Warlords TBS Series
Spin-off Projects
Home Forum
Welcome,
Guest
|
TOPIC: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction
Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 12 years, 9 months ago #445
Even if that's true, you still have to create all the images the game expects to find for each unit. Basically you need something like 16 images (8 on the map animations, 8 in combat animations) plus a couple of pictures for the production screen. Even if you don't want animation, you'll need to copy 1 image 16 times into 1 larger image for DirectX.
I understand that part. I would choose a basic sprite or simple pic and put it in all 16 places. I couldn't really care if it does not look good as long as it works. And doing what you described above definitely is not fun but it would be worth doing for personal reasons and adding more to the game. It could also be automated with software if we wanted to do that. But since you have to release your patches and its not for personal use then I see why you balk at having to do this. I could make a 'teleport Warlord' spell and put in the Hero spell list. Once researched you could cast and teleport the Warlord to another city you owned. That would effectively do what you want, move the Warlord but not let it be an attacking unit. That is a good idea. Make it a spell that every Hero can cast. So that its not just a Nature spell or a combat spell. I would def settle for that. Because it's such an old game (2003) you need Visual Studio 6 installed and the DirectX 9b developer kit in order to compile. In 2005 when I first got the code that wasn't too hard to come by. Now, it might be quite difficult since I am not sure Vista/Win 7 even supports 9b being installed (last time I upgraded my machine I had to copy 9b from my prior machine as it would not install from the installer). The biggest thing the game really needs is support for Wide Screen formats. I'm not an expert in DirectX and so I am not sure what's involved in supporting those formats. Getting the environment and software would be very easy. I can spin up a Windows XP or other Virtual Machine very easily. I can then get Visual Studio 6 through friends and install all the important needed development tools to make it work. I have done something similar for creating other, more complicated development environments so I don't see how this could not be done. Is it done in all C++? C#? VB 6? VB.NET? VB Script? I guess it just comes down to wanting to spend the time doing it or not. Trust me I do not blame you at all for not wanting to do it. It is probably a mess and very time consuming. But let me just say though, if it was me who had the code, I would be vigorously augmenting it to make the best Warlords game possible. Not for money, for fun, and to advance the game past where it is currently. But again I realize I cannot so I guess I just have to get over that fact and help out while I make my own game. *sigh* |
|
|
Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 12 years, 9 months ago #446
Dan,
coredweller wrote: But since you have to release your patches and its not for personal use then I see why you balk at having to do this. Correct. Everything I release, I have to pass back to Steve since he owns the code. So yeah, he wouldn't want something like that released for obvious reasons. The other thing someone once asked for and that *might* be possible would be to extract all the unit data (hits/move/strength/race) from the code and put in in XML files (which the game uses now extensively). Then players could edit those to their hearts content. You wouldn't get new units or new skills or be able to change races or race positions but you could assign stats/skills to your liking with the understanding that the AI would be unable to take advantage of some of those changes. That is a good idea. Make it a spell that every Hero can cast. So that its not just a Nature spell or a combat spell. I would def settle for that. I'd put it in the hero spell sphere that I added in 1.05. Everyone including Combat only warlords gets access to that. Of course it would cost mana to cast so you couldn't move around a lot. Is it done in all C++? C#? VB 6? VB.NET? VB Script? Good to know you can create virtual machines. I am never sure who can and can't to set up custom development environments. The code is all C++ with XML configuration files. Not much in the way of comments or explanations so you sort of have to feel your way through things when first figuring out the code. Trust me I do not blame you at all for not wanting to do it. It is probably a mess and very time consuming. But let me just say though, if it was me who had the code, I would be vigorously augmenting it to make the best Warlords game possible. Not for money, for fun, and to advance the game past where it is currently. It's definitely a lot of time. Chasing down variables and bugs and figuring out code that you didn't write and making sure you didn't break the AI or something else when you add new features/menus etc. When I started in 2005 there were still a lot of players playing the game. So the effort was worthwhile. I know at one time Steve tracked over 1000 downloads of the 1.05 patch in 2008. There would have been others at mirror sites. So it seems a fair number of players found the patches plus the game was sold for a while by Direct2Drive. But now in 2011, it's an 8 year old game. I bet less than 100 people still play it regularly. Hard to justify spending time on that. Plus as I said, the game is so old now that it's lacking in a lot support for things like wide screen monitors, DirectX 10/11. It doesn't install properly in Vista/Win7 due to writing saves in the game directory instead of My Documents etc etc. To do another real patch would require fixing all that and that's before doing any real work to improve the game. But again I realize I cannot so I guess I just have to get over that fact and help out while I make my own game. *sigh* Why not make your own game then? There is already source code available for download. LordsAWar (link at the left) is an open source GNU project you can download right now. A War2 clone but it's up and running with units/maps etc. You could easily have the base stuff all ready to go and just add the new features you want. FreeLords is another one with code already there but it's in Java (which is probably the better long term option since it would work on Linux and probably IPads etc). Another good open source game is Colossus. It's also Java based. I have the source for that one and it's very similarly written code wise to Warlords IV in terms of unit/stack organization/multi player support. It's not a Warlords game, but the concepts are similar so you might be able to adapt to what you want (hex based though). KGB |
|
|
Time to create page: 1.28 seconds