New project: never been done before

As far as I know what i'm trying to accomplish hasn't ever been done yet, and it's a big project so I might need some help to finish it before i die of old age.

Main concept:
You control a hero (custom abilities) who lives in an area of the world that is in conflict. There are no solid alliances between established nations and brutes, monsters and bandits roam the countryside. It is a time of darkness and no one can know what direction the world will go in next. You are a lowly (initially) hero trying to make it in the world.

At the start of a game you can select an alliegence to one of three computer controlled towns/forces. There is another neutral hostile controlled town which you cannot have alliegence with (at first). From here the game can take on a number of different paths. It can be played as an RPG where you take your hero into the county and perform quests or just adventure for treasure. It can be played as an AoS map if two (or more) towns engage in war. It can be played as a WW3 map where alliances can be made and broken between towns to secure dominance over the countryside. It can be played as a siege warfare map where one must survive and put down the growing threat of bandits and monsters. Possibly other things too but these will be the core modes of game play.

Note that this game is multiplayer, and there will be up to 9 player controlled heros in a game. Unlike my other map (Rival Nations) you will only controll a single hero, however this hero will be more like a D2 hero. You will be able to save them from one game to the next and improve your hero over a period of 10-20 games. Also note that experience will be gained incredibly slowly, such that it may take you 10 or 15 games to reach level 10.

The three towns that you can choose from will be scaled for difficulty. in both troops produced and surrounding monsters. As well as exp gained. Some quests are dynamic some are determined. what I mean is that a new quest might apear based on a world event, such as a village is under attack or is completely destroyed. Another if a town's king is killed/dies/sick, perhaps an assassination occoured, you could be hired to find the assassin. If one town is fighting another a hero could be offered a bribe to betray his king and fight for the other side. However this will degrage the players 'attitude' rating which will be saved with the rest of the hero from one game to the next. Also towns have different attitudes toward different players. The town that is betrayed has a negative attitude and the one that was saved is increased. Also if you are caught as an assassin that might lower your attitude rating =). I would also like to carry a title with each hero, so as the game goes on you earn sort of a reputation. Ex: your name is Ragnor and you play an assassin hero who has 25 royalty kills, you would be announced as Ragnor the Murderous Assassin, or something like that.

As you can tell a lot of this isnt finalized but I have many things in place that I will need to build this:
1. the code needed to save heros over MP including the extra info i talked about.
2. a rough design of the map.
3. most of the custom heros with working custom spells.
4. some quest ideas
5. knowledge how to make each of the primary game play type maps.

What I dont have is much help with this... I have started terraining a 480x480 map and damn that bitch is huge. I have three small villages partially done and somewhat connected. I dont have a solid game plan, of how to incorporate all the different styles and how the game should flow. And im sure there is more that im missing.

If your interested here are the jobs that I can think that I need help with:
1. Map Concept Development
2. Quest Designer and Implementor
3. Terrain:
A. Village, City and Place of Interest Design
B. Countryside design
4. Hero, Hero Spell, and Item Designer
5. Map Design (maybe)


The heros:
Fighter
(Melee, Str)
Burst of Speed
Rage
Endurance Aura
Metamorphosis (maybe)
Tank
(Melee, Str)
War Stomp
Immolation
Bash
Avatar
Mage
(Ranged, Intel)
Fissure
Meteor
Fire Elemental
Teleport (not mass)
Assassin
(Melee, Intel)
Mirror Image
Confuse(slow/cripple)
Critical Strike
Omnislash
Hunter
(Ranged, Agil)
Searing Arrows
Hawk(scout that attacks)
Trueshot Aura
Lightning Storm (starfall)
Summoner
(Ranged, Intel)
Feral Spirit
Call Beast
Transformation
Spirit of the Wild
Prophet
(Melee, Str)
Holy Light
Judgment
Sacrifice (deathpact)
Resurrection
Ninja
(Melee, Agil)
Sneak
Venom
Evasion
Death Blow
Warlock
(Melee, Str)
Carrion Swarm
Lifeforce (dark Ritual)
Vamp Aura
Chain Lightning(strong)
2 More Heros for a total of 11


The map:

If your interested in a job you can post in this thread send me a PM or talk to me over aim (best way), my SN is: kcattafuel

That's a good idea, but you should write the hero names/spellls so you can see it better.....like this....

The heros:
Fighter - (Melee, Str)
- - Burst of Speed
- - Rage
- - Endurance Aura
- - Metamorphosis (maybe)
Tank - (Melee, Str)
- - War Stomp
- - Immolation
- - Bash
- - Avatar
Mage - (Ranged, Intel)
- - Fissure
- - Meteor
- - Fire Elemental
- - Teleport (not mass)
Assassin - (Melee, Intel)
- - Mirror Image
- - Confuse(slow/cripple)
- - Critical Strike
- - Omnislash
Hunter - (Ranged, Agil)
- - Searing Arrows
- - Hawk(scout that attacks)
- - Trueshot Aura
- - Lightning Storm (starfall)
Summoner - (Ranged, Intel)
- - Feral Spirit
- - Call Beast
- - Transformation
- - Spirit of the Wild
Prophet - (Melee, Str)
- - Holy Light
- - Judgment
- - Sacrifice (deathpact)
- - Resurrection
Ninja - (Melee, Agil)
- - Sneak
- - Venom
- - Evasion
- - Death Blow
Warlock - (Melee, Str)
- - Carrion Swarm
- - Lifeforce (dark Ritual)
- - Vamp Aura
- - Chain Lightning(strong)

- - - -

P.S. Your Welcome. :ggani: :D

- Draco

[edit] - Even More Color Coding (yah, I was bored)

Hey,

just like to say, this sounds SO mcuh like my new map... City of Dark.

Oh well.

You could use a ''string'' password, each substring representing something, but it would be far far far too easy to cheat.

a string password is what im going to use and it wont be 'far far far too easy to cheat' =P

I know a think or two about encryption and I think i can make a code that is pretty solid, still you could hack the map or read the .j file but where would be the fun in that? I could easily implement a vote kick thing, that could determine if the character was hacked or not... to some extent.

Also codes would be player specific, anyway this thread is getting off topic. I know it can be done, im going to do it, im looking for help. If your interested gimme a ring or whatever..

P.S. thx Draco for the hero ability thing, I had tabs in there but they didnt come out >< and I forgot to preview.

No problem. :D

Oh, and if you need any trigger help, feel free to PM me. :)

Doing a stringpassword would be too hard. Imaging having a code for every hero, at every level, with every possiblity of spells. Thats atleast like, uh *gets out caculator* *cant find caculator*

Ok thats like:
40
x9
__
5
360
x 9
___
3240

That would take too long to do man.



EDIT: You could do it like a code of
106318524605

First two digits: Hero Level
- - 00 = Messes up the game. This prevents random hackers
- - 01
- - 02
- - 03
- - 04
- - 05
- - 06
- - 07
- - 08
- - 09
- - 10

Third to Tenth digits: Spells
One number for every possible spell.
00 = Nothing

Eleven to Twelve digits: Hero Class
Can be one for each hero class.
0 = First hero.


The game would desync the person who hacks a code, by puting a spell that doesn't fit on a character. This will prevent random hackers.

Sorry, I am editing, so I cant see the digits and things

EDIT 2: If you use this system, I could hack it, as i designed it. :)

Well, good luck

actually the code im going to use is around 20 characters long, letters and numbers... and if the string compare function can tell between upper and lower case then i can make it shorter...

But trust me, i have been working on the code for like a few full days and it will be more work to crack than to build a hero.

This thread is not about implementation, this is a request for help with the specified jobs above.

Hey, I've made a beta stage of my idea above. It doesn't work yet, it won't create the hero, but it intakes the intergers.

If you want to check it out, i've attached it.

I can do spell stuff. Alittle, I made a lightning storm thingamajig and a more powerful chain lightning too.

Hey Microsoft XP,

I am going to say this again. This idea sounds, to me, nearly the EXACT same as the ideas I had for my own map, City of Dark, please look at my links in my signature.

I say this for two reasons:
1) It kinda pisses me off that you think your idea has NEVER BEEN TRIED BEFORE when I started up my project only a couple days ago!!! :gfu:

2) They are similar enoguh that we could possibly combine forces, allowing a much better map to be made, in a shorter time, and more effeciently.

All I ask is you check out the links, and give a decent reply.

Thanks:ggani:

I have been developing this game concept for quite some time and what makes it unique is not the quests. Its the ability to play with multiple people and save your hero.

If you read your own thread I was 2nd or 3rd post and I mentioned that the quest aspect was very similar to an idea i had been working on for a while.

In addition your project is hardly off the ground (from what i can tell from forums) so you can hardly say that this has already been done. whereas I have 9 of 12 working heros all with custom spells and a decent start on the terrain with a well fleshed out design for the rest of the map and a solid game concept.

I appriciate the offer to join your project but this is something I've already put a lot of time into and I make multi-player only maps (i think you mentioned yours was single player)... And I have more ambitions than what your project is aiming for.

First thing, I love your map. I still play it every week.

Secondly, if you do manage to get the password working correctly, there's no reason to limit yourself to one map. Since you have the formula, you can use it for multiple maps. If you enter a correct code then you start out with a higher level hero. If you don't, then you start out with a level 1 hero. In theory, you could keep releasing 'expansion' maps as long as there is interest. Heck, at some point use the same tricks as other maps where you trade in your hero for another level 1 hero with high base stats.

Just throwing out wacky ideas here. You could even have quests that span multiple maps, but you run the risk of people getting frustrated and giving up.

All and all, very interesting idea! :D

yea i was thinking something like that too, but that would be like 2 times the work and i am already feeling overwhelmed =O