Tides of Blood Spells

It sounds to me like hermeneutics is an art you have not yet mastered. Read a rhetoric book or go to the source; ad hominem attacks and 'that's a fallacy' fallacies won't get you far with me.



You're right, because there are no idiots at Berkeley, at all. Everyone I met there, all bright kids. Or, the letters part of L&S is filled with idiots (I'd know since that was my part, and the only part I had experience with, so the only part I can comment authoritatively on), while of the three EECS kids I knew, it is simply a fact that, no, not anybody can do what they do.

Since I have no interest in working with computers for a living (it being to me a chump profession from which I happily bow out in favor of just about anything literary or philosophical), I find the claim that 'I know some EECS majors; that **** isn't easy' is a boast, well, laughable.



As dubious as you may find it, I was there and you were not. The conversation went something like this:

Windigo: I'm going to loop the sfx in wake.
Cassiel: Won't that eat more processor power?
Windigo: Yes but it shouldn't be noticeable.
Cassiel: Well do it and I'll test it out. If it lags my pile more, I'll change it back.

[goes to check]

Cassiel: It lags my pile more.

And yes, there is one other effect that lags, and...[drumroll] it doesn't use triggers. That's right. It's the RoC flare. The next version of the map already has a triggered version of the same ability that does not lag, and like the wake triggers it's an incredibly simple thing to make.



I'd hardly call heavylocker my best effort. Like I said, I can go ahead and obfuscate the code, which I'd rather not do, since I have no problem with people like Desolate looking at it, as long as that is the extent of it. And this isn't even a code issue predominantly, it applies to everything custom in a map. I can lock edited models so that Yobgul's converter no longer works on them too. The question is, should I have to do any of that? I really hope the answer is no.

I don't expect anybody to marvel at the triggering skill of Tides, because there are hardly any triggers in it. And you can dare to mock me all you want, since my dog doesn't even care what you think. This is an anonymous messageboard, chump. Nobody's opinion matters. As for distributing the map, it has nothing (literally) to do with me; it has everything to do with our fans. Fans even own and operate our servers for us, all for free.

And for the record, my warning is not that I'll lock ToB; no matter how much obfuscation of code, model editing, mixing up of paths and filenames anyone does, a map can never, ever be really secure. That is my point. You don't have to respect the map. I don't respect you, so that circle closes nicely. Being an *** is still foolish though, because then I'll go and be an *** to the maps you do respect. I favor playing nice, but it's not ultimately my call.



Mommy mommy the anonymous man on the internet doesn't like me. You're a tool man. I should probably write a sugar-coated paragraph saying essentially the same thing in a deferrential way, but I just don't care.

I'm arrogant because I can read De Oratore in the original language and put principles from
this book into practice in the map without people even noticing. ToB, which is in fact a silly little map, like they all are, has nothing to do with it. I didn't even want to make the damn thing. I was talked into it. And believe it or not, the first version was made in 4 days, because I really do view this whole enterprise as an exceptional waste of time.

If your only further comments are going to be more misreadings of my motives in posting here, maybe you should save us both the trouble.

sorry if this is getting annotying but im just wonderin...

Then could you tell me how u did the "Damage Ward" on the shadow hunter? I know about the doom effect +negitve hea/targets, but the ward itself had the blue roar symbols +green light on it. How was it done? Skinning or is it in editor somewhere?

EDIT: Deleted old posts about this question.

A little disappointed that none of that sunk in. You seem confused. This isn't some half-assed debate where I'm trying to convince you that it's ok to screw around with your work. This isn't some verbal sparring match where we discuss whether or not you think you are better than everyone else. In fact, you have more-or-less agreed with me on that so, yes, you are arrogant. I guess that's at least one ad hominem argument that did get pretty far with you. Let me recap some other points quickly. You were being smug and condescending, you were backpeddling, and more recently, you are gainsaying. I expect more gainsaying in any future responses, if there are any.

You appear to have too high an opinion of yourself, or at least too low an opinion of others. I'm sure you're well aware, given your self-proclaimed ability to muddy every 0 and 1 in ToB, that so long as War3 can still make sense of it, some of us still can too. It's absolutely childish to threaten that you'll expose peoples' map secrets if Tides is opened to the public. It's statements like this which invite others to tear your map apart, both verbally and with various software tools. Good job, man. At this rate I'm sure there will be over 100 maps using your code and models by Christmas. Surely you can't declare vendetta on the entire 'net, so instead here's a last friendly bit of advice. Take it down a notch. Showing a little humility and respect for others will better protect your work than any software scheme.

Oh, and on a personal note, thanks for openly stating that you don't respect this "tool". You have an interesting way of playing "nice". In light of your critique of my debating style, it felt deliciously ironic. Feel free to rant about how much you know, and how wasted my words are. I'm done here anyway.

EDIT : For the love of God, just answer Thunder's question...

And ANOTHER thing, i started this thread so "I" could ask some ToB Spells questions not for a big arguement.

Tirias

Very well. Since I am in a better mood, I'll answer whatever questions I can.

Thunder-Hunter : The effect you are looking for is the "Monster Lure" model. It has a bunch of little bear paws orbiting a crooked stick with a weird green glow. The Tides of Blood team didn't do that, it's already in the editor.

That model is in the editor under the name Monster Lure, I *think* under doodads. You could edit it very easily though, just take a look at some of the .mdl editing tutorials in the forums. To change the bear claws you would only have to change one texture, but coloring the ward itself would require model editing.

***

This is the 3rd argument I've been drawn into with a humpty dumpty on this site. I don't know what to suggest. Get a better dictionary, for one. Understand that saying 'X is so' does not make it so. You can want me to be doing all these evil things, but that does not make my doing them so. But obviously you aren't even reading what I type, hence:


When I already said

.

It's unfortunate you can't agree with me that opening someone else's map is not cool. I'm not Christian but I believe in an eye for an eye. I support the death penalty for that reason. And, I certainly won't sit idly by while people overstep these kinds of boundaries. If you listened to anything I said, you know that I don't think this thread contains that breach. What it does contain is the promise of a future transgression.

If you feel it's childish to say I will match offense with offense that's fine. It doesn't change my position though. In my eyes two wrongs do, in fact, make a right. No poorly phrased attempt at a character assassination is going to change that.

Your only accomplishment here has been to cloud the real issue, but since we're the only two talking it makes little difference to me.

Btw, Thunder, the Pain Wards do not use a negative healing aura, since War3 glitches with negative auras quite frequently. Instead it uses disease cloud, which works much better.

EDIT: Tirias, if you have questions come to our site. Any answer that isn't already there (which you can locate easily with the search function) can be gotten from us. We are not secretive about the map. Most forum users can already tell you how a particular effect was achieved because when they ask us we tell them.

I don't object to open source, I object to the idea that if I did object to it, people would run roughshod over me anyway.

Heh, well, it is your map after all. You certainly hold the right not to give a **** if people open source you or not. I'm not really defending the stance of being an open source nazi, but at the same time it's kind of ****in rude. It's one thing to look at it yourself, to learn by example. But to give it freely to people who aren't smart enough or too lazy to figure out/get it themselves is just plain sad.

I find it even worse to condone it just because you hold contempt for someone because of their success, however facetious it may be.

Yeah Litany, you do come off as a tad arrogant, but because your map doesn't suck it's ok ;)


The difference in processor power is so ridiculously miniscule that it probably wouldn't even show in a benchmark. We're talking thousandths of a percent. And if you're concerned about file size, you should've used a loop -- smaller .j file.

Quote:

As far as people respecting ToB on this site, nobody important cares. This site is a tool for me, not a community. Right now we have a link to wc3cams as a place to answer modding questions on our site, but I think it will be removed soon. Every single person who comes here through us ends up back at tidesofblood.com because this place won't answer their questions. I continually marvel at how intelligent some users here believe themselves to be, only to reply to me saying 'you're an arrogant bastard.' Well, yes, I am, but not because of anything to do with warcraft, which is just a silly game.

Can you give me an example of somebody's question not being answered here, after they were redirected from your site? You're right that there's not any super complex ability code in ToB -- myself and many others on this site should be capable of recoding the entire thing, let alone answering a single question.

Quote:

This is something this community may want to rethink; that is what I am saying. When there are things in ToB not intended for you to see, it may not be very intelligent to dig around and post them up on messageboards. Because what can be done to ToB can be done to all the hosted maps on this site or b.net in general. Make no mistake about me as a vindictive person--I am; if someone jacks me, I'll take it out on all of b.net. Have respect, or don't expect your favorite game to get any.

I don't understand. Earlier you seemed to be encouraging people to open the map because it would be a pity for you to obfuscate it. Now it's bad for them to dig around in it?

Quote:

I wouldn't know about comp sci since I'm a graduate student in English. Although speaking of the EECS majors I knew in Berkeley, no, not anybody, not anywhere near anybody, can do that. And if you think Blizzard doesn't sit around fretting about processor power, videocard power, etc., why do you think they removed the old D&D model? Why does war3 look so...bad? What's with the polygon counts? Performance is important. That's why the old RoC flare has already been scrapped and a new trigger-based one made to replace it. And I wouldn't be surprised if a Speak-n-Spell is faster than my Duron 600, which still outperforms at least 1 person every time I get a game on b.net. The low-end users may be fewer, but they are still there, and having a pile myself they are always in my mind when it comes to triggering.

I wouldn't claim that performance is irrelevant entirely. But I would claim using a loop versus repeatedly copying and pasting code, especially so few lines, makes 0 difference except for you spending more time on it. And who's to say that your method isn't actually slower, because there are more lines to parse?

BTW -- The reason this thread caught my eye is because I just got done playing a (great) game of ToB. But there's some sorceress spell that slows my Athlon XP 1600+ w/ Geforce4 down to a crawl. Maybe you should spend more time optimizing that.

AHEM. Back to map development...



Um, are you using 0-second polled waits? 'cause each of those start their own loops and timers, which is probably adding that bit of processing delay that's making the blood gushes time "right". So it really doesn't matter if it's 0.00 seconds or maybe even up to 0.50 seconds, depending on the speed of the person's computer.

But I guess the only other possible solution would be to use a periodic timer that calls a function directly (instead of firing a trigger event) to create the effects, but then, there's the problem of remembering the caster location and target angle.

It's my experience that polled waits seem to have a minimum wait. Seems to be around .1 or so seconds. I've also avoided using waits in loops because they never turn out the way you want them, and depending on what you're trying to do, they can just plain not work sometimes in multiplayer. I had to completely rewrite a few spells of mine because if this problem. In short loops+waits=bad.

I think it is ok to LOOK at someone's code. POSTING, SHARING, or COPYING someone else's code is NOT cool at all, especially if the creators chose to protect the map. If they wanted it open-source, it would be. I've only ever opened a map's .jass file once, and that was with DotA, just out of curiosity after seeing some people on the b.net forums dissing Eul's triggering.

I don't particularly enjoy ToB myself, but it has helped me to see that the AoS genre could be taken much further than it already was. I also have a great deal of respect for Litany and Windigo.

I'm glad the flames have seemed to die down. They don't belong here.

I think that maps should be open source. When ever I see a cool spell or effect, I would say - 'Wow, how is it done?' and look at it. That's it. Just to give me an idea. Of course, for most spells I can tell how it was implemented by just looking at it, but for some others, you need a peek.


I agree with the above, but posting, sharing how stuff is implemented is cool. This is what we should be looking for.

Case in point -


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Let's just keep it to Q&A. The flaming / accusations / n00bwhacking is absolutely uncalled for. We should be thankful that the ToB guys are this helpful, (not holier than thou) and can take criticism (such as the 0.0s loop thing).
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`We must forgive them, for they do not see the light. But the holy light shall embrace all.` - Virginus the Pure, Paladin.

It's certainly possible that my expectation was responsible for what I percieved to be a slower running trigger. Nevertheless I tried the loop, it did feel different to me in game, so I axed it. Conversely, the new Flare uses a loop, because in that case it did not feel different at all. I think the model for the Wake may be a little intense to run several times in rapid succession. Or maybe I imagined the difference.




It's certainly not a matter of whether someone here could answer the question. 2 months ago I'd never opened the editor, and more or less everything I know was learned from this site. It's just been a case of people bringing their questions, but getting no responses. There have probably been a dozen such cases that I know about, though I would have to dig back through our forums to find them. On the one hand it is disappointing for me to see this, because I learned a lot here, but on the other hand I've never had to post a single question here because the answers are already around, even if they're 20 pages back. So, while I'm sympathetic with those who can't get an answer, I also tend to chide them to look harder.



In itself I see nothing wrong with it, though: a). there's nothing in the map at this point that common sense can't reproduce, so opening it is a waste of time, and b). I'd prefer they just asked, since we're happy to tell. Like I said, I don't think the line was crossed here, the attitude simply suggested to me the probability of it being crossed at some point.



Yup, it's already been fixed. It lags because I did it without triggers the first time around. I'd hoped never to have to learn them; alas, it seems necessary.

Actually at the moment I've given up game time for generic waits. They just seem to run faster.

I haven't used 0.0's with polleds yet, but they make a huge difference for generic, especially for smooth movements using, for example, move unit instantly.

We respect you as well Zoi. I'm not big on 11H either, but there are some great effects in it which are very well done. They lag the hell out of my poor computer, but they sure are pretty. Someday I will be able to afford a new one, and then I can give you a fairer shake.

Yes, I noticed that after I posted the message. My bad.

Hrm...What was that bit about not reading what I type? Kinda like...
Maybe I'm not the only one paying enough attention. But, if you had been more aware, you would realize that I have maintained from the beginning that people should not display others' code, but people are likely to break this Golden Rule with ToB because they don't have much love for it. With PR skills like yours, I think I know why. In any case, since you seem so keen on the rules of rhetoric, I believe they call this a "Straw Man". Oh, and since you like the Ad Hominem fallacy, chalk up "humpty dumpty", the dictionary reference, and
as strikes against you. Man, don't you know once you start criticizing peoples' spelling on a forum, it's like running up the white flag and screaming "I'm out of ammo, don't kill me!" Oh, and Christians believe in "turning the other cheek". "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is a Babylonian or Mesopotamian maxim, and runs counter to this idea. I realize you're not a Christian, but I figured you'd like to know so you don't make that mistake in the future.

But I tire of this silly bickering. I'm more than willing to clear the air here, and I will start by setting the record straight on ToB. I play the map, and that's because I like it. I don't feel it's quite balanced, but I play and bitch about Leto and Jean, and play again. I used to play a lot of Hero Arena and Aeon of Strife, and this is a very good AoS map. Yes, I have taken it apart (to settle the very argument that started this, "WTF is Crimson Tide"). No, I will never, EVER post code, models, textures, buttons, nor will I assist others in decoding this, or any other map, nor will I tell others which unknowns are what. I have no interest in ripping off your work, because you obviously worked hard to get the game to where it is. And it's better for me to start from scratch anyway.

That having been said, I am making a map that I had started before I was even aware of ToB and purely by chance, one of my heroes is an Arch Druid, and one of my units learns The Weirding Way (is "weirding" intentionally misspelled in 99j?). I guess either great minds think alike, or there are a lot of Dune fans in the world. All the same, for this I hate you as I need to change my names lest some fans say "OMG yuo riped off ToB, fagg0t". :bgrun:

But in all seriousness, you are going to get nowhere with threats. Next time, try asking people, and not ordering them. No one is actually scared of what you do to whatever maps you decide to victimize in order to "get even", but if you appeal to them as fellow mapmakers and creatures of light, I doubt they will feel encouraged to spread code around, because they already know it's wrong, and would never want it to happen to them. Threats will likely have the opposite effect.

Hey, This is Windigo.

Actually we intentionally mispell things sometimes. Like Fouain of Resoration... :D

When we made this map we wanted to do something people would like. We liked AoS Epic. It was simple and fun. FMVH is the only map that wasn't simple and I thought was really fun. I'm not as skilled as Tertiary Eye so I figured I'd make an AoS style map. Well we did some innovative things with. It was really one of the first maps to use level 10+ heroes on battle.net. We had some pretty original abilities too. They won't be original for much longer because people will break into our map and take them out. What's funny is how simple some of the skills are to make and yet we're the first to do them. But, c'mon, we all know complexity doesn't make a map good.

There's a large number of people who play ToB. It turned out a lot bigger than we planned. We ended up learning how to make maps pretty fast and we're doing stuff now that we had no real plan to do from the beginning. Yeah.. If we started from scratch right now, we'd probably be able to make a much better map--we just don't have that kind of time. Plus we're not even done with our first map.

Out of the large number of people who play the map, there's a smaller group (thats not really so small) that posts on our forum and is dedicated to ToB. They have really made us go beyond our original scope of this map. ToB is developing character and story. It's not just a *.w3x file on my harddrive anymore. It's got soul. emote_sweat


Check out our forum sometime if you want to meet people who truly care about custom wc3 gaming -- not map making. Although we have some map making gurus in the Hero Ideas section too...:D

I used to come to this site back in the FMVH 2.31 days it just seems to be going down hill. It's full of people who's signature has outgrown them and always dis ToB.

We're not interested in fighting any wars. (and when I say 'we', I mean 'me', hehe.) I don't think it's very respectful for people to post locked code right on a forum though. Sure it's easy enough to get to but there's something just not right about it. I believe in open source as much as the next guy but with the number of @#$@ wads ready and waiting to release their own 1337 Gosu version of ToB, it's just bad form. Me and Cassiel answer any questions people have. And we usually point people to answers on this site in many cases. The general ammount of disrespect for our map on this site is disgusting though.

I hope the arguements stop with Cassiel here, and if you wanna discuss loops I'd be happy to do it -- [email protected]

Also, constructive critisism of our map is always welcome, visit the site www.tidesofblood.com. We really have the best custom map community I've seen. Artists, map makers, etc. And our forum has regulations controlling huge *** ugly signatures! 8))

- Windigo

[Edit: before this turns into an issue -- I'm not saying anyone on THIS thread has an ugly signature or it's too big. I just think it makes forums less accessible and ugly]