"War School"-A Map/Mod W.I.P.-locked sticky

[whippersnapper]

.
My "Arrivederci !" Warzone W.I.P. called War School.... I started it a while back, then put it aside to work on an other
game project, but of late I have come back to it determined to finish it even as most of my spare time is taken up by
"S.O.W. 2200".( I've also been inspired to complete this project because of the pleasure I've gotten from the works of
Black Project, Lav_Coyote, NiKer and Mysteryem...)

It's combat command oriented and you must control both your forces and your Scavenger Allies. To neglect either
places you in a dire pickle you'll not likely survive.

It has bodies of water that can be exploited to tactical advantage - the same with it's extreme landscape vertical transitions.
The mountains are not simply mountains for mere visual variety - they are literally calculated to serve many purposes.

It's being optimized for Skirmish play vs. the latest BP.

It's also designed for parity between Turtle & Rush styles of MP play.

I'm throwing the whole kitchen sink of undocumented techniques into it from Borg only access to player map deconstruction to garner tactical advantage, to terrain penalties., to punctuated FoW... & a bunch of other stuff easier to demonstrate than write about in detail (aka - being lazy about some things. After release, any mappers that have questions about how I did this or that, I'll answer...

Composing a couple pieces of original music for it - one man band stuff, as in I play all the parts.

I'll also include a story scenario .PDF that's already written for those who enjoy their SF aka Speculative Fiction.... I'll also do illustrations to embed in the .PDF of some of the characters and landscapes from the story.

The novella length story is called: Truce: Bearheart and Akbar after the lead characters. Bearheart is a Project leader and Akbar is the chief of chiefs of the Scavenger Seven Nations in the Yucatan..

Besides what I've already mentioned as my goals, I also wanted this to have a strong Campaign "feel" in addition to providing a good Skirmish and MP experience. I also did NOT want it to play in any one way such that you could come up with a walk-through for
winning. This last is something you can achieve in Campaign via branching mission scripting but in MP I've had to do it with other
techniques like one that I call "game play map deconstruction".

Where I am at with it now is fine-tuning every detail of the land and water scape and going over every dimension of balance in both
modes of play. By and by I'll post some in-game screens.

Regards, whipper

.

[Mysteryem]

Sounds very interesting, so this is going to be a mod aswell as just being a map? I also noticed that in your screenshot it appears to have a very large heightscale, it there a reason for this? As it always seems to be set to 2. According to per the game ignores the map's heightscale settings.
You've also reminded me that I should probably write up the 'story scenario' to go with aiassault.

[Zarel]

A mapmod would be kind of nice - even if it's just embedding your music into the map.

The map overall sounds very nice - I'd be interested in seeing the finished product (or at least more than just the same screenshot you posted in another thread ).

[whippersnapper]

Sounds very interesting, so this is going to be a mod as well as just being a map?

I also noticed that in your screenshot it appears to have a very large heights cale, it there a reason for this? As it always seems to be set to 2.
According to per the game ignores the map's height scale settings.

You've also reminded me that I should probably write up the 'story scenario' to go with aiassault.

Map-Mod. The height scale is just 3. I like the view. Yea... 2 in-game. 3 would be better, IMHO. But then again
there are issues with the way Vtol absolute height works..... "speed-bumps", they suck for Vtols.

Look forward to reading your scenario.

A mapmod would be kind of nice - even if it's just embedding your music into the map.

The map overall sounds very nice - I'd be interested in seeing the finished product (or at least more than just the same screenshot you posted in another thread ).

If I were to embed it I would wanna use script triggers... we'll see..

I'll be posting some interesting stuff (I think it will be anyway) before the whole thing is done and out the door.
For example - I've been working on a cinematic based on the back story-scenario.... and not just a Machinima
outta WZ but a FP render.of the characters that would lay-out dramatically the reason for "War School". I don't
wanna get carried away with this but..... I do enjoy all of it.

Regards, whipper
..

[Asterisk]

when i first heard the scavanger leaders name...

i thought general akbaba . lol.

There HAS to be a "ITS A TRAP" in there

[DarkCheetah]

tell me in shot, what this will be =3

[Olrox]

I always hated "Tournament maps" like those from Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, With simply square shapes, no or very few trees, few other scenario features like civillian structures, no rocks... The ore, spread in square patterns and this kind of stuff.

But this map is far from that, from what I see. There are indeed many straight corridors of land and square shapes, but they are organized in an unusual way, integrated with circular shapes, ramps and map features! Looks like an interesting, particular type of map, that looks very "made-on-purpose", but yet, it is attractive, because of its detailment.

This should could and would be interesting, as I've never seen anything with bad quality from Whippersnapper, and every veteran member of this forum should agree with that!
Keep up the good work,

Regards
Olrox

[Zarel]

This should could and would be interesting, as I've never seen anything with bad quality from Whippersnapper, and every veteran member of this forum should agree with that!
Keep up the good work,

"Even"? The veteran members are probably the only ones who've seen anything from Whipper. All I remember from him is a 7-page monologue on the seven deadly sins of RTS design, and tons of screenshots everywhere.

[Olrox]

"Even"? The veteran members are probably the only ones who've seen anything from Whipper. All I remember from him is a 7-page monologue on the seven deadly sins of RTS design, and tons of screenshots everywhere.

"Every", not "Even"... You read it, you quote it, but yet...
Also, don't you remember the infamous "Elephant in the room"? It isn't a small animal, to be forgotten like that, I think!

[Zarel]

"Every", not "Even"... You read it, you quote it, but yet...
Also, don't you remember the infamous "Elephant in the room"? It isn't a small animal, to be forgotten like that, I think!

Oh yes, that. That was another of the threads I read a post or two of, before giving up because I couldn't understand him.

I wonder how I read and quoted "every" as "even"... Did you edit your post between when I read it and when I quoted it? <_<

Whipper - all this is in jest - I still think you're a cool guy.

[whippersnapper]

.

when i first heard the scavanger leaders name...

i thought general akbaba . lol.

There HAS to be a "ITS A TRAP" in there

Hehe... well.... I honestly don't know were I got the name but the first story I wrote with the
character was back before 2003 and posted on the old Pumpkin-2 site. "It's a trap" was
a part of the plot in several sequences of that story (also a novella) which was called
"Crude In Sur America".The current story "Truce" takes place 2 years after "Crude" and
while there are suspicions on both sides about "it's a TRAP" just about towards the end...
it turn's out different than the several actual traps in "Crude In Sur America".

tell me in shot, what this will be =3

You mean the height ? In 32EW it's 3 but in-game it will be 2. I'd prefer 3 in-game but there
are issues I'm not prepared to solve.

I always hated "Tournament maps" like those from Command & Conquer Red Alert 2, With simply square shapes, no or very few trees, few other scenario features like civillian structures, no rocks... The ore, spread in square patterns and this kind of stuff.

But this map is far from that, from what I see. There are indeed many straight corridors of land and square shapes, but they are organized in an unusual way, integrated with circular shapes, ramps and map features! Looks like an interesting, particular type of map, that looks very "made-on-purpose", but yet, it is attractive, because of its detailment.

This should could and would be interesting, as I've never seen anything with bad quality from Whippersnapper, and every veteran member of this forum should agree with that!
Keep up the good work,

Regards
Olrox

Thank you for the words of encouragement.

There is an old saying that I think has mostly been applied to engineering: "God is in the details."
To which I've added: "The Devil too is in the details."

There is much in this map I'm having to work by "hand" vs. using the "cut 'n paste" tool in 32EW and that is
making for a heavy investment of time. There is, of course, a tension between balance v. asymmetry. Specifically,
I've tried go beyond the symmetry = balance way of doing things because I do NOT like that cookie-cutter feeling
you described. This is something is more readily done in Campaign Maps than MP maps. Probably why over the years
I've made more maps for Campaign than MP and why my MP maps seem to always have a campaign "feeling" going all
the way back to the map-mods "Citadel", "Citadel Elite" and "Firefight"...

Quote Olrox: "This should could and would be interesting, as I've never seen anything with bad quality from Whippersnapper, and every veteran member of this forum should agree with that!
Keep up the good work,"
----------------
Zarel: "Even"? The veteran members are probably the only ones who've seen anything from Whipper. All I remember from him is a 7-page monologue on the seven deadly sins of RTS design, and tons of screenshots everywhere.

As whipper, that is true. Under other nicks you'd be surprised the stuff I had a hand in that has been recycled piecemeal into current projects.
And I've also been too lazy to make some of my seminal map-mods for v.1.10 compatible with the WRP binary ("seminal" based on dl statistics when I had access and how many of the assets were rolled into other mods like 1.11 and 1.12 - units, GFX, custom tertiles, etc..)

Couple things I'll mention in particular that anybody that plays skirmish can appreciate. There were non-stop issues with WZ's Skirmish Mode from retail release v.1.00 clear through to v.1.04. I believe it was in v.1.05 that the Skirmish Mode as everyone knows it now was introduced. It didn't come out of the blue from Pumpkin. I sent my design to Pumpkin. They liked it and implemented it and after that all the skirmish mode issues were resolved.

In 2008 I posted (among other work) an albums worth of original musical compositions for the then new WZ 2200 Cam that were downloaded by quite a few folks still in the community. The nick I was using then was Rman Virgil ("Virgil" after one of my poet heroes. )

Regards, whipper
.

[Buginator]

...Under other nicks you'd be surprised the stuff I had a hand in...
Regards, whipper..

Didn't you also do drawings/paintings? I could of swore I saw some stuff you did on the other forum, that died. (RTS.net)

[lav_coyote25]

there was a lot of different media on the RTS board. some damn good stories and some excellent artworks... is too bad it went - is a good thing i have a backup. perhaps one day will add the contents to the history of WZ.

[whippersnapper]

Didn't you also do drawings/paintings? I could of swore I saw some stuff you did on the other forum, that died. (RTS.net)

Yep. Some vector work I did in Adobe Illustrator to look like silk screen and some stuff I did in Art Rage to look like oil on canvas. Thing with me is that once i do something I move on to something else and for the most part forget about it till my memory is triggered by something
said by someone or other. Most all of my pleasure is derived in the act of doing to completion. If I wasn't working on game stuff these days I'd be very happy just making CGI movie shorts in my spare time.

there was a lot of different media on the RTS board. some damn good stories and some excellent artworks... is too bad it went - is a good thing i have a backup. perhaps one day will add the contents to the history of WZ.

Indeed. Lots of multi-media talent over the years folks shared.

Whipper - all this is in jest - I still think you're a cool guy.

Likewise. Oh, I didn't take it the "wrong way" I think I've come to appreciate your sense of humor.

------------------------------------>

Here's an example (in game) of what I meant when I mentioned doing stuff by "hand" that takes time..

I like water maps where the water plays a significant role in how the game is played.
.
I also HATE flat water scapes.... so this is what I do to change that -

[Olrox]

I also HATE flat water scapes.... so this is what I do to change that -

But is that vertex-painting or height changing?
Or a bit of both?
All this time playing warzone and some time in the forums, and yet I've never managed to do anything (anything at all, not just anything good) in the map editors / creators... I feel soooo lazy to learn tools that aren't as intuitive as those made aiming towards learnability and memorability
But if it's height, there could be ways of making effects such as this using the height map of the file.