In-Depth Map Editor

There is a middle ground. Modders can do everything other than the engine stuff, it should require next to no engine stuff anyway as they seem to be trying to avoid engine usage for lua as much as possible. What that means is that if you had some dedicated people they could make this, and then it would be a perfect candidate for the suggest idea of including community mods in the actual game. It would be hard but it would be awesome, there’s so many ways it could be extended as well. I’ve mentioned before that I’m interested in seeing what kind of modding tools can be created in the game and that I’ll be trying to create some, although my plans so far have been to more modding than this. Combining could be really awesome though, not only can you create a map and events you can also create monster, items, buildings or whatever else specifically for your scenario. We could do most of it and just appeal to the devs for the little bits we won’t have like carefully regulated file system interaction to be able to choose what .qb files to load and the like.

I might write up what kind of features I believe would be needed to pull this off later but unfortunately I don’t have the time to work it all out now.

But…but…people have it on t-shirts

@SteveAdamo say it ain’t so, say it ain’t so!

I definitely want this to happen it would be more easier for my idea of [Warhammer fantasy someone?][1]

[1]: Warhammer fantasy someone? take two! i’m still working on a better way to present my stuff with @Cookie so i will be able to tell what it would be but one thing i need a tool to be able to create the world map as precise as i can and this tool is THAT tool! We need

Best of luck with your project!!

Well, I really like the idea, especially to be used in the construction of scripted events, missions and areas in the game. It would also be an interesting tool to play around with.

We know this so far:

So it’s very possible to do. Well, a world editor would be different to the map editor you’re talking about as I assume the world editor would primarily be around terrain and resource placement.

Firstly if we could try and avoid things like this that’d be great - you can argue against a person’s idea without resorting to saying it is dumb. Secondly I actually feel @pandemic has a very valid point, but, there is a divide between both the ideas.

By this I mean that whilst @Pandemic is right about the excitement of discovery, this discovery isn’t going to be removed because of a map editor. I see the map editor as being used by those wanting to create specific areas for certain reasons i.e. scripted events/ missions, I’m sure somebody would use it to cheat, but that is their prerogative. I don’t envisage such an editor as removing the excitement, but similarly there would be less excitement of exploration for those constructed maps.

Either way it doesn’t really matter :smile:

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I apologize, I didn’t mean to come off so much like a jerk. I just dislike the mentality of “they’ll just see it on the internet anyways lol”

I am also fed up with the ‘just mod it in’ mentality for every single suggestion, no matter what the suggestion is.

Depends on what they mean. A ‘world editor’ I think they’re referring to is just making a static map that you start your game on. Sure, that’s part of my idea, but my idea mostly correlates to being able to make ‘missions,’ ‘campaigns,’ ‘challenges,’ and other fun stuff.

I’m still very doubtful anyone would make a full on map creator, even if they end up being able. There is a limit for everything, no matter how open you make your game to moddability.

Apology accepted :smile:

I appreciate that “mod it in” is a kind of annoying response that doesn’t really provide any substantial feedback. but we are still 3 months from Beta and as such haven’t got the bigger picture in terms of what the team will have and want to work in including in the core game … I agree that perhaps more of a fruitful discussion should happen rather than just default to mod it in, but if an idea is posed and discussed and some sort of consensus reached I suppose the response is then “well, let’s mod it in!”

When we get a clearer picture of the content we will have in the game, I think this sort of response will clam a little :smile:

That was my understanding as well, but I’m sure they’ll think about what sort of features they want a map editor etc to have if one is ever made!

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Alrighty, Here I go. This is a bit of work put into a list of the features we’d need the modding to be able to support to do everything mentioned here.

In-game stuff (Just some thoughts)

  • Height (Valleys, Cliffs, mounds, etc.) - Something similar to the sims with a sharp/smooth decay toggle?
  • Type (Rock, Magma, Water, Grass, Nothing/Erase etc.) - A type of brush? Not sure how to pull some of these off in 3d really
  • Module Placement (Ruins, Goblin Camp, Grove, etc.) - Some kind of list with click to place selected module
  • Event Creation (Goblin attack, Merchant Caravan, Tornado, etc.) - Predefined components with large trigger screen to allow control there
  • Piratefu (Ninjas, Parrots, Pantaloons, etc.) - Crew screen with list of potential members? Maybe triggers too
  • Entity Creation (Stats screens, model choosing, etc.) - Lists of traits/abilities, models, stats screens, all working together
  • Entity Placement (Monsters, Villagers, Buildings, Items, etc.) - Large lists of everything in the game that could be placed just with dragging or clicking or something

Backend/Engine stuff (Hopefully all possible)
  • JSON IO (Editing JSON) - (Should definitely at least be possible within the context of the current mod just for settings and things)
  • Lua IO (Editing Lua) - (Less likely but would be probably needed for things like custom actions and the like but might be able to bypass with good JSON parsing)
  • Intermod IO (Editing other mods, Creating mods) - (Fairly unlikely, would be required to export creations to their own mods so something that allows you to create inner folders and then declare them as a separate mod maybe?)
  • Loading from non-Stonehearth locations (Getting Qubicle models, sounds, etc.) - (Much more unlikely, would be used for things like choosing models from a different part of the filesystem. Not getting my hope up here)

I think that’s it really, some thoughts on what we’d have to do to make it in game and some more thoughts on what would be required to let us do it. It wouldn’t let you do everything but it should let you do pretty much everything when it comes to content changes short of tampering with mechanics.

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So at the heart of it, is Rosey asking for the power to create parts (or whole?) of maps in a non-running game in order to create areas for adventure / modules / mods?

I feel like I asked this question in the questions bank last week:

I think we all have very similar questions / wonders about how we can change the map, in some ‘non-running’ game fashion? (eg. not altering it with units in game)

If I understand correctly Albert is working on land generation and its still early in the process. So perhaps the questions can’t be answered right now, but maybe a hint as to what it will look like? It is pretty fundamental to how we’re going to mod the game really.

To be clear, I’m referring to modding as changing things that are intended and supported by the engine, not hacking/modifying the client. If I understand correctly Rosey, you weren’t meaning modding, but more of a basic feature of the game that would allow for easier, more direct changing of landscapes? I agree on the “just mod it” mentality gets old for some things :slight_smile: it’s not practical/realistic for some features.

Good thread :slight_smile: looking forward to finding out more in time.

I’m thinking something like the Civ 4 Worldbuilder if you’ve ever used it, something where you could at any time enter it and basically change most parts of the game. It could completely be used for cheating but with the modding if people want to cheat they’ll just change the files to give ultimate weapons or something anyway so trying to prevent cheating is stupid.

As for the “Just Mod It” mentality, I think it’s fine but only if you can see how. For example something like I’ve done here or in other modding threads and said or discussed what would be required and problems that may occur. Don’t just say “Just Mod It”, go into details or discuss why you think it could or couldn’t work, otherwise it’s just saying that it sounds kinda cool but isn’t really putting much effort into. If you say it should be modded in you should say why.

What I want to see is a community that thrives off mods, where by the time we hit full release there is more, better mods than the game is without them. Where the game starts getting extended faster in every direction from giant works that make it into sci-fi galactic scope empires to subtle things like diplomacy systems where assassins and deception are perfectly valid. Of course most of the planned mods so far seems to be mostly factions from the Bandits to the Tribes to the Norse it’s mostly just a couple of minor changes and a lot of modelling. It’s why I’m looking forward to beta so much, people will have all this stuff to work with and once they can actually play with the game I expect a lot of ideas will be appearing, It’s why I want to make something like what I’ve talked about in this thread. It will lower the entry barrier into modding which should increase the amount of mods because there’s a lot of people who can’t program but can think of awesome ideas or make cool models.

he is indeed, and from last week’s update, it seems he’ll be (hopefully) providing us with a nice blog entry on what he’s been working on… as soon as he’s back from that wedding trip and stuff… :smile:

After he gets back in a few weeks, he want to do a blog update describing his work on terrain generation, which should be a pretty informative piece.

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Don’t forget temperature might also be a pretty big factor once the world generator starts getting underway–I only thought of that when I saw the “Type” list: [quote=“Xavion, post:15, topic:2805”]
(Rock, Magma, Water, Grass, Nothing/Erase etc.)
[/quote] I figure ice and snow should also be options, but the climate itself would need to be defined in order to manually create these particular hot and cold biomes (otherwise it’d just melt in Summer and freeze in Winter).

Temperature might matter depending on whether or not it’s actually on the game but some type of biome control definitely sounds necessary. As for the ice/snow I was just listing examples of everything, the actual lists would be much longer as there would be many different kinds of ground but everything should be generated from what’s possible anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

I think it will be in some shape or form, since obtaining seasons was in the stretch goals (unless it’s a static map option). Maybe altering the rate of cycling for the seasons could be another option for the editor, in order to create rapidly changing weather or dealing with long winters or scorching summers.

si si…

Seasons!: Horde food for the winter and farm up a storm in the summer
as the four seasons cycle over your town. Building, farming and
fighting all gain new depth as rising temperatures parch the land and
falling snows drive your settlers indoors.

this, definitely… as was evidenced in one of the recent live streams, things like this will (certainly) not be baked into the game, and will be controllable via mods… :+1:

Well yes, indeed, as the whole seasons and time thing itself was a mod, no? Made with the entire purpose that should people want to change things then they can. Ahhh Radiant, and their foresight and wisdom.

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I was thinking how Stonehearth possible could invent map making, when I thought about the Civilization V scenario system. I think you could do something similar but probably a bit better.

I mean that you make so you start in a custom world with a prebuilt town, but you could make tasks?

It’s already been discussed in a decent amount of detail here, and given @SteveAdamo’s merge addiction it’s likely that this will be moved there. I’d suggest reading through some of the stuff talked about there though and then saying what you think as there is a decent amount of stuff on what it should be able to do, how to do it and what it would need to do it.

Sorry Steve for depriving you of this merge!

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You don’t know what you’ve done…deprived of his merge, he shall enter a mad frenzy, merging random threads from all over the place that don’t fit; @voxel_pirate’s creations into a Desktop Tuesday, the MLP thread into the Xbox thread, @Froggy’s thread for his creations into one of mine (please, please, please)

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given that we can potentially stumble across outdoor structures in vanilla SH, extending the logic to have pre-built towns seems entirely possible…

rocks back and forth in the fetal position

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