Making a new custom map: Ghost Forest

Hi everyone,
I'm making a new map for TFT, it's a multiplayer custom map, and will be called something like "Ghost Forest"...

- The story is:
Orcs and Humans are in war, the only territory remaining to conquer is a supposedly haunted island... When they arrive there, they realise the only way they can survive is to ally to get rid of the haunting spirits...( this is one of the possible stories, got 3 )

-The game goes 1v4 or 2v8, which is one ghost vs 4 peasants(orc or human). The peasants start off at different locations, and have to ally to bring the ghost down, by building units, and protecting with towers. There are about 20 gold mines in the map, and alot of passages(It's a forest). The ghost is a hero unit with lots of powers to counter armies, To win, the Ghost puts to sleep the peasants and peons, they sleep for about 5 minutes, and then they die, so your allies should come and wake you up in time. If all the starting peasants are asleep or all dead( you only have one peasant) the ghost wins. I'm also making it as scary as possible:gsmile:

This is basicly how it goes, there are also lots of other minor details I didn't talk about. Could I have some comments, feedback or ideas?:bgrun:

I also encountered a problem... Is it possible to reduce the minimum distance there is between a town hall and a gold mine?

Cheers, DeSty

Here is a screenshot of the starting point in the map:

That sounds like a good idea, and I'm glad you're avoiding the typical sheep-tag helplessness on the part of the hunted unit. I would definitely recommend at least 2 ghosts, with as many other players as you feel you need to balance them out. That way the ghost doesn't get lonely :) And also, he can cover a little more ground so that the other players can't just defend wherever the ghost currently is to win.

Also, five minutes seems like too long of a time for them to sleep before they're killed. One or two minutes should be plenty of time for someone else to rescue the unit, without making it easy.

Yes, make it real scary!! :) Good luck

I'll put the death after sleep to around 3 minutes I think... the point is I'm thinking of having the allies not see the sleeping unit for it to be more difficult.

These are the abilities for the Ghost:

- Wind Walk:D
- Super Frost Nova ( Larger area of effect and dammage )
- Evasion(33%)
- Eternal Sleep ( what kills, shorter range )
- Death and Decay( To destroy towers ):gsmile:
- Improved Animate Dead( Can cast several times, 10 sec cooldown, 3 levels )

The ghost model I'm using is the Wraith, with scaling 3.0

I'll post more stuff later on...

I made sight range pretty low, and small ghosts are gonna roam around them map to make it scarier, also I added as sound set the one which makes every noise echo 8)

-DeSty

I still got that problem with the gold mine I talked about in the first post.. anyone got ideas?
And would someone be kind enough to give me triggers for the following:

When Sleep is casted, a timer counts down 200 secs, and a box apears with the color of the player the spell was casted on. So if blue and red were asleep, it would look like:

-----------------------------------------------------------
Red will die in: 1:20
-----------------------------------------------------------
Blue will die in: 1:54
------------------------------------------------------------

Anymore positive ideas are welcome!

thanks alot, DeSty-

anyone?

I like the new idea...

BTW, your avatar is.... disturbing....

Give everyone some time.. You are a new member and for some reason nobody tends to notice you at first.. it's to avoid the really stupid map ideas that come in sometimes..

But really.. Make it different models.. Use the new Spirit of Veangence model or maybe some other one.. Those look cooler than the banshees and stuff.

Also... Give him some cooler, new spells. If you need some help editting spells in tft.. I have been able to use the new editor without it crashing on me at all.. So.. [email protected]..

Other than that.. I think it's a damn good idea.. Stick with it.. :)

EDIT Ps:.. Looking through for that town hall idea.. Might be a constant that you can possibly change...

I couldn't find anything on it.. It might just use the Aqcuisition Range to figure out how far it would have to be from the gold mine but I doubt it ould be that simple.. Therefore..

Make a custom unit.. Base it off of a anything but the Town Halls.. Barracks for instance.. And change it into stats like.. Receives gold and receives lumber and is a Town Hall of some sorts and everything like that... Should go right to that building then if it's closer..

And... You could make the model look like the town hall ;)

there is also another possiblity that is to create a region around the gold mine (make it big) make another where u want the townhall to be) then say player 1/2/3/4 enters region
if unit equal 2 town hall create unit townhall region2 may work i think

Although the idea has been realised some time ago on Northrend (german map), it's a cool idea to give it a new scenario.

The map is open source. I include it in the post, perhaps you can get some inspiration from it...

thanks for the help!

I tried other models for the Ghost, but as the tileset is northrend, everything is white, therefore the Wraith, which is white blends nicely in the forest. I'll have a look to the spirit of vengence, but most of the spells of the Ghost are based on ice and frost.

The only good solution I found for the gold mine is removing the "is a building", but you can build over it then :-/, I'll try your methods soon...

I got most of the triggers working, the only little problem I came across is: Time windows stack horizontaly, therefore, if there are mosre than 5 units sleeping or so, they will be hidden... Maybe I should make a leaderboard? is there another way?

These are the units and buildings I will probably use:

Human:
----------

Barracks:
-Footman
-Rifleman
-Mortar Team

Temple(Altar model probably):
-Priest ( Heal, inner fire )
-Sorceress ( Slow, mana burn )
-Archmage( Holy light, Blizzard, Brilliance aura )
The holy light is to kill the ghost ;-)

Towers:
-Scout Tower(see further, see invisible units)
I'm thinking of making it create a signal whenever a Ghost is close, even though you will not see him:ggani:
-Guard Tower(Fire arrows)
-Cannon Tower
-Arcane Tower(Most powerful)

Orcs:
--------

Barracks:
-Grunt (critical strike)
-HeadHunter
-Raider (Ensnare :-) )

Temple( dunno which model yet ):
-Which Doctor( Sentry Wards, to block Ghost in small roads :gsmile: )
-Shaman( Feedback, lightning shield - on buildings too!:ggani: )
-Far Seer( Far sight, endurance aura ....)

I didn't finish deciding the towers yet...

Some game concepts and additions:
Instead of sleep, the ghost will cast Freezing Breath which will freeze the peasant to death ( Entangle with freezing breath model ). Upon death the peasant will transform in a revenant ( Shade ), which will be allied to the ghost, and enemy to the others, and will serve as spy ( invisible ) 8-) .

The Katz and Mouse german map is actually a copy of the cat and mouse map from starcraft =). I know it is resemblent, I want to improve on it, I made a cat and mouse map for RoC, it was my first map =), and I want to make something cooler, thats what Ghost Forest is.

More, More Ideas!


Cheers,
DeSty

playamarz: my building is based on the lumber mill, and it doesnt work, I'm pretty sure the problem is with the gold mine and not the buildings.... As I said, disabling the "Is a building" bolean, makes it work but you can build over it... I guess i'll just put unbildable terrain underneeth :D .

-DeSty

There ya go. That's an idea.. Oh well man. worthna shot though eh? hehe...

As for the timing... I'd definetly say use a leaderboard... That updates itself every second or 2 seconds... Then just have the leaderboard say.. Active or Sleeping.

Heres an idea for your map though, don't allow players to chat. This is what im doing in my rpg so I thought I should pass it on. Spam the players constantly with blank messages so they can't talk, and then have whatever they typed turning into floating text above their peon/peasant. That way they can't organize as well and its more control, don't know whaty ou would do vrs pinging though.
I do think that not being able to talk except when close will make it more intense, or if you have allied vision youll have to look to see what their saying.