Seeds of Chaos/Before the Chaos campain continued (thread 2)

Here's the new thread that I promised you guys! For those of you who do not know what the Seeds of Chaos mod is, this first post will be our project summary. For those of you who already know this, please skip to the second post which addresses different issues.

Project Message/Goal:
The Seeds of Chaos mod is an attempt to clear up all of the loose strings concerning the events leading up to Warcraft III. It will try to tackle the issue of the Horde's transformation into their shamanistic society, the insurrection within the Alliance, and will try to cover many of the Warcraft books. It will also cover the War of the Ancients, and the Night Elves before the adopted the practice of druidism. The humans will be centered around the book the Day of the Dragon, and the Undead's origins will be for-closed. All in all, the Before the Chaos mod and campaigns plans to follow the official Blizzard storyline, while including some editions to it to include more game play, battles, and the Warcraft 3 strategic/rpg environment.

Mod Phases:
The Seeds of Chaos mod is going to break down its huge and ambitious project in a series of phases to keep itself organized and focused. First we will work on the gameplay elements of the game (units, spells, buildings, balancing, etc.), and then move on to the graphic aspects (models and skinning). Next we will construct a series of multiplayer maps, and beta test the multiplayer part of our mod much like TFT. Next, we will construct more maps (probably for a total of 12 to 15), and make a release of the BTC Multiplayer edition. Then we will start on the single-player campaigns, working on them in chronological order (starting with the night elves, and then moving onto the Undead, Humans, and Orcs). As each campaign is completed, we will release them to the public. After this, if desired, we may construct some mini-campaigns or bonus levels to tie up any extra loose ends. Also, throughout the whole campaign process we will release more maps for multiplayer. As you can tell, we want to go around this project the right way and not slap things together.

Unique features of mod:
- Follows exact Blizzard storyline for all of the original Warcraft races
- New units, models and terrific JASS scripted spells thanks to KaTTaNa
- 2 new heroes with awesome spells (balancing will be hard, but worth it)
- Strange change in NE due to that they had not accepted the
- TRAPS - allows players to construct traps to lure in the enemy and ambush him, and do a variety of effects. This will allow more strategy and cause players to be more cautious in general.
- Morale buffs: Army is affected when a hero dies, if they kill a hero, or they are ambushed/surprise and opposing army. Still being cleared out, through, I'm not quite sure about this.
- New item effects like Knockback
- Will be compatible will TFT and be constantly updated to make sure everything fits and works well.
- New music and funny sounds just like in Warcraft

Mod Staff:

Project Leader: Martin Pulido (e-mail: [email protected], aliases: martinpulido @ wc3campaigns, martinpulido @ Star Alliance, martinpulido @ BrokenEdge, martinpulido @ Wc3modforge, Battle.net alias: BuenasNoches @ Azeroth, RookCaladrius @ Lordaeron)
- Spells and Abilities Leader: KaTTaNa - Adv. Spell Editing, JASS
- Skinners: mmot, martinpulido
- Model Editors: Siphon
- Animating: Siphon
- Soundtrack: Zuljean
- Mappers: martinpulido, Uriel Septim, CptCrap
- Terrainers: | J| u| D| a| R| e| S| t|
- Concepts: martinpulido
- Storyline: martinpulido, DoubleHex, thezergling, ChickenFight, CptCrap
- Storyboard: martinpulido, ChickenFight
- Cinematics: ChickenFight
- Sounds: Magic, and hopefully we'll get SAVAGE to go work with us on this

Further Questions on mod:
I have been constructing a Production plan which already details much on the progress, desires, and descriptions of the project itself. If you would like, I can e-mail it to you if you would like to see more and critique our project. Much information on our mod is also disclosed on this other thread in this forum.

As described later on in the previous thread, traps were going to be introduced into the game. I would like to lay out some of the traps that would be quite cool to introduce into the mod:

- First of all, I think we should all agree that traps should be invisible to all any units, or it would be kind of stupid. Two, it would scare the crap out of everyone as they would be wary of where they tread! Of course, traps need to be balanced correctly so they do not overpower units, but nevertheless will be a powerful force to be used in the game to beat larger and superior armies. Tactics has always been a crucial part of strategy games, and I hope that this will encourage more.
- Traps can be manually activated or auto.

Trap ideas, these are not permanent:

1. Earthbind - This trap will lock down all flying units down to the ground in a large AoE around it when triggered. The duration I cannot determine at this point. It will work on ALL flying units however.
2. Dwarven land mine - these guys already are mechanical, so why not given them land mines quite similar to the Goblin ones? I don't think I need to describe how this one works.
3. Archer Ambush - Depending on how much one pays for this ambush, archers will lay in wait in the trees. No archers will be on the map that you can actually select from this, yet if the trap is triggered they will become actually units that you can use. They will deal 2x damage on trigger since of surprise. It will also cause a morale of panic on the enemy troops.
4. Nature's Wall - Trees will form in a ring around the triggering units, incapacitating them until they are freed. They AoE may need to be small since this could be a very powerful trap.
5. Ice Storm - Freezes several units in triggered area, keeping them from moving with the rest of the army or escaping.
6. Inferno - Fire trap that explodes, creates a fire wall that damages all units within it, slowly burning them.
7. Skewer Trap - Very isolated trap and expensive - cuts hp of units in small AoE in half.
8. Recall Trap - units that trigger trap are immediately sent back to one of their town halls.
9. Poison Cloud - Releases toxins into the air that poison all of the AoE units.
10. Animal Farm - polymorphs all units in small AoE into various cute critters.
11. Sleeping gas - causes all units in AoE to sleep like little children.

Please post any traps ideas that you may have, and please critically critique these traps and tell me if they suck or not!
Thank you,

Martin

I sent a detailed application to wc3modforge requesting to be hosted on their server. The server's leader/supervisor, HollowMan, just PMed me telling me that he would agree to host our project on their server. I'd like to thank HollowMan and Dorelian for being willing to do this for us! Although the forum is not up yet, I would suggest that you check there soon and register to participate in the site and forum. I asked for their to be a main forum under the project name Seeds of Chaos, and then three sub-forums: the Drawing Board (for ideas and concepts), Multiplayer (for testing, maps, and balancing, etc.), and Campaigns (for all campaign related info). I'm glad that we got a forum, and I hope that all of you will check there. I will most likely repost much information from this and the previous thread in the new forum, so please pardon the re-statements. I just would like a permanent move so that we don'thave to keep checking back to other sites. Let's get this stuff organized! Thanks, and I hope you're happy!

Martin

This is for all of the spell questions that KaTTaNa listed:

Voodoo - I think it's great with what you've done with it, and I agree that it should not make him invulnerable. Should this be an upgradable spell or an ultimate?
* Also if you'd like, we could keep the original spell idea too and construct it into something else for another unit to use.

Call Storm - Hmm... if Starfall cannot be used in this case, perhaps we could use an AoE spell like Blizzard as a substitue. I'd just like the units in the AoE to get stunned (like if they were bashed) as well.

Null Ward - this would be a ward that doesn't allow/disables all spells/abilties to be used in its radius. It wouldn't negate buffs.

Seal of Courage - I'll take care of this if this slk then. If I change the idea for this one, I'll let you know.

Exorcism - you sure you couldn't get it to hit possessed units? Couldn't you get it to hit a player's non-undead units? Or do units become undead when they're possessed? Anyway, I'll see what exactly to do.

- Good work, Kattana, and I promise to let you in on the new spell/abilities that I'm thinking up! Cheers,

Martin

Instead of making Knockback an item that one can use to inflict upon an opponent, I wanted to make it an ability for the ranger. However, instead of knocking units back, I'd like for her to be knocked back if hit, making it easier for her to escape. I realized that knockback really doesn't help you kill an opponent unless you have a faster attack. I think that knockback would be too powerful as an offensive ability - melee units would be abused. Anyway, I think that the knockback defense ability should also be able to be turned on/off just like immolation so that if ranged units hit her, she doesn't keep getting knocked back; that would be kind of stupid. And yes, she couldn't be knocked back if she was entangled or stunned or against a well, or so forth. I think that this should replace Swiftness aura because the last thing needed is for one race to have 3 defensive auras - this could be a bit too much.

The ranger's abilities would then be:
- Swift Shot
- Knockback/Displacement
- Ice Arrows
- Black Arrow

Please tell me what you think,

Martin

Ok... trap ideas, eh...


Geyser Trap- When triggered, the triggering unit is hurled into the air (Using the old Impale logic) for a very large duration, 30 or so seconds.

Insect Trap- When triggered, basically shows the locust swarm effect and then releases 15-30 weak bugs.

Ant-Lion- Any unit that gets too near is in danger of falling into the Ant-Lion's pit. Of course, this is a huge ant lion. (Devours the unit)

Repulsors- Special traps that cause huge damage to any unit with the said classification. IE, a trap that obliterates mechanical units. You could not put two different kinds in each other's area of effect.

All of those trap ideas I really enjoyed - those were terrific! the mechanical one could be kind of interesting; a magnetic field one that locked down siege tanks and gyrocopters, hmmm.... And the devour and bug ones were great too. Thanks bhav,

Martin

THE FORUM IS UP AND RUNNING ON WC3MODFORGE

The Geyser Trap sounds good, and easy. All we need is a hidden unit to cast cyclone on the triggering unit.

Regarding the Null Ward:
I'm afraid I can't disable spell casting within an AoE. But maybe we should make it drain mana from nearby enemy unit? It's easy enough, just make a new Brilliance Aura which targets enemies instead and has a negative mana regeneration.

Regarding the Voodoo/Blood Link/..whatever..
This should be an ultimate I guess but I can make it upgradable if you want. If upgradable I guess it should increase the % redirected for each level. Something like: 35%/50%/65% by level?

Regarding Traps in General:
Invisible to all units? Do you mean invisible to all players?
I think the player who made the trap should be able to see it, wether it triggers on his own units should be individual to each trap.

How do you expect a player to turn on/off auto-triggering for traps?
Or do you mean that some traps should be manually activated and some automatically?

When a unit is possessed it changes owner and the banshee disappears and nothing else happens. But I can make it heal allied units and damage enemy undead. I can also make it heal allied non-undead and damage enemy undead and so on.. please explain exactly what you want.

Our forum at modforge: Seeds of Chaos