.

Radio Operators/NCOs: What if, after a unit enters on his sight, the player would be able to see the enemy units' movement, even when they move outside the operator's sight. For example, a Radio Operator spotted an enemy tank(tank entered Radio Operator's sight radius). Then enemy tank leaves the Operator's sight radius, but it's still visible to the player that owns the operator. It would be kept revealed until leaves a certain AoE of this ability (for example, +100 range from operator's sight range).
With this, I believe the player would have advantage to hunt down fleeing enemies, avoid being flanked, and also other things. The only problem I can see, is that the player would have such advantages if he's looking at a army or group with a radio operator, so it would be useful only when engaging an enemy or controlling a group or army.

 

[PastTime]

I don't really like the spy ideas, they remind me of some Red Alert, kind of unreal. Though it would be helpfull sometimes but still, they would knock out role of recon vehicles/radiomen. You could at least make them able to sabotage the income of a city (by giving out an order to attack town hall).

The idea with SS soldier sounds really cool but on the other hand, other nations should have their own special unit(if you intend to make them any better than regular soldiers).

About recon stuff, that's one hard nail in the wood then. Not sure, vehicles are way faster than soldiers but I predict there will be dozens of players who will go kamikadze with them for sure, and they will most likely see all your units. Regular radiomen/NCOs would die in 1 or 2 hits so they wouldn't be abused so much with such actions.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Although Fingolfin, giving Great Britain a different gameplay (Like, fighting within enemy territory rather than the usual of massing an army and destroying the borders) would definitely make it more interesting, I hope you'd consider adding it somehow

PS: In order to balance some stuff up, maybe adding special forces for different countries would make it fair too, and give the gameplay a more 'unique' sense that doesn't ruin the World War II effect.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

I hope you'd agree on this, Fingolfin, please!

Although Fingolfin, giving Great Britain a different gameplay (Like, fighting within enemy territory rather than the usual of massing an army and destroying the borders) would definitely make it more interesting, I hope you'd consider adding it somehow

PS: In order to balance some stuff up, maybe adding special forces for different countries would make it fair too, and give the gameplay a more 'unique' sense that doesn't ruin the World War II effect.

 

[Fingolfin]

I see where you're going, and whilst i'm sure it could be fun to sneak around with spy units behind enemy lines, i'm not as sure as to wether it would go well with the playstyle of this map. I kinda like how ham ham worked this out in his, but i just think that somewhere, having the whole world as theatre and fighting with both ships, planes, tanks and infantry, the effects of spying would have to be large enough to compensate for the ammount of time and concentration you'd have to use manouvering them carefully without running in to enemy infantry (and the fact that you could have used this time to command your fleet or army).

If you can come up with a nice mechanic for them apart from being invisible and superhuman (which is how most games sadly make their commandos) than i can propably consider it, but i still have to make compromises i this map as it is because of all the content we have planned.

@PastTime: I don't think you have to add an elite unit to every faction, i think there is a certain charm in adding unique units for some faction that gives replay value to the map. The recon units/transports are already final, and also play good in beta testing, so fortunately there are no such problems. Many players don't value the information you gain from reconnisance as much, and it is also nice to have a unit that can survive small encounters and be usable again if the player is careful.

 

[PastTime]

Not sure, how about making spies non enemy to the guy you want to spy? I also wonder if they could take over a tank and it would be also an allied unit to both enemy and owner. Although it would kind of mess up with the turrets I guess.

 

[Total_Warrior]

I think spies would end up being unfair if they did what PastTime said. That is if the player can mass them.
Sorry if this has been mentioned already but if you're going to have spies perhaps there should be a limit of one spy per player? When the spy dies it would become available at the barracks or something.

 

[PastTime]

I thought such a thing was kinda obvious to mention it. There were a fail games in history that had such crap, kind of abusement. But as I said, it's obvious to make such a prevention, but in my opinion, raise the limit to three so you can actually spy more than just one player, remember that axis wasn't formed only be Germany.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Although it would kind of mess up with the turrets I guess.

The tank and turret is one unit together.

 

[WOWWARS]

yeah spys are good when ur at peace and ur nieghbor is massing at ur borders

 

[Miss_Foxy]

How about this, instead of making them 'invisible' units which only spy, maybe making them as units who work best within the enemy lines (Meaning they're like normal infantry, but they have abilities that allow them to work better outside of their bases), this way, it'd still have the normal infantry fighting concept, except their main battleground is within an enemy's territory or away from their own.

 

[Fingolfin]

@Miss_Foxy: that is very hard to code without a kind of region/border system like in tabletop games. Also, the whole invisible concept works better for me, it would mean that they could be seen by infantry at close range, but not by tanks. Besides, it makes no sense to me why any kind of soldier would fight better on enemy territory than on hte home field.

Regardless, i think the recon vehicle fills most of the porpouses that a spy can do, but you are still free to come with suggestions.

 

[Hugomath]

I can see the spies as saboteurs and intelligence gatherers. What I think is that they would fit as a unit that can sneak without being detected so easily in enemy territory and reveal what the enemy is doing. For example, if he's planning an attack or building missile bases, etc. Could be useful to prepare a trap, preparing a defensive position, obtaining intelligence, etc.
As for sabotaging, they could set time bombs or something to blow up key units (like heavy tanks), or using bombs to prepare a trap.

Or this:

[...]

My second idea is kind of a reconsideration of the earlier proposed SAS Commando units, which would be more of a type of spy.
Spies would move next to a building and interact with it, giving it a small chance to retrieve tactical data about the enemy situation.
Some example scenarios would be:

"Your spy failed to retrieve any important information this time" (40% chance)

"Your spy found a folder of aircraft inventory charts, revealing that the german army holds an estimate of [number] ME209's, [Number] Stukas, and [Number] HE111's."

"Your spy retrieved a tactical map showing the location of a number of german bases *Pings german factories on the minimap*"

"Your spy retrieved a tactical map showing the placement of german anti-tamnk mines *Pings mines on map*"

etc. Tell me what you think about theese suggestions.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Or just get a truck, fill it with soldiers, drive it as far as it goes, run as far as you can with your men - tada, goals accomplished.

Regardless, i think the recon vehicle fills most of the porpouses that a spy can do, but you are still free to come with suggestions.

Agree.
And I don't think that spies ever were a major point in major operations, which WiF mostly is about.

Some units already have long sight range, just pretend it's that far because theres a spy with assisting it, lol.

 

[Fingolfin]

I remember an old bug we had where you could load mechanicals into transport trucks. That way, you could load six transports into a transport, and then load six such transports into other transports, etc.

 

[PastTime]

Imagine such a overfilled truck getting owned in 1 hit. Rage mode ON. However mass command feature is really great for Warcraft stuff, I always got annoyed by the pointless limit of marked units.

 

[Vuormalainen]

Imagine such a overfilled truck getting owned in 1 hit. Rage mode ON. However mass command feature is really great for Warcraft stuff, I always got annoyed by the pointless limit of marked units.

Thing is, if trucks gets destroyed, units get out (don't they?)

 

[Miss_Foxy]

Okay then...
But what about something similar to it, but not that complicated?

 

[Vuormalainen]

Okay then...
But what about something similar to it, but not that complicated?

Indeed, macro! You're gettin there foxy

 

[WOWWARS]

Thing is, if trucks gets destroyed, units get out (don't they?)

hmm i'm pretty sure the infantry were injured or dead if there truck got hit by like a tank or something

 

[Fingolfin]

What he meant is that that is how the wc3 cargo system works. The units become ejected when the transport dies.
We will propably keep that for WiF though, partially because there is no easy way of solving it, but also because it might otherwise discourage people from using transports, which would be sad.

 

[WOWWARS]

the units should be stunned or slowed down if there truck gets killed

 

[PastTime]

It's best to use just easy bind that unloads troops at truck's location, worse if it will be destroyed by "shooting bushes/hills", I mean units that are not visible to it.

 

[Miss_Foxy]

What do you mean?

 

[PastTime]

I mean making a standard keybind that lets player to unload troops instantly...

 

[Miss_Foxy]

What's a keybind?

 

[Falafelkorv]

What's a keybind?

*facepalm*