Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions level editor

Blizzard didn't intentionally exposes the data textfiles to the gamers. One reason contributing to why the D2 data text files were discovered, and rather early at that, was due to Blizzard using the MPQ resource file format, which was also used for Starcraft, and there were quite a lot of Starcraft modders around whom happens to be rather hardcore programmers (Camelot Systems come to mind). Hence, it is with existing tools that gamers were able to pry into Diablo's MPQ files and come across the .txt file.

NWN is primarly designed as a tool in mind, which is why it is extremely moddable - it is meant to be. Hence, we have BD (or DD) at one end of the spectrum, and NWN at another end. One could even say that the official campagin is actually a 'mod' for NWN!

Actually, you are very right in saying that for a game to be moddable it must implement certain design features right from the programming. Total Annahiliation, Homeworld, Half-Life and etc. are all designed with customisability in mind, and hence that why they have a collection of mods.

For D2, I will rather say it happens to be a happy accident that it is moddable. The programmers decide to use a text file format to store most of the data so that it would be easier for them to tweak values. Some gamer-programmer manage to stumble upon it, and hence Diablo II mods were born. In later versions of D2, and for LOD, the developers decide to use a binary format, but respect for the mod community, they allow mod-makers to use the game to convert the binary files back to text files so that the can be edited, and allow it to be converted into a binary format instead.

So is it possible for BD to be moddable? It depends - on how the programmers store their internal data, what type of resource files they use, whether they implement any form of checksum verifying the data files (recall the terrible patch incident mentioned in Peek 33) and etc. etc. The people with the best answer are the Larians, and if they feel that releasing too much info about their code is not a good thing to do, then by all means I respect their decision.

Quick question: Does "mod" stand for "modification" or "module"?

mm, I think module, not sure.

modding = modifying. but a mod can actually be considered a modified module for a game <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

or a module that modiefies the game

lol, I think nowadays it means nearly both. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Yes, I believe that features that make a game "modable" must be implemented early - that's why I see need for such a discussion NOW, because D2 is still in relatively early stages (at least I think so).

Hullo.

Sorry to go back on a few posts ago:
releasing a level editor is not a trivial thing.
In <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> we had many editors:
- level editor
- dialog editor
- story editor
+ some extra tools for defining/balancing weapon generation etc...

The level editor alone contained a lot of modes and function keys.
You place tiles (walls, doors, items, etc...) as well as regions in which random generated terrain (bushes,...) are generated. Then you clean up.
Then you add story elements: you give doors a number and generate a corresponding key to open it. You place specific quest-related objects, naming them, etc... You define trap-teleporters: if you enter a cave, you are teleported somewhere (to the inside of the cave entrance), if you touch a teleporter stone, you are teleported somewhere else, etc... Then you define regions: areas on the map that will trigger an event when the player enters it.

These events can be taken up by the story. There, you have an event-driven/logic programming language allowing you to define rules:
IF A happens and B is true, THEN do C,D and E.
E.g.: IF player_enters(region_ambush) and player_has_at_leas_gold(1000) THEN...

... could be to play a scene where a few villains appear start a dialog "give all your money or die" and to attack you afterwards.

So, you needed to use the level editor to place locations where these thugs would appear and -if needed- other locations to route their path to you.

A very important aspect of the story are the dialogs, so the dialog editor allows you to define all possible sentences to be said, depending on dialog conditions set by the story. E.g.: if you saved the king, event_king_saved would be set, and every dialog of all NPCs could have an extra greeting node with a condition attached "event_king_saved = true" to congratulate you about your heroic act.

And this is just the top of the iceberg... so you feel there is need to A LOT of support, and mainly, A LOT of extra programming work to get such a complex editors to a user friendly level.

BTW: if any of the Larians is listening: are you guys using .Net yet? It's a great environment to quickly get complex UIs and tools working! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Cheers,
Dante

Nice to hear from you again. If i'm not mistaken this is the second time i hear about this. Lar said something about having a look there...

Yes the .net framework is a great platform. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Hiho Marian,
long see no time, right? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Well, if you do a good word for it, maybe Lar will adopt .Net to reprogram all editors in a few nights... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Good to hear from you too, and all the success with the release!

Dante.

PS: To get back on topic a bit: I forgot to mention the sound editor... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />

Looks like the work at Larian realy left some marks with Dante. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" />

using .NET would be cool... it would be one of the first games in that framework then.. not ?

.Net isn't the answer to all problems. You wil have to go with managed code to reap the benefits of .Net. As such that means you will have to go with the CLR (Common Language Runtime). Games do not benefit much from this as it will degrade their performance.
If you are using unmanaged C++, then it is just a better compiler than visual version 6, nothing more, nothing less.

So I don't see a switch to .Net for developing games anytime soon. But for user interfaces it might be different as it brings the hassleless way of making a user interface in Visual Basic to other lanaguages as well.

maybe they'll use it only for making the editor tools

I agree with Myrthos. Basically (my new favourite wiord ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) it's the same thing like Java : You'll need some timd of run-time-something for it.