Multiplayer Question

[ElmarkOFear]

I have still not received any info. on whether an editable map file (jpg, tga, gif) will be provided, for those who wish to host their own campaign-type competitions. The players who wish for a multiplayer campaign may be few and the campaigns may take a long while to finish, but it is important to us anyways. GI mentioned that there was some old code that attempted to make a multi-campaign for MI/WE but was abandoned. Could there be anything of use there for us "Hosts" that would not violate any copywrite laws? If so, anything at all to help us keep track of player troop movements would be wonderful. Thnx again for any help you may provide.

[Vanya]

GAH!

You mean... like an editable campaign/strategy map... like Europe in MTW or Japan in Shoggy...?

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif

GAH!

[ElmarkOFear]

Isn't that what I said? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by ElmarkOFear:
[B]I have still not received any info. on whether an editable map file (jpg, tga, gif) will be provided, for those who wish to host their own campaign-type competitions. The players who wish for a multiplayer campaign may be few and the campaigns may take a long while to finish, but it is important to us anyways.[/QUOTE]

(Target! Get in here...)

While we wait for Target... I would guess that there's no way to redesign the strategy map in the current release; possibly in the add-on. I mean, you can redecorate the existing map texture all you like, but you won't be able to design a new map with different provinces. I think. Target will know.

There's no chance of us releasing the code for the old unfinished multiplayer campaign, sorry; it was tightly integrated with the rest of the game source, so it's not just a matter of a separate 'campaign server' which we could release for you to work on.

Gil ~ CA

[Vanya]

Quote Originally posted by GilJaysmith:
(Target! Get in here...)

While we wait for Target... I would guess that there's no way to redesign the strategy map in the current release; possibly in the add-on. I mean, you can redecorate the existing map texture all you like, but you won't be able to design a new map with different provinces. I think. Target will know.

There's no chance of us releasing the code for the old unfinished multiplayer campaign, sorry; it was tightly integrated with the rest of the game source, so it's not just a matter of a separate 'campaign server' which we could release for you to work on.

Gil ~ CA[/QUOTE]

GAH! Gil! GAH!

Editing the original map -- bad idea.

Adding the ability (ie, in future release/patch?) to create NEW maps to choose from, and being able to edit those CUSTOM strat maps -- good.

That way, Vanya, in His infinite wisdom, can forge a map of, say, the Everglades, complete with factional "provinces" and resources, publish it on the web so others can download it and play SP/Custom games on it!

So... now you would 1. pick map, then 2. pick era, etc...

GAH!

Think of Lords of the Realm 2, where you could choose from among MANY strategy/campaign maps.

The ability to do this would add much replayability to the game.

ESPECIALLY if you can then pick a custom map and have the playable factions mapped onto its provinces in a random, yet orderly, fashion...

So, the Enlish might start out in Tampa and the French in Cuba, with the Polish, HRE, Russians and Spanish vying for the Miami plains and the Islamic empire lurking to the west in the swamp...

Then, with a unit editor, you could have those swamp Almohads fielding Heavy Swamp Thing Infantry and Swamp Archers in no time... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

GAH!

Of course, Vanya, in His infinite wisdom, recognizes this will not make it into MTW now... but if its possible for a future patch or even TW3, it would be nice...

GAH!

[ElmarkOFear]

Thnx Gil, If the map is editable, that is all we need. I am not talking about adding new provinces etc. I am talking of using the campaign map exactly the way you guys made it. The only type of editing I would do would be to color the different provinces to represent the different clans playing in the hosted campaign. As long as the outline of the provinces is there it will work great. Thanks again. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Here is an example of what I am talking about it is very simple and easy to change around. http://home.insightbb.com/~el-marko/ As you can see it is a very small file with simple graphics, but it is a great help in the campaign.

[This message has been edited by ElmarkOFear (edited 08-16-2002).]

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by ElmarkOFear:
Thnx Gil, If the map is editable, that is all we need.
[/QUOTE]

No problem... and happy to hear the existing stuff will see you through.

Target's your man for any questions about the stratmap graphic, since I'm a panda of very little brain when it comes to graphics http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[moments later] It occurs to me that there might be a copyright issue with reproducing the stratmap graphic - although I personally doubt that there would be any problem with this specific reuse. But just to be safe, you might want to check with Richie at the .com whether it'll be OK to use it for this purpose. I'd be a bit surprised if it wasn't OK, but I wouldn't want to advise you to go ahead with anything which could lead to your getting into legal trouble, even if the chances are vanishingly small.

Gil ~ CA


[This message has been edited by GilJaysmith (edited 08-16-2002).]

[Target]

Well, the way the game stands at the moment, it's assumed that there is only one map available, and that it always there and that's all the game needs to worry about.

It's possible that we could add something to the startpos files to specify the map that you're going to play on, but the tricky bit would be making the maps and all the other stuff the game would need to be able to know what was going on.

First up you need a new map to play on. Not a complicated problem in itself, but you'll need two copies of the same map - one at low-res (for playing at 800x600 and lower)and one at high res (for playing above 800x600). You'll also need a simplified version of this to go in the front end and a tiny version to work as the mask for the radar in top-left corner of the stratmap.

Then you'll need to create a lookup-map (both in low-res and hi-res). This is what tells the game what shape each region. The lookup map is referenced when the user clicks on the map, drags and drops pieces, highlights regions somehow and is generally how the game interacts with the pretty playing board.

Making this is the complicated bit - when we produced the stratmap for Medieval, we needed to make a simplified image of the pretty map, with block colours for each of the regions on the map. This had to be done by hand by one of our highly talented artist dudes. This image was then passed through a series of archaic tools which we never updated or merged into one highly useful application with a large green button marked "GO!" on it, because we all knew we'd only ever have to do this once. These tools worked out what shape the borders were and added them to the lookup-map image, then another reordered the colour palette of the image to match the one the game was expecting, then another tool converted it to .lbm format and then we had to go over it by hand, correcting mistakes and generally making sure it was all OK using yet another tool.

Once it's gone through this process, you'll need to make another, smaller version of the lookup-map image for the radar and yet another one for the front end.

That's how to make a new stratmap. There are some other rules that you need to follow, and, from experience, you're likely to enquire several times to anyone close enough to hear why the $^%&£*# thing isn't $^%&£*# working properly.

If the feature of specifying different maps makes it into a future patch, we'll make sure you modding guys get all the info you need to know about how to make them and get them into the game, but bear in mind that we're making no promises here. I'll try, time and resources permitting, but I'm not going to say it'll definately get done.

------------------
Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[MagyarKhans Cham]

The stratmap as it is, is ok for our empires webmonkey, and for what i know of that map is already downloadable on a site... in other words our Khan is already studying it for a new conquest

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Target:
[/QUOTE]

That was a bit weird http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif It's like being at work and asking you a question, only, freakier...

[MagyarKhans Cham]

once i met a brilliant (scottisch?) modder in these forums, i am sure he can handle these things

[Taohn]

Well, I hope Vanya gets his wish. I would love to play Shogun with the MTW engine and all the single player improvements. That could be a brilliant mod (player made or through an expansion). Re-use all the old art from Shogun, decorate the map (keeping the old drawings), bring back Shogun's music or find an entirely new score, and make maps for the different borders, perhaps using some from the orgs selection.

[This message has been edited by Taohn (edited 08-17-2002).]

[ElmarkOFear]

Thnx guys I got more answer than I ever expected!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif I think we are going to have a lot of fun with this in the near future.

Magya - If you know where I can download the strat map, please let me know so I can begin to set up a front end similar to the one in the URL I listed earlier. Thnx http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[MagyarKhans Cham]

my ugliest, can u handle .psd files, its size is 7mb

drop your latest valid email adress here plz...

btw the map is made by the invisible wizard, so please keep his signature on the file

[ElmarkOFear]

No problem Magya, thnx. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif el-marko@insightbb.com

[This message has been edited by ElmarkOFear (edited 08-17-2002).]

[MagyarKhans Cham]

Its zipped buddy, ur lucky 3.4 mb

its made up of nice layers, i cant believe we get a nicer one by other means

[ElmarkOFear]

Thnx Magya, that IS a nice map. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[FasT]

FasT will wait to see this map?

[Stephen Hummell]

Sorry, wrong topic.

[This message has been edited by Stephen Hummell (edited 08-19-2002).]

[Dionysus9]

Thank you kindly Target... sometimes I think the language barrier is a bit much.

We appreciate your help.

If this could allow a Shogun Mod for MTW I know a lot of people would be very happy, myself included.

Thanks again.

[This message has been edited by Dionysus9 (edited 09-02-2002).]

[giskard]

Target:

Like you said, you only needed to do it once. We will probably make several so I am sure we will figure out a easy method eventually.

My last project on the MW4 scene required uncompressed tgas for terrain, height, detail textures (the ones that vanish in the distance). Then we had to create some raw files. What a mess, but lots of map makers learnt how to do it and today theres a lot of maps users can download.

Only problem is, they are like 20 meg in some cases. As MTW also uses TGAS and 35 meg ones at that, is there anything you can do to help reduce the size to a more managable level ?

Large files cause hosting problems for a lot of sites, bandwidth and webspace. As you can imagine users also avoid the bigger files too.

Even the adsl users. I found during my mechstorm days that a 56k user was just as likely to download a large file as an ADSL user. There is a small part of a community that will always grab a file no matter what size it is. The rest will simply avoid it.

My own site was upgraded to handle those 20 meg maps I map. So i personally dont see any problems for me but many here will have serious problems. The file sizes alone nearly closed a lot of MW4 sites that tried hosting them.

So any help you can offer that will reduce the size of the largest TGA would be good. We could make smaller campaigns I guess but the file sizes would still be huge. I found 35meg tgas can be squeezed down to 20meg in some cases.

Giskard

[This message has been edited by giskard (edited 09-10-2002).]

[Moorkh]

The game accepts any .tga, as long as the image size and color depth is right (I just checked that). So even if you can't get a .tga of this size compressed to anything below 20 Mb (which you can't, unless you simplify the map graphics a lot), you could save it as a lowly .jpg and then have the user change it back into .tga format. It won't be as pretty, but you'd get a decent map graphics at around 1 Mb.

[Cheetah]

PAF