Hilarious. I honestly don't know if you have a talent for making maps (haven't played any sorry ), but you are a funny guy!

His maps are not bad too

(Free marketing tip: put a clearly visible link at the top to you map)

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 04-30-2008 @ 01:30 PM).]

(haven't played any sorry )

there's that "Needles Equation" at work again! And Swolte, can I put a link in to Athendore II and let folks assume it's "Wyrding Sea"?

It's Friday, so here's Chapter Two:


The Map Design Process

After making the commitment to produce the map and deciding on it's size, it's time to lay down some basic settings. Since this is the logical first step, it's naturally the umpteenth tab across on the scenario design menu bar. This tab involves lots of godlike decisions about what you'll permit your players to do on your map (build outposts, number of heros to allow, construct teleporters, dance on Sundays, kiss on the first date, etc.) I'm generally pretty permissive about not locking my wizards and allowing teleporters - hey, if I wanted to be God I'd have been a surgeon or a Department of Motor Vehicles clerk.

You also have to decide on whether to password protect your map or not. I don't for three reasons,

1. The first thing I always do with passwords is forget 'em (even if it's as simple as my own name,) so unless I finish the map in one marathon drunken spree I'll never get back in to finish it (and what are the chances of this happening without the dreaded intercession of the GOD OF INTEGER OVERLOAD interrupting my work...)
2. Others can come in and pick apart the mess I've made. Hey, if they actually WANT to wade into the stinking mire of my maps and take on the 'mission impossible' of correcting them, who am I to argue? (The Fools!)
3. It makes Swolte really cross.

This tab also has the 'add wizards' tool. To come up with wizards, I typically drive the van down to the neighborhood convenience store where all the migrant wizards hang out looking for work. You yell out something like "I need one fire, one water, and three chaos wizards today" and they queue up. Pay 'em about a dollar an hour, but don't tell the IRS - keep it off the books!

Finally, this tab also has stuff you don't necessarily have to do right away, like map maker comments and map name. I usually wait until the end of the process to name my maps, since if I do it at the start I end up with something cheesily dramatic (such as, say, "Across the Wyrding Sea",- good map name, or cross between a cheap new age-y romance novel and an herbal shampoo?) and if I do it while I'm actively working on the map it's just an unprintable mass of frustrated cussing that would doubtless get me in the bad graces of all the cherubs and angels they seem to have flitting about in here.

Chapter Three (map-painting) should be up around Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

3. It makes Swolte really cross.

Its true, I start pulling out my hair! I get emails when a map is uploaded, and since I am quite a stimulus-bound person, I can't resist to check them to see if they are any good.
Even when I am at work, I have to make up a million reasons for myself to secretly take a peek. For example, "if you finish this paragraph, you can look", "Its only break in 16.4 minutes, keep on going... then you can look!", "If you give your colleagues your chocolate bar, you deserve to have a peek now!".
Stuff like that. So, you can imagine my mood when its a password protected one!

To come up with wizards, I typically drive the van down to the neighborhood convenience store where all the migrant wizards hang out looking for work.

lol

cross between a cheap new age-y romance novel and an herbal shampoo

I always wondered, I thought it was a spinn-off of weirding...

Chapter Three: Don't try tasting the map paint - it burns!

Now that the preliminary business is taken care of, it's time for some bona fide map painting. On the right side of your editor screen you'll see a tiles tab with a bunch of different terrain types. As we all understand by now, the hallmark of a great map painter is using every available terrain bit on every single map tile so my tip is be sure you use EVERY ONE of the offerred terrain options on every map! As often as possible! Whatareyouwaitingfordoitnow!!

I had concocted some cock-and-bull intro about wizards fighting at the edge of reality, at the SEASHORE at the edge of reality no less, and now had to back it up. This of course meant I needed a sea to go with that seashore, (logic is my forte.) A "wyrding" sea is logically filled up with "wyrd" but unfortunately there's no tile set marked "wyrd" under the tiles tab (I'm assured on page 337 of the patch discussion thread that this will be corrected in 1.5 - it's next to the screen shot of the giant cooked lobster attacking the boat, the fact that it's a nice red cooked color probably explains why it's so cranky.) So I decided to use shadow water instead.

The problem with shadow water is that it just sits there, looking shadowy. Regular water is animated. There's a big difference. This is where I turned to something artists call "Trompe L'oeil" which is French for "Zut Alors, I've fooled you again English pig!"* Basically I put a bunch of sparkly bits all over the water to give the illusion of shimmering in the sun. This is doubly important since not only does real-life water have motion and reflection, but it's pretty clear that everything in the shadow world is glowy and/or sparkly (They should have called it 'Vegas-World'.) I think there must have been a nuclear accident there or something.

The good map painters tell me you should tailor your landscape to a local theme, for example: When you've got an "evil" area to paint it's considered good form to lay on the cobwebs. Presumably this has to do with an arcane connection between good housekeeping and virtue, (unfortunately by this reasoning I'm on roughly the same moral standing as the anti-christ.) I actually like spiders and could never figure out why AOW treats them as evil. Imagine the plagues of flies, mosquitos and hobbits we'd have without them, it's all part of nature's plan.

There are two schools of thought about adding structures and critters to maps. One says add 'em while terrain painting, the other says add 'em at the end. I do it at the end because I don't like to give the critters any extra time to wander off my map (presumably to find a better one) or the towns time to disenfranchise and become ghost towns before the map is done. Also, I like to use LOTS of wandering monsters and area guards since players busy fighting 'em are less likely to notice the shortcuts, shoddy workmanship and unfilled-in paint-by-numbers outlines scattered around the map.

Well, that's a lot of wisdom to absorb all in one go, so I'll leave off until next chapter when we'll be dealing with events for this map.

*Disclaimer: Statement for humorous effect only, I have nothing but respect for our fine French allies without whose assistance my countrymen would never have thrown off the yoke of British tyranny.**

**Disclaimer to disclaimer: Of course I have only the deepest admiration for our fine British allies and don't at all consider them tyrants (OR pigs, or some sort of mutant tyrannopigs***, although you have to admit that would be really, REALLY cool.) All that nonsense about burning my home town (see member location) is all in the past and forgotten, although things being what they are if you wanted to have another go at just the White House, provided you did it before January, I'd happily look the other way...

***Disclaimer to disclaimer's disclaimer: If you're out there (and I desparately hope you are,) I'm sorry Tyrannopigs. (Oink!)

Hilarious!

OK Needles, you win! I will play your maps. Long live the tyrannopigs!

Thanks Needles about almost get me fired while I LoLed at work!

Great going, mate, keep it up. This is good stuff to read!

Kind regards,

Low

Thanks guys, I should have the next to last chapter ready by (I'm hoping) Friday sometime, or at least this weekend - gotta have something ready to get Low_K in trouble at work on Monday...

Chapter Four: The Big Event OR If you're gonna steal ideas, folks who don't come 'round anymore complain a lot less.

Map design and sex are a lot alike, and no I don't mean because they both start with me drinking heavily and end with everyone making fun of the extra large, coyote-ugly monstrosity I end up with. What I'm getting at is both are better with a lot of action. In AOW scenarios this often means events.

"Across the Wyrding Sea" was my first map where I used a meaningful number of events ("meaningful" being, I think, four.) Many map makers seem to be intimidated by the whole 'event' process. This is possibly because the scritping logic built into many of the events was part of a government experiment to drive folks insane. In my case this worked to a 'T'. Also, look at The Groll, he used to hardly talk at all...;-)

Luckily, many events take little or no complex scripting at all. One of my favorites is "spawn unit", (I always thought this event should come with a porn sound fx and a blurry video of two monsters, well, you know...) I used this event a great deal in Wyrding Sea (as well as my later maps.) The tricky bit here is setting the correct behavior setting for your spawned critters, and there's a LOT to choose from, (without any helpful explanation from the editor.) By way of a public service I'll detail how these work right here*:

Guard: These guys stand in place and defend whatever spot you plunk 'em down in. Happily that goblin darter doesn't seem to have any existential qualms about whether that shabby, leaking watchtower you've dropped him into is actually worth defending to his last breath in the face of that 8-stack of titans bearing down on him, but then if he weren't a little dim he wouldn't have signed up for this duty in the first place, or at least he'd accept a reasonable cash tendor to sell out - which guards won't do. (Well, if you have "Surrender - On" I suppose he might have second thoughts...probably a very good thing real-life generals don't have a "surrender off" option for their troops.)

Guard Area: Remember when you were little and there was that mean dog that was always tied up in the neighbors yard? The one that went after anything that was within reach of it's leash; you, the mailman, butterflies, the shadow from overflying airplanes... This is that dog.

Patrol: Free roaming nuisances who unflag player owned structures and cities and only pick fights they think they'll win. They want what your players have as long as they don't have to work to get it. If you're having any politicians on your map you should set 'em to "patrol", (and like politicians they can be bought, although monsters having a somewhat higher moral fiber than politicians they'll only sell out to similarly aligned wizards.)

Raid: At first glance this looks a lot like 'patrol' but nastier. They do what patrollers do except they raze structures and cities. Kind of like extremist groups who want to save the population even if they have to destroy them to do it, (although of course they won't, you know, risk destroying themselves to do it.) Sort of a "Valley of Wonders Peoples Liberation Front" who of course are desparate enemies of the "Peoples Front for the Liberation of the Valley of Wonders" who don't get along at all with, well, you've heard this joke before from funnier people than I.

Berserk: At first glance this looks a lot like 'Raid' but stupider. They're just as mindlessly destructive as 'Raiders' but attack anything in their path. Use this setting when spawning NBA fans whose team has just won the championship, Habitant's fans when the Canadiens have just lost the championship, or euro football fans on any given weekend during the season.

Wander: Free roaming roadblocks who idle around not doing much of anything. Use this setting when spawning Highway Department construction crews on your map.

Refuge: They pretty much hook up with anyone who comes along. If real life people had "behavior settings" and I could read 'em, this is the girl I'd be looking for at the bar...

It's said that, "if we see further than those who came before it's because we're standing on their sholders." I'm pretty sure this was said by someone who is as shameless an idea thief as I am. One day I wandered into the AOW Heavengames Library section, (I had to sneak past Marion Atoz, the librarian - I've got rather a lot of overdue scrolls) and started snooping around. Astonishingly enough, in the "Scenario Design" section it turns out there's a wealth of information about scenario design! Imagine that, information in a library - what an age we live in! While digging about I formed (and by "formed" I of course mean "completely and entirely stole") an idea for the coin operated teleporter in "Wyrding Sea" from a submission by a person named Aquamote. (Turns out you can make doing things cost players money by setting the gold reward to negative - negative numbers! What an age we live in!)

Some mapmakers (well, ME,) will be tempted to hide a sneaky "win game" event buried in their long events list so they can cheat on their own maps. Unfortunately, this won't really work. There's always some obsessive-compulsive type who's gonna load your map into the editor and dig around endlessly until he finds it and blows the whistle, spoilsport! Now how am I supposed to work my way up to winning vs "squire" setting?

Well, there's a great deal more you can do with events, but my keyboard has just about run out of letters so I'll have to wrap this up until the final chapter.

* I should point out that there's a much more reliable (if you're into that sort of thing - I usually just wing it,) description of behavior settings in the origingal AOW TWT scenario design library.

Luckily I managed to keep my job. Was close though.

Keep it up Needles!

Kind regards,

Low

LOL

As an added experiment, you can make it three levels to guarantee that those PBEMers foolish enough to attempt it have no 'real life' at all, just endless, endless rounds of turn submissions. (In my weaker moments I pity them.)

Speaking of which, when is your next 3-level one coming out? Also, we have just the spot for you here


Note: pbem can increase your skills as a mapmaker, and improve funny writing skills to the point where you actually do get your readers fired!

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 05-18-2008 @ 03:14 AM).]

Note: pbem can increase your skills as a mapmaker, and improve funny writing skills to the point where you actually do get your readers fired!

Now stop it! Luckily it was still early, but again I LoLed at work. You guys are playing with my income here!

Kind regards,

Low

Sorry for the long delay guys, some disturbing RL stuff came up that sucked the funny out of me.

Speaking of which, when is your next 3-level one coming out?

Funny you should ask, I have another 3-layer scenario, "Dark Embrace" about 95% done. I haven't finished it up because I'm thinking of co-releasing a semi-sp version of it at the same time, which will take some work, which in turn is again being delayed by the above mentioned RL news. (Which is also why I had to decline the gracious invitation to playtest the above mentioned map.)

Anyway, here's the final installment of my "Making of Across the Wyrding Sea":


Chapter Five: Playtesting - Can an infinite number of Chimps playing an infinite number of games produce a flawless scenario? Who knows - ONE poo flinging chimp in the place is bad enough!

Finally! The last chapter! Here I'll talk about finishing up the map, submitting it to Heavengames, and basking in the fame and fortune that inevitably attended Wyrding Sea's release.

"And on the eighth day, God playtested, and saw that it was good." Unfortunately, God wasn't playtesting "Across the Wyrding Sea," which wasn't good on the 8th, 18th or possibly 80th day (I forget now exactly how long I was toiling over this puppy.) Here's the playtest process in brief:

1. Finish up the map in the editor, open it in the game, and all hell breaks loose.
2. By the time you've played through day 1 you have an approximately two page list of things to fix.
3. You close the game (after surrendering so you can see the advanced progress the AI players have made in one day relative to each other,) and reopen the editor.
4. After fixing the stuff on the list in the editor you reopen the scenario in the game.
5. You again play through one day, by which time you've now collected THREE pages of things to fix...

Madness will have set in the first time you realize that there's one bit of map that had ten events tied to within it's coordinates that has to be totally redone - necessitating clawing through the entire event list to locate those that need editing - I'm pretty sure the Old Ones were behind this whole process. (In fact if you really dig through your events list when it gets long, you'll sometimes run across an event condition: "AND - Cthulu wills it", and you didn't put it there!!)

In general, event editing is about as much fun as calling a tech support line and getting the Spirit of Magic on the other end: "What? What's 'Reward. Enigma. Impetuous. Caution' got to do with my DVD/ROM drive?" (Who taught this guy to talk, Yoda?)

Eventually I had (or so I thought,) all of the bugs worked out and the map ready to upload. So, I zipped up the file (there are many ways to convert the .ahm file to a .zip file - I use the "end of vacation - cram it into a suitcase and sit on it until it's all buckled down" process,) and set off to the AOWHeaven file upload site.

When you upload a file like 'Wyrding Sea', or any other scenario, the upload process challenges you with an ever more complex series of questions. It's like in the movies where a team of protagonists are slowly weeded out in a contest - consequently I'm guessing family guys with everything to live for and guys one day short of retirement never actually get a scenario uploaded (and are never heard from again!) It starts with simple things like "are you uploading a scenario", "a mod", "meatloaf recipes", or "government secrets", and ends with a request for an elegant proof of Fermat's last theorem. (I usually make it as far as "how many levels is your map?" before being stumped.) What's the difference between an "Advanced" map and an "Expert" map anyway? Whether the computer mocks or pities me when I lose? How much cheating I do to get through it?

After navigating the complex and terrifying maze of scenario upload page questions you'll be allowed to make some introductory comments to appear with your map. With Wyrding Sea I started to include "acknowledgements" since it produces the illusion that I'm gracious when in fact I'm spreading the blame. This is also a good time to warn players about any special house rules they should observe while playing the map, e.g. "don't use shadow shift", no "call hero" spell, "chug a beer after each turn", "Better keep a fire extinguisher handy", etc. Don't worry, no players will actually read (or follow) these instructions but at least it'll be off your conscience.

Eventually your scenario gets uploaded and the happy day arrives when your map appears on the scenario download page! Hooray! And look - Swolte has blessed it with one of his patented "well I haven't actually played the map (code for 'when hell freezes over and the last AOW scenario in the universe is this one then MAYBE') but doesn't it look great in the editor" messages. This is akin to the special olympics when everyone gets a ribbon and a hug just for participating - the wierd thing is that even knowing this it STILL makes you feel better.

Luckily, in the case of Wyrding Sea, The Groll was there, serious as a heart attack, to splash the cold stinging water of reality on my face. Specifically it was "Hey, did you intend to have this big glaring error on your map?" or words to that effect, (apparently his significant other wandered into a badly scripted neighborhood and got a hero stack stuck there, with much complaining. I'm sort of hoping it led to a "Cops" level domestic disturbance with lots of fine Germanic profanity, smashing crockery* and flailing magic wands.) Of course this led to my dragging the map back into the editor and, long story short [too late!] "Across the Wyrding Sea v1.1"

This is not an altogether unfortunate situation. I think we all know by now the best maps have a version number attached since the real mark of excellence is failing to get it right the first time. Also, it's a clever way to inflate your download numbers since, (hopefully) all those folks who saved version 1.0 will be back for version 1.1! As a thank you to the Groll for his vigilance (and by 'vigilance' I mean 'loving a woman who doesn't scout very well',) I of couse did him the "honor" of getting a namesake hero in my next map. (The description is based on a post he made in the cooperative mapmaking thread - let this be a lesson to all you frequent forum posters - I AM watching and silly/imaginitive posts make you a target for hero-hood.)

And there you have it, the story of how I came to produce the lowest-rated file in Heaven Games download history! As I've said before, I still expect to update this map when the 1.5 patch comes around (expected release date: sometime after Dr. Zaius and before the Morlocks.) Until then, enjoy it for what it is and keep Moonyowl out of the catnip!


*Curiously, the only two phrases I remember from German 1 are "Sharben bringen gluck" and "Ein maS bier, bitte" Luckily, I think those two will get me through most situations in life, or at least most situations in Germany.

[This message has been edited by Needles (edited 05-29-2008 @ 05:12 PM).]

With Wyrding Sea I started to include "acknowledgements" since it produces the illusion that I'm gracious when in fact I'm spreading the blame.

Lol!

Too bad it is the last installment, but hope to see some more about your new map creation soon!

This has to be one of the funniest Making of's ever!

Great job, Needles. Keep up the good work! Hope you start a new map soon.

Kind regards,

Low

Read the thread all the way through, but still didn't find any clues about how to place shadow water on the surface...

Wow, you got through all that!?

Read the thread all the way through, but still didn't find any clues about how to place shadow water on the surface...

That's what you get for expecting useful information from me!

I see that Psykitty (among others) has answered your question under your own post, but for the benefit of anyone else who happens to follow this thread, (some folks sure have a lot of time on their hands,) let me point out that there is a "shadow water" terrain tile in the shadow terrain tile set - it's near the bottom and (naturally) doesn't look anything at all like shadow water. (I think that's done to discourage swimmers.)

As bonus information (and here 'bonus' is used in the sense of "stuff you didn't ask for and couldn't care less about",) let me caution you about two things with the shadow water.

1. Do not place any of the "new" 1.4 bridges over the shadow water. They will disappear on the surface and underground levels and cause shadow water to change to regular water under a standard bridge in the shadow realm. (Guess the shadowland Building Inspector is a traditionalist...)

2. Remember that area guards calculate interception range based on move radius, and flyers/floaters/swimmers will move quite a bit farther when jetting over shadow water.

I found both of these out the hard way, (That's right you naysayers, there actually WAS some playtesting done on this map!)