Wow, already a lot of requests here! I've only got a few to add, but the main two are easy to implement and should have been done for retail launch.
- More editor tooltips, in PLAIN ENGLISH. ie: "Damage dealt by the unit when being scaled." Tooltips like these are difficult to interpret. Someone new to the editor would assume this means to increase damage by a %, but that would really be Damage Fraction, another attribute that isn't properly explained. Every editable value should have a tooltip, there's no excuse for this.
- We should be able to drag and drop Requirement Nodes. It's really frustrating when editing requirements that I can't move them around.
- The Actor Events panel contains a lot of information with very little explanation. If actor events are supposed to behave similar to triggers, then the editor should be similar to the trigger editor, it's much easier to work with.
- Fix the numerous problems listed here with Dialogs, then go and scrap all of it and fucking redo it to be more like HTML/CSS. Dialogs are incredibly difficult to set up because of all the guesstimating involved. All dialog items should have meaningful alignments, including the ability to center text.
- If you can't fix dialogs, at least fix Leaderboards and Timer Windows so that they can be anchored in different locations on the screen, without having their anchor points tied exclusively to one corner. What's the point in moving a Leaderboard if it's size is based on a percentage of screen size? Moving it to an absolute position would still allow for it to render off-screen.
The more I write up things that need fixing, the more I think up. So just tell them to hire me. =P I'll work for rent/utilities+food. I'm very easy to please!
Every data-field, actor-event and flag. If you do anything at all, do this one. This is kind of embarrassing. If you really expect us to make truly epic maps, or at least good maps, we need to know at least most of what you know about the tools we're using. You don't have to tell us how you coded it, just how it was supposed to be used. Ask us for help. Seriously, if someone from Blizzard says, "Hey Mapsters, we're documenting the editor, but it's a huge job, could we get some of you're help for free?" then someone here or another fan-site would answer, "You had me at 'Hey'!"
(PS: I am one of those people. I have lot of experience programming so I know how important, and especially how tedious, documentation can be. I want to help you guys out, so let me and the community know if you need some fan-power!)
Data Editor
Footprints still bugged: Every time you open the shape editor for it, it resets to it's default, making it almost impossible to decipher how to make proper footprint.
Footprints are really bugged! Even when you have one setup as a duplicate of one that Blizzard made, it will not work exactly the same, especially while in the editor.
One-Way Line-Of-Sight: It would be really nice to have a way to define one-way Line-of-Sight objects (actor and footprint would make the most sense). So that you could make bushes that can be seen out of but not into. So far, the best I can accomplish is making a terrain object that raises the terrain cliff level by 1, then manually lowering it using the terrain-morphing tool to make it look lowered, but that has nasty consequences tied to it that aren't worth it.
Attribute Behaviors: Behaviors of type Attribute should be able to hold floating point values. Just have a "displayed-precision" field and make it so the value field holds floating-point numbers. Also, not sure if this has been changed, but it would be great if we could control the layout of the unit's display interface.
Mathematical & Cross-Referenceable Value Fields: Numeric-value fields should be able to hold an expression which can reference both instance/temporary values (such as the current number of Buffs on a unit) and fixed values (such as the default, before-game-has-started maximum number of Buffs allowed for that Buff). This could be too hard/risky depending on implementation, so a possible alternative might be allowing triggers to create new instances of the target object, with X changes, that Y unit/player group will reference to from now until otherwise reset.
Unit Attributes: Customize, add/remove unit attributes (such as armored, biologic...etc.)
Resources: Customize, add/remove resources (such as minerals, gas, terrazine...etc.)
Trigger Editor
Instance Object Control/Creation: (refer to Mathematical & Cross-Referenceable Value Fields: in Data Editor, for details.)
Before/After Effect is Initialized: When ever an effect is created (with/without triggers) there should be an event fire before and after it is cast that will allow you to modify the effect, or even allow the effect to initialize. This would make making our own damage/damage reduction system MUCH easier. Matter of fact, events for effect stages would be great, such as Effect-Cast (before initialization), Effect-Initialized (after initialization), Effect-Period (event thrown each period), Effect-Exhausted (duration ended), Effect-Final (effect removed). But before/after initial stages are the most important.
Smarter Debugger/Error-Messages: (In Game) A TriggerError has occurred! ...somewhere... Too bad you decided to use a custom script on many of the arithmetic lines, because using the GUI's arithmetic tools would have been a nightmare. Now you'll either have to painstakingly look at every single word of it to make sure you remembered to update your variable/parameter names, or you'll have to recreate it using the GUI. Or, my favorite "Syntax Error. Line: 36. File: Generated." Syntax Error? No kidding? And here I thought that "int lv_var; lv_var = 0;" was valid syntax. Huh.
Ok I'm done being an ass here, but in all seriousness, the errors could be a little more descriptive/helpful. Look into the scripting language Ruby, and how it's system handles errors. It might save you some time and headache.
Misc
Image/Model Converter: Native image and/or model conversion support when importing/exporting. (Hey, a man can dream, can't he?)
Native Plug-in/Extension Support: So that users can make new tools to attach directly to the editor. (Yeah, totally not gonna happen. >_<;)
Hero/Unit Persistent Data Preservation: This belongs under both Data & Trigger Editors. The ability to take a snapshot of unit, before it dies and is removed, and be able to recreate that unit exactly as it was before. If you have already fixed this, then thank you very much! <3
Final Thoughts
Thanks for taking the time to read any, if not all, of this and thanks for listening to us!
Another one that came to my mind:
- Make it possible to replace doodads with triggers "on-the-fly".
Similar to the idea of Phasing used in WoW, so we can change zones inside the game, completely. Burn down a forest, create a new infestation with zerg-doodads. That stuff, while playing, would be great. Currently, it's very slow, complex & annoying to do so, by picking every single doodad on the map. And I have a lot of those.
Make actor events and other actor stuff, and being able to grab more data out of the data editor and make your own library of actor events and grab states thats inside the data editor (Check flags, portraits, 2d sprite model)
^ that would be way to hax for map editors, then we could look up people automaticly, wouldnt work, but the playername, blizzard said that they would add it
1. Let us have more cliff levels. We can work around the tiny, tiny number we're given, but it's still really irritating. Even WarCraft 3 had something in the order of 18, and we've only got, what, 3 plus chasms?
2. Before release, we were promised that scrapped units like the Soul Hunter and units from SC1 like the Reaver would be in the editor. We have a couple - the Lurker and Swarm Guardian, off the top of my head, but is there any chance we could get the others, or at least their models?
EDIT: 3. Allow us to use area-targeted spells in conjunction with custom UI buttons. Currently, we can only detect when an ability is cast, but if we want to be able to cast, say, Psionic Storm from a custom UI button, we can't get the area indicator.
Allow us to load other maps that we have published through one, but have something like must contain a similar name I want this mainly for campaign purposes. Tell them too that it could be its own separate thing because I understand the problems, people could have one map everyone plays but when you finish loads his other map to boost popularity. Ask for like a Custom Campaign game mode like in WC3. IDC if it even comes out in Heart of the Swarm make sure they are working on it!
Not sure if this has been said at all, but for all us 3d modellers out there, please release ur art tools sooo we can make awesome particle effects!!!
(not saying i dont love the asset tools we have now, thanks to the awesome NiNtoxicated!! but there are some stuff that i would love to do with particles!)
i dont know if theres a way to do this but i wanted a way to detect the teams that were made in the lobby instead of having to put the players in set teams or make teams in game..
- Better suport for singleplayer maps. I shouldn't need to publish a map and play online if I want to play a singleplayer map.
- Better suport for campaigns. At the moment theres no real way to distribute custom campaigns, and again, I shouldn't need to play online in order to play a singleplayer campaign.
Editor
-Make the maxium maps you can publish to 20.
-A easier way to attach units in the editor.
-Allow US users to publish their maps on the EU Server and the EU users to publish their maps on the US Server.
-Custom Terrain tool
-Decal Editor For Battle Net
-Warcraft lll Models
-Model Editor
Multiplayer (Battle Net)
-2 player Campaign
-Leagues have a issue not 100% if this was intentional ,but say you're in the 1v1 silver league and your openant is in the gold league.They match up with you and they are not in your league if this was not intentional then I hope Blizzard fixes it if it hasn't been fixed yet.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Wow, already a lot of requests here! I've only got a few to add, but the main two are easy to implement and should have been done for retail launch.
- More editor tooltips, in PLAIN ENGLISH. ie: "Damage dealt by the unit when being scaled." Tooltips like these are difficult to interpret. Someone new to the editor would assume this means to increase damage by a %, but that would really be Damage Fraction, another attribute that isn't properly explained. Every editable value should have a tooltip, there's no excuse for this.
- We should be able to drag and drop Requirement Nodes. It's really frustrating when editing requirements that I can't move them around.
- The Actor Events panel contains a lot of information with very little explanation. If actor events are supposed to behave similar to triggers, then the editor should be similar to the trigger editor, it's much easier to work with.
- Fix the numerous problems listed here with Dialogs, then go and scrap all of it and fucking redo it to be more like HTML/CSS. Dialogs are incredibly difficult to set up because of all the guesstimating involved. All dialog items should have meaningful alignments, including the ability to center text.
- If you can't fix dialogs, at least fix Leaderboards and Timer Windows so that they can be anchored in different locations on the screen, without having their anchor points tied exclusively to one corner. What's the point in moving a Leaderboard if it's size is based on a percentage of screen size? Moving it to an absolute position would still allow for it to render off-screen.
The more I write up things that need fixing, the more I think up. So just tell them to hire me. =P I'll work for rent/utilities+food. I'm very easy to please!
Here's another vote for:
-Server side bank signatures.
-Map transitions.
-Detailed tooltips for obscure data editor fields.
DOCUMENTATION!!!!!!
Every data-field, actor-event and flag. If you do anything at all, do this one. This is kind of embarrassing. If you really expect us to make truly epic maps, or at least good maps, we need to know at least most of what you know about the tools we're using. You don't have to tell us how you coded it, just how it was supposed to be used. Ask us for help. Seriously, if someone from Blizzard says, "Hey Mapsters, we're documenting the editor, but it's a huge job, could we get some of you're help for free?" then someone here or another fan-site would answer, "You had me at 'Hey'!"
(PS: I am one of those people. I have lot of experience programming so I know how important, and especially how tedious, documentation can be. I want to help you guys out, so let me and the community know if you need some fan-power!)
Data Editor
Trigger Editor
Misc
Final Thoughts
Thanks for taking the time to read any, if not all, of this and thanks for listening to us!
Ability to change more things via the catalog and/or triggers/data, primarily:
Also, support more attributes for units not just the base 10 light, structure, psionic, etc
Finally, support trigger cliff and terrain manipulation (if it's coming in the third expansion that's okay too)
Really the only thing I would like to see in the editor is the Terra-Tron we all saw in the April Fools day joke.
Thanks
Another one that came to my mind:
- Make it possible to replace doodads with triggers "on-the-fly".
Similar to the idea of Phasing used in WoW, so we can change zones inside the game, completely. Burn down a forest, create a new infestation with zerg-doodads. That stuff, while playing, would be great. Currently, it's very slow, complex & annoying to do so, by picking every single doodad on the map. And I have a lot of those.
Make actor events and other actor stuff, and being able to grab more data out of the data editor and make your own library of actor events and grab states thats inside the data editor (Check flags, portraits, 2d sprite model)
Increase bank size. 8kb is just not enough!
Nevermind, looks like they changed that already.
I'd like to get player names and convert them into a string so trigger logic can use them.
It must extract the playername.charcode, ex. Fuglypump.835
^ that would be way to hax for map editors, then we could look up people automaticly, wouldnt work, but the playername, blizzard said that they would add it
1. Let us have more cliff levels. We can work around the tiny, tiny number we're given, but it's still really irritating. Even WarCraft 3 had something in the order of 18, and we've only got, what, 3 plus chasms?
2. Before release, we were promised that scrapped units like the Soul Hunter and units from SC1 like the Reaver would be in the editor. We have a couple - the Lurker and Swarm Guardian, off the top of my head, but is there any chance we could get the others, or at least their models?
EDIT: 3. Allow us to use area-targeted spells in conjunction with custom UI buttons. Currently, we can only detect when an ability is cast, but if we want to be able to cast, say, Psionic Storm from a custom UI button, we can't get the area indicator.
Thanks for doing this, Creation and Blizzard. :)
Thats it for now :D
-Lets us create new local variables in the function/variable/value selection window.
-Hire geX and make Andromeda an official part of the editor.
And the classics:
-Let EU and US play together
-WC3 like gamelist
Not sure if it exists already, but if it does there must be a really round-about way of doing it:
-Not sure if this has been said at all, but for all us 3d modellers out there, please release ur art tools sooo we can make awesome particle effects!!!
(not saying i dont love the asset tools we have now, thanks to the awesome NiNtoxicated!! but there are some stuff that i would love to do with particles!)
i dont know if theres a way to do this but i wanted a way to detect the teams that were made in the lobby instead of having to put the players in set teams or make teams in game..
- Better suport for singleplayer maps. I shouldn't need to publish a map and play online if I want to play a singleplayer map.
- Better suport for campaigns. At the moment theres no real way to distribute custom campaigns, and again, I shouldn't need to play online in order to play a singleplayer campaign.
Editor
-Make the maxium maps you can publish to 20.
-A easier way to attach units in the editor.
-Allow US users to publish their maps on the EU Server and the EU users to publish their maps on the US Server.
-Custom Terrain tool
-Decal Editor For Battle Net
-Warcraft lll Models
-Model Editor
Multiplayer (Battle Net)
-2 player Campaign
-Leagues have a issue not 100% if this was intentional ,but say you're in the 1v1 silver league and your openant is in the gold league.They match up with you and they are not in your league if this was not intentional then I hope Blizzard fixes it if it hasn't been fixed yet.