Author Topic: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor  (Read 12292 times)

Offline TechSY730

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Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« on: September 20, 2016, 08:34:46 pm »
This may be shuffled into the "ideas for later", but could there potentially be support for a "comes with the package" Map or Mission or Scenario or what-have-you editor?

It doesn't need to be crazy fully featured like, say, Starcraft IIs editor, but even a simple map editor could be fun to play with.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2016, 01:39:35 am »
That would be merged with the tutorial editor.

However I don't feel like "campaigns" (in the sense of series of hand-crafted maps linked together by a linear story) is much appealing in our community. I think AI War prefers "emergent" campaigns: our best example is Fallen Spire, of course.

I believe "interaction-rich Minor Factions" would better fit in the AIW's philosophy.

Anyway, if the tutorial editor is powerful enough, nothing would prevent us from doing hand-crafted campaigns.
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Offline kasnavada

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2016, 01:52:57 am »
However I don't feel like "campaigns" (in the sense of series of hand-crafted maps linked together by a linear story) is much appealing in our community. I think AI War prefers "emergent" campaigns: our best example is Fallen Spire, of course.

Good point, but with modding the community will change a lot.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2016, 02:12:53 am »
With modding the community will change a lot.
I don't know. I'm not sure everybody will take on modding, and as that would require a certain amount of personal investment, maybe only players already familiar with the game would venture into full-scale-campaign modding. (I think it's you, Kas, who would like to see a Startreck mod, right?) So will the community change thanks to modding? I'm not sure. (I don't say it would be bad, though.)

Anyway, moddable tutorial => hand-made campaigns sounds pretty reasonable, no matter what the community will do with it.
(I also remember the ideas of hand-crafted challenges, somewhere in these forums...)
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Offline kasnavada

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2016, 02:41:30 am »
I'm not sure everybody will take on modding, and as that would require a certain amount of personal investment, maybe only players already familiar with the game would venture into full-scale-campaign modding.

Neither I think. Actually I'm pretty sure than most of the "old guard" around here won't start doing mods at all. New people will come in and take care of that.

IMO, a significant part of "current" people on the forum are barely interested in modding if even interested at all. Even to the point of being blind to the fact that it's a selling point for a sequel. All people that actually would be interested in modding AI War will not be here because it's currently not moddable, so they probably left already. Thing is, a forum "that old" is more or less a fanboy group... people staying like what's there. But, on Arcen, "there" changes. To set an example, to me, the difference in atmosphere and discussion between the AI War forums and the Starward Rogue forum is already very perceptible and kind of a proof of what will happen.

Actually, it's amazing to me how much of the discussions here, and how many people here, do not even take modding into consideration. Even when thinking of new ships / races, people think of a stretch goal first or an expansion. For those, it's like modding does not exists. But, it's pointless to even consider that subject as a discussion, as the "sub quantity" of people of arcen fans as a whole ain't interested. It's like trying to explain spicy veggie Indian cuisine merits to French food fans and meat enthousiasts. No matter how much they consider if and / or try to be open minded, it's not interesting to them.

That will depend, of course, on how much is really moddable, and how easy it will be to mod. On that I trust good old Arcen perfectionism and reactivity to add new "commands" to modders.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2016, 02:45:26 am by kasnavada »

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2016, 02:42:17 am »
Back on subject: this, if possible, sounds really cool.

Anyway, moddable tutorial => hand-made campaigns sounds pretty reasonable, no matter what the community will do with it.
(I also remember the ideas of hand-crafted challenges, somewhere in these forums...)

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2016, 03:16:12 am »
I'm interesting in modding and spicy veggie Indian cuisine. :P

But your point of view is really interesting. I didn't consider things in this way.
However, SR had a bunch of mod-happy Freaking Volunteers. A small and rather "hardcore" bunch, but still. I believe modding for AIW will essentially support balance by allowing proposals to be tested instead of just theoretical ideas endlessly debated upon nothing.

Anyway, we'll see that very soon, one way or another.

And... Yeah, derailing...
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2016, 05:09:23 pm »
Pretty sure the tutorial editor will allow for this, at least to some degree. 

My argument in favor of this was disguising tutorials as campaigns, to hook people with story while you teach them the mechanics.  Early on, you might only need one tutorial campaign to get the basic mechanics down, but every expansion of AIW1 added enough stuff to probably deserve its own tutorial campaign.  The more moddable those are, the more the community will contribute improvements and the better they'll be.  The better the tutorial is at launch, the more traction the game will get, so those tools need to be available during the private beta/alpha period.

Then people can also put together crazy challenges, if they want.  Those might be in the form of lobby scripts, or they might be full-on scenarios with their own little stories.

Or people can tell stories by constructing their own 'minor factions' to interact with.

Although, putting on my pessimist hat, AIW1 has lobby setup scripts, and I don't think anyone's ever really done much with them.  But, that might be because it's easier to just tell someone what lobby options you picked than to write that up as a lobby script.  In theory you could randomize the settings using a lobby script, but it's hard to judge what that'll do to the difficulty, so I don't think it's that useful.

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2016, 02:58:52 am »
Although, putting on my pessimist hat, AIW1 has lobby setup scripts, and I don't think anyone's ever really done much with them.  But, that might be because it's easier to just tell someone what lobby options you picked than to write that up as a lobby script.  In theory you could randomize the settings using a lobby script, but it's hard to judge what that'll do to the difficulty, so I don't think it's that useful.
Here. ;)
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Offline tadrinth

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2016, 12:54:04 pm »
Nice! Those are *very* similar to the expansion-themed settings I've been slowly working my way through.  Those are exactly the kinds of setups that I would want new players to be presented with. 

Offline Pumpkin

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Re: Map/Mission/Scenario Editor
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2016, 01:50:20 am »
Nice! Those are *very* similar to the expansion-themed settings I've been slowly working my way through.  Those are exactly the kinds of setups that I would want new players to be presented with.
I have thought that the tutorial could be replaced with that kind of automated setup with increasing difficulty and complexity. The first would be a ten-planet sandbox-difficulty. But I know many players out there are attached to the idea of a true, handcrafted tutorial. But this is another discussion. (Both, maybe?)

Anyway, that would require a specific work, and my thematic scripts are far from noob-friendly-ness.
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