How much time to make a map

[ByteBandit]

I was curious to hear from the mapmakers out there how long it takes for you to make a map. And how long it should take to build a map from scratch to the testing phase. Let's break it down to size first and then decorations and then storyline.

[Crusard]

You can make a good heroes III map in 2 days if you work hard. Now for Heores IV it could take a bit more, from 3 weeks to a month depending on the size and scripting level, sometimes more.

[Corribus]

You can make a good heroes III map in 2 days if you work hard.

?? My H3 maps take between 6 months to a year to make.

[Thelonious]

That really depends. Do make it next to normal work - and do you want to script it heavily, if you make a HoMM IV or HoMM III map you can make 'em in just under a week, if you don't script them in anyway and work besides normal work.

Campaigns can take up to a year, heavily scripted ones even longer. Scarlett's been busy for 2 - 3? years now (with break) on her campaign.

[ScarlettP]

Yeah, I just sort of got sick of looking at mine and had to do something else for about a year. Now, I just want to FINISH the silly thing.

I started it before the "Gloria" Map Making competition almost 3 years ago. At the begining, the main hero was Tarmaskas, the only surviving male heir to the throne. But that competition came around and I wrote in "Scarlett" as the only surviving female heir and Tarmaskas became her consort. I worked on it very hard, but discovered that you just can't RUSH a campaign. Then the "Four Seasons" competition came about, and I had the thing almost finished and it WAS four maps, Summer, Fall, Winter & Spring. So I tried to finish it up for that one. But failed. Then I was pissed at it and stopped fooling with it. Now I'm back at it. I was hoping to finish before H5 comes out.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Well, I have only made XL maps. 6 HOMM2-POL expansion, 4 HOMM4(2 Gathering Storm, 1 Winds of War, 1 Equilibris.)

To plan out, decorate, script, and playtest an XL map takes me several months. My latest map, The Dancing Crusader, has over 80 variables and over 100 placed events in addition to the timed events and the many events placed on the tabs of the various heroes availble to the player and the main villains and other key stacks. Just one playthrough took quite some time. It is by far my most complex map and I wondered at times if I had bitten off more than I could chew when I would try to track down why something was not working properly.

Playtesting is a very important part of making a map and the map needs to be played through a number of times not only to look for errors but to properly balance the map. Balance is important not only for multiplayer maps but for single player maps as well. The more playable postitions and factions you have the greater number of playthroughs you need to do.

I tend to design and playtest the map in stages. I have an overall view of how I want the map. I begin the map by laying down the player's homeland and then test/modify that until I am happy with it. Then I move on to the other areas.

GOW

[ByteBandit]

?? My H3 maps take between 6 months to a year to make.

The maps I made for H3/WoG took almost the same time to make as you stated also. Deception Pass, which I never released publicly, took almost 1 full year to perfect.
I would say it IS possible, surely, to make a H3 map in 2 days or so, but I would'nt be fully happy with the results. It takes me just that long to come up with a storyline.

[Corribus]

The maps I made for H3/WoG took almost the same time to make as you stated also. Deception Pass, which I never released publicly, took almost 1 full year to perfect.

Why didn't you ever release it?

[ByteBandit]

Why didn't you ever release it?

I put it up on the WoG Archive and then started getting involved with the Asian Community, getting the East and the West together for trade information pertaining to HoMM3/WoG. This seems more important to me right now than releasing it. But it's there to play and if anyone wants to release it on another site, by all means do so. And I hate to say this part (As I should'nt have to, but will....) Do not use your name as the mapmaker. Plagerism is not cool.

[Crusard]

yeah, with h3 map I meant for RoE (Where you can't even use long text boxes). I agree that playtesting (specially in H4 where it has more variables, usually) can take a lot of time, even more than it took to make the map.

[[T]osHiro]

My 'Tales of Destiny' took 9 months.

I'm delaying my latest campiagn to a full year.

[Veldrynus]

My small map named "Charragaust" took me less than 5 hours. It had an underground too and was heavily decorated (without using brushes). I had to finish it very fast, because it was on the last day before the deadline of 3DO's map contest.
The longest time for me spent on making a map was 4 months (with 100-120 hours). It paid off, the finished product entitled "Draconic" became a success.

[ScarlettP]

Some folks are better at some things than others. *sigh*

[DaemianLucifer]

Veldrynus you are a god!A map shitting god,that is

[Corribus]

For my part, the bottleneck of mapmaking is writing text. Since the Outpost of Progress and Story of the Fool each had well over 100 pages of extacted text (I think SotF had over 150), you can imagine that they both took me almost a year to do.

[Crusard]

Yes, making the story and writing it takes most of the time in a well-made map.

[Veldrynus]

Yes, making the story and writing it takes most of the time in a well-made map.

Well, this depends on what you mean by "well-made map". I've always have seen this way : people who play a game, don't really care about the story in detail. Even if they are interrested in it, they get easily bored when they have to read 150 to 200 pages of text, to find out that you're The One Chosen Holy hero, who must face the armies of the Ultimate Evil and Destruction, who have nothing better to do than trying to bring Eternal Darkness to our world . More action, less words.
I think this is a good advise for mapmakers : Every map needs some story, but it is really a waste of time to make it long and very detailed. Story maps are not so popular. A good reason is that they are rarely well made. Mapmakers are mostly not profesional writers and their stories are full of boring stereotypes. So, keep it short people !

[Gaidal Cain]

*Starts setting up a comfy chair, and making popcorns*

Oh... Don't mind me, I'm just getting confy and prepared for when Corribus arrives and starts trying to rip Vel to shreds.

A map without a story is a map wasted for me. If I get to choose between playing Zarg, slayer of princesses, liberator of dragons, and general good guy on one hand, and Dallas the Knight on the other, no doubt I'm going to pivk Zarg.

And anyone saying that Heroes mapmakers can't be great storytellers either has ridiculus standards, or hasn't been looking very hard.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Well, I guess it all comes down to the preference of the individual player. I for one enjoy story maps. It gives the map more of a flavor than "just kill stuff."

GOW

[Thelonious]

A map without just killing stuff and loads of story isn't (IMHO) a great map either - I allways try to remember, this is a TBS and not a RPG. Though some maps lean heavely towards that, I really think that some times a big battle with loads of creatures is nessaracery too.

I mean it's not like Julius Cesar concored all that land on it's own.