Warcraft’s was like an entire game maker lol. Look how many titles came out of warcraft 3 maps. Dota is of course the most notable but tons of those games/maps became standalone games.
Also shows part of why they don’t. Blizzard had zero rights to dota and they were not happy about that.
RebelHero96
Far Cry 3 had this and you could even upload them to play online. Standard matchmaking could put you on player-made maps and they had different ratings based on community votes.
Weidz_
Games on Unity/Unreal Engine would have to expose source code and source assets to allow mapping.
AAA games are now so complexe in nature that it’s nearly impossible to “water down” the editor to allow map editing for players.
Ubisoft as an exemple doesn’t really make their maps in their own engine now, most of it is built from precedural Houdini pipelines (269$/y 3rd party software) they work on and iterate during the day and everything is then compiled at night.
Modern map making also often requires high-end hardware for baking navigation, lighting, occlusion and others kinds of optimization needed for a map to run smoothly, meaning a lot of people would struggle.
jkaoz
Nah….
Then you could make and share really interesting maps with other people for free, which would limit their ability to sell you a $15 additional map pack with where most of them suck, and the one good one is a night-time version of one that shipped with the game.
Besides… you wouldn’t want people fostering long lived fan communities around a game anyway, because that means people on twitter will notice when you when you shut down all the servers in a year and half, and somebody might write an article with an opinion you didn’t pay for in it.
Terrible idea.
Thahu
Age of Empires 2 Map Editor was our shit back in the day. me and my buddy made a whole star wars AotC campaign in it when were like 10. also trackmanias editor was insane.
cakewithfrostingonly
Far cry 2 map maker on console blew my mind way back when
superbee392
Props for putting the game names in each of the images
Narynu
Damn, the amount of time i spent in HOMM 3 editor is insane.
astrielx
warcraft 3 and starcraft 2 editors put most other games to shame.
Fyrfat
I spent soooo much time in the map editor of Operation Flashpoint (well, it’s more like Mission Editor because technically you could not edit the terrain). Great times.
oupheking
Warcraft 2 and Starcraft’s map editors awakened something in young me that changed my life forever
Destronoma
I miss the novelty behind them, even though the reality is that most of us are *horrible* at making maps that would be balanced and/or fun.
But for those that were good at using them? Holy hell, some games thrived on those maps.
zachtheperson
Good news! The Witcher 3 just released theirs!
Gyramuur
Original Neverwinter Nights was fucking incredible. Especially since you could design entire stories with it and create NPCs with custom dialogue.
SeveralAngryBears
My bro and I spent many hours creating custom skateparks in THPS games
Stawe
As someone who is currently making a game (still early) this is somethint I want to add but have no idea how it’s done 😅
ValenDrax
Exactly. I used to love Age of Wonders’ (1 and 2) map editor. Also dabbled with Neverwinter Nights – though it was not just a map editor 😀
DevoxNZ
Build.exe
harper247
Resident evil’s. Imagine Capcom gave us level editors and mod tools for these games? It could be something special.
KingDisastrous
Halo’s Forge mode was the absolute shit. Played soo much creative modes/maps made by the people back then.
drial8012
Devs stopped, releasing them because people started making better content and it was still free, which flew in the face of the industries desire to take all your money
21 Comments
Warcraft’s was like an entire game maker lol. Look how many titles came out of warcraft 3 maps. Dota is of course the most notable but tons of those games/maps became standalone games.
Also shows part of why they don’t. Blizzard had zero rights to dota and they were not happy about that.
Far Cry 3 had this and you could even upload them to play online. Standard matchmaking could put you on player-made maps and they had different ratings based on community votes.
Games on Unity/Unreal Engine would have to expose source code and source assets to allow mapping.
AAA games are now so complexe in nature that it’s nearly impossible to “water down” the editor to allow map editing for players.
Ubisoft as an exemple doesn’t really make their maps in their own engine now, most of it is built from precedural Houdini pipelines (269$/y 3rd party software) they work on and iterate during the day and everything is then compiled at night.
Modern map making also often requires high-end hardware for baking navigation, lighting, occlusion and others kinds of optimization needed for a map to run smoothly, meaning a lot of people would struggle.
Nah….
Then you could make and share really interesting maps with other people for free, which would limit their ability to sell you a $15 additional map pack with where most of them suck, and the one good one is a night-time version of one that shipped with the game.
Besides… you wouldn’t want people fostering long lived fan communities around a game anyway, because that means people on twitter will notice when you when you shut down all the servers in a year and half, and somebody might write an article with an opinion you didn’t pay for in it.
Terrible idea.
Age of Empires 2 Map Editor was our shit back in the day. me and my buddy made a whole star wars AotC campaign in it when were like 10. also trackmanias editor was insane.
Far cry 2 map maker on console blew my mind way back when
Props for putting the game names in each of the images
Damn, the amount of time i spent in HOMM 3 editor is insane.
warcraft 3 and starcraft 2 editors put most other games to shame.
I spent soooo much time in the map editor of Operation Flashpoint (well, it’s more like Mission Editor because technically you could not edit the terrain). Great times.
Warcraft 2 and Starcraft’s map editors awakened something in young me that changed my life forever
I miss the novelty behind them, even though the reality is that most of us are *horrible* at making maps that would be balanced and/or fun.
But for those that were good at using them? Holy hell, some games thrived on those maps.
Good news! The Witcher 3 just released theirs!
Original Neverwinter Nights was fucking incredible. Especially since you could design entire stories with it and create NPCs with custom dialogue.
My bro and I spent many hours creating custom skateparks in THPS games
As someone who is currently making a game (still early) this is somethint I want to add but have no idea how it’s done 😅
Exactly. I used to love Age of Wonders’ (1 and 2) map editor. Also dabbled with Neverwinter Nights – though it was not just a map editor 😀
Build.exe
Resident evil’s. Imagine Capcom gave us level editors and mod tools for these games? It could be something special.
Halo’s Forge mode was the absolute shit. Played soo much creative modes/maps made by the people back then.
Devs stopped, releasing them because people started making better content and it was still free, which flew in the face of the industries desire to take all your money