Warscale - Dire units (w/screenshots)
by Guimo · 07/01/2008 (4:52 pm) · 5 comments
Hi everybody reading this blog series.
Many things have happened this week. For me, the most important thing is that my son got sick and it took a lot of my time. Anyway I managed to complete all my tasks but barely.
For the rest of the gaming world, the latest Blizzard announcements on Starcraft release date and Diablo III gameplay videos surely have everybody acting as possesed... drooling around and shouting "Diablo is coming...". Scary.
I must confess I have always been a big fan of Blizzard Entertainment. I learned a lot of graphics programming trying to imitate their engines and there is a lot of things to learn there. Of course they have amazing programmers and artist who really know what they are doing so their worlds always seem so life and thriving. Following the masters can only make you better.
But the most important thing IMHO is... they exactly know their products. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo. These are Blizzards child and they wont move from the cycle. Make an engine for Warcraft, improve it for Starcraft, improve it for Diablo, and again, and again and again. Anybody taking some time to study the Blizzard technology will find this and its really amazing.
Of course we dont have millionary budgets but there are lots of things to learn.
a. Focus in more than one project but mind your strength. Even Blizzards teams get tired of working on the same projects again and again. I recall reading an interview in one of the team members who delivered DiabloII. He said that once delivered, everybody in the team was tired of Diablo and wanted to do something else. Same thing will happen with us, so once you finish one project, change to other, and once that other project is finished, return to the first with everything you learned and improved and make a new version of your first game and so on.
b. Make both projects similar and focus on that. Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo all share the same ideas. They all play like large board games. They are all tile based (beautiful 3D tiles, but still good old tiles). Of course rules change and graphics improve, but the improvements are always aligned. There are core mechanics shared by the three. Tile rendering, path finding, AI for groups, resource management. They are similar for the three games so Blizzard can keep an specialization on the same games and borrow things from one game to the other. Stick to your game style be it FPS, RTS, Puzzle, platform, or maybe make your own style by mixing one or two. he point is that once you select your style, just specialize in that style. Changing your style is just a loss of time.
So, for me, this means that once Warscale is finished (I hope in about one year), expect me to run the servers, then hire someone to keep the servers running. Then I can focus on Warscale:Galaxy, similar Warscale mechanics but you get to control armies of soldiers, large mechs and vehicles with lasers and powerful weapons and nukes. Mana gets replaced by resources, magic by technology. The same... but improved AI. Then get back to Warscale, improve AI, storyline, graphics... keep the basic rules. And so on. As I told you on the beginning, the core Warscale servers use a console TGE only. Should be able to handle any Torque engine update. Maybe get one player using the old client and the other using TGEA.
Well, my report.
What was accomplished
Hand/graveyard Unit size
When the unit is in the graveyard or in the hand it may have a specific scale meaning that you may adjust it to a nice size. There is still some work to do with the selectrons but its going fine.
Unit real size
When a unit is summoned, it may have any size, meaning that a unit may be scaled to mithical proportions. Just check the screenshots so you can see a bear, gray bear, polar bear and the powerful dire bear in action.
Skin change
Now it is possible to change the skin of the models so a model can be used for different variations. Together with the size variantions you can get really interesting features.
Dire units
Just check the dire bear in the screenhots and compare the size with the puny orcs... Of course the dire bear is a level 6 (still unbalanced) creature.
Shaman magic missile
I managed to get the Magic missile working. No summoning effects, just the bare minimum to allow picking its target, fire the bolt and make it deal damage. I need to fix the animation management in the units but right now it looks fine.
New units
The unit count in Warscale has gone up to 11. Now we have 2 orcs, a goblin shaman, 4 bears, 4 wolves (including the fire wolf and ice wolf). Not the 13 I had planned but close enough.
What wasnt planned
Selectron size
I never thought about the selectrons. They had to be resized depending on the unit size. I managed to do it for the basic selectron using an AFX transform and the ranking system but there are still lots of things to do. Anyway Im not worried because I still need to change almost all the selectrons.
Unit size for a multiple-of-2 number of tiles
I used some time trying to fix this one but was unable to solve this problem. Basically I dont know how to handle units with an odd number of tiles like 2x2 or 4x4. Currently Warscale uses a tile as the center for a unit. So a 1x1 or a 3x3 or a 5x5 unit is fine becaus it has a central tile, but I dont know how to handle a 2x2 or a 4x4 unit.
I have managed to fix this by using some a replacement. Like instead of using a 2x2 unit I use a 3x3 unit without the corners, like this
010
111
010
Which is similar but not the same. Its enough for now but still trying to thinker about a solution.
Screenshots!
This first screenshot shows the avatar with all the units around. The Dire bear is selected so you can see the size difference and the selectron size. You will also notice the skin changes.
The second screenshot shows the goblin ready to fire its magic missile. Just look at the area he may cover. Nice artillery.
The plan for this week
As promised, I plan to get two new units each week, so this week units are...
a. 2 Spiders!
Admit it, everbody hates the bugs but each fantasy tale requires at least one. They are scary and I personally hate large spiders (not the small ones). Give me any spider larger than my finger and a chill runs through my spine. Spiders have this scary charm with them. The way they walk, they attack, they kill, how they build their perfect webs (once I stood for about an hour just looking a spider spin all its web, it was fascinating). These are awesome creature so I need to pay a homage to them and in game terms this means that I must implement new powers.
b. Spider venom
A good spider should have a nice venom. This is an awesome moment to implement onAttack effects. These effects are executed inmediatly when the unit attacks another unit. In this case the effect should deal some damage to the target creature on time... like 2 or 4 or 6 etc points of damage at the begginning of the turn depending on the poison strength. Effects are cummulative so expect the venom dealing more damage each time the bug attacks the same unit... or just attack once and then run away and look your target die.
c. Spider web
A good spider should also be able to spin webs. Unfortunately Warscale has no walls so even when the spider cannot make a wall of webs, it can throw a ball of webs to a point and any (even friendly) units caught in the web will get -2 to walk. The effect can get larger and more powerful with the spider size and the spider can attack the same target again with webs and the target will get another -2 penalty to movement. In game mechanics, thiss will force me to implement an area spell.
d. Alpha male power
Alpha male power allows all wolves to gain +2 damage. Also you gain control of any wolf in the table (as every wolf follows the alpha male). This will force me to implement a global effect, change unit control and so on.
Fortunately, only one alpha male can be on board at a time. If you play an alpha male, any other alpha male controlled by any other person will inmediatly die (the younger male taking control of the pack).
e. Fire wolf
Fire wolf is another interesting unit. It can fire a small ball (3x3) of fire at close range. Other area effect.
f. Effects destroyed with dying units
When a unit dies, any effects generated by the unit dispels. Some people may argue that in the case of the spider, the webs should remain but I will keep the rule as this. So if the spider dies, the poison and the webs go away. Not difficult to alter though so maybe later we can change the rule.
Ok, thats all for now, so this is going to be a really busy week. If everything goes fine, I will start work with the army editors next week.
Luck with your projects!
Guimo
Many things have happened this week. For me, the most important thing is that my son got sick and it took a lot of my time. Anyway I managed to complete all my tasks but barely.
For the rest of the gaming world, the latest Blizzard announcements on Starcraft release date and Diablo III gameplay videos surely have everybody acting as possesed... drooling around and shouting "Diablo is coming...". Scary.
I must confess I have always been a big fan of Blizzard Entertainment. I learned a lot of graphics programming trying to imitate their engines and there is a lot of things to learn there. Of course they have amazing programmers and artist who really know what they are doing so their worlds always seem so life and thriving. Following the masters can only make you better.
But the most important thing IMHO is... they exactly know their products. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo. These are Blizzards child and they wont move from the cycle. Make an engine for Warcraft, improve it for Starcraft, improve it for Diablo, and again, and again and again. Anybody taking some time to study the Blizzard technology will find this and its really amazing.
Of course we dont have millionary budgets but there are lots of things to learn.
a. Focus in more than one project but mind your strength. Even Blizzards teams get tired of working on the same projects again and again. I recall reading an interview in one of the team members who delivered DiabloII. He said that once delivered, everybody in the team was tired of Diablo and wanted to do something else. Same thing will happen with us, so once you finish one project, change to other, and once that other project is finished, return to the first with everything you learned and improved and make a new version of your first game and so on.
b. Make both projects similar and focus on that. Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo all share the same ideas. They all play like large board games. They are all tile based (beautiful 3D tiles, but still good old tiles). Of course rules change and graphics improve, but the improvements are always aligned. There are core mechanics shared by the three. Tile rendering, path finding, AI for groups, resource management. They are similar for the three games so Blizzard can keep an specialization on the same games and borrow things from one game to the other. Stick to your game style be it FPS, RTS, Puzzle, platform, or maybe make your own style by mixing one or two. he point is that once you select your style, just specialize in that style. Changing your style is just a loss of time.
So, for me, this means that once Warscale is finished (I hope in about one year), expect me to run the servers, then hire someone to keep the servers running. Then I can focus on Warscale:Galaxy, similar Warscale mechanics but you get to control armies of soldiers, large mechs and vehicles with lasers and powerful weapons and nukes. Mana gets replaced by resources, magic by technology. The same... but improved AI. Then get back to Warscale, improve AI, storyline, graphics... keep the basic rules. And so on. As I told you on the beginning, the core Warscale servers use a console TGE only. Should be able to handle any Torque engine update. Maybe get one player using the old client and the other using TGEA.
Well, my report.
What was accomplished
Hand/graveyard Unit size
When the unit is in the graveyard or in the hand it may have a specific scale meaning that you may adjust it to a nice size. There is still some work to do with the selectrons but its going fine.
Unit real size
When a unit is summoned, it may have any size, meaning that a unit may be scaled to mithical proportions. Just check the screenshots so you can see a bear, gray bear, polar bear and the powerful dire bear in action.
Skin change
Now it is possible to change the skin of the models so a model can be used for different variations. Together with the size variantions you can get really interesting features.
Dire units
Just check the dire bear in the screenhots and compare the size with the puny orcs... Of course the dire bear is a level 6 (still unbalanced) creature.
Shaman magic missile
I managed to get the Magic missile working. No summoning effects, just the bare minimum to allow picking its target, fire the bolt and make it deal damage. I need to fix the animation management in the units but right now it looks fine.
New units
The unit count in Warscale has gone up to 11. Now we have 2 orcs, a goblin shaman, 4 bears, 4 wolves (including the fire wolf and ice wolf). Not the 13 I had planned but close enough.
What wasnt planned
Selectron size
I never thought about the selectrons. They had to be resized depending on the unit size. I managed to do it for the basic selectron using an AFX transform and the ranking system but there are still lots of things to do. Anyway Im not worried because I still need to change almost all the selectrons.
Unit size for a multiple-of-2 number of tiles
I used some time trying to fix this one but was unable to solve this problem. Basically I dont know how to handle units with an odd number of tiles like 2x2 or 4x4. Currently Warscale uses a tile as the center for a unit. So a 1x1 or a 3x3 or a 5x5 unit is fine becaus it has a central tile, but I dont know how to handle a 2x2 or a 4x4 unit.
I have managed to fix this by using some a replacement. Like instead of using a 2x2 unit I use a 3x3 unit without the corners, like this
010
111
010
Which is similar but not the same. Its enough for now but still trying to thinker about a solution.
Screenshots!
This first screenshot shows the avatar with all the units around. The Dire bear is selected so you can see the size difference and the selectron size. You will also notice the skin changes.
The second screenshot shows the goblin ready to fire its magic missile. Just look at the area he may cover. Nice artillery.
The plan for this week
As promised, I plan to get two new units each week, so this week units are...
a. 2 Spiders!
Admit it, everbody hates the bugs but each fantasy tale requires at least one. They are scary and I personally hate large spiders (not the small ones). Give me any spider larger than my finger and a chill runs through my spine. Spiders have this scary charm with them. The way they walk, they attack, they kill, how they build their perfect webs (once I stood for about an hour just looking a spider spin all its web, it was fascinating). These are awesome creature so I need to pay a homage to them and in game terms this means that I must implement new powers.
b. Spider venom
A good spider should have a nice venom. This is an awesome moment to implement onAttack effects. These effects are executed inmediatly when the unit attacks another unit. In this case the effect should deal some damage to the target creature on time... like 2 or 4 or 6 etc points of damage at the begginning of the turn depending on the poison strength. Effects are cummulative so expect the venom dealing more damage each time the bug attacks the same unit... or just attack once and then run away and look your target die.
c. Spider web
A good spider should also be able to spin webs. Unfortunately Warscale has no walls so even when the spider cannot make a wall of webs, it can throw a ball of webs to a point and any (even friendly) units caught in the web will get -2 to walk. The effect can get larger and more powerful with the spider size and the spider can attack the same target again with webs and the target will get another -2 penalty to movement. In game mechanics, thiss will force me to implement an area spell.
d. Alpha male power
Alpha male power allows all wolves to gain +2 damage. Also you gain control of any wolf in the table (as every wolf follows the alpha male). This will force me to implement a global effect, change unit control and so on.
Fortunately, only one alpha male can be on board at a time. If you play an alpha male, any other alpha male controlled by any other person will inmediatly die (the younger male taking control of the pack).
e. Fire wolf
Fire wolf is another interesting unit. It can fire a small ball (3x3) of fire at close range. Other area effect.
f. Effects destroyed with dying units
When a unit dies, any effects generated by the unit dispels. Some people may argue that in the case of the spider, the webs should remain but I will keep the rule as this. So if the spider dies, the poison and the webs go away. Not difficult to alter though so maybe later we can change the rule.
Ok, thats all for now, so this is going to be a really busy week. If everything goes fine, I will start work with the army editors next week.
Luck with your projects!
Guimo
#2
07/01/2008 (6:26 pm)
This is progressing really nicely as ever Guimo, keep it up, it looks great thus far. I hope your son's back to full strength too! :) 
#3
I wish I had my very own Dire Bear...
07/01/2008 (6:52 pm)
I think I've given you and your project all the compliments I can using my limited vocabulary...I must now fall back on visual compliments:I wish I had my very own Dire Bear...
#4
You know, it's interesting how this could go either way. In a lot of tactical and RPG games, during battle if a character is poisoned they stay poisoned until the end of the battle or until they use an antidote.
Most ill effects usually stay, but there are some games where the difficulty is so high that a balancing design (such as removing ill effects when the "caster" dies) might be called for.
Now, do you have any plans for more ethereal unit types: angels, zombies, etc? Units like these tend to have more polar abilities and weaknesses.
07/02/2008 (6:34 am)
Figure I should get into deeper comments than what I've been posting:Quote:f. Effects destroyed with dying units
You know, it's interesting how this could go either way. In a lot of tactical and RPG games, during battle if a character is poisoned they stay poisoned until the end of the battle or until they use an antidote.
Most ill effects usually stay, but there are some games where the difficulty is so high that a balancing design (such as removing ill effects when the "caster" dies) might be called for.
Now, do you have any plans for more ethereal unit types: angels, zombies, etc? Units like these tend to have more polar abilities and weaknesses.
#5
@Michael
Thank you for your ideas. It is a hard decision to make. Like which effects are inherently magical and whose are inherently physical. Venos and webs are not magical per se. I think you are right. I will give it some additional consideration.
About more ethereal units, of course they are considered. The internal engine can handle almost any unit. Common units with attacks and some damage are already supported by the engine so skeletons and zombies make no problem (unless we decide to use some special rules like heal effects harming a zombie). Ghosts may require more thought as they can go through spaces occupied by other units. I think I must modify the engine so the units cannot collide between them.
The nice thing is that each time I implement a new unit with an special effect, that effet can later be used by other units with amazing results.
Right now, I'm implementing the Alpha Male global effects. I need to implement a global enchantment (the modifiers on the units) which fires when the unit enters play (an event) and stays in play while the unit is in play (dies with the unit). Also, it gets command of all wolves (a Domination effect) and this effect will affect any wolf entering the game (requires testing new units against the current spells). Of course when the Alpha Male leaves game the wolves return to their original controllers. Also, it kills any other AlphaMale currently in the board when it enters play which means I will need to implement the Slay mechanic.
This is possibly the hardest unit to implement right now but it will allow me to debug and implement new features that other units can use (like the WeaponSmith Shop, Artifact, all humanoid units you control gain +2 damage). Or maybe the PowerWord Kill sorcery which kills any unit inmediately. The Alpha Male is also a wonderful controlling unit and will work great enhancing the WereWolf (a Human Wolf hybrid).
Lets see how it goes.
Thanks again for your comments.
Guimo
07/02/2008 (8:00 pm)
Thanks to everybody for your positive comments. They keep me focused on making my best effort.@Michael
Thank you for your ideas. It is a hard decision to make. Like which effects are inherently magical and whose are inherently physical. Venos and webs are not magical per se. I think you are right. I will give it some additional consideration.
About more ethereal units, of course they are considered. The internal engine can handle almost any unit. Common units with attacks and some damage are already supported by the engine so skeletons and zombies make no problem (unless we decide to use some special rules like heal effects harming a zombie). Ghosts may require more thought as they can go through spaces occupied by other units. I think I must modify the engine so the units cannot collide between them.
The nice thing is that each time I implement a new unit with an special effect, that effet can later be used by other units with amazing results.
Right now, I'm implementing the Alpha Male global effects. I need to implement a global enchantment (the modifiers on the units) which fires when the unit enters play (an event) and stays in play while the unit is in play (dies with the unit). Also, it gets command of all wolves (a Domination effect) and this effect will affect any wolf entering the game (requires testing new units against the current spells). Of course when the Alpha Male leaves game the wolves return to their original controllers. Also, it kills any other AlphaMale currently in the board when it enters play which means I will need to implement the Slay mechanic.
This is possibly the hardest unit to implement right now but it will allow me to debug and implement new features that other units can use (like the WeaponSmith Shop, Artifact, all humanoid units you control gain +2 damage). Or maybe the PowerWord Kill sorcery which kills any unit inmediately. The Alpha Male is also a wonderful controlling unit and will work great enhancing the WereWolf (a Human Wolf hybrid).
Lets see how it goes.
Thanks again for your comments.
Guimo
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