Warlords and Merchants is now public!

[Ricky_Honejasi]

So more updates about my main computer :

The actual technician who poked inside my main computer did gave me a real status report. It seems it was my BIOS (or whatever real thing) and video card that had issues simultaneously which would explain the one week they spent so far. They could reset my BIOS properly so it now boots fully and normally with the onboard video. However, if they put my Radeon HD 4670 in, the computer stops booting normally.

Thus, currently they are waiting for a new Radeon HD 4670 which should arrive in 3 business days. So if we consider the delays and such, my computer should be fixed in theory somewhere between next Wednesday to Friday. Of course, it presumes he didn't just bullshit me royally just to buy time and so on.

For that to happen in the first place, I remember that I did turn on my computer then for some odd reason quickly turned it off (probably due to some very odd noise coming out of the computer) in "mid-turning on". Thus, it might be possible that in terms of electronics that I turned it off (and possibly on again right after as well) at the absolute worst moment causing all this.

Anyway, I am happy that my computer is actually functional if we exclude the video card.

EDIT : Oh yeah, to come back closer to W&M. Feel free to say a wishlist that you would like to have in W&M in the future.

[Krazy]

Defilers.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Defilers.

Yeah, RCX's mod have them although I didn't poke too much yet. In fact, one of the reasons that I am a bit holding back is since Dark swarm grants a -100% reduction against all ranged attacks (like it should be from SC1), I didn't check nor test too much which concrete SC2 units can "pierce" it. Thus things can go very wrong if I am not careful.

The potential biggie would be against Terran. For example, I didn't check if Firebats (probably the only potential or two units in the whole Terran arsenal vs Dark Swarm) are considered "ranged" or "splash" for their attacks. Otherwise, I think perphas the Tank's splash might pierce it since I recall it being flagged as Splash. After that, I can only think of spider mines and that's it.

That reminds me ... I would also have to test if Dark Swarm in RCX's properly only affect ground units and not air units and other details like that.

EDIT : So, ultimately I guess defilers will be one of the next things ill be looking into and possibly the rest of SC1 units in RCX's mod.

[Krazy]

Good, good, very good XD

[RazorclawX]

Defilers.

Yeah, RCX's mod have them although I didn't poke too much yet. In fact, one of the reasons that I am a bit holding back is since Dark swarm grants a -100% reduction against all ranged attacks (like it should be from SC1), I didn't check nor test too much which concrete SC2 units can "pierce" it. Thus things can go very wrong if I am not careful.

The potential biggie would be against Terran. For example, I didn't check if Firebats (probably the only potential or two units in the whole Terran arsenal vs Dark Swarm) are considered "ranged" or "splash" for their attacks. Otherwise, I think perphas the Tank's splash might pierce it since I recall it being flagged as Splash. After that, I can only think of spider mines and that's it.

Since Range and Splash are considered different, Dark Swarm doesn't do anything to Splash damage.

I think the only conscious exception I made when designing Dark Swarm was to make sure Roaches were unaffected by it, and I can't remember if I did that or not. Roaches, while technically a range unit, must not be affected due to the nature of their attack.

I couldn't say any of this for certainty since I haven't looked at the SC2 editor in over a month.

[DrumsofWar]

People don't go to the B.net forum for anything other than to troll or vainly whine at a company that doesn't care. Eventually they burn out and drift away or become soulless half-trolls.

With their powers combined, they will become Captain Super Troll Rageposter!

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Since Range and Splash are considered different, Dark Swarm doesn't do anything to Splash damage.

I think the only conscious exception I made when designing Dark Swarm was to make sure Roaches were unaffected by it, and I can't remember if I did that or not. Roaches, while technically a range unit, must not be affected due to the nature of their attack.

I couldn't say any of this for certainty since I haven't looked at the SC2 editor in over a month.

Yeah, that's a difference I am aware although in my last post it did sounded like if Splash was included into Range.

Personally I wouldn't be too concerned if Roaches ends up being affected by Dark Swarm as Zerglings and Ultralisks wouldn't by nature. Same for Zealots and Dark Templars on the Protoss side. Ultimately, it was more Terran that I don't want to heavily disadvantage for a lack of any "common" unit against Dark Swarm.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

So for the results of that mass boosting, it was wonderful for a single day as it managed to go from 90 to 200 of popularity. Although for some reason, it dropped to 40 then finally to 4 over the last 2-3 days.

Considering how W&M will probably never be a "popular" map, I think I might as well go with some ideas for FFS purposes or for niche cases. I was also thinking about adding some variants for W&M :

Variant #1 is already that Melee FFA one.

Variant #2 Team Warlords
Essentially all warlords on a same team (lobby-wise) will be allied. Merchants are "ignored" and keep exactly the same purpose and gameplay as Variant #1.

Variant #3 : Team Business.
All warlords and merchants on a same team (lobby-wise) will be allied. On a same team, warlords and merchants becomes close business partners and warlords will only be able to buy from their allied merchants (as in cannot buy from enemy merchants). A merchant will win or lose depending on their melee team (rather than their profit score).

Merchants' starting resources will drop from 10k/3.5k (min/gas) to 3k/1k. Their default selling price will also be 110% instead of 130%.

Finally, there will be an enforced 1 warlord per team. So if it's a 3-man team, it can go anywhere from 1 warlord & 2 merchants to 3 warlords. Obviously, I am giving the radical cases and it's preferable if there any predetermined team balance beforehand.

Other (AI)

Alevice did request AI in (as I didn't have a trigger to start the melee AI if there is any computer players). I do intend to add that at bare minimum. I might possibly add some minor/medium triggering support for making them buy stuff off merchants. Feel free to suggest logistics and such about it.

Due to AI issues, the AI will benefit from being able to use their main buildings as cargo arrival locations (since I don't expect to rebuild landzones wisely or with any real priority without fiddling with the AI files). Not sure if I will add some kind of arrival delay penalty.

So if I do add up AI support to buy stuff of merchants + Variant #3, it would open up the gameplay of 2 human players pitting against each other as merchants while their respective AI teams duke it up.

[IskatuMesk]

Have fun programming the AI to buy and use units.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Have fun programming the AI to buy and use units.

For buying, it will obviously be with map triggers. Ill probably make them favor buying units of their own race to minimize AI conflicts. As for using units, I am not going to go much hellbent on it. If I recall, units can have some AI thingy related to them so ill rather just to give the closest standard logical unit AI on a unit-basis (ex : zergling AI for combo zerglings) and be done with it.

Since AI-related stuff never been a big priority for any of my projects, it certainly will reflect on W&M.

[Quirriff]

So for the results of that mass boosting, it was wonderful for a single day as it managed to go from 90 to 200 of popularity. Although for some reason, it dropped to 40 then finally to 4 over the last 2-3 days.

Considering how W&M will probably never be a "popular" map, I think I might as well go with some ideas for FFS purposes or for niche cases. I was also thinking about adding some variants for W&M :

Variant #1 is already that Melee FFA one.

Variant #2 Team Warlords
Essentially all warlords on a same team (lobby-wise) will be allied. Merchants are "ignored" and keep exactly the same purpose and gameplay as Variant #1.

Variant #3 : Team Business.
All warlords and merchants on a same team (lobby-wise) will be allied. On a same team, warlords and merchants becomes close business partners and warlords will only be able to buy from their allied merchants (as in cannot buy from enemy merchants). A merchant will win or lose depending on their melee team (rather than their profit score).

I have another idea, you can include PMCs/free swords/Mercenaries (whatever you want to call them). They could gain money by wages(Call them contracts) set by the warlord and by bounties from killing enemies, and they would buy things from merchants as well (effectively toned down warlords, without harvesters and only minor bases).

By doing that you increase the demand for new units and upgrades from the merchants, and keep the game interesting.
If you re-impose a stricter supply limit on the Warlords would mean they'd need to delegate their resources to mercs to buy their own units.

[IskatuMesk]

The games already tend to have way too few Warlords.

[Quirriff]

That's because these W&M games are often on huge maps that are difficult to get from place to place and find annother warlord. The smaller the maps the fewer warlords necessary.

By cutting down the size of the maps you can make do with fewer warlords, but to decrease the amount of merchants Mercs could be introduced to have more combat players.

[IskatuMesk]

No, what I mean is that very few of our players can play as Warlord, and thus prefer to play as Merchant. If there's more merchants than Warlords the map suffers. Ideally, there should be no more than 1/2 the merchants in relation to Warlords. 2 merchants 4 warlords, 3/6, ect. But usually we have too many, and the market becomes far too saturated, and only a few players ever get stuff bought from them. Happens all the time.

[Alevice]

It's far more interesting for me to be a merchant than a warlord. Maybe if their gameplay was far more distinct than just enhanced melee