662 replies to this topic

[Myrdin]

i think the post before you could mean something like : That there could be alter endings for events like that ( when you save boromir, or not ), at least i think he ment this.

[Scryer]

Alternative endings would be cool, but I think that they might be too big to implement.

Regarding the Evil-Campaign's Isengard level.... Can the Isengard player play on the Isengard map that has the dam? I find it kind of unrealistic that they wouldn't have the dam. Plus it could give the Isengard player a new challenge.

[Devon]

That's a good idea actually actually...I completely forgot about that part of the map.

[CIL]

Yoda forgot something on a map! How could you!?

Edited by Crazy Intellectual Liberal, 05 April 2008 - 11:06 PM.

[Devon]

I forgot something about the map, not on it That is to say, I didn't make it and forget to put it in, if that's what you mean. I just forgot it was there.

[Funbomb]

Lol, I would love a dam at Isengard, but you should make a path up there that units run up to get there to take some time or siege units can just stay at ground level and shoot it. I think there should be a path because in there movie it was farther up the mountain on the side of Isengard. I think there should be like build plots there for an arrow tower or catapult.

Also, Yoda didn't forget to put it on the map because he didn't make the map, EA did.

[Myrdin]

i could good imagine a mission for Isengard, in one mission you would have to for example get 10000 resources ( but you would by time to time attacked by elfs and ents ), to construct the damn

in another mission you would have to protect the damn before ent siege

[Scryer]

If there was a map thread, I'd post this there but I have some more suggestions for the actual campaign.

You may have already thought of this, but I would like to emphasize some things that I feel are needed in Minas Tirith.I realize that Rob is probably stressed out with making the Minas Tirith map, but I would like to make a few suggestions:

-More levels. I'm not talking about the full-blown seven (because that would be crazy, even for me) but more than 3 levels would be appreciated.
-Gates on each level. I know that I played a map that had gates on each of their levels and it was loads of fun. This also would give the player more time to battle while they wait for Aragorn to come.
-Trebuchets being able to be built on the second leve, possibly even the third.... For me, this would add more realism and it would provide more of a challenge to the assaulters.
-More health to the main gates. Every unit has an easy time with Minas Tirith's main gates. The other gates would be the fine the way they are but the main gates need more health. I propose that the only kind of unit that should have an easier time with the Main Gates would be Grond.

-A fire stone upgrade for the Trebuchets on the walls.
-A fire arrow upgrade for the Towers that are built on the walls.
-For the Good campaign, humongous forces of Orcs comming to attack you. With Siege Towers, catapults, Nazgul, other heroes, Attack Trolls, FU orcs, everything. Of course there would be a timer as to when the waves start pouring in so that you have time to build up a good force.
-For the Evil Campaign, I'd want a MOTE army comming in right after the Rohirrim arrive. Of course they'd arrive with a couple of MOTE builders and w/e.
-Improved AI (I bet you're already working on this). Meaning that there would be a constant assault on your walls (if you're good) from Siege Towers, Catapults, and Orc Archers. And after Grond gets in, he starts going for other buildings and the enemy just starts swarming in everything! From orc to hero and at the same time, they're assaulting your walls.

-I want some 25pp powers disabled for both sides. Like the Balrog for the Evil side and the AOTD for the good side.
-When Rohan comes, I want a whole s#it-load of rohirrim charging into Pelennor Fields in Glorious Charge (or atleas most of them would have Glorious Charge).
*I have more ideas but I've forgotten them, so I may post about this later*

[Myrdin]

soo, how to begin this short reply of mine, lets start with powers : Forget it bro, dont even propose the AOTD to be disabled, fristly there is no way they could hold forewer, second AOTD was the one who saved Minas Tirith, not rohirrim, soo dont even think about such stupid thing like disablign them

secondly, i agree, the citi could be made bigger, maybe one more lvl, trebuchets already builded, on second floor, but still some buildplots, Trebuchets buildable on the first floor too. I like the upgrades for both.

I dont like the idea of balrog dismissed, though he wasnt the one sieging the citi, its a power, and pretty cool one, though i fear that it could easily cut into Minas tirith, soo yeah, balrog should be disabled in this mission.

I love the idea adding MoTE builders, togateher with Rhun arriving

yeh and i like the idea of the main gate only breachable by grond ( of course if you could kill it before it destroys the gate, it would be good, though it would be damn hard to do that ), o dont like the idea of grond roaming on the frist floor, its purpose is gate and nothing more, and it should stay so.
soo thats all to post

and dude, next time try to be less like " i want, I want, I WANT ! " and try to be like " Could you ?, I wish for, Would it be possible to ? ands soo on " becouse, " iwant " like behaivor is suited for small brats, and i dont believe your are nor small nor brat, soo try to " upgrade " your attidute ( this is no offense, just a tip, polite people can get better paid workplaces, then inpolite, believe me )

[myster]

just a quick reply to myrdin.. you have about the same attitude like ''i want, i want'' so why even make a remark about that? not like it''s that important and we all know that he is just suggesting things.

[Myrdin]

well its kinda about how pollite you are able to beg for something, try it and find me a post of mine, where are used " I want xxx " at least 2 adicted to something, you wont find any, that i can already tell.

i know no1 cares about morale, and you can good as overlock what i want, all i just want to say, If you want something say it the nice way, dont bark like kids do and then wonder " why its not there "

[Devon]

I think he's just saying you're a bit forceful too with some of your suggestions

About powers, I think he's talking about only the MT campaign map, in which case you'd already be getting the AoD once aragorn arrives, so I do agree with that. However, I think balrog can stay in the nonlinear, but maybe disable in linear?

[Myrdin]

I think he's just saying you're a bit forceful too with some of your suggestions

About powers, I think he's talking about only the MT campaign map, in which case you'd already be getting the AoD once aragorn arrives, so I do agree with that. However, I think balrog can stay in the nonlinear, but maybe disable in linear?

heh, i know, but in some point you ( and not only you ) are same in this like me, soo peace be with you

Yeh, sounds good, coz in linear i think balrog could be a bit too much for the poor defenders, if you got army poping out on your units, and some big burning " bull " would run on you
( though right now, elfs with silverthorn arrows are pretty rape against balrog, but Gondor has only fire arrows, soo i dont think a arrow soaked in flame would do much harm to big burning demon lol it could even heal him )

Edited by Myrdin, 07 April 2008 - 07:52 PM.

[Scryer]

I am not giving the team some "whiney tennage boy crap", I'm just providing my point of view in an easy-readable way. My suggestions are just there to try and open up new ideas to the team, not to beg for them to get in. This is not my mod and I am fully aware of that! Rob has been kind enough to even keep forums open to new criticism and he's even been generous enough to consider some of our ideas. I apoligize if it came through that way, but I can tell you now that my subtext is clearly: This could be implemented, here's how and why. Now, maybe I didn't include that last part in my latest post in this thread because I wanted to keep my post short. We could all go on for days about Minas Tirith. I will admit that I am a forceful person but I have always known that it is the team's final say on waht goes in. I only desire to present facts that support my ideas or opinions on something. I feel ashamed that I'm even writing this.... And that will be the last time that I will explain myself for this kind of matter. If you would like to discuss this more, then send me a PM because this is not the place and time.

Before I begin, I would like to mention a couple of things:
-I have very different ideas for MT Skirmish maps, most likely none of these ideas would be shared with the Skirmish MT.
-Lastly I am talking about the Campaign MT. To be specific, I am talking about the good side mostly for now.

Now, Yoda has already outlined the reasons as to why I wanted AOTD out. I would want AOTD out for both linear and non-linear campaigns, if that's possible. My reason for that would be because it would defeat the purpose of the Three Hunters comming (with the AOTD) as reinforcements. I always get confused between the Linear and Non-Linear Campaigns, so I'm assuming that the Non-Linear uses the Living World Map? So yes, I agree that the Balrog should be disabled in the Linear Campaign. I would want him disabled for the non-linear campaign as well if it was possible. But I think that things could get messy with the LWM and disabling powers....

If the AI uses Grond just to smash down the gate, then he'd be a waste of space. If Grond started going after other buildings, this would also add a new challenge for the Gondor player because they'd have to take out this puppy before it kills every building you have on the first level.

I would like to add a couple of more ideas to consider for the Map of MT:

-Currently there are 2 sets of stairs that lead up to the second level... Could this be reduced to one? My reason for this would be that (assuming that the AI was working perfectly, which I doubt it will for EA reasons....) the Gondor player would be at too much of a disadvantage if they had Mordor attacking two gates at once one either side. In this scenario, the Gondor player would have to pick a side to make good stand at (probably the side of MT that had the stairs leading up to the 3rd level...). I can see units being used as sacrifices for the side that the Gondor player didn't want to defend thus resulting in a waste of resources. At this point, the Gondor player would be trying to save up as much of the resources and units as possible. Therefore having two gates that lead up to the 2nd level would be completely unfair to the Gondor player. This might not have made sense, but I hope that you get the gist of the point that I'm trying to make. Besides, the Gondor player is at a disadvantage already because Mordor has all of its waves ready to go and Gondor would probably start off with a few FU archers plus Gandalf, Pippin, Boromir, Faramir(?), and Damrod(?).

-Could the Gondor player start off with 3 builders? If you're adding more levels to the city, it would seem logical that more builders at the start could build up the city a lot faster. I think that this idea would be dependant on how much time that you're going to give the Gondor player to build up their Army.

-I would like to see more destructible buildings like towers that fall over and stuff like that. I believe that I suggested this for the Osgiliath map as well?

-Lastly, when the Gondor player starts the map, I believe that you should give them some free trebuchets on the first level (and maybe even a couple on the second level?). Most of it should be build plots so that the player will be forced to make some critical economic decisions in this campaign level.

Edited by Scryer, 08 April 2008 - 01:09 AM.

[robnkarla]

I really appreciate the articulated responses, with outlines of what you want.....Me personally, I don't mind the "I wants, I wants, I wants." too much. When someone does that repeatedly, all they doi is lesser their own stance and lose any clout they might stand to gain. The only thing I really don't care for is bickering back and forth, name-calling, and swearing. Just don't see too much point in any of that.

The way I look at the campaigns - Non-linear is the living map and this is the place to play anything that could happen. You choose how you want to play the WotR howver you'd like. Choose your army, choose your heroes, and go at it. Because of that the scripting is more complex and not too many bells and whistles on the campaign. This takes the most amount of time to create.

The linear campaign is where you play the WotR as it happened. As the movies only covered the WotR from really the biggest area of conflict (Rohan, Isengard, Gondor, & Mordor), the linear campaign will follow all of the areas of middle-earth and try to stick to much of the information as contained in the books. (i.e. deaths will happen, the grey company will be the grey company, don't be surprised if you don't have the army of the dead at MT, or the elves don't show up at HD.) The goal is to immerse the player into the story of the War of the Ring.

Anyway, to talk about MT. We/I are currently exploring all the options for MT maps and possibilities, so open discussion about what is wanted is perfectly fine. When the map has finally been completed/selected we will post screens and more information about the map. So I do hear the comments of how people would like the layout of MT to be, and they are duly noted.

I'm still also debating whether I want build-plot, builders and whatnot. What style it will be played in, etc. If we can do a Denethor, what role will he and his palantir play? I've done a couple of MT maps previously for BFME1, ranging from skirmish to heavily scripted (1, 2, 3, & 4 players). Unfortunately, when my hard drive crashed I lost a lot of work that I had done on many of the major maps, and I haven't gotten back to re-doing the work.

And also, a lot really also has to do with trying to trim down the lag. Yes, 1000 rohirrim showing up to slaughter 1000s of orcs would be great, but it's not as fun watching it happen with 1 fps.

Robert J.

[Scryer]

I just want to quickly comment on Denethor:

For me, as tempting as it is to make him another hero for Gondor. I don't think that it should happen.

If anything, I would like to see Gondor suffer a penalty because of Denethor. For example, they can only move one region at a time (or one less than what WOTR allows you to move) or another example of this penalty would be that you can only switch a certain number of units into armies. But with Denethor, I think that he should give one advantage to Gondor in the campaigns; This advantage would be that you can see where Mordor's and MOTE's armies are moving for their next turn.

I think that for the Campaign, that Denethor needs to have some kind of influence over Gondor. But Denethor's role should be small because (as much as I loved his character) he was just a pain in the ass for Gondor. In my opinion, his purpose in the books and films is too small to make him a hero for Gondor. I know he had a huge role in the books but his role in the books would not serve him justice if he was a hero.

Now, I think that it would be uber cool to have Denethor leap from MT. Or even a cut-scene would do his death justice.

[robnkarla]

That's kinda what I meant by Denethor. There are no plans at all to add him as a hero, but more part of the objectives in the MT campaign. The hard part is, who knows how much better a person he could have been without the grief of Boromir and the access to the palantir.

Robert J.

[CIL]

He would have been glad had Boromir not died... but, in accordance with my meager knowledge of modding, it would probably be somewhat challenging to make something that has an alternative ending should he not die. Denethor would still have been grim though, as his mood deteriorated incredibally at the death of his wife.

[Myrdin]

well he could be described as " sad character ", not exactly pitifull but sad, he had a lot of mistfortune and pain in his life, and not all people are strong enought to bear with it ( like Aragorn, living as outcast ranger, not exactly joyifull job ).

Rob, could it be posssible to somehow combine osgiliath and MT ? i mean, in the movie, they sended knights on retaking ( slaughter ) Osgiliath, could that be somehow implemented ( if you are good, you have to at least try to claim the citi - which would be till some scripted sequence, and your goal would change to - save as many as you can - FARAMIR MUST SURVIVE !, then the part of the map would close, and the normal siege as it was would be next to play - of course you would get some time for preparations ) ?

[TowerGuard418]

I played a map where Minas Tirith and Osgiliath were all in one map. Both cities in one map = a big map with quite a bit of lag. It may be a good idea just to keep them seperate.

By the way, could the markers in BFME1 that showed where you're supposed to go on the world map be added to the non-linear campaign? I hadn't seen the RJ page about the campaign because I downloaded it from a different website, so I attacked the Eaves of Fangorn without doing Amon hen. Then the hobbits weren't there and I had to restart. A basic guideline text document would also work.