Staredit Network

Heres a new rpg i'm currently working on. I'm mostly putting all my time into my Warcraft 3 map but I do a little on this each day. It'll include the same indepth stuff I try to put in my rpgs such as being able to talk to EVERYONE and enter buildings and such. Well, here is a text document on some of the stuff that will be in it.

The only thing that is actually 100% complete is storyline, main storyline dialogue, and all sidequests.

Sounds Good.
-Is this single player?
- How does potion/food healing work? Do you recieve a medic with a certain amout of energy for a short period of time, or is easier to do with triggers?
- If your weapons are invincible, the enemy units will run away slightly when attacked, but this might be the effect you want. Also your civilian will automatically run if attacked, but you might also want this to happen.

- Arrows take up no space?
- Are the beacons inventory slots, where you move a unit in order to use that item in the inventory?
- Is 14 wood and 5 iron a bit expensive for a minimal absorbsion shield, seeing as it takes up more than half your total inventory even with pouches? You can get around this by making the same types of units stack in the inventory, but be careful that you give enough space for a reasonable amount or you might get unit unplaceable messages.
- How is the trigger going to work for using one unit with another, e.g. flint with wood?
- Is wood from trees unlimited? I am assuming that you use hatchet next to trees to obtain wooden boards. If the trees are doodads, how do you detect them with triggers?
- 1 Wooden board + 1 arrow head = 1 arrow? Seems a bit wood expensive...
- The barter system is a good idea as an alternative to simply money. It will take a lot of triggers I suppose though. Can you barter multiple items for a more expensive one, or vice versa or multiple items for multiple items, e.g. Iron & Wool for a Potion & Flint?

-Instead of of moving your sword to the upgrade building in your inventory, you can just give the upgrade building, say forge, to the player and not allow him/her to upgrade anything else (set a switch or something) until their gas is zero. When their gas is zero, wait a short while for the upgrade to finish and then give the forge back to some other player and allow them to upgrade something else (clear that switch). The advantage of doing it this way is that you don't have to constantly check if they control another upgrade building, and if they forget to upgrade, instead of nullifing it by setting the gas to 0, you can just minimap ping them every so often.

I can't wait for you to make this map! If you need/want help/testing with anything (apart from terraining) just PM me, or see me on Bnet. I think there are some great ideas here.

First of all, there was a lot of text in that document and I appreciate you reading it all. Now to answer all your questions.

Yes the map is single player. I plan to use almost every location and string and multiple players would take away from the experience because I wouldn't be able to put as much content into the map.

Healing item will put the Civilian offscreen and a medic will heal him. He has to go offscreen because I don't want them healing their shields. Maybe i'll just remove the shield for the duration of healing...got to think about that one.

The idea behind invincible weapons is that I want the enemies to attack the civilian while they get hit by enemy weapons. The weapons are on a short leash so they can't venture too far from the civilian. I think this will make the game really strategic. A lot of micro will be involved. For example the first boss battle is a Cave Troll. You need to get him to attack your shield and stay away from the civilian while you get licks in with the shield or bow.

Still deciding whether or not arrows take up inventory space.

Yes you bring the 'Use Item' unit to that beacon to use the item.

Iron and wood are both mineral patches in your inventory. This helps with unit unplaceables and the preservatioin of inventory slots. This however makes it seem a bit unrealistic so i'm still thinking about this one.

When you are in a situation where you can freely use the 'use item' unit, you can bring it to forgable items and they go, one by one, to a 'forging' location and when you put the correct number of items toegether they are removed and you get the new unit.

Not sure how i'm going to get wood from trees. Maybe scattered mineral patches in the forests you can go up to.

One wooden board makes 5 arrow bodies. I thought I put this in the map information but I guess I wrote it in one of the sidequests text documents. oops =D

The way the barter system will work is this: You go to a vendor, select an item you want to purchase. IT goes into a 'purchasing' location. Then you get a 'sell item' unit in your inventory and you slowly add items until your offer matches or excedes the wanted item. All items will have a value number beside them. Cannot purchase multiple items at the same time.

That upgrade weapon system sounds good too. Which ever is easier to trigger is what i'll probably go with. Your way sounds more player friendly I have to say.

Today I completely finished staredit terrain of the map, added color to unit names, started working on the combat and inventory systems. I don't see this map taking very long because it will be fairly easy to make. I mean everything is done, it is just a matter of plugging the dialouge in and doing the triggers. And I promise i'll finish this one =p.

Pretty cool so far pears, Keep up the good work, Oh yeah, Could you post soem screenshots for us all?

There really isn't much to look at right now, but i'll get some screens up of the inventory, some of the towns when I start placing units, and some screens of a few battles. When I get all the systems done i'll release a prologue demo. The demo will cover an even that you hear about in the actual map. The demo itself will be a seperate map as to not take away resources from the main map.

Sounds good. I think I don't have too much to say. I'm wondering if you have a good amount of side quests and doubling back and stuff. Also, it is always good to have some kind of teleport system if the map is big. It gets realy aonnoying wandering around a part at the beggining when you are at leve 84193126. . Good luck!

There are tons of side quests. Each city has at least four sidequests not incluing simple tasks that you must do for story purposes. There are also about 8 large sidequests that take lots of thinking and traveling. I'm not sure if I want to put a teleportation system in the map. I'm definatly not going to put an 'Airship' unit in because you see those way too much in rpgs like these. I'm still pondering this.

Finished the battle and inventory systems. Haven't touched the bartering system yet because I plan to do the demo now and it doesn't include bartering. Probably by friday it will be completed.

What do you do with a .Rtf File?

Read it, the rft file is his Map Layout Mr.Squidard.

Read it wit what?

Open Wordpad, go to open,then click files of type and select .rtfs. Now find the file and enjoy =D!

pears its me avalon(MC) hey you didnt tell me you were making this. Can i see it sometime?

Euro pm me and i'll give you a lil sneak. Ya I havent done really anything to the prolouge demo because i'm having so much fun making the actual map. The way this is coming, there will definatly be a sequal too. But ya, i'll do the demo maybe in a week.

PearS PearS PearS!!!

Make a couple screenies! I can't play SC, remember? Well, this sounds like it would be awsome! I would love to test with you if I could...
Keep up the good work!

Ok added some pics. The first two are in the starting town. Those sprites on spires of high rocks are houses. The third pic is a beach. I havent added gun turrets and cloaked uints to it yet. The fourth and fifth shots are ramps leading into the Minotaur city of Vascilia. The sixth shot is King Garf sitting on his throne in the city of Phobos. The seventh shot is the inside of one of MANY houses you can enter in this map. And lastly the seventh shot is the minotaur church in Vascilia.

I'll probably do some gameplay screenshots with the battle system later. Well its not much to look at but enjoy =D

Wow it posted the pics in backwards order....just apply what i wrote backwards =D.

Update: Finished the opening scinmatic and the 'arrival' into the first town. Did a few cutscenes and about four sidequests there. The regular terrain is pretty much completely done but i've got to do a few more starforge terrain pieces here and there.

Battle - The Demo is out =D. It has a nice cinematic and about 20 minutes of gameplay. Enjoy!

Extremely good and inspiring demo. Definitely had a good plot and a sense of the 'realitiness'. I loved the cinematic, and how the units talk and responded.

However after that, I was completely lost - I went into the forest and met with a marine (with a barn) but nothing happened. Then i wondered towards the top and found a mintaur. I wasn't sure if I'm meant to kill it or anything, but I supposed a battle would start. But it didn't.

Maybe that's how the map's meant to go. Overall, Good job.

This Demo is up there with the best of them. I absolutely Loved the Cinematic simulating rain like u did, it was ingenious. I would've never thought of doing it that way. And your storyline is defenitely a well followed through one. I enjoyed alot but sadly i didnt get to try battle because of a small glitch.

When coming out of the general store, the damn Junk is seriously Annoying. It Trapped me from getting out of the store with the sharpening stone, and then i stopped playing the demo. Besides that i loved the map. This is defenitely going to be up there with the best of em. Goodluck to you, and pm me when u fix that bug or update your demo ^_^.

Thanks for the replys guys. Screwed...that guy by the barn isn't coded yet, nor is the minotaur. Those are sidequests for the second town. All that was in the demo is like four sidequests. Ya that general store glitch is GAY and i'll probably release a demo version 2...which is pretty newb of a mapmaker lol. But ya, it needs lots more work. You noticed my unfinished beach lol.

Oh I wanted to ask...did you guys talk to people in an order which made sense? For example on the boat did you talk to the minotaur first, or did you talk to the men saying they need someone strong to hold the mast up.

Or did you go to the general store first...or did you get your bow fixed by the hunter who tells you that all you need is some arrows and you decided to check the general store?

I may have to use switches to ensure that ppl talk to people in the correct order becaue I didn't really think about it when I was coding the map.

First I think I came across the marine and it send it needed someone strong to hold the mast. Then i went to the front deck where the firebat is and I said something about Minotaur lending me strength.

I didn't go to the general store XD I just wondered off into the forest.

Oh man i tried out your map and i thought it awesome! But i couldn't go farther than when you go into the store, and need to make a deal with the clerk to get the Shapening Stone. When i exited the store i couldnt move anywhere, i was stuck in between the "junk" or scv's. But from the other stuff that i went through i thought you did a really nice job.

Ya I apologize about the Genral Store glitch. Theres also another glich when trying to exit the bunker house in the first village but no worries because that house pertains to the General store quest. So just avoid that whole ordeal and have fun with the othere three lil quests =D. I've decided not to fix these two bugs and put out another demo. It's not that big of a deal and the demo is just so you can kinda feel out the map.