• Listen to a special audio message from Bill Roper to the Hive Workshop community (Bill is a former Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment, Producer, Designer, Musician, Voice Actor) 🔗Click here to hear his message!
  • Read Evilhog's interview with Gregory Alper, the original composer of the music for WarCraft: Orcs & Humans 🔗Click here to read the full interview.

[Solved] Utilizing multiple maps for a single player RPG

Level 3
Joined
Jun 6, 2024
Messages
13
I've tried to find an answer to this, but wasn't able to. I've found people asking what I believe is a similar question, but havent found an answer to this. I'm might be searching the wrong thing? I'll shoot my shot here. Sorry, new to this site so if this is obvious and easy to find then my apologies. You can redirect me there if thats eaiser?

What I'm asking is if you can make a map, then when your character walks into a zone, it loads another map for that character. Then you can walk around and even back to the original.

Also, would this allow for the use of more tilesets? As in if I have 2 cliff types in the main map, but I load another map, can I have 2 different types of cliffs?

I'm aware this would bring some downsides, but im more trying to find the limits of what's possible before i begin fleshing out a concept. I'm also aware you can make it appear as though there are new zones by using waygate type systems and using dead space as dungeons and what not. I just want to know the upper bounds of space before I lay anything out. This would be more of a passion project for myself than anything practical for other users to use regularly so even things like frequent loads aren't a big deal. My rig loads even fairly populated 480x480 maps in a second or 2.

Anyway, thanks for the time.
 

Uncle

Warcraft Moderator
Level 73
Joined
Aug 10, 2018
Messages
7,877
I've tried to find an answer to this, but wasn't able to. I've found people asking what I believe is a similar question, but havent found an answer to this. I'm might be searching the wrong thing? I'll shoot my shot here. Sorry, new to this site so if this is obvious and easy to find then my apologies. You can redirect me there if thats eaiser?

What I'm asking is if you can make a map, then when your character walks into a zone, it loads another map for that character. Then you can walk around and even back to the original.

Also, would this allow for the use of more tilesets? As in if I have 2 cliff types in the main map, but I load another map, can I have 2 different types of cliffs?

I'm aware this would bring some downsides, but im more trying to find the limits of what's possible before i begin fleshing out a concept. I'm also aware you can make it appear as though there are new zones by using waygate type systems and using dead space as dungeons and what not. I just want to know the upper bounds of space before I lay anything out. This would be more of a passion project for myself than anything practical for other users to use regularly so even things like frequent loads aren't a big deal. My rig loads even fairly populated 480x480 maps in a second or 2.

Anyway, thanks for the time.
1) This is possible, but it has to be an offline campaign.
2) You're going to be loading into completely separate maps and everything will be reset upon loading. These maps have zero relation with one another.
3) You can save and load data between sessions using game cache (campaign) or preload files (what we use for online saving and loading).
4) It will be difficult for a less advanced user to create a save/load system that remembers for example "2 out of 3 creeps in a creep camp were killed and the 3rd creep has 68% life". But it's doable, especially if you accept some limitations.
5) Any concept of time will be tough to handle. Life regeneration, expiration timers, buffs, all of these will either be lost or fail to "tick" since they no longer exist.
 
Last edited:
Level 30
Joined
Aug 29, 2012
Messages
1,385
You can take a look at the Rexxar campaign to have a broad idea of how it works

The system is revolving around saves; if the player hasn't visited sub-area 123, then the map is opened for the first time, but if they have been there, you'd create a save file and then load said file so that the area would look exactly like how it was when they left

Long story short, it's all about storing and retrieving data, and you need a very strong organization right off the bat or you'll get lost in game cache shenanigans
 
Last edited:
Level 3
Joined
Jun 6, 2024
Messages
13
1) This is possible, but it has to be an offline campaign.
2) You're going to be loading into completely separate maps and everything will be reset upon loading. These maps have zero relation with one another.
3) You can save and load data between sessions using game cache (campaign) or preload files (what we use for online saving and loading).
4) It will be difficult for a less advanced user to create a save/load system that remembers for example "2 out of 3 creeps in a creep camp were killed and the 3rd creep has 68% life". But it's doable. Also, any concept of time will be tough,
Ok. That's what i needed to know. Thanks.

I definitely do not have the capability to do it now, but i wanted to know if it was possible before I thought about what I could do with it. It leaves a lot more headroom for ideas and the world can be a lot more open. Id probably build the first area and get all the fundamentals settled and then move on to adding areas. What i didn't want to do was get all of that sorted and then have to retroactively alter the map to fill in new ideas and areas. That sounded awful. If I can just add zones later then I wont sweat cramming ideas into the first area.
 
Level 3
Joined
Jun 6, 2024
Messages
13
You can take a look at the Rexxar campaign to have a broad idea of how it works

The system is revolving around saves; if the player hasn't visited sub-area 123, they the map is opened for the first time, but if they have been there, you'd create a save file and then load said file so that the area would look exactly like how it was when they left

Long story short, it's all about storing and retrieving data, and you need a very strong organization right off the bat or you'll get lost in game cache shenanigans
Thats what I had a feeling i could base it off of. Broadly I just needed to know it was a possibility. I dont plan on adding like a dozen areas or anything. you can fit quite a bit into 1 map, but I'd rather have the headroom to expand with new ideas rather than have to cram new ideas into an existing map. Or Id rather not cram ideas into the corner of a big map so I have the room to add ideas later. Just lets me plan the world im building out a little better from the start.
Thanks
 
Top