Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread

[Frostion]

EDIT: This map has evolved much since the original post. It now even has a new name and logo. To get up to date with the state of the map development, go to the later posts of this thread. Have a good one! - Frostion
Here follows the original post:

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I am happy and proud to finally introduce the new map I am working on. It is set in the Warcraft universe, with lots of fighting, fantastic races, magic and plenty of pretty weird stuff. I hope you have played one or more of the Warcraft games as this will probably help you understand this map and the universe.

This map is called World of War Heroes as I plan to implement important hero-units alongside the standard fighting units. The plan is also to add role-playing elements, a lot of randomness and an adventure like game experience. Hopefully this map will become fun and different in such a way that it can be played an infinite number of times

"In universe" we are a few years after Warcraft III and 1 year before the start of World of Warcraft. So if you have played WoW, note that this map is set in a time before your personal adventures. This also means that Gnomeregan is still a functioning capital of the Gnomes. The world includes only two continents and a big tree-island:

Eastern Kingdoms
• Lordaeron
• Khaz Modan
• Azeroth
Kalimdor
• Northern Kalimdor
• Central Kalimdor
• Southern Kalimdor
Teldrassil (the tree island to the north-west)

(The map I have made is 9500x8500 pixels and has a little over 400 capturable land territories)

(This picture is of the Human starting capital territory. The size is 50% of the ingame size, and I have removed the semi-transparency that surrounds all land borders. If the humans own the territories, a light blue glow is displayed along the borders.

Note that there will be bridges displayed in the final map version, so that players can see where they may cross the rivers. Also, some of the very narrow terrain will be colored dark/black as it is impassible)

(I have tried to make this overview image to show how the map geography is at the moment.)

(What is the green terrain? Well, I plan to have different territory effects, but as many other aspects of the map, I have not thought everything fully through yet. So just ignore the green. It is still a work in progress )

• 8 playable races with fixed capitals (4 Alliance and 4 Horde)
• Shared basic units
• Racial special units
• Hero-units with unique abilities and a leveling system
• Hero backpack and items (approximately 80 items total for the 8 heroes)
• Tech system / unit upgrade system for shared and special units
• Basic/veteran/elite unit system
• Siege warfare with buildings and siege engines
• d20 combat system with support and AA features

The World
• 408 capturable territories
• Territory effects
• 6 resources types (Territory: PUs, Gold, Wood and Food. Other: Mana and XP)
• Impassible mountain ridges, rivers and bridges.
• 4 sets of “Waygates” (Teleporting portals)
• 8 “Ports” with attached special units: Transport (ship only capable of hero transportation for gold), Fishing-Boat (capable of capturing different types of sea resources) and Trading-Ship (capable of generating resources when arriving at another port)

Randomness
Territories are to have resources that allow the building of basic units. But the map is also to have randomly placed resources, items, creeps (AI enemies and a few allies) at game start. There are 400 territories that are all to be randomly seeded with hero items (like swords, armor, books etc.), resource producing units (like mines, farms, woods etc.) and a large variety of special buildings etc. The idea is to make every map playthrough feel like a unique adventure.

Map tile graphics and black/white border map
Working file structure and XML
All the stuff I gotta do before adding player units
Add Humans and Orcs
Balance shared units
Add Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves, Tauren, Trolls and Undead
Balance fixed map resources
Add randomly placed AI Allies, Enemies, Extra resources, Capturable units and buildings
Add special units
Balance special units
Add tech development
Add veteran system
Add Heroes
Add Hero level system
Add Hero inventory and information on map
Add Hero items
Map custom sounds and music

(1. October 2018) I don’t have a working XML yet, no units stats and I have not thought every aspect of this map through yet. So there is a long way to go from here. I hope most stuff will fall into place on the way. I will probably rely greatly on tips, help and suggestions from you guys here at the forum.

I will probably start releasing playable betas at some point before Hero units are introduced onto the map, so that we can ensure a good balanced basic game behind the Heroes. Percentage-wise, I would say that the Heroes should be 25% of the game, meaning if a player masters and manages the regular units, army and navy in a reasonable way, he can still win, even though he is unlucky in regards to the Hero unit and his/hers item inventory.

My next step is getting a working file structure and XML up and running.

I have finished like 90% of the unit graphics, but need to add roundels, shadows and maybe unit type icons. Here is a taste of how the human units look like:
Irregulars
Footmen
Pikemen
Archers
Crossbows
Cavalry
Knight
Priest
Troopship
Heavy-Troopship
Escort
Warship
Human Hero - Paladin - Arthur the Faithful

[redrum]

@frostion Wow! Sounds awesome. Personally, I loved Warcraft III though never got into WoW. Seems like a good start and lots of potential. I have a feeling I may be seeing some feature requests...

[Cernel]

@frostion I'll surely check it out. This one makes me wish once again that TripleA would support 128x128 unit images, especially now we are definitely into the 4k era, as I see you could have had your heroes way more detailed that way.

[Cernel]

@frostion I know nothing about the lore, but I wonder if the units names are based on it? I feel a bit dubious about them, like with having a unit called knight and another one called cavalry.

[Frostion]

@redrum
There are a few small minor features that I really hope can be added to the engine. But it is relatively small stuff as I try to manage with the features already available. One of the things I have noticed would be nice to have available in this map is "when captured turns into resources" and "when killed turns into resources" features.

@Cernel
I hope the final unit images can be a bit sharper than the ones displayed above. And yes, It would be nice if TripleA windows supported larger unit pictures, but right now I will probably stick to 54x54 as minimum size for units.
In regards to the Cavalry and Knight, Cavalry is to be a shared unit type unlike the Knight, which is a Human only unit. Like a luxury unit that costs more Gold than PUs. The Priest is also a Human only unit.

[alkexr]

@frostion You may not know yet, but you've just made my life a heck of a lot easier.

Also, HYPE!

[Frostion]

@alkexr Do you mean that you had a hard life before, but now have an easier life because you have this map to look forward to, or is your life easier now because you were inspired by something here to do something?

[Frostion]

I’m building this map's file structure at the moment… got a question:

Are PUs the only resource that can have its own file directory with images named 1.png, 2.png etc? Or can territories have other resources be produced instead (or at the same time), like Gold or Wood, and then have corresponding file directories with images called 1.png, 2.png etc. that then gets displayed via for example a Gold_place.txt???

[Hepps]

@frostion I believe there is only the one.

[alkexr]

@frostion That is worth a feature request.

[Frostion]

OK ... then it is as I feared. But my plan is still to have territories produce a variety of resources. I guess I will not use the PUs directory pictures but instead display the territory production info in decoration or the territory names pictures.

[redrum]

@frostion Yeah, as mentioned, it only works for PUs not other resources.

[Cernel]

Not sure if having the logo looking alike that of another game might be a problem. Tho I'm stunned by how you managed to modify as you wanted it so well.

[Frostion]

@Cernel Like with the ton of other game mods, skins, fan created content and so on for big franchise themes, a Warcraft map for A&A is nothing but free advertisement for the commercial IP owners. Even on steam, the most popular game mods are based on big business IPs, like LotR Civilization, Star Trek Stellaris etc.

By the way, the logo was easy to make as I found a WoW logo generator where one could modify the original text and title. The title "War Heroes" fits the map concept as well as preserves the abbreviation "WoW" and becomes "WoWH" i guess

[Frostion]

Here is a little Alpha stage development sneak preview. I finally have a working XML that launches without errors, Yay! :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_smiling_eyes: Here is a sneak preview, plus a World of Warcraft ingame screenshot of the same area that is shown:

Not many units and stuff yet But you can see the Auberdine Port building and a neutral convoy.png. It took me a very long time to figure out how a Warcraft version of a buoy could look like, but I think this barrel type turned out well:

In World of War Heroes the port village of Auberdine is going to be one of 8-11 ports from where Heroes can get a Ferry ride, where special Trade Ship units will be depart and sail towards other ports (to get gold … the farther out, the more gold) and where fishing boats depart from and head towards fishing/resource sea territories. I haven’t really figured out exactly all the technical details on how this will work, but I guess they will come up on the way.

End of report

[Frostion]

Just want to let everyone interested in this map know that it is still being developed

Progress is slow though. Right now I am slowly implementing all non-player units like resource generating units, non-hero items, captureable buildings ect.

Here is a little preview of the current state. In this picture land and sea territories are up for grabs. The Horde and the Alliance are standing ready:

[Frostion]

So, I have been working some time on this map. Among other things I have spent a good deal of time making the unit graphics, and I am not even done yet. There are a whole lot of unit pictures for each player unit directory, and even though most are shared, I guess it will be a total of approximately 500 unit pictures in every directory!

But I have finished a lot of the races’ shared standard units. Besides standard units every player will have sea units, a hero and 5 unique special units each (like support units, air units, special ships etc.), plus whatever fighting units the players manage to capture/pick up on the map.

But the basic units are:
Cavalry, Crossbows, Archers, Pikemen, Footmen, Irregulars.

(Note: Units will probably get unit symbols/icons so that they are easily recognizable.)

I would really like to get some suggestions and inspiration from you guys when it comes to the basic unit stats. But it must be within the framework of:
• 10 sided dice
• Archers + Crossbows fire one round of AA and then they just use their normal att/def stats.
• Normal move is 1 and cavalry is 2.
Any ideas in regards to the unit set stats?

[redrum]

@Frostion Looking awesome! My suggestion would be to outline what you see each unit should be good at or used for. Maybe also what you want a standard army to potentially look like? Then after doing that we can fit some stats to them. Types of resources and cost of the units would start to become a factor as well.

[Cernel]

@Frostion Minor suggestion for details lovers: I would be consistent with the names. Like in that list not "Crossbows", but "Arbalisters" or "Crossbowmen".
Also, not sure on having names ending with "men" if they are not all humans? Or cavalry, since that implies it's horses? Maybe "Riders"?

[Hepps]

@Frostion All looking very sexy. Great work as usual. I think @redrum suggestion is a good one. Fine each units specific role and then play with the stats from there.

Looking forward to the finished product.