The perfect AOS?

I am making an AOS...

Don't scoff or anything... I know what I'm doing after 5 months here learning and playing, etc.

What I ask is everyone's ideas, opinions and suggestions on the features that make and break an AOS.

What bores you, and what keeps you interested.

The actual developmen thread can be found Over Here , but I'd like to discuss things seperately here.

What I encourage are ideas for:

Heroes, units, captains, spawns, defences/buildings, upgrades, items, side missions, etc.

I'll throw in more ideas if it doesn't inspire.

The best thing for a new AOS that I can think of is having smart computers. Ones that will rebuild, regenerate, and actually make advances on enemies when they can. Say that the units sent out actually destroyed an enemy 'base' (they would need the help of a hero) and then your computer actually went and tried to build towers there, but if they weren't fast enough the enemy would, or if they weren't protected by heros then the enemy would kill the builders and destroy unfinished towers. Having an AOS AI like that would really be the best thing that every could happen to AOS's. One thing, don't make gameplay on average last more than an hour, and try to keep an hour a long game. TOB gets boring because it takes a good hour and 45, sometimes 2+ to beat it, and that is just too long.

Narwanza, I'm working on an AoS that will feature the exact thing you are describing, as well as plenty of other things...

Like you, Whitehorn, I'm hoping to raise the bar on the AoS genre. Check out the link on my sig (Eternal Chaos)... I've got plenty of great ideas in my thread.

....First everyones making a RPG, now everyones making a AOS...You people need to come up with original ideas...

lol.. im making an AOS, but I think I started first :ggani: HA but im making VERY VERY VEEEEEEEERY slow progress cause im a perfectionist when it comes to map making. if im making a unit, and it needs a custom model, i will litarally fill out all the fields down to the model field, and then go make the model before i do anything else ://// and im helping another guy with his map :D

and what are you making smart-ass? a guessing game?

Im slowly making(not alot of free time latly) an open RPG alot more like the good ol'e star craft ones, where you can buy the towns and such. There is also several factions you can become a part of(well 3 actully, and only 1 at a time) You can choose to betray humans and become a demon, you can become a bandit, and raid trade caravans that are sent from towns, or you can just be a normal human who helps the towns.

Good luck on the AoS man, but there are like 50000 other new AoS's being made at the time being all trying to "raise the bar". It'll be hard to compete but who knows. Some of the AoS's that seem to be getting somewhere that I've seen is The Big Chill, Beyond Good and Evil, Terror's Threshold, and one that looked promising in beta, but **** if I remember the name.

I believe all three of those have websites, I can supply two:

http://www.beyondgoodevil.org/
http://www.daimi.au.dk/~rawl/phpBB2/

For at least comparing your progress with. Good luck again, I think the real measure of a good AoS these days is whether it has many options to spend you gold (so people can use a smart allocation of gold), unique and interesting heroes, and something clever with the spawns. It sure isn't easy. For now ToB tends to be my fav, but I have an obvious bias since I play that particular custom game in league.

They are all repeating after ME, I just recently made an AoS map! :ggani:

But now I feel a bit sad... There are now apparently so many ways to improove upon the genre, but when I was making the map, since it was my first map, I didn't go for anything revolutionary and just tried to learn the World Editor... Now the "Era of War" is just another AoS map... :(

But, most important, I did get it, unless under extreme circumstances, to last less than an hour. That is the most important thing, in my opinion. Let the game last until you reach the boredness treshold. Games lasting 1+ hours usually get boring, unless they are some open RPGs or something. It is interesting, you can have a single hero go from lvl1 to lvl10 in 45min and it won't be too boring, but if you have a hero go from lvl1-10, then morph,go again from 1to10, morph again, and go finally from 1to18 over 1h30min (like in the first version of my map), which is obviously faster experience gain than in the previous example, the game will get boring, because it lasts too long, even though there's more happening. So, timelimit is 1h. Don't go over it.

So, to summarise...

Target 1 hour gameplay.
Aim for consistant, thorough experience gain (ie no early maximisation).
'Smart' AI that rebuilds and responds.
Unique and interesting heroes.
Unique spawning.

I find all this kinda strange when I see AOS games like Eternal Conflict, Evolution Mythril, Epic and Tri-War played the most, with the more unique, DotA and TOB trailing behind them.

Tri war must be the most basic map (well the version I see played a lot), but it works so well and simple.

i have unique spawning, you actually custimize the groups of men that come out of each spot and where they go

Are you kidding? For every Tri-War, EC and et cetera there are at least 5-10 ToB's or DotA's.

ToB would probably be the most balenced and takes the most skill and teamwork...admittedly, EC i can't play (stupidly lagging...i need something new...dunno what).

ToB has a long, drawn out, tactical game with teamwork at its core.

Thus, not many people play it (lol...kinda shows the average IQ on B.net).

...


Why stop making them if everyone plays them...?

well, theres really nothing else that can be made, new idea wise. besides like a new diff type of rts out of it, like where u build stuff, or like diffrent types of rpgs and stuff. in other words, everythings taken :D

Nothing wrong with trying to better what already exists, or even blend map types.

The was SE is going, it's an AOS+RPG. I'm just seeing how much I can fit in and still make it feasibly multiplayer.