Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread

Cernel

@Frostion Is the fort an upgrade of guard-tower? If so, it would feel strange to go from stone to wood. Also it looks strange that the garrison is a wooden construct recoulized stone-like. How about omitting the garrison and reclassifying the remaing three as Fort->Tower->Castle (the Tower would be the current Guard-Tower).

I suppose having 5 (!) different siege engines may make for an interest sieging system.

Frostion

PS: I forgot to mention that Ayanna the Hunter of course has a pet hunting dog

@Cernel Yes there is a starting factory, the Guard Tower, and then the other buildings are upgrades. And yes it is a bit strange to have a stone construction be upgraded to a wooden construction. When I started making the unit graphics, it was the intention that the Guard Tower was to be an un-upgradable supporting building, separate from a three-step factory concept (Fort -> Garrison -> Castle).

But as development of the map progressed, I moved away from the two-types of building approach. Now it is a much simpler four-step factory concept, with the four factories having Wall Archers (AA fire) comparable to their size.

The Wall Archers (AA fire) are so effective/unit killing that they are the reason for players to either bring along siege weapons to suppress the Wall Archers, or alternatively bombard and destroy (some buildings only disable) the Wall Archers … so that the territory can be seized without many casualties.

Maybe the concept will change if we find a better and more fitting concept in regards to siege warefare.

Frostion

Yet another race is done. The horrific Undead, also known as the Forsaken:

Sevis the Warlock of course has the pleasure of commanding his very own summoned Imps:

And when Sevis has reached a certain level, he may also command a powerful Doomguard! :

(These summoned units cannot, like the pet Battle Chicken and the pet Mastiff, venture off on their own. They are bound to follow their master. Though they can attack neighboring territories without their master's participation.)

Greg Anderson

@Frostion Good job! I've never been so eager to play a tripleA map as I am with this one.

Michael Hoover

@Frostion Just read through this whole thread and holy crap this is a magnum opus!
I really like the whole backpack/inventory idea and would love a little insider scoop on how you are pulling that off :astonished_face:

Just wanted to point out on the Arthur page shouldn't the skill be spelled "Noble" instead of "Nobel"? (unless I am misunderstanding the skill...)

Frostion

@Michael-Hoover Yes, it should be "Noble" instead of "Nobel". I will fix this ASAP.

I just need to finish the last race, the trolls, then I will upload it for testing in the "experimental" category. It is quite playable now, but has a few issues (both AI and engine) that I hope will be clear for players and developers to see, so that we may work them out.

There are errors poping up now and then, but they mostly do not crash the game.

The item system is quite complex, but all comes down to conditions and triggers. 1: a player captures and therefore own a special item on the map. 2: Trigger removes this item from the map and places the item (another unit type, but still the item) in the backpack, mostly for visual sake + activates the items property, if needed.

The most simple items just generates resources. Some items unlocks unit support. Some items modify the Hero unit attributes by adding/modify stuff, like isMarine if the "Leatherneck" is picked up. Some items are very complex, and I think the most complex is the "Fishing Pole".

So stay tuned and keep am eye out for misspellings

Greg Anderson

@Frostion A complex fishing pole? :grinning_squinting_face:

I'm eager to see what the units of the last race will look like. I've seen many troll units before so I am eager to see what you will create.

I'll let you know if I spot any errors once you release the map. :thumbs_up:

Greg Anderson

@Frostion I was just wondering, is there a reason why some units have a plural name even though they are a single unit? For example, shouldn't the Footmen unit be spelled Footman?

It doesn't change much, but I just wanted to point out a potential typo. :smiling_face:

prastle

@Greg-Anderson It is a common typo in TripleA that is not really a "Typo." A unit is meant to represent a squadron or division generally thus comprising a few unite not a single unit.

Greg Anderson

@prastle Ah okay, very logical. It wouldn't make much sense to have a unit represent just one unit.

Greg Anderson

@Frostion How's work on your map going? Have you experienced more bugs?

Anyway, good job on this map! I don't think I would have been able to continue making a map for over a year.

Frostion

Trolls are done! Map will be downloadable soon I will alert whendownload seems to work.

But mind you that there are still bugs! I have not been past round 7 without it crashing

… and yes, some unit pictures are meant to represent a group of individuals, like the Footmen, while others are meant to be special individual characters, like heroes, pets, special supporting characters, and like the Witch-Doctor below. They then have a low transport cost of 1, just like the Hero. So a Hero might fly in a hot air balloon, on a beast or airship alone or with a couple of special single individuals, but not with an army of Footmen or Calvary

Greg Anderson

@Frostion Great work!

Yeah, it would be illogical for a hero to fly in a hot air balloon with an entire army.

When you mentioned that you couldn't get past round 7 without the map crashing, did you mean using the AI or without AI? As I don't plan on really using the AI, I don't mind if it is still buggy. Your maps are so cool that I love just controlling all the factions.

Greg Anderson

Also, quick question is it normal that the trolls have no flying unit and have a destroyer just like the night elves?

Frostion

@Greg-Anderson Night-Elves and Trolls have destroyers, Gnomes and Orcs have subs. And yes, the trolls have no air units to build.

The races have very different racial units, and as you can see they are very different and all cost PUs and other resources. Besides not having the same units, they also start out at very different locations and are bound by this. So the races at in no way equal. But I hope they still have a fighting chance against each other.

I have not played the map without AI, so you might be right and be able to play without game crashing errors. Let's hope so

Frostion

@all
This BETA stage map is now downloadable via the EXPERIMENTAL section ingame.
Be sure to use with a pre-release version of TribleA: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases

LaFayette

@Frostion beautiful map.
Noticed a few technical problems:

PNGs could be losslessly compressed. The total size of the map is very heavy, the engine has trouble running it and makes for a slow download.

I could run lossless compression on the PNG files and upload it to the repo, would you like me to do that?

The unit help blows up the game engine!

This one is a bit funny, the core game engine is going to have to do better to not blow up so easily. Hopefully this can be fixed in time for 2.0.

Cernel

@LaFayette said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

PNGs could be losslessly compressed. The total size of the map is very heavy, the engine has trouble running it and makes for a slow download.

Is there a guide somewhere on how to do that exactly like you would?

Greg Anderson

I noticed that the unit help would crash the game engine. The map itself was also very large.

Greg Anderson

@Frostion But, I do really like your map. I think it is the best tripleA map so far, both graphically and in terms of units. You did a really great job!

The only thing that could be improved is reducing the filesize like LaFayette mentioned, which would avoid game engine crashes and improve running.