I just discovered this old and interesting game, and I was thinking to translate it in WoG.

I know it has a lot of fans so I am open to all suggestions from people who already knows the game. Scripts, graphics, sounds.

I am only in early game, and so far I got the idea how leveling works.

So far, those are my ideas about the mechanics:

1) Leveling and party choice: naturally the player should start with a choice of 4 commanders, so the shooting ability is present, although disabled until the skill is acquired. Before the game starts, we have a choice between 7 classes, each one with special abilities. Leveling is done using the hero system (!?HL) in the following way:

Each 2000 or less exp points a box is opened and 4 experience points are received and allocated manually to the HP/speed/damage l&h/attack/defense of the choose commander. After the operation is done, the hero is bring back to 0 experience points. This script is already done for my tests for an Oblivion map. Open for better suggestions.

If the player choose to keep the 4 points, then the following points from battles are added and once he has (ex)10 he can allocate them to the hero, improving skills (buy fire etc), speed, mana, knowledge.

2) The travel will be scripted exactly as in the game, on specified days a boat is placed, the next day the boat is destroyed, same for stables traveling, they open on specified days. For multiple destinations, when the player visit the boat, a box is opened and the destination is asked. So the player does not really sail.

3) The choice of the 4 classes influence the game: the druid/clerc can cast heal (or the hero can cast cure on the druid's turn), that means the magic book is disabled (CM) until the healer turn. I am not sure how this script could be done, but I know it is possible. Combined with the sorcerer, its turn allowing to cast destruction spells. Maybe will be a better idea to script it using MG? I am not sure it works elsewhere than on adventure map. Like when the knight turn, clicking on implosion is disabled ans so on. When sorcerer turn, implosion is enabled, cure disabled.

4)Enable artefacts specificity. I don't see how could be done. In the game each class is allowed to wear specific items, in HOMM having an hero can't allow that.

5) Enable random attacks in specific areas. Check the position of the player every day, if he is between x and y coordinates create a random value based on his movement trigger (HM) and generate an attack. Like being in the dragon valley will trigger dragons attacks and so on. Easy to do.

6) Generate a labyrinth for each dungeon in a choosed area (fixed). Once the dungeon is completed the area is reseted and a new dungeon is created in the same coordinates for next. Easy to do. Probably will design an 50x50 area for this. This will generate some problems, as if the player teleports outside while in the dungeon, the dungeon may not be reseted. So needs ideas...

Those are so far my ideas. I only started the game, so I have only a limited knowledge about what is in. I am open to all suggestions, as for scripts help. the only one I can't figure for the moment is how to use magic (heal, destruction).

I will extract the maps one by one from the lod and will probably split them in two parts, one being the surface, the other the underground (no better idea so far)

Creatures, artefacts graphics are welcome! But there is no rush, after what I see it will take me at least 2 months to complete the game and have an overall vision. It is quite complex.

I am not sure this huge work can be done alone, so if anyone wants to create a team, I will be glad. There are hundred of quests (I am accustomed to that) and tens of new mechanics. Anyway I will start it, alone or not. I know Sergroj loves his game, and I am using his patch. Maybe he is interested?

Quote:1) Leveling and party choice: naturally the player should start with a choice of 4 commanders, so the shooting ability is present, although disabled until the skill is acquired. Before the game starts, we have a choice between 7 classes, each one with special abilities. Leveling is done using the hero system (!?HL) in the following way:

Each 2000 exp points a box is opened and 4 experience points are received and allocated manually to the HP/speed/damage l&h/attack/defense of the choose commander. After the operation is done, the hero is bring back to 0 experience points. This script is already done for my tests for an Oblivion map.

If the player choose to keep the 4 points, then the following points from battles are added and once he has (ex)10 he can allocate them to the hero, improving skills (buy fire etc), speed, mana, knowledge.

My suggestion is:

1) Hero does not have experience at all.
At Battle start exp is set to very negative value, at the end is restored to zero.

2) Max 7 heroes allowed. All are representated by unique creatures. All CM-s on slots are hooked and control is passed to Hero Menu function. So we cannot move stacks in hero/town screens or dismiss heroes.

3) Every Hero has his/her own statistics menu, not a default one.
4) At every battle event script spies on heroes' health (so heroes won't regenerate full life after battle)
5) exp points are added during the battle when a particular hero kills particular enemy. The amount of xp for enemy is set manually.
6) about the travel. You won't be able to put hero in the boat or to teleport him on the ground. But we could emulate the process. Maybe, it's what you meant
7) Hero classes. Afair, there were more than 4 classes in MM6. It would be great to have at least 7. Class affects available artifacts, mana, hit points, damage, spells and so on. About spells. If you use Era, you will be able to change spells names and descriptions dinamically. So imagine.

Cleric moves. Player opens magic books. We clear hero spells. Then load spells, that cleric has and rename them. Druid moves. We do the same work for druid and so on.
8) In battle heroes can use potions.
9) Enable artefacts specificity
When artifact is equiped, the current chosen hero (his name is the name of game hero) is tested for neccessary skills. If he cannot use the art, the a message is displayed and art is put to backpack.

Quote:I will extract the maps one by one from the lod and will probably split them in two parts, one being the surface, the other the underground (no better idea so far)

Didn't understand

Quote:I am not sure this huge work can be done alone, so if anyone wants to create a team, I will be glad.

I can help you with suggestions. If you won't be against building the project on Era platform and using some tools, I can help with scripting too.
Anyway, good luck.

(02.07.2009 04:26)Berserker Wrote:  1) Hero does not have experience at all.
At Battle start exp is set to very negative value, at the end is restored to zero.

2) Max 7 heroes allowed. All are representated by unique creatures. All CM-s on slots are hooked and control is passed to Hero Menu function. So we cannot move stacks in hero/town screens or dismiss heroes.

Why several heroes? In MM6 we have one party, and that means one hero with 4 creatures. Of you meant something else?
I already thought to hooking the slots but would be a bad idea, as the leveling works (?) by giving special abilities, so the player can't open the creatures abilities box. If you can' right click on them, you can't open.
Experience: starting at negative value vs bringing back experience to zero. Can we calculate the experience received from a battle, divide it by 1000 then use this value to give one/several points and allocate them to the 4 creatures health etc?

Quote:4) At every battle event script spies on heroes' health (so heroes won't regenerate full life after battle)

How? there is no health concept in Heroes. You mean health of the creatures?

Quote:5) exp points are added during the battle when a particular hero kills particular enemy. The amount of xp for enemy is set manually.

I was more thinking about fighting only neutral monsters, not AI players. But it is only a first idea.

Quote:6) about the travel. You won't be able to put hero in the boat or to teleport him on the ground. But we could emulate the process. Maybe, it's what you meant

Yes, that is what I meant, so he only "visits" a disabled boat.

Quote:7) Hero classes. Afair, there were more than 4 classes in MM6. It would be great to have at least 7. Class affects available artifacts, mana, hit points, damage, spells and so on. About spells. If you use Era, you will be able to change spells names and descriptions dinamically. So imagine.

Yes, as I said, the player has a starting choice between 7 classes (we have 8 commanders for that, aren't we?) then he plays with 4, as in the game.

Quote:Cleric moves. Player opens magic books. We clear hero spells. Then load spells, that cleric has and rename them. Druid moves. We do the same work for druid and so on.

I am not sure I can script this as instructions. I can do it in a specific battle, but for all? How do we check is a druid is in specified slot during the battle? That means to hook the slots before the battle or rearrange the creatures in a fixed position.

Quote:8) In battle heroes can use potions.

Sure, I already had a look at using berseker potions. The potion will add damage/attack/defense bonuses to one of the 4 creatures.

Quote:9) Enable artefacts specificity
When artifact is equiped, the current chosen hero (his name is the name of game hero) is tested for neccessary skills. If he cannot use the art, the a message is displayed and art is put to backpack.

Very good idea.

Quote:Didn't understand

Well, MM6 map is huge, so I have to split it. Half of it is the HoMM XL surface, the other half is the underground.

Quote:
   If you won't be against building the project on Era platform and using some tools, I can help with scripting too.

Do I have the choice?

Also, now that I think, the best idea to simulate real time game and avoid that "end of turn" would be to give unlimited movement, so the game can be completed on the first day. This will change the mechanics of the travels, but will give a lot of satisfaction to the player. Naturally, all the design and challenges will offer a very long game, while still being the first day. What you think?

Quote:Why several heroes? In MM6 we have one party, and that means one hero with 4 creatures. Of you meant something else?

In MM6 you have 4 companions. I call them "heroes".

Quote:I already thought to hooking the slots but would be a bad idea, as the leveling works (?) by giving special abilities, so the player can't open the creatures abilities box

Why do you want to use commanders? Any real creature would be good. And thus custom skill system could be implemented.

Quote:Experience: starting at negative value vs bringing back experience to zero...

I think using !?HL is a bad idea.

Quote:How? there is no health concept in Heroes. You mean health of the creatures?

Yes, creatures.

Quote:I am not sure I can script this as instructions. I can do it in a specific battle, but for all?

For all. It can be done quite easily.

Quote:Sure, I already had a look at using berseker potions.

I mean potions, that could be used at any round of the battle. Like health potions, mana potions, strength potions, anti-poison and so on.

Quote:Do I have the choice?

Surely. 3.58f is the most popular platfrom, but with far less functionality.
New objects patch will be also required?

(02.07.2009 06:23)Berserker Wrote:  I think using !?HL is a bad idea.

So if the Hero starts with negative experience he will never gain a level. How do I trigger experience points for the 4 creatures then? Checking Hero's experience before and after? I was imagining: "at each 1000 exp points, one creature pick experience point is added". If the player gains<1000 then they are stored. If the player gains >1000 the value is divided by 1000, rounded and gives the points to allocate. Can this be combined with the negative value or you had something else in mind?

   Yes, 4 creatures/heroes choosed from 7 class. As for commanders I need them mainly because I need units with both melee and shooting animations, and I know it is hard to be done to new units. The potion idea is very interesting but raises a lot of questions: I will need to save all creatures abilities before each battle and reset them at the end, regardless of what potion was used. Would be necessary to fix a duration for the bonuses in-battle or not? Or just give the bonus for the whole thing.

You mean something like:

!?BR;
!!IF&v997>0:M^Choose a potion^;

So every turn it occurs if potions are stored in some variable? Then it will occur at the starting turn, but not when a specific creature moves, as druid or sorcerers. Not a bad deal. Would not be a bit annoying to have the message every turn? Maybe triggering it by clicking elsewhere, like on quick combat?

Checking before the battle ends the health of the creatures and keep it, combined with the potions used, combined to the experience bonuses allocated by the player will be a nightmare.

That's a lot of scripting, but it is a nice idea. Of course I will install 3.59, was waiting for Yunnings to make it functionally. He finds the bugs, you correct them, I install. Yeah, I am cheap, I know...

The new objects patch will be used without doubt. The original Heroes objects do not look very similar to those from MM6, and the patch has some interesting graphics for any atmosphere.

I had also the idea to "populate" the cities by setting wandering monsters to indefinitely walk between 2 points. Is there a way to disable attacking them and generate a custom message when visiting?

OK, I tried to compile somehow the 15 maps from MM6. I have no idea how to split that between underground and surface. Any chances that 3.59 allow us to make 1800x1200 maps?

Also when importing it in the editor the colors are weird and the green and the blue are not showing properly. A long time ago when I was modding ANNO 1704 I had a program, the name started in GEO...it allowed me to import the map and recreate it with (kinda)Google earth seetings and layout. Any remember such program?

Valery
First of all - welcome to MM6 fans
1. I am a big fan of MM6, its the best game of MM series for me, and probably I like it stronger than all Heroes series...
I am discovering and extracting its resources already for a long time, and there were different thoughts about make some mod or project.
2. I think your idea is very interesting. It should turn out in big and complicate mod.
I support your thought about creation of some team for that mod. I will join to it with pleasure.
Sergroj is big fan of that game too, I think, he will support the developing of such project as well.
4. As that mod is expected to be massive and complicated enough, I think it is necessary to make certain disdoc, which will accurately describe the basic aspects of the MM6 mod.

I think (may be You mean exactly the same) that it will be more interesting, if MM6 mod will not recreate exactly all storyline and events of MM6 world, but all game mechanics, rules and e.t. It means will be some "gameplay platform", and every mapmaker will be able to create his map on that MM6 platform.

I extracted MM6 map too, tell me what is the problem with it and I will try to solve this problem.
I think that there will be possibility to make a very large map, one of WOG team members has already wrote some patch for it.

(02.07.2009 14:00)Corwin Wrote:  Valery
First of all - welcome to MM6 fans
1. I am a big fan of MM6, its the best game of MM series for me, and probably I like it stronger than all Heroes series...
I am discovering and extracting its resources already for a long time, and there were different thoughts about make some mod or project.
2. I think your idea is very interesting. It should turn out in big and complicate mod.
I support your thought about creation of some team for that mod. I will join to it with pleasure.
Sergroj is big fan of that game too, I think, he will support the developing of such project as well.
4. As that mod is expected to be massive and complicated enough, I think it is necessary to make certain disdoc, which will accurately describe the basic aspects of the MM6 mod.

I think (may be You mean exactly the same) that it will be more interesting, if MM6 mod will not recreate exactly all storyline and events of MM6 world, but all game mechanics, rules and e.t. It means will be some "gameplay platform", and every mapmaker will be able to create his map on that MM6 platform.

I extracted MM6 map too, tell me what is the problem with it and I will try to solve this problem.
I think that there will be possibility to make a very large map, one of WOG team members has already wrote some patch for it.

Corwin,

I am not sure that creating a mod will be a feasible idea. For example HoTA is longtime expected only because it proposes a new town and creatures, artefacts, dwellings. If it proposed new mechanics, no one would be interested, except hardcore WoG fans, which are very rare. For myself, I don't care much about HoTA excepting borrowing graphics which is always bringing health to an old game.

I also don't think it should turn into a big and complicated mod, because there are then chances that will never be done. For me, having small/average projects is more entertaining than engaging into a titan work. A map as 300 is not a mod (kinda) but it took 6 months of scripting, testing and fixing, at a rate of 4-5 hours/day. An average project, which changed only a few mechanics, and this discouraged everyone. We should learn from that and not overdo. It was also such tremendous work for one alone, so I felt tens of time like giving up, no more energy.

My idea was to offer exactly same situations and quests as MM6 proposes, so the player can see what a WoG legacy means. Like metamorphosing in any game. The MM6 mechanics only are not so interesting for HoMM fans because they will propose (if we only keep the originals) less than 8 creatures with different abilities, which heal each other, launch spells. If I am wrong, please correct me.

A big if not impossible work would be to create all the MM6 dungeons in the same area. I play the game right now and the dungeons are huge. Transposing each of them into HoMM would require months of checking squares and find the bit integers for every PO:B squares. I already did this for 300 and was only for two different areas. It took weeks. Now, to make it for 40 dungeons...

Anyway, once a MM6 scenario is done, with all new mechanics, it will be easy to compile it in a mod, if there are requests.

As for the map, I have a hard time to import the bmp into the editor. The green and blue colors are not recognized so all I get is some rough terrain, which looks awful. I tried several mapmaking programs but did not succeed in any better. Also I filtered in thousand times the bmp in Adobe, bad result. Do you have any idea how to improve this bmp, so we can see the relief, the green, the sea and such?

As for more than one people working on, I would be honored if any of you is in. I am not anal about being alone on the mapmakers list, but what is done and what it brings finally to WoG.

James Vogan did 10 scripts for the 300, and I insisted to have him on the list, because I liked his scripts. Finally he disagreed on texts (he is American and he insisted to change my dialogs, which I declined because worked hard on them) then went angry and asked to be removed. Too bad for him.

Btw i am MM6 fan too, so count me in.

I am afraid i cannot help with the technical (ERM) advices how to realize the ideas, but i could try to give some ideas about common things.

0. I suggest to increase conception a little bit - not to use strictly MM6 world, but some parts from MM7 and MM8 too (+already start making some things for the future sequels).

1. About mobs which would act as heroes-commanders - lets call them adventures to evade misunderstanding. As i said - i will make defs for them.
1). I just need to know how many of them should be (7 or 14 - both male and female per class) and how they will look like.
2). About weapons - i suggest that class always uses the weapon he most profienced (grandmaster - by MM7-MM8 rules), so knight (weapon) is going with the sword and shield; paladin with 2H hammer (for example); cleric with mace and shield etc. - Thus we'll solve the problem with their appearance - static def for all cases. Of course, this will add less variety to the game, but would be more logical overall.

2. About hero and adventures - i think hero could just work as some "container", which would act as:

- a bagpack with all items (which later could be passed to adventures)
- a "skillbook" with all skills, using of which are common for all adv-res like diplomaty, identifing mobs and items, repair, alchemy, etc.
- a paperdoll for equipping artefacts (like d2 talismans) which would affect the entire party

3. I suggest to create a new system for levelling adv-res with primary stats like strength, dexterity, stamina, etc. (could think about its details in case u would accept it).

Too sad we cannot add more animations in the def... In this case i could make separate animations for melee, bow attack, spellcast and all-around attack.

Nice to see you interested. I have no idea how MM7&8 look. I am afraid that more is expected and required, more time/never it gets finished, unless people is extremely motivated. Now if you all decide to go on a MM6&7&8 mod, I will just stick to an Oblivion map and drink a bottle of vodka to burn my anger, as I can't help you on that.

In my first idea, 7 of them are required. As in the game. Now, if someone is perfectionist and goes for having to choose female/male, then would be 14, but do we have 14 creatures with no penalties on melee/shooting in HoMM? I don't think so. Also there is a frame problem, as we already experienced in 300. Can you find 14 defs with a enough high rate frame to be able to replace the commanders? You are the master here.

Weapons are only a graphic matter, it does not affect the damage or the speed.

Creating a new system of skills, as dexterity/stamina is possible only by changing the text. How can someone implement a new combat skill as dexterity in HoMM3? The bow/sword is always hitting and the luck concept is affecting in HoMM very different than in MM6. It would be great, but I have no idea how could be done.

Edit: now that I see, every commander had two ID's. So there are 16 shooting/melee creatures possible. But working on 7 additional graphics just to have a choice from male to female with exactly the same stats...

(02.07.2009 15:57)Valery Wrote:  Nice to see you interested. I have no idea how MM7&8 look.

They look the same as MM6 - just another maps/world +new stroyline, mobs, spells, arts, etc.

Quote:In my first idea, 7 of them are required. As in the game. Now, if someone is perfectionist and goes for having to choose female/male, then would be 14, but do we have 14 creatures with no penalties on melee/shooting in HoMM? I don't think so.

Well i am talking about new ones. Ok, lets think a little bit:

1. Knight - male
2. Paladin - male
3. Cleric - male
4. Druid - male
5. Archer - female
6. Sorcerer - female
7. Did i forget somebody?

Btw - i also suggest to include monk and thief (they are in MM7, but imho would fit for MM6 world perfectly).

Quote:The bow/sword is always hitting and the luck concept is affecting in HoMM very different than in MM6.

As i said i am not good in scripting, but is it possible to set checks on corresponding combat triggers and then do (or not to do) the action?

Right, they are 6. The thief is also present in Oblivion, but what would be his characteristics? Increase the chance to stole?

The sex is only a choice. In MM6 the sorcerer, archer and druid can be male, depends of the portrait the player choose.

About changing how luck works and adding the concept of dexterity, this is a work for WoG team, I am far from being able to script that. One has always the ideas that he can complete.

Sorry, may be I have misunderstood your idea.
But it seems to me, that things that you described already will took A LOT OF TIME.
ok, anyway - I will not disturb You with my gigantic ideas any more

I am dreaming about gigantic ideas too, you know...but, as Berserker pointed previously, the reality is cruel. Without a huge and active community any gigantic mods are condemned to fail. One day, maybe.