DoW2 Editor

[roospion]

I envy the WC3:TFT community for their WCE (Warcraft editor). A quick look at bnet will notice that there are thousands of mini games that the community had created for WC3. And as such, this old game is still played by many despite its old old age...

Hope there will be a nice Editor to be included along with the DoW2... so that DoW2 can really last...

[Croaxleigh]

Do you mean like a map editor? I'm not quite following what the "Warcraft Editor" is that you're talking about, as I've never played Warcraft 3.

[HiveMind]

You can make funny little mini-games. Search for posts by fuggles in the DoW Maproom, he's completely insane (in the best possible way) and has created gems like Tac-Man and Cube Wars. SCAR coding is a bit difficult to understand, but that's the disadvantage of such a powerful scripting code.

[Croaxleigh]

Oh, I'm very familiar with Fuggles' work. I just didn't know whether the "Warcraft Editor" that Roospion was talking about was a game-mode editor, a map editor, or something else entirely.

[TheMiracul]

Could be great to have something like DotA in DOW2.... but since DOW isn't a RPG-strategy it is very hard to make that...
This might also be the reason why most of ppl play wc3 even after so many years and dont play DOW...

[HiveMind]

Croaxleigh: I was addressing that comment to roospion, who didn't seem to know that that sort of thing was possible with DoW. I have no idea what the 'Warcraft Editor' is either, but I'm guessing from what he said that it's pretty much the same as the Starcraft map editor, which I am familiar with.

[Incarnate]

I havnt used the WC3 editor, but from what everyone says, its completely user friendly.
read for features:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_III_World_Editor

The dow editor is meant for the dev, not the average computer user. People just look at it, and turn away as they dont understand it first time. If it can be made more intuitive then it will definitely help out with creating a userbase.

For example, the way dow uses trees only makes sense if you have some experience to know what you are looking for. Adding in Palettes with object previews would be of great help, so people can actually find stuff!!

Also, WC3 has a great design philosophy in that all aspects of the game can be altered via the world editor, even units. Dow2 im guessing is far more complex and will require almost professional experience with some tools to get decent results...not friendly. Not to mention the possible middle data steps (eg burning to whm & E, OE) that are required.

As for scar, that is no more difficult than WC3s JASS (read delphi) to understand, so i dont think that is an issue. Dow is having a current reflux in scar coders, which is a good thing. But consider as dow started out, no one knew scar, so no one spammed out custom scripts. With WC3, people knew JASS from the huge SC player base(assumption here), and hence were able to migrate to WC3 quickly. Similarly, as people know scar from COh and DOW, we should be able to migrate to DOW2 relatively quickly and get some tutorials out ASAP.

[Octopus Rex]

It's essentially a map editor, but it's very powerful and easy to use. I hardly used it back in the day, but as far as I can work out it combines map editing with mission scripting and attirbute editing without the need for any coding skills. I made a teeny-tiny 3 mission campaign with my own new race (using exisitn models) and I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

DOW support for campaigns has been.....erm, somewhat lacking, as you well know Croax. ;) But I think the attribute editor does more than you could in the WC3 editor, and I'd hazard a guess that hand coding SCAR is more powerful too (doing stuff by hand usually is).

The WC3 editor was basically a lot more approachable and came with the game I think, where as all DOW modders can cast their mind back to the initial WTFZOMGBBQ Wall of Doom of setting up your first mod and getting your head round it all.

[Croaxleigh]

Well, as it's essentially a map editor (albeit one with lots o' niftiness and shiny) then this conversation can be continued in the existing thread (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=188794) about te possible DoW2 map/mission editor.

This thread, in the meantime, will be locked.