Improving The Site...Round 1

[Karawasa]

I'm looking for talented writers to help improve the text on the website. I feel that having good content is key in attracting and keeping players who visit. To start, I'd like to focus on the homepage. I'm looking for more detail, better writing style, and perhaps expansion of content (talk about new and different things about the game). For reference, here is the text as it stands now:

Element TD is an eight player WarCraft 3 game. This WarCraft 3 game has two major distinguishing features. The most important one is the use of elemental attack and armor types. Each creep has one of seven different elemental armor types, and similarly each tower has one of seven different elemental attack types. Each type is strong vs. one (200% damage) and weak vs. another (50% damage), and they are arranged in a circle.

It goes like this: Light > Darkness > Water > Fire > Nature > Earth > ...

Not only that, but most of the towers in this tower defense are made out of the elements too. Every five creep waves, each player gets one pick that he can use to choose an element (or to increase the level of one he chose earlier, up to level three). And for every combination of two or three elements, there is a different tower.

The map consequently has 6 + 15 + 20 = 41 elemental towers, two basic ones, and an all elemental combo tower (the Periodic Tower of the Elements), totaling 44 different towers. And they come in different levels. You can't have all of them on maximum level, as you are limited to 11 elemental picks, and it would take 6 x 3 = 18 picks to get all six elements to level three.

So you are limited to the towers your chosen elements allow you, and the set of elements you have is called the build. There are 15 four-element builds and six five-element builds. Most two and three element builds don't work too good.

As for the other distinguishing feature, this WarCraft 3 game has a special way to deal with how to gain WarCraft gold. In many other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, you can leak creeps to get rid of them. If you have enough life, you can simply let that annoying uber-dragon pass through, and pay with life and a loss of WarCraft gold for it. Not so in Element TD. Creeps that leak return through the entrance again, so you get a second go at the creeps, and the creeps get a second go at you. As a result, you can't lose the WarCraft gold, but you can't get rid of the creep either. You have to solve every creep wave eventually, or pay dearly in lives lost.

But there is more, unlike most other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, in Element TD you get rewarded if you don't spend all your WarCraft gold. There is a counter ticking down from 15 to 0 over and over again, and every time it hits zero, all players get interest on their WarCraft gold. The interest rate starts at 2% of total WarCraft gold and can be increased via picks. They say money makes money...(or in this case, WarCraft gold)

To add to the replay-ability, there are multiple difficulty settings, the option of playing with heroes, and choosing from a variety of different game conditions. See if you can survive 60 waves of creeps running though your onslaught of elements! It's a spotlight WarCraft 3 game from Blizzard Entertainment.

[jolin012]

Maybe use linking more? like not making a 3page text, but keep it short, and allow the players to click, let's say, the word "interest" to get linked to more detailed info about interest... or maybe not:P

[Guest 1mpulse]

thats a good idea

[Guest Sancdar]

I'll have a go at rewriting what you have now when I get off work tonight.

<---on lunch break

[Guest PaperEye]

Hey everybody, this is my first post (thank you, thank you) but uh here's my go at a revamped home page. Feel free to tear it apart, if I had any self-respect I lost it in the war, so go wild. In my vision, blue = possible changes (but are iffy at best), red = changes I think might help narrative flow and functionality, red mostly signifies changes to original text. (EDIT: I don't use red and blue that much, only in spare cases. Mostly the colors are used for Headings or for Element emphasis.) Here go'es:

(First, an update at the top of the page which informs people of the upcoming beta, something as simple as:)

ELETD 4.0 BETA OUT BY END OF '07!

Vast hordes of creeps struggle for life as torrents of fire and ice rain from above. Feverous players scheme and plot as their hours dwindle in dark corners of home and health. A spattering of invaders die by the light and are reborn anew to frustrate and condemn; a lucky few laugh as their shields brighten to near-invulnerability. No, these creeps are not the creeps of past days. (or) These creeps live and die by the fire of a new age.

The BETA is coming. New Year's Eve '07.

(As for the introduction:)

What is Element Tower Defense?

Element TD is an eight player WarCraft 3 Custom Game. Following the tradition of past Tower Defenses, invading hordes follow a specific path from start to finish. Towers must be built, creeps must be killed, victory must be earned!

A Proliferation of Strategy: Earth, Wind, and Water...

Unlike most Warcraft 3 tower defenses, Element TD has two major innovations that allow for a depth of strategy unseen in contemporary Tower Defense gameplay.

By far the most important innovation reveals itself in the way invading hordes take damage and and in how towers deal out the carnage.

Every creep wave and each tower has its own corresponding element. Each element deals enhanced damage to its "natural" opposite.

Fire deals extra damage to Water, Darkness destroys Light. And so on.

The elements follow a pattern, each element being vulnerable to the element preceding it and near-invulnerable to the element following it.

The elements form a circle, it goes as follows:

Light > Darkness > Water > Fire > Nature > Earth > ... Light

Is That All?

By far the most interesting innovation involves the leveling up and combining of your defensive structures. Beginning at level 5 and for every 5 levels after that, the players chooses an Elemental Guardian to summon. These guardians channel the secrets of deep and powerful elemental magik, and when killed they grant the user the use of a specific element.

These elements either infuse existing towers with their specific qualities or inhabit their own, specialized elemental tower. Beginning with two elements, the user can combine elements and create unique dual- or tri-element towers. Each tower has its own offensive and support capabilities, such as creating an intense whirlwind to slow oncoming attackers down. Rumors: A scarce few boldly suggest that in 4.0 even the creep waves will have their own elemental-derived powers. The invading undead reanimating mid-maze, divine-shield wielding creeps? Surely they jest.

The Devil's in the Details...

Each element can be chosen again in order to create base element towers of levels 1, 2, and 3. In this way the 6 base elements create six base towers, each upgradeable corresponding to how many guardians of a single element a user has slain.

But: Each element combines with another element to create a unique tower, and each unique tower can combine with a third and separate element to create a tri-element tower. There are 14 dual-E towers and 21 tri-E towers.

Yet each unique tower can be upgraded in effect increasing its own specific attack or support capabilities. The user may purchase these upgrades once they have leveled up each element that goes into the tower. Basically, the more guardians you kill the more powerful towers you can erect.

Two dead Fire Guardians and two dead Water Guardians allows for a level 2 Fire + Water dual-element tower. Consequently, this tower's special ability is to damage incoming enemies over time.

Lusting for More In-depth Strategy?

Try Gold. Money in Element Tower Defense works in a very unique and strategically complex way.

The creeps never run away without giving you their gold. That being said, when they reach the exit of your maze they take away a life per creep and then reenter the beginning of your maze. In this way you are neither denied gold for leaking but neither can you allow tough enemies to glide past your defenses. All enemies must die in order to attain victory.

(or)

As for the other distinguishing feature, this WarCraft 3 game has a special way to deal with how to gain WarCraft gold. In many other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, you can leak creeps to get rid of them. If you have enough life, you can simply let that annoying uber-dragon pass through, and pay with life and a loss of WarCraft gold for it. Not so in Element TD. Creeps that leak return through the entrance again, so you get a second go at the creeps, and the creeps get a second go at you. As a result, you can't lose the WarCraft gold, but you can't get rid of the creep either. You have to solve every creep wave eventually, or pay dearly in lives lost.

But there is more. Unlike most other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, in Element TD you get rewarded if you don't spend all your WarCraft gold. There is a counter ticking down from 15 to 0 over and over again, and every time it hits zero, all players gain interest on the gold they have not yet used. In this way the user gains a reward for killing off his attackers without using all of his gold. Some difficulties exact a punishing attention to gold used and saved and interest gained in order to survive a wave five levels down the line.

Interest starts at 2%, but players will argument this with purchases of interest enhancers instead of Elemental Gaurdians once every 5 levels.

At the End of the Road there Lies a Dark and Disturbing Victory...

60 massive, elementally charged levels.

6 difficulty modes, ranging from inebriated laziness to ADHD frenzy.

Plus the Popular RANDOM Mode: Every Elemental Choice or Interest Upgrade is chosen for you, but every tower sells for 100% of its value. The hardest and most evolving of modes, Random! forces you to change your strategy for every wave, element, and difficulty encountered.

Welcome to Element Tower Defense. The Future is Yours.

--End, Allright, thanks for reading first of all, jesus thats kind of long. On that note, my thougths are to have a hyperlink about halfway down that links to the rest of the information on another page. That way the reader isn't assaulted by a wall of text.

As always, scream about why you think this sucks or is a horrible idea, or just tell me why the original is better. This is just an idea after all, but a change would be well for the page, I think.

On a final note, an old english teacher of mine told me that Revision is a complete change, an overhaul, a complete rewriting of your entire work based only on the original themes. Editing, on the other had, is just housework, a little dusting here and there. If u think this needs revision, say so and, if you feel inclined, write your own. If you see editing, such as needed hyperlinks or less dense narrative, say that too.

--PaperEye

[Guest Meatsim009]

Mate

I think that is tremendous. I give you 372 kudos. (1 kudo = 1 second grunt of approval, 10 kudos = 5 seconds of hand-clapping, 50 kudos = 10 second standing ovation, 100 kudos = 30 seconds of standing ovation with cheering. Therefore, you receive 90 seconds of standing ovation with cheering, followed by 10 seconds of continued standing ovation as the cheers dwindle, followed by 10 seconds of hand-clapping, and finally, 2 grunts of approval). Congrats!!

[Guest Sancdar]

This is more thoroughly done than I would have managed, nice work.

Every creep wave and each tower has its own corresponding element. Each element deals enhanced damage to its "natural" opposite.

Fire deals extra damage to Water, Darkness destroys Light. And so on.

These examples are backwards, and if elements did extra damage to their opposites I think that Dark/Light would each be good against the other.

The elements follow a pattern, each element being vulnerable to the element preceding it and near-invulnerable to the element following it.

The elements form a circle, it goes as follows:

This is redundant, especially considering the preceding paragraph. How about just "The elemental strengths/weaknesses are as follows:"?

Light > Darkness > Water > Fire > Nature > Earth > ... Light

Light needs to be a different shade, but I understand that with the forum's limited color selections that was the best you could manage. This is just a note for if/when this is transferred to the website proper.

Furthermore, each tower can be upgraded to increase its own specific attack or support capabilities. Towers may only be upgraded if all of their component elements have been brought to the next level. Basically, to build better towers, you need to kill more guardians.

Two dead Fire Guardians and two dead Water Guardians allows for a level 2 Fire + Water dual-element tower. Consequently, this tower's special ability is to damage incoming enemies over time.

The "consequently..." part doesn't make sense to me. How does it follow that a level 2 Fire/Water tower must do damage over time? The example was originally to show that you need to level up elements to level up towers, not that elements combine to make new abilities. The example is kind of redundant in the first place, I'd just axe it.

Lusting for More In-depth Strategy?

Try Gold. Money in Element Tower Defense works in a very unique and strategically complex way.

The creeps never run away without giving you their gold. That being said, when they reach the exit of your maze they take away a life per creep and then reenter the beginning of your maze. In this way you are neither denied gold for leaking but neither can you allow tough enemies to glide past your defenses. All enemies must die in order to attain victory.

The intro two sentences aren't that good. A lot of text style changes, and a misleading description. Money in EleTD isn't all that unique or complex; you use it to buy things, and get it (mostly) from killing things.

(or)

As for the other distinguishing feature, this WarCraft 3 game has a special way to deal with how to gain WarCraft gold. In many other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, you can leak creeps to get rid of them. If you have enough life, you can simply let that annoying uber-dragon pass through, and pay with life and a loss of WarCraft gold for it. Not so in Element TD. Creeps that leak return through the entrance again, so you get a second go at the creeps, and the creeps get a second go at you. As a result, you can't lose the WarCraft gold, but you can't get rid of the creep either. You have to solve every creep wave eventually, or pay dearly in lives lost.

But there is more. Unlike most other tower defense games for WarCraft 3, in Element TD you get rewarded if you don't spend all your WarCraft gold. There is a counter ticking down from 15 to 0 over and over again, and every time it hits zero, all players gain interest on the gold they have not yet used. In this way the user gains a reward for killing off his attackers without using all of his gold. Some difficulties exact a punishing attention to gold used and saved and interest gained in order to survive a wave five levels down the line.

Interest starts at 2%, but players will argument this with purchases of interest enhancers instead of Elemental Gaurdians once every 5 levels.

The original, on the other hand, is bulky and uses the word "WarCraft" far too many times. Here's my attempt:

One distinguishing feature of Element TD is the leak system. In most Tower Defense games, if you let a creep reach the end of its path, you lose a life and whatever gold you would have gotten from killing it. In Element TD, leaked creeps respawn at the start of the path. This gives you another chance at the gold they carry, but gives them a chance to steal another life. To reach the end of the game, all 60 waves must be completely defeated.

The final innovation in Element TD also relates to gold. While players' instincts might be to build as strong a defense as they can manage, this game offers rewards for hoarding money. Every 15 seconds, all players gain interest on their unspent gold. You can be starved for cash in later levels if you don't properly manage your gold.

Each player's interest rate begins at 2%/15 seconds, but the percentage can be improved at the cost of an element pick.

The rest of it looks pretty good to me, with one exception. Even Blizzard usually leaves the C in WarCraft uncapitalized. Going by their site and common usage, the proper name of the game is "Warcraft III" rather than "WarCraft 3".

Feel free to comment on my comments and change my changes. While WC3 ogres prove two heads aren't always smarter than one, I think it'll improve things in this case.

[Guest 1mpulse]

all im going to add is, remove all the self praise please

eg. "the most interesting innovation"

i think saying "the unique aspects of this defense" doesnt sound so........ cocky.

but thats just me

[Guest PaperEye]

Allright, thanks Sancdar.

For now I'm going to repost my original with updated information painted in Red. I am not at all adverse to editing this post, removing it, and replacing an updated post for the original. So as not to get confused about which response deals with which version, I'll just repost and you can respond to that (hell, its not like the internet is lacking for space).

On a side note: I'm up for totally rewriting the thing if it doesn't pass inspection, and if anyone in charge has some pointers- I'm listening. And for anyone else looking to take a crack at this thing, go freaking ahead. I don't have a monopoly on content, so throw your version out there and I'll take a look.

Updated Post:

(First, an update at the top of the page which informs people of the upcoming beta, something as simple as:)

ELE TD 4.0 BETA OUT BY END OF '07!

Vast hordes of creeps struggle for life as torrents of fire and ice rain from above. Feverous players scheme and plot as their hours dwindle in dark corners of home and health. A spattering of invaders die by the light and are reborn anew to frustrate and condemn; a lucky few laugh as their shields brighten to near-invulnerability. No, these creeps are not the creeps of past days. (or) These creeps live and die by the fire of a new age.

The BETA is coming. New Year's Eve '07.

(As for the introduction:)

What is Element Tower Defense?

Element TD is an eight player Warcraft III Custom Game. Following the tradition of past Tower Defenses, invading hordes follow a specific path from start to finish. Towers must be built, creeps must be killed, victory must be earned!

A Proliferation of Strategy: Earth, Wind, and Water...

Unlike most Warcraft III tower defenses, Element TD has two major innovations that allow for a depth of strategy unseen in contemporary Tower Defense gameplay.

Whereas traditional tower defense overlooks armor permutations and attack type, Element TD creates its own world wherein each invading horde and attacking tower has a specific corresponding element.

Each elemental armor takes additional damage from the element preceding it and retains near-invulnerability from the element following it. Consequently, each tower deals damage based on its attack element versus the armor element of the invading creeps.

The circle of elements goes as follows:

Light > Darkness > Water > Fire > Nature > Earth > ... Light

Is That All?

Element TD retains a unique form of leveling up defensive towers that opens the door for a new dimension of strategy. Beginning at level 5 and for every 5 levels after that, the player chooses an Elemental Guardian to summon. These guardians channel the secrets of deep and powerful elemental magik, and when killed they grant the user the use of a specific element.

These elements either infuse existing towers with their specific qualities or inhabit their own, specialized elemental tower. Beginning with two elements, the user can combine elements and create unique dual- or tri-element towers. Each tower has its own offensive and support capabilities, such as creating an intense whirlwind to slow oncoming attackers down. Rumors: A scarce few boldly suggest that in 4.0 even the creep waves will have their own elemental-derived powers. The invading undead reanimating mid-maze, divine-shield wielding creeps? Surely they jest.

The Devil's in the Details...

Each element can be chosen again in order to create base element towers of levels 1, 2, and 3. In this way the 6 base elements create six base towers, each upgradeable corresponding to how many guardians of a single element a user has slain.

But: Each element combines with another element to create a unique tower, and each unique tower can combine with a third and separate element to create a tri-element tower. There are 14 dual-E towers and 21 tri-E towers.

Furthermore, each hybrid tower can be upgraded to increase its own specific attack or support capabilities. Towers may only be upgraded if all of their component elements have been brought to the next level. Basically, to build better towers, you need to kill more guardians.

Example: Two dead Fire Guardians and two dead Water Guardians allows for a level 2 Fire + Water dual-element tower.

The Rich Get Richer? (<-NEW)

While players' instincts might be to build as strong a defense as they can manage, you are rewarded for putting off building that expensive tower and hoarding your money. Every 15 seconds, all players gain interest on their unspent gold to the tune of 2% of their current cash. Players may also increase the initial interest rate once every five levels at the cost of an Element pick. In higher difficulty levels survival depends upon proper tower placement and cash management.

In allowing some gold to accumulate, you may find that early level creeps sneak past your defenses; however, Element TD does not trade off money lost in kills for money gained by hoarding.

Players no longer lose gold for missing out on a crucial creep kill. In most Tower Defense games, if you let a creep reach the end of its path, you lose a life and whatever gold you would have gotten from killing it. In Element TD, leaked creeps respawn at the start of the path. This gives you another chance at the gold they carry, but gives the creep a chance to steal another life.

To reach the end of the game, all 60 waves must be completely defeated.

At the End of the Road there Lies a Dark and Disturbing Victory...

60 massive, elementally charged levels.

6 difficulty modes, ranging from inebriated laziness to ADHD frenzy.

Plus the Popular RANDOM Mode: Every Elemental Choice or Interest Upgrade is chosen for you, but every tower sells for 100% of its value. The hardest and most evolving of modes, Random! forces you to change your strategy for every wave, element, and difficulty encountered.

Welcome to Element Tower Defense. The Future is Yours.

Allright, I do consider this mostly housekeeping, so uh if I'm missing any broad strokes (that is, something important to the meta-game) let me know. That goes for the petite-strokes as well. And to Sancdar, thanks for throwing your ideas against this brick wall of mine. If that last part is sluggish, let me know. Oh yeah if that color red is too hard to read, post a quicky and let me know, I'll change it asap.

--PaperEye

[Guest 1mpulse]

much better. very long though. (i dont mind length, but this is the internet, stupid people EVERYWHERE)

[Karawasa]

much better. very long though. (i dont mind length, but this is the internet, stupid people EVERYWHERE)

I actually prefer that it is longer, as the homepage has no content otherwise.

PaperEye, I'm really impressed by this. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it is done. Thanks.

[0rb3r]

Wow, incredible work PaperEye, you may include 2 more things.

after ...to build better towers, you need to kill more guardians.

Include that you first have to kill a minor elemental to be able to summon a major one of the same element, each one being stronger than the precedent you summoned, up to a very strong 3rd summoning.

after ...Plus the Popular RANDOM Mode:

Include the CHAOS mode which makes each wave unpredictible. (No more comments as there will be big differences in this mode between 3.0 and 4.0)

Amazing job so far. Thanks.

[Guest Sancdar]

The Rich Get Richer? (<-NEW)

While players' instincts might be to build as strong a defense as they can manage, you are rewarded for putting off building that expensive tower and hoarding your money. Every 15 seconds, all players gain interest on their unspent gold to the tune of 2% of their current cash. Players may also increase the initial interest rate once every five levels at the cost of an Element pick. In higher difficulty levels survival depends upon proper tower placement and cash management.

In allowing some gold to accumulate, you may find that early level creeps sneak past your defenses; however, Element TD does not trade off money lost in kills for money gained by hoarding.

Players no longer lose gold for missing out on a crucial creep kill. In most Tower Defense games, if you let a creep reach the end of its path, you lose a life and whatever gold you would have gotten from killing it. In Element TD, leaked creeps respawn at the start of the path. This gives you another chance at the gold they carry, but gives the creep a chance to steal another life.

To reach the end of the game, all 60 waves must be completely defeated.

Much better!

If you're going to add in information about Chaos mode, might as well throw in something about Extreme too

[Cisz]

I like this version much better too.

A Proliferation of Strategy: Earth, Wind, and Water...

There is no "Wind" element.

The only thing missing now is neat pictures and diagrams to pimp it all.

[Guest 1mpulse]

A Proliferation of Strategy: Earth, Wind, and Water...

i actually dont get that line, unless its incomplete?

or i dont know what proliferation means

[Guest Sancdar]

Yeah, I noticed that too, Cisz.

[Guest PaperEye]

Well, thanks for the feedback everybody. I'm still concerned about layout and information I may have overlooked, but for now here's the updated information on the ending:

At the End of the Road there Lies a Dark and Disturbing Victory...

60 massive, elementally charged levels.

6 difficulty modes, ranging from inebriated laziness to ADHD frenzy.

Plus the Popular RANDOM Mode: Every Elemental Choice or Interest Upgrade is chosen for you, but every tower sells for 100% of its value. The hardest and most evolving of modes, Random! forces you to change your strategy for every wave, element, and difficulty encountered.

New in 4.0 BETA! CHAOS MODE, a fully reworked and reingeneered mode where the creep waves themselves become unpredictable. Along with RANDOM, CHAOS MODE creates a game where the most basic elements of a Tower Defense- the towers and the creep waves- are random.

Still not enough? Try EXTREME. Available on any difficulty, EXTREME introduces increased speed and faster spawns for every creep wave.

Welcome to Element Tower Defense. The Future is Yours.

--Allright, that just adds stuff about Choas and Extreme, look it over if ya want.

(EDIT for cohesiveness) (EDIT: changed Extreme! mode to include faster spawn rate and removed a spoiler...I think)

As for the "proliferation of strategy line," basically I'll rewrite it and see what I come up with. Feel free to to speak if inspiration strikes.

To 0rb3r: I think I pretty much have the "summon elementals, kill them, summon more" thing covered. That being said, if you still think it needs to be added, I'll fit it in.

Here's what I'm interested in: pictures. Do you think we need them?

If so, by all means send me some of your uber-screenshots. My library is completely lacking when it comes to eletd pics, so I'll really appreciate it if someone lends me their inspiration in this matter.

Basically anything that you think would look good on a homepage, post it / send it in if you like.

Thanks,

--PaperEye

[Guest 1mpulse]

beware though, extreme mode is being changed i think.

[Guest PaperEye]

Hey 1mpulse, give me a heads up. Should I take the "extreme mode" out or leave it in and change it a little? If it gets changed, what do ya want in there?

And for the record, yeah I know wind's not an element, but it is a support capability of a tower, so technically its in the game. But that's neither here nor there.

[Guest 1mpulse]

leave extreme, it must just be changed to what the current mode is

if i remember correctly, no pause between round timers (round timer starts as round starts) and creeps have significant increase in move speed

[Karawasa]

I'm going to put this on the site tomorrow, I'm really impressed.

[Karawasa]

Posted, the homepage now feels like it has content, and it certainly does . Great work, thank you for your help. If you want to revise in the future, I'd be happy to update.