749dba No.15477408
Being able to create your own stuff (such as scenario maps) imho is one of the best ways to guarantee that a game will have a lively fan community for many years to come. But while many games (perhaps most notably the Elder Scrolls series) feature fairly powerful external editor software, the latter usually requires you to spend some hours reading or watching tutorials until you know how to bang two rocks together.
By comparison, there are quite a few (especially RTS) games that have an editor directly embedded into the game itself, and one that usually also is much easier to play around with than the external version - pics related.
Are there any other good games with in-game editors? Seems as if the entire practice has fallen out of use as games got more complex mechanics and devs became increasingly less willing to spend time on a user-friendly UI.
1b08d4 No.15477457
>>15477408
WarCraft 3 had an external editor, though.
Also, Stronghold.
I think map editors kinda lend themselves to RPGs because the gameplay is pretty straightforward for the most part, and you always operate on a two-dimensional plane to some extent.
a7065a No.15477489
>>15477408
Halo's Forge Mode and Reflex's editor come to mind. But external SDK's have come a long way since Valve's Hammer and Bethesda's Creation Kit- Trenchbroom and Jackhammer are very user friendly.
263256 No.15477505
Now I have to spend five hours in AoE making a map I won't play
Thank you
e042f4 No.15477507
Stunts/4D Sports Driving had some sweet track editor, something not very common at the time.
749dba No.15477552
>>15477505
Always a pleasure.
Add outposts. Those things get far too little love
3093ce No.15477582
NWN1 has a fantastic in-game editor
83b606 No.15477590
>>15477408
I have pissed away many hours designing intricate warcraft 3 maps, mostly intricate in their use in triggers rather than their actual visuals.
2e44a9 No.15477596
e13714 No.15477606
My personal favorite, 25 years and running.
d627a5 No.15477650
>AoE 2 Sandbox maps
>AoE 2 Sandbox maps that can simulate attacks with triggers and a puppet player
70410a No.15477815
reticulating splines
reticulating splines
reticulating splines
reticulating splines
reticulating splines
reticulating splines
a14437 No.15477877
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
F-Zero X's Jap-only 64DD expansion had a fairly powerful and user-intuitive track creation mode.
GP legend and Climax (jap only) had one too.
i want a game where i can easily create autistic 3d worlds so bad
23a801 No.15477990
>>15477877
Oooh, that reminds me. Trackmania series.
2a3a4d No.15478023
People do amazing stuff with Planet Coaster; they've recreated places like Disneyland. AoM also had some beautiful custom maps.
58bba8 No.15478092
>>15478023
>interesting factions and unit selection
>gods-tier campaign
>gorgeous mythic art style that makes the nostalgia hit that much harder
>multiplayer essentially dead
>HD scam pure unplayable garbage instead of just mediocre like AoE2's, ensuring no renaissance
AoM2 was never big and will never be big and I fucking hate it.
238970 No.15478155
>>15478023
AoM had some really fun custom maps with that map editor. I really enjoyed playing Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith games on custom maps that recreated them really well. The effort put into them was great
0c5014 No.15478224
why is age of empires 2 so fucking comfy? i just love it's colorful medieval aesthetic so much it's the best
f94713 No.15478229
>>15478224
Really good art direction. The first two games look really good even today.
853eaf No.15478270
>>15478224
Totally, i just wish the units also had as much detail, i find annoying how every civ has the same looking swordsmen and knights and shit.
Is there any mod that treats the units like vanilla treats buildings? i mean differentiating culture groups
749dba No.15478301
>>15478224
> i just love it's colorful medieval aesthetic
I think the colors are precisely why its looks so comfy. Many other RTS games of its time (as well as later ones) had relatively grey, dab terrain and stuff because "muh realism",
db26e6 No.15478341
Invidious embed. Click thumbnail to play.
Far Cry Instincts which was a re-imagined version of the original Farcry to work on consoles had a pretty decent map editor for a sixth gen game. I think the modern ones still do this, but I never played the series past the first one on PC.
0c5014 No.15478350
>>15478270
there's a mod on the steam workshop called independant architecture and units wich basically makes all of the civs have different architecture and units for every civilization if there's a mod for it
10b1e5 No.15478921
>>15478224
That aesthetic is a staple of games from the time.
f94713 No.15478956
>>15478921
We should try making a list of games that have a look like this. I know all the city builders like emperor, zues+poseidon, and stronghold have it.
10b1e5 No.15478985
>>15478956
Most RTS games from the 90's. All of the Tycoon games. Sim City 1 and 2, the first Sims and most of the older Sim games. I remember SimLife being especially bright and colorful. HoMM 1 and 2 and Age of Wonders. Also Castles 1 and 2, the games that inspired stronghold. It would be a big list. It was very common.
c0f342 No.15479009
>>15478224
For me the comfiest style was the meso-american buildings, they looked so fucking neat and has shit like vines and gardens.
749dba No.15479630
>>15478985
For some reason, I always thought that the visuals of Sims 1 - despite of technically being inferior to its successors games - looked much nicer than those of the actual 3d titles.
22ce15 No.15479744
Motherfucking Neverwinter Nights. Used external editor but the learning curve was not any more severe than TESCS. But even better than the toolset was the in-game DM controls. The in game admin tools also functioned as DM tools which allowed you to do virtually anything you needed to change things happening in game on the fly short of editing the terrain tiles – everything a real DM needed. You could make NPCs, rename them, cause them to play a sound or animation, take full control of them and have them talk, cause effects directly on player characters, cause a disembodied voice to appear mysteriously, you name it. You could even sneak a hidden area/room into the module that no one else can get to normally and teleport players there to do custom quests. On good servers, admins took advantage of this feature and would involve PC parties in random events as they'd be out questing or levelling. Of course NWN servers had the same issues real tabletop groups had except you couldn't flip the table and throw soda in the GM's face when he was acting like a cunt. Last time I tried to play on a feature-rich server like that, the mercenary company I joined got subverted by a half-dragon Mary Sue ultrafaggot of a player who had been playing for ages and basically gets his rocks off by ruining everyone else's factions and investments. But hey, even that makes for an interesting story.
22ce15 No.15479749
>>15479744
>half-dragon
Sorry, Freudian slip, it was a Tiefling.
22ce15 No.15479757
>>15478224
That's a cool ass town, but the farm should have been outside the walls and not on a peninsula.
a0e164 No.15479833
>>15478224
>Dat detail
>The wooden gates and watchtowers for the dock while the rest of the city has stone walls
>The little shipwreck next to the dock area
>Berry bushes next to the farm area
>The aquaduct that goes through the wall into the city (didn't know you could get that in the scenario editor)
>Hanging execution about to take place, with the shirt less man
>Horses and soldiers standing guard outside the central monastery
>>15479757
Maybe it's there to give it that sense of unprotected vulnerability but since it's peacetime no one has to worry about defending it?
7488c3 No.15480244
>>15478956
diablo1+2, age of wonders 2+shadowmagic, warlords battlecry, heroes of might and magic
0c5014 No.15480289
>>15480244
command and conquer red alert 2 is also an obvious choice but that's because it was made on the same engine as AOE2
58c2da No.15480457
>>15480289
>2D isometric game
>Doesn't actually have any depth associated with it
>It's just cliffs which are impassable but look 3D
I mean with bridges and shit yeah, there is depth but you know what I mean
Actually that game was really well done, with all the different ways to mobilize things
ba771d No.15480466
>>15480289
Red alert 2/yuri's revenge was the final evolution of the "same" engine going back to at least C&C95, possibly earlier. It didn't have a name that I am aware of, and between each game release it was heavily modified, similar to what happened with the 3D SAGE engine. The Ship of Theseus comes to mind.
Age of Empires 2 used the Genie engine, originally developed for AOE1
I can see how they might appear similar, but if you were to mod them you'd quickly realize they are nothing alike.
7488c3 No.15480472
>>15480289
that reminds me, army men on the pc. and for a more recent example factorio
a4421d No.15480506
>>15480472
> Army Men
My infinite nigger. The same one with the mission at the beginning where there's a never-ending battle between the tans and greens in the corner you spawn in that you can participate in.
c56103 No.15480518
>>15478956
I fucking love isometric games and any game that puts a tonne of effort into their sprites is fine by me.
e2ecad No.15480524
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
For console games, especially with the first game being a PS2 launch title, TimeSplitters has some pretty good map makers.
0c5014 No.15480545
>>15480466
it does have a name it's called genied2 i have a better example of a game that used the exact engine
844137 No.15480548
>>15480524
There was a nice exploit in Future Perfect to get around the maximum map file size limit and essentially double the size. I made some pretty cool stuff with that.
3164a5 No.15480890
>>15479749
> it was a Tiefling
Why is everyone who plays a Tiefling an insufferable faggot?
83b606 No.15480960
>>15480890
Edginess, probably.
5795f6 No.15480980
>>15480545
I assure you that Command and Conquer did not use Ensemble's Genie engine.
97b0b0 No.15481025
Dark Reign had a very robust map creator tool. I used to just play around with it for hours "painting" beautiful landscapes with the variety of elevations, terrain types, rivers, trees, and ground clutter. Also sometimes did stuff like make a perfect self-sustaining impenetrable fortress of an enemy base, and then stick myself in the corner with nothing, and see if I could build up a force to break it.
19868d No.15481068
>>15477408
Warcraft 3's map editor is simple to use and incredibly powerful. I don't think there's anything that comes close except maybe Starcraft 2. You can change anything and create pretty much anything you can think of.
>>15480524
>>15478341
We got map editors on the Xbox. Now you get nothing. What happened?
19868d No.15481071
>>15477408
Second Life has very robust editor.
929f3a No.15481085
>>15477489
Forge was kind of shit. The HEK for Halo CE was much better and ensured HCE was alive for an extremely long time.
f1e716 No.15481095
>>15478023
Does anyone remember Oscar Baldarassi's (I think that was his name) old Adventures scenarios? Aom Heaven was great back in the day.
749dba No.15481144
>>15481068
Starcraft 2's map editor was considerably powerful, but you also needed a PhD in quantum physics in order to make even the most barebones stuff. As in
>Warcraft 3
>Make a new unit: Make a copy of said unit, be able to change anyhting from model to model scale to unit name to hitpoints to abilities directly in the copy
>Starcraft 2
>Make a copy of a unit, and a copy of the model for said units, and then it still doesn't work because of reasons.
Again, not saying that you can't do lots of great Stuff with SC2s map editor, but its features were so advanced that it flew right over most peoples heads.
That Blizzard also intended to jew people out early on by commercializing fun maps through a "community market" did not help,