10 questions faq made in paris-

[jeff]

Well its the discusion part that is a littel hard since the ubi people have a lot of laywers who kinda watch out for everything. If you where to make a top 10 list of things you would like to improve in the map editor and i think they will listen to what you say.

I hope they actually will read them. After all there have been editor lists created before without effect. There are other mapmakers who could make equally good or better lists; unfortunately I don’t know how active they are in the forum right now. Many of them just want a user friendly editor; for a campaign editor is a must and even with a good map editor I would still not buy if there was no campaign capability.

Here are seven things I would want. I'll add to it if I think of them.
1. Start with the H-IV/Equilibris Editor and keep the menu driven system and drag and drop objects, the creation of object brushes.
2. Obviously change the objects to H-6 objects, but give a much larger variety of objects than found in H-IV.
3. Eliminate any line editing as found in the H-5 editor
4. Allow scripts that place and remove objects including cities, H-IV was limited here but did allow removal of objects that did not have the ability to hold creatures, but did not allow placement.
5. Campaign function that allows for carryover heroes, objects and variables, H-IV was great at this but could be improved. H-5’s campaign ability was an embarrassment with only a few carryover heroes allowed where H-IV essentially allows as many carryovers as you wanted (I am sure there was an upper limit but I never hit I and I used as many as 12 carryovers).
6. Incorporate a face tool type ability as found in Equilibris but make it part of the editor so that custom portraits become part of the map file.
7. Build on the face tool but also allow creation of opening and closing portraits in the map file; as well as the incorporation of narration tracks.

I hope this is not just another futile list.

[MoNoXiDeBlue]

The game was not a beta, after all.

Really? Let's see the game came out on Oct 13, 2011. As of today it's had...

The 1.1 (517MB) patch, 1.11 (14MB), 1.2 (212MB), 1.2.1 (18MB), 1.3 (52MB) and 1.4 (26MB). Quite a lot of "Fixes" for a game that's only been out for 9 months...and correct me of I'm wrong, but didn't they release the first patch (1.1) On the 14th of 2011? Ha, not a beta after all.

[Pitsu]

I'd comment, reword and expand Jeff's list a bit. Please note that I, and probably Jeff too, have no access to H6 editor so we cannot tell from own experience what is wrong there.

1. All items drag-and-drop placement. Selection by left click and possibly group select too. Copy-paste selected items by common hotkeys. Doubleclick on an item gives the properties. Rotation, scaling etc can be under properties but not bound to basic mouse movements. Item brushes like in H4 are optional.
2. Terraforming should be independent of objects. Terraforming caused lot of problems in H5 and as far as i see in H6 (aren't bridges in fact not objects but some twisted semitransparent landscapes?). Terraforming is IMO about eyecandies mostly, thus it has lower priority than object placement or scripting.
3. Passability check is a must
4. I disagree with Jeff that line-editing must be eliminated. I would prefer the windows 3.1 style where you can do most with a nice UI, but you also have the possibility to go to command line and operate there. In H5 script all functions/events were together in whatever order, which made it very difficult to follow. A well defined structure is needed and of course the possibility to filter individual events/types of events/global variables.
5. Export-import custom graphics(portraits and other textures) and variables(campaign carryover data) would be very useful. Hero data is a must, but possibility to save any map parameter to external file and use it for scripts in another map would be good.
6. In my personal opinion the Editor does not need to be fool-proof to the end. It is nice if crashing and bugged maps cannot be made due to restrictions in the editor, but map quality is also responsibility of the mapmaker. It might be better to leave certain features with "proceed with caution" warning that totally block their use.

[hellegennes]

The game was not a beta, after all.

Really? Let's see the game came out on Oct 13, 2011. As of today it's had...

The 1.1 (517MB) patch, 1.11 (14MB), 1.2 (212MB), 1.2.1 (18MB), 1.3 (52MB) and 1.4 (26MB). Quite a lot of "Fixes" for a game that's only been out for 9 months...and correct me of I'm wrong, but didn't they release the first patch (1.1) On the 14th of 2011? Ha, not a beta after all.

That's nonsense. All games follow down the same path.

[Znork]

well i posted bothe jeff and pitsu comments som where it will 100% be read by limbics whole crew. So im shure that youre coments will be of grate value to them.

about h6 beeing a beta. well in relase the game was a beta dont think anyone disagrees withe that.

[hellegennes]

Okay, can someone give me a concise definition of a beta version and try and explain who does H6 released version fits into it? Please, don't say that it has bugs and issues. That on its own does not define a beta version.

[Znork]

Okay, can someone give me a concise definition of a beta version and try and explain who does H6 released version fits into it? Please, don't say that it has bugs and issues. That on its own does not define a beta version.

A beta is when a program(game) is in a state where all the funksjonalty of the program is working. But the program still a lot of bugs and the progam is not finaly tuned.

A beta test is a test where on dosent change the program that muche but one identyfyes the major bugs and remedy them.

A rc or a relase candidate is a when one has identyfied that the progam is running at satisfactory stabilety and is ready for realse.

Many of the major bugs where in the game at realse.

this beeing said the important facts are that h6 was realsed to early in the prosses. I think most of the angry people in this forums are angry becuse they like the game but there is still muche wrong withe it.

I think repsecteing that some people are angry and that som people like the game is inportant. And withe the realse of adventure pack when some people feel the game is not yet running smothly is of course provoktive to words this people. Having them spam it all over is ofcurse anoying.

[jeff]

I'd comment, reword and expand Jeff's list a bit. Please note that I, and probably Jeff too, have no access to H6 editor so we cannot tell from own experience what is wrong there.

I also have no access to the H-6 editor, and I agree completely with your comments except item 4. If I have to do line item editing to accomplish a task I require I will probably walk away. I did Basic and Pascal in the day but really have no desire for it anymore, but I would give it a cautious look. In item 2, I want to emphasize that placing objects level the terrain, but can be modified later if the mapmaker choses. I have mentioned in another thread the horrors of placing a bridge and ending up with a bunch of disconnected steps.

well i posted bothe jeff and pitsu comments som where it will 100% be read by limbics whole crew. So im shure that youre coments will be of grate value to them.

about h6 beeing a beta. well in relase the game was a beta dont think anyone disagrees withe that.

Thank you, let's hope it leads to a usable product.

[Pitsu]

I also have no access to the H-6 editor, and I agree completely with your comments except item 4. If I have to do line item editing to accomplish a task I require I will probably walk away. I did Basic and Pascal in the day but really have no desire for it anymore, but I would give it a cautious look.

There are a few reasons why i would not get rid of command lines. First some kind of command language is likely to be the base anyway and menu based scripting for some commands may be nearly impossible. Menus are limited to UI and language while commands are limited only to language. Years ago i tried to build a H5 LUA to menus translator. Some commands may have various types of input/output parameters depending on situation and it was a pain to build interface that allows all the possibilities in a fool-proof way. Second reason is simply that for me it is often more convenient to edit textual script than use menus. For instance in H4 when you wanted to add an IF condition in front of everything you had to rebuild everything...
I do think that it should be possible to build most of H3/4 type scripts without coding. The coding part may be one of those "proceed at your own risk" features which is not officially supported, but is possible nevertheless.

[hellegennes]

Okay, can someone give me a concise definition of a beta version and try and explain who does H6 released version fits into it? Please, don't say that it has bugs and issues. That on its own does not define a beta version.

A beta is when a program(game) is in a state where all the funksjonalty of the program is working. But the program still a lot of bugs and the progam is not finaly tuned.

A beta test is a test where on dosent change the program that muche but one identyfyes the major bugs and remedy them.

A rc or a relase candidate is a when one has identyfied that the progam is running at satisfactory stabilety and is ready for realse.

Many of the major bugs where in the game at realse.

this beeing said the important facts are that h6 was realsed to early in the prosses. I think most of the angry people in this forums are angry becuse they like the game but there is still muche wrong withe it.

I think repsecteing that some people are angry and that som people like the game is inportant. And withe the realse of adventure pack when some people feel the game is not yet running smothly is of course provoktive to words this people. Having them spam it all over is ofcurse anoying.

By no means there were major bugs in version 1.0. Sure, if a creature ability says it's doing something that is don't, may be annoying, but that's not a major bug. It doesn't halt the game or prevent you from playing in any way. There's no definition of "lots of bugs". How much is a lot? And what do you use to measure the significance of each one of them?

The fact that patches are released means nothing on its own. That would mean that Diablo 2 was in beta for 10 years.

No game has ever been released without bugs. Hell, even pacman had some. One that is a game-stopper, even!

[Kalah]

On the subject of this - I played both the alpha and the beta. They were much worse than the 1.1 version. The game was - is - still hideously unbalanced and full of bugs, but there's been improvement.

[MoNoXiDeBlue]

The fact that patches are released means nothing on its own. That would mean that Diablo 2 was in beta for 10 years.

Keep in mind that the majority of Diablo 2's patches were based on multiplayer for battle.net. There were very few changes in regards to the actual core game in itself. And if you did your research you wouldn't have referenced D2.

but there's been improvement

I agree, someone has been whittling away and fixing things. I have a feeling though, that regardless of the patches and expansions, etc. That it will be once again left up to the fans and modders that really make this game complete.

[hellegennes]

The fact that patches are released means nothing on its own. That would mean that Diablo 2 was in beta for 10 years.

Keep in mind that the majority of Diablo 2's patches were based on multiplayer for battle.net. There were very few changes in regards to the actual core game in itself. And if you did your research you wouldn't have referenced D2.

What are you talking about? There were billions of core changes beside balance issues. I don't have to do research on the subject, I've been playing D2 since 2000. In fact, just over a month ago I was re-playing it. There was not a single D2 patch that was not addressing bugs and issues, amongst other things.

Here are all the patch notes for D2, take a good look and tell me how many of them didn't address major bugs.

[jeff]

The number of patches doesn’t make a game a bad one at release, but can point to a company that is responsive and cares for its product. When Wizardry 8 was released, three patches were released almost immediately as reports from fans came in, and then about a week later the fourth and final patch came out. While there were still a few issues that were never patched most were cosmetic and none of them prevented the game from being enjoyed and completed. The problem here is UBI was not hurting for money the way Sir-Tech (or 3DO for that matter) was and they could have delayed release a couple of months to address several issues they must have known about judging by the speed of the first patch’s release.

[hellegennes]

They could have waited a whole year, in my opinion. They could have balanced the game so much more and add gameplay elements. But that doesn't mean the product was a beta. Hell, I don't even think of Daggerfall, which was stormed with bugs and issues as being a beta. I never ever got to finish that game because of game-stoppers and still I consider it to be non-beta. There is absolutely no way a PC game can be free of bugs, given that much of the problems arise from the very nature of open architecture. And much of the time the programmers spent goes to testing and making sure that different combinations all work. There's no way around it.

But the reason Ubi wanted to release H6 at that time, was for the title to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the franchise. Which is stupid, in my
opinion but that was the whole reasoning behind it. Instead of forgetting all
the stupid marketing behind the anniversary and focusing on delivering a
superb product, they opted for releasing a good but lacking product that hurts both the name of the series and the company itself. Shortsighted vision, yes, but not an incomplete product.

[jeff]

They could have waited a whole year, in my opinion. They could have balanced the game so much more and add gameplay elements. But that doesn't mean the product was a beta. Hell, I don't even think of Daggerfall, which was stormed with bugs and issues as being a beta.

I never said it was a beta, and agree with you it wasn't. I think most fans throw that term out anytime a game has, in their view, too many bugs. With all the configurations of PCs it is almost impossible to release a game that is bug free, though with the death of DOS and all of the hardware driver issues that it brought we should see less hardware issues. From what I've read, remember I haven't bought it (my disclaimer) it sounds that balancing was one of the biggest issues and more time could have helped. I found the amount of time from the closing of the public beta to announcing the game had gone gold was far too short. To me that was a bad sign with the results sadly too predictable.

[Dalai]

I hope this is not just another futile list.

I bet it is.

[Znork]

I hope this is not just another futile list.

I bet it is.

Then you would have lost money. They would not have flewen my down there and ask about stuff like this. That beeing said the list wont make a briliant map editor. But if you feel like telling ubi anyting about the map editor the time is now. Can only garantee that they will read what you type what they do withe it is out of my hands.

[jeff]

I hope this is not just another futile list.

I bet it is.

Then you would have lost money. They would not have flewen my down there and ask about stuff like this. That beeing said the list wont make a briliant map editor. But if you feel like telling ubi anyting about the map editor the time is now. Can only garantee that they will read what you type what they do withe it is out of my hands.

Lack of action! I believe is what Dalai meant, and it is what I meant. We have submitted several lists and may be they were read, may be not, but they were certainly ignored. If they don't accept at least some of the major items then it is a futile list. I will admit the list was not comprehensive, but I believe if they acted on all of it; then they would be close to that awesome editor. That's not to say they can't create one using only a few of the important ones. Remember I said start with the H-IV/Equilibris editor, that was/is an awesome editor. I almost refused to post a list because of UBI's lack of action in the past, and even posted that very comment, but came back and edited it to its current form. So let's see, as UBI hasn't even explained what they think is a hardcore mapmaker.

[Dalai]

Then you would have lost money. They would not have flewen my down there and ask about stuff like this. That beeing said the list wont make a briliant map editor. But if you feel like telling ubi anyting about the map editor the time is now. Can only garantee that they will read what you type what they do withe it is out of my hands.

Oh, cmon!

Our dear Marzhin is always close to Ervan on every second photo shared. And he is a mapmaker with experience. He reads all we type here and knows exactly how badly we feel about it.

They have couple dozens VIP fans - did they tell Ubi nothing about map-editor? Was there some VIP-conspiracy to prevent Ubi from making good map-editor? Is that what you believe?

Do you really believe that Ubi want's to do it right, Marzhin wants to tell the producer how it's done, Marzhin has access to both producer and all our ideas, and they still can not do it? For some mysterious but very important reason?

Be realistic. Something else is here. I think that Ubi doesn't want to do do a real campaign editor. I am sure they still don't understand neither game nor fan base, or they would never do H6 the way they did it. May be they think that a game with long lifespan is financially bad decision. May be something else, equally stupid. Like 3D-online-DRM: holy trinity mantra. Easy-stupid-shiny.

You can send them all the lists, summaries, petitions, etc. you want, the result will be the same: polite ignore.

H4 had absolutely the best map editor in whole series. Ubi really needs our ideas? They should finally install at least one copy of H4 in their whole office and check map-editor.

If they ever do something worth mentioning map-editor-wise, I will probably reach for my own to-do list for H4 editor. It's long, and it's tightly packed with real mapmaker experience. Right now it's discussing CERN experiments with apes.

If they really decided to read something fans think, after just several years - give them a link to this post.

P.S. And yes, if I lose my bet - I'd rather lose my money to jeff, then pay it to Ubi for their gamelike-almost-product. I already saved some money on H5 and MMH6