retupmoc258
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I will give you a summarized description of what I am planning to do and the kind of help I am looking for. I have worked on this tremendously and while I could probably finish it by myself (given enough time) I have realized that while I have a lot of creativity and ability to approach many of the problems and that I can find solutions to almost anything I come up against, I realize that creativity is my weakest point and for something as creative as what I envision, it is holding the project back. That, and having some extra help might be nice.
My only requests: If you're going to suggest something, please put tag in there (such as Item Craft System) before each suggestion, so I can keep things straight and see each suggestion layed out better) and also if you would like to help, send me a message. I would greatly appreciate the help
Game System:
This is similar to Oblivion or Fallout (I've been told) yet it is unique and purely its own. I have played Oblivion but I did not like some of the setup for it. So the follow points are what this game is going to be.
Current Status
Working on it (8/13/2010)
Terrain: 12%
Units: 15%
Items: Hit a bump, probably about 15%
Battle System: 75% (I think I'm mostly done with it)
Story: 0% (Few ideas, need help)
Jobs and Classes: 5%
Overall: 3%
A. Hidden Variables
The reason I felt they should be hidden is because it adds a bit of mystery and realism. For example, I can't open a menu or book to look at my current level of Strength, Agility, Defense, HP count, etc. They are just innate.
In this game, many different things that take place will alter these twenty hidden variables. Attacking, being attacked, casting a spell, having a spell cast on you, walking, and even some quest-related things may modify these variables.
There are 5 primary sets of variables, each containing 4 variables. Emotional, Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual. most notable the Physical governs most fighting and health stats, and spiritual governing many of the magic properties of the game. Also included among these several variables are ones that govern bartering (how much an item costs), life and mana regeneration, your ability to comprehend other groups' languages (Orcs, Trolls, Elves, etc.), your fame (how many allies you can enlist), and reputation (how likely a faction is going to trust you--allowing you to gain favor with robbers and the like if you choose).
However, unlike other games like it, if you do not do something that increases your stats, they will be slowly decreasing (with the exception of some things like reputation). So unlike a normal RPG you will NOT become increasingly stronger the more you play the game. What you choose to do and use will determine what gets stronger. The limits for each of the variables is rather small. Skills and strategy becomes a major component to winning battles, and not letting your hero become soft. Every minute you lose just a little of your edge.
B. Open Role-Playing
I have considered creating a story-line (and perhaps I still will create a primary storyline that can be followed) but the idea of the game is that it is forever expandable. Currently with the way I have things set up that may not be quite as easy. But I am looking for alternative options to make it possible.
With this open-style RPG format, the hero is free to ally with certain groups, factions, defeat powerful enemies (which can easily be made more difficult to challenge the hero and become easier if necessary to be something a "weakened" hero can defeat).
In addition, I have future plans to create a way to allow groups of players to take their heros and duel and/or combat cooperatively to defeat majorly difficult enemies and large groups of monsters. And I have even thought about creating multiple worlds which can be used to transfer the hero from place to place (so that the system stays in tact, but the hero moves to another "world"). While this idea seems great to me, finishing this project as a single player RPG would be my primary goal, and once it is done I will let anyone else take a swing at making it more than it is.
C. No EXP System
It has always frustrated me how in an RPG if you can't beat the boss/level that you're faced with that the solution to the problem is to go fight a lot of easier monsters for a couple hours and then come back and try the boss/level again. With this setup there is no EXP system. In other words, fighting a bunch of easy monsters may help to increase your diminishing stats, but it will not ultimately make you stronger (and if you do become stronger, not permanantly). Because of the idle system you continually become weaker when you're not doing stuff and stronger while you are.
There is a little note I have to put in here. In the development of skills there IS a type of EXP system. However, the EXP is counted only towards the skill, AND similar to my stat system, if you are not currently of the job type that uses that skill, you will lose EXP every minute you're not in that job type. In other words, suppose you have two jobs, a thief and a Sage, and you're currently acting as a Sage. If you have level skills as a thief and you don't play the thief for 100 minutes, you will lose 300 EXP points in each skill you have as a thief (and as a mercenary, paladin, alchemist, etc.)
D. Job System
Similar to other job systems, you gain a type of "experience" in your abilities in the job and as your abilities increase you will eventually be able to advance to another job inside the same job-tree. There are 5 branches entailing the 5 principle stats: Emotional, Phyiscal, Mental, Social, Spiritual.
Emotional: Support skills for self
Scout, Ranger, and Archer are obviously bowed long-range (Abilities: Increased sight, speed, and increasing weapon range [more permanant])
Monk, Combatant, and Martial Artist are meant to have lots of self-support skills (Abililties: Chakra [if anyone is familiar with Final Fantasy games, that's one of my main ideas], Powerups, Speed Ups [both faster boosts for a short period of time].
Rifleman, Sharpshooter, and Sniper are all long-range gun units (Abilities: artillery/mortar type abilities)
Physcal: Battle Skills
Squire, Knight, and Paladin are focused in swordsmanship skills (Abilties: Defense [getting more defense out of a shield], and sword skills)
Robber, Thief, and Ninja focus on stealing, spying and hiding (Abilities: Vanish, Steal, Camouflage [needs a better name])
Barbarian, Mercenary, and Assasin focus on deadly arts, paralyzing techniques, etc. (Abilities: Not sure)
Mental: Scientific Skills (Metal Craft, Alchemy, Construction, Craftsmanship, etc.)
The student is the starting job and can purchase raw materials (iron, brass, stone, etc.)
Scholar, Designer, and Archetect focus on construction of defensive items (Helper tools, Helmets, and Breastplate armor, in order by job description).
Metalist, Craftsman, and Engineer focus on construction of higher power materials and weapons. (Metalurgy, Accessories, and Weapons in order by job description)
Scientists, Chemists, and Alchemists focus on creating potions and altering items. (Can make low-quality, mid-quality, and high-quality potions by job order and alchemist also can make some rare ingredients)
Social: Diplomatic skills and other Support Skills for allies
Hireling, Protector, and Guardian gain proficiency in blocking attacks and special "spells" that act similar to castable spells. (Abilities: Block [10%, 20%, 30% of damage, or something like that], Guard [Increases HP], Protect [Takes a certain amount of damage given to allies], Self-healing abilities [no mana cost])
Lancer, Samurai, Dragoon focus in powerful attacks, increased speed, and quick movement (Abilities: Jump, Chain-attack)
Peacemaker, Diplomat, Ambassador learn abilities to persuade the enemy, build alliances with other groups, and increased language skills (Abilities: Charm/flatter, don't know what else to put in there yet)
Spiritual: Magic skills
Wizard, Mage, and Warlock focuses on "Black" magic, what I call "Negative" Spells. (Abilities: Fire, Earth, Dark, and later Void)
Clerics, Priests, and Sages cast "White" magic, or equally "Positive" spells. (Abilities: Water, Air, Light, and later Star)
Shaman, Druid, and Summoner specialize in summoning the aid of sprites, animals, and elemental gods (respectively). (Note: The summoner must find each summon before he can learn to summon them. I have considered making the summoned units like traditional experience-based units, but not sure about that)
E. Item Craft System
Like many other RPGs I wanted to incorporate an Item Craft System. If anyone has ever played Legend of Mana (the PSX game) they will likely understand what I am trying to do here.
There are a few basic things that will be crafted.
1. Potions, Salves and the like (Chemist abilities).
2. Bombs/Vials/Orbs (Scientist/Chemist abilities/weapons)
3. Armor, Accessories, Weapons (Craftsman, Engineer, Designer, and Architect abilities)
For potions and salves, basically you mis the right ingredients and the computer will see that the ingredients should have a certain property and an item (or a few depending on how much material was used) is created. If the quantity of stuff (let's just mark it by weight) adds up to 100 Grams then it will produce one item based on the majority of the item's potential use. So if you put in 100 grams of potion-type material, you will get 1 potion as a result. If you put in 51 grams of potion-type material, you will get one potion (and all the rest is forgotten). If you have 200 Grams of material, then the two largest components will be the deciding factors, with each 100 value making a definite potion of that type. Hense, making potions using lots of ingredients (if the ingredients are filled with multiple properties) can (if you have the skill level) produce multiple kinds of potions instead of just one type, and you can make many potions at once instead of just one and repeat the process.
For Bombs, Vials, and Orbs, they are weapon-types that must be created by a scientist, chemist, or alchemist. They are one-type charge weapons (meaning you have to create one to use one). Since one of these fields are less-likely to actually weild a sword, I figured explosive/corrosive/paralyzing/poisoning potions and such would be a nice weapon they could use instead (but they would still attack like normal, just never have any attack bonuses). There will only be a few types per job. I have debated about whether I should make the user be able to customize the set of three bombs/vials/orbs that they will be able to make (so you 'experiment' and create a new weapon and set that as one of your new manufacturable weapons). The process for making these is basically to use ingredients that have these side-effects and create them.
Once again using a similar craft requirement--except these are preset in some sort of fashion (whether permanantly by me or by the ingedients the user chooses which become the requirements to make one of these weapons) (Yes, I do intend for that to cause some possible inefficiency, a.k.a. using more ingredients than necessary because the idea is that it's a scientific approach). But unless I can figure out how to do this effectively, I will not likely implement it and it would be at the bottom of my to-do list.
As for weapons, armor, and accessories, I have immagined something similar to the potions requirement but with metals, crystals, stones, and even some of those same items used for potions and weapons. And depending on whether enough of a certain thing is added into the process will determine if the produced armor, weapon, or whatever has the attribute. All of these attributes are monitored by the computer anyway. The damage-type can be changed by giving the item an ability (unless I'm seriously wrong about how this all works) and/or I can have a few lists of blank items which can be pulled out and assigned values in a Hashtable. Different from the potion system, however, is that only one weapon, armor, or accessory is produced, never more than one. Minimum materials are required, but if the amount exceeds the minimum requirement, the excess is wasted (although sometimes excess is necessary in order to get the weapon and get the desired added effects)
F. Unique "Money" System
Money has always seemed a little unusual, and it always seemed to end up being "the more money you have the better weapon you can get." I don't intend for this system to be like that, although I don't know what will happen in practice. Basically there are two "elements" which a store-owner can use to create items (certain jobs will learn how to do this, too). The two elements are Chaos and Order (I figured that's good enough as anything unless someone has a suggestion). The amount that the player can hold will be limited to how many Crystals of each type he possesses. At least, this is my initial idea. The problem then being: How does he get more? What is the limitation? And such like that. Basically this prevents the player from "stocking up" on gold and then cashing in for lots of stuff all at once. Player must take time to buy periodically if they are going to stock up on items.
I have also considered having a weight limitation for the amount of items that are carried by the hero and his allies. Although this is easy enough to do (just take a count of the number of each item the player possesses--note: the count is stored internally, not an amount of items in the game--and multiply by a weight factor, and thus everything is able to be tallied and calculated for weight) I just don't know if I want to do it. Any thoughts?
Game Development:
Here is my progress so far as to the game:
Terraining (Could Use Some Help)
Small portions of the map. I really need help being creative. All the units are shrunk in order to make the map "bigger" than it would be otherwise. So, Trees, buildings (to a certain extent) and units are all smaller. Consequently, the map size is about 4 times the area of Epic (which is the actual size of the map).
I have layed out specific areas for groups/factions/cities and need to work on all the little details that go into making a map look good. I could use a LOT of help here if anyone likes to work on terraining.
Unit Making (Minimal Help)
I have all the units set out to make my 50+ jobs that I envisioned (10 in each branch of stats--emotional, physical, mental, social, spiritual). But each has to be shrunk and turned into a hero. This is a time-consuming process, but I am willing to do it unless someone wants to help.
I also need to make tons of enemy units to show up at various places (set up in order to theme an area). I have a layout of every unit on my map so I can see what they all are, and I have sorted them (as best as I can figure) by types and classes (Trolls, Orcs, and all the weird species together).
Mostly this is just going to take a lot of time.
Abilities (Need lots of help--mostly with ideas)
I don't have a clue where to begin assigning abilities to each hero, finding reasonable stat configurations, or anything like that. I am pretty much clueless in this field. My attempts to make abilities have usually gone aray and failed completely. Trying to set up abilities related to my stats is already difficult enough. I think I have taken care of all of the major components I need for the Stat system, but figuring out what abilities to have for each job (roughly three per job) is terribly difficult for me. I don't have many ideas, so any help/suggestions would be nice.
Item Making (Minimal help)
I have the items sorted out in the Object Editor by appearance and type that I think they would fit under. I just need to spend time and integrate it. Then comes the trick of getting each to be recognized by triggers and such when they are picked up and equipped. My plan for this is to have a hashtable that looks up the item's stats by [Name of Item] x [Index[Int]] The Index[] array is simply an array with text for each item. Essentially it allows me to do loops to circle through all the item stats and to create a Stat_Mod value for each Int value and then modify the Hero's stats with that.
Stat System (Nearly Complete)
This has already been implemented and ways for me to check what's going on during the game (multiboard) as well as modify things have been created by me to use while in the game. This has been very handy, and for the most part it has functioned the way I envisioned. I recently ran into a problem that didn't exist before concerning HP (where for some reason I have the value set and yet it doesn't change it like it's supposed to). I'm trying some revision to the trigger to see if that fixes the problem.
Spawning (Not sure what kind of help I need)
Needs a little bit of revising: Identified the problem. Just need units to spawn.
Storyline/Quests (Could use lots of help)
I don't have any plans for a Storyline, other than to start the game. My ideas are small. As for quests, I have a few in mind, but mostly I want there to be lots of quests, including ones that just generate themselves periodically, or randomly, that the hero can choose to do (both for good or bad). This would obviously take lots of time to create and edit, and I'm not as good at figuring out how to make this help, so any kind of help would be nice. I have seen generic quest generators, and while those could be tailored and do alright for some of the things I have in mind, I have a lot more ideas in mind--namely town reconstruction (since you can be robbers you can destroy towns, or build them back up, or they can randomly be destroyed or damaged by an onslought of monsters, etc.), Bandit killing, errand quests, and whatever else anyone can think of.
Triggers/Functions
I have gotten into scripting languages before, so picking up Jass hasn't been too bad, but since I don't understand all the fine details of Jass, I have run into many problems. A mentor would be nice, or someone that can suggest improved ways to do things would be greatly appreciated, but not necessary. Other than that, I guess this is the one feature of the map I feel like putting together the way I want it (though certainly I will take functions/triggers from others that will be beneficial if they are offered). And probably the only other thing I might like is for someone to look over my script and make suggestions, if anyone wants to. It's rather large already (like 10000 lines in the export--most of which isn't mine but EGUI).
Extra
If I have left anything out or if there is something someone would like to suggest, let me know. I am open to hearing several kinds of suggestions as long as they add to or would make the game easier to produce. I am not trying to modify my ideas too greatly to meet other people's ideas (unless something I have suggested is too impractical for Warcraft III).
About the only other thing I could ask for is a good name for this game. Zalent Krisinger is more or less my avatar name, which is the only thing I have in mind.
My only requests: If you're going to suggest something, please put tag in there (such as Item Craft System) before each suggestion, so I can keep things straight and see each suggestion layed out better) and also if you would like to help, send me a message. I would greatly appreciate the help
Game System:
This is similar to Oblivion or Fallout (I've been told) yet it is unique and purely its own. I have played Oblivion but I did not like some of the setup for it. So the follow points are what this game is going to be.
- 20 Hidden Variables that determine the hero's strengths and weaknesses
- Open Role-Playing
- No EXP system
- Job System
- Item Craft System
- Unique "Money" System
Current Status
Working on it (8/13/2010)
Terrain: 12%
Units: 15%
Items: Hit a bump, probably about 15%
Battle System: 75% (I think I'm mostly done with it)
Story: 0% (Few ideas, need help)
Jobs and Classes: 5%
Overall: 3%
A. Hidden Variables
The reason I felt they should be hidden is because it adds a bit of mystery and realism. For example, I can't open a menu or book to look at my current level of Strength, Agility, Defense, HP count, etc. They are just innate.
In this game, many different things that take place will alter these twenty hidden variables. Attacking, being attacked, casting a spell, having a spell cast on you, walking, and even some quest-related things may modify these variables.
There are 5 primary sets of variables, each containing 4 variables. Emotional, Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual. most notable the Physical governs most fighting and health stats, and spiritual governing many of the magic properties of the game. Also included among these several variables are ones that govern bartering (how much an item costs), life and mana regeneration, your ability to comprehend other groups' languages (Orcs, Trolls, Elves, etc.), your fame (how many allies you can enlist), and reputation (how likely a faction is going to trust you--allowing you to gain favor with robbers and the like if you choose).
However, unlike other games like it, if you do not do something that increases your stats, they will be slowly decreasing (with the exception of some things like reputation). So unlike a normal RPG you will NOT become increasingly stronger the more you play the game. What you choose to do and use will determine what gets stronger. The limits for each of the variables is rather small. Skills and strategy becomes a major component to winning battles, and not letting your hero become soft. Every minute you lose just a little of your edge.
B. Open Role-Playing
I have considered creating a story-line (and perhaps I still will create a primary storyline that can be followed) but the idea of the game is that it is forever expandable. Currently with the way I have things set up that may not be quite as easy. But I am looking for alternative options to make it possible.
With this open-style RPG format, the hero is free to ally with certain groups, factions, defeat powerful enemies (which can easily be made more difficult to challenge the hero and become easier if necessary to be something a "weakened" hero can defeat).
In addition, I have future plans to create a way to allow groups of players to take their heros and duel and/or combat cooperatively to defeat majorly difficult enemies and large groups of monsters. And I have even thought about creating multiple worlds which can be used to transfer the hero from place to place (so that the system stays in tact, but the hero moves to another "world"). While this idea seems great to me, finishing this project as a single player RPG would be my primary goal, and once it is done I will let anyone else take a swing at making it more than it is.
C. No EXP System
It has always frustrated me how in an RPG if you can't beat the boss/level that you're faced with that the solution to the problem is to go fight a lot of easier monsters for a couple hours and then come back and try the boss/level again. With this setup there is no EXP system. In other words, fighting a bunch of easy monsters may help to increase your diminishing stats, but it will not ultimately make you stronger (and if you do become stronger, not permanantly). Because of the idle system you continually become weaker when you're not doing stuff and stronger while you are.
There is a little note I have to put in here. In the development of skills there IS a type of EXP system. However, the EXP is counted only towards the skill, AND similar to my stat system, if you are not currently of the job type that uses that skill, you will lose EXP every minute you're not in that job type. In other words, suppose you have two jobs, a thief and a Sage, and you're currently acting as a Sage. If you have level skills as a thief and you don't play the thief for 100 minutes, you will lose 300 EXP points in each skill you have as a thief (and as a mercenary, paladin, alchemist, etc.)
D. Job System
Similar to other job systems, you gain a type of "experience" in your abilities in the job and as your abilities increase you will eventually be able to advance to another job inside the same job-tree. There are 5 branches entailing the 5 principle stats: Emotional, Phyiscal, Mental, Social, Spiritual.
Emotional: Support skills for self
Bard (???)
- Scout => Ranger => Archer
- Monk => Combatant => Martial Artist
- Rifleman => Sharpshooter => Sniper
Scout, Ranger, and Archer are obviously bowed long-range (Abilities: Increased sight, speed, and increasing weapon range [more permanant])
Monk, Combatant, and Martial Artist are meant to have lots of self-support skills (Abililties: Chakra [if anyone is familiar with Final Fantasy games, that's one of my main ideas], Powerups, Speed Ups [both faster boosts for a short period of time].
Rifleman, Sharpshooter, and Sniper are all long-range gun units (Abilities: artillery/mortar type abilities)
Physcal: Battle Skills
Fighter
- Squire => Knight => Paladin
- Robber => Thief => Ninja
- Barbarian => Mercenary => Assasin
Squire, Knight, and Paladin are focused in swordsmanship skills (Abilties: Defense [getting more defense out of a shield], and sword skills)
Robber, Thief, and Ninja focus on stealing, spying and hiding (Abilities: Vanish, Steal, Camouflage [needs a better name])
Barbarian, Mercenary, and Assasin focus on deadly arts, paralyzing techniques, etc. (Abilities: Not sure)
Mental: Scientific Skills (Metal Craft, Alchemy, Construction, Craftsmanship, etc.)
Student
- Scholar => Designer => Archetect (Originally thought of Blacksmith as the end result, but can't figure out how to make the previous jobs fit with it).
- Metalist (???) => Craftsman => Engineer
- Scientist => Chemist => Alchemist
The student is the starting job and can purchase raw materials (iron, brass, stone, etc.)
Scholar, Designer, and Archetect focus on construction of defensive items (Helper tools, Helmets, and Breastplate armor, in order by job description).
Metalist, Craftsman, and Engineer focus on construction of higher power materials and weapons. (Metalurgy, Accessories, and Weapons in order by job description)
Scientists, Chemists, and Alchemists focus on creating potions and altering items. (Can make low-quality, mid-quality, and high-quality potions by job order and alchemist also can make some rare ingredients)
Social: Diplomatic skills and other Support Skills for allies
Recruit
- Hireling => Protector => Guardian
- Lancer => Samurai => Dragoon
- Peacemaker => Diplomat => Ambassador
Hireling, Protector, and Guardian gain proficiency in blocking attacks and special "spells" that act similar to castable spells. (Abilities: Block [10%, 20%, 30% of damage, or something like that], Guard [Increases HP], Protect [Takes a certain amount of damage given to allies], Self-healing abilities [no mana cost])
Lancer, Samurai, Dragoon focus in powerful attacks, increased speed, and quick movement (Abilities: Jump, Chain-attack)
Peacemaker, Diplomat, Ambassador learn abilities to persuade the enemy, build alliances with other groups, and increased language skills (Abilities: Charm/flatter, don't know what else to put in there yet)
Spiritual: Magic skills
Apprentice
- Wizard => Mage => Warlock
- Cleric => Priest => Sage
- Shaman => Druid => Summoner
Wizard, Mage, and Warlock focuses on "Black" magic, what I call "Negative" Spells. (Abilities: Fire, Earth, Dark, and later Void)
Clerics, Priests, and Sages cast "White" magic, or equally "Positive" spells. (Abilities: Water, Air, Light, and later Star)
Shaman, Druid, and Summoner specialize in summoning the aid of sprites, animals, and elemental gods (respectively). (Note: The summoner must find each summon before he can learn to summon them. I have considered making the summoned units like traditional experience-based units, but not sure about that)
E. Item Craft System
Like many other RPGs I wanted to incorporate an Item Craft System. If anyone has ever played Legend of Mana (the PSX game) they will likely understand what I am trying to do here.
There are a few basic things that will be crafted.
1. Potions, Salves and the like (Chemist abilities).
2. Bombs/Vials/Orbs (Scientist/Chemist abilities/weapons)
3. Armor, Accessories, Weapons (Craftsman, Engineer, Designer, and Architect abilities)
For potions and salves, basically you mis the right ingredients and the computer will see that the ingredients should have a certain property and an item (or a few depending on how much material was used) is created. If the quantity of stuff (let's just mark it by weight) adds up to 100 Grams then it will produce one item based on the majority of the item's potential use. So if you put in 100 grams of potion-type material, you will get 1 potion as a result. If you put in 51 grams of potion-type material, you will get one potion (and all the rest is forgotten). If you have 200 Grams of material, then the two largest components will be the deciding factors, with each 100 value making a definite potion of that type. Hense, making potions using lots of ingredients (if the ingredients are filled with multiple properties) can (if you have the skill level) produce multiple kinds of potions instead of just one type, and you can make many potions at once instead of just one and repeat the process.
For Bombs, Vials, and Orbs, they are weapon-types that must be created by a scientist, chemist, or alchemist. They are one-type charge weapons (meaning you have to create one to use one). Since one of these fields are less-likely to actually weild a sword, I figured explosive/corrosive/paralyzing/poisoning potions and such would be a nice weapon they could use instead (but they would still attack like normal, just never have any attack bonuses). There will only be a few types per job. I have debated about whether I should make the user be able to customize the set of three bombs/vials/orbs that they will be able to make (so you 'experiment' and create a new weapon and set that as one of your new manufacturable weapons). The process for making these is basically to use ingredients that have these side-effects and create them.
Once again using a similar craft requirement--except these are preset in some sort of fashion (whether permanantly by me or by the ingedients the user chooses which become the requirements to make one of these weapons) (Yes, I do intend for that to cause some possible inefficiency, a.k.a. using more ingredients than necessary because the idea is that it's a scientific approach). But unless I can figure out how to do this effectively, I will not likely implement it and it would be at the bottom of my to-do list.
As for weapons, armor, and accessories, I have immagined something similar to the potions requirement but with metals, crystals, stones, and even some of those same items used for potions and weapons. And depending on whether enough of a certain thing is added into the process will determine if the produced armor, weapon, or whatever has the attribute. All of these attributes are monitored by the computer anyway. The damage-type can be changed by giving the item an ability (unless I'm seriously wrong about how this all works) and/or I can have a few lists of blank items which can be pulled out and assigned values in a Hashtable. Different from the potion system, however, is that only one weapon, armor, or accessory is produced, never more than one. Minimum materials are required, but if the amount exceeds the minimum requirement, the excess is wasted (although sometimes excess is necessary in order to get the weapon and get the desired added effects)
F. Unique "Money" System
Money has always seemed a little unusual, and it always seemed to end up being "the more money you have the better weapon you can get." I don't intend for this system to be like that, although I don't know what will happen in practice. Basically there are two "elements" which a store-owner can use to create items (certain jobs will learn how to do this, too). The two elements are Chaos and Order (I figured that's good enough as anything unless someone has a suggestion). The amount that the player can hold will be limited to how many Crystals of each type he possesses. At least, this is my initial idea. The problem then being: How does he get more? What is the limitation? And such like that. Basically this prevents the player from "stocking up" on gold and then cashing in for lots of stuff all at once. Player must take time to buy periodically if they are going to stock up on items.
I have also considered having a weight limitation for the amount of items that are carried by the hero and his allies. Although this is easy enough to do (just take a count of the number of each item the player possesses--note: the count is stored internally, not an amount of items in the game--and multiply by a weight factor, and thus everything is able to be tallied and calculated for weight) I just don't know if I want to do it. Any thoughts?
Game Development:
Here is my progress so far as to the game:
Terraining (Could Use Some Help)
Small portions of the map. I really need help being creative. All the units are shrunk in order to make the map "bigger" than it would be otherwise. So, Trees, buildings (to a certain extent) and units are all smaller. Consequently, the map size is about 4 times the area of Epic (which is the actual size of the map).
I have layed out specific areas for groups/factions/cities and need to work on all the little details that go into making a map look good. I could use a LOT of help here if anyone likes to work on terraining.
Unit Making (Minimal Help)
I have all the units set out to make my 50+ jobs that I envisioned (10 in each branch of stats--emotional, physical, mental, social, spiritual). But each has to be shrunk and turned into a hero. This is a time-consuming process, but I am willing to do it unless someone wants to help.
I also need to make tons of enemy units to show up at various places (set up in order to theme an area). I have a layout of every unit on my map so I can see what they all are, and I have sorted them (as best as I can figure) by types and classes (Trolls, Orcs, and all the weird species together).
Mostly this is just going to take a lot of time.
Abilities (Need lots of help--mostly with ideas)
I don't have a clue where to begin assigning abilities to each hero, finding reasonable stat configurations, or anything like that. I am pretty much clueless in this field. My attempts to make abilities have usually gone aray and failed completely. Trying to set up abilities related to my stats is already difficult enough. I think I have taken care of all of the major components I need for the Stat system, but figuring out what abilities to have for each job (roughly three per job) is terribly difficult for me. I don't have many ideas, so any help/suggestions would be nice.
Item Making (Minimal help)
I have the items sorted out in the Object Editor by appearance and type that I think they would fit under. I just need to spend time and integrate it. Then comes the trick of getting each to be recognized by triggers and such when they are picked up and equipped. My plan for this is to have a hashtable that looks up the item's stats by [Name of Item] x [Index[Int]] The Index[] array is simply an array with text for each item. Essentially it allows me to do loops to circle through all the item stats and to create a Stat_Mod value for each Int value and then modify the Hero's stats with that.
Stat System (Nearly Complete)
This has already been implemented and ways for me to check what's going on during the game (multiboard) as well as modify things have been created by me to use while in the game. This has been very handy, and for the most part it has functioned the way I envisioned. I recently ran into a problem that didn't exist before concerning HP (where for some reason I have the value set and yet it doesn't change it like it's supposed to). I'm trying some revision to the trigger to see if that fixes the problem.
Spawning (Not sure what kind of help I need)
Needs a little bit of revising: Identified the problem. Just need units to spawn.
Storyline/Quests (Could use lots of help)
I don't have any plans for a Storyline, other than to start the game. My ideas are small. As for quests, I have a few in mind, but mostly I want there to be lots of quests, including ones that just generate themselves periodically, or randomly, that the hero can choose to do (both for good or bad). This would obviously take lots of time to create and edit, and I'm not as good at figuring out how to make this help, so any kind of help would be nice. I have seen generic quest generators, and while those could be tailored and do alright for some of the things I have in mind, I have a lot more ideas in mind--namely town reconstruction (since you can be robbers you can destroy towns, or build them back up, or they can randomly be destroyed or damaged by an onslought of monsters, etc.), Bandit killing, errand quests, and whatever else anyone can think of.
Triggers/Functions
I have gotten into scripting languages before, so picking up Jass hasn't been too bad, but since I don't understand all the fine details of Jass, I have run into many problems. A mentor would be nice, or someone that can suggest improved ways to do things would be greatly appreciated, but not necessary. Other than that, I guess this is the one feature of the map I feel like putting together the way I want it (though certainly I will take functions/triggers from others that will be beneficial if they are offered). And probably the only other thing I might like is for someone to look over my script and make suggestions, if anyone wants to. It's rather large already (like 10000 lines in the export--most of which isn't mine but EGUI).
Extra
If I have left anything out or if there is something someone would like to suggest, let me know. I am open to hearing several kinds of suggestions as long as they add to or would make the game easier to produce. I am not trying to modify my ideas too greatly to meet other people's ideas (unless something I have suggested is too impractical for Warcraft III).
About the only other thing I could ask for is a good name for this game. Zalent Krisinger is more or less my avatar name, which is the only thing I have in mind.
