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
