(Yup, there is no logo for this, just a beautiful background. My photoshop skills are... nonexistant. If anyone else want to create a logo, be my guest)
Current Version: 1.05
Note: The European version 1.03 is identical to the American version 1.05. I just didn't update the European one quite as frequently and just packed all the patches in one update.
This map uses a lot of graphics, sound effects and music tracks from Open Game Art. Beyond that, the map uses two tracks from Heroes of the Storm, and the title screen/loading screen image which is from Thomas Hugo (it was a commission).
Also, here are all of the art and sound assets used in the map that are from OpenGameArt: Assets Folder
Video
(Here's a direct link in case you don't have Flash installed:
Introduction
Gaia Explorers is a Hero Survival map in which you pick a class and defeat a boss in each of the four areas.
Each player has a survivor rank. This rank increases with each defeated boss and improves the various abilities of each class, as well as unlocking other difficulty modes (new players start on Casual difficulty).
If a player group finishes a game session (defeating four bosses), they'll be awarded with a rune. Runes are the primary source for stat boosts.
There is a shop which is accessible after a boss has been defeated. In this shop you can buy potions as well as upgrade your runes.
The map is designed for quick game sessions, lasting only 10 minutes on lower difficulties, and up to 30 minutes on higher difficulties.
It starts out rather simple and easy, but once you've unlocked a few runes and can play on Hard and Brutal mode, I promise you it'll become a whole lot more tactical.
Story
You travel through Green Valley, a place which has been invaded by demons. Aside from demons, there also are other enemies like bandits and other monsters.
In order to return peace to the valley, you must ally yourself with a bunch of unlikely allies. Scholars, thieves, masons, demons, dragons - truly, it couldn't be any more unusual.
Despite their differences, each of these unlikely adventurers have one thing in common: To repel the demon threat. For this goal they work together, just this once.
Classes
In order from left to right:
The old man always wanted to be a great Alchemist, but lacked the skill. In an act of desperation, he made a pact with the devil of the West - Mephisto. His soul is now forever damned, but in exchange he gained a lot of knowledge. With Mephisto's book in hand, he travels to Green Valley to try out his new skills.
Living in seclusion for many years, the Hermit enjoyed a peaceful life in Green Valley. But suddenly demons and other wild beasts are roaming this peaceful place. Determined to stop the threat, he graps his bow and asks the nature for aid against this threat.
The Artisan has been exiled from the Brotherhood for practicing the dark arts. He's been working as a construction worker ever since. One day, he decides to travel to the north in the hopes of a less stressful life. But what he found at this new place instead were demons. Inspired by the other strangers who fight the demons, he remembers the courage of his old Brotherhood days and joins the fight.
Being part of the Brotherhood of the South, the Cleric is a warrior who protects peace and order everywhere.He has been ordered to track down a raider who has fled to the kingdom in the north. Once he reaches Green Valley and notices the demonic presence, he offers a truce to the raider in order to defeat the new treat.
Even after the end of the Demon Wars, the Berserker continues to fight everyone, everywhere.
Nothing seems to be able to stop his bloodlust -except a worthy opponent. Upon hearing rumors that demons have shown up in Green Valley, he travels to the location to slay the strongest demon he can find.
Being one of the few remaining survivors of the Demon Wars, the Warlock has been holding a grudge against humans. Three villages already fell victim to his powers. One day, he feels a strong demonic energy emanating from Green Valley. He travels to the location to find the energy source and acquire its power.
The Raider has been plundering many villages in the southern kingdom. The Brotherhood has been putting a bounty on his head, so he was forced to travel northwards. Eventually, he discovered a peaceful little place known to the locals as Green Valley. He fears neither demon nor human, and is determined to rob them all of their riches.
After finally breaking out of his prison, the Dragoon was ready to go on a vacation. Little did he know, the destination of his vacation - Green Valley - is being invaded by demons. He has to face the demons, or else his curse will return and transform him into a statue once again.
____
Each class has an offensive (damage-dealing), defensive and passive ability. There is no purely-supportive class, everyone here can fight for themselves.
It is advisable to read through each class' description in-game and talk to other players in order to come up with a well-balanced and efficient party.
Especially if you want to defend yourself from sudden enemy ambushes, you're gonna need a good combination of classes to prevail on harder difficulties.
Development History
Gaia Explorers is the successor of my first multiplayer map for Starcraft II (Sanctuary Guardians). Things like the survivor rank and a range of different classes make a return here.
Originally I was working on a different type of map for Rock the Cabinet 2015, but I lost half of my files back in early October. But as soon as I've heard that the deadline has been extended, I've begun work on Gaia Explorers.
The map was created from scratch and was done in six weeks. The graphics and sound assets from my old project (which weren't lost back in October) were reused for this map.
Feedback
The map has just been uploaded, and while it functions just fine at the moment, there might still be some balancing required. Feel free to post any feedback you have in this thread!
1) The way dialogs are anchored cuts leftpart for non-widescreen users.
2) Might be just me, but when guides disconnect from caster like this it feels super wonky. Also note how stat panel is cutoff (name,biological and detector are cut in half)
3) Militias would often not autoacquire my cleric after being attacked by him (they'd just stand there while I blast them from afar); In fact, as I played further - seems that nobody would attack me unless I purposely positioned myself in their vision (which seems to be around 5?).
4) Dialog cutoffs get annoying fast. Also, any way to skip market wait time once I have gotten all my stuffs purchased?
5) I've experienced lag every time I killed a wizard.
6) Once again shop image doesn't cover top part of terrain
7) Walking through ice
8) gg? I suppose I ought to check out how it plays in non-singleplayer, but those cut "..dventure" texts everywhere bother me to no end. So maybe next time ;0
Edit:
Bonus: Runes image is too shy - hides behind the clock
This seems to be one of the few spots I haven't covered in my pathing work. I checked through my terrain again and fixed that along with another doodad. Hopefully all the doodads should be 100% solid now.
About the "screen cutoff":
Yeah... the game isn't meant to be played in anything other than widescreen/fullscreen.
I can try to fix the text messages, but the menu to the right is unfixable to me, as this is part of the Layout system rather than a custom trigger. I've spend a lot of time just to get this to work at all, and I'm out of ideas. Unless a Layout genius shows up, the right side will remain buggy for smaller/non-widecreen resolutions.
About the enemy aggro:
I have to work on that. Every character was done from scratch, so any aggro settings that worked on an existing Starcraft II unit is obviously not there.
There is something new in layouts to help with this. Blizzard added SOMETHING to detect widescreen vs not, in order to implement the current chat interface. I'll poke around and see if I can figure that out.
I managed to fix all the dialogues. All menues and messages now appear correctly on anywhere from 1024x768 to Full HD (1920x1080). I'll update the map within the next hour.
The issue with the right menu background still persists though...
I doubt that this can be fixed before the Cabinet deadline, but if anyone else has a solution for this in the future, I'll be sure to update the map with it.
Current Version: 1.05 Note: The European version 1.03 is identical to the American version 1.05. I just didn't update the European one quite as frequently and just packed all the patches in one update.
Americas: battlenet://starcraft/map/1/266906
Europe: battlenet://starcraft/map/2/187326
Suggested Number of Players: 4
Credits
This map uses a lot of graphics, sound effects and music tracks from Open Game Art. Beyond that, the map uses two tracks from Heroes of the Storm, and the title screen/loading screen image which is from Thomas Hugo (it was a commission).
A list of all assets used can be found here: Credits Document
Also, here are all of the art and sound assets used in the map that are from OpenGameArt: Assets Folder
Video
(Here's a direct link in case you don't have Flash installed:
Introduction
Gaia Explorers is a Hero Survival map in which you pick a class and defeat a boss in each of the four areas.
Each player has a survivor rank. This rank increases with each defeated boss and improves the various abilities of each class, as well as unlocking other difficulty modes (new players start on Casual difficulty).
If a player group finishes a game session (defeating four bosses), they'll be awarded with a rune. Runes are the primary source for stat boosts.
There is a shop which is accessible after a boss has been defeated. In this shop you can buy potions as well as upgrade your runes.
The map is designed for quick game sessions, lasting only 10 minutes on lower difficulties, and up to 30 minutes on higher difficulties.
It starts out rather simple and easy, but once you've unlocked a few runes and can play on Hard and Brutal mode, I promise you it'll become a whole lot more tactical.
Story
You travel through Green Valley, a place which has been invaded by demons. Aside from demons, there also are other enemies like bandits and other monsters.
In order to return peace to the valley, you must ally yourself with a bunch of unlikely allies. Scholars, thieves, masons, demons, dragons - truly, it couldn't be any more unusual.
Despite their differences, each of these unlikely adventurers have one thing in common: To repel the demon threat. For this goal they work together, just this once.
Classes
In order from left to right:
____
Each class has an offensive (damage-dealing), defensive and passive ability. There is no purely-supportive class, everyone here can fight for themselves.
It is advisable to read through each class' description in-game and talk to other players in order to come up with a well-balanced and efficient party.
Especially if you want to defend yourself from sudden enemy ambushes, you're gonna need a good combination of classes to prevail on harder difficulties.
Development History
Gaia Explorers is the successor of my first multiplayer map for Starcraft II (Sanctuary Guardians). Things like the survivor rank and a range of different classes make a return here.
Originally I was working on a different type of map for Rock the Cabinet 2015, but I lost half of my files back in early October. But as soon as I've heard that the deadline has been extended, I've begun work on Gaia Explorers.
The map was created from scratch and was done in six weeks. The graphics and sound assets from my old project (which weren't lost back in October) were reused for this map.
Feedback
The map has just been uploaded, and while it functions just fine at the moment, there might still be some balancing required. Feel free to post any feedback you have in this thread!
1) The way dialogs are anchored cuts leftpart for non-widescreen users.
2) Might be just me, but when guides disconnect from caster like this it feels super wonky. Also note how stat panel is cutoff (name,biological and detector are cut in half)
3) Militias would often not autoacquire my cleric after being attacked by him (they'd just stand there while I blast them from afar); In fact, as I played further - seems that nobody would attack me unless I purposely positioned myself in their vision (which seems to be around 5?).
4) Dialog cutoffs get annoying fast. Also, any way to skip market wait time once I have gotten all my stuffs purchased?
5) I've experienced lag every time I killed a wizard.
6) Once again shop image doesn't cover top part of terrain
7) Walking through ice
8)gg? I suppose I ought to check out how it plays in non-singleplayer, but those cut "..dventure" texts everywhere bother me to no end. So maybe next time ;0Edit:
Bonus: Runes image is too shy - hides behind the clock
This seems to be one of the few spots I haven't covered in my pathing work. I checked through my terrain again and fixed that along with another doodad. Hopefully all the doodads should be 100% solid now.
Yeah... the game isn't meant to be played in anything other than widescreen/fullscreen.
I can try to fix the text messages, but the menu to the right is unfixable to me, as this is part of the Layout system rather than a custom trigger. I've spend a lot of time just to get this to work at all, and I'm out of ideas. Unless a Layout genius shows up, the right side will remain buggy for smaller/non-widecreen resolutions.
I have to work on that. Every character was done from scratch, so any aggro settings that worked on an existing Starcraft II unit is obviously not there.
There is something new in layouts to help with this. Blizzard added SOMETHING to detect widescreen vs not, in order to implement the current chat interface. I'll poke around and see if I can figure that out.
I managed to fix all the dialogues. All menues and messages now appear correctly on anywhere from 1024x768 to Full HD (1920x1080). I'll update the map within the next hour.
The issue with the right menu background still persists though...
Below is my code I've used for the Layout file:
I doubt that this can be fixed before the Cabinet deadline, but if anyone else has a solution for this in the future, I'll be sure to update the map with it.