After the meeting, Lucas went back to his office to carefully improve the game design in more detail.
Unlike other RTS games, the races, unit types, and building stats in "Warcraft" are all different.
There are also corresponding detailed numbers, which are quite complex.
And this content is the most important part of "Warcraft".
Different races have their own features and roles.
For example, the Night Elf race, War Trees, in addition to producing units, can also stand up and move, and attack.
So, usually, Night Elves will place War Trees (barracks) next to neutral monsters, and then wait for the first hero to come out and quickly level up to level 2 with the War Trees.
The same is true for humans. The human main city can turn workers into militia. Early on, humans can use militia to quickly set up new mines and level up.
In addition, depending on the characteristics of the first hero, there are countless tactics and strategies.
For example, the Orc race first uses the Blademaster. Using Wind Walk can harass enemy workers, follow online teams and steal monsters when the monsters are low on health, and steal the dropped treasures. All early money can be used to buy stat items from the neutral shop to maximize the Blademaster's combat power.
When humans fight orcs and there is a neutral tavern, they give up the advantage of mining and focus on leveling up the first Archmage. At level 3, they go to the neutral tavern to buy a Beastmaster and use boars to harass. They save up female and male witches, and after they are formed, they buy the healing scroll and mini-towers from the human shop. When they have a certain number of mages, they take the militia and mini-towers to build arrow towers and directly take down the orcs.
Race characteristics, building characteristics, hero combinations, these are the core points that make "Warcraft" different from other RTS games.
If you break it down further, it is divided into attack types, armor types, unit skills, and related stats, which are all very complex.
Just one attack type in "Warcraft" is divided into Normal, Pierce, Hero, Chaos, Siege, Magic, etc. Armor is also divided into Light, Medium, Heavy, Fortified, Hero, and No Armor.
Lucas has already asked Hector to start making a damage model.
First, build these different types and damage calculation ratios. Classifying the monsters will come later.
Rachel and Anna are making the art content for "Warcraft".
The main characters in the game, such as Arthas, Illidan, Tyrande, Sylvanas, and Jaina, are naturally handled by Lucas himself.
If you only look at the models of these characters in the game, they look terrible by today's standards.
But if you only look at the concept art, it is top-notch no matter the era.
However, the game has more than just these main characters.
Ordinary units, such as human soldiers, orc soldiers, and undead ghouls, all need art production.
In addition, there is the operation and UI interaction of the game.
This area needs a lot of changes.
Although the game design concept of "Warcraft" is beyond doubt, it is limited by the technology of the past. This part of the content can be said to be quite anti-human and even unscientific.
The player interaction experience is one of the points.
In the past, "Warcraft" did not support players customizing changes.
For example, the items in the hero's item bar need to be used with the number keys on the number pad.
This design is mainly because "Warcraft" has a grouping function, and the number keys on the letter keys are reserved for grouping.
So, the item bar can only use the number pad.
But for most ordinary players, this design is quite awkward.
Especially for some newbie players.
Grouping?
What do I need grouping for? I just drag a box with the mouse and blindly attack. I just focus on controlling one hero.
In addition, there are related font bugs. When there are too many map resources and time in a game, the font will become garbled.
These are all limited by the game development technology at the time. Now Lucas needs to do it more carefully, correct these shortcomings, and make the whole game more perfect.
As for the game's story, Lucas hasn't worked on it yet, because it's not urgent.
In addition, there is a very important direction, which is also the greatest design in "Warcraft".
It is also the design that made "Warcraft" endure for a long time in the past, and even after more than ten years, countless players are still immersed in it.
That is the map editor of "Warcraft".
In a word, "Warcraft" is a collection of RTS masterpieces.
And the map editor of "Warcraft" gives "Warcraft" more possibilities.
Many players encounter "Warcraft" not from the story, campaign, and RTS gameplay.
But from an interesting RPG map.
Defend Sword Pavilion, Defend Athena, Fantasy Cao Cao Biography, Richman, Pyramid Escape, The Tribulations of the Western World, Cops and Robbers, Trolls and Elves, Rabbit and Sheep War, Humans are Invincible, War of the Little Soldiers…
It even gave birth to classic games such as "DOTA". Especially "DOTA", it can be said that the MOBA era of the past and later is inseparable from this game.
In the past, Blizzard created the map editor, which originally came from an idea in "StarCraft", but it was not very complete and was very complex. It was not until "Warcraft 3" that the map editor became relatively complete.
But it was only a small supplement to the content of "Warcraft". Blizzard didn't even realize how great it was.
That's why there was later the copyright dispute with IceFrog over DOTA.
Knowing this content, Lucas will naturally not underestimate the map editor in Warcraft.
Instead, he wants to do his best to make it more perfect.
After all, in the past, with the development of the times, the map editor of "Warcraft" was actually updated several times by great folk players, adding more content.
In addition to the heroes, unit types, buildings, and other elements and stats in the game.
It also includes the shaping of the game map.
Forests, water, rocks, in addition, there are weather and time settings in the game. At the same time, the time factor will also affect the state of neutral monsters, waking or sleeping, including the visible vision in the game, which is different during the day and at night.
However, compared to the map editor of the past, Lucas feels that it is still too complex.
Because the map editor of the past, although very powerful, still needed a certain amount of coding knowledge for map making.
For Lucas, with the technology of the parallel world, it is entirely possible to achieve a more open design.
If you want to create more complex and interesting maps, open up higher port permissions to folk experts.
For ordinary players, they can also create simple defense maps by using the "Warcraft" map editor based on the game's mechanics.
Just like the open MODs in "Fall Guys", "Overcooked", and "Minecraft".
Let more ordinary players create various interesting maps with a little thought. Why can't the map editor become a part of the game's gameplay?
For example, put all kinds of maps in the same community for classification, and players can give the creators likes when playing the corresponding maps.
Make it an open community like "Minecraft".
Unlike the official platform after being operated by NetEase in the past, the quality of the remastered version is Blizzard's fault. But why did the official WAR3 platform in the past also become a tool for making money, and more and more RPG maps are like web games?
Ultimately, it is the reason for the platform's commercialization. There are indeed many map players who choose to share for free or out of nostalgia.
However, the map community of WAR3 does not have a good environment like MC. If your map does not have a store, the platform will not display the room you build, and even if the platform thinks the map is not profitable, it will not even pass the review.
So, creating a good community environment is necessary.
However, for Lucas, Nebula Games already has experience in this area.
Of course, the platform's review must also be paid attention to. Let maps like "Seven Dwarfs and Snow White", "Athena's Defense: Macho Edition", and "Princess Xiang Xiang", which excite the LSP, disappear in the parallel world.
Well… at least ordinary players will definitely not be able to find it on the official side.
Sitting in the office, Lucas thought about some directions for optimizing and improving "Warcraft".
(End of this chapter)
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