Map Editing

[brandonmeek]

Ok, I'm sorry if I keep adding new topics, but learning a lot, and thought I would start this thread, this is not for talking about our custom maps, rather a place to keep information regarding maps. Here is my first entry.


First of all, in the script for the zone there is a value for "setrecallactive" this is either true or false. Since this is just a script, you can change this value in notepad. If you set "setrecallactive" to true, rather than false, the portal on this map will work, and you will be transported to the base that is associated with that map.

No problem, example, my Phoenix Arena map is set in act 2. So when I use the portal I am not transported to the first stark base, I am instead transported to Dr. Strange's house. I don't like this because all my arena's and statues for the hall of heroes and hall of villains is in stark tower. So..........

When making a map, at the top of the xmlb file, the act associated with that file is defined on the third line.

XMLB world {
   entity {
   act = 1 ;
   level = 12 ;

As you can see I have already changed this map to take me to the very first stark tower.

[Tony Stark]

Cool! I bet doing this, we could eventually create a new Act entirely!

[BLaw]

I was able to create a new hub by adding a teleport option to the extraction point and it worked. The downside was that the NPCStat is already full and therefore I couldn't make any quests work.

If combined with example Norrin Radd's Sabertooth fight or Arena mod you'd have like a realistic gamemod.

I'm not sure if I still have the files though.

[brandonmeek]

Hm, that sounds good. As far as npcstat, personally i'm just going to have alternate npcstat files. That way if i fill up the npcstat i can have a second one to switch out and use that for the arenas. Sort of sucks having to switch out npcstat files, but right now only way i see it will work.

[Techon 7]

If we wanted to do another act we could do something like the Mandrin or Loki returns with their personal henchmen to not overload the npcstat.

[Tony Stark]

If we do have to switch out NPCStats we should add a dialog that appears before moving to the base of the new Act to tell the player to switch out NPCStats.

[Teancum]

It might just be better to run a separate build of the game, kind of like we did with the X-Men Legends project. You're severely limited as is, but making it a totally separate "game" lets you trim the NPCstat to only what you need, among other benefits, and would let you build a custom story if you desired. It wouldn't have to be MUA-length, but would work as a one act story, etc.

[brandonmeek]

That's a good idea tea.  Actually we can just think of the hall of heroes and test arena as a seperate act. The only reason I even used those maps was because i can't "Make" maps. So whatever place we use as a "act hub" is going to be a map we already know, and can be any map. I keep sitting down to do tutorial going step by step, but soooooo many variables in changing map and adding maps to game lol. Have to have a map to come from. add to any "click" script "loadzone" script lines, pointing to whatever map you are going to use, won't work yet cause you haven't made map.
Then you gotta make map, edit the eng, xml files, take out what you don't want, enable combat all that.
then gotta make sure you have the packages in right place. But if you do have those three things basically, you CAN have an extra act.
We are just waiting for a good story to follow I have in the past brought xml2 maps into mua as well. But, that's a lot of images, bitmaps, etc etc, be a huge mod.
I believe that the ONLY thing the acts do anyway, is determine where your portal will take you. act 1 brings you to stark 1, act 2 brings you to omega, etc etc. jesus i am rambling aren't i ? lol

[Techon 7]

It might just be better to run a separate build of the game, kind of like we did with the X-Men Legends project. You're severely limited as is, but making it a totally separate "game" lets you trim the NPCstat to only what you need, among other benefits, and would let you build a custom story if you desired. It wouldn't have to be MUA-length, but would work as a one act story, etc.

So, we could make some stuff like MUA3, XML2, and Justice League Heroes 2? That would be great if we could and I would be willing to help with story and lend any mods I complete, if appropriate.

[Teancum]

No, because we can't build all-new maps, but more importantly doing something like that takes years for a full-blown development studio with 50+ people working full time to do. Modders are lucky to get (at most) 1-3 "new" levels. (not Acts, Levels)

[brandonmeek]

yeah, I encourage you to do what you can on the levels, experiment. The first thing you'll see.....is there is a LOT Of skill and talent involved in setting up story lines and objectives, even just creating a level that is balanced to be not to hard or not to easy is still something i haven't been able to do.
You can create new acts, same maps as what we already have.  You can call it mua3 if ya want but will be same maps, just different stuff on them. Like a new living room, accept same paint, same windows, same drapes, just added or took away some furniture.  I don't think this will change, because we have no idea how the navigation restraints in any "world" are defined.

The way the game is, even the triggers that start things like camera's moving, mobs spawning are just "invisible" and "intangible" objects that when they are crossed cause a specific action to happen.

In my oppinion i think the real fun will be getting the game to do things it didn't before. Like fighting heros, or each other even. I think that along with new characters and hopefully new items will keep game fresh. One other thing we can do is steadily increase the difficulty.
Again, this is what i'd like to focus on, but try to do what you can, it's still fun.  I think the best things we can do are as follows.
1. Get npc heroes to fight playable characters. Not just changing skin, but using all powers, or if the hero boss has only three powers, you can only use three powers as well. : Status here, is just working out the kinks for powerstyles for villains. The villains powerstyles are different so i'm learning about them now.

2. New items. This seems easy enough to me, but i haven't tried yet.
those two things along with being able to fight each other online, or any hero or boss in game one on one will keep the game fresh in my oppinion.
REmember almost any scenario and thing that happens in the vanilla game we can do on custom maps. Maybe with creativity we can do some new stuff.
we should probably keep this to Knowledge stuff in this thread too. I'll work harder on posting KNOWLEDGE i learn more often, rather than just chatting it up with you guys

I do have a thread on my workbench on working arenas

[Tony Stark]

Marvintage did mention he had a new hub for another act going at some point; it was the X-Mansion from XML2?

[brandonmeek]

When i first started moding, I took all of the game files from xml2 and combined them with mua, I had a lot of extra maps but was under the impression that if you downloaded my mod, if you didn't have the texture files and stuff from xml2 that it wouldn't work.

Just found out I was wrong.
I'm glad you posted that. I just went and pulled only the files from xmenlegends2/maps/act1/sancuary1

and placed them in my mua game, renamed them Hall_of_Heroes to see if when i clicked my hall of heroes statue it would work.....it did.

so, xml2 maps are compatible with mua. When I did this one thing i noticed was that the storage for the items was there as well, when clicked, game froze at the loading screen, will be interesting to see if we can get that active. ok, more maps to come i guess, pretty awesome.

Ok, Stash menu works. Copy and past the file stash.engb and stash xmlb and pasted them into mua directory, got the menu screen for items.....ok, looks like i got some stuff to keep me busy
If you have xml2, i really really encourage you all to try stuff

[Techon 7]

@Teancum, I guess I did get ahead of myself, but three levels could be enough to close off some plot threads, like Sinister.

@brandonmeek I suppose i will have to reinstall XML2 then.

[brandonmeek]

yeah, gotta do a whole new revamp of arenas and halls of heroes/villains. but at least it will be something new