Official - [AoS] M:TG - Ice Age thread

Welcome to the official M:TG Ice Age development thread! (the older thread for this map is obsolite, mods delete that one plz?)
M:TG Ice Age is a revolutionary new Aeon of strife-style map, (soon to)feature...
...hundreds of spells, all based on actual cards in the Ice Age and Alliances cardsets.
...unique casting system.
...unique "army" system.
...intriguing and detailed storyline/plot.
...original "hero" system.
...some side-quests, which involve various parts of the Ice Age / Alliances storyline.
...completely original "card" system, players draw a card every 60 seconds, and can find cards to add to their "deck", by killing enemies, and by doing side quests/entering dungeons, or trading with other players.
...many more fun things.
...support for two teams of 5 players each.

anyways, if you would like to help alpha/beta test (when i get it to a testable stage, that is), reply here, i'll add you to my list. i hope to have a testable version of the map ready in no more than 2 weeks from now. (well, we can all dream, right? :P ) anyways, i'll be working hard on this over the coming week or so, and i'll post screenshots when i get around to it.
EDIT1: new screenshots!

Update!

New feature being added:
- Houses: various houses (in the cities) and scattered across the terrain will be available for players to purchase (players may own one house at a time). these will be for quicker free healing and also to store items. At the moment, i am still not completely sure whether i should make them invulnerable or not.
comments plz?

New!

i have created a new custom loading screen, altho, ive heard that you actualy need 5 custom loading screens, one for each race :/ also, doca-cola's tut on custom loading screens seems to have dissapeared, anyone know what path i should set the loading screen to?
anyways, heres the plains loading scren (for human ?)

Maybe instead of houses, you can just make them "banks" that store items. This way you don't have to buy your houses, since I don't think that it will last long enough to have it be worth the money to buy a house. I mean it is an AoS, and the average aos is only 15-30 minutes long.

Update!

Well, after i managed to get the AoS computer controlled army spawn and pathing system up and running, i did a short test with RodOfNod, Mr.Safety,DoCa-Cola, and Mordrag (thanks guys). I am happy to report that the test was (for the most part) successfull, aside from a few balance issues. (well, and the complete utter lack of spells, but thats what im working on right now).
anyways, if you would like to beta test, please relpy here, or hang around the wc3c IRC channel: #wc3dev
i'll most likely be doing nightly alpha tests, unless i have no major bugs fixed, or no new features. (but lets hope i get at least something done every day, eh?) anyways, some new/changed features:
- "cards": each spell has a "card" (item) version of it, finding these cards will add its respective spell to your "deck", which in turn allows for a chance to draw that spell.
- changed damage system: (for balance purposes) each MTG "toughness" equates to 100 war3 hitpoints, but each MTG "power" only yelds 10 damage. This is to prevent battles from being over in a few seconds, which, i have decided, would not be, A) in the style of the map, and B) because of the size of the map, the travel time to another 'engagement' would be lengthy and boring.
- added: Safe Havens. these are magical caves, that, once entered, will allow the caster to channel mana into the cave to transport him/herself to another safe haven.

Looks like it's coming along smoothly. Your screenshots are pretty sweet.

As far as loading screen backgrounds are concerned, if you restrict the user to 1 race during the game creation screen, then you'll only need to replace that screen. You can help them to decided on a race or whatnot with Dialog boxes, if you like.

The downer to this is that the GUI will all be whatever race you pick, and all players will show up as that race in the scorescreen.

being a big fan of the genre, and creating one myself, i would very much like to test this. this sounds very intriging... and fresh... if you like the genre, please look for coastal conflict... my game, it has some interesting new thingies as well, allthough totally diffrent then this...

i'll link in my sig... ^^

new stuff!
1: Hot new ingame action shots!
2: worked on terrain a bit, Isle of Lat Nam (home of the School of the Unseen) is slowly shaping up, as is the undead city. still have yet to commence work on the undead outpost town :(
3: finished replacing doodad buildings on map with a actual unit version of doodad. (shops in large houses, med and small can be used by players to store items)
4: beta slots still open!
thats all for today.
oh yeah, erwrenpeller, i looked at your coastal conflict map, it looks very secksi :)

thnx... if you want you might be able to beta, i dont thinki we have anough people yet... not that we will bata anytime soon... i'm in my last month of school, lots and lots of work to do >.< baraly any time to work on CC... damnit..

and do i see some custom interface stuff going on in there??

thats cool...

more action, more heros!!

OK lots of new changes!

first of all, there was a major problem (turned out to be array sizes too big, so the trigger data screwed up) but i fixed it.

second: "Libraries" have been added, these are 2 buildings (one for each side in their main town) which essentialy "store" xp. (currently) when you return to your city you will slowly recieve xp up to the current xp of the library. ie, as if you were "reading books" etc.

third (and partly to do with second): hero death penalty.... when your hero dies, it will respawn after a very brief amount of time, but all xp that you had past what it took to get to your current level is removed and added to your team's library instead, which you must go visit to "relearn" it. there is no gold penalty, and the respawn time is very short (somewhere around 15-25 seconds). i have added this feature to make it akin to "summoning sickness" etc. hopefully it will be interesting and balanced.

fourth: the card / spell engine is coming along nicely, i have also converted all the triggers in the map to JASS, so almost all the memory leaks are being fixed, and the code is being streamlined from the GUI crap.

i was supposedly going to have a beta testable version "soon" but that was like 2 weeks ago, sorry folks. i wont make any promises this time, but i will say i am working hard on getting this out as soon as i can, as i cant wait to really play it with other people.

Also, i need 2 seperate "starter" decks, one should be White/Green, with some blue if neccessary, the other should be Black/Red, again, with blue if neccessary. the cards should ONLY come from Ice Age/Alliances cardsets.

thanks,
Anarki

Wow, map looks great. I've been playing MTG since iceage, and I'm still into the game as much then as I am now.. I'm looking forward to playing this.

yes... sounds fresh and interesting... i hope the balance is perfect and the heros original ^^

More screenies!
ive added the Isle of Lat Nam, as terrain, so far. quest/interactive stuff involving Isle of Lat Nam is coming soon.
[edit] the first shot is from the northern "lane", not from Lat Nam.

That's very appropriate way to create the feel of the island. Nice.

are the heroes in this game going to be actual cards featured in M:tG (like say the Legends like Gerrard and Crovax?) or are you making your own heroes up?