Map ideas; looking for feedback

Hey all,

I always like to come up with crazy, off the wall map ideas that are so stupid, no one else will attempt them. The only map I've completed so far is one called "Wisp Ball" a soccer game that I never see on B.net (even though I spent days in a DL Only room to distribute it) But in any case, here are my lastest batch of ideas; I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions you can provide. I'd like to make one of these maps, but am unsure which is the best choice.

House of the Dead:
Just like the arcade game of the same name, this would be a first person "ride" through a haunted mansion. Units will appear out of nowhere, and attack the player. The team of players can click on units and "shoot them", dealing damage. The player "team" will have five health or so, and each attack by the enemy will deal one damage. There will be powerful boss characters as well, and will take many hits. Bosses will have the ability to shoot multiple projecticles; however, these projectiles can be destroyed by the players.

Bombs Away!:
One of my crazier ideas. Oen team is the attacker (victory by destroying all buildings) and the other is the defenders (hold off attackers for 10 minutes or so). The attackers take a first (maybe third) person view of a gryphon. These soar high above the normal flying height of the gryphon. These gryphons are in constant motion, but can be rotated by repeatedly pressing the "A" or "D" keys. They can also release bombs on enemy targets. The defenders, on the other hand, start with one peon per player. They can man AA Turrets (towers) or planes. Planes control will be similar to gryphons. Manning an AA Turret will take the player to a first person view, with the camera on the ground (or top of the turret, looking up) The turret operator has several possible actions. They can press a key to change the view 180, to better track gryphons. They can also choose to leave the post. To fire, they simply click a gryphon, and a mortar shell or similar model will be fired. Gryphons are extremely fast however, so this would take some skill.

Mine Cart Mayhem:
Two players, 6 teams. Each team controls one mine cart. One player is the driver, and the other is the gunner (this is displayed visually ingame as well: "flying" units will be placed inside the minecart) The driver will be invulnerable, but the gunner can be targetted, and killed. Like the Bombs Away! idea described above, the shooting method is similar (clicking units to deal damage), and the driving method is similar as well (constant motion; buttons to rotate). The view of this game is first person, and you can see the mine cart interior at the bottom of the screen at all times. Gold doodads will randomly spawn around the map. Bringing your cart to the gold will automatically create the "gold filled cart" doodad, that will follow the minecart. The gold mine cart can be targetted and destroyed. Once the players have a gold cart following them, they can drive it to their base, which adds the gold to their stash. The whole objective is to secure a certain amount of gold, but they can choose to spend it on upgrades and abilities if they choose to do so. This forces them to strike a balance: go for the win right away, or power-up first?

Chariot Wars:
Somewhat inspired by the X-Box game "Circus Maximum" (even though I never played it) this game will (obviously) involve chariot racing. Visually, this would be a riderless horse, followed by a "flying" riders inside of a mine cart. Before the race starts, players will have 20-30 seconds to choose a "gunner". Examples include the archer, headhunter, etc... (they will have more apporpritate names, of course) Each will have advantages; some will have more health, others, stronger abilities. Once the alotted time has expired, the race will commence. All horse/gunner teams will run automatically; no control needed. What does change, however, is your horse's stamina. By default, your horse will "jog" and use no stamina (stamina will be represented by a leaderboard for each player). You can, however, whip your horse to increase its speed greatly. At any given time, you have five of these "boosts". They do drain your stamina though, and if you push your horse to hard, there will be a penalty (not sure what yet; perhaps damage to your horse, perhaps a very low move speed until the horse recovers). The number of boosts will be represented by runes in the lower left hand of the screen (they will always be shown on screen... assuming this is possible) Of course, you can attack other gunners as well, or slow their team to gain an edge. If you sustain too much damage, you can opt to make a trip to a pitstop, where a team of peons will repair your vehicle. As for this game's perspective, I think it would be fun as either first, or third person-"close" perspective. Camera lock would definitely be implemented.

Well, I've rambled on long enough :) Let me know if any of these ideas are any good (or even feasible) and which you'd most like to play on b.net. Thanks a bunch!

ROR-Peon

:D :D :D Those are some...unique ideas. Seriously though, do you plan on including anything other than clicking on units in your maps? You obviously are good at coming up with ideas, and I think you might be good at creating "normal" maps instead, like Hero CTF. Trust me, my fellow battle.net players and I have seen enough sheep dodge type levels. Good luck anyway, I may be wrong:) .

The house of the dead idea is really good once I imagined what it would look like. Underground stage, really dark and the camera panning along a path, stopping, and zombies popping out.

But Im going to agree with Wraith, although it WOULD be visually appealing how would clicking work anyways?

EDIT: Wraith:

That's the thing :) I'm sick of the hero arena/tower d/ctf maps that are some prevalent in B.net custom play. That's why I try and add a little some different to my maps. In my maps, for instance, I always try and have something that either a) you can become skilled at (unlike tower D; almost everyone is equal) and b) something to break stalemates. I thought hero ctf was fun, until I had several games end in stalemates. I'm sure there are ways around this, and would improve the game alot.

The clicking thing would represent firing your gun. When a player clicks, a bullet sound is played. Following that, a special effect (explosion, or something) is created on the zombie and a gunhit sound is played. Perhaps there could be a small random factor involved, and if the shot "misses" a riccohet(sp?) sound could be played.

As far as triggers go, it would use a "Selection Event" trigger to work. If a player selects an enemy unit, deal 'x' amount of damage to it and immediately deslect it, setting the player up for the next shot.

If I made something like this, I would also like to have a similar ammo reload system. I would like to have a rune or something in the lower right, and when a player's ammo runs out, they must click the rune to reload. Current ammo could be represented by a leaderboard, or something.

The funny thing about all of this, is that I NEVER played House of the Dead, nor did I ever like the game's premise. It's strange though; something about Warcraft makes it seem fun :)

Sounds good, go ahead:) .

PS: You sound like your good with cameras, I need help in that area, how should they be used for intros and stuff. Also, how do you make the camera follow a unit. Thanks for any help.

Everything seems to work out... except how to do Deal X damage to the unit? You can only set health with triggers.

Jet: Hm, good point. I just assumed you could subtract HP from a unit using triggers, but there is no obvious way to do it. Here's another idea though. What if there was an invisible unit and.... well, I guess that wouldn't work, because attacking would dispel invisibility. Hm... how about the "Set Unit Health (percentage)" trigger? Assuming this is a percentage of the total HP of a unit, and not their current HP, I think this would to the trick. Anyone tried this trigger yet?

Wraith: Well, I honestly don't have that much experience with cameras, but my (relatively) limited experience with 3D modelling has helped me with cameras. As far as tips go, the best way, as with most things, is just to try things and see what happens. To answer your question, to make a camera follow a unit, I believe you use the "Lock Camera Target to Unit" (or "Lock Camera Orientation to Unit", I forget)

Thanks for the ideas / possible problems :)

Wrong peon, attacking does not always dispell invis, I gotta invis unit that can attack and not become visible..I gave it both the ghost and the perm invis ability, dunno which of those two are actually required but it DOES NOT become visible with attacking

Hey Peon,
I think these are good ideas for maps. At a glance, I think you will run into problems when trying to implement them, but if you're proficient enough with triggers and creative enough, you'll be able to come up with workarounds. I really like the house of the dead idea and it would definitely bring something new to the current crop of maps. Are you actively working on any of these?

-Mr.123

I'm fooling around with the House of the Dead idea right now... and I tihnk it' coming along somewhat smoothly but there are minor problems.

NewHydra: Thanks a bunch, I'll definitely have to try that. I think that would do exactly what I need.

Mr 123: First off, I absolutely love your Missile Command map. It's one of the things that inspired me to make crazy maps :) I almost died when I saw the triggers you used, with all the hand coding you did. I mean, I'm a programmer (A newbie though, in most respects) but am not at all familiar with the coding needed for Warcraft III. Very impressive. I'm not currently working on the maps, which is why I wanted to post the ideas here -- to judge interest. I'll probably go with the House of the Dead one, since it's the "least weird" of the map ideas :) I'll probably start work on it today.

Jet Li: Awesome! Let me know how it goes. I'd be very interested in seeing what you can come up with, once you have something to show.

Okay, I just tested the idea if you have a "Permanant Invis" unit order Attack Once the selected monster. But when I start to play it isn't as fast as I want to to be. Click, wait maybe half a second, damage is dealt.

When I was testing with the trigger Unit - Kill it was Click, and then instantly the unit would die! There has to be a better way of dealing damage and still retain the quickness.

I am so stupid :) It isn't hard at all. Do (Set Unit Life to Value) and choose an arithmetic function as a value. For the first "field" in the arithmetic function, choose Player Property -- Life of Triggering Unit and for the second, choose minus some number. This will do the trick.

Perfect! I think I have the foundation down now, thanks Peon. I'm ready to work on the rest of the rooms now and I've already found House of the Dead sound files... But I'm missing one.

You've played this in the arcade right? You know that start-up sound? "The house... of the dead..." I need to find that sound!!

sounds cool