Armageddon Onslaught II - Game Design Documen

Mar 24 2008, 10:26 pm
Although the future is uncertain, we fight to preserve our dreams. For better or worse, we strive to create legends of the past, present, and future. That is what AO2 is; a dream, little more.

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCEPT OF ARMAGEDDON ONSLAUGHT

"From a non-technical standpoint, this chapter summarizes the inception of AO, its basic fundamentals, some of the challenges likely to be faced, and the content creation aspect."

Armageddon Onslaught is a concept derived from a variety of sources and its roots go back ten years in modding development. In this article I am going to explain the concepts behind the mod, the dream the mod hopes to fulfill, and the immersive elements it will seek to create.

AO2 - The Concept of Survival

When I first played Starcraft, I was 11. The game had just been released, I was barely capable of thinking, and I was far away from home. So not only was I physically in an alien and unusual environment, but I was also very new to computers (but not gaming in general), and Starcraft was my first strategy game. Because of the way I was, and still have aspects of, I am emotionally extremely sensitive, and back then, so sensitive to the point that Starcraft completely consumed me. I can completely zone out the outside world and engulf myself in something if it's immersive enough, and Starcraft was just that.

The plight of the humans (Terrans) facing the terrifying alien Zerg in a "living" world complete with their own bases, attacks, and resources really was something I had never encountered before. The RTS genre was something unknown to me at the time, as I was a console gamer, primarily a hardcore Battle Tanx player. I grew up on titles like Golden Eye and Earthbound. So I had my share of very cool experiences that really gave me a fetish for immersive worlds and gameplay. Starcraft was just that. Reflecting back on those days today, what really got me addicted to SC initially was the survival feeling. You felt like you were a part of the world, fighting to stay alive, in an extremely hostile and dark world. Of course, when I started writing AI soon after, the immersive feeling was really lost. So I wanted to create an enemy that brought back that fear, that loathing of the darkness, the unexpected surprises, and those "Oh shit!" moments when suddenly the entire fog of war comes alive with zerg units. Years passed and I created total conversions with similar feelings and similar ridiculously powerful AI.

The Demonic Touch

Another game that had that kind of effect on me was Diablo 1. Back in the days where I spent countless days just downloading the demo, and then soon played the game. I loved the cathedral levels, dark, and filled with these little red bastards that would come out of nowhere. Then, if you were especially lucky, you'd find a glowing little four-legged bastard who kicked the shit out of you. Of course, when I heard about the Diablo TC by Nottingham Systems for starcraft, I just had to try it. Lo and behold though, by that time Nottingham systems was quite dead. I was, however, able to get a hold of the mod from another individual. It was what I wanted - Diablo graphics in starcraft. I managed to get ahold of one of the Nottingham systems staff who gave me permission to use the Diablo graphics (but not their custom models) from the conversion. Of course, the problem was, I didn't have a mod that needed them.

Time passed and years went on until one day, Bajadulce suggested to me to build a grafted AI that built special units available only to it, to create the most retarded AI ever made. By then my skills as a modder had long reached the pinnacle of what Starcraft was capable of. Back in 2004 I had created Heidomus Kaladonmus featuring advanced randomized critical systems then untouched by other modders. Of course the mod died and the systems never really got used that much. It was an untouched concept. So, here I had an idea, some really wonderful graphics, and some truly terrifying mechanics. Armageddon Onslaught was born.

Since I had Diablo graphics, the obvious idea was to make the new race a demon race. Most demon races are super cliche and really boring, like those in Warcraft. I wanted to bring back that Diablo feel of huge, rabid bastards with unusual and mysterious abilities breaking out into the civilized world and just fucking everybody up. I wanted to bring back the fear and terror into Starcraft, and kick everyone's ass while doing it. Ultimately, a variety of starcraft limitations, including the dreaded Iscript.bin size limit, cut this project short. It did however make HK look like a typical noob mod with incredible effects and diversity in the units, from the Heretic Wizards who teleport about the map setting on fire, to the massive Madness Titans with Berserk and waves of fire. Bajadulce even donated a Diablo from D2 and a Duriel (who was unfortunately never used) into the mod for added effect. To boot, I got a hold of Infinity Engine graphics and had poiuy_qwert write scripts to rename the frames for me, creating even more completely new and stunning graphics for the mod.

General Additions & Mechanics in the new Armageddon race--

Behind the Scenes; AO2's Concerns

AO1 was going to have a whole mess of really cool things that never made it because of the iscript.bin size limit, including the AI spawning actual weather effects (Meteor showers, fire tornados), some really insane scripted weapons like Mal`Ash's singularity, and so forth. A lot of really awesome graphics, like a huge dragon, and Duriel, never got the chance to be used.

These concepts formed a really strange concept in my head which of course translated into a game document for Starcraft 2. Of course, with Starcraft 2's moddability being extremely uncertain, the likelihood of this project ever making it into light is very small.

As Starcraft is a sprite-based engine, all I needed were frames of graphics to make my monsters. Baldur's Gate, Diablo, these had graphics I could get into Starcraft with a bit of work. SC2 is a 3d game, a whole different ballfield. The first and foremost concern about graphics is just making them. There is the chance I can get World of Warcraft graphics into SC2 by first converting them to the wc3 format (Not a quick task!), then importing them into 3ds max with an extremely outdated and buggy third-party plugin, and THEN re-merging all of the animations (well beyond my skill level) and rigging them up for sc2. Unfortunately, WoW doesn't have too many graphics that will help out; Mostly dragons and drakes and whelps and stuff, plus the odd character and misc. So, AO2 will require some really professionally-done demons, and by some, I mean a hell of a lot!

Unfortunately the biggest problem likely to stand in the way of AO2 is hardcoded limitations. Blizzard's love for buggy hardcode means that we probably won't see anything like the iscript in SC2, we certainly didn't in wc3, which greatly limits how we can make units act. Things like randomized attacks, unique animations on these attacks, and scripted animations with damage and ability triggers are all likely impossible. To add worse onto bad, the AI will probably be hardcoded just like it was in SC1 and Wc3, which means it will probably be really stupid in handling its units.

SC2 does have some advantages, though. Its unit pathing is far superior, which of course helps the AI and will greatly help AO2 with its excessive amount of large units. Data-driven abilities leaves uncertainty in our minds but will surely give us more control over skills than wc3 did. There is the possibility the interface will be moddable, we'll be able to trigger global actions to help out the AI, an actual weather system can be devised, and a lot of new mechanics can be forged over time. All of this merely demands patience to learn their new C-based language, and a lot of anger management.

The Great Destroyer

If you play Guild Wars, you might be thinking, "lolwut?". When I first played Eye of the North, I expected The Great Destroyer to be this huge badass burning guy. When I first saw him, though, I just laughed. He looks pathetic, and he's definitely one of the easiest fights of the game. When I started designing AO2 inside my head, the name "Great Destroyer" kind of jumped out at me for the big cheese of the demon armies. I tried to figure out why, Schizophrenia does weird stuff like this, but figured, ah what the hell. Just like that, I had a super hilarious cliche story about the old Greek Gods, and the Great Destroyer, in some kind of mashed up frankenstein that forced itself into SC's story like some kind of twisted spinoff, placing Richard Simmons as a world leader and mocking a variety of crappy franchises like Doom in the process.

Of course, once we had the Destroyer, the demons needed some degree of organization and origin behind them to make sense. Therefore I created the Abyss, something a fair bit different from the Abyss in Lour Saga, which here is basically the equivelent of Hell. As our story goes, the Great Destroyer is about to awaken and bring hell to the mortal realm after his victory against the Old Gods, ten thousand years ago. Armageddon is the name of his race, a huge legion of bloodthirsty demons that range from completely feral puppies to giant fucking battleships. As stories tend to go, you, the unfortunate player, and your band of buddies are the only thing standing between Armageddon and total victory.

If you want to get into really sticky juicy details, since AO2 will (hopefully) work on any old map, Armageddon will just be spawned somewhere, or take a Player's position, and as it goes, Armageddon ascends tiers of increasingly powerful units. The story concept behind this is that there is huge gateways opening up all over the galaxy. They just open up, and all hell literally breaks loose, finding fresh farmgirls to defile and places to set on fire. Being the stalwart champions of light you are, the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg unite (through a love triangle, more on that later) and provide resistance. The demons manage to get even more pissed off and bloodthirsty than they originally were, and keep sending bigger, and meaner shit to tear you apart. Since the Great Destroyer is basically the lord of all that is evil, he can call upon particularly evil forces from alternate realities. Prepare to face Megatron and the Predacons in battle, along with a host of characters from my other universes, including Lord Dread!

Champions of Darkness; The Legends

As you probably guessed, Megatron and other baddies are going to take advantage of SC2's mimicked Hero system that Blizzard is going to be putting in. There'll also be bosses, but we'll talk about those later. Basically, Megatron and company are going to be called Legends, or figures of particularly evil power that The Great Destroyer has employed to send your scrawny behind into the afterlife. Just like wc3 heroes, they'll get ressurected after they die. The original AO had Legends in it, unique bosses like the Lord of Terror, and Syrius. Other than having beefy stats, they were unique only in that the AI (generally) only trained one of them (Sometimes the AI did freak out and get like 4 lords of terror though, absolutely overkill). Now, they're going to have crazy abilities, and they get stronger as they anally rail you.

Each tier will introduce new Legends into the fold, and by the time the Great Destroyer awakens, he'll pretty much have an entire legion of these guys running around.

Tier Bosses

Also a (not so new) concept is the addition of super bosses at the end of every tier. This is one of the places where having softcoded AI is going to be absolutely necessary, or perhaps having a ridiculously heavily triggered override. The idea is that the attack timers pause while the Boss is active, and no other units or Legends are sent to attack while it is active. As the bosses are incredibly powerful, if even a few of the Legends suddenly decide to have a party while they're active, the balance is going completely off and no one will survive.

There are ten tiers, and so there is ten bosses, and the final boss is the Great Destroyer. Bosses typically have phases and will have specially scripted behavior, along with a lot of voice acting and ques to their actions. They will generally be very large and impossible to kill alone, requiring your entire team to work together to bring them down. Some of the fights will get extremely hectic and absolutely insane, requiring very strong macro, micro, and multitasking capabilities. In general, if you aren't prepared for them, you'll die. This is also where softcoded Ai will be necessary, to give the bosses very specific behaviors to prevent them from being exploited, getting stuck, or falling prey to any of the numerous cheesy abuses that will surely surface when sc2 is released. They'll need to be intelligent, and use their abilities purposefully.

Global effects

One of the things I am sure will be fairly doable is Global effects. As Armageddon becomes stronger, all sorts of crazy shit will happen. The sky and water will literally set on fire, and turn to magma. Bloom intensity in the map will increase as thick fog and heat fills the air. Meteor showers, volcanos, tornados, and intense burning rain will become the hallmark of the destructive God's power awakening. Some of this is already confidently doable inside wc3.

Hellfire

Hellfire is to Armageddon as Creep is to Zerg. Which is to say, Hellfire is an entirely new creep generated by demon buildings. It's lava, sets everything on fire, and heals demon units. This shit will spread like wildfire across the map as Armageddon will build a massive amount of buildings, although the buildings will be considerably less indestructible than they were in the first AO. Part of the game will be fighting Armageddon's units, and the other part will be literally fighting influence from Hellfire and from its Wizard Towers. Even if you have the perfect wall, if you let Armageddon become too large, you will fall. This, in combination with the global effects, is going to have some crazy psychological effects for the inexperienced. You think you know the map, you think you know the game, but gradually the world is literally going to hell all around you, isolating you, surrounding you, and suffocating you.

Survival

Armageddon will be defeatable through two ways, both involve killing the Great Destroyer. You can either attack Armageddon and destroy him before he awakens, banishing him to the Abyss for another ten thousand years, leaving some other poor shmuck to get bent over when he comes back, or you can hold out and try to kill him after he awakes and attacks you. The former will clearly be the easier method in relative speaking, if you can pierce the defenses of the base and overpower the demon guard. In the latter, the Great Destroyer won't be alone when he awakens, and the abilities of a God cannot be exaggarated.Don't expect to see him die often. Chances are most teams will never get to even see him.

Wave-based attacks

Armageddon will attack in increasingly powerful waves. The appearance of a Boss marks a new tier. After the first boss dies, the second tier starts. Each wave will consist of a variety of that tier's units, never calling upon units from an alternate tier (Until the Destroyer awakes, then units from all tiers are spammed relentlessly until you're dead, called Onslaught State.) These units will not "dance", they'll just attack you, use their abilities, and fight until they're dead. Armageddon will never retreat under any circumstance. Demons don't know fear, remember? How they attack you will yet to be seen. In general I expect them to just run up and beat your face in, but depending what sc2 is capable of, you might see scripted drops, Wormholes dropping demons deep inside your base, or worse.

As AO will attack in waves, there is a timer that starts after a wave launches, before the second wave comes. Another key part of the AI being softcoded is being able to control this timer to the letter, impossible inside wc3 or Starcraft without triggering the entire thing, something not ideal for AO2 to keep map support and to keep the AI more dynamic and life-like (Actually using buildings to train the units as opposed to just spawning them). Basically, I won't resort to the triggered method unless I am absolutely forced to manually trigger the entire AI, but I probably would sooner cancel the project than go through all of that work. It all depends on how softcoded SC2 is. Early into the project, you probably won't see much in the way of wave timers or scripted sequences until I figure out the game's mechanics and the inner workings of the AI, assuming it's softcoded.

The wave system is not unsimilar to that of UT's Invasion, but with the increased stress of having the timer start as soon as the wave is spawned, as opposed to starting after the last demon dies.

To be edited/updated.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

Mar 24 2008, 10:29 pm
Quote from IskatuMesk

On the horizon -

* Pie <3

Mar 29 2008, 10:25 am
Erm...Maybe you didn't see this yet, but the Pit Lord has trouble attacking near the top edges of the map. (sprites being made in limbo)

On the other hand, this is a great mod. It pwned my defenses when I had: operation cwal AND show me the money on.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 29 2008, 10:31 am by Deathman101.

None.

Mar 29 2008, 10:29 am
Eh. Nothing I can do about that, I don't think.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

Mar 29 2008, 10:40 am
Quote from IskatuMesk

Eh. Nothing I can do about that, I don't think. I know, 'twas just an FYI. I only found that glitch when I played around with the Pit Lord on a custom map, don't expect it so be seen much.

None.

Mar 30 2008, 7:36 am
There's a few glitches present in the mod atm, especially with the aiscript itself that I overlooked. Sometime in the future I'll release a small update to correct some of these. Others, like the pit lord, I can't really fix. I'm not sure if I can fix Syrius' teleport-lock bug since the game seems to ignore the sigorder commands. I think there might be another way I can structure how it works, though. But that would be when I get up off my ass to finish the other units.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

Mar 31 2008, 3:12 am
Iskatu, we can always count on you to make an awesome mod

Now i want mah pie

None.

Apr 5 2008, 2:19 pm
Now, I won't be surprised if it still doesn't work, but if it does work, I will implode.

Yes, this will also require 1.10.

No, this isn't actually AO. It's an extremely old AI build. The mod itself is unimportant. What's important is if it works.

Go, now!

www.staff.samods.org/iskatumesk/RequiemCtest.exe

also I jacked some effects from lineage 1 so AO 4.2 may be slightly more flashy whenever I get around to doing it

edit - Is no one interested in helping see if the issue preventing half the people on this site from playing the mod is fixed?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 8 2008, 12:07 am by IskatuMesk.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

Apr 10 2008, 6:01 pm
Quote from IskatuMesk

edit - Is no one interested in helping see if the issue preventing half the people on this site from playing the mod is fixed? The mod forum doesn't get much publicity. With the death of Maplantis modding was scattered and the fanbase was destroyed.

None.

Apr 10 2008, 6:57 pm
Quote from IskatuMesk

edit - Is no one interested in helping see if the issue preventing half the people on this site from playing the mod is fixed? I would be, but the mod worked for me. Owrtho

None.

Apr 10 2008, 11:48 pm
Quote from name:Deathman101

Quote from IskatuMesk

edit - Is no one interested in helping see if the issue preventing half the people on this site from playing the mod is fixed? The mod forum doesn't get much publicity. With the death of Maplantis modding was scattered and the fanbase was destroyed. Okay. I guess simply clicking a link bringing the user to SEN from maplantis is too hard. Shame.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

Apr 15 2008, 6:23 am
Quote from IskatuMesk

edit - Is no one interested in helping see if the issue preventing half the people on this site from playing the mod is fixed? I'd say the issue is most likely a corrupted 1.10 install (like using some files from the wrong SC version).

None.

Apr 15 2008, 7:22 am
I have 2 computers both running windows XP professional. Both computers have fresh starcraft installs + patched to v1.10 w/out the use of any no-cd cracks etc. The mod works on the one computer but not the other. The answer to this problem lies in the difference between the 2 computers.

I'm sorry I don't recognize the difference just offhand. If I get the mod to work on the other computer, I will note what was updated/changed w/ computer.

None.

Apr 15 2008, 8:03 am
Hmm, how about the Starcraft path? In my case, it is simply E:\Starcraft

Maybe spaces in the path cause problems with one of the plugins? I think I'll test this out right now.

-EDIT-

Nope that wasn't it.

None.

Apr 20 2008, 1:24 pm
Did you remember to bring the CD WITH YOU?

lol, mean, but it could be the problem.

None.

May 25 2008, 8:28 pm
Best mod evar.

Seriously, Mesk, you need to finish this.

If Madness Titans, Lords of Terror, etc are this fucking awesome, then Tiers 6 and 7 are going to be the sex.

And if you ever decide to make AO for StarCraft II, you will be a god among men.

None.

May 25 2008, 8:41 pm
I'll finish this if I get a plugin/compiler for 1.10 that allow the iscript.bin to go beyond 65kb. Otherwise, there is nothing I can do.

The chances of doing this in sc2 are beyond minimal due to such requiring mastery of 3ds max.

Additionally I had planned an additional 4 tiers up to a maximum of 10.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 25 2008, 8:50 pm by IskatuMesk.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

May 25 2008, 8:53 pm
Quote from IskatuMesk

I'll finish this if I get a plugin/compiler for 1.10 that allow the iscript.bin to go beyond 65kb. Otherwise, there is nothing I can do.

The chances of doing this in sc2 are beyond minimal due to such requiring mastery of 3ds max.

Additionally I had planned an additional 4 tiers up to a maximum of 10. Doesn't Rhino (the editor you used to make the epic ship models in ITAS) fit the bill for something like that? On a related note, did you ever finish ITAS/where can I download it?

None.

May 25 2008, 8:57 pm
Rhino is nurbs. On top of that there's no way in hell I can model any kind of character let alone skin and animate them.

I never finished ITAS but the limit expander version is here - http://www.campaigncreations.org/forum/index.php?topic=517.0

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.

May 29 2008, 8:01 am
With this project now dead (permanently) from the iscript.bin limitation, and there being newfound hope of sc2 having more functionality for unit and unit-based attributes than wc3, I've begun making a mock-up game document for the sequel to this project: Armageddon Onslaught 2: The Great Destroyer.

You can see the data I have up here, http://www.campaigncreations.org/forum/index.php?topic=836.msg11296#new

Now the reason I'm posting this here is not just because I want you to read it. I want you to comment on it. Give me suggestions. Give me ability ideas. Give me unit ideas. That list isn't anywhere near complete. I have no problem planning a hundred units or expanding the tiers to 15. Give me something to work with. Give me ideas how to make it more terrifying.

Got a graphic from WoW/Wc3 you think would work for something? That's great. Porting those graphics will be easy.

Show them your butt, and when you do, slap it so it creates a sound akin to a chorus of screaming spider monkeys flogging a chime with cacti. Only then can you find your destiny at the tip of the shaft.