Yeah. There's a sprite layer. Loveless is the big sprite dude though.

Lies.

what if I don't use sprites in my map?
Is there another way to do it?

What's so bad about sprites?

You could also just disable enable enable disable enable enable with waits inbetween. This cloaks the Mutalisks, but they are no longer stacked on move AND they still cast a shadow.

How did you get the maelstrom effect on the siege tank? (second picture) Without getting the siege tank actually maelstromed?

About the disable enable enable trick, I thought you only needed to disable the larvae, enable it, then enable it again. You don't have to repeat the process, or maybe it just works differently with larva.

It's not maelstrom. It's Mind Control. I'm using Mind Control on a cloaked stacked Queen that's moved on top of your hero. Maelstrom would reveal cloaked units, so that's a nono.

I did the disable enable enable twice to be safe. I think it crashes less often when you do. *shrugs*

On another note, I did a quick glitch fix with Infested Kerrigan.

It's mind control, not maelstrom.

Sorry, my mistake. I'm a bit starcraft (playing) at the moment.

Are you making each player associated with a hero, like you're doing now, or are you going to let the players choose their hero? All you would have to do is copy the triggers.

@ stickynote

As it is now. P1 is the Druid. P2 is the Amazon. P3 is the Warlock. If you want to choose, do it before the game starts.

This is a 3 player REQUIRED game. I want it to be difficult enough that you NEED 3 players with decent builds to win. There will be 0 grinding as it will be a linear RPG with designated upgrade points (beat an area, get upgrade point). The beginning won't be as tough of course; players will still be adjusting to the battle system then. I just want to emphasize micro oriented gameplay rather than grinding until your fingers fall off.

Quickie update. Small bug fixes and changed some animations. P3 teleport animation looks pretty sick now.

Not everyone uses editors with sprites.
And why can't the mutas stack? even if they move close they cant stack? that's extremely odd

They're no longer stacked on the teleport trigger. You can stack with order command, but the teleport trigger causes them to grid.

Also, P1 scarab spell is broken. I'm looking into it now. Something I changed recently screwed it up. I think the suicide AI is having the Reavers trying to attack the shield animation are instead of the forge.

EDIT: Fixed P1 scarab spell glitch. It was a dumb mistake.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 20 2008, 12:30 am by SelfPossessed.

Updated the screenies.

P2 is having a lot of conceptual problems with her spells. For anyone interested in helping me out, here's what I have for her so far. There's been too many spell idea threads so I didn't feel like making another.

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0) Pets
Not upgradable, but P2 can choose between 3 pets, all which are blinded. Queen with Parasite and Ensnare, 81 hp 255 armor. Corsair with Dweb, 45 shields, 255 shield upgrades, 1 hp. Science vessel with Def Matrix, 4 hp, 255 armor, always set to 100% hp. Swapping pets takes time. Pets become invinc and given to P12 and run towards your hero. Swap occurs when they reach your hero. Uncloak animation is used when swapping. Swapping sets your mana to 0 and Kerrigan's energy to 100%. Note that Kerrigan has cloak, which costs 250 energy. If a Pet dies, one of the two remaining is randomly chosen to come out, your mana set to 0, and you do not gain the energy bonus for Kerrigan. There is a 5 second cooldown after each swap to prevent uncloak spam.

1) Strafe
Moves up to 11 stacked ghosts owned by P2 on top of Kerrigan to attack. They share her weapon upgrades. If they move off of her, they get moved back. If Kerrigan moves, the spell is canceled. You can Drag her with your pet while she is strafing without canceling Strafe. Uses exploding powerups as animation.

2) Divine Arrow
Creates a cloaked air unit that is ordered to move towards your aerial pet. Suicided scarabs are moved under the air unit periodically to deal damage. Uses exploding powerups underneath the cloaked air unit each time scarabs are moved. Spell finishes when the cloaked air unit reaches your Pet or when your Pet dies.

3) Traps
Creates an invincible zerg egg under your Pet. Maximum is 11 eggs. Canceling the eggs creates a spider mine at the egg which blows up and deals damage. Animation for setting the egg is an exploding spider mine.

4) Drag
Moves units underneath the Pet to itself each time the Pet moves. Up to 11 moves depending on the level before cooldown affects it. Which units can be dragged can be toggled inside the Shuttle (which is the casting unit). Choice are Enemies, P1 Hero, P1 Hallucs, P2 Hero, P2 Dweb, P2 Traps (can only move 1 Egg at a time), P3 Hero, P3 Summons (does not include sunkens). Animation is Feedback on a cloaked stacked Queen.

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I need 1 more offensive spell, preferably one that involves the Pet. My current ideas (still unsure) relate to traps.

1) Have another trap that activates when you kill it. It'll be owned by an ally computer player that the enemy will not attack. What kind of trap is unknown. Whether it can block like eggs is unknown. This will be a medium ranged trap compared to the long ranged egg cancel trap as it required the player to attack it. It can also be comboed with any long ranged splash attack, like her bow spell (scarab splash), for a long ranged hit.

2) Create up to 11 spider mines underneath the pet for P2, levels giving it varying speeds. Requires that the egg trap change. This would be a fast attack that doesn't require setup time like the others. Spider mines would have to be weak enough so that players are encouraged to defend them (Dweb, Ensnare, etc.).

Opinions on the two, or additional ideas, are most welcome.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 21 2008, 10:59 pm by SelfPossessed.

I love the Terry Goodkind reference... (if you didn't the bolds are what relates to it)

I actually have no idea who Terry Goodkind is. I just kinda pulled that out of my behind. O_O The only thing I consciously took from somewhere was the name Midland, which I got from the Berserk manga. The rest is probably some influence that I took from what I've seen and read, but nothing really specific comes to mind.

It's kind of off topic, but would you recommend Terry Goodkind's books?

Also, it's supposed to be 3 heroes now. The old version had P1 controlling 2 characters, hence the 4. Woops.

I would highly recommend Goodkind's books. They are very enjoyable.
I think that the characters do get a little long winded in the later half of the series, but they still manage to be good reads.
He has developed a very good world for all his characters.
There is also a TV series based on the first book that just started airing. Legend of the Seeker.
He is also completely finished with writing books about the main characters.
I want to say he will still write books in the world, but not about these characters anymore.

Another author who is a very good read, George R. R. Martin.
His world is very detailed. He knows the histories of each family in the region.
And they all have full names. It can be a little overwhelming with all the names, but you do learn to focus on the last names.
He really enjoys killing off his characters too.


Hugel

I will look into George Martin, thanks.

The last book is a pick-up-and-never-put-down. Though most of the other books are boring til the near end.

Legend of the Seeker butchered his books in my opinion. That made me realllly mad.

Back on topic. Sounds good, but I would say a more developed storyline is in need

tl;dr version

Map is stalled. P1 needs revamp. P2 needs a miracle. I have some ideas, but they need a lot of testing. Suggestions are welcome.

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Wall of Text Version

Unfortunately, like a lot of my hobbies (I have a stupid amount of unfinished fanfictions and fanart), this map is stalled. I haven't had much time for Starcraft recently with my upcoming exams, but when I did play my spell demo on my spare time, I found it lacking. In the end, I'm just not satisfied with the way this map is headed. Player 3 right now is the only one I feel is complete.

Player 1 is a mess. The only thing I like about him is switching between Vulture (1 second invulnerability) and Siege Tank (range and damage). That requires a unique form of timing micro that is reminiscent of Dragoon micro in melee, yet is still different altogether. The rest of his abilities are too...easy to use. It requires almost no thought and no skill.

My current thoughts are to give him additional transformation forms where each time he transforms, different upgradable abilities are activated. I want to reward the user for being able to properly time his transformations and I want the transformations to be relatively fast in pace. I'm still working out ideas, but I don't expect to actually demo them until after exams are through. For example, an idea would be a form that when you transform OUT of it, you attack with Lurker spikes once. This encourages people to abuse the Vulture's 1 second invulnerability to avoid splash damage.

Player 2 is completely screwed. Even without the demo, I can see her abilities turning out to be a disaster. I wanted her focus to be on the Drag skill (it moves any unit underneath the air unit pet to the air unit pet), but I can't seem to come up with decent complementary skills. Even with all the replies to the topic I made in the UMS Assistance section, I didn't find what I needed. I'm going to have to either make this map 2 players only, or I have to completely rethink Player 2.

One idea is to scrap the current pet concept (unstackable air) and allow for mobile gridding. Player 1 so far has only stackable air. Player 3 has unstacked Scourges, which I can stack via Larva. If I rework Player 2 from scratch, that means I'll have no air units that will screw up a mobile grid.

Note that I want to stay away from Coordinate grids mainly due to how many units it uses up (approximately 512 units needed for 1 tile accuracy and 1024 for 0.5 tile accuracy). My spell system already uses up a good number of units, which then severely limits the number of enemy units you can face. The question will then be how badly mobile grids will lag.

Assuming I can get mobile grids to work, I can then try to demo a 16 way directional detection system I've been advocating. Whether it actually works properly is unknown and requires a stand alone test. If it does work, I can then make Player 2 a directional based sniper, relying mostly on the Scarab damage system with her bow abilities. Hell, I can even give Player 1 transformation abilities with the Scarab damage system as well.

Well, that's where my map stands right now. P1 needs to be revamped. P2 needs a ridiculous amount of testing (directional detection system) before I can even think of spell ideas. If all goes well, I'll have one character based on timing transformations perfectly, another based on positioning and directional aiming, and one on Dark Swarm control.

If anyone has any other ideas to throw out there, even if it's just to get me thinking in another direction, I'm all ears.

Update. I completely redid Player 1 to focus on transformations only. You deal high damage by attacking with different forms while the other forms are still in cooldown.

Some Ideas:
- Reaver to Siege Tank to Firebat (long ranged)
- High Templar to Siege Tank to Firebat (long ranged that works on cliffs)
- Lurker to Firebat (close ranged fight)

I'm iffy on the Mutalisk right now. Whereas I like its aerial capability, I need to blind it so the player doesn't get too much vision of areas he can't go past. Unfortunately, that severely decreases its applications. In addition, the Firebat is almost always preferred due to invincibility, so the Mutalisk becomes only for transportation. I'm not sure how to make it more useful.

I'll think of some names later.

Try it out and give me some feedback.

Player 2 is still screwed though. I'm still brainstorming.

I added vision for air units (burrowed Defiler). I also gave Player 1 a Guardian form as I was worried that the Mutalisk alone wouldn't make Zerg Air upgrades worthwhile. It has a pretty fast attack speed though, so I'm not too sure about its performance when switching forms. Feedback here would be cool.

I was also told that with the new continuous transformations, the animation obscures the units too much to the point that you can't see them clearly. If anyone else feels this way, I'll look into an alternative.

Please do reply with some feedback, be it from opinions to a bug report.