ditwidget wrote:Love B&G and was hopeful your "anywhere" plug would make it work
correctly on non B&G maps. I don't see how it is any different than
the regular B&G played on third party maps. The cannons still don't
work correctly. It is "huge" to have a killable arty attached to cannon.
Otherwise the balance in the game play is skewed so badly the game
is unplayable.
How is it different? Thanks for your work. I have enjoyed many of the
other "anywhere" tags.
dit
Very glad to hear you enjoy the series - I've had great fun making them.
I understand on the killable arty attached to the cannon. The only way to do it in a tagset is to have a "weaker" cannon, since you can't attach units to each other without scripting (scripting can only be done on a map by map basis). I have a feeling the B&G Anywhere v1.12 [RC] does not substitute for the weaker cannons in the case of Warlocks and Fetch, but should. I have put it down on my list to be sure to include in the v2.0 version.
Keep in mind that we can not only adjust the "hit points" of a weaker cannon, but we can adjust its attack to better balance gameplay. This is the kind of feedback I need from people like you.
That's part of what makes the Anywhere versions different. It can be one or more of the following that distinguishes them from the original tagsets:
Simplicity - Most tagsets substitute for
all units. This means if the original map had 30 units on a team, you will get 30 converted units. For most of the conversions I've Anywhere-ized this is waaaaay too difficult to manage, either because it is too complicated or too much firepower. In cases where it makes sense I convert some units into "nothing" (a little trick I came up with for Rocket Dorf Fest and Uber Ghol Riot), which makes the game much more playable. Case in point is MythWarrior where having 12 units instead of 30 is a big plus.
Flexibility - One of the things I requested long ago in one of the excellent Magma Patches was the ability to "stack" plugins so they layered properly. This means you can build tagsets that substitute for more than the "standard" Myth units -
but you have to know what those units are and how they should be substituted. There are currently 675 different units from our most-played multiplayer maps that are substituted in the Anywhere series. What does this mean? A simple example is the fact that you can play all of the Anywhere plugins on maps like
Lichen (note that on
Lichen Legendary you have to keep the "General" alive for reinforcements - with B&G I convert that unit to a Cannon):
The original tagset wouldn't substitute there because all the units have a different name from the standard ones (e.g. "80 archer" instead of "archer"). Similarly, on most third-party maps the original tagsets will give you a
mix of correctly converted and standard Myth units (picture MythWarrior mechs standing next to Warlocks or Thrall -
doh!). Finally, Anywhere plugins will work on Magma's TFL Multiplayer maps whereas the original tagsets will not. Bottom line: you get to play these conversions "Anywhere" - hence the name.
In addition, 70+ projectiles are converted when appropriate into ammo or "nothing" so you don't see Pus when playing MythWarrior or you get TNT instead of Pus on Wild West or you get random WWII items with WWII. A little more Anywhere magic to make it all more consistent - and fun!
Building Tagsets where none existed before - MythWarrior, Wild West, Worlds Collide, A Very Idiot Christmas/Halloween, and Dorfball never existed as a stand-alone tagset - you could only play them on their original maps. Now you can play them all over the place! Dorfball Anywhere is even a completely new game when played somwhere other than a Dorfball map.
New Ways of Playing Some Tagsets - WWII Anywhere is a
completely different game from the original WWII Tagset. It gives you just a few soldiers and randomly distributes WWII items across the map differently every game. Dorfball Anywhere (v1.12 [RC] and later) is a completely different Dorfball game you can play on your favorite maps (Gimble, etc.) and also includes randomly distributed Special Dorfballs. UGR/UGRmini is similar - projectiles distributed randomly at the start of each and every game.
Gameplay Balance Adjustments - Whenever necessary I do this while doing my very best to keep the original intention/feel of the tagset in place. For example: ADT and MythWarrior have
major gameplay adjustments that make them play much better than the originals imo. Some of this can be new features (from Patch 1.5/1.6) but is usually a combination of new features and actual adjustments to gameplay itself. At all times I do my best to make these changes such that you don't notice them -
you only notice that the game plays better. This is why it is important to get feedback from players such as yourself - it's much better as a cooperative venture. As I continue to get feedback, I will compile a list and incorporate changes into future releases.
Bugfixes - There are little things that slip through any project. When I find them during the Anywhere conversion process, I fix them. You'd be surprised how many little things there are. Two quick examples that come to mind from Leggo: Saiyan units can spawn an extra head when they explode (looks odd); the Leggo Steal the Bacon ball was using the non-team-colored "dragon ball" which I replaced with the properly team-colored "giant m&m" (gameplay fix). Some tagsets like Leggo and Bushido were using standard unit substitutions directly (replacing Warriors with new units) - in order to substitute properly I had to rebuild these as distinct units. Lots of that kind of thing going on "under the hood".
Playing on Fetchball and Dorfball Maps - I've always loved Dorfball, and been frustrated at not being able to play other things on the Fetchball map, so I delved deep into Fear and came up with the ability to play every one of the Anywhere plugins on both maps. All units can pick up and toss the original Fetchball (using their Special) and all units can pick up and toss Special Dorfballs (using their Special):
Blue & Grey on Fetchball (note that half your units are "nothing" so you have less to manage):
Blue & Grey on Dorfball (you can trade for different units). Note that the "Referees" are indestructible unless you add the separate "{{ No Dorfball Refs }}" plugin, which eliminates them completely, allowing for playing Steal the Bacon or CtF much more easily. Each Anywhere plugin substitutes differently, including Dorfballs themselves (some drop ammo, some leave out some ball types, etc.). Note the Soldier below has picked up a Purple Dorfball (it's in his Status Bar - something we could never see before in Dorfball):
Advanced Layering - The Anywhere plugins are also built in such a way that you could play Blue & Grey on a Wild West map - or vice versa. The only tricky thing is with maps that normally require a separate tagset (such as Blue & Grey or ADT), you need to have the original tagset active along with the Anywhere plugin you want to play. This is so all the scenery and other items are loaded properly (and so we don't have to include every single map's scenery in every plugin which would get big!). To play ADT on Blue & Grey you do: "{ ADT aw20 }", "B&G Tagset", "B&G Levelmap". Slightly advanced but very fun! Note that you do not have to do this to play Anywhere plugins on a Dorfball map - all the tagset stuff is built-in. Just do "{ Blue&Grey aw20 }" on "Dorfball Avon's Grove" and you're good to go.