How many editor veterans considered making their own game?

[SnowYell]

I see so many people here being extremely talented at triggering using the editor.

I just can't help but wonder, how many of you folk considered or maybe tried making your own game with your knowledge perhaps by using Unity or Unreal Engine?

I ask since I find the editor wide it has some strange limits and you have to do some awkward hacks to make the things you want.

Maybe you would be able to convert your skills creating some crazy stuff somewhere else - which is not just automatically owned by Blizzard and more realistic making a living off of?

 

[Homor]

Messing with the World Editor for years gave me a lot of knowledge about game design, what's fun to play against and what isn't. I'm applying that knowledge on my current project, which is a total conversion mod for Doom!

 

[SnowYell]

Messing with the World Editor for years gave me a lot of knowledge about game design, what's fun to play against and what isn't. I'm applying that knowledge on my current project, which is a total conversion mod for Doom!

That's great! Any particular platform/engine you use for that?

What 's holding me back is I feel like there are bunch of basics that needs to be done, like the fundamentals you kinda skip using the editor. Attack animations, moving designs, control basics etc. and then ofc I am not that experienced in the editor, jass etc.

 

[Homor]

That's great! Any particular platform/engine you use for that?

What 's holding me back is I feel like there are bunch of basics that needs to be done, like the fundamentals you kinda skip using the editor. Attack animations, moving designs, control basics etc. and then ofc I am not that experienced in the editor, jass etc.

I use GZdoom. Easy, convenient and feature-rich.

Yeah, modding games is always going to be inherently easier than making them from scratch. There are a lot of basic game templates you can use though, many of them out there for free. Watching some tutorial videos on YouTube can help a lot.

 

[SnowYell]

I use GZdoom. Easy, convenient and feature-rich.

Yeah, modding games is always going to be inherently easier than making them from scratch. There are a lot of basic game templates you can use though, many of them out there for free. Watching some tutorial videos on YouTube can help a lot.

Sure thing! Some stuff is just so complicated, so having to learn it all by yourself would mean many years of education for myself to be able to do it all - and then to make it

What do you think would be reasonable to be paid to do the job as an editor/programmer or what its called

 

[Homor]

Sure thing! Some stuff is just so complicated, so having to learn it all by yourself would mean many years of education for myself to be able to do it all - and then to make it

What do you think would be reasonable to be paid to do the job as an editor/programmer or what its called

oh I have no idea lol, that's something somewhere far more professional would have to tell you. I can say that it depends on the company, the workload, your level of experience etc

 

[ThompZon]

I've done a fairly complex map for a while and are almost done with a "Snake 1" like game in Godot (so I learn how to handle the engine and various aspects of making a game from scratch).
I've started the design of my "real game" but will take some time before I start making it.

In the mean time, I find adding more stuff to my map fun and I play it with friends and family from time to time and often do adjustments afterwards. When doing a play through, you notice spelling errors, feeling like an ability, item or augment is too strong or weak and such (Some amount of "OP" is good for my map, so need to know what's fun for the map).
The map is mostly done, but it's fun to improve bosses and enemies, adding more items, augments and "special enemy traits" etc.

 

[SnowYell]

oh I have no idea lol, that's something somewhere far more professional would have to tell you. I can say that it depends on the company, the workload, your level of experience etc

Sure does haha, I just thought it would be such a great feeling having someone actually able to create, what I have in my head but can't do myself.

I've done a fairly complex map for a while and are almost done with a "Snake 1" like game in Godot (so I learn how to handle the engine and various aspects of making a game from scratch).
I've started the design of my "real game" but will take some time before I start making it.

In the mean time, I find adding more stuff to my map fun and I play it with friends and family from time to time and often do adjustments afterwards. When doing a play through, you notice spelling errors, feeling like an ability, item or augment is too strong or weak and such (Some amount of "OP" is good for my map, so need to know what's fun for the map).
The map is mostly done, but it's fun to improve bosses and enemies, adding more items, augments and "special enemy traits" etc.

When you say map is it referring to the map in Godot or is your main project in the editor?

 

[Retera]

Maybe you've heard of it, but I took these kinds of thoughts to the next level of stupidity, and created the uncanny valley of gray area.

I found that using Hive Workshop's publicly available code for previewing Warcraft III models prior to downloading them, I could staple that same display code onto LibGDX game engine and have it be sort of like intuitively similar to Unity or Unreal in the sense that there are no limits and you can program anything, but also functionally similar because it uses Warcraft 3 models and maps.

For me one of the classic moments of this bizarre and stupid gray area at its finest was when I used the template map uploaded by @Warcraft Sandbox from here, but played that map on my LibGDX simulation:

Because I was using LibGDX and not World Editor, I have no rules. So I was able to load in the WoW interface addons with the buttons there that don't quite work because of bugs in my addon loader, and then play the WoW kind of inside the little world of the Warcraft III, and then eventually hop in a portal that teleports me into the sky and then I did a christmas light show in the sky above the map inside of the floating Acherus necropolis. The whole thing is 1 recording of 1 play session of 1 map that I made, but that map only works if you play it on its own game code (in LibGDX game engine) and not on the Reforged client (which is potentially a violation of the Reforged client EULA perhaps).

So it's a very silly gray area. But it can make funny weird videos like that one above.

It was particularly fun that I can have the lights in time with the music at the end, perfectly in line, because the game code is single player only and the LibGDX game is advancing animations at a fixed rate per time instead of any concern about multiplayer or waiting for other players or anything like that, and so the result is the lights being perfectly in time with the music. If we do something similar on Reforged or on Frozen Throne, by the end of the song the lights would get out of sync with the music because the game is constantly falling behind in time, because it's not built for that.

 

[ThompZon]

When you say map is it referring to the map in Godot or is your main project in the editor?

When I say "my map", I speak of https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/the-defence-of-the-castle.324524/ most of the time.

But I also have been dabbling in Unity for a while (but then the whole Unity thing happened a few years ago). But my Unity projects were too complex for my skills at that time (I had issues with "smaller" things all the time) and the progress were very slow due to this. So when starting game dev again, I decided to start REALLY simple with a Snake-game (same "base functionality" this random that I manage to google Snake Game).
I currently working on loading maps or levels for my Snake-game from file and then improve my GUI and my combo system (something not present in the linked game).
This snake game is mostly to be familiar with how the engine handle stuff I know I will need for my "real game".

 

[SnowYell]

Maybe you've heard of it, but I took these kinds of thoughts to the next level of stupidity, and created the uncanny valley of gray area.

Dude I love this so much wow, its so unique.

I have a difficult time understanding how this even works. The engine needs to be able to read both warcraft models, use them and to understand the terrain from wow. What. How do you convert the control system to this engine from the editor?

But it seems like a major project to do - but fun!

When I say "my map", I speak of https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/the-defence-of-the-castle.324524/ most of the time.

I understand. I tried opening unity and unreal engine too but man its so comlex. Models, navigation systems, controls, lighting. I mean you even have to make your own menu and make it work multiplayer. Thats what breaks it for me. It would take me years to learn and I'm just too impatient for that.

 

[Retera]

How do you convert the control system to this engine from the editor?

The data saved by the editor is only used by the LibGDX game on that other engine to the extent that custom code was written to read that data and pretend it's stuff to use in LibGDX instead of Warcraft 3 stuff. But it's not actually playing the map and not using the Warcraft III code. So in the same place it loads Warcraft 3 map layer information, it can also load World of Warcraft user interface files or models -- or load World of Warcraft map files or map objects (doodads, trees).

The control system with the almost-wow-looking interface does not exist in the Warcraft III editor and is getting loaded by the LibGDX code separately, which is reading files from a WoW install.

 

[SnowYell]

The data saved by the editor is only used by the LibGDX game on that other engine to the extent that custom code was written to read that data and pretend it's stuff to use in LibGDX instead of Warcraft 3 stuff.

Man I don't get any of that but it looks dope and hella fun.

Is it something you are continuing on?

 

[Retera]

Social Media is taking over the world and stuff, so when I make a product like this it pushes back to stop me from continuing using its AI consciousness because too much success on this project would cause people to play games again instead of being on social media, which would be antithetical to its rule over human society.

So I mean I haven't worked on it in months and months. But I don't have any express intention not to work on it.

I believe a few fun directions to go next when I have time would be:
- Ability to enter WMO objects. For example, walking inside of Ironforge city and walking around
- Ability to use the Action Bar on the WoW character but have the "Spellbook" of that unit be abilities from the Warcraft 3 map editor and Ability Editor, so that we can give our hero abilities made simply and easily in World Editor and then drag them onto the action bar during play
- Ability to right click Warcraft III items on the ground (the little treasure chests) and get a Loot popup UI in the WoW mode, and then from that UI drag the items into WoW inventory system

I think these three components would add much fun to the system, but I have not had time to develop the necessary software.