(Intelli Gaming: Article) It is important, when designing software, to look at the model at hand from various angles. I did much research when it comes to Warhammer and the results that I got led to learn how to write pseudo-code and draw sketches to understand the inner workings of systems.
Here are some of my sketches. The first one shows some design about spells data schema and about triggers and how they should work. Also visible, near the bottom of the image, is the details about the development environments I have been using. Notice the move from C++ GDI to DirectX and the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that followed. Eclipse was big at the time, with support for pretty much all languages. The reason why I used DirectX 3 is because it was the version used by Blizzard to code either Starcraft 1 or Diablo 1.
Various drawings about the development cycles and kernel of the game are shown in the image above. There's a lot of stuff that I put on that image. Notice that for the development "evolution", I have pretty much abandoned C++ in favour of C#. But my professional experience has been mostly in Java + Web. Nowadays, I prefer C# and am still working with newer versions of DirectX.
This screen shows designs for the Spells, Abilities and Items screens and data layers. Also more Model OOP (Object Oriented Programming) design.
Models, Abilities and active effects are all interlinked in the design, as can be seen above.
The next screen is about the ActiveEffects and how they dynamically affect the attributes displayed. This is the same principle for many games today, especially Blizzard, who likes to have basic attributes (Strength, Intellect, Dex) boosted by items or buffs.
A concept for dynamic modifiers being applied to attributes of a Character in Warhammer is illustrated in the concept sketch above.
This screen is for the Active Effects (FX). I have designed arrangements of Queues data structures to hold various items (such as models and items)
Notice that although multiple terms are very similar, the game differs from Medieval 2 Total War or Total War Warhammer. Even if we talk about the good old "Shadow of the Horned Rat", it still is not the same as this game. This game is much more about a simulation of the real tabletop game.
Thanks for reading!
