Dark Horizons (MOBA)

[Packet]

I'm just tossing this up for anyone that might be interested in a new concept. I'm currently developing and have been for some time now a MOBA (League of Legends/Dota-Inspired) server which offers 3v3 & 5v5 modes.

Special thanks to Zaela for putting so much hard work into the Zone Import tool. It has been invaluable and this wouldn't be possible without it. Below are some in-game screenshots of the first successful build of the zone itself. There's a lot of polishing that needs to be done on this zone however, it's compiled and working well. Water has yet to be added but that's the next thing I am working on which shouldn't take long at all. One thing to note however, the bump-mapping seems to have way too much depth. This is on purpose for testing. It will be a lot cleaner on release.

Entire Map (not-ingame):
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/map.png

http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss3.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss1.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss4.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss5.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss6.png

Pre-Answered Questions:

Explain game-play a bit.
I won't go over all of the details yet but imagine the product of League of Legends (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/) * EQ.

Matches are predicted to last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or longer. This server will not cater towards those that prefer grinding, doing long quests and camping mobs for hours on end. This server is for those that want to play in a competitive environment and potentially kill other players that have been around for a while. Having a "high-level" character outside of matches provides no physical benefit in an actual match other than your knowledge and experience. There's much more to mention but I won't dig too much into it yet. Technically, you could have another copy of EQ which has our patch and play it during your downtime on another server. Perhaps you're waiting on a rezz or waiting for a raid to start... Whatever your reasoning is, it'll be there.

Will there be bushes that I can hide in?
Yes.

Will there be custom spells and abilities?
Yes. There will even be skill-shots. For those that do not know what skill shots are, the direction you're aiming will make a difference.

How will you choose your "champion" to play in a match?
All players will spawn in a hub. There will be an interface where you queue up to join a match to which you'll then choose your champion through the same interface in-game.

What about the mini map in moba games?
There will be a mini map with fog of war that you can ping and I'll show you soon how we're going to do it.

How many people are on your development team?
Just me at the moment.

Do you have a server host for this yet?
Not yet. I'll figure something out.

How will this affect me playing other servers?
The patch will be reversible through the patcher (whichever one I use, if not my own).

What about cheaters that use MQ2?
I'll do the best I can to rig a client that fucks with MQ2 but I can't stop everything. In this sort of game-mode, cheaters will be pretty noticeable anyways and I'll be watching players when that time comes.

[Packet]

Some more screenshots:

http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss8.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss9.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss10.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ingame/ss11.png

[Tyen05]

Praise, will play.

Turn on the server bro

[basketball]

Trippy.. my brother suggested this idea to me last night! Dota meet EQ. Sounds very rad.

[knowom]

Defiantly has my interest, but that should come as no big surprise I kind of had this general idea nearly a year ago actually longer than that, but I first spoke out about it on the forums in a thread called DotaQuest somewhat sarcastically just gauging interest mostly. I had termed it DotaQuest due to the crossover between Dota/Moba meets EQ.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37249&highlight=dotaquest

Apparently it worked at garnering some interesting because Nerdgasm got interested in the concept itself and himself and myself hashed out a lot of ideas on it.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37392&highlight=dotaquest

along with over here

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37539&highlight=dotaquest

I kind of lost steam after awhile on the development of it though honestly at least I did, but a big part of that was it just felt like a huge undertaking and I was a bit skeptical about the amount of developer helping hands that would or could be acquired towards the project itself.

I did however release some big list of illusion spells and mask templates around the idea however. Basically I took pretty much every race on EoC race viewer and make a illusion spell for it and then make a illusion mask for each of those which I had setup in somewhat of a formulaic methodical system of sorts with resists and armor values and also some bane damages towards another race type. It could defiantly be tweaked more, but it could certainly serve as a pretty decent base or base idea.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38251

Here's a little SQL of where I took the PEQdb 2H weapons types and simply converted them all into 1H equip items instead, but they obviously retained the 2H graphics. I figured it could be a interesting way to add different unusual fresh visual dynamics to the game players aren't accustomed to. Could be useful for Champion templates for this kind of project I believe.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38271

I even showed off how some of that looks as well and ways you might utilize it.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37424

___________________________

Anyway can't wait to see what you do with this project Packets and hope some of the above may be of use for you with it in some shape or form. I see tons of potential for a EQ meets DOTA/MOBA EQemu server personally. The fact that you've got a legit map true to the DOTA/MOBA genre is a huge bonus much more authentic.

You may want to have a additional alternate version of this map without water or just a modified design placement of it and turning the map into a symmetric 4 sided alternate version based on it for some 3v3v3v3 and/or 5v5v5v5 that could incredibly addictive and fun.

You could do defiantly do a ARAM map as well I'd highly recommend that's my favorite LoL map it's awesome Riot turned player base created self restricted game mode idea into a actual map. It's just so straight forward and fun is the cool part about it.

This is turning out really great from looks of it Packet. This could surely end up being awesome from the looks of what you've shown thus far. Defiantly wish you luck on this project and hope you get a lot of additional help with it.

[knowom]

What would be really interesting is if you could take the basic MOBA/DOTA map designs plus some other classics like your typical WoW BG's CTF, resource race, and ffa then make them into interconnected hub pathways in like some wild and crazy "walking dead" sort of intermingled faction vs faction vs faction jockeying for control and position survivalist mayhem.

It would need a half way decent population though to be much fun and obviously at least a handful of maps, but it would be cool to see. In terms of intertwined intermingled pvp I think both daoc and uo had it best for a mmo game type because complexity of a 3rd faction or unpredictable personal player action presents for pvp.

Your standard faction A versus faction B mmo has a hard time of balancing itself out on it's own so you end up with server mergers after server mergers in order to restore balance that's constantly going out of whack by player populations trying to gain a upper hand against another.

MOBA/DOTA is obviously a different topic though they were designed to maintain equal balance more properly despite being side A versus side B since gear doesn't come into the equation and it's just pure skill vs skill, but a balanced team vs team playing field.

[Packet]

Destructible towers are killing things? Check!
Minions (+ occasional siege minion) in all lanes are spawning & fighting? Check!

http://xonos.net/zone/Towers2.png

Meet, provider of the blue buff!
http://xonos.net/zone/GolemSkin.png

Fixed his face.. I had to overlay the original skin and redraw all of the muscle contours. Then, on top of that I added reddish skin tone, lighting & shadowing. Now the golem looks like a big dude with a hunch-neck.

http://xonos.net/zone/GolemSkin2.png

[knowom]

It would be really cool if you could model a trebuchet or cannon which could target the towers with maybe minor aoe splash damage make them a resource gathering quest and limited to like 1 or 2 per team in use at a time. They could be relatively easy to target and kill though and could only indirectly harm enemies by the attacked tower spot. It would add a new layer or twist to MOBA/DOTA, but would feel fairly home with MMO genre DAOC/WARHAMMER for example used sedge weaponry. I could see a ample amount of traps being fun to toss in as well both triggered and environmental places you fall through hidden floors like in Guk. They could do damage, teleport, snare, slow, root, knock back, knock up (upheaval), and so on.

Packet do you know what your going to cap the levels at yet? When I was thinking over and discussing the EQ DOTA/MOBA subject with Nerdgasm in the past I felt like 20 would be a good level cap in the context of EQ that way you could cap skill points at 100 cleanly 5 per level which he seemed to more or less be in agreement with about it. I've admittedly defiantly been influenced by early UO and it's 100 point skill cap, but it worked well in that so feel it could as well for this.

I'm guessing those towers are considered races are target able a bit like a frightful chest mobs from plane of hate and are stationary rooted in place or will be? At least that's how myself and Nerdgasm had thought that aspect through and discussed as a method that made practical sense. Which I'm sure they automatically KOS aggro the opposing team within range additionally.

Are you planning to have a few map variety rotations with different spawn types? Like I can see one being themed around Vampires vs Werewolves, day/night cycles of living/undead, good vs evil mobs, ect a variety of themes are quite easily possible is what I'm getting at.

The map could also have some subtle or somewhat more drastic 3D modeling style design altercations as well. I really like ARAM howling abyss map for example in LoL all mid if you will that's defiantly my favorite. I'd love to have a four faction sided summoners rift type of map because I know it could be ultra competitive and unpredictable. More of a Crystal Scar map design that was a five sided faction would probably make it 3 players per faction side and have a game mode such as FFA, CTF, or some other control scheme would be loads of fun as well. Lastly vary a bit from the 3vs3 or 5v5 match number scales could make things pretty intensified too.

I don't know what you have in mind really at this stage outside of getting a good working prototype up and running, but looks interesting I can see this being a bit hit a lot of us will be anticipating this. I know I will, but I've pushing for this Dota/Moba meets EQ concept for some time. It's great to see someone really a lot more able to pull this off than me working on such a idea and goal. I've actually wanted to see a MOBA based MMO since about the first 3 months or so of playing LoL which I beta tested because it was free to play and sounded awesome and it was and still is as a game it's just gotten better with time.

Hopefully this server can to as well in time. I for one fully am on board with this projects goal and ambition. I wouldn't mind chipping in and contributing a bit towards it if your looking for some additional help and if there is a way I can be of some practical help or aid towards it when time permits of course. I'm not the greatest at 3D modeling, but I've spent a bit of time learning a bunch of basics to how Blender works though admittedly I wouldn't consider myself the most naturally gifted creative person in regards to it. I could probably try to do some custom map types or portions of them anyway if you are interested in some EQ MOBA map variation.

[knowom]

BTW this is why we need rat minions ;) and elite chatari's!

http://thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=26

[Packet]

I'll explain how it's going to work. Here's an unnecessary info-graphic of the map which includes tower (turret) placement with the radius & line of sight, minion paths (red dotted lines), jungle mob placement (for whoever wants to jungle), bushes/shrubs, inhibitor & main base tower.

All of these will most certainly be tweaked but anyone that's played League of Legends will know what all of this means. All of my concepts were based off of League. DOTA, HON & a lot of other moba's share very similar dynamics.
So here's the map:

http://xonos.net/zone/info/map2.png
Note: Players will be able to hide in bushes and will be revealed if another player runs in or they step on a trap (or if a minion happens to be in a bush as well).
It would be really cool if you could model a trebuchet or cannon ...
I am working on a "trebuchet on wheels" npc character model just for this. There won't be splash damage but it will do more damage and have more health than the average minion. These are called "Siege Minions" which spawn every 90 seconds. Each wave of minions will consist of 3 melee & 3 ranged totalling 6 minions per lane. 6 minions will spawn into each lane every 30 seconds. Once the siege minion spawns, there will be 7 minions total which will patrol down their respective lane. I should also note that once you've destroyed an enemy inhibitor in a lane, super minions will begin to spawn once every 30 seconds (along-side regular minions) and the inhibitor will re-spawn in 5 minutes which halts the super minion spawning.

... which could target the towers ...
Towers, inhibitors & bases are all NPC's with custom models that do not move from their position. They can be targeted & destroyed by npcs and players. :) The towers will also prioritize whomever stepped in its radius first unless you attack an enemy champion. Then the tower will aid the champion that was hit over the mobs attacking it.

Here's the tower:
http://xonos.net/zone/info/tower.png

Here's the inhibitor (this one will be redesigned, I hate it actually.. I just needed a placeholder for now):
http://xonos.net/zone/info/inhib.png

I could see a ample amount of traps being fun to toss in as well
There won't be traps already set however, some champions will have visible & invisible traps that can be set.

Packet do you know what your going to cap the levels at yet? When I was thinking over and discussing the EQ DOTA/MOBA subject with Nerdgasm in the past I felt like 20 would be a good level cap in the context of EQ that way you could cap skill points at 100 cleanly 5 per level which he seemed to more or less be in agreement with about it.
The same as League which is 20.

I'm guessing those towers are considered races are target able a bit like a frightful chest mobs from plane of hate and are stationary rooted in place or will be? At least that's how myself and Nerdgasm had thought that aspect through and discussed as a method that made practical sense. Which I'm sure they automatically KOS aggro the opposing team within range additionally.
That would be correct.

Are you planning to have a few map variety rotations with different spawn types? Like I can see one being themed around Vampires vs Werewolves, day/night cycles of living/undead, good vs evil mobs, ect a variety of themes are quite easily possible is what I'm getting at. ......... I really like ARAM howling abyss map for example in LoL .......
I am not thinking that far ahead yet. There will be an aram style (http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&docid=AAPK6ma5AI6t3M&tbnid=ANGUU4N9Ktk8JM:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvideogamesmarcos.blogspot.com%2F&ei=AKvfU4m6B4qu8AHjl4HADw&bvm=bv.72197243,d.b2U&psig=AFQjCNEIFIxJAzd3Bs73gJ_56n1BwAZLQw&ust=1407253615755242) zone eventually but that's down the road assuming this server gains some sort of consistent player-base.

I'd love to have a four faction sided summoners rift type of map ...
For the moment, I'm going to stay with two lanes considering this will require an ample player-base. Currently, to offset missing players - bots will spawn with their own AI that will push on their lanes and assist accordingly.

I could probably try to do some custom map types or portions of them anyway if you are interested in some EQ MOBA map variation.
I appreciate the offer but for the moment, code-work is the largest task in this project. I'm making great progress so far and hope to have a playable alpha within this month. We'll see. Luckily for us, character wipes shouldn't be necessary so there's not much to fear in terms of losing things.

MOBA/DOTA is obviously a different topic though they were designed to maintain equal balance more properly despite being side A versus side B since gear doesn't come into the equation and it's just pure skill vs skill, but a balanced team vs team playing field.
Gear means more than skill sometimes. You'll benefit far more in a match by purchasing gear that complements the champions attributes.

[knowom]

The same as League which is 20.

Gear means more than skill sometimes. You'll benefit far more in a match by purchasing gear that complements the champions attributes. LoL is level 30 for skill tree leveling (kind of like AA), but in game character leveling is set to 18.

MOBA is mostly a skill based team affair while picking the right complimentary gear still plays a important role. How you choose to build can have a positive or negative team impact over the course of the game. Some of which hinges on how well you and your teammates chemistry is over the course of a game.

Adding in 2 of the LoL dominion map control points in the middle of the water paths in the area of space around dragon/baron could be a relatively simple modification. These could trigger/control periodically spawn small minion waves to help attack towers for the opposing teams maybe just for top and bottom lanes though because middle all ready has a shorter travel path which is why it's often the lane teams win or loss from unless they do a good job top or bottom to carry/backdoor. It would really make jungle a heck of a lot more interesting. You might even remove baron/dragon and place them in those locations controlling them would be a buff enough.

[Packet]

I meant 18. I was thinking of something else. I won't be implementing any dominion modes until a player base is established.

[Packet]

MOAR UPDATES!

Inhibitor character models are in!
http://xonos.net/zone/ss_base2.png
http://xonos.net/zone/ss_base3.png



Also, here's a sneak peak at the base model which is what you have to destroy to beat the enemy team!


http://xonos.net/zone/ss_base0.png
------------
http://xonos.net/zone/ss_base1.png

Other than that, development is going quite well! :)

[Shin Noir]

I love your work Packet. Keep it up, if you need help with anything, lemme know (even if it's going to be small with my free time)

[knowom]

You seem to have a good talent for 3D modeling is this something you just picked up or have you been doing this awhile?

[Packet]

I've been dabbling in 3d modeling for years. Not long enough to make it a career but long enough to make some groovy shapes, sometimes. I appreciate the offer Shin Noir! :)

[Braed]

This Server looks like it will be soooo badass. Cannot wait for it to be released, keep doin' what you're doin' packet!

[Packet]

I'm shooting for September alpha release but we'll see.

[Braed]

I'm shooting for September alpha release but we'll see.

Sounds great, can't wait

[kronik]

Awesome work, I'll definitely be trying it out.

By the way, richardo = richie truxillo if I'm not mistaken?

[Aonelyn]

Sweet work Retardo Richardo Ricardo!

[Maze_EQ]

He's the giver of platinum-platinum-platinum-num-num-num

[Packet]

I'm-a rat killer.

[timk]

I was just wondering the other day if anyone had done this and then I see this. Very cool idea. I will definitely try it out when you're up.

[knowom]

I was just wondering the other day if anyone had done this and then I see this. Very cool idea. I will definitely try it out when you're up. The idea itself of a EQ MOBA I'd been discussing on the forums for about a year now. We didn't have Zone Importer until just recently though which was basically vital in order to create proper moba zone maps types. While you could retro fit old zones it wouldn't be too symmetrically balanced quite as accurately. I'm amazed at the enthusiasms for this honestly.

I think there is defiantly a case of seeing is believing involved with a ambitious project like this. It's defiantly inspired me to get back into using blender and trying my hand more at level design between this project and Zaela's zone importer tool.

[Packet]

I'll share my zone with the community once I'm done. It has a lot of polishing that must be done. People can do with it as they please but I will be hiding some branding (just my name) in the geometry. All I ask is that it not be removed. ;)

Also, I'm going to add an invisible plane above the map which I intend on making click-through (if at all possible). This could (hypothetically ofcourse) provide some concept for an isometric view.

[knowom]

Yeah that would be a clever way of enforcing a isometric view if it works depending on the height of the invisible plane. In theory it would change the isometric viewing angle I assume.

[Braed]

Any update on this?

[Packet]

I started school this semester so development has slowed down a bit. I am still working on it though and I'll release some information soon regarding the targeted deadline for beta.

We're probably going to start off beta with less "custom heroes" and simply eq classes just to get this on the roll. Then, as we move on - custom "heroes/champions" will begin to release. The following caveats are what I face in development which are not done:

Mini-Map (Achievable through the Underfoot Client Only)
- THis will be done using the in-game underfoot browser which will include fog of war, player location, pinging, etc. More information will be released soon regarding this.
Bushes
- Bushes are almost in. There just needs to be some codework and the model needs to be imported.
Smarter AI (Mob Aggro is very "EQ-ish" and needs more work)
- To elaborate, ranged minions per each lane do keep at a distance and chunk fire balls as a primary attack however; the aggro pattern isn't so great. They still tend to stand on each other and don't respond like they should in a moba. This can be accomplished but it's taking more time than anticipated.
Winning Sequence
- There is no code written to handle team wins, etc.
Building the match queue
- No code has been written to handle match queues.
Item Shop/Currency
- The item shop has yet to be populated in each base.
Death
- Handling player death in a match without forcing them to zone has yet to be written.
Player Ranking / Hero/Champ Purchasing
- A match win and loss results in some form of reward which will be currency used to purchase new champs/heroes. This has yet to be written in.
Bots
- Given the playerbase of eqemu as a whole, there isn't enough to support consistent 5v5 & 3v3 matches at a constant rate. Actually, there's quite a few players but I don't expect the kind of traffic P99 receives on this server. Plus, who wants to sit in a queue for 2+ hours? We need bots to fill the gap when no one is online. This is in progress. We'll release before bots are in but this is a 'must have' to offset lack of players at non-peak times. There will also need to be some bot ai to take on their own lane depending on the role you choose in the queue. Some champs/heroes do better solo at the top lane whereas some 'support' champions do best at bottom with a ranged carry.

Once these items have been addressed, we'll be ready for beta. Speaking of which, if anyone is interested in helping with this project - I am looking for capable developers. Postings listed below. I can do all of the work but this would release so much faster with some help. :)

Coder
- Help with source & perl or lua scripting and often times database changes/additions.

Database/Content Developer
- Help with content such as items, spells, etc.

Champion Specialist
- Help with development and implementation of champions which include database & some script work (mostly database using front-ends).

[Packet]

It's been months since my last post but I just wanted people to know that this project is still in development. I need some coding assistance and content development help as well if anyone is interested.

[Tyen05]

Welcome back from the dead bro

[Packet]

Thanks! Stupid school - I already have my career but I need the paper if I want to be the one telling people rush projects with unreasonable deadlines. :p

Anyways, yeah - I can do most of the codework but there is a lot to do. There's a couple things that are going to be difficult. Anyone know if the client listens for anything from the server that could be potentially used to add to their current map? Like, player positions, etc...