Jurassic is a mod for Warcraft 3, based on an earlier mod (https://www.epicwar.com/maps/218853/) by SaMmM & qwerty.
The goal of the game is for each player to ensure the survival of their character (survivor), by fortifying themselves using their surroundings, technology, and anything they can salvage from the land. They will have to stave off fierce raptors, rabid bats, and giant roaming beasts that walked the pre-historic lands.
There are four difficulty settings, which define:
- Starting period of grace.
- Duration to hold out for.
- Progression of dinosaur breeds and ferocity.
- The threat level of roaming dinosaurs.
There are four areas for survivors to specialise in:
- Mechanic (Relocations & scouting)
- Poacher (Mobile weapons & traps)
- Engineer (Base defence & repairs)
- Biologist (Taming & gathering)
Each quadrant of the map has different bonuses associated with it:
- Rock Lands (North-East / Top-Left)
- Frozen Lands (North-West / Top-Right)
- Tropical Lands (South-West / Bottom-Right)
- Swamp Lands (South-East / Bottom-Left)
The pre-historic enemies are loosely grouped into three types:
- Fast Dinosaurs (Velociraptor, etc)
- Tanky Dinosaurs (Stegosaurus, Wooly rhino, etc)
- Misc Dinosaurs (Pterodactyls, Spitting Dinosaurs, Flesh Flies, etc)
The map has been constructed in such a way that there are dozens of "bases", which are favourable locations where the terrain allows survivors to better hold out, by using choke points, high ground, and space to construct buildings. However, these bases have limited resources, and the onslaught of dinosaurs and need for superior technology is intended to keep the survivors constantly hungry for more gold and lumber.
It is expected that a survivor will have to move locations at least once per game, and will require protection or safe transport when doing so. This can be accomplished by a number of means:
- Survivors travelling in a group may prefer to travel in a vehicle, temporarily outrunning their pursuers, and giving them time to build up some rudimentary defences at their new location, before the faster dinosaurs catch up.
- A survivor running low on resources may opt to travel by foot, in the cover of night, perhaps only with a few nets to snare dinosaurs which stray too close.
- Survivors in the late game will travel using technology exclusively available to their class, such as teleporting (Engineer), transforming into a dinosaur (Biologist), constructing military vehicles (Mechanic), or wearing exoskeletons (Poacher).
The variety of dinosaur breeds that spawn is dependent on the game-time elapsed, and the difficulty of game. If the difficulty is high, the threat level will increase rapidly. If the game duration is set longer, then the threat level will continue to rise. The secondary mechanic to help dinosaurs scale is the "ferocity" of the dinosaurs. This is a small attackspeed and movespeed buff, that will frequently rise, to ensure the dinosaurs are constantly becoming more challenging.