I highly appreciate your ideas and effort. It's nice to see that there is still life in this community :-). keep it up!

Alternative demonic lineup added to test-build.







Cartoon mode added (no flags/shields/numbers)



Objects and effects packed in UPatch 1.5 but unavailable in editor restored





Objects by Black Maker



Blood and gore objects added







New stuff this week

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 07-03-2020 @ 02:04 PM).]

Oh my god!
I get mad!

What do you do!?
It looks like what I have ever dream of.
All this stuff, all this units!

Let me help you with some ideas and hints, please!

First let me say what comes up to my mind when I ready this thread.

1. Ask PawelS for his special Mapmaking editor. I have it here. City limits removed and much more.

2. Take a look at PawelS AoW I mod. A great mod

3. I can hand you over much unreleased stuff.

4. Maps:
I have two more unreleased maps that I have never completed finished.
One it complete and working. It is playtested with Albaron in an online game and here at home with my son.

4.1. Map 1:
Unnamed so far - My huge upatch 1.5 map that was never finished.
With this, your project, I would start the editor again and finish it.

4.2. Map 2:
Storm Altar - A map that rebuilds the old storm Altar of AoW I in a SM map using events.

4.3. Map 3:
Fragments - As the name said a special map.

5. I can imagine that if your impressive megaproject come to live the players out there would like to start with one or more maps included.
even when my three maps base on upatch 1.5 stuff or lower it can be nice to have something to play when starting your mod.
and if I would get your mod in my hands I will be unable not to start the editor play around with it and then create something new. A new map that shows abilities of your mod.

6. Albaron and PawelS have some units libraries and I have some too.

Greetings Meister Groll! Welcome back!
I hope together we can make this patch even better!

New this week:

Trees by Beastfeast (on screenshots down there)

Desert tomb objects



Prehistoric creatures



Spaceship by Meister Groll




New units re-arranged in slots. I hope it's the last and only slots rearrangement.

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 07-11-2020 @ 01:23 AM).]

Rename ad stickied at request of O.P.

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 07-17-2020 @ 06:52 AM).]

Good Day to Everyone here. Its has been a long Silence for some people including my self to revisit old memories of this beautiful game of such possibilities. I'm glad to see something is mowing with this amazing game. As people thinking yes there is a lot more this game deserve to have to enchantment experience for every player, scenario maker, modder...
Here in this video is a thing that can spice up the atmosphere . Its an old work that need some improving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugiei7QiRM0

Greeting Beastfeast!

We used so much of your released/unreleased work in this Patch, please join us on discord it would be honor for us, or whichever channel of communication you prefer!

Actual links:
discord1
discord2

PS: As for me such a bliss could be added even without any improvements (there's not much of us actually, so from my point of view we should get maximum from the advantages we already have)
PPS: I think Meister Groll would be extremely happy to see you!

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 09-30-2020 @ 09:48 PM).]

Greetins To all
Heloo Triadasoul_7

There is some nice buildings on this screenshot! Are they from Diablo 2?

On the last one they are from Warlords 3. As for others (Warlords 3, Majesty, D2, Planescape and some random graphics from the net).

By the way, from where those wooden huts/skeletons was taken from? (I was so glad to find them in UP 1.5 files with those skeletons)


_{с благодарностью Black Maker за бехолдеров и пруд %)}

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 07-29-2020 @ 01:56 AM).]

Hey Folks i am glad to see a lot of work here and i must say that a lot of new stuff is jumping off AoW with colors, isometric problem and size problem D2 characters fit ok, but other stuff like buildings and terrain need a adjustments for sure in size and coloring for each terrain type.

Everyone who see this and love AoWSM must be addicted to this game.
I am again - after many years of silence.
I am total addicted working in this new upatch 1.6 team.
I hope that some of you old guys would like to go back in time, and pick up the best game ever made, AoWSM and join games when upatch 1.6 is released and what would be even better, if you offer to join the team and become a developer, help makeing this new upatch possible.
Throw away your mobile phone, come down to a PC and DO something in exchange of being a user of apps.
Become a developer and artist.
Somehow even a little kind of a god if you take all the small pieces and make a map with all this new content!

Join now!

How does one get involved in programming the patches? Is there a git repo or something?

I doubt I have much time, but I would love to fix some of the crashes I have when I tried (many years ago) to play some of your (The Groll's) maps... I might have tried to abuse it a bit too much... (making a character invincible by accumulating every immunity possible, etc.)...

I came to this page today to test the patches and hope the game is runs more with less ctd's than before.

Hey Folks i am glad to see a lot of work here and i must say that a lot of new stuff is jumping off AoW with colors, isometric problem and size problem D2 characters fit ok, but other stuff like buildings and terrain need a adjustments for sure in size and coloring for each terrain type.

Most of the additions to map was made as a decorations (which even in UPatch'es has no terrain versions) and are up to mapmaker how to use them. For example that ant hive is situated underground, which doesn't need to be changed to any terrain versions, etc. The same for others, but I feel it's better to have them in the editor, for mapmaker (Meister Groll for example) to get nice use of them, and may be to mask the flaws of them (like not alpha-masked edges and some other)(still not all the mountains in UP has those alphamasked things).

As for colors - we are aware of it - with all those changes we definitely jumped out the pallet and I see it as something new, like a DLC flavor or so. Not that Brave New World, like Kirky's one, but still a bit more brave than conservative additions. Still we are completely save and map compitible and almost nothing is changed in the fields of last patches (so if you don't play new maps, nothing is visible actually, except, some anime like 3d models from WoW changed to models from infinity engine which fits properly).

As for sizes - also some of the sizes kept as it is, not to damage the detailes and graphics due to shrinking (I think you know it's hard to minimize the structure without uglifying it with nearest pixel method). Also it's somehow a compromise between mapmaker possibilities and nice look of new structure, as for me it's not a problem to have some locations on maps with a bit different story scale, still I'm really up to adding small versions for them for example.

And besides all that there are only two of us limited with personal time and game lifecycle time frame (so we don't have a decade to release the patch - people would got more children,some important jobs in government or even die and wouldn't have time to enjoy this new content). So the phylosophy is that we need to be fast and charming with hype within it's time frame. That idea a bit modifies our criterea in what to be done and how. From my personal point of view - it's better to have the workbuild with that content released for people to have possibilities to use it. It's not a masterpiece as one tree which is worked for years - but in current curcamstances it's all we have and can do (and as you see from screens it's still has style and quality). But if somebody doesn't like some parts of those content he can just don't use them - there are plenty besides them - units, heroes, bugfixing, cartoon mod, etc.

Still if you want to help us with adjusting those graphics in the way you understand it and want to see - we are completely open for those changes. So if you can adjust something properly - we would be extremely glad - everyone will benefit from it. We also need help in many other fields like unit balancing, or map-making, and storywritng, or even more content extracting, so any help made with some content preparation/development are much and extremely appriciated.

So it's our message to everyone who see flaws here and there (which most of the time definitely are there) - if you want something to be worked more deeply or changed - we need and appriciate your help in that field. Else we just stop on the first tree without a proper shadow (and for example towers doesn't have shadows in AoW:SM) and lose our motivation not finishing it for years (or ever). But we know there are some rare group of high professional people who see those flaws and has ability to fix them - unit balance, graphic work, lore etc. And we are really in need of their help, because we ourselves has no time, skill, knowledge and motivation to fix that (because for our not sophisticated taste it seems to be ok, but we know it really matters). But from our point of view at least something with our forces could be done and we deliver that. Still better than no UP 1.6, I think you would agree with me.

I still hope circumstances and our standards don't make UP 1.6 a poor company for that outstanding trees and effects of yours.

Update:F@ck all that shit, after a week I've understood what you mean, I had a different vision on all that - tonns of work to be done to rellign it properly. Thank you for your much valuable feedback - I've answered you in discord.

How does one get involved in programming the patches? Is there a git repo or something?

nope it doesn't have any programming involved (except asm modifying the exe in bringing back watchtower building. We have every week updated workbuild up there in the post - so everyone could get what is done. The archive is the mod settings and graphics. So the main work is graphical one and modifying the settings of graphical content in editor. If you have some skill in ASM for example - there are some real possibilites to add unit-progression to the game and different building abilities to unit. We have a 500mb file of graphic content imported from other games, so I don't know if git is adequate for that. (if it's possible to have some closed to public alternatives - it would be great).

I doubt I have much time, but I would love to fix some of the crashes I have when I tried (many years ago) to play some of your (The Groll's) maps... I might have tried to abuse it a bit too much... (making a character invincible by accumulating every immunity possible, etc.)...

Those crashes of Grolls maps are fixed withing the map file - it's in separate post. And some of them are also is fixed by MPE engine used with this mod. Besides that crashes are caused by missining units sounds. All those are fixed (still with sounds some more could be presented - please send a game log if you have one and we imidiately fix it).

Continuing with BeastFeast's comment:still we see our motivation in pushing the limits of possibilities of the editor and style as UP 1.5 did (with WoW and Majesty content for ex.):












But still if it's something too much for more conservative players, we still have much more other stuff to give.

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 08-16-2020 @ 06:57 AM).]

We could divide assets into their own git repo, and git does have something called LFS, specifically for this. We use it in the games industry for assets. (Large file support). It won't show the detailed difference of those asset files, but it keeps a general history, making it easy enough to revert bad art decisions.

I'm not sure if it's free though.

One suggestion might be to setup an AOW-Heaven patreon to try to fund things.

--

I have a limited knowledge of ASM coding, but I can look into it. I was hoping we had the code somehow, or it was made in a way that allowed dll injection or something. I have a ton of ideas I would love to see in the game... like some sort of data taken between game sessions progressing through campaigns.

Thanks for the link about Marlene's laughter, I tried instsalling MPE but it complained about the ModEditor

An error occurred trying to download 'http://aow2.net/install/ModEditor.application'.

I assume I don't need the mod editor to test if the map is working.

We could divide assets into their own git repo, and git does have something called LFS, specifically for this. We use it in the games industry for assets. (Large file support). It won't show the detailed difference of those asset files, but it keeps a general history, making it easy enough to revert bad art decisions.

I'm not sure if it's free though.

I'll take a look at it if I have time. Or if somebody would make it for us it would be great

One suggestion might be to setup an AOW-Heaven patreon to try to fund things.

I think it's not possible for us, because of usage of content from other games, so this not to be counted commercial. It's just the modding experiments for small group of people (the game is 17 years old, huh). But if somebody like to pay to real designer or coder outside the project to make some stuff. It would be outstanding fortune actually.

I have a limited knowledge of ASM coding, but I can look into it. I was hoping we had the code somehow, or it was made in a way that allowed dll injection or something. I have a ton of ideas I would love to see in the game... like some sort of data taken between game sessions progressing through campaigns.

The code is written on Delphi, there are vast reverse engineering work mostly done by Hellbrick and PawelS. Which resulted in MPE and Hellbricks SDK and OllyDbg notes to engine
reverse engineering work - here

Thanks for the link about Marlene's laughter, I tried instsalling MPE but it complained about the ModEditor

An error occurred trying to download 'http://aow2.net/install/ModEditor.application'.

You don't need the mod editor to play, but you do need it to select mods within MPE. Here's the link if you want to use it Mod Editor

As for Marlene's Laughter there are still some rules to play:

1. That map is designed for UPatch 1.4 and should be played under MPE mod not to get reflecting pool razing save bugs. (MPE - here)
2. When you finish some quest and it's not finished - please re-load last auto-save
3. Keep saving once in 10 turns, some bugs are still there.
4. If you see text in German - please scroll there is a translation.

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 08-05-2020 @ 02:50 AM).]

I think it's not possible for us, because of usage of content from other games, so this not to be counted commercial. It's just the modding experiments for small group of people (the game is 17 years old, huh). But if somebody like to pay to real designer or coder outside the project to make some stuff. It would be outstanding fortune actually.

Oh right, forgot about that patreon rule. I'm a programmer, I have made quite a few isometric engines in different languages, and it keeps crossing my mind to make an AoW capable engine... where basically the system would accept assets and configurations in a way that we could pull off an aow mod for it.. that way it would be possible to get code developed for it legally... I've tried a few unsuccessful paths around 7-8 years ago. But now I started a new path and that one seems to be doing well.

The code is written on Delphi, there are vast reverse engineering work mostly done by Hellbrick and PawelS. Which resulted in MPE and Hellbricks SDK and OllyDbg notes to engine
reverse engineering work - here

Oh this is great! I'll take a look at this. Thank you!

I installed 1.4, and MPE, and played a generated scenario and was very impressed. I love the changes from MPE, but my game in general loses audio when my pc goes to sleep, so I closed the game, went to MPE config, and tried to change audio to not use "direct sound" audio, and when I went back into the game the graphics were bugged (like direct3d incompatibility bug).... no matter what I've tried since then I can't get things to work, even going as far as going into the regedit and trying to change video options/deleting the video options etc.

I uninstalled everything, reinstalled just 1.4 and MPE, installed 1.5 and tried to figure out how to do the 1.5MPE upgrade, etc. etc. the usual stuff. About to go see if I can install some direct3d libraries, but I think it's odd that the vanilla game still works fine.

Oh right, forgot about that patreon rule. I'm a programmer, I have made quite a few isometric engines in different languages, and it keeps crossing my mind to make an AoW capable engine... where basically the system would accept assets and configurations in a way that we could pull off an aow mod for it.. that way it would be possible to get code developed for it legally... I've tried a few unsuccessful paths around 7-8 years ago. But now I started a new path and that one seems to be doing well.

Actually such opensource engine is my dream, but it's out of my skill - I'm also a kind of a coder (I coded MTG some time ago). But as I saw from Heroes of Might Magic 3 same project - VCMI, it's extremely hard even for a vast fanbase and a big group of motivated people. But I'll be the happiest fan ever if we get open-source AoW:SM - so much could be easily done.

I installed 1.4, and MPE, and played a generated scenario and was very impressed. I love the changes from MPE, but my game in general loses audio when my pc goes to sleep, so I closed the game, went to MPE config, and tried to change audio to not use "direct sound" audio, and when I went back into the game the graphics were bugged (like direct3d incompatibility bug).... no matter what I've tried since then I can't get things to work, even going as far as going into the regedit and trying to change video options/deleting the video options etc.

Nowadays AoW:SM works smoothly alt-tabing only in windowed mode (fullscreen window if you wish). It's even more convinient, but, but... alt-tabing fastens the AI thinking on such maps as Marlene's Laughter. So something is lost )

Could you update the discord invites? I can talk a bit more freely in PM

[This message has been edited by TheRealZ (edited 08-05-2020 @ 02:16 PM).]

<sup>with thanks to BeastFeast for trees!




With big thanks to TurboBeholder for making such things possible!


with thanks to Alex BlackMaker for sources!




with thanks to BeastFeast for brilliant idea!</sup>

With immeasurable gratitude to Kirky Picardo for his yet unreleased gems!

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 09-25-2020 @ 00:22 AM).]

I thought I was the only one who is still playing this game. So glad I was wrong. I really like what you guys are trying to do here. If you want, you can use the units I made a few years ago (I actually made a few more and I recently made a new upload with all of them, but it might take a while until they will be available for download in the Misc. Download section).
Anyway, good luck with this project. I'm going to be around, but I don't think I can help you in any way.

Thank you for the permission! It may happen they don't appear there at all - could you upload it to some filesharing site?

By the way - join the discord community there are plenty of people who still play the game. Even multiplayer once a week or so. Also there are some guys from old days still there.

discord1
discord2

As for the game, any of us knows, that old is gold!

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 09-20-2020 @ 02:51 PM).]

Sure thing. Here is the link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r_27sFrN4ip98ZTuHtgBvFqw6t-1M2Xs/view?usp=sharing

Thanks for the invite. Maybe I'll join, I don't know, but not right now. I don’t have a lot of free time, my job is killing me slowly, but surely.

It may happen they don't appear there at all - could you upload it to some filesharing site?

Should be there be now, Check again.

CG - Your friendly downloads admin

Nice to meet you!
Once again thank you for renaming the thread - it already braught so much new stuff for the community!

As for the upload, I thought it's abandoned - I uploaded Mod Editor/Selector from MPE (which now is nowhere to download), Marlene's Laughter and The Secret of the Runeblades bug fixed version, UP 1.5 bug fixes (non-MPE). And it didn't appear there. May be something is bugged, or may be I violated some rules and didn't fit into premoderation. I had an idea to write it on the forum support board but was driven away by production %).

[This message has been edited by Triadasoul_7 (edited 09-21-2020 @ 10:18 AM).]

Hello Venom!

Thank you for sharing your units.
have you done them by yourself or are they scraped from a game and if so, which game was it?

Very nice units!

Hello, The Groll!

No, they are not made by me (I wish I had such a talent). They are converted (I think that's how you call the process) from other games, from Ciliviizations III (one or two) and Warcraft III (I have both games, so it was just a matter of finding the right tools). I also have Titan Quest (a long time favorite of mine), but I could not find a way to atach weapons to monsters, so I gave up on taking units from there. I tried converting units from other games, but... let's just say that they were some failed experiments. )

Hello Venom

I am only a poor modder and be happy tRIADASOUL do most of the modding work.
I am only a unit lover and mapmaker with skills in making new terrain stuff from scratch or change it so it can be used in AoWSM.
No real unit experience, beside some recoloring and sound giving experience but main focus is still one mapmaking.

Well, I'm not a modder, but I like to make game changes when I have the opportunity and time. Making units for Age of Wonders was not something I planned, but after playing the Brave New World mod, I thought I could replace some of the units with new ones that would fit the race better (in my opinion, of course). And that's exactly what I did.

I stopped at one point because I bought a laptop and my old computer died. Making new units isn't hard, but it kind of kills the HDD (at least the way I make them) and I don't want to destroy my laptop. It's a shame, though, because I had a few that I really wanted to make and I think they would look great in AOW. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

Hello mates!

Well it looks like many of the ilbs I had made for the new version of BNW got leaked I guess. I will admit this is a bit sad for me as I still held hope of completing it one day. However after so long it's kinda understandable this would happen I suppose. I just wish I would of finished the new version long ago.

Oh well, I think VenomTDA put it best...

c'est la vie.

On a more positive note, I have to say there are some beautiful screenshots here. I especially like the immortal-type cities in the clouds. I don't know who came up with the cloud/mountains in the sky terrain or concept, but hats off to whoever it was. I assume that's Mister Groll's mapmaking?

Anyway nice to see you again Mister Groll, VenomTDA and any others who may still be around!

Cheers!

Kirky

[This message has been edited by Kirky Picardo (edited 09-23-2020 @ 09:37 PM).]