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| Thread: New map: "The End of the World" |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 15, 2002 09:24 PM |
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Edited By: kevyip on 8 Jul 2002
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New map:
I have designed a map called The End of the World. The winning condition is to recruit all creature types from all alignments (except a few).
Please download it at Maphaven and try it, and let me know what you think.
Inspired by the story of Noah's Ark, this map has you trying to bring all creatures out of a dying world. You recruit creatures by building town dwellings, capturing external dwellings, hiring heroes with summoning or necromancy skills, completing quests, triggering special events. You fight against almost all types of creatures along the way. There are lots of creatively designed quests, wicked traps, funky teleports, surprising and rewarding special events.
Enjoy!
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 15, 2002 09:46 PM |
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Sounds like fun! I'll give it a try. 
What size map is it? Does it have a story from beginning to end?
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 16, 2002 05:19 AM |
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Size small, single player, 1 Human Only :} It has a very creative subterranean level but rather ho-hum upper level.
The "story" is simply a series of quests, mostly revolving around finding all the creatures.
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 17, 2002 07:41 AM |
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Guess what? I've already finished playing your map! (on advanced level) It took me 250 days to finish it and the score was 401.
I have to say it's a pretty creative map with some cool scriptings. Excellent work Kev.
Some little things you may want to fix:
- The crystals near (57,48) in the subterranean tunnels are unreachable.
- It seems the Dragon City is also unreachable .
- There are some weird green/orange arrows on the map at the following locations: tunnel (50,39), above ground (11,30), and (2,36).
- It's a little annoying that all three of those sparkling artifacts are fake. You may want to make one of them real so people are not as disappinted.
- The Tome of Chaos Magic quest only gives the hero Master Chaos magic ability, not Grandmaster Chaos as stated in the quest decription.
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 17, 2002 05:30 PM |
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Thanks!
Happypike, thanks! Your feedbacks are valuable. Thanks for catching the bug for the Chaos Tome. Those arrows, they served as "hints" but I guess, as you said, they looked too odd. But I wouldn't want the player to get stuck :>. Those inaccessible crytals were something I put in just for cosmetic purpose, to make the subterranean look rich and resourceful, a contrast to the upper level. But I probably should make that part of the level interact-able as well.
About the Dragon City, I dunno. I have no trouble accessing it. I even made two passages that lead to it. But since the map is script-heavy, one never knows what event might have been triggered that led to something else ... Could you take another look?
Thanks for the comment on those fake artifacts. Again, that's something that never occurred to me, and could only be learned from user feedbacks, for me anyway.
Again, really appreciated your feedbacks!
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 17, 2002 11:56 PM |
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You are welcome. I pretty much skipped the last set of puzzles after getting that new Order town by simply using Town Gate spell to escape the trap. I'll try to enter the trap again, this time w/o using Town Gate. [You might want to remove Town Gate from the available spells list.]
Yeah, you really should make those crytals accessible. Players expect to be able to clear the map of all treasures and other stuff. If they can't access something that normally should be accessible, they tend to think it's a bug.
Another thing... On the South-East island, you may want to let players know (maybe by using a sign) that after they bring new creatures to that quest hut on the island, they can safely disband those creatures. I was afraid to disband creatures there at first and ended up with several armies because those garrisions can't hold many creature types. It would be a mess if a player keeps all the creature types on that island...
PS: You are right about the Dragon City. It is accessible.
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LordTitan
Famous Hero
Hit Dice: 76d12+608 HP
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posted June 18, 2002 12:44 AM |
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Does this map munch up memory?
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Spaek the Titan
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 18, 2002 01:36 AM |
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Memory? You are not talking about computer memory, are you? This is a small map. 
There is a quest hut that tells you what creatures you still need to bring, so you don't need to remember what units you have brought to the island...
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 18, 2002 05:29 AM |
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Quote:
You are welcome. I pretty much skipped the last set of puzzles after getting that new Order town by simply using Town Gate spell to escape the trap. I'll try to enter the trap again, this time w/o using Town Gate. [You might want to remove Town Gate from the available spells list.]
Yeah, you really should make those crytals accessible. Players expect to be able to clear the map of all treasures and other stuff. If they can't access something that normally should be accessible, they tend to think it's a bug.
Another thing... On the South-East island, you may want to let players know (maybe by using a sign) that after they bring new creatures to that quest hut on the island, they can safely disband those creatures. I was afraid to disband creatures there at first and ended up with several armies because those garrisions can't hold many creature types. It would be a mess if a player keeps all the creature types on that island...
PS: You are right about the Dragon City. It is accessible.
Again, Happypike, really appreciate your attention to such details... The Town Gate spell could very well be omitted, or perhaps offered as a reward for a quest or for finding a secret location.
I thought about letting the player dismiss the creatures, but I couldn't think of a way to do it. Since the "story" is about bringing the creatures out of the place, I figured the player should keep the creatures to the end. If I explicitly said creatures could be dismissed, I would be contradicting the story. But, of course, the player could do so. Also, I was worried about the eight-army limit :>. At the end I put in a shipyard (taking up more room) to fit in to the story, and also to let the player build ships in case the island had no room.
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Orchomene
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 18, 2002 10:30 AM |
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The concept of your map is interesting, but I think you can actually let the player dismiss the creatures, because you can interpret the dismiss as let the creatures go free on the island, it doesn't mean that the creatures are killed, they are just disorganised and can't take part to battles, as it should be if you want to save the creatures...IMO
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Sir_Elric
Responsible
Famous Hero
Having a bad hair day.
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posted June 18, 2002 11:32 AM |
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Publicly?
Quote:
I've played it through several times, but would like some feedbacks before I post it publicly.
Will let you know Kevyip.
(Before you post it publicly, wait a second how did I find out LOL?!)
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Neverwinter Nights - "City of Melnibone"
Direct connect - ausnwn2.dyndns.org:5121
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Xenophanes
Promising
Famous Hero
Chief Consul to Queen Mutare
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posted June 18, 2002 04:52 PM |
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Quote:
Guess what? I've already finished playing your map! (on advanced level) It took me 250 days to finish it and the score was 401.
I have to say it's a pretty creative map with some cool scriptings. Excellent work Kev.
Some little things you may want to fix:
- The crystals near (57,48) in the subterranean tunnels are unreachable.
- It seems the Dragon City is also unreachable .
- There are some weird green/orange arrows on the map at the following locations: tunnel (50,39), above ground (11,30), and (2,36).
- It's a little annoying that all three of those sparkling artifacts are fake. You may want to make one of them real so people are not as disappinted.
- The Tome of Chaos Magic quest only gives the hero Master Chaos magic ability, not Grandmaster Chaos as stated in the quest decription.
What are these "sparkling artifacts"? Also, what's with the different look of the one-way portal exits?
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<Dragons rule, Titans drool!>
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 18, 2002 05:28 PM |
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Orchomene,
Interesting thought. I also thought of having the script deducting creatures from the army automatically once they are "counted", but that would be just too much work.
Sir_Elric,
The map is also currently being playtested by Celestial Heaven. When they finish, it will be *really* public. :>
Xenophanes,
I put those "artifacts" there originally to surprise the player. But I found out those were actually what's left behind after a hero with artifacts was killed. So not really a surprise. I found those odd-looking portals in the map editor, under Customize, Object Palettes. I later found out they were exactly the same as the color-coded one-way portals, except they had no color.
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Orchomene
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 18, 2002 06:01 PM |
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That's not so much work to delete monsters as soon as they are counted...
In a map I'm working on, the main hero has been banished by the king god in an isolated island and has been cursed too : creatures currently flee from him as a continous event, i.e. he lose about a week creature growth as a continuous event, so that make the scenario be a lone hero challenge, but the hero can 'recruit' hero by quest... I thought the concept to be interesting to see how much heroes are balanced vs creature stacks...
If you want to test it, you'll have to wait 'cause I'm pretty busy all week long and the map is in french for the moment, but don't worry, I'll translate all dialogues when it'll be finished... that'll be a huge work 'cause there are tons of events...
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Signature reduces people to a simple view
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Orchomene
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 18, 2002 06:05 PM |
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...and, are you the one who had the idea of the scipt that prevent fake hero to trigger quest ? If this is the case, nice idea, 'cause I was wondering how to avoid the player to take a hero, name it as the main hero and then avoid the 'flaws' of the main hero...important issue...
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Signature reduces people to a simple view
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 18, 2002 06:53 PM |
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Quote:
...and, are you the one who had the idea of the scipt that prevent fake hero to trigger quest ? If this is the case, nice idea, 'cause I was wondering how to avoid the player to take a hero, name it as the main hero and then avoid the 'flaws' of the main hero...important issue...
Yes, I made that script :>. It's also used in "The End of the World." Be sure to disable the artifacts in question elsewhere on the map.
Btw, I am still not clear whether the ability to rename heroes is a bug or a feature...
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Xenophanes
Promising
Famous Hero
Chief Consul to Queen Mutare
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posted June 18, 2002 08:45 PM |
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By artifacts do you mean the artifact piles after a battle?
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<Dragons rule, Titans drool!>
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 18, 2002 09:10 PM |
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Quote:
By artifacts do you mean the artifact piles after a battle?
Correct. Usually it's after a combat created from the COMBAT script. Because, if it's a normal combat, the victorious army will take away all the artifacts.
Also, if you dismiss a hero, his or her artifacts will also end up in an artifact pile.
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HappyPike
Known Hero
Pikeman
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posted June 19, 2002 01:26 AM |
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For people who haven't started playing this map yet, you may want to hire a hero with nobility skill on day 1. Diplomacy and Charm are quiet useful in this scenario.
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kevyip
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 22, 2002 09:49 PM |
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HappyPike,
I'm gonna upload my map to Maphaven, and I will need to submit a playtester's email address. Since you have played it, could I submit your email address? If you could, many thanks.
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