"Lord of the Damned" Mod Concept

Just writing here to get some input on some stuff. I've played two Vampire mods, Vampire Hunters and Vampire Elimination, and both are very awesome mods. They've inspired me to create my own mod, and here I am.

What I've got so far is this:

I'm using the Medivh model for the Vampires, with a modified skin (removes the staff, among other things). Vampires will be hero units, able to gain levels. A starting vampire will be called a Prince of the Damned. Once lvl 10 is reached they are turned into level 1 units with the same strength/hps/etc as a lvl 10 Prince, but will be called a Lord of the Damned. I'm toying with the idea of making it so that the strongest vampire, say a lvl 10 Lord of the Damned will be able to walk about in broad daylight.

Vampires have a Crypt that they can go inside of to do different things (more below). They must also be inside any building during the day or they will burn up from sunlight (periodic massive damage, like every second of exposure).

Vamps will be incredibly resilient to normal damage, and thusly will have insane hp regeneration. If one does die from normal damage, they will simply come back to life on the spot once they regenerate sufficiently. Pretty much the only way to kill them will be sunlight (destroying their building would leave them out in the open), silver weapons (custom items), or holy water (again, custom item). Priests will also be able to affect undead units.

When a vamp attacks and kills another unit, it simply dies and becomes a corpse (i.e., normal default behavior). If left alone it will slowly decay and disappear. If a vamp "feasts" on a corpse (get corpse ability with custom scripting so it doesn't actually get anything) he will gain hps from it as well as experience, and the corpse if left alone will turn into a zombie under the control of the feasting vampire.

If a vampire is able to sleep an enemy unit (special ability) he will then be able to lead that unit back to his crypt. Once there he can "infuse" this unit with his own blood (causes dmg to the vamp) which will then cause the unit to turn into a new vampire under the control of the infusing vamp. Or he can just kill it and make it into a zombie. In fact, a quick way of doing things would be to lead a group of victims back to your crypt, infuse one, feast on another to regain lost hps from infusing, infuse the next, feast, etc., etc.

New vamps created this way will also be hero units, but I think I'll start them off as a hero unit one step beneath a Prince (names anyone)? So they'll have to gain 10 lvls as that to become a lvl 1 Prince of the Damned.

Any vampire unit, including the original vamp, if killed by sunlight, silver, or holy water will NOT revive.

With that said, what ideas do you, the community have in the way of abilities that vampires should possess and what do you think of the above? I've always been more focused on realism than gameplay, so cheezy powers are out of the question.

Human players will start off as something like a Detective, then work their way up similar to the vampires, becoming an Inspector and then something else (ideas?). Humans will gain levels faster, but each level won't be as big a leap in improvement. If they die, they start over at level 1.

Gold will be gained by the computer. The computer's forces will have villagers that will mine nearby gold sources, which will be distributed to every human player every so many seconds. This way the vampires can disrupt the human economy by preying on the villagers. Heh. New villagers will only be produced every so often from farms.

Ok, enough from me. Please let me know what you think!

Thanks, and take care.

vampiric aura and carrion swarm would be fitting for a vampire, probably why they were assigned to the dreadlord. detective, inspector, vampire hunter? vampire lord, vampire prince, .... I'm sorry, I got nothing, well, some Ideas, but nothing I like: vampire soldier, vampire warrior. I don't think they really fit, but that's all I got. well, good luck, hope this helps in some way.

inspector and detective sound .. bad..
lessee how bout Witch hunter, Inquisitor then Vamp Hunter
for the vamps start out as Thrall (thats a servent i think not the Orc warchief), Dark Prince then Lord of the Damned (even though i think thats a bit long..)
don't forget limit exp after they get a promotion else lvl 1 Lord would gain lvls too fast and too easily
i like the original list of spells from the vamp hunters ie windwalk, vamp aura and sleep... for an ultimate which only the Lord (should get) Metamorph(?) Ubah killa vamp!

thought of something, I'm willing to bet you can do this with enough scripting, but I don't know that much, so I can't be sure, but here goes:

the Lord of the Damned or vampire lord, whichever you want to call it, (I prefered Lord of the Damned) would use the demon hunter in demon form model, the vampire prince, might use the dreadlord, and the lesser vampire, whatever you decide to call it, would use the altered medivh.

While the auras are OK, I guess (not real fond of them), I don't like carrion swarm. I have no clue why they call it that, because I don't see anything but a big green bolt/triangle that flies out from the caster. WTF does that have to do with bats? Maybe I'm missing something.

Soldier and warrior don't really feel right.

But I like Vampire Hunter for the 3rd stage Human hunters. Or perhaps, Dark Hunter.

I think I'll name them like this (thanks to WoflSoul and Dmonmonk):

Created Vamps: Dark Servant
Starting Vamps: Dark Prince
Next Vamp: Dark Lord

Maybe. So you'd see something like this in your unit stats:

Vampire
Level 1 Dark Prince

And then:

Starting Human: Witch Hunter
Next Human: Inquisitor
Final Human: Dark Slayer

It'd look like this:

Human
Level 1 Witch Hunter

Heh. Slayer sounds better than Hunter. Implies you not only hunt them down, but then proceed to whoop their arse. Heh.

Speaking of Witches, I think I'll allow them on the Dark side. Maybe if you sleep a unit and bring it back to your crypt, you can do something else to it besides feast or infuse it. Like, hypnotize it or something, which could take a long time to complete. The result would be a Witch unit. It could start off casting sleep, which would cause the slept unit to wander towards the crypt of the owner of the witch. Heh. That would rule. Like remote control victim gathering. So you could sit comfy in the relative safety of your crypt while your witches went out and gathered you some victims. This would work well in the daytime when you couldn't be out. Whaddya' think?

And Dmonmonk, thanks for the reminder about the exp gain. I would have forgotten about that completely. With triggers I can just cut the amount gained if the unit is of a certain type.

I don't like the idea of using the original dread lord or even demon form model for the vampire. After all vampires aren't demons. They may be demonic, but they're still humanoids. I'll use the Medivh model with altered skin for both the Dark Prince and Dark Lord, and like, the ghoul model for the Dark Servant. For want of a better idea at the moment, at least.

Thanks for all the ideas! Keep 'em coming!

Care.

yeah, like I said, I didn't really like soldier or warrior either, but I thought I would offer them, because that's all I could come up with at the time.

i was dealin with a sweet map concept right at the moment.... sorta got the whole Vampire Hunter thing in my blood (no i DONT go running around killing imaginary things, i jus think guys like Nathan Graves aren't that bad), the thing with my map, is that you start out as an underling to a vampire....

it starts like so .... you got this prominent city runnin all sweet..... till one night this Carrion Swarm flies overhead, and when it lands, this big bad *** Dread Lord (he has a name, just didnt come up with something that fits him yet) appears, and proceeds to the Mayor's crib, and pretty sinisterly informs him of his death, turns around and slices this guard, gives him a drop of blood, and the guard becomes a Ghoul.... who then proceeds to dice Mr.Mayor up...... 5 seconds later skips to a scene where city is in ruins, ghouls all over the place ripping the place up..... 1 - 5 people survive (depending on how many players are in the game) and dash out to parts unknown.... gives the game a final look up at the burning sky (courtisy of Special Effects), and game begins

on the vampire team, you got yourself a big bad ugly comp controlled Vampie lord, who just sits there in his new residence, giving you orders...... OHYEAH, forgot to mention YOU ARE A GHOUL!!!! yeah thats right, you dont even got honors to be a vampire..... you myfriend are a ghoul!!

you have no special abilities as a ghoul, you run around from town to town tearing up people, and either eating their corpses or carrying them back home for big bad and brutally ugly to chomp down on....

the rules go as so..... the better the meat, the more wood chips you get (your a ghoul, you dont know any better! LOL), with woodchips you can buy items at a ghoul shop.... the guys a retard, dont worry, your moneys good there....

ANYWAYS, after gaining enough experience and dealing with the whole Ghoul Rotting process...(did i forget to mention you lose HP by the second?), yuo get rewarded by becoming a vampire... no not the pretty kind that you see in movies..... you become one of those "half-dead" kind, lookin like a zombie.....

you gain the ability to stop rotting at night... yadayada later you become a "buffy the umpire slayer" vampire using an ugly villager model (added uglyness by the skin), and you can now make your own lesser vampires....it costs alotta blood(life) and they are weak..... worse part is, they can go flipmode at any moment, wildcards really.... people with the worse luck could get a renegade vampire 2 seconds after they made em (that would happen to me)

next form would be a Medivh except for the fact that even if you alpha-ed out the staff, he would still be holding his hand in an awkward position...... anyways you get an Arthas w/alphaed out sword (that way he looks like he is bitchslapping the enemies) and white skin, and a prettyboy face, and now you can make Ghouls, at the cost of a drop of blood(10% life), lesser vamp (50%), vampire (90%), which still doesnt listen to you, but is stronger, faster, and has brains

second last form is a Dread Lord.... called..... Dread Lord, and is basically what your creator was.... Ghouls(5%), Lesser Vamps (25%), Vamps(50%) and... Minions (90%), the minion would be just as tough as a vamp, but has 0% loose cannon possibility

last form is the Lord of Darkness.... chances are, you've already killed the humans and you didnt get this at all.... but lets say you did.... you'd have Ghouls(1), L.Vamps(15%), Vamps (30%), Minion(50%) and Demon (90%).... kinda funny..... Vampires making demons..... heh

the list goes like this....

1.Ghoul
2.Vambie (zombie vampire)
3.Vampire
4.Vampire Lord
5.Dread Lord
6.Lord of Darkness (you can only get this if you kill your creator..)

i'd say the hunter part, but im outta time...... lol.... feel free to use this if you like...... but remember your source, im still makin my map too..... so you know.......

Exodus.. I like the intro but no offense.. the game would be too long and boring to reach the final form.. if your still going thru with this is the ghoul a hero? if not then how will he buy stuff? personally he shouldn't be a hero but after he collects a certain amount of wood he can return to the vamp lord then be transformed

Heaven.. If you increase the size of the Carrion Swarm caster you will actually see bats(at least it worked when i was playing Undead Tower defense and the Hell caster was shooting carrion swarms :) ) if you are against vamp aura you can give em Innate Mask of Death ability (Life drain i think? converts 50% damage to health)
ANyways i think witchs in WC3 are spose to bad even though we never see one bc
"We found a witch, may we burn her?" - Peasant
The Dreadlord would really be appropiate for the final form, though they are usually depicted as humans so even Arthas could be used..
lessee.. if you are using the night and day factor then having the witch be a good thing since they have no qualms about wondering in the day.(also if possible maybe allow them to make potions and walk around as merchents for the vamps, just 2 potions be enough)
witches should be limited somehow but the idea of them mind controlling and sending them back is good.

Ok, I've overcome some problems and have made good progress.

The vamp can now do two things: hypnotize and feast. Hypnotize temporarily persuades a villager to follow the vampire. You can lead them back to your crypt or wherever, and can lead more than one at a time. It's cool. Heh. Villagers move around as well, and don't just sit there like statues. For now they're just wandering, and they run from combat. Oh, and if a hypnotized villager is hit, he wakes up.

Feast. This is the teeth ta' neck action. It sucks life from the victim and gives it to the vamp, and gives the vamp exp. If the vamp kills the villager through this method, the villager turns into a zombie under control of the vamp. The vamp COULD allow the villager to live, and let it regenerate health and start over.

Sunlight is working. Burns the vamp every second he's outside a building during the day.

The above is working pretty good so far. I need to add one more ability to the vamps, the infuse thing, so they can make more powerful minions than zombies.

Then I'll work on the human side. Making the villagers run a simple economy is going to be fun.

Ok. Just thought I'd let you know what's going on.

thats more then me and my map, lol...

all i've been doin is schoolwork schoolwork schoolwork, awell

hey noticed some stuff i said had an effect on ya, heh, nice goin with those improvements you got there, i wonder how this thing'll turn out!

SHHH!! All of ya'll be QUITE! Don't encourage him! Maybe he'll stop and finish the Shire map for our MOD..... (j/k)

I would like to see what you got so far ;)

Vampires now have Feast and Infuse as abilities and Hypnotize and Summon Wolf as hero abilities.

Feast and Hypnotize I've already discussed.

Infuse works on hypnotized victims, and for now you can only hypnotize hapless villagers. It takes a ton of life from you and gives a much smaller amount to the victim. More importantly, after a certain amount of time has passed the victim transforms into a vampire under your control. The amount of time that passes actually means the victim villager could wander back to his village before turning into a vamp. Heh. Debating whether or not to make new vamp under control of creator.

It also works on friendly vamps. It just takes lots of your life and gives them a small bit, as well as some experience.

Summon Wolf does just that: summons a wolf. Debating whether or not to make it under the summoner's control, or just an AI controlled unit.

Also changed the icons to look more appropriate. Feast looks like the Cannibalize icon, and replaces the Purge spell. Infuse replaces the Blood Lust spell, and looks like Vampiric Aura's icon (fang dripping blood). Sleep is the same. All of the text associated with the icons are now updated to reflect the new meanings of the abilities.

So things are progressing pretty well. What I'm having problems with are the multiplayer waits. I make big use of TriggerSleepAction() in my triggers. In multiplayer there are probs when you've got more than one player with the waits not taking as long as you've specified. For example, in single player if I tell it to wait 5 seconds after you Feast and kill a villager and then turn the dead villager into a zombie, in multiplayer it'll kill the villager and instantly turn it into a zombie.

But I'm working on it.

And Arcuivie, if you're still spying on me then be comforted by the fact that the stuff I'm learning here will help my work on the Shire map. Heh heh.

Care.

j/k-Just Kidding

It was a joke.

Had some good large battles this morning, testing stuff out on a new map. The test map I was using up until yesterday was only 32x32. The new one's 128x128. Lots more to do. Heh.

Two villages, one in top right and the other in bottom left. Graveyard in the middle. Mine in the bottom right.

Villagers pool in their villages at night, and when day breaks they head for the mines. The gold they return to their villages is distributed equally to the human players. :) The humans can use gold to buy Footmen, Knights, and Priests. Besides sunlight, priests are the only way to permanently kill a vampire at the moment. Well, priests aren't working at the moment but that's not my point. Heh.

Villagers also occasionally wander the path between the villages, even at night. AI controlled footmen periodically enter the map, building the human team's forces, and in the day they make attack runs on the graveyard.

The hunters are just slot-specific paladins or mountain kings at the moment.

Meanwhile, the vampires...

They feast on villagers, gaining xp and health. If they kill a villager through this process it becomes a zombie under AI control.

They can hypnotize villagers and lead them wherever they want, and can consummate a new vampire by infusing a hypnotized villie with their own blood.

If a vampire is killed by normal weapons he will come back to life on the spot after a set amount of time. Only way to sure-fire kill them is expose them to sunlight by causing them to be out in the day, or use a priest. If they don't return to their crypts at night they burn, unless they're level 10. Lvl 10 vamps can day walk, but any vamps he creates are still lvl 1 and must seek a crypt. The crypt only holds 4 units. If a vamp is killed by a priest he is gone forever.

Ok. If it sounds like I'm reiterating stuff that's because I am. The above is all of the stuff that's working right now.

Next I need stuff for the vamps to do during the day. Right now they just sit in their crypts and twiddle their fangs.

At the suggestion of a fellow playtester, Duilin (hey Arcuivie if you're still spying on me he's an avid LOTR fan and made lots of LOTR maps for SC...he has a website for a LOTR Mod for NWN and might be persuaded to help - definitely a good tester!) I am going to try and incorporate a new building, the Cathedral, where the vamps can purchase units to assist them in their war against the Living. Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, etc. "Gold" will be accumulated by the vamps to purchase these units through feasting on villagers. Each feasted villager = 1 point to spend or something, and Skellies will be like 1 pt, Zombies 2, Ghouls 3, etc., and on up the scale.

If the Cathedral is destroyed, no new units except for those the vamps make through feasting or consummating.

Duilin also suggested something along the lines of feasting on animals produces different creatures than zombies. LOL! Feast on a sheep and the dead sheep will give rise to a ... well, honestly while it's a hilarious idea and could probably yield some good fun stuff, it's a little too silly for my tastes. Heh. So I'll just stick with the villies.

I may end up allowing vamps to hypnotize and feast on the attacking troopers. Like footmen and knights and even priests heh. They could yield some interesting creatures when respawned as undead.

Anyway, that's where I'm at. I guess I need to post the map on my website eh? Ok, I'll try soon.

I'm still having probs with some spells making it thru my "net". Bloodlust and purge and sleep sometimes fire off even after I try and catch them and reroute their effect (consummate, feast, hypnotize). Working on it.

Care.

sounds awsome heaven, when are we gonna see a download?

(also, when are you gonna update your LOTR mod?)