Hi all, thanks for the good words. You're right, the map is less than 10% done and we have a lot of work to do.
I read the moderator team's perspectives on map development and one gripe was releasing un-finished maps. Our tension is that most the team work full-time (12 hours a day at P&G for me) and do not have the resources to beta test rigoriously internally. >50% of the bugs reports/suggestions are now coming from the Community. Maybe it's a more Google (open source) way or running it vs Apple/Blizzard method which releases a very polished product at the end of the cycle.
A really addictive and nice map. I approve a 100% your experience system that unlocks classes.
You should go and request a tychus and raynor teamwork colored models, that would really add to the game (or disable medic's teamcolor).
GRAPHICS :
- Ghost's attack is quite broken. You should revise your animation bracket opening and content.
- A lot of abilities, especially healings, need visual effects ! How is it that you don't see when you're under a medipack effect ?
- The abberration boss doesn't have any attack and spell animation. It took me several games to realise he is the one calling down the zerg pods. Maybe add some effect when he cast the spell as well as an attack animation ?
RANDOM NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS :
- I've seen you put the medic portrait with a marine model. I would have done the opposite, a medic model with a male marine portrait (there's about 25 of them to choose from).
But that's just me :)
- Why does medics have psionic abilities ? Especially when their talent tree sugest nanotechnology ?
- Those experience giving quests were awesome, altought a bit blur. Need moar !! And maybe make them clear in the questlog or something.
- Need Firebat flammer as a t2 weapon ! that'd be rad.
- The tychus character had a ultimate ability a bit unclear, and with no visual effects.
Hi Yaos01, agree with your feedback and that will be added. We wanted to ensure that the basic mechanics of the abilities worked before before creating the aesthetics (to help the team prioritize).
Thank you for the support =) One of our teammates, Earendil, is looking to build a professional career in game design and the experience here will help him hopefully.
As far as game and level design, and modelling, me and Xaragoth will be more than happy to help.
And if you need testers on EU, feel free to give us a shout for that aswell.
We both really like NOTD and have great hopes for the StarCraft2 version.
I was actually planning to make a model with all "soldier" animations since s3rius is planning to do some NotD themed map. But he's kinda busy now. So not sure if anything is going to happen.
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/6186/marine.png Its not custom model, its customized or adapted model with all custom animations in plan specifically for NotD.
Tried you map and its ok. Not perfect coz its early stage still. Got bored after some time.
Hi Tigerija, good stuff and I like the leaner model. Thanks for the feedback on the map. We'll do our best to improve it each week. The map would be "complete" by June 2011.
Been playing it alot in an attempt to get to the higher classes, till I realised they weren't all functional yet since then taking a bit of a break at 280+- xp.
Some things that I noticed is:
Friendly fire, for some reason the ghost is the only one with a friendly fire ability, this can give grievers the time of their life and I think you should revise it.
Items on dead; items don't drop and this can become a huge problem if someone snatches all mags and then gets owned.
Quests -> Make it slightly more clear what quest you are on and what you need to do, use a uniform way for this instead of text popping above marines and then as a text message, perhaps a small leaderboard with questname and expendable to show objectives.
Weapons - Definately need more weapons cause they are awesome and give you such a nice way of being 'unique' in your team.
Ailments - Hard to notice when somebody has them and most medics forget to use their lazer, make several abilities remove it and/or add a rest button where your character is stunned for a while but then loses the ailments.
Recon - Ultimate talent of mobility bit useless in my opinion, perhaps something along the line of teleporting to a teammember or teleporting one to you; bit complicated I know but it has to be mobile :P
Overall great map and had me really addicted, hope the rest of the classes are added soon and more weapons and equipment. I think I may be one of the reasons why it's in the top 10 now seeing as I played it non stop for 2 days long :P
Also still haven't finished it ever so good job on difficulty.
Willing to test on EU, that's all I can do though.
One of the most polished? Not at all. Its currently the only one in the NOTD style (others are being worked on and look a lot better than yours :p), which explains the number of games. I wouldn't give you a lot of ranking for it right now, because of so many design flaws still inside.
Comment to the project:
While I enjoyed playing NOTD in the beginning, lately it isn't cutting edge anymore. I guess it was the "omg finally a 1 hour long survival map again" that kept me going in the beginning. After some time the map showed its flaws to me and also the number of idiots on BNet that don't care to read what you tell them to do increases the number of annoying people by infinite. It also misses what made the old NOTD so good. Randomness. The need to really work together at all times. Currently, if you're a medic and go into Psi, you can kick ass on your own like nobody's business. And if you go with Assa-Sniper and have your energy at 200 for a boss, that boss can say good-night.
There is still a LOT of work to do and we have come a close on our primary content development phase (12 classes, 3 storylines). We're starting the polishing work which will take several months. The polishing phase will include (but is not limited to): random events, zombie/marine AI, more items, UI upgrade, terrain revamp, storyline and cinematics, map optimization, SFX. We aim to complete the map by June 2011.
Help Needed:
i) Continue sharing constructive criticism to improve the map
ii) Like NOTD on Facebook
The cut-scenes are annoying after the first time. Does anyone really enjoy the "lets get the hell out of here!" civilian, or the screaming ones? Also, I have died due to them jacking control away at a critical moment.
The XP needed for to access higher level classes is ludicrous. Grinding is necessary. Which sucks because of..
The limited replay value. Other than grinding for access to new classes, you have no reason to come play again once you've beaten it. The map always plays the same.
So to echo others, you need more game-play paths, more weapons and equipment, etc. Otherwise good job, well produced.
Thanks critic. We've added more items (7 new weapons, 3 new armor, 3 new supplies) and sub-missions recently. We will do our best to shorten the cutscenes - and/or have scripted sequences that still allow players to retain control. We are also spreading out the rewards across ranks more soon, especially the gap between 2k and 10k.
We're learning to script boss fights now and decided to start by learning from World of Warcraft too. We aim to make several original ones in the next few weeks and/or adapt the best ideas from other games in a way that plays to SC2 strengths.
New Alpha Company gameplay trailer. Alpha Company is one of the 3 storylines available in NOTD. It is unlocked for teams which have a basic understanding of game fundamentals. Enjoy!
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Night of the Dead is an 8 player cooperative survival mod for StarCraft II. You can find us on NA/EU/SEA servers.
Find Us: http://www.notdstarcraft.com
Follow Us: http://www.facebook.com/notdstarcraft
I just tried it, its not bad, tho it needs lot of work. Quite good work. GJ.
100 EXP. Badazing. Its really not bad, but it has a long, long road ahead.
Hi all, thanks for the good words. You're right, the map is less than 10% done and we have a lot of work to do.
I read the moderator team's perspectives on map development and one gripe was releasing un-finished maps. Our tension is that most the team work full-time (12 hours a day at P&G for me) and do not have the resources to beta test rigoriously internally. >50% of the bugs reports/suggestions are now coming from the Community. Maybe it's a more Google (open source) way or running it vs Apple/Blizzard method which releases a very polished product at the end of the cycle.
@Ability1: Go
A really addictive and nice map. I approve a 100% your experience system that unlocks classes.
You should go and request a tychus and raynor teamwork colored models, that would really add to the game (or disable medic's teamcolor).
GRAPHICS :
- Ghost's attack is quite broken. You should revise your animation bracket opening and content.
- A lot of abilities, especially healings, need visual effects ! How is it that you don't see when you're under a medipack effect ?
- The abberration boss doesn't have any attack and spell animation. It took me several games to realise he is the one calling down the zerg pods. Maybe add some effect when he cast the spell as well as an attack animation ?
RANDOM NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS :
- I've seen you put the medic portrait with a marine model. I would have done the opposite, a medic model with a male marine portrait (there's about 25 of them to choose from).
But that's just me :)
- Why does medics have psionic abilities ? Especially when their talent tree sugest nanotechnology ?
- Those experience giving quests were awesome, altought a bit blur. Need moar !! And maybe make them clear in the questlog or something.
- Need Firebat flammer as a t2 weapon ! that'd be rad.
- The tychus character had a ultimate ability a bit unclear, and with no visual effects.
Keep up the good work, I'll be playin your map.
Hi Yaos01, agree with your feedback and that will be added. We wanted to ensure that the basic mechanics of the abilities worked before before creating the aesthetics (to help the team prioritize).
Thank you for the support =) One of our teammates, Earendil, is looking to build a professional career in game design and the experience here will help him hopefully.
As far as game and level design, and modelling, me and Xaragoth will be more than happy to help.
And if you need testers on EU, feel free to give us a shout for that aswell.
We both really like NOTD and have great hopes for the StarCraft2 version.
<sub>P.S. Make the loading screen less ugly</sub>
@Otixa: Go
The loading screen is great imo :)
Hi Otixa, thank you for the interest. If you are keen, you can help make public-domain models for:
- Regular zombies
- Air zombie
- Flare animation (military type)
We will give you and Xaragoth full credit for the models.
Our designer will be updating the load-screen next week. The current version is a proof of concept and is less than 60% done.
I was actually planning to make a model with all "soldier" animations since s3rius is planning to do some NotD themed map. But he's kinda busy now. So not sure if anything is going to happen.
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/6186/marine.png
Its not custom model, its customized or adapted model with all custom animations in plan specifically for NotD.
Tried you map and its ok. Not perfect coz its early stage still. Got bored after some time.
I played original NotD and NotD:AM; A LOT.
Hi Tigerija, good stuff and I like the leaner model. Thanks for the feedback on the map. We'll do our best to improve it each week. The map would be "complete" by June 2011.
Been playing it alot in an attempt to get to the higher classes, till I realised they weren't all functional yet since then taking a bit of a break at 280+- xp.
Some things that I noticed is:
Friendly fire, for some reason the ghost is the only one with a friendly fire ability, this can give grievers the time of their life and I think you should revise it.
Items on dead; items don't drop and this can become a huge problem if someone snatches all mags and then gets owned.
Quests -> Make it slightly more clear what quest you are on and what you need to do, use a uniform way for this instead of text popping above marines and then as a text message, perhaps a small leaderboard with questname and expendable to show objectives.
Weapons - Definately need more weapons cause they are awesome and give you such a nice way of being 'unique' in your team.
Ailments - Hard to notice when somebody has them and most medics forget to use their lazer, make several abilities remove it and/or add a rest button where your character is stunned for a while but then loses the ailments.
Recon - Ultimate talent of mobility bit useless in my opinion, perhaps something along the line of teleporting to a teammember or teleporting one to you; bit complicated I know but it has to be mobile :P
Overall great map and had me really addicted, hope the rest of the classes are added soon and more weapons and equipment. I think I may be one of the reasons why it's in the top 10 now seeing as I played it non stop for 2 days long :P
Also still haven't finished it ever so good job on difficulty.
Willing to test on EU, that's all I can do though.
Thanks for the map!
Here's a temporary NOTD gameplay trailer made by Earendil.
Comment to the trailer:
One of the most polished? Not at all. Its currently the only one in the NOTD style (others are being worked on and look a lot better than yours :p), which explains the number of games. I wouldn't give you a lot of ranking for it right now, because of so many design flaws still inside.
Comment to the project:
While I enjoyed playing NOTD in the beginning, lately it isn't cutting edge anymore. I guess it was the "omg finally a 1 hour long survival map again" that kept me going in the beginning. After some time the map showed its flaws to me and also the number of idiots on BNet that don't care to read what you tell them to do increases the number of annoying people by infinite. It also misses what made the old NOTD so good. Randomness. The need to really work together at all times. Currently, if you're a medic and go into Psi, you can kick ass on your own like nobody's business. And if you go with Assa-Sniper and have your energy at 200 for a boss, that boss can say good-night.
What he said. Its good map but from time you are realizing its flaws. But I am sure this will turn into great map.
What I like is how you placed and did that inventory system. Its simple. I like that. And its placement is perfect. Tho its visuals can be improved.
What I dislike is terrain template...
Thanks for the input Gorandor/tiger. Will work hard to improve it. Agree with more randomness.
Hi all, we've made improvements since NOTD was first featured on sc2mapster by vjeux a few months ago. NOTD is now 40% complete. In addition, we now have a Facebook page to share regular updates: http://www.facebook.com/notdstarcraft. We were also featured positively on a Jan'11 PCGamer article of Top SC2 Mods: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/27/the-best-starcraft-ii-mods-available-now/
There is still a LOT of work to do and we have come a close on our primary content development phase (12 classes, 3 storylines). We're starting the polishing work which will take several months. The polishing phase will include (but is not limited to): random events, zombie/marine AI, more items, UI upgrade, terrain revamp, storyline and cinematics, map optimization, SFX. We aim to complete the map by June 2011.
Help Needed: i) Continue sharing constructive criticism to improve the map ii) Like NOTD on Facebook
@Ability1: Go
So to echo others, you need more game-play paths, more weapons and equipment, etc. Otherwise good job, well produced.
Thanks critic. We've added more items (7 new weapons, 3 new armor, 3 new supplies) and sub-missions recently. We will do our best to shorten the cutscenes - and/or have scripted sequences that still allow players to retain control. We are also spreading out the rewards across ranks more soon, especially the gap between 2k and 10k.
We're learning to script boss fights now and decided to start by learning from World of Warcraft too. We aim to make several original ones in the next few weeks and/or adapt the best ideas from other games in a way that plays to SC2 strengths.
New Alpha Company gameplay trailer. Alpha Company is one of the 3 storylines available in NOTD. It is unlocked for teams which have a basic understanding of game fundamentals. Enjoy!