TotH (image heavy)

well... i'm only posting this because i said i would.

anyways, i've made some progress on this rpg i've been fiddling with. I'm nearly done. 9 players 256x256 map...etc etc. 3rd person save+load rpg. yea yea we've heard it all... on with the screenshots!
This map was obviously inspired by legacies.














doesn't look too bad. I know that footman shield looks a little funny on a Grunt, but don't expect that to be the only shield Grunts can equip.
If you look close you can see the rifleman using up his ammo... that warlock sure took alot of bullets. AP ammo no less too.

anyways, if i can get the triggers finalized and fix up the save+load triggers, it could be out within 2 weeks. Then after i get this one finalized i'll get it going on the next map. that won't take me as long.

Oh, if your wondering, TotH stands for "Thrill of the Hunt" and that is the name of the map/story or whatever. There are around 70 playable heros. I still need to work on the "advancing" ones but the starting heros are complete and require next to no changes... maybe a replacement spell here and there, a grammar fix...etc.
All heros have weapons such as staffs, scepters, swords, axes, pikes, daggers, glaives, maces and more. There are Artifact weapons and armor once you reach certain levels you can aquire.
All heros use one of 5 armors; shoulder guards, armor suits, animal skins, cloaks or cape/mantles.
Some heros can equip shields (mainly melee heros and stuff)
(it's good to see a Paladin with a shield. he doesn't look like such a stupid tool.)
Gloves, boots, and head gear/helms. Though there are no plans right now to add helm models.
Revival method is with lumber or "Gems" (yea i know, what a copy cat).

None the less, this rpg will continue onto other maps and you will be able to load and save on them.

One last thing:
Player vs Player will be included. It will not be released without it. Players will be able to challenge other players and fight right there or in an arena. I haven't decided which yet, but I am leaning to spur of the moment challenges and no arena.

well, that's it. I'll update when i can and include anything i missed.
thanks for viewing.

edit: Got some wierd thing with the board. doesn't like me or my host... thingy... oh well. Fixed.

Nm..

Anyway, it looks interesting, not much custom stuff and the terrain could use some work, but definitely interesting.

what do you suggest for the terrain?
I wouldn't worry about the custom stuff... there's alot more than what you see here.

Ok good news; The Player vs Player function is completed but not tested. If it works correctly, it should allow players to challenge each other to fights. A player orders his hero to attack another player's and a dialog will show up with accept or decline that allows the player to unally the challenger and start fighting. Only one fight at a time. If it works completely, i'll add in more duel prizes.

I also finalized the main quests. There are 9. I don't think I'll change that for this map. The only thing I would do is add in some more "peasant chats" for the cities and stuff.

I also improved creep respawning. No more creep camping so now hunting is better portrayed.

As it stands all i have to do to get it playable is fix player saving, movement mode, weapon tooltips and some minor ability correction. The map file is too big right now though. I am trying hard to trim it down to about 800kb. I won't release it if it's over 1.25mb.

Another good thing is that i improved the load time drasticly. before it took an excess of 5 minutes to load for me, now it's much quicker. I compressed alot of the triggers to make it more efficient.

I also added in a little dagger model for the Assassin since the shield model adding went so well. Now the Assassin looks a little cooler. I am also considering changing the Assassin "Nuke" ability to a throw ability where she throws a dagger instead of the current "Cold stab" ability. It would probably be based on items though. I'll give a detailed list of starting heros and abilities later on.

I am still finishing up a few other none-accessable heros, but that's not that important right now. I don;t really mean they aren't not accessable. They are just not selectable on this map. If i don't decide to finish the story line on other maps then I'll add them to this map. But as is now, you can only load them from other maps in the series. It would be cool to play as the banshee hero. Possession is fun. But that'll be reserved for the other maps.

Anyways... still making good progress. I'm still keeping the release date at a week and a half (unless i die or something)

On the note of the terrain, it looks plain in some areas. It would probably be fine for normal WCIII view, but with that 3rd person RPG view you have going, it needs to be much mroe detailed.

Looks good and well thought out. Also, will there be any non-equipment items?

This looks really damn cool! I love the using up ammo, how did you do that? BTW how far are you completed, and when will this be realeased?

Yes, lots and lots of different artifacts and collectable items. Right now I have 101 weapon items alone, 47 armor items, alot of miscellaneous items like gloves, boots shields, helmets, neck gear, and lots usable or artifacts like of potions, scrolls, ammunition, spell book items and other interesting things like bombs or mines. That's not exactly everthing. There are somethings i am probably forgetting.

this brings me to the next point in that some heros can make their own ammunition or potions. I am still considering adding in a scroll writing ability for the Wizard or Mage and maybe a few other smithing abilities probably based of spell books and on items.
There are also a number of crafting items like black powder, wood branches, roots, ice shards...etc used for crafting bullets and arrows.

There are also some custom quest only items. They are used for quests and don't really do anything more than that.

It's strange how i even got that thought in my mind. One day i was working on my map and i thought i should add in some ammo thing. When i came to the boards here i saw in the trigger section someone made an ammunition trigger using Gold + Lumber as ammo. Well, that was nice but i needed mine based of items and i was allready done with the trigger i made. I didn't bother to look at those triggers (and i noticed someone used that trigger on a map on Bnet. Dawn of the Dead i believe).

Anyways im rambling. What i did was i set the ammo items to a variable and made it to that when an enemy unit is attacked by the ammo carrier it would set the item charges to -1 unless it was the last bullet. In that case it just removes the ammo item. Pretty simple.
I had to add a short wait time for the last bullet or else the item would removed and that the shot would not have the item abilities like frost arrow.

Ammunition is not consumed in Player vs. Player fights.

If all goes as planned, the map will be released within a week and a half or 2 weeks.

Damn can't wait sounds really awesome, so your saying, even if theres no ammo, the guy still shoots his normal bullets, the bullets are just extra damage or effect?

Oh I just recognised that you replaced lumber with something else. You probably would want to remove the border from the icon to make it look more professional.

Btw, will it be single-player compatable and still fun?

yes. For the rifleman you use different ammo instead of getting new weapons. There are 2 types for ammo; Fragmention (splash damage) or Armor Piercing (armor reducing). Using arrows you just get the effect like frost, poison, corruption or minor damage increases..etc.

I'm trying to cut the file size down, so i won't be importing anymore new icons yet.

You can play it in single player, but you would either not be able to use cheats or not be able to save your hero. I would perfer to make it so that you cannot cheat and still be able to save.

there is a way to turn off cheats, i know you can change them, so you could just change them into a looong amount of random numbers, i'm not sure how to turn them off tho.

There is a trigger that turns off cheats tho i cant remember it off hand. I suppose it will also allow you to turn them on as well.

I am finalizing the save code. Would it be better to have a 24-26 character save code with 8 savable items, or a 32-34 save code with 12 saveable items?
123456789123456789123456
vs.
1234567891234567891234567891234567

I fixed some transport trigger bugs and added in 2 new wheather effects. Moonlight comes at night and Rain and Fog happen randomly. I still might add one more effect; Heavy Wind. But I also might not.

I think i know what the biggest cause for the large file size is. I added in a gloat feature which made your hero shout pissed phrases randomly after killing something. It's part of my "keeping the player interested" initiative. So I might have to cut down on the used sounds.

If i can't find out how to turn off cheats in single player, then i'll just disable the save feature after the player uses a cheat.

i'd prefer a 32-34 code with 12 savable items over only 8 items.