Talk:Mods:Islands
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Making a map playable
Okay, currently, there is no interface whatsoever to load up new maps. Once people have figured out how to write their scripts and what not, we'll need a way of offering maps for download without replacing existing content.
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Custom Maps can possibly made playable as following
- Of the .BWE Map file, the landnumber needs to be set to an unique number. This means that we, as the community, will need to keep track of who is entitled to what number. We need a number registration system.
- There needs to be a CHALLENGE script for that landnumber. If the landnumber is 1337, then the game will try and execute ./Scripts/BW2/Land1337.chl. More about this behavior is documented on the BWE:SET LAND NUMBER page.
- This challenge script will need to complete the loading progress. Based on the example script, the script will need to call at least:
disable load screen set fade in time 1
- The new map needs to be initiated via its unique number, either in another script, or, via a solution similar to that of the New_Game_Problem.
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There are the following problems
- How do we get people to use unique numbers? How do we prevent maps from conflicting with other maps?
- Whatever we'll do, we'll 'always' need to replace some existing game content.
- The existing New Game map (Land 1) is an actual game map. It allows the player to pick a creature and that very map is practically linked to the other maps (its script send the player to land2, land2's script sends the player to land3, and so on).
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Solutions!
- We need to register who uses what land numbers. The land number is an unsigned integer meaning that there are _LOADS_ of unique numbers available. We ought to reserve -1000 to 1000 for Lionhead. (Addons and such!). We could have a site with a database where you can register 50 numbers at a time. (less? 10 numbers?). Those numbers are yours to use then. Other people will use other numbers. If EVERYONE uses this site, it won't go wrong!
- We'll need a launcher of some sort. One way to do it is as following. We need to make a 'lobby' level. Via a challenge script, we either link through to land1, or allow the player to pick a creature (or can we somehow load an existing creature?) and start the custom land. In order to do this, we'd need the launcher to automatically generate a script that loads the correct land by the unique land number. Possibly the launcher has a GUI that allows the player to 'load' maps, or, the launcher just iterates the available BWE/Land files and generates some kind of in-game menu (like, a circle of stones, each stone sends the player to a custom level?). The launcher would modify the ./Scripts/map.txt file to the (generate) lobby level. Or, if the launcher would just allow the player to select a map before launching B&W2, it could modify ./Scripts/map.txt to directly point to the selected map.
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