Wednesday 10 January, 2007

I loved the storyline in this game, much like I did with War3 RoC. This was probably why I ultimately spiraled into the much dreaded WoW, which sucked up the majority of my playing time until I escaped. I still enjoy playing TFT, more so DoTA which is a custom map for the game rather than the actually game play. This probably stims from my probablems with micromanaging units, which is probably rappidly apparent if you've read any of my other posts.

To take the micromanagement a bit farther, lets say you've been hired to design an AI that will take care of the player's micromanagement for them.

Imagine you have a console that has little check-boxes like "defend this base" or "make expansion at this minimap ping" or "creep this area" or something like that. Make a list of all the things you wish you didn't have to consistantly micromanage throughout the game and give some thought to how you might go about building an AI or scripting system to do it for you.

If you were feeling really motivated (which you don't by any means have to) you could try making a custom Warcraft map that incorporates some of these idea's via the trigger system. I've used the world editor alot and it's a great tool. Simplify things...like, cut out all the units but a town hall, barracks, tower, peon and footman. Try making some scripts to do expanding and techtree for you. Or perhaps a script that takes care of the early-game startup. You could toggle these scripts on and off with a chat message. You might not be the only one turned off by the micromanagement, with any luck, if you could develope a map-mod like that it might be the next DotA.