Monster Spawning, Random Item Drops, Random Chat (with villagers) and Taunts

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MONSTER SPAWNING, ITEM DROPS, RANDOM CONVERSATIONS AND TAUNTS
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In other words, a guide to creating an (open) RPG by a n00b for n00bs.
Rao Dao Zao - "I am the Alpha and the Omega"

I was prompted to think about this by somebody PMing me, and asking about random item drops. I told this person the way I would normally do it, with tonnes of IF statements but then, later on I realised that this method was horribly inefficient. Then I got to thinking about the whole open RPG thing, and this is what I came up with...

Requirements:
- Warcraft III and the Frozen Throne
- Basic knowledge of the trigger editor
- A +3 resistance to bad jokes/puns (ouch, I've started already)

CHAPTER 1: Monster Spawning

You might need to create new monsters when old ones die, then give them orders... But how? Well, with a couple of variables and some triggers, here we go...

First of all, create your spawn region - call it "Monster Spawn 1". Place around this, oh, I don't know, some Murloc Tiderunners, for the neutral hostile, or your creep player. Now, aside from this region, create another region, where our creepy creeps will wander to - "Monster Spawn 1 Destination 1". And then create another region in the other direction, so they can go both ways - "Monster Spawn 1 Destination 2" (feel free to abbreviate, but keep it organised). Now, let us descend to that foul pit of fear and insane code... The trigger editor! Create a new trigger, call it "Monsters Setup".

Event: map initialisation. Conditions: none. Oh, wait, we need some variables. One - an integer, call it "MonsterDestRandomizer" - this is the variable we use to choose where our beasts go. And then "MonsterSpawn1Dests" - a region array of size 2. Now, back to the setup.
Actions:
Set MonsterSpawn1Destinations[1] = Monster Spawn 1 Destination 1 <gen>
Set MonsterSpawn1Destinations[2] = Monster Spawn 1 Destination 2 <gen>
Easy. Our regions are all set for the rest of the triggers.
You might want to also put something to start the existing creeps moving in here.

Now, another trigger: Tiderunner Death
Basically, this trigger waits then creates a new creature of the same type that died, thus this new monster will also fire the trigger. It then sends the beast to one of the two destination regions, a random point in there for added realism.

And there you go. Now, to add more monster spawns, you'll need to create more triggers, one for each creep type in each region. Of course, you could double-up some creep types, but we'll leave that for another day. The number of creeps existing is directly related to the number you place at the beginning, so to make an area more difficult all you need to do is add more of the appropriate creep.

CHAPTER 2: Random Item Drops

This is a little simpler, and uses the same randomisation technique. Create another setup trigger (for simplicity at this stage, we can amalgamate them later) called "Items Setup". And create a new variable: "Items", an item-type array of roughly double the number of possible items. "Whut?!" I hear you cry, but it'll make sense in a minute. And create another randomise variable, "ItemsRandomiser".

Now, in the setup trigger, we must define our item-types in the Items variable, but leave one blank between items, e.g:
Et cetera...
This will mean that there is a good chance of no item at all dropping, which is good since we've only got six slots.

Create a new trigger: "Item Dropper" -
Easy. Choose a random number, and "drop" the right item. No bother, and in only two triggers! Bargain!

CHAPTER 3: Random Conversations

So, now we've got monsters, we've got items, but, random punters are mute! What a "living" world we've got, yeah. Let's get us another setup trigger, call it "Conversation Setup". Create a new variable, call it "PunterConversations" - a string array of size, let's go for four. And a new randomiser, "ConversationRandomiser", an integer as always. Now, more variable setting...
Et cetera...
These random comments make the world a little tiny bit more interactive. Now, let's get down to business...

A new trigger: "Converse with punter"
And there you go. Take your hero close to a unit, select and get some talk... But wait a sec! We'll get this if we select *any* unit...
So, add another condition:
((Triggering unit) belongs to an ally of Player 1 (Red)) Equal to True
This should mean that only allied players speak... At this stage, we should be putting it all under an "And - all (conditions) are true" thing. But still, we can't have allied dogs or sheep speaking, can we, so we'll need to narrow it down a bit further:
So only male villagers will actually speak. At this point, I start to add lots of IF statements, so different types of commoner get different conversation messages, but that's not so difficult to do...

CHAPTER 4: TAUNTS

When we kill an enemy in game such as Unreal Tournament, we love it when our avatar gives us a hilarious taunt, along the lines of "Who's your daddy?!" and other crazy catchphrases. The same for Warcraft III, I'll have you know. I'm surprised Blizzard didn't include a random taunt system... Anyway, here's a good way of doing it:

Create another setup trigger, you know the drill. We need a new randomiser, a string array of taunts and a Floating Text array, with the same size as your taunt string array. In the setup trigger, define all those messages we love to hear.
And now add our taunt message trigger:
Because it's floating text this time, we need to destroy the text after a few seconds. The "For each (Integer A)" loop is there so that no taunts get left behind if the randomise variable is changed for a quick second kill. Floating text will eventually disappear, but not for ages. If you're running on a low resolution, you might want to step up the text size a little so you can actually read it. Sometimes, some do slip through, but they are few and far between, so don't worry too much.

CHAPTER 5: To infinity and beyond...

Well, there you go. That's enough kit to create a (mildly) interesting RPG world. And with less bad jokes than I can usually fit in... Anyway, it should provide hours of fun for all the family.
If you find any bugs, or have any comments/suggestions, either post below or e-mail [email protected]

Thank you, and good night.
Rao Dao Zao, over and out.

Brilliant? ^_^

Wow, thanks. That was a good tutorial.

Good, but with LOTS of preplaced monsters, having different types, a trigger that respawns monsters in there exact location, and a one-for-all trigger helps alot.

Urk! Who's been trawling for my old tuts...?!

The Floating Text bit is out of date; instead of waiting and destroying all the texts, you should follow the creation of the floating text with a: set lifespan, set fadepoint (about one second less than lifespan) and a disable permenancy. And a set velocity if you want. All referencing "last created floating text." Then you can dump the variable holding the floating text objects and let them destroy themselves without confusion.

... I am having trouble figuring this out...

Set Items[1] = Health Potion
Set items[3] = Mana Potion

I can do the first part, set items[1] =
But the second part it will not let me select a generic item. It forces me to select something already on the map. . . .. How do I make it choose a item... for say a health potion?

Sure it's an Item-type array and not just an item array?

The ItemRandomiser, how big array should it have?

Nvm just found the error xD Forgot to put Map initialization on the first trigger

so this is how he told you to do..?



What if you create two floating text within 4 seconds?

Yes, only one get removed.

so this is how you should do...



Now it will be removed after 4 seconds and you can create as many floating texts with this trigger and all will be removed.

No Problem...