* Revenge of the Skeletons *

[AceHart]

I finally got some time for some update.
See post #1 for the map.

I'm not entirely convinced defeat works correctly in all cases in multi-player...

As usual, there's some potential for +rep for multi-player replays that
- have at least 5 human players
- of which at least 2 stay to the end
- the replay must come from someone that stayed to the end, regardless of game result
- the map, preferably, goes to "downloads", not C:\Documents and settings\Users\Bob\General\Demo\Other Stuff\WC3\Maps\From somewhere\Test\Temporary"

 

[AceHart]

Genesis of a map - The making of Revenge of the Skeletons


Some Friday evening, our friend Ace was sitting in front of his comp,
started the editor and wanted to start a new map.
It probably was just the time to do so or so.

Now, where to start?
No idea.

A map doesn't come out of thin air.
You need some kind of plan, or, at least, some hint of an inspired idea.

A rather important aspect is "What unit am I going to move around?".
So, let's have a look at the available units.
With any luck...

Humans? No. Too human.
Night Elf? Already used at every corner.
Orc? Maybe.
Undead? Undead are cool by definition, so, keep those in mind.

Some quick look at "Neutral Hostile", and I was back to Undead.
Yet another Necromancer? Not really... all seen all too often.

Though, under "Special", there was this pathetic Skeleton.
For no particular reason, I put him on an otherwise blank Lordaeron Summer map.
Which told me two things:
- Lordaeron Summer just doesn't cut it (actually, it sort of blows...)
- Yes, this Skeleton is rather cool

Then there was this little voice that said:
" You know, there's plenty more Skeleton types in the game... "
Hm... there are?
Well, yes, there are.

So, I collected them all, and put them all on the map.
Which looked like a plan already.
Or, well, let's say it looked like something that might be explained later on with an actual plan.

For now it was just a bunch of Skeletons on a bad map.
New map, Felwood.
Skeletons back.
Looked much better.
Darker. Greener. Poisonous. Dangerous. All of which are good.

So, Felwood it was.

To pass time for some idea to come, I put a couple trees.
And a doodad or two just because.

Seemed to work as I started to like the looks of it all.
Of course, there still was no inspired idea, but that's for later.

Next step. A base.
Even when you only control one single unit, you still need some kind of home to..., well, feel at home.
Or to have something you might want to protect.

Which calls for some building. Preferably Undead.
Shortly after, there was a Crypt on the map.
And then another, and... then some more.
Basically, one for each player.
Good start.
Could be used too to actually get started by training your unit(s).

Now, Undead without Raise Dead is pretty much unthinkable.
But, you need some Caster unit.
The Mage really made sense from the looks, so that's that.
Can't really use a sword yielding Skeleton as Caster.
At least not when you have a Mage at hand.
The Crypt trains Mages, Mages raise Skeletons.
Makes sense and sounds like you could use it already for something bigger, like, an army or so.

More units?
Well...

Ok, Mage, Skeleton, ... now what?
Permanent summoning? Not very good.
It's not convincing.
And, you could just hide in some corner, wait until you have an entire army... garbage.
Skeletons expire. End of story.

However,
- Why do you always have to lose a perfectly working unit just because its timer expires?
- You can't really raise more than basic Skeletons

Yes, Undead have an upgrade... but
- You need to research an upgrade
- It doesn't really make sense for more than, let's say, 2 levels...
- Still doesn't help with losing your Skeletons.

Well, that's when units started to get experience from killing.
Given enough experience... we'll see.

For now, there's somewhat of a problem here.
Skeletons don't leave corpses.
And, with just your Mage, to beat another Mage... sounds too much like luck.
But, Blizzard to the rescue.
There's an ability that generates corpses!

Much better!

Or so...
After all, I'm still alone here, just me and my Mage, and I raise some Skeletons that have nothing to do.
All the fun really.

Fortunately, we have triggers, and an AI Editor.
All you need to get some comp going.

Soon after, there was a basic AI script that trained Mages from Crypts.
Worked nicely.
There already was way more activity on the map.
Perfect really.
Me no like maps with no activity.
This is, as we all know, WarCraft, not The Sims.
Action! Blood! Death to all who oppose us! If it moves, kill it! If it doesn't, kill it anyway, just to be sure!

Back to the drawing board.
The Skeletons still expire.
Hence the experience system.
Skeletons get experience from assisting kills.
And a bonus if they themselves did the killing.

Mages though? Yes, but... they are Casters.
So they should get experience from casting spells.

The obvious next step was to improve the Skeletons to bigger and stronger units, with a new timer,
and the Mages to "grow" into stronger Casters.
Then again, they only have Raise Dead...
Let's find some more spells.
Something that keeps your army around for somewhat longer for example.
The army still expires, but, there's a chance they improve.
That chance should be enforced by the Mages.

Healing would be good.
But not at level 1...

Bloodlust makes sense.
It's also autocast, which means you can't just have both Raise Dead and Bloodlust on autocast.
Means you need to take better care of your Mages.
Which is good because that gives an advantage to comps.
Comps tend not to do too good.
They need all the help they can get.
Comps never miss an opportunity to raise an extra Skeleton!
People do at times.

In the end, they would get
- Raise Dead
- Bloodlust
- Essence of Blight
- Vampiric Aura

The first three are all autocast, so that calls for some planning when using them.
While still being easy to manage, as you set them to autocast as needed.
But, more than three active abilities is somewhat unmanageable.
Hence the passive.

Looks good.
Feels like it might make sense to people other than myself.

So, experience system in place.
Mages could grow bigger with an extra spell per level.
Skeletons could improve to Dark Minions.
Played rather well already.

Then Skeletons got a second upgrade, to Greater Dark Minions as final form.

Casters, melee units...
Clearly
- there's still unused unit types left
- there's no ranged unit yet

Enters the Skeleton Archer.
Which could also improve to... well, not the same way as for Skeletons.
So, they got two possible upgrades, chosen at random.
Either Skeletal Marksman, with Cold Arrows, or his opposite, the Burning Archer, with Searing Arrows.
One upgrade only, but still different units.
Also adds a bit of color to the map.
Skeletons, by nature, are pretty much just more or less white.
Improved units allowed to add some color to them.
Good thing.

And, where are they coming from?
Well, since you could already fight opponents... you have bounty... let's train them from the Crypt.
Said, and done.
Crypts train Mages... ok, so they train Mages for free, but with a limit on numbers.
Five sounds good.
You still have to micro them close and personally, can't have 50 of them anyway.
Archers cost some Gold.

Ok, so there was some more activity, some more unit types, some more here and there... some actual gameplay started to show.

The rest was coming mostly from this "It's great, but there's something missing...".

And a couple open questions:
- How do I win?
- How do I lose?
- How to get an even bigger blood bath here?

Winning... we'll see that.

Defeat?
Well, there's your Crypt.
If you lose it...
Then again, it's just one basic Crypt.
What if I run a Mage... and... take over another Crypt?
There might be unused Crypts.
If I had several... stronger, more difficult to kill, faster training.
Good idea.

More Crypts it is.
You can take them over by killing them.
Hm... on second thought, they won't be killed.
Instead, they will surrender before they die.
And, not to whatever player was lucky enough to get the final hit in.
They will go to whatever player dealt the most damage.
That's fair.
You have to work on your Crypts.
And, just because someone got the last hit in... it's still yours.

At that point, I re-terrained the map.
More details, more greener, more close to the point of the map, more of everything.
More of a terrain that fits the map's theme.
And lots of places to put Crypts.

Crypt takeover was done.

New and better AI script, and the comp started to look for them too.
One of the good things of comps that run on AI scripts is that they set their priorities to what's going on.
More specifically, if you start to beat them, they make you their top priority.
Works on other comps too by the way.

We were, by now, happily summoning basic Skeletons, training Archers, and hoping they "would make it".
They did not really.
Several hours just went to fine-tuning the experience system.
It also got more random.
A Mage does not improve after precisely 5 casts.
Or after precisely 10 experience from assists.
"Only" more or less.
Which played much better.
Both for myself, and the comps.

Given I started to hate the comps for being better micro-casters than me,
I re-did the terrain one more time.
Added some ups and downs, all downs got some water, green of course.
In the end, the terrain looked like you know it.
All tiles used, no two corners exactly the same.
And, yet, or still, this feeling that the terrain does set the theme.
Which is important.
And worked just fine.

The Crypts were also told to auto-train the first Mage.
You need one anyway, so, to even the chances for slow starters...

And a new unit.
Which would be... Caster, Melee, Range, ... some Flier?
Bone Wraith. (No, it's not a dragon...)

Which would be trained from the Crypt, be more expensive than Archers.
And... that was one of those "There's something missing".
Just training them from the start doesn't really do it.
They are expensive, they fly, and they are good.
Work for them.
A research? Nah... the units evolve automatically, why would you need a research for them?
Keeping it automatic then...
You can train them, assuming the required funds, if you have a Mage level three or higher.
Yes, that type of techtree requirement is dead simple.
Advanced / Gameplay constants, some free tier, put level 3 and 4 Mages as "equivalent", and a new text along with it.
That's it already.
And worked rather well.

Except for the comps.

New and better AI script, with more conditions.
And a lot of testing.
As always with AI scripts.
If the script "breaks", all kinds of weird stuff may happen...

Current feature list:
- Crypt takeover, "most damage"-based
- Mages, improve with casting spells, and "a bit" from kills
- Summoned Skeleton army, improved from surviving and killing
- Archers, trained, may improve
- Bone Wraith, flier, strong, trained, no upgrade

Time for defeat and victory.

Given you start your world domination from a Mage...
Well, you lose if
- All Crypts AND all Mages are gone

One Mage dies somewhat fast though...
Ever seen those Skeletal Orc Champions?
That's the point they entered the map.
Simple too. Dummy, Inferno...

On the other hand, this has the potential for dragging along.
So, sooner or later, based on the number of players,
some timer will start at the end of which the game ends.
Nothing wrong with several winners.
They all did well enough to stand until the end.
Whoever's still standing wins.

Playable. Fun. Good.

Though there's still some unused Crypts...
Hence the Maiden of Pain.
Trained for free from unowned Crypts, just for kicks.
They are not really a threat, but, still, if left alone in some corner,
there might be several there.
And, Life Drain and Mages... can get messy at times.
Which is good.

And some minor details.
Like the level showing on all units.
Mages got ranks. And some extra decoration on higher ranks.
...

With lots of activity on the map, I also wanted to know just how many units were raised or trained.
Quick multiboard... some end of game stats... details really, but they add to the experience.
Every detail counts.


First public release.
Some fixes.
Food is probably still a "feature"...


Aeons later...
Re-worked end of game.

Additional unit.
After Caster, Meele, Ranged and Flier... the Siege Weapon.
Trained, yet again, from the Crypt.
Becomes available when... some conditions are given...

Longer life for basic Skeletons.
Again, based on ... some conditions.

The details here are somewhat "mysterious", but the map plays just fine.

The AI script has seen an update too of course.


Well, dunno if this passes as "making of", but it's pretty close.


Yours,
AceHart

 

[Uberplayer]

I really had fun time reading that, and now I wonder once again - where does this guy get all these ideas? And by "ideas", I don't only mean features of this map, but that post for an example..

This somehow sounds like "How that God created the world?" ;D... but this God just made too good AI for me to the map..

 

[Cohadar]

Dragons cannot attack other dragons?

 

[AceHart]

> too good AI

Try with people. Or simply play more.


> Dragons cannot attack other dragons?

Works as designed.

 

[emjlr3]

hehe, kills everything that moves, and if it doesn't, kill just to make sure...

btw.....Ima best!!

name still says RC2 in WC3

not sure if game over conditions work properly, things seemed to just happen randomly, perhaps it is as intended, heh

 

[AceHart]

> not sure if game over conditions work properly

It seems they do work. Though, not with the intended result...

Changed. Map updated. See post #1.

 

[ReVolver]

Tried it once with AI and I'm hooked! Full house (users) replay coming soon.

 

[The Helper]

5 Star Bump - I hear this was recently updated?

 

[GooS]

Stupid Ace for making such a great game just like that....
Well I tested it and it was very fun and never lacks in action, great AI, had to try two times before I could beat 'em (played against a full house of Comp. Players).

An earlier post said the AI had problems handling flying units, don't know if it was fixed, didn't read all posts. But the current AI surely has no problems killing my flyers.

Love you for making this map, it's just screaming out "Play me at a LAN party and scream your lungs out at all your opponents", love your irony, love WC3, Love this Forum, hell I'm a very loving person, love to everyone that should happen to read this post.

 

[trb92]

Damn... I fail at this game...

On a related note, I like replays. Doesn't matter how badly you (got) owned. Especially multi-player.

Here's an 8 human player, 0 comps replay. I was the red who died really fast.

 

[2-P]

The replay Orc wanted to post long ago.

 

[AceHart]

You should use the latest version.
http://world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/maps.php?view=794

It has a tried and tested, ages old, end of game system.


Other than that, yeah, finally, at long last, someone used a Shade to scout!
Incredible.
If I had not seen it myself...
Damn, what a concept.


How Orc_Lamer managed to survive that long in his corner is a mystery though


There are times when I wonder how some people manage to "find" bnet.
Well


Anyway, replays are always welcome.
Doesn't matter how badly you (got) owned.


Note to self:
When under attack from all sides, go "yeah, all on <name>". That actually works!

 

[Sim]

Is it intended that when a player is eliminated, it says "x player is Victorious"?

Here's a replay with 7 players and 5 comps. Naturally, the 5 comps are making them leave, but the game lasted a little while whatsoever.

At the end there are 2 guys left, I couldn't find them... and it ended.

Also, is there a way to DL the version which 2-P and trb92 used?

~Daxtreme

 

[AceHart]

You should use the latest version.
http://world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/maps.php?view=794

 

[Sim]

> You should use the latest version.

Isn't it what I did? I downloaded it off this link about 2 hours ago. Stealth update?

> Let me know when you got it.

Done.

 

[AceHart]

> I downloaded it off this link about 2 hours ago.

Hm...

 

[trb92]

>Also, is there a way to DL the version which 2-P and trb92 used?
I used the one from the first post in this topic.

>When under attack from all sides, go "yeah, all on <name>". That actually works!
In my experience, which is only 2 games after the one I posted, this merely pisses off the people in the game and they start attacking only you, not eachother. Maybe I'm just unlucky...

 

[AceHart]

> Maybe I'm just unlucky...

Most likely.
On the other hand, you're not 2-P either, which may or not have anything to do with it

 

[Sim]

I'm pretty sure the version I played was the most recent one. Any confirmations?