You're just pumping out maps now, aren't you?

Haha I've been working on a ton of maps since Beta, but only made the thread for Demonic. Now I'm gonna slowly start making threads for 'em.

So each individual player gets a different area to mow down zombies, racking up points? Will there be power ups, weapon upgrades available? Will I have to reload or is it unlimited shooting? Boss fights?! The only issue I have with third person is it really lags a lot more than top-down view for some reason, my computer was basically dying in Facility 17 because of it, wouldn't a top-down view look pretty good?

Quote from Neki

So each individual player gets a different area to mow down zombies, racking up points?

Yessir. This is supposed to just be a dumb arcade-style map with mindless zombie killing and a point system.

Quote from Neki

Will there be power ups, weapon upgrades available?

Yes. There will be various ridiculous types of weapons you can upgrade to, as well as different types of spells, and definitely brief powerup boosts.

Quote from Neki

Will I have to reload or is it unlimited shooting?

Unlimited! I was considering having players reload, but figured that wouldn't matter much as the more powerful weapons and upgrades take longer to fire anyway.

Quote from Neki

Boss fights?!

I'm definitely considering this, and actually thinking about making the bosses communal. For example one boss might attack one player, then port to a different player, and so on. Another might spiral around the area and you have to hit it while it moves. The idea for both being you rack up more points based on damage done or weapon combinations used. Despite how dark I'm making the game look and feel, this really is supposed to be ridiculously dumb. One weapon will be an orange cannon that fires oranges and deals massive explosive damage, to give you a taste of how juvenile I want this map to be.

Quote from Neki

The only issue I have with third person is it really lags a lot more than top-down view for some reason, my computer was basically dying in Facility 17 because of it, wouldn't a top-down view look pretty good?

I agree for a few reasons. I haven't experienced lag myself in that view, but I can see how that would be a problem. Also, given some of the weapons I want to create for this, the X, Y, Z mouse coordinates in 3rd person aren't nearly as accurate or good as if it was in top-down view. I think ultimately the screenshot of the third person view will be the "Score Screen" after each level. It shouldn't cause too much lag since there wont be incoming units to bog down the graphics.

So there isn't any PvP in this?
That's bad for your replay value.

What? There's PvP in that your score compares to other players' scores, but other than that there are no heroes duking it out against each other. The replay value comes from people wanting to get higher scores or reach higher levels. It's the same concept as to why defense maps are so replayable even though they never change.

Final upgrade: Nuke. By this time the weapons should already be about the most imba crap ever anyways

Seriously, though, you should consider an ammo system, and you have to run out to grab ammo or something, instead of "stand back, shoot, upgrade, shoot, upgrade, repeat ad nauseam".

The idea behind this was that it was supposed to be like a zombie "Duck Hunt" or something, hence mindless shooting, but that's a good point. I may force players to have some downtime to reload.

And as for the Nuke, sounds great.

not enough info .... i can't draw anything

a FFA may be boring.. especially w/o PVP

why not make teams of 2?

It's an arcade shooter type map, it's basically in the same vain as when you play individual tower defenses. Half the fun is seeing how long last one person can last and how they other people progress in comparison to you. Basically, I chose this big rocket launcher and they chose a machine gun and we're seeing who can kill the most crap. You don't really need to make every map PvP or to make every map co-op, but Co-op would be a cool idea in this case. Some maps are better left to do their own things, arcade type games has very huge replay value too.

Right, I don't agree at all that PvP maps mean greatness either. Besides, Shadowlands (a project I've been working on for a while) is heavily PvP-oriented, while Invasion is co-op, and this is just going to be my arcade shooter. I think t'll be fun, and cater to people who love casual games (like think PopCap games).

I may make a co-op version after the FFA is released, but I don't have plans to do so now.

I also don't get how there isn't enough info. I don't have specifics for weapons and enemies yet, but then I've explained and re-explained the concept a few times now. At least Neki gets it.

Well yeah, because you don't have the specifics for how the weapons will work, how the enemies will attack... and how everything will fall into the pieces.

Right now, all I can see is a tried and true arcade style shooter... and I can't draw anything from that because it is so common...

I don't know. It seems like an okay concept.. but not something that'd be popular, even if b.net2.0 wasn't so shitty.

Common? What was the last map you've seen on Starcraft or Starcraft II that was a tried and true arcade style shooter? I'm going to say none. Unless you count Lost Viking, but this is a little different.

Common through other games...
especially flash games... as Devlin said...

I don't find them too awfully fun ...

But others do. That was super apparent today when I saw more people lined up for Blizzard's bejeweled custom map than Blizzard DotA. I'll still make this because I will think it will be fun.

Oh well. I guess I'll have to change my perspectives a bit.
This is a new crowd of pubbies.. A new herd of sheeps.

The audience has definitely changed, and I have to change my outlook on maps too.

Sux tho, because I hate bejeweled XD.

Dang Devlin you need to work on one project at a time =s btw I like you thread looks

Any who some suggestions...

- Different modes of play E.g. Turret mode (Stays in turret mode the whole time which is locked position I.e. the one you have in screenshot), free roam mode which is in you can move around (multi-player has slight lag = should only be single player?) try 3rd person on multiplayer should be about a 500 millisecond delay? tweak things around see what you can do. Controlling multiple turrets switching through keys?

Note: I am still working on Invasion: Ares first and foremost, but I figured I'd post an update in here as the thread was pretty bare and I've actually made some hefty changes to it.

Since I started this map, I've actually restarted it three times. I'm pretty satisfied with the most recent overhaul and will stick with it to the end. As it stands now, I'm giving players the option of choosing more than just their basic weapon. Originally this was going to be a crazy shooter where just the unit's weapon is modified. Now there's a panel in the UI that allows the player to set which hotkeys and keyclicks correlate with specific abilities. Basically the player can now right-click enemies for basic weapon attacks, left-click an area for area of effect attacks, and use QWER for instant-cast abilities that will either effect the entire playing field or buff the unit for a brief time.

In doing the map this way, I've pretty much abandoned the idea of salvaging anything from the base UI (like the command card) and have decided to do everything from scratch using triggers. Of course this means I have a snazzy UI set up that I'll probably post screenshots of soon. Trigger lag may be an issue ultimately, but that shouldn't really affect the right-click attacking at least.

I've also developed a talent tree that is saved between games. Like other defense games out there that give you experience each time you play, this map will reward players based on their total earned points. After hitting certain tiers of points, players can select talent upgrades that will either modify weapons or abilities, or in some cases unlock better weapons and abilities.

I would prob definitely play this xD any map whereby just kill stuff and spam abilities is fun.

Just a note tho: you can change the hotkey of buttons along with the images they use using catalogs, if you use this it might allow you to avoid the lag issue and just have your q, w, e, and r have a trigger effect that runs the spell the player has. Good idea? U don't have to listen to me if u don't want to xD