[ian-reeds-games] Some more responses
- From: Ian Reed <support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:39:05 -0700
Hey all!
Allan, you brought up some good points about summoning units on
different teams. The easiest scenario to solve is your map creation one
as I'd just need to let you specify a team on the summon flag.
The other scenarios are going to require some more thought but I agree
we'll need to solve them at some point. All of it is added to my list.
Craig, I'm glad you like the new scripting features.
And before I even get to say that you've already released an update to
your scripts with them!
Awesome work!
The unit comparison issue you ran into is just one I hadn't tried yet.
I expect this problem is related to exposing C# objects in a hosted
javascript environment.
I'll test it myself but the likely solution is that I will need to add
an ID property to all units so you can compare the ID's as numbers won't
have the same kind of reference comparison issues.
It's on my list. I'm knee deep in multiplayer and want to stay focused
on that for a while longer but will probably look at that bug right
after as it's very helpful to have you scripting features. It's already
saving me time and I imagine will just get better as time goes on.
Thanks for your hard work.
Allan, thanks for the bug reports. I always like to get bugs fixed
quickly but I think it will also wait until the core multiplayer stuff
is done so I don't lose my train of thought so to speak.
Regarding the issue with the stunning of the player unit's as a splash
effect caused when hitting an enemy.
It might actually be a bug in the engine.
Since the effect was caused on your turn a duration of 1 should make it
fizzle just as your next turn starts.
I imagine I am using the team of the unit that caused the splash effect
when deciding when the effect will end.
In most cases this is the unit performing the skill and so it's the same
as the current team's turn which is why we don't see this problem in
other cases.
So I just need to make it so the effect fizzles before the turn in which
it was cast, not before the turn of the unit who cast it.
I probably explained that poorly. Anyway, I think that's the right way
to go, so if anyone understood what I was saying and has objections let
me know.
Richard and Carlos, Richard mentioned a bug in the conquering redwall
abbey maps and I've made it so that particular issue will now announce
when the map loads so it won't go unnoticed by map creators in the future.
I believe a unit had their team set to 0 which used to be neutral but is
invalid in recent versions of the game.
Conquering redwall abbey was made before that change and since the game
wasn't reporting it as a problem when the map started it was easy to miss.
Richard, glad to hear you're interested in making maps. The more the
merrier.
Allan gave some great advice and I think it's the best path to follow.
I'll just add that while it is overwhelming at first it does get better
the more you do it and you should start as Allan said by copying an
existing map pack and just making minor changes to get the hang of things.
Then slowly branch out by figuring out specific things you want to get
working.
Also be sure to look at others maps when they have a feature and you
want to understand how they did it, or just ask in the mailing list.
Everyone, on that note if someone is interested in writing a beginner's
guide to map creation I'd be happy to include it as a link in the user
guide as I've done with Craig's documentation.
The Step by step section in the user guide is the closest thing to that
and is probably all I'm going to do.
After that it pretty much becomes a reference manual, which is useful
and necessary but could be further helped with a beginner tutorial.
Garrett, Zak and Allan, an improved map editor has been mentioned in the
past.
You all brought up some good points. I agree that the map creation
portion of the user guide has gotten pretty huge and is overwhelming for
beginners.
From my perspective, though valuable for many new map creators, doing
an in game editor to make creating all the files easier would be a
significant amount of work.
I think it's more important for me to work on features that allow the
engine to support more flags and map scenarios.
I have 2 other things I want to say on that note:
1 I will continue to enhance the current map editor for the editing of
map files only.
This is because placing objects in maps was so painful when you had to
edit the map files by hand that the current map editor was inevitable
and it makes sense for it to continue to handle this biggest pain point.
Zak, your idea of appending or editing flags for a specific unit or
structure line in the map fits into this realm so it's on my list for later.
2 So I've basically said that it is unlikely I will ever get around to
doing an editor that let's you create and edit all the many types of
files associated with a map pack.
Really it's just a matter of priority, but I think TB will never be
done, there will always be something else to add and if it gets to a
pretty done state then I'll probably dive into the RPG Maker that comes
after it so there will always be something that is higher priority.
Sorry about that.
That said, it could still be done by someone other than myself. This
kind of editor actually doesn't need to rely on the core game logic at
all and the file formats it needs to save are already well documented.
So someone could do an HTML editor as Allan suggested or an audio editor
that runs as a desktop application.
This is not completely unlikely to happen as CAE Jones wrote a map
editor for swamp and as we all know Aprone is the developer for swamp.
TB is not as popular as swamp but it could still happen someday.
Since it's something that could easily be done by another developer it
also ranks lower on my priority list since there are many features that
only I can do right now and spreading out the work makes more sense for me.
Everyone, it's been great to see all the discussion and I really
appreciate hearing whenever people say how much they like the game or
give appreciation.
The game is already so much more than it ever would have been had I kept
creating maps myself. So thanks again to all the map creators.
All the best,
Ian Reed
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