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#1 Nertea

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 07:44 PM

I was looking through some posts in the SEE forum and the thought hit me - why hasn't anyone tried to expand CaH? I know that it's pretty flawed in terms of gameplay, but from what I remember, it does have a lot of unused potential for creating interesting looking heroes - if only there were more available variety of graphical options.

So, it might be interesting to try to expand this. I mean, as far as I understand it it's simply hiding and unhiding subobjects on a model - not a very hard proposition. There's so much potential variety there too. For example, the MoTW classes could have access to so many types of garb and helmets and weaponry that aren't there. I'm not sure what is and what isn't possible, but I think that a lot could be added, stuff that could make them look significantly better (eg. expanding the gauntlet option to change more than vambraces).

So, is anyone interested in this? I'm mainly interested because a lot of the time I don't have the patience to make a full model, only part of one, and that time could easily be used to make a unique sword, axe, helmet, boot, etc...

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#2 cahik_

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 07:52 PM

if you can get good coder then anything is possible there ^_^ the things that you mention are definatly possible through i belive that i can go into more deep on that subject. for example changing anims based on the fact what weapon you choose or such. i would requie some reserch but i know that CaH have almost "unilimited" potentional.

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#3 Lauri

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 07:54 PM

I've thought about this alot myself, so yeah, I am interested in it ;) A CaH mod should be very good.

And about it, all of the already CaH needs more things ^_^ Personally, I'd like to make the Captains of the West into tree things atleast.... Woman, a Captain of Gondor, and a Captain of Rohan... After all, you hardly see a Rohirrim that has the exact same armor :xcahik_: and for Gondor, there is alot of different things there could be... Fountain and Citadel guard armor, the standard, custom (also numenorian and old things). There is so much things that could be done to make use of the CaH thing :p

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#4 Devon

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 07:58 PM

yes, that would be awesome, i cant believe ea didnt add rangers >.<

if you got a good coder, they could also add/change a lot of cool powers into this to make it a lot cooler.

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#5 Sûlherokhh

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 08:02 PM

Besides the obvious graphical changes (together with supportive codes), there are also a few more things that could be expanded. Like the choice and variety of powers, the doing away of several duplicates and the obviously only good path to take for every single class. If i didn't have an ass full of stuff on my todo list, i'd join you guys right away. ^_^

Edited by Sûlherokhh, 11 July 2007 - 08:03 PM.

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#6 Nertea

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:10 PM

Yeah, all that sounds really good. In terms of classes, I'd like to split Gondor and Rohan, like has been said, and perhaps add a generic "Ranger" class that could encompass things like Dunedain and Ithilien garb. Another option for Elves would be nice as well, perhaps some sort of swordsman.

There's so many things that could be added... say for Gondor you've got helmets for the GotFC, normal Gondor helmets, LA style helmets, Citadel guard helmets, "hero" helmets... maybe royal circlets too. Even more is possible for Rohan...

One thing I'm interested in coding wise is expanding what can be done graphically. I don't think you could add new selections, for things like faces and other armour components, but what do I know? If it's possible I'd love to do that. Also from what I remember the armour selection merely switches the skin of the torso - could this be reworked to change meshes as well?

Powers are also an excellent opportunity for improvements.

So, who's interested in coding for me? ^_^

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#7 cahik_

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:16 PM

i fear that adding new classes is beyond anyone's skills cause those things are hardcoded.i would say remove shieldmaidens because only woman that fight during WotR was Eowyn. So we can remove those and add rohan captains instead. men of the west can be redo to sons of numenor or something like that with both rangers and gondor captains in.

aye. torso could be reworked to the style of other parts.

Edited by cahik_, 11 July 2007 - 09:20 PM.

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#8 Nertea

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:21 PM

Really? I was under the impression you could add subclasses, but not full factions.

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#9 thenewch

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:31 PM

you can add sub-classes, there's a tutorial on it

Edited by thenewch, 11 July 2007 - 09:31 PM.

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#10 ched

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:53 PM

Solinx has indeed written quite a lot of things about CaH, all of which are available on the site.
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#11 Lauri

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 09:53 PM

You can add both, aye? I know I've done that.... or was it a sub-class.... hm.. ^_^

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#12 Sûlherokhh

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 10:10 PM

Hehe. Maybe this could become a communally built Mod(d)on for Mods. Not many mods have changed the CaH so far that there would be compatibility problems. This sounds really brilliant! I'm trying to contribute as far as i'll be able to. Exciting! I see this getting hosted already. ^_^

*going to tutorials*

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#13 Nertea

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 10:15 PM

That's a good idea. Salvaging CaH by itself is a worthy endeavor, but it's not much use without fixing the failing of BFME2, so designing it to be completely modular would be very useful.

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#14 Sûlherokhh

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 10:56 PM

We might also have different WeaponSets and Armorset for the different pieces of equipment. Nothing too different, but noteworthy. Using comlplete armor or only a few pieces might also change things like speed protection and shroudrange by a small degree by using additional attributemodifiers. It may defeat the purpose of the points you can spend on attributes, or it could expand it. I don't think we'd even need many additional upgrades for this. The CaH is real upgrade-sink! :p

I would also set the vision range directly to the weapon range (if missile/spell) or to a small number (like 175), or the heroes tend to go strolling if you don't babysit (like they do now).

Anyone care to present a basic setup of classes to work on?

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#15 Nertea

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 11:49 PM

The armour stuff could be interesting...

Right now I'm thinking of a Captain of Gondor, a Captain of Rohan and a Ranger class under MoTW. Offhand, there are enough possible outfits for a great deal of graphical options for those 3.

Elves and Dwarves are more difficult class-wise. They could certainly do with something more interesting than the generic "Male Elf Archer/Female Elf Archer" that we have now. Perhaps condense that to one Archer class and add a spellcaster type of class. The Archer class could even be a versatile class that could be developed in one way or another. It would be easy to define armour styles too, one could basically be a selection of various robes and light armour, with the other having access to all the cool 2nd and 3rd age elf warrior type gear.

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#16 Sûlherokhh

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 12:01 AM

I love the sound of that! :p

Edit:
I just rechecked the CaH files and must say that it is all pretty good sorted. Depending on the variety of armor pieces, helmets, boots, vests and the like that will be added, we must add about the same number of upgrades unless they get to replace existing pieces. We might need to check up on the Upgrade-Limit. Otherwise i see no problem at all.

Does anyone know if it is possible to add new Upgrade-Groups (like 'weapon', 'shoulder' etc.). The tutorials were not clear about that. Probably it's not possible and hardcoded. I was thinking of deactivating lower level powers if they are duplicated by higher level powers so that we can finally get the AI to use CaH-Powers without having all the prerequisite powers at it's disposal as well. But i guess there are other ways to achieve that.

Since it is apparent with but a glance that no matter what weapon the CaH uses (apart from the difference between melee and missile), he always gets to use the same 'weapon' (from weapon.ini). That can be changed directly and very simply. Although it is not to be found amongst the bodypart-selection (but only connected to the 'class'), different armorsets can surely be connected to the general BODY-Texture (i.e. armor) choice with a corresponding armorsetupgrade. Changes in the ArmorSet, as well as additional armor pieces, can and in many cases should trigger further attributemodifiers (good and bad).

I also suggest not adding any more classes, but rather subclasses. The setup already allows 6 subclasses per class, which is probably good enough. Unless we want a whole new combo of abilities that is. But if we jumble the old combos anyway, i don't see the point. Yet. :p

That was my preliminary analysis.

Edited by Sûlherokhh, 12 July 2007 - 03:48 AM.

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#17 Lotrfan2

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 12:33 AM

so do i
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#18 Sûlherokhh

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 03:58 AM

The armour stuff could be interesting...

Right now I'm thinking of a Captain of Gondor, a Captain of Rohan and a Ranger class under MoTW. Offhand, there are enough possible outfits for a great deal of graphical options for those 3.

Elves and Dwarves are more difficult class-wise. They could certainly do with something more interesting than the generic "Male Elf Archer/Female Elf Archer" that we have now. Perhaps condense that to one Archer class and add a spellcaster type of class. The Archer class could even be a versatile class that could be developed in one way or another. It would be easy to define armour styles too, one could basically be a selection of various robes and light armour, with the other having access to all the cool 2nd and 3rd age elf warrior type gear.



Although it would be a total reorganization of the files, i would actually prefere to exchange the top with the bottom, so to say. Instead of having a elven class with archer and mage subclasses (that would use the same abilities, sadly enough), we should have General Classes like 'Archer/Ranger', 'Fighter/Warrior', 'Rogue/Spy', 'Spellcaster', etc (forgive the simplyfied names), with subclasses according to the races and peoples. Would make much more sense, and the abilities would also fit much better. Not all races would have representatives in all classes. This way we could have some classes more on the 'evil' side, some more on the 'good', and some in between.

Maybe it is even possible to have a really long list of abilities in the class menu. In that case, it wouldn't matter, since the powers could also be bound to subclass-upgrades.

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#19 Nertea

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 09:07 AM

Ok, well assuming we can only have the five race slots as "classes" (if I'm remembering right? MoTW, Elf, Dwarf, Corrupted Man and Servant of Sauron?), I suggest Captains (Strong fighters and leaders), Sages (with magic and powerful abilities), Warriors (name maybe different, more individual fighters than captains), Rogues (stealthy abilities) and... I don't really know :p

Captains could include Captains of Rohan, Captains of Gondor, Elven Captains, Captains of Harad, of the East, of the Dwarves, etc. Perhaps no orcs because of their lack of leadership skills.

Sages would of course include wizards, elves, maybe Evil Men too (a la MoS).

Warriors could possibly include everyone, Evil forces in particular. It might be better though to limit them somewhat among the "good" factions to balance out the lack of captains.

Rogues... ah, well if a hobbit could go anywhere it would be here :p Evil Men could again have a representative here.

The fifth class, as an afterthough, could maybe be... Monstrous creatures! I don't know how well that would work, but here things like trolls could be dropped. Perhaps even a Warg chieftan like in the Hobbit, or even Ent heroes to mirror for Good.

Though I do see some problems though - with abilities held in common between the classes, there's going to likely be stuff that doesn't fit say, for an Elf as well as an Orc. Or a Wizard vs. an Evil man shaman type...

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#20 Juissi

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 09:09 AM

Ok, well assuming we can only have the five race slots as "classes" (if I'm remembering right? MoTW, Elf, Dwarf, Corrupted Man and Servant of Sauron?), I suggest Captains (Strong fighters and leaders), Sages (with magic and powerful abilities), Warriors (name maybe different, more individual fighters than captains), Rogues (stealthy abilities) and... I don't really know :p

Dont forget Wizards :p




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