Forgotten Hope Public Forum
Forgotten Hope 2 => Modding => Topic started by: Safe-Keeper on 24-04-2010, 18:04:44
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This is an idea I've had in my head for quite some time, and before I try it out myself, I wondered if anyone else had given this thought, or even given it a try at some point.
Basically, the "succession map" is similar to the succession game, like the hilarious Dwarf Fortress cult classic Boatmurdered (http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Boatmurdered/), where players take turns playing a single-player game and write in colourful terms about the process. DF has a strong succession game tradition, as the gameplay lends itself well to this playing style.
But I got to thinking, what about making a map this way? There would be two different ways to do this. Either just split a blank map into clearly labelled sections (using textures or whatever), for then to fill in your and send it off to the next guy, or just take turns designing it freely (one hour of total work time per person or something). Or you could designate a heightmap and give it basic textures, lightmaps, and so on, and take turns placing statics and vehicles and whatnot from there.
I think this idea has potential for lots of fun (and some "what? I didn't intend for a whole airfield there!" frustration) :), and that some very colourful and enjoyable maps could come out of this, as long as some basic ground rules are laid down that everyone agree on and every mapper takes his or her task seriously.
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i totally did not understand this suggestion ??? ??? ???
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Generate a blank map in the editor. Separate it into four pieces (or however many pieces you want) with the texture tool, then fill in one of the sections. Then hand it off to another guy, who will fill in another section and hand it over to a third guy, and so on.
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That wouldn't work, you can't just randomly put together pieces and expect the map to play out well. A map needs to be designed as a whole.
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I didn't say it should be separated into several maps, I said you should mark with lines or hills or whatever where the boundaries went.
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I know, but that wouldn't work because a map has to be designed as one piece.
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Generate a blank map in the editor. Separate it into four pieces (or however many pieces you want) with the texture tool, then fill in one of the sections. Then hand it off to another guy, who will fill in another section and hand it over to a third guy, and so on.
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Its not that hard to Understand.
You just paint 4 Likes or make a Cross in the Map.
4 Areas, get 4 Mappers. I work in Area 1, X Works in Area 2, etc.
I think hes trying to get a way to make Maps more fast.
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I think hes trying to get a way to make Maps more fast.
Well, that's not what I wrote, but sure, that's another possibility -- since every mapper has to do only 1/4 the work, and should consider it a new and fun experience, it'll probably get finished pretty soon.
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TS means that the whole map (gameplay included) needs a defining trait. With more than one person making it, they might have different ideas what the map should be like, so it will play like crap.
In theory, the idea is interesting. In practice, it just wouldn't work.
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Has this ever been practiced? Perhaps the 4 mappers get together and decide on how it's to play, and then pass it along with that general idea in their head. It would still have the touches of the mappers, and they would still be focusing on the same gameplay style.
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nice idea i could imagine some nice results.
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I've seen a map that was made like this for Age of Mythology, and although that is an RTS, I can see some potential flaws in this plan.
The most obvious being that there was no overriding theme to this map: there was Egyptian desert right next to lush forests and bleak Scandanavian mountains. Each mapper had claimed their section as their own and had proceeded to do their own thing ignoring the surroundings. The borders between people's contributions were obvious, even where the sections were very similar.
However, this map was more about showing off your mapping skill than making it playable. However, I think even a map like this with drasticly fewer participants and an agreed theme would fall into the same plotholes.
Also, the person who went first would hold all the cards - they would not have to conform to the environment at the edge of other people's sections.
This could have som potential, but I think it would not result in a very playable map.
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nice idea i could imagine some nice results.
I don't know if nice is the word you are looking for.....Interesting maybe.
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did i say nice or interesting?
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Now you said both.
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Well, my buddy and me over at FS (where we first discussed this) intended it mostly as a "just for fun" project. The playability issue is there, and as I said, ground rules would have to be laid down (like respecting the climate and theme of the existing sections). I suppose another good idea would be to not place control points, spawn points or vehicles, for then to look at the map when it was finished and work out a game mode from there.
Sure, for an official map it'd be a dubious plan at best. For a "just for fun" project, though, I think it has potential.
TS means that the whole map (gameplay included) needs a defining trait. With more than one person making it, they might have different ideas what the map should be like, so it will play like crap.
Oh damn... so sorry. Here I was, so frustrated I couldn't explain what I meant properly, and it turns out I was the one who didn't get it all along ::).
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I didn't say it should be separated into several maps, I said you should mark with lines or hills or whatever where the boundaries went.
Sounds cool, because sometimes maps turns out cool and good gameplaywise without any thoughs about it from the mapper. I mean, say 1 area of the map turns out to be a bottleneck, a cool bottleneck :p
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i want inn on this! ;D
we should set up a group?
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8)
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I did something exactly like this for Dawn of War(http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=198734 (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=198734))
It actually worked very well. We drew out a generally map with the locations of important points and objects specified and then each mapper got a week to do fill in his portion of the map with visual fluff. We had some issues of course, a few mappers left and had to be replaced and optimizing it was a major pain, but in the end it was by far the most detailed and largest DoW map I've seen. It wasn't 100% balanced, but since all the mappers were experienced and everyone communicated well people had a pretty good idea how to keep everything matching what other mappers were doing.