Corner Starting Positions

Ironhawk · #1 October 29th, 2007, 04:40 PM

Zylithan, I assume you are proposing the use of wraparound maps. Which is fine, but it sidesteps the issue. There are more static maps than there are wraparound maps and as a result you may not be able to find a wraparound which is the correct size for your planned game and number of players.

Zylithan · #2 October 29th, 2007, 04:48 PM

Ironhawk - you are correct, I was suggesting wraparounds (or things like my 8 gates map, which is not wraparound, but doesnt have corner issues because of gate placement and nostarts)

and you are correct that there arent that many warpped maps now.

Hopefully that will change soon. It's really not hard to make (warpped) maps. I have to think mods are much harder to make and there are so many of those, I'm really surprised to find so few user-made maps. Also, I wonder if someone couldn't start a better database or something for custom maps. I used to play age of wonders a lot, and age of wonders heaven had a really convenient system.

http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads...tart=0&s=r&o=d

I don't know if this is possible, either for Shrapnel people or just regular folks to put together, but it might encourage more people to make maps if there were a better distribution system. I think many people dont go into the maps/mods forum unless they make maps and mods... meaning most users dont see the maps/mods to download. I know some people are hesitant to use mods, but I cant see why not get maps. I mean, shoot, there could be like a new version or patch for dominions that just added maps.

I'm trying to get my PhD this month, so my mapmaking is out of the question, but I'll try to kick out a few more, "normal" maps once I get back in business.

lch · #3 October 29th, 2007, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Zylithan said:
Also, I wonder if someone couldn't start a better database or something for custom maps. I used to play age of wonders a lot, and age of wonders heaven had a really convenient system.

http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads...tart=0&s=r&o=d

That just a list of maps. They aren't even divided into some categories, like for Warcraft I/II you could at least filter by map size on the fan sites with maps. There are already some lists like that for Dom3 maps, too:

The Map list in the Maps/Mods forum
Gandalf's Dominions III Random Maps (the subdirectories have HTML overviews)
Gandalf's Dominions II Random Maps
Illwinter's Dominions II maps page
Arryn's Dominions II community maps

Zylithan · #4 October 29th, 2007, 08:22 PM

i agree what i linked to isnt perfect, but...

it does have a more complete list than "The Map List" in the forums I would say.. as that is missing many of the ones in your other links.

Do Dom 2 maps work? Or do they need to be changed? I've always assumed they would need to be editied, which doesnt help non map makers. some of these maps are beautiful. do they still work? are they balanced? i dont see any mention of this.

The AOWH site i linked to has comments and reviews on maps, for various scales if you click on the names. When I looked at hte Ilwinter Dom 2 maps page, I can't tell if the maps are balanced, etc.

I'm not trying to be a hater, I'm just trying to point out that, at least in my opinion, several fractured map lists that require manual updating and dont provide a lot of detail about the maps is not as useful as one central node to which stuff is uploaded and searchable and sortable with number and text reviews and ratings, etc.

With this incredible community, and all the mods I see, I'd expect to see a searchable database of hundreds of different maps, balance, wrapped, whatever you want.. rated, sorted, different sizes, etc.

llamabeast · #5 October 29th, 2007, 08:49 PM

Zylithan - if you think that would be a good thing, maybe you could make a start on it? I'm sure the community would help out and it would be an extremely useful thing to have. Very often these things just need someone to get them organised.

Sombre · #6 October 30th, 2007, 12:22 AM

I second llama here. A project like that just needs someone to get it started. When I first started the mod list it was pretty pitiful and it took a while to get up to date, but it actually has been useful for people (I think). Now it isn't 100% up to date, but I think I might remedy that today.

The first thing to do would be to get a /complete/ list of all the maps of basic quality and better that work with dom3 3.10 and provide a short description of their size and features. Once that's done, reviews and so on can be added.

Zylithan · #7 October 30th, 2007, 02:25 AM

fair enough. I'll look into this as my next dom3 project in a month or two, when life has calmed down. I'm willing to do some legwork and of course make some more maps to add to the list, but I don't think I have all the know-how or coding to make a searchable database. I don't think I could really do any different from Ballbarian's excellet map list thread given this forum as my only tool.