Mapmaking

[Leon Feargus]

Hi all.
I just wanted to address an issue concerning the creation of custom maps.

In my humble opinion this was not one of the strongest features of AoW3. I used to enjoy making maps for AoW2WT and AoW2SM. It was intuitive, fairly straightforward and you could still do some more complex things. When I tried making maps for AoW3 I was mostly confused. It felt less intuitive and straightforward.

Now, in all earnest, the reason I did not persist in making maps was not my confusion, it was my hardware. My old laptop was able to run the main game on lowest settings but the map editor proved to be too much to handle. However, I believe I was not the only one having problems with the map editor because the amount of custom maps available on Steam is, after all these years, not that impressive, especially if compared to the before-mentioned games and considering the increased player base.

So, I hope this will be a thread where mapmakers and other interested share their ideas about how to improve this beloved feature. And, first of all, I hope that the devs can confirm custom maps will indeed be a feature.

Cheers,
Leon

 

[Leyrann]

I have to agree with this!

I've done some mapmaking for AoW 3, but it always felt a bit like a professional's tool that's hardly accessible to the average user, contrary to earlier Age of Wonders games. And indeed, it's significantly harder to run than the game itself.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

However, I believe I was not the only one having problems with the map editor because the amount of custom maps available on Steam is, after all these years, not that impressive, especially if compared to the before-mentioned games and considering the increased player base.

there is another explanation for this, namely the RMG is superb and does the job that people want it do, i.e. randomly generate good maps to play with.

ergo one need not use the editor at all.


I did use it to make some maps for the AoW1 mod that was started, i thought it was easy enough and powerful to use. Then again, I didn't use the previous editors much.

 

[YellowGelni]

Imho AoW3 had a quite decent map editor there are only about 4 things they realy should improve for planetfall:
1; Don´t hide it in the launcher. Either put it directly in the front page of the launcher and mention it in loading screens or add it in the home screen. I have a friend who brought me in to AoW3 and he never noticed it had a map editor even after a few hundred hours of game time.
2; Improve hero creation and make it easyer. Ingame the hero creator is good in the map editor it is a text menu not showing you how your hero will look like. This would be ok if I had a way to tell which options I am choosing during hero creation but I am not. The hairstyles for example are hidden under an obscure combination of numbers and letters which again would be fine if hairstyle "1a" would match hairstyle 1 in the in game hero creator (which it did not). Chosing the posture is about as bad since I at first don´t know which one the posture "Enigmatic" is and what the difference between "Enigmatic1" and "Enigmatic2" will be until I created the hero, saved him, closed the editor, started the game to be able to have a look. Let us import heros we created ingame with an easy click of a button instead.
3; Don´t hide the option to create items. The item creator unlike the hero creator works quite fine once you found him, improvement appreciated though (like a search option for effects). Unlike the hero creator it is not found under items. Instead you have to open settings in the top bar click map ressources and choose item ressources in the pop up. Not to bad but quite unintuitive.
4; Make it stable. It already is quite stable but some actions like removing a custom hero from the map will almost certainly result in a crash once you have some clutter on your small sized map. These crashes have cost me quite some hours of map making already.

I heared some criticism about the scripting but I realy liked the hybrid of pre written commands and LUA. It has some entry barrier but it is quite powerful once you put a few hours of work in to it.

 

[Leyrann]

I heared some criticism about the scripting but I realy liked the hybrid of pre written commands and LUA. It has some entry barrier but it is quite powerful once you put a few hours of work in to it.

I agree that it should be powerful with some work, but in my opinion the level of entry was too high with Age of Wonders 3. I did make some stuff but that's perhaps the most important reason I never got more into it.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Imo, the RMG and the map editor should work hand in hand, that is, you should be able to let the editor generate a map, save it, and then edit it.

 

[Bob5]

Imo, the RMG and the map editor should work hand in hand, that is, you should be able to let the editor generate a map, save it, and then edit it.

Pretty sure we'll be getting this with Planetfall. If I recall correctly devs confirmed this at PDXCon

 

[Gloweye]

We've had very few confirmations, but the wishlist included:

- RMG, then save and edit it
- Custom create part of the map, then have RMG fill in the other sectors.

 

[Garresh]

there is another explanation for this, namely the RMG is superb and does the job that people want it do, i.e. randomly generate good maps to play with.

ergo one need not use the editor at all.


I did use it to make some maps for the AoW1 mod that was started, i thought it was easy enough and powerful to use. Then again, I didn't use the previous editors much.

Just wanted to offer some agreement. AOW3 RMG was so good I honestly never had any desire to seek out or make custom maps. I know some wish it had more types of RMG templates available besides the ones it had(Land, Continents, Islands), but it had a lot of control within that so I never had issue with it personally.

 

[Leyrann]

Just wanted to offer some agreement. AOW3 RMG was so good I honestly never had any desire to seek out or make custom maps. I know some wish it had more types of RMG templates available besides the ones it had(Land, Continents, Islands), but it had a lot of control within that so I never had issue with it personally.

I personally made maps not because I wanted to play them, but because I liked making maps.

 

[VenueOfDrums]

As mention above i agree that the ability to add elements a random map or randomize parts of maps would be a useful feature, it takes quite a lot of time to make a whole map. I would like to see a extension to randomization of maps, to allow for more specialized settings.

 

[sikbok]

Hi,

I'll jump in here when we've revealed more about campaign, modding, etc.
For now I'll leave you with the knowledge that much has changed between Planetfall & AoW3.

 

[Artfactial]

Yes; while quite a powerful tool once you got the hang of it, the AOW3 editor and ModEditor are quite layered and working with different logical for the same actions in may places.
The hero creation method is indeed a great pain as it was.
But I suppose we won't need much of it as the leaders will have taken that spot. Still, being able to see what you are creating is always a good thing.

I'll be awaiting the new ways with much anticipation.