Talking Trophies

[Guest mrchak]

Every time I look at the Trophy Mantle (That's what I call the area at the top of the map where the little elementals sit that you've won) I think "You know, it would be so great if every once in a while they made little wise cracks, or if they talked to each other." Better yet, if they each had their own personality, and if they interacted with each other.

This is totally an extra, it would add no added gameplay technically, but I think it would be really fun. Especially if they reacted to things happening in the game, or they made fun of you when you leaked, or made fun of other players.

To give them all personality, I was thinking each element has its own style of speech. I knew them all at one point in time, had 'em all written down but I've forgotten most.

Water - talks like a robot

Fire - a guido, Italian like a Soprano

Darkness - 741|<5 H4XX0R

I forget the others.

[Guest Sancdar]

I like the ordered set that exists currently (nice for examining builds), but I do think it would be hilarious if each elemental occasionally tried to decrease its distance to the elementals it was strong against while running from the ones that it's weak to. They'd just chase each other around the area all game!

[Guest Ryukira]

Rofl, sancdar. There would just be one problem, at some point during the game you will glance at the elementals, at that point you will start laughing so hard you wont be able to play, let alone sit/stand/any other cibilized action.

However that would be amusing in its own way:D

[0rb3r]

If you are serious on this I really cant think of any better way to bring back old EleTD players and newcomers to play again this game in final ver. At least, no one is going to forget the pit lords voice saying "Wait a sec, what are you doing nnoo, no, ... noooo" when you summon light element.

I really think that this would give the EleTD revival concept a new dimension.

About the distraction matter, normally when Im bussy I cant see the trophys and if I dont want to listen the soprano-firelord mocking my ice towers, I just dont listen to him. Attention is pretty volonteer in this case. Of course some newcomers may be unable to ignore some comments but .. hey, they will surely stop laughing when they start leaking

[Guest energig]

I havent had sound on warcraft 3 for about a year, i would much rather listen to music so i muted it all. Seems like a pretty cool idea, i wouldnt expect it to attract new players or anything though...

[Guest Sancdar]

Er, I think they'd be talking with text.

[Guest mrchak]

I'm thinking Floating Text, in the color of the element, floating above the element that said it, and it would disappear after like 3-7 seconds...

Think of it as the peanut gallery, making wise cracks and heckling...

[Ghan_04]

Sounds like a great idea, but, of course, players will eventually read every comment and get bored with it after a while.

[Guest Sancdar]

Well, it's not like you ever have reason to look up there normally.

[Guest mrchak]

just a crazy thought - is it POSSIBLE at all using Jass to query an outside database for game variable, e.g. the things they say? Just a crazy thought - if the comments they say can be maintained on the website in a more dynamic way, then people will always have new stuff to hear... people could submit their own quotes too, make the game interactive - have to filter out the internet garbage, but it could be really fun

[Ghan_04]

I'm pretty sure that's impossible. The closest you can get to that might be a Game Cache or possibly a bot such as the one used with DOTA. I don't know how to do any of that, though.

[Guest Sancdar]

No, it's not possible.

[Guest xSolmyRx]

Hahaha! Earth elemental should be Scottish.

[Guest LightningLord]

Put out one Computer to do the Messages. I know that you can change the color and the name of players, so that's the easiest way to do so. In fact, you need only 1 CPU for the enemies. -.-

[Guest Sancdar]

If you only have 1 CPU for the enemies, like in versions prior to 3.0, you get creep stuttering because too many move orders are being issued or whatever. You'll notice this in many other TDs that have a lot of enemies, or even in EleTD 3.0 if you have two players sharing a CPU that don't build any towers, just wait to die.

[Guest 1mpulse]

i would love my trophis to talk and run around like little minions.

[Guest LightningLord]

Maybe you could use the neutral players (Passive, Creeps, Doodads and Goldmines) for chatting. In one map, I saw that I had a black teamcolor, so you might do this for the neutral players.

[Guest Ubernuber]

I mean, the types of remarks that can come from each elemental could be classified, and then you just fill up arrays for all elements.

Like:

- player summons dominating elemental (higher/equal/lower level)

- player summons dominated elemental (higher/equal/lower level)

- player summons next level of same elemental

- opposing element tower (possibly extend to double or triple towers) makes most kills in one round

- tower that is a combination with dominating/dominated element makes most/least kills

As in Pit Lord (darkness) ridiculing an ice tower (water + light), because it didn't get any own kills "even if they team up, they can't get anything done".

After each round, calculate a score for each possible quip:

- player must have element in order to be eligible

- margin by which a tower made most kills

- overall usefulness of a type of tower

- blah

Then pick one out of the top ten or so best scores randomly.

P.S.: One easy way to store the kills of a tower is via an ability that does nothing except show a tooltip with the number of kills, another is to change the acquisition range (not combat range) by really small increments. For example, a Druid of the Talon normally has 700, add 0.01 for each kill - even after 300 kills, acquisition range changed by less than 0.5%.