I could do that. But I won't support that map version with updates anymore.
Maybe I will leave it as a demo for the HotS version of my map.

Also forgot to add another thing. Even though I most likely will not be able to take advantage of it, will you have to start over on your character once the HotS version is released?

I could understand if you would need to considering all of the possible changed made not just to the maps but also maybe the characters as well?

It depends what I will change...
I recently discovered that my version migration was bugged and the invalid items hadn't been fixed. So, I might reset everything, but it's more likely that I just write a function that validates all items and randomizes parts of invalid items.

But the item validation might be something that I add to the default loading process in addition to another item validation I plan to design. But that might take a while.

I will update the map soon with the fixes (on EU in a few hours, on US someday). I don't think I will release caves then as long as I have nothing to visually fix the rivers.

Darn, I am on US server. Guess I will have to hope your update to ours is sooner rather than later?

You shall get that update sooner!

/US publisher

Ah so that explains why the map says "Payne" as publisher and one of the unique items is called Payne's Travelling Coat? Are you just the US publisher or did you also help Ahli make the map?

Edit: OMG Post # 666! What do I do!

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 7 2012, 8:44 am by SeraphicStar.

Just the publisher. I provided Ahli with a few suggestions from quite a few tests, but that's pretty much it.
The "Travelling Coat" is a reference to my travel that ended just recently.
I guess the map is filled with puns related to SEN community. Ahli, do you have a list somewhere that you are willing to share?

Just a few unique items. Gotta find them all!

I really need much more unique items...

edit:
Updated to Version 0.291 on EU and US.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 7 2012, 10:59 pm by Ahli.

Yay, thanks for uploading the latest version! I really like your new textures in the catacomb levels. I haven't had the opportunity yet to check out the new textures in the poisoned water supply area yet but I will let you know when I do! Also I need to report that the enchanted shrine no longer shows text when you receive the +1 all spell levels and +5% mana. Also it seemed to not bestow the +1 all spell levels unless you town portal to town or the timer is about half over before it grants you the boost. I may not have checked it often enough to see this for sure but that is how it seemed during gameplay.

I also have found about 2 stand alone unique items in the map besides quest rewards. Please add in more unique items in later versions!

Thanks for the bug report. I think I will patch a few small things for the WoL version.

I'm in the middle of creating a HotS version and they are not compatible due to WoL not using the beta's engine and UI.
So, I will only fix bugs (in both versions separately) until WoL receives an upgrade to 2.0.

Updated to version 0.292 on EU and US.
Small bug fix and small cosmetic changes...

edit:
TODO list before HotS beta release including caves:
- Balrog inferno spell
- better arrangement of NPC names and titles in their window (atm it's pretty random)
- find solution to projectiles changing height over lava rivers
- try to have higher detailed lava river textures (they are blurry because of unknown reasons)
- disable arrow traps in caves
- tint balrog death like the unit
- add info that hots beta is global which can lead to a high ping and a bad UI and mouse performance
- try to fix lights that are visible through the fog
- try to fix a few broken text label colors (HotS enforces label color now instead of making it act like it is only adding a color tag around the text)
- try to fix tints not disappearing when a unit dies (I fail to understand)
- maybe I start to recolor a few textures and add support to replace them instead of tinting all models... Succubus is a good candidate for that.
- bridge for lava rivers

So, I will update within the next days on HotS Beta server. Currently there is the arcade beta's version on it which is a bit outdated now compared to my HotS version.

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Dec 16 2012, 2:06 am by Ahli.

Hey again Ahli, got a few more things to relay to ya. Unfortunately it seems that the % hp boost shrine still has trouble granting the bonus, however I did see the bonus activate when I received another shrines buff. I don't know if this helps at all but I figured I would mention it.

Also I noticed a strange "bleed through" effect on the character stats page when you have the stash open. I tried recreating the effect but I have so far been unsuccessful.

I also noticed a strange bug with items you pick up displaying their info card without the inventory screen being open. I will attach a screenshot of this strange occurance in this post. I believe it has something to do with having another item being right behind the first one when it is picked up or trying to pick up a second item too quickly. Not 100% sure if either one of these is the cause but I figured I would mention them.

Also a minor issue with the "Arkaine's Valor" Quest is that it spells it as "Arcaine's". I can provide a screenshot of this one if necessary.

Also, the last screenshot I include is for an item I really wanted but didn't have the gold to buy it. Really good armor too I think! Which leads me to a question about the stash. Is there any way you could possibly make it hold gold or allow gold transfer between your characters? Also I was wondering if you ever plan on including the ability to trade with other characters in the map? That would be really awesome if you made it possible! Although I don't know if it is physically possible on a Starcraft map, but I have heard it done on other maps so eh.

Anyways, a few other things I wanted to mention here regarded your request for input on possible skills for characters for your map. I was thinking maybe the Sorceror could be allowed some kind of passive Mana Regeneration skill. You could have it be required to be in one of the mouse skill slots to activate or possibly be just a skill that activates like a spell with a duration. Also I was thinking for the warrior you could have either a charge type skill similar to the paladins charge skill in Diablo 2, or maybe a power attack skill similar to the Barbarians skill in Diablo 2.

Also I was thinking maybe a cool addition to having skills in the map is maybe granting you the ability to "level up" the skills you use. Maybe have the skills have their own experience bar and you could either base it off of monster kills or number of times the skill is used, or both! That way you could increase the skill past level one, but of course I know this would probably require a great deal of balancing to make it non overpowered, just an idea is all heh. The other problem with incorporating this is that it gets away from traditional Diablo 1, similar to my idea of the Sorceror's passive mana regeneration.

I was also thinking about a skill for the Rogue that could act similarly to the Elemental spell of Diablo 1 and the Guided Arrow skill for Diablo 2. It would essentially work like a normal arrow except it can be fired through a door and it would auto target a monster inside of the room. Perhaps you could allow it only one direction change to make it somewhat balanced. Also this skill would work great if you ever planned on including the Infravision spell(not sure if its possible but eh) in your version.

Hope this stuff helps you/gives you some ideas! I wanted to let you know also that I really REALLY liked the texture you added for the Poisoned Water Supply quest Dark Passage area. Is this the same texture you plan on using in The Cave levels when they come out? Also, based on your post, are you planning on releasing Cave levels to WoL, or only HotS.

Oh almost forgot to include this silly screenshot of an item giving "+0 strength" heh.

Thanks, fixed.

So, the text of the char screen is above the stash and the picture of the char screen is below it? I intend to fix all of these problems one day, but I would rewrite all of the windows using a single dialog and panels. Then I can easily control which one is shown above and reuse all dialog items for each player which should free a lot of variable space.

I made a small test map for Blizzard for that bug last friday because they didn't fix that problem, yet. So, I guess with HotS, it will be fixed. You can remove the tooltip by hovering over another HUD element with a tooltip like the xp bar.

fixed. thanks

I planned to make a player-player trading dialog one day that you can use when you are both in Tristram. I'm not sure, if I want the ability to stash gold. How would I handle it when a player dies? Would I remove a portion of the stashed gold? Would I keep it safe there, so players keep stashing all of their gold every time they go into the city?

I was thinking about adding a mana regeneration upgrade for the sorcerer, but I didn't think about using it as an active skill. If you have ideas for power attacks, it would be cool, if you share them.

I'm not sure, if I like the leveling by use. It was suggested here before a few pages back already. Also, not every spell is offensive. In addition to that I would need to save all of the xp values... I would rather not save that for each skill and add something different to the game instead. I think I would prefer a system that is like D2, but uses spell book levels as synergies...

Both would be possible to some degree. I'm not sure, if I can show the real actors, but at least I can show blips like the radar tower in sc2.

The Cave levels have a different ground texture and use lava rivers. I'm currently making the bridges work properly. I think I can make them work today.

Also, yes, I will release Cave Levels only on HotS beta for now as the versions aren't 100% compatible and I don't plan to waste a lot of time porting things. It will become available once WoL steps up to the 2.0 version of the engine.
Right now I'm not using HotS assets, so it only requires WoL.

The +0 is created by a curse lowering strength while having an affix on it that grants +x to all stats. Maybe I should hide that entry, when it's 0...

The Synergy thing would be really nifty. I would like to see that kind of thing in this map if you are able to make it balanced.

I was mostly considering the skills leveling on use to be able to level them past level one. you could always place a low level limit on the skills maxing out at like level 5 or 3 or something. You could always have an alternative method for leveling up the skills, I was just thinking of the "level on use" as one method. Technically you could just have skill upgrades drop just like spellbooks do, just only have them drop for the character('s) that are currently in the map. Or if you decide to allow trading, you could just have them drop no matter what. Although having them drop as spellbooks might make them fairly hard to obtain. You would also need to consider if you would put a gold value on them or just have them valued at "1".

Oh and if you did decide to have passive skills, the Sorcerer would have the Mana Regeneration, The warrior would have a Faster walking speed like the 10% boost from that one shrine(forget the name of it), and the Rogue could have maybe an additional 10% dodge chance or something, or maybe a passive 5% chance to deal triple damage. Don't exactly know if any of these would work out but just throwing ideas out there.

About the power attack thing, maybe you could make it like the monks regular attack from hellfire, where it attacks all monsters in a forward 180 degree arc? I don't know if that would be balanced or not, just an idea.

With the character screen bleed, I have my character sheet "behind" the stash. But it still shows the numbers from the sheet. It isn't really a big deal, just a weird occurance.

About the gold in stash thing, I suppose it would be safe from death considering it isn't actually on your character. But I suppose it all depends on how lenient you want to be regarding character gold. I mostly wanted it as a feature to share gold between characters considering you are able to share items between them as well? Again it is totally up to you whether you would include this feature, I just believe it would be a nice addition to the stash.

Also I don't know if I mentioned this already, but it doesn't appear that the speed boost from "Swiftness" or "Speed" suffix affects the warrior at all. I could be mistaken but it didn't seem like they helped. I am unsure if it would even be possible to make them work properly considering the combat is a tad delayed, so that could be the reason why it doesn't seem to affect the speed.

Oh and I was wondering how the Chamber of Bone area is coming along? I was curious why that wasn't in the demo yet, but I am sure you have your reasons for not including it right now.

I also forgot to ask if you are planning on including the Teleport spell as a learn-able spell when you release the caves and if you are also planning on including spells like Nova and Apocalypse as learn-able spells in your map? Apocalypse was a tad OP in the original Diablo, but that was only because people used hacked Archangels stave's as well...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 11 2012, 4:30 pm by SeraphicStar.

In theory, it should lower the weapon's cooldown.
Melee uses actual SC2 weapons, like a Zergling. Its period is 1.1 at start. The random weapon delays are on their default values [-0,0625 to 0,125].
Each stage of the attack speed affixes adds a buff that makes attack speed 5% faster.

But yes, I think something is wrong by testing it. I need to write some outputs and test it a bit.

Special areas take some time to be created. Also, I would like to make them more interesting than the original one. So, the main reason is that I don't know what I should do.

Teleport is a spell that is already ingame. I'm not sure how many spells you could find/buy with the catacombs progress... Nova exists, too. It has the same animation as the traps. Apocalypse might be to OP. Maybe I will add that as scrolls or in some other form. I won't add it as a book. I have the feature in my map that I could place spells into any item, so maybe I will make more use of that for apocalypse.

edit:
It makes melee attacks slower by 5%... :S

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 11 2012, 5:12 pm by Ahli.

Yeah, actually I was wondering why the only scroll in the game was town portal scrolls. I kinda liked the existence of scrolls in the original because they only took up one space, they could be used "twice" via the glitch heh, and they allowed the user to use a spell they wouldn't normally be able to wield due to lower required magic costs. I would love scrolls of Infravision though if they worked like the spell in Diablo 1. I am pretty sure you can't get Teleport as a spell book from only catacombs progress. The only spell with a higher "qlevel" than Teleport is Blood Star. Obviously you don't have that one in the map yet but I am glad you can at least get Teleport via a staff, I just wish I could free up that space for loot instead of having to carry around a staff on each of my characters just to use the spell heh.

Also I was wondering something that I do not believe you explain in your overview or how to play sections. How exactly do you "bind" spells to the belt, I can't seem to figure out how to use this feature.

Oh and about the speed thing, I hope your version allows improvement from "speed" to "haste" on melee weapons. It was really annoying in the original to pay so much extra for haste only to find out it did absolutely nothing different from speed...

http://snag.gy/X9PL5.jpg
Working tiny bridge lifting units.

Hey, that looks good! Glad you were able to get the bridges working.

I had another idea for a skill for Rogues. It is mostly just an idea taken from Diablo 2, but I believe a piercing arrow passive or single active arrow skill would be a nice addition to the Rogue class. You could determine how many monsters it could pierce through via higher skill levels or place a percent chance the arrow pierces if you prefer it to be a passive bonus for use with standard or multishot attacks.

Also for the power attack on the warrior class, you could just have it be a regular attack except maybe it stuns the monster either 100% of the time or a guranteed stun for a lower duration?

The problem is for the skill tree thing you are considering for Diablo 1 is that too many of Diablo 2's skills come to mind when I think of "skill tree". That is probably why I am suggesting skills that come from there as ideas for this map.

Oh I was thinking of an interesting skill that the Sorcerer could have called "Mana Syphon". Pretty much it would allow the Sorcerer to have a mana leech type effect either as a stand alone spell, or a passive skill accompanying other spells with a variety of different percentages based on the spell used. Or if it would be easier, just have a set mana leech effect on all spells used and whatever percent that is, it would give back that much mana to the caster. I am unsure if this is a good skill/spell for the Sorcerer, just an idea.

Edit: I just discovered the cause of why the character sheet bleeds through I think. I equipped an item at the same time it was open and it did this. As you can see, my character sheet is "showing through" the stash box here. Hope you are able to find out why it does this.

Also thanks for fixing the speech dialogue with the Gharbad the Weak quest. I forgot to mention both that and the Magic Banner quest failed to play the dialogue speech sound.

Edit 2: Yay I finally just hit 1 mil exp or lvl 20 on all 3 classes on your map! I was wondering though, do you have a level limit on your demo map right now?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 12 2012, 5:14 pm by SeraphicStar.

Level 51 is max level, but you should run out of monsters that give you experience...

Hey, just found out a couple of things, one of which you might have implemented in purposefully to keep things from getting too OP.

The first thing was that I discovered the timer for the Mana Shield duration spell actually only lasted 9 and a half minutes or 0:09:30 based on my watch timer. I was also wearing a Staff of Mana Shield when I cast the spell and it was at level 5 base with a +1 boost from the staff bringing it to level 6. The card read correctly as Level 5+1 and said a total duration of 800 seconds, which is 13 minutes and 20 seconds. Also even the base level of the spell states 600 seconds which is 10 minutes so it looks like the spell is not taking into account additional level durations. Also I just found another Book of Mana Shield and raised my skill level to 6, but when I try to use the skill with the staff, it shows the icon of the skill being active but it doesn't have the duration full at the start of the skill. I can post a screenshot of this for you if you would like.

The second thing I noticed was that magic requirements for items goes past the "255" normal Diablo maximum for learning spells past a certain point. I am sure you meant for it to be this way to prevent too overpowered of spells possibly but I figured I would point it out in case you didn't. I have a screenshot showing this as well if you would like me to post it.

I was also thinking about the "Chamber of Bone" area you said you were having a hard time thinking of what to do about it. I was wondering if you were having difficulty thinking of a good tileset to give it and I was thinking you could possibly use the old Diablo 1 Hell level wall tilesets for the walls in it. I am unsure how that would work or if it would even work for it but I figured I would toss that idea out there.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 13 2012, 4:35 pm by SeraphicStar.

I was able to recreate that. I fixed that for the shrine effect before, but not for the casted spell.

It should be possible to get over 255 magic at some point in the game and then you would start to read all books. I might lower the requirements increase per level for higher levels to not go over some values.

I'm using real models for walls and not images like D1 did. So I can't do that. Also, I have no wall models for hell levels atm.

edit:
Updated to Version 0.293 on EU and US.
I fixed a few bugs.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 13 2012, 5:41 pm by Ahli.