Changelog : how-to make it available from ingame ?

[Ricola3D]

Hello,

I'm currently editing the X Hero Siege famous map. I would like to make the change log available for players who discover the map on Bnet.

My change log is ~40 lines of text (a bit long...)

What are the possibles ways to make it available ?
> In the loading screen (but how do I add scrollbars, by default overflow is hidden...) ?
> A clickable hyperlink in game that opens the player's web browser on my project's page in HiveWorkshop ?
> A command "-updates" that displays the changelog 5 lines per 5 lines ?
> Somewhere in the quest menus ?

Any other suggestion ?

Thanks in advance guys

 

[Pyrogasm]

Generally people put this information in quests. Since item and ability tooltips (and icons) can now be changed dynamically, a fun option is to give players a selectable unit with abilities that show the changes. You could organize them to show buffs/nerfs/additions/removals very easily with a lot of room for detailed text. If you want to get fancy, you could even store text for all previous updates and allow players to view those too.

 

[Nudl9]

Quest only shows 4 lines of text i think, it's not a good place to put your changelog unless you can reduce the total number of changes to 10 lines.
Just put it on map download.
The changelog is not that important.

 

[Ricola3D]

@Pyrogasm
In quests window : most of the room is lost because reserved for quest requirments (see area I circled in red in the picture below) :

However I can put text, but only 4-5 lines are visible, to see more you've to scroll down (there is a scroll bar). Is there a way to remove that reserved space ?

@Nudl9 almost nobody downloads the map from internet. They all download it in-game when they click on the game name on Bnet.. And on the loading screen there is not enough room for so much text to be visible :S

 

[Pyrogasm]

Right but you can have multiple quests detailing all of the changes.

 

[Nudl9]

Not as far as i know, thats why i said that you shouldn't keep changelog ingame.
But seeing as there aren't any other great alternatives, well maybe use quests.
I think the best solution is to only list features and drop out minor changes and bugs.
Keep the length to 6-8 lines if you can.

 

[Pyrogasm]

You could create a multiboard that lists all of the changes, then allow players to enable/disable it with a chat command. This would allow players to enable it but keep it minimized so they can review the changes at their leisure while playing.

 

[AbsolutePsycho]

> A clickable hyperlink in game that opens the player's web browser on my project's page in HiveWorkshop ?

Is it even possible?

 

[The_Silent]

With the new ui natives you create your own screen for it.

Also, seen dialog windows used once or twice, since they can contain surprising amounts of text.

 

[Tasyen]

One could overwrite "ui\helpstrings.txt" or "ui\tipstrings.txt" by importing files into your map with that path. That will change the text shown when one presses the help/tip button in Menu ingame. The text shown for that buttons should be changeable in game interface.

"ui\helpstrings.txt" is one big file that can contain gigantic amounts of text. It seems to be just a text file that can use the warcraft 3 color makeup.
"ui\tipstrings.txt" has to follow a specific format you see in the link below.

Overwritting - Tips