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EditingModes

There are several options on how the editing could be done:

Offline editing

Basically, no in-game editing, you use external tools to create the maps and then upload them to the server. The openness of the game depends then on the upload mechanisms and on the availability and simplicity of the tools.

 Map:
 #########
 #.......#
 #.......#
 #.......A
 #...B...#
 #.......#
 #.......#
 #########
 Key:
 #:wall, image(wall.png), block
 .:floor, image(floor.png)
 A:portal, image(portal.png), href(url-of-another-map)
 B:skeletal warrior, image(skeleton.png), hp=32, strength=12

Online editing

Separate map

The way it is now, you need to enter a different map (altrough it looks the same) in order to edit it. There is no gameplay elements when on this map, everything is frozen.

Edit mode

Similar to above, only you don’t have to change your position to enter the edit mode. When you leave edit mode, you can continue to play.

There can be several ways to change the mode:

The good thing about a separate edit mode is that you can display more metainformation with the map. The bad thing is that it can break the suspension of disbelief.

Items and spells that affect map

Just provide items that can be used to shape the map. Maybe in a similar way to HarvestMoon?. You can have magic paintbrush to change the floor/wall tiles. Some kind of wand of wallbuilding to create wand, magic anvil to create items, summoning spells to create monsters.

If the items/spells were scripted, then players can create their own, specialised tools.

There would be probably needed separate items (magic googles?) to display any metadata, or (magic cloak?) go through walls for easier editing.

Discussion

Hey, Mapeditor is neat! Having compatible format’d definitely be a plus.

About keeping the suspension of disbelief: the edit mode can be a “parallel reality”, a “spirit world”, an “astral plane”, a “true world” of which the one you play in is but a projected shadow (did you read Zelazny’s Amber? :) ) Explanations can be found. In some cases, directly editing during the normal play mode can be troublesome, for example if you have monsters that move or destroyable walls, but that the room is “resetted” everytime you re-enter it. In the “parallel reality” editing, you can edit the original position of the monsters, etc.

An edit mode for editing tiles would be neat too. I know that it may be more convenient for users to use the Gimp o whatnot and then upload there stuff, but an ingame editor

  1. puts significant barriers to ripping images off other games and uploading them in
  2. can allow collaborative pixel editing, which’d be awful neat
  3. promotes wiki-like improvement by small iterations, sicne changing a couple pixels (or colour palette) left ‘n right isn’t hard.

My philosophy up to now has been to leave the choice of the edit mode to the individual administrator, and leave a lot of leeway for various ways of doing things, but that may make things a little too incoherent. So thanks for creating this page, it adds a bit of focus. – EmileKroeger

Have I read Zelazny? My desktop computer is named “Ghostwheel” :).
But the explanations are a secondary thing, imho. The choice should be based mostly on what is more “natural” and “comfortable”, along with which approach promotes the behaviours we want most.
Note, that map edit and image editor are features that already exceed DreamStones size by several orders of magnitude. Look at Tiled and at Drops – they are roughly what we’d want in the game, but both took years to develop! I agree that ease of editing is very important – and if you don’t provide an easy and quick way of editing the images, they all will end up looking the same. This is hard.
You are right about the difficulties in editing maps containing moving elements. Are there any plans to include such moving elements in DreamStones? I seem to reacall there should be NoGameClock? – this makes implementing any moving monsters or terrain hard? – RadomirDopieralski?

Image editors take ages to implement: true, especially if you’re making a good one :) A quick and ugly editor might be acceptable for this, but even that would be a burden. However, maybe even a quick n ugly editor but with direct influence on the content of the game will be more convenient to use than a neato deluxe thing that requires additional steps of uploading, etc. I dont know, but it’s clear that for now it’s not top priority; uploading images manually will do.

NoGameClock?: You’re right about that. But roguelikes also have no game clock, nor does the game “robots” (that linux game where you try to avoid robots converging on you). Having a few rooms with these kind of puzzles could be interesting, though they couldn’t be multiplayer. Even multiplayer sections could have a changeable environment - for example a boulderdash-type gameplay, with maybe a button that resets all the dirt to “no digged”. Ditto for doors that are “destroyed” when opened, enemies that are destroyed, etc. – EmileKroeger

Oh, roguelike games can have very elaborate and complicated time systems. Being turn-based doesn’t simplify that – on the contrary. If you want to allow the monsters an other items to move on themselves (not as a direct result of a player action), then you need some sort of a TimeSystem?. And time systems in multiplayer games are horrible, because all the problems of concurrent systems appear. For example, you need to sychronize the monster movement to all the players on map, otherwise some player can get pummeled by a monster just because another player had a better connection or was performing his moves faster. This is a very interesting topic, of course, and many very smart solutions exist, but it complicates things.
I believe that such a game could be designed without any game clock – but that’d mean monsters and other objects only being able to react as an answer to a move of some player. A classical example would be a monster that follows an escaping player – for every move of the player you’ve got one move of the monster. The monster ignores other players, so the fact that it can move faster than them is not dangerous (yes, this can be exploited, see TankingExploit?).
Similar with boulderdash-like levels, and with door opening/closing – the objects react to a direct action of the player that activates them. They don’t move in time – the reaction is immediate (this is different from the original boulderdash).
Another possibility is to have the monsters on the map be only “triggers” for a combat, and have the combat on a separate screen, in combat mode, just like the japanese crpg games on consoles have. You bump into a monster on the map, you are taken to the battle screen, where you can choose various actions (attack, use item, cast spell, escape).
Other players could maybe see the monster on map a dust cloud, indicating that a combat is happening, and can maybe join the combat by bumping into the cloud. I’m still not sure about the multiplayer combat, but it could be implemented as “timed out” turns – players have several seconds to pick their action for the turn (the default being attack), and then the actions are performed. This is optional and I imagine could be implemented pretty late.
Anyways, once the monster is defeated, it would normally not vanish, but the player who combated it can pass through (once). You could have vanishing monsters (various bosses), they would be handled in similar way as vanishing items.
For areas that are supposed to be “crawling with monsters” and generally dangerous, you could just have random encounters. Every move the player has a chance of being attacked. Then a combat screen appears and the player tunrs into a dust cloud for everyone else – so they can join.
I should probably copy this later to some combat-related page. – RadomirDopieralski?

Multiplayer combat sounds complicated, I’m sure we can do without it at least for a start:) Combat can a) involve monsters that don’t move (with FinalFantasy? style combat, or even simpler, something like MagicTower, i.e. the way it’s implemented in the latest versions - monsters aren’t much more than glorified doors), or b) only take place in “dungeon instances” that can only be visited by one player at a time. The current version (and the one before, I think) allows dungeon instances, that are created anew for every player that enters them.

One-player instances are useful not only for keeping things “turn-based” and roguelike, but also for dealing with monster respawns, making the dungeon easier to balance, etc. – EmileKroeger