has been selected for the August Project Highlight. An AoS that is a sequel, a prequel and a new map at the same time sure stands out, especially once you know its author is Rising_Dusk, the creator of various interesting spells and the rather popular AoS Advent of the Zenith. So, what can we expect from DoE?
You can read more about it in the map's forum thread and of course in our traditional highlight interview:
Read it, you know you want to
How did you come up with the idea for the project?
I wasn't satisfied with the result of my first project, mostly. I felt that it had turned into something I didn't want it to be. I had been discussing with a few of my friends some ideas I had, and really they convinced me to give it another shot, on a totally clean slate.
What was it about AotZ that you weren't happy with?
How I had practically recreated Tides of Blood with new heroes, nothing at all felt different. Originally I wanted to "beat DotA" with the newest and coolest AoS idea ever; I was very vain back then. But then after getting pretty far in the development stage, I really hadn't achieved anything, just basically proved to myself that I could copy a very well-made map. And sure, lots of people feel that AotZ is a good map and I agree, but it has flaws in it that couldn't be fixed without recreating it from the ground up. DoE gave me that chance.
What would you consider to have been the biggest flaw of AotZ, and what made you prefer to fix it in a new map rather than there?
It was too complicated. It wasn't intuitive or easy to learn. It was just a garbled mass of abilities and stuff that made learning the map practically impossible without playing dozens of games. I couldn't viably change AotZ because the fanbase that had built up liked it for what it was, they liked the overcomplicatedness because it meant they could crush new players in public games it gave them a rush. So I needed to create something new without a fanbase, and have it grow on its own to be exactly like I wanted, easy to learn but hard to master.
Is the existing fanbase the reason why you didn't start on a completely clean slate after all? You did transfer considerable parts of AotZ to DoE.
There were parts of AotZ I felt were beneficial to the type of map I wanted to create. Many features to me were analogous with the type of AoS I wanted to create, so they were reused (But still recoded) in DoE. Things like assistances, 6v6, having extra bases, fountains going away by some means, etc. Effectively, DoE is everything I had wanted AotZ to be, but could never make it.
So in a way, you were making a brand new map that was at the same time a sequel; did this pose any unique challenges?
Many, actually. I had to find a good balance between pretty effects and simple spell designs, I had to make heroes more focused on a specific role with fewer abilities, but still keep a personality to the map and the heroes. In order to make the map fun for everyone, including those people that played AotZ a lot, I had to introduce some new things that change the way you think about the map I didn't want to reinvent the AoS, that wasn't my goal; I wanted to reinvent AotZ.
Do you have any advice for all the map makers out there to help them make the map they want to make first time?
Well, assuming you have the motivation and perseverance to see a map through, you need to plan your map before you start working on it. Adding to the map as you go may work in some situations, but generally systems won't complement eachother in ways you want. Then when you look back, you find all that hard work created something totally different from what you had originally wanted. Setting forth goals and choosing what systems to create before you start is the best advice I could offer. Not only does it help keep the map simple enough to learn rather quickly, but you know your own limits and expectations of yourself, so the map will flow better and have a better "feel" to it.
What about yourself; how did you get into Warcraft III modding?
Around 3 years ago, I made my first map. It was pretty silly, but I made my own terrain and made a custom melee map. I didn't know much triggering and had never programmed before in my life, but I liked to fiddle with the pretty pictures in the terrain editor and make cool pyramid shaped designs in the GUI. I ended up experimenting with jass for the first time there, and in the map created over 200 spells, only to use about 60 in the map at all. Many of these unused spells helped give me ideas for what would eventually become AotZ heroes. It was my playground when I really had no idea what to create or how to create it. I picked it all up pretty quickly though, the idea that first X happens and then Y happens really helped me get the hang of things.
So, this "little" sandbox ended up being quite an undertaking. Would you recommend the same approach to other mappers?
For new mappers, I always recommend starting somewhere very easy and gradually working your way up. You need to have a feel for the tools you are going to use if you ever plan to make anything decent, and what better way to get a feel for them than making little starter maps? It also helps having a "figure it out yourself" attitude, since I would have never learned anything if all I did was ask other mappers questions on how to do things.
How did you get involved in the community then, what brought you to wc3campaigns?
I had followed the site for quite awhile, hearing about it first through the now-extinct wc3s. I never really participated though, mostly because I didn't like the people running it and the attitudes many of the members had. Eventually, when I saw it came under new ownership and figured I finally knew enough about mapping that I might be able to help new people, I decided to post and get involved. I never would have guessed that I'd stick with it for so long though, but I guess something about being around the best of the best really keeps me interested. There's always cool new stuff in the resource sections and in the art gallery to check out, and it keeps you up to date with the crazy new programs coming out (vJass comes to mind).
Speaking of which, how did vJass and other prior advancments made in jass coding affect your work. How did you cope with code becoming obsolete all the time?
AotZ suffered this issue a lot. My coding when I started AotZ was terribly inefficient, and near the end of its development it had become a lot better. It made reading parts of the code near-impossible. Making DoE gave me a chance to keep all code on the same level, and allowed me to use some of the features in vJass that I had wanted to experiment with. Things like declaring global variables on the spot and libraries really helped in its development.
So, DoE was a vJass map from the start?
Yes, the very first word I typed in jass for the map was "globals."
While vJASS has made coding a lot easier in many respects, what's your opinion on projects to extend and develop Warcraft 3 itself using custom natives, such as MindWorX's Reinventing the Craft?
I honestly feel that with the announcement of Starcraft 2 that we should just bide our time with what we have until it comes out, then put 110% of our effort into making sure everything is readily available for that. Wc3 modders are a dying breed, many are just waiting for the next moddable game. I don't think it's worth the time to put so much effort into reinventing Wc3's engine when Blizzard is already doing it for us.
How long a future do you think Warcraft III mapmaking still has ahead of itself? Do you have any future projects in mind for yourself?
I think Warcraft 3 modding will last until Starcraft 2 hits shelves. Even then, depending on what sort of functionality the Sc2 editor provides, Wc3 modding might still be strong. Either way, Sc2 will attract huge amounts of attention back into the modding community. And I know for certain that I plan to make maps for Wc3 until Sc2 comes out, the BNet community needs more stuff to play to keep those who can't make maps happy. I had been considering making a different type of AoS unlike anything I've made before, or maybe making a new melee map (Anitarf's custom melee idea really sparked my interest in that one). There are lots of possibilities.
So, no definite ideas for your next project at this time, but there's bound to be one?
No definite ideas, but I do still have DoE to constantly update afterall.
Certainly. Speaking of DoE again, the conditions system is quite an interesting addition. How did the idea develop?
It's actually funny how I came up with that idea. Originally I was playing an old-school RPG for the Super Nintendo named Earthbound. In the back of my head I was thinking of cool features for an AoS map that would be intuitive and just make sense, things that would help develop the map without being stupid add-ons. Then an enemy unit made my character in the game cry, causing 75% of his attacks to miss. It hit me right there like a ton of bricks. The idea of conditions in the map would force teamwork and allow me to make abilities entirely unlike any previous maps. I could use items to augment or weaken conditions, I could make certain skills do extra effects if the struck foes had a condition, I could move conditions, spread them, change them, anything. It changed the way I developed my heroes. Some heroes might be unable to make an enemy bleed on their own but do huge bonus effects with all their skills if the enemy is bleeding. I took the icons from the game Guild Wars because the pictures all fit perfectly together (And they are open resource anyways), but then designed 6 basic conditions that multiple heroes would apply in different ways. This made heroes interact in ways that has just never been done before in an AoS. Suddenly a skill that slows attacks by X%, movement by Y%, and attack damage by Z% that would be too complicated for the map could be reduced to "cripples and maims target," letting me do more while not making it any more challenging to understand. It was this revelation that truly motivated me to go through with the map.
These kind of dependancies between heroes must have lead to some new design and balance considerations, though?
Yes it did, and this was most noticeable in the early betas where some heroes would work too well with one another. Numbers really can stack up if multiple heroes focus fire their assorted effects onto single enemy targets, but I feel this is a good thing. It leads to people not wanting to charge alone against 2 heroes, even if their hero is pretty powerful on his own. Eventually it all worked out though and it ended up being very balanced for decent-sized games.
Any parting words or advice for your fellow map makers?
Lots of people reuse what has been done before in other maps, almost as a substitute for true innovation in game design. I, myself, am guilty of this when I look back at AotZ. However, there's plenty of ideas out there that haven't been used before, approaches to mapmaking that haven't been delved into. These are the things you should look at when developing a map. What new things can you add to a map without taking it too far? Simple things, things that work fluidly in the common game, things that make together make the map a new experience, but alone seem very trivial. Many people overlook these in game design, and this oftentimes is what makes what would have been an awesome map... Rather bland. It's been a pleasure doing this interview, I hope the readers picked something up from it, thanks!
Not entirely relevant, but stickying the project for the month does not seem that great because people hardly look at the stickies especially in the map development forum.
HA! DotA can't even dream of the mapping quality and creativity behind DoE. Not saying its the best shit ever made, or the most original, for that matter...
But it's still, pretty damn good.
Oh and i didnt come in here just to poop on dota, i actually read the intervieuw. Didn't really have anything to say about it, though, since i think DoE's condition system could have been a hell of a lot better. But we've been over that.
I just felt it would have been better if a "condition" was a mere tag to an effect, reather then a set effect. It would have given a lot more freedom in hero creation and you'd still have the same dynamic gameplay.
What i mean by that is that when you have, lets say, a frost spell, you could have a frost spell that slows or a frost spell that freezes people solid. They're two diffrent effects, but they'd count as the same type of spell.
If you want to talk about this further hit me on msn or PM or something.
