Thief of Dalaran

Pre-Release 2 is being made!

Preface:
In the outskirts of Dalaran lies two infamous Guilds, House Llano and House Redoran. Both Guilds are of thieves and are rivals. In this game, you will be portraying one thief and his acension (or failure) as the greatest thief of Dalaran.

Current Version: Pre-Release

Gameplay:
This game is played in first person. It hasnt been tested with low end computers (processers below 750 mgz) and internet speeds below 56k but it has been tested with my middle end com (1.3 gigz i think) which has cable modem along with my friends computers and no lag has been reported expect for initizalion. The game play is a mix between the traditional first person shooter and Counter Strike. Each game is broken down into several rounds which really don't have an important significance to the game except for two factors: All thiefs who have died will be revived at the begining of each round and all thiefs will be given the chance to purchase new weopens. This is your ONLY chance to purchase weopens till the next round. Rounds last approxamitely 5 minutes. (still debatable) A game lasts 4 ( not sure yet) rounds and by the end, which every team accumalates the most completion points wins. See below for objectives and their point values.

Objectives:
1)Thievery-You must venture into the enemy's chasm, steal the bag of goods, and return home safely: Worth 4 Points
2)Bounty Hunter-Slay a enemy thief: Worth 2 Point
2)Assasin-Slay a enemy thief: Worth 1 Point

Weopens:
Staff of Flame: Moderate damage, splash, 500 range: Completed
Iron Blade: Moderate Damage, no range, causes fear: Completed
Staff of Ice: Low damage, moderate splash, 800 range, cause slow: Completed
Sword of Valere: Low damage, no splash, every attack heals 9 hitpoints: Completed
Shadow Blade: moderate Damate, The user spins around hitting everything around him:Completed
Interdimensional Gem: High damage, Teleports the user forward by 750 hurting everything along the path, only 3 on map: Completed

Any suggestions for additional weopens will be appreciated and credits given for idea.

Map:
The map is only a 96x96 size map but even the Thievery objective is challenging. The agents of each House move in a complicated pattern that looks like no pattern at all to a "first-timer". Agents are units spawned for each team similar to an AoS. Hiding behind obstacles like trees and houses and such actually prevent computer controlled (obviously users as well) units to not see you. So far the map size is 806kb before optimized.

Controls:
X-Pick up weopen:Completed
C-Attack:Completed
D-Drop current Weopen:Completed
A-Climb object:Completed
F-Second Attack (for certain weopens only):Completed

Misc. Screen Shots:

• Click for Screen Shot One
• Click for Screen Shot Two
• Click for Screen Shot Three

Credits

Look in game for now....


Expected time of release of Pre-Release 2:
Me and WtFish decided to make Pre-Release 2 private. That means, it won't be released to the public persay. Here are the following details if you want to join:

-Credits will be given to beta testers
-Recommended that they are in USWest or East (for time issues)
-First 8 get in!
-PM me or post in this thread.
-It will be conducted on Saturday January 23rd
-Once your acceptance has been confirmed, you will be pmed with the details such as time, channel, server, etc.

Kalvalrod, the original version has been taken down but you can participate in Pre-Release 2.


Warning!!!! The following changes do not pertain to Pre-Release 1 !

K I felt like adding some uniquness to it so i added Super Blood Mode. ^_^ hehe Heres a pic of it:


Also, ive finished the Staff of Ice Weopen but at a standstill at what weopen should be made next...

So far looks good. I'm just interested in a few things.

First is movement. It'll be standard point and click I presume. Will there be any feature to aid people who want to make sharp turns? Since units can hide, the only way to quickly react will be to do a sharp turn towards it and attack, unless units auto-attack but I don't think so since there's a special key to attack.

Second, how does attacking work? Since there is a special key to attack, is it auto-targeted, targeting, or just a blind attack at anything in a straight line in front?

Lastly, I just wanted to know how you detect the keys being pressed because the screenshots show selection of a unit that doesn't display any visible abilities. The only ways I know how to detect instant key pressing is to check for items being bought or abilities being casted. Is there another way or are the abilities just black boxed so I can't see (if so where do you get a black box icon from anyway).

Aside from that, so far looks good, I'll definitely try the pre-release since it looks quite interesting (after playing that may change, but heck I wouldn't know).

Movement: Arrow keys as usual but movement is swift (you are a thief...) so yes sharp turns is included. Attacking is dependent on the woeopen. The swords damage units directly in your field of view. The staff of fire hits the first unit(s) in its path forward. The Staff of Ice, once fired, shoots a ball of ice that follows the nearest target(within 800) until it hits.

Actaully i did use abilities for detecting key pressed. I just made a black.blp in photoshop and imported it. then i made a transperant.blp and made that the background of tooltip so nothing appears. FInally, i made the "buttonclicked" be my black.blp as well so the green border does not appear.

K ive fine tuned Staff of Ice so now its 100% complete. I have finished Sword of Valere (look at inital post for description) and i have editted agent pathing a bit.

Heres a pic of one of the animations of Staff of Ice:
Screenshot5

I've noticed all the pics ive shown have kinda dull terrain...Thats cause they are located at the edges of the map. Heres a pic of one of the catherdrals. In this pic, im preforming one of the animations of the Sword of Valere:
Screenshot6

Pre-Release 1 is now obsolete and has been deleted! Please be patient as Pre-Release 2 (which has totally overhauled the previous engine) to be made!

Righto. I tested it abit.

First thing is about the camera. It's a bit too high so you can't see stuff someone who attacks you point blank.

The usual keyboard lag exists but a bit more than it should... I can't find out why though because for some reason the triggers are completely blanked out (how do you do that?). However I see this has been accounted for so it's really quite easy to hit something and precision aiming isn't required.

One of the rather annoying problems is that I have no idea which team the AI ninjas belong to. I think a bit of a change of tint could help.

Another thing is that players have no idea about whether they hit or not. Maybe when a player hits an enemy either an effect could be played on the unit or the player will hear a sound. This will help them to know when they hit and also the range of certain weapons and whether any casting time is required and stuff like that.

Also, just as a suggestion, maybe less agents should be spawned.

This map looks very cool. I've played around with first-person-view maps, and whenever I make one I just make it so that when a unit gets hit, the camera for the owner shakes. This always seems to work very well. You could also try adding a 100% critical strike which does no extra damage, or at least very little, to make the attacker know if he hit the opponent.

Weapons:
Staff of Parrying - Gives the wearer more of a chance to block attacks.
Sword of Sacrifice - This sword deals a great ammount of damage, but whenever the wearer of the sword attacks, they lose a small % of their life.
Blowgun - A blowgun! Hurts people from afar.

Hope these help!

Edit: I just opened the map, and I tried testing it... but it dosen't work, but if you just released the map for people to see the terrain for then the terrain does need some work. Also, you should add some elivated terrain to make it more realistic and interesting. I know it messes up the camera but you can use triggers to change the camera's height when a unit goes on hill or somthing.

Sounds good, I will hopefully edit this post with weapon ideas as I think of them...
Weapons so far:

Dagger - High damage, no range, small area(if possible not all of FoV, just a small area at centre of FoV)

Caltraps - Usable item (has charges) when used, drops a caltrap onto the ground (An instrument with four iron points, scattered on the ground, could be based of a land mine with tiny AoE) when someone walks over it, they take heavy damage, but can be avoided, so would be adviced to place more than 1 in the same place.

Smoke bomb - Used for escaping, creates a cloud of smoke in the area infront of your theif. (has charges)

Flashbang type thing - Fades targeted unit's (only work with a player obviously) screen out and back in (white filter) (has charges)


I think other items with charges could be made..

About the map:
*Yeah ant is right, they need different tinting so you can tell who to attack..

*Also you could change it to be less aosy (lol). I was thinking, you could make it like counterstrike, where every player appears at the start of a 'round' and goes out to battle, when they die, they have to wait for the 'round' to end, before everyone respawns (one team killing enemy team/ completing quest) If you made it like this, the game would be able to last as long as people want to keep playing (or maybe a score limit set at the start by host) and capturing enemies treasure would be easier (adding more fun, have to protect your treasure a lot more...)


*Maybe another thing like counterstrike, you get gold for kills and can buy weapons at new round.

About the map in the editor, the terrain is too uniform, it is all the same, easy to get lost etc. If all terrain looks the same then you can never track where you are going and have been. (if using the cs 'round' idea, this way you can methodically search the areas for the last enemy, rather than bumbling round in circles ;) )

Also about terrain and layout, if you make a few more open spaces (say in the middle) with obstacles where a conflict point could be, it would allow for a bit more advanced fighting (running around the enemy behind obstacles then jumping out etc)

Tell me what you think...

I get a lot of ideas about things I am interested in (this project), if you have msn / aim, I could randomly suggest things to you ... Also, I was wondering, do you need a terrainer? I can redo the terrain for you if you like. If you need any pictures of my work just ask... (ill be able to send you some pics)
my msn acc's (yeah I have two) are :
[email protected]

[email protected]
(lol that will take a while to add)

AIM:

kleptiksoul

Ant: Actually the following day you posted that i made a red filter that flashes on your screen when you are hit. Also, i am now using different models for each side. I might lower the amount of ninjas but not sure right now..
Yoz: When testing this map, do not open it in WE and then press test. Instead, d/l it in the download maps folder and test it through warcraft.
Kleptik_SOul: I've pmed you about the terrain thing. I've never played Counterstrike so if you could fill me in on that (as it looks very intersting) that would be great.

General Note: I am adding a random event that spawns a demon (its dalaran of course) that requires teamwork to defeat. I have added the lightning elemental already. Thanx for all the weopen ideas and i will get working on those shortly. Unfortunetly i have not been able to work on my game much after i posted the pre-release cause of visitors.

P.S: sorry it aint color coded, im kinda in a hurry...

Nice use of Ninja models, they are one of the more diverse models here, and were well worth being used in a large project. I'll check here later and download the map to check it out!

Just to let you know that I am actually doing something lol, here are a few screenshots of the Guild building that each team will start at (one for each team, not in same building). I made use of the FPS system, so it has a roof (I had to add a custom model for the walls, k?. I would like a few comments from the public and you of course harshateja.

C&C please.

Hope you like it. It's playable, I think ^_^.

O_o!!!!!!! Dude that is crazy awesome...how long did that take you to make?

Pre-release two will feature a totally new game play system which will be more effective in conveying the thief mood. I have editted the original post for details on Pre-release two and i will be deleting the original download post shortly...

Thanks..



I'm showing a screeny of the village area.. Its not really a screenshot area like the guild building, but it's still cool ingame. There are walls around houses and in certain areas of the city, these walls will enable you to see over them, while only showing your head to the opponents (quite hard to see)...

Also, here is an overview of the map, to show current terrain completion. The map is 120 * 120..




The village areas (they are copied for both teams) are complete.
The guild buildings are 90% complete (one teams building still hasn't been completely finished)

This only leaves the farm / grass areas to do. I will get onto them when possible.



Harshateja, is there a way of disabling the 'alt' key? Otherwise people can just hold it on and find out where everyone is / who is hiding behind buildings etc. Or maybe you could skin the lifebar that appears above people's heads when you hold 'alt' to be transperant / alpha'd.

Also, about the weapons. I think the range on all ranged weapons should be increased (Some keep the same, you could have a long range wep as a secondary and a short ranged wep as a primary. If they are far away, hit them with your secondary... When they come closer, switch... I just love tactics ^_^ ) The teleport item should deal no damage and blink quite a big distance. It should be a secondary only weapon to be used in conjunction with a dagger / sword. (Blink up to them then attack, then blink away). There should also be a realistic ranged weapon such as a crossbow.

Ok, me and wtfish finally got time to hook up and exchange work. The terrain looks awesome now and i will post up screens in a bit. Basically, me and wtfish completely remade the game and now it portrays the mood of fear and backstabbing pain.

The round system is almost complete and i am deciding whether to make ranged weopens have a limitied ammo.

Wtfish also contributing the idea of using utilities such as medpacs, nets, etc.

The pre-release 2 is expected to be out to the public by next saturday but the set date is not final yet.

The shoot system has been reworked to be more accurate and not 'explode' too early as what has been experienced in the previous public version.