A mix of Skill, RPG, and PVP.

Map Name: Rolemaster Magestorm

Creator: Me, Blacktastic.

People that help me out: Nagelbagel, and of course Vexorian, without whom I would have a very laggy map.

Summary: A map based on the game Magestorm, which is currently owned by Mythic. It was a very good game but it was not very well known and had a small fanbase due to that. It was a loyal one however. The game was like a FPS, only with spells rather than guns. It was first person, however I am opting to not go in that direction as WC3 was not built to be a shooter. It had several arenas, levels, 3 spell paths per class, and a stategic element called "Ley Pools" that you could capture for increased regeneration rates.

Objective: To obliterate the other 2 teams of 4. Each team has a shrine. Destroying this Shrine (via standing near it without having opposition for X amount of time) will nullify the ability to "release". Priests may still ressurect however. Any teammate can restore a dead shrine. This means you must kill both shrines and all players in order to win a match. At the conclusion of each match, you will gain the experience you earned from the previously played match and you may then afk, leave, or play another match. The level curve will be easy until about level 10. After that it will be much more difficult. The goal is to achieve level 30 so you can participate in tournaments I will be holding assuming this map gains popularity. Will overall be a fun map even at level 30 though, as the spell diversity is going to be vast.

Features:

4 Character Classes (Willing to add more)

3 Specalizations per Class

8 Arenas (Each one having something interactive about it. More on that later.)

Arming Spell System (You May only have 3 Spells Armed at a time from your arsenal. Different spells are more useful for different situations, and spell swapping WILL be a required skill for "pros")

Projectile Based Gameplay (Most of the spells are instant and projectile
based. Learning how to aim your missles will be a large part of the game.)

5 Custom Stats (Endurance (Increases HP and Energy), Speed (Increases Speed and Projectile Speed), Magic (Increases Mana and Spell Crit), Energy (Determines the "Spammability" of spells), Ley (Affects additional regeneration))

Priests can Ressurect! Yes, something many maps seem to be missing. Upon death, you may wait for the respawn timer or for a Priest to call your ghost to them so they can ressurect you. Priests have a much larger role to play in this map.

30 Levels

The ability to save your character to use for later matches. (This of course requires you to specify a level range upon hosting a game.)

Custom Experience Gain. You gain experience from quite a few things. Dealing damage, capturing ley pools, killing shrines, killing something, healing someone, ressurecting someone, etc. As far as killing and such goes, killing the same person multiple times in succession will result in overall experience loss to prevent abuse. Additionally, a game requires at least 4 people. I am going to work my hardest to make the save function hard to abuse.

NO ITEMS! (I consider this a feature as the game is all about skill and the spell path you chose. I MAY add in items as prizes for Tournaments.)

Team: Just me right now.

Progress: Still in the early Alpha Phase. I am not posting a link to the map as of yet, as I do not have it protected and it is not up to a viewable standard. If it is REALLY irking you, you can find me on USEast and I can show you it there. Until I deem it "Beta" however, I will not post a link or pictures.


Major Bugs:
Projectiles failing to recognize Casting Opponents
Sprint incompatability with Slows
Revive Bug

FAQ:

Pictures:

Map Editor View:



The starting area is a Castle that is in between 8 dimensions, hence the drastic scenary change to each arena. Each arena selector houses a spirit, which some of them can be seen on the map. They are invisible by default and only appear to explain the arena.

UI and Spell System Examples:



Please excuse my horrible freehand XD.

Changelog:

October 06 2007:
Initial Terrain Finished
All Level 1 Spells Finished

Save/load codes fail for competitive maps. Why? Those least able to play are those that are most penalised. Result? No one bar nutters play your map.

Sounds nice, but what about the terraining?

This looks like it could be a lot of fun, but be aware that all your shiney new systems still have to be readable. For example, how are you going to do 5 attributes? you have to somehow display those in an easy way thats quick to read and understand.

And how about this spell swapping business? Since you have no items, are you going to display availible spells in the item bar, with a click-to-swap system? (wich sounds the easyest and the most logical)

I really like the premise. Now make it happen, and make it good.

Sounds nice, but what about the terraining?

Each Arena has a specific theme.

Cathedral
Cityscape
Wetlands
Cave
Nethercropolis
Lost Temple
Forest
Graveyard

And the starting area is kind of a Dimensional Castle that connects to all 8 of these realms. This is the "Reprieve Area". You choose an arena here, gather additional info about arenas or upcoming events. Once I get it finished, I may even add different modes. (Survival, Coin Collector, stuff like that)

This looks like it could be a lot of fun, but be aware that all your shiney new systems still have to be readable. For example, how are you going to do 5 attributes? you have to somehow display those in an easy way thats quick to read and understand.

The first three stats, Magic, Endurance, and Speed are just edits of the base three stats and I edited the Gameplay Constants to show what those do on the Hero Card. As for the other two, people will need to either A) Do the intelligent thing and talk to the Tutorial Dude, or B) Figure it out themselves.

And how about this spell swapping business? Since you have no items, are you going to display availible spells in the item bar, with a click-to-swap system? (wich sounds the easyest and the most logical)

I considered that but the hotkeys for Item Slots are retarded. Instead, I opted for 3 Spellbooks, each spellbook correlating to a certain hotkey (Q,W,E). Q is your main offensive abilities, W are secondary abilities, and E are defensive/misc abilities. They are all hotkeyed in a fashion that will allow one to quickly swap spells.

Save/load codes fail for competitive maps. Why? Those least able to play are those that are most penalised. Result? No one bar nutters play your map.

Do tell me how this would penalize others? I am going to force a level cap at the beginning of the game dependant on the hosts level. Like I said, the point is to display the levels you want WITHIN THE GAME NAME upon hosting. If you fail to follow the rules, you will end up not being able to play. I see absolutely no way this can penalize casuals.

If it doesn't penalise others, it cannot benefit anyone, and so becomes pointless, merely a method of making the starting gameplay have less abilities.

None of this sounds very user friendly at all. While I like the concept of it, it sounds like the UI will just be a pain to understand and manage, and having a save/load code for a game of this type really just adds unnecessary complexity, and dilutes the game. It sounds like you're expecting the players to do all the work - the creator should be the one doing the work, to make it intuitive and fun for players.

As far as the UI goes, it's very simplistic. Once I feel confident to show the map, then you will see that.

As far as the leveling thing goes, the gameplay itself is rather enjoyable. The levels are just there for a feeling of progression.

Like I said, it does sound iffy. Everyone I have shown my map to so far has seemed skeptical, and of course everyone has their own tastes. Although I can say that 90% of the people I have shown my map to have admitted to changing their thoughts on it because even though its not even functional yet, the love the gameplay system.

Let me be more clear, does it choppy, or clearly done and smoothly done to fit in with the map.

I will add a few Map Editor screenshots to show you the starting area. I have recently been dabbling in Terrain so it's not AWESOME, but I rather enjoy it.

Also, where would I go to learn about camera triggers?

I agree with Griffen a save/load system is pointless. You can still make an awsome map without keeping people's levels. Or at least have an option with levels or without so that hosts and players can have a map to their tastes.

The way it would work is that when played on save/load mode players gain exp slower and can save/load it later and on non-save/load mode experience gaining speed should increase to the point where you get to max level by the end of the game.

The thing is though, the game is only centered around pvp. The way the map is designed, it wouldn't work out well at all. Like I said, I KNOW it sounds iffy. But I want to see how it works out. This honestly is just a project for me to expand on my mapping skills for an RPG I am going to help Nagel create when he finished his programming project.

And what does it say in that tutorial? I asked how these stats are displayed, and you just give some evasive awnsers. How can i, as a player, vieuw my hero's stats?? Seems like a reather important basic function to get right dont you think?

And talking to a tutorial dude is not an intelligent thing to do. How can you expect players to figure out they have two additional attributes if you cant even explain to me now how they are displayed?

Expanding gameplay in maps like this is fun, and i'm all for it. But you have to do it right.

Fotget about the hotkeys man! those are the least important. Only the heavy players that play your map daily and over and over again will start using those, and players that play custom wc3 maps with that intensity often use a custom hotkey configuration program to make things easyer.

Its far more important to get the user interface right, to have icons, tooltips, tools to make it easy to understand what you are supposed to do.

---

About the save and load code, i have to agree with everyone that it seems extremely unfair to have something like that. You'll always get those assholes that host a game just to slaughter lower level characters with they're lvl 30 character.

Also, heh, the fun thing i find about competative wc3 rpg maps, in contrary to the usual compatative rpg game, is that you start with a clean slate every single game. You have to build your character again every time, and that just makes it so that casual players and harcore players can get along easely.

Eh, save and load is tricky.. If you enable that people will just load shit outed tosser and ruin beginners, then you'll start seeing ban lists, then people won't be able to DL it. Hence your map will the become limited if you want it to be popular.

How did I evade explaining stats when I posted pictures and showed where each was located and explained what each did X_X.

I an considering creating a Cinematic at the beginning in which I will lay down the basics, hence why I inquired about the camera.

To be completely honest though, if people don't take the time to read up a little bit on what they are doing, then they can go back to playing Dota. >.>


I'm not a fan of save codes either, but something like this has never been done before, and like I said, my intention was to base it on the actual game and make my own deviations with skills and such. If you guys honestly think not using a save code would make it more enjoyable, trust me, I wouldn't mind not doing it lol.
Granted, the fact there are no items in the map make it much more viable for a faster paced system. Perhaps do something in between where it would take multiple matches to achieve the highest level?

By the way, thanks for the critique guys. Appreciate it.

(Btw, I do know how to quote, I've just been bitched at in the past for using quotes on another board. It seems you all are more logical so I will quote from now on.)