Didn't some people brought that unto themselves here a bit with the constant bragging about fans' maps would show Nival how bad their maps were? And now, surprise, surprise, complains about not being able to access Nival's maps for altering? Sorry, but I'm a bit gloating here for that one.

Why bad temper, forget about those old dissapointed ppls posts, what do you want, revenge?

I have no time to make maps and have not enough imagination to do maps and i want mapmakers to have quick start and learn from others maps, so that is why i want to enable Nival made maps editing.

I'm not saying that nival maps were bad, nival maps are nival maps, of course few ones... I strongly believe that maps made by frikies fans could be better than for example, multiplayer maps made by nival at this point.

So, whats the problem? give facilities..., giving facilities you have more maps, more maps gives more quality maps, more quality maps gives more people playing the game, more people playing the game implies more money for ubi, and finally I suppose that more money for ubi means more money for nival, isn't it? maybe this is a 'mini-sabotage'?

in short, the fact you cannot load 'easily' pre-made maps is, ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by Jolly-Joker:
Didn't some people brought that unto themselves here a bit with the constant bragging about fans' maps would show Nival how bad their maps were? And now, surprise, surprise, complains about not being able to access Nival's maps for altering? Sorry, but I'm a bit gloating here for that one.

Ok, in the past I have found myself on the other side of the fence of JJ but here is a pleasant change - I find myself completely agreeing with him.

First off, WE wanted the map editor ASAP. There are numerous posts indicating as much. Yes, we don't want it buggy etc but apart from that we wanted it ASAP.

Secondly, I think it is ok and fine that they have given us the editor the way they have. I am sure that there are many people who are good at making maps who are right now making those maps that will give us much pleasure in the future. I do not for one second regret that we got the map editor in its current state - well, apart from a few shortcomings of the editor. I for one would like the ability to make larger maps 216x216 seems a bit small. No, not too small for maps in general but as "largest possible size" it is too small.

I also think I spotted a bug or two in the map editor documentation but that is acceptable.

So stop complaining and start make maps guys! I know I am no good myself at making maps - I am a programmer, not a map designer. However, I look forward to be able to play user made maps made by others.

Also, as others have said. Unpacking the Nival made maps is doable although not easy. Anyway, the best maps are made by people who do not use the Nival maps and just modify them slightly anyway so I don't see this as a big problem. I am also quite sure that someone will unpack the Nival maps and turn them into .h5m maps soon and make them available for us for download.

One thing I missed from the editor is that while you can specify which spells are available to a given town, you didn't have that set split into two like in H4 where you had one set of CAN and another set of MUST. By marking a spell as "MUST" you were sure that this town had that spell. The only way to do that in H5 is to make the set of CAN so small that they are all selected and nothing is random. For example if you wanted one town to have one spell for sure and the rest was randomly picked I see no way to do that. If you specify the CAN set too large you run the risk that the given spell is not selected. There is simply no "MUST set".

So, two additions to the editor would be most welcome - one a "MUST" set in places where it is appropriate and two: larger map sizes.

Now - what I hope to see as a next step from Nival is a campaign editor. I want to be able to make h5c files. Hopefully with attributes as to if a certain artifact etc should be carried over to next mission etc. The ability to modify such fields from script should also be possible - preferably with a global setting such as

1. Which artifacts can be carried over is frozen - i.e. map designer specify which are carried over and script cannot change it.

2. Map designer specify which artifacts are carried over but script can add artifacts to the set.

3. Map designer specify which artifacts are carried over but script can remove from the set.

4. Map designer specify which artifcats are carried over but script can both remove and add to that set.

Other than this the map editor seem fine to me.

Xamar

I am trying to create a very simple map similar to the first campaign senario, that is, no computer hero. But I seem to be unable to create a map that can be loaded (Start game is greyed out). Apparently I am unable to tell the computer that there are two players without creating the computer hero and I need two players to start the game. I've tried assigning garrisons to player 2, but no go.


Any ideas on what I need to modify? I was hoping to look at the first campaign and see how they did it but can't figure out the directions to creat a .h5m file. There is no map-tag file for the campaign maps that I can see.

Why couldnt they just make a random map generator instead of an editor would be so much easier

I personally just want to access and edit the Nival maps simply to make all the heroes accessible.

Once again, it's for my own playing pleasure so who cares what it does to their precious "balance."

quote:

Originally posted by rswhlw:
Why couldnt they just make a random map generator instead of an editor would be so much easier

Probably because a RMG is not perfect. If you let the RMG make a map there is still a lot to do if you want it to be a good map. If I take a look at the RMG from H3 (A pretty decent one, I think) and have it create a map, you still need to open parts of the map that have been blocked and are a total waste of space, remove underground access points. Add/delete/ change mines, and so on, and so forth.

The RMG is a great tool to give you a base map that you can then edit. And that’s the problem right there.

If they had only created a RMG and not an editor, everyone (me probably included) would cry foul because about it being useless and impossible to make any decent maps or it being impossible to change even a simple thing, like a starting hero starts.

Really, I think the do have the order right. First the editor, then the RMG. Now, sure, it would have been even better if the editor had immediately come with a RMG, but to be fair, that was never promised.

On a side note, I have seen that a lot of people have problems with scripting. I really wonder how they will solve that in the RMG. After all, the RMG can place a witches hut, but can it also decide which things are needed to enhance the map? Or will it be that, for instance, on a map with no water to speak of you suddenly get granted the water navigation skill (however it is called.)

Or will they simply ignore the scripting all together and that the RMG maps will be script free.
One wonders.

H.W.

quote:

After all, the RMG can place a witches hut, but can it also decide which things are needed to enhance the map? Or will it be that, for instance, on a map with no water to speak of you suddenly get granted the water navigation skill (however it is called.)

Can you even set which skill a witches hut's gives with the map editor? When I've tried, it acts as if the hut has no editable properties.

As for the RMG, I agree that it's useless without the map editor. However, I'm a map modifier, not a map designer. (And compared to HoMM 3, the effort in designing a 3D HoMM 5 map is an order of magnitude greater.) So until they also release the random map generator, my options are fairly limited. For those of you who actually are map designers and who have the time, skill and patience to produce them: Bless you and please post them soon.

Does anyone know how to make a SingleMission map into a Multiplayer map?

umm,, i feel kinda stupid over here..

ive downloaded some maps that you fine folks from this forum have made.. but,, umm,, i dont have any map folder in my game directory. :S

what to do?

Start the editor. After that you have the folder.

and where is the map editor? is that some kind of patch 1.3 thingy? if so a link to that patch would be highly appriciated


cus I only have 1.2..

Yes, its a 1.3 thing .

The link ist in the sticky thread on top of this forum.

I was wondering...how do I get the cheat codes to work in the MP maps? or is there somewhere that someone has modified the MP maps into singleplayer? Cuz the codes work in single but not MP. I just like to play by myself, cruise around the map and then beat the AI with a big army.

quote:

Originally posted by L-D:
Does anyone know how to make a SingleMission map into a Multiplayer map?

I would like to know this too. If anyone knows the answer please help.

quote:

Originally posted by GrumpyOlWizard:

quote:

Originally posted by L-D:
Does anyone know how to make a SingleMission map into a Multiplayer map?

I would like to know this too. If anyone knows the answer please help.

Its too late for me to edit the above post.

What I am interested in is converting a single player map I stared into a multiplayer map. I want to do this because I did not know when I started the map that you couldn't have multiple positions designated as playable (just one at a time) for a single player map.

You could start by
1. renaming desired map as .zip
2. unzip into temporary working folder
3. examine folder:
Singlemissions -> Singlemission
Multiplayer -> MP map
4. try to rename folder (quick hack)
5. if #4 do not work edit individual files.
6. repack everything (including path) into .zip
7. rename into original.

1) I made a test multimlayer map, TEst Map Multi so I could see what a multiplayer map should look like.

a) Placed it in a dummy folder, renamed to zip and extracted with winzip.

b) File structure was Maps->Multiplayer->A TEst Map Multi

c) It had the following files:

GroundTerrain.bin, UndergroundTerrain.bin
map.xdb, map-tag.xdb
various text files

2) I placed a singleplayer map, A Test Map in a dummy folder. Placed a copy elsewhere for safekeeping.

a) Renamed to zip, and extracted

b) File structure was Maps->SingleMissions->A Test Map

C) Files were:

GroundTerrain.bin, UndergroundTerrain.bin

map.xdb, map-tag.xdb

MapScript.lua, MapScript.xdb

various text files

d) I deleted MapScript.lua and MapScript.xdb

e) Renamed folder SingleMissions to Multiplayer

f) Ziped the file back up

g) renamed file to .h5m

h) placed the renamed file in the map folder

When I tried to open the file in the editor I got an error message and could not open the file. What did I do wrong?

Remember to delete external references from file map-tag.xdb
and rename these files and references:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<AdvMapDescTag>
<AdvMapDesc href="map.xdb#xpointer(/AdvMapDesc)"/>
<NameFileRef href="mapname.txt"/>
<DescriptionFileRef href="mapDescription.txt"/>
<TileX>176</TileX>
<TileY>176</TileY>
<Goal/>
<teams>
<Item>1</Item>
<Item>1</Item>
<Item>1</Item>
<Item>1</Item>
<Item>1</Item>
</teams>
<thumbnailImages></thumbnailImages>
<HasUnderground>true</HasUnderground>
</AdvMapDescTag>

So by default EVERY map-tag should look like this.