EaW Editor/RebED...

[Jahled]

Think about it...

 

...depending upon the final product EaW will be, it's endurance in time isn't going to last without a simular editor as the one we all have got so much out of Rebellion with Revolution's RebEd! Given it was quite frankly such a good editor and has almost certainly been responsible for the continued interest in Rebellion, will EaW's legacy be at the mercy of a simular editor? Rebellion would have died for me long ago without all RebEd was able to breath into my imagination...

 

...just a thought...

[Evaders99]

If they're smart, they will have one. But LucasArts hasn't been known to really support modifications to their games, so they may not be allowed to even release one.

 

I'm sure someone will find a way to edit things, but it maybe harder if there's a custom package format that they may use. Look at Force Commander, there's only been one RPK editor.

[Jahled]

Part of me is secretly hoping some guy in France hasn't in fact 'retired' from moding... and will pick up on EaW if it is good. Aside from Rebellion, the Command and Conquer titles have been enduring favourites of mine; especially with the ease to create maps and mod stuff. I once had a map with a parachute drop of Albert Einstiens shouting 'where is my chalk?' So given petrograph are made up of former westwood people, i'm hoping EaW will be mod-friendly like C&C...

[R2-Opus2]

One of the things I think I'll miss in this game is the feeling of scope in the galaxy. I loved Rebellion's galaxy/sector layout, and even if a dozen or so terrains were to be reused for the ground portions, I think EaW could still cope with having a bigger sense of scope. I hear there'll be 30 some odd planets to go to, seems a bit limiting.

 

I'm with you on its modability, I hope its there. I don't hold out much hope for it though, as traditionally, support in terms of the SW gaming license hasn't been as swift as it could've been. Galaxies has a shot at some respectable longevity, however this longevity is entirely up to the devs in control of it. It sounds appealing to me, yet I'm a cheap bastard when it comes to subscriptions to anything. Its a shame it wasn't something folks like me prone to single player games can't get and enjoy on those terms. (But then, it wouldn't be an MMOG heh). Catch 22, whatya gonna do.

[Cain]

Maybe this will help :

 

 

- EAW is being coded using XML. So chances are it’ll be easier to mod than C&C: Generals or LOTR: The Battle for Middle-Earth.

- The reason the release date was bumped until next year, is that although the game will be finished this year. LucasArts wants Empire at War to be the most polished RTS game of all time, thus to give more polish time is why the release date was pushed to next year.

- The map making tools that’ll be included with the game are about the same as the Worldbuilder with C&C: Generals and LOTR: The Battle for Middle-Earth. The main difference is it’ll be easier to texture the maps with Empire at War’s tool.

- One idea for multiplayer is that you can play a sort of Universe Mode where by you select how many planets are available to control and you duke it out against your opponent or opponents to see who could control the custom universe. This can also be used to customize your own Singleplayer campaign as well.

[Krytos]

Maybe this will help :

 

 

- EAW is being coded using XML. So chances are it’ll be easier to mod than C&C: Generals or LOTR: The Battle for Middle-Earth.

- The reason the release date was bumped until next year, is that although the game will be finished this year. LucasArts wants Empire at War to be the most polished RTS game of all time, thus to give more polish time is why the release date was pushed to next year.

- The map making tools that’ll be included with the game are about the same as the Worldbuilder with C&C: Generals and LOTR: The Battle for Middle-Earth. The main difference is it’ll be easier to texture the maps with Empire at War’s tool.

- One idea for multiplayer is that you can play a sort of Universe Mode where by you select how many planets are available to control and you duke it out against your opponent or opponents to see who could control the custom universe. This can also be used to customize your own Singleplayer campaign as well.

 

I'm glad to see that LucasArts is trying to reverse their "Game Factory" image as of late by letting the programmers do the best they can with their games.

Truth be told, one of the reasons I was thinking the game wouldn't be to outstanding was because of the relatively short amount of time they were given to work on the game. The extra time will definetly make the game better.

 

Seems everytime news gets updated about the game, the game gets better

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Well, they really have little choice now. With no new movies comming out they won't have new resources to simply cookie-cut a game from. I think we may actually see a change in LucasArts now. If thye make EaW a crappy game (well, if thye force Petroglyph to make it a crappy game) they'll be stuck. None of their non-Star Wars titles have done very well, and Galaxies Online is fading in popularity due to the arriaval of WoW and Guild Wars. If you think about it, LucasArts future rests on EaW.

[Skynxnex]

That and Galaxies from what I heard sucks.

 

Anyway, lets hope that they change their image like what Grand Admiral Thrawn said and they are gonna stop this whole cookie-cutter factory gaming thing they been doing lately.

[Cain]

That and Galaxies from what I heard sucks.

 

Anyway, lets hope that they change their image like what Grand Admiral Thrawn said and they are gonna stop this whole cookie-cutter factory gaming thing they been doing lately.

 

 

I don't know were you guys have been but we have pushed hard in the past for better communication & colaboration with the developers and LEC producers.

 

At the moment we are makeing an EAW FAQ for LEC with LEC support (to be stiked in the EAW LEC Forums ) ... we recived an official developer contact on our forums (he registered and its active) and we enjoy good comunications with all the leads from petrofglyph (the project manager included).

 

I fighted hard for the EAW fan forums to be on SWR but since we didn't get them we decided to have them on free forums. So if you want to help if it can be called help pls. use our f topics. They have all arrived at their destinations but we can't say this officialy so its unofficial.

 

The most important gain that we have until now is that we suspect that we managed to push the 40 planets number - over - how much we don't know at this time.

 

Many of the SWR members are involved in feedbacking EAW : Jahled, Jedi Igor, Mad 78, Stellar_Magic, etc - (On SWEAW PFF or LEC Forums)

 

Here is our last F topic the 003. It has arrived at P and we wanted to close it but Ismael said to let it open cause they said so. I didn't send it to LEC yet but I will soon enough. You guys may give it a try if you download the 47 min. EAW video from E3 and want to feedback it.

 

http://swempireatwar.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=98

 

 

At this time we know exactly how the games is made, what's the development stage, who is makeing it and how, whats LEC doing, how we can comunicate, what are the legal aspects, the rules, how we can still play by the rules and find new ways to get around them, etc.

 

 

We believed that it can be done, fans can activly be close and supportive to the dev team and producers and now our expectations have been meet at an 150% level abouve early expectations.

 

 

... so this is a close brief of what we do.

[Skynxnex]

Umm I never said you never fought hard. I was just agreeing with what Thrawn said about how LEC has never really let their games be used for modding purposes and they lately have just churned out crap. Hopefully EaW will break this habit that they got into.

[Cain]

I see well - I always have translation problems - I know the LEC Lead Producer of EAW and he seem intend in doing EAW as a special game - the fan-developer relations were very cool until now so we hope they will not forget us.

[Skynxnex]

I see well - I always have translation problems - I know the LEC Lead Producer of EAW and he seem intend in doing EAW as a special game - the fan-developer relations were very cool until now so we hope they will not forget us.

 

Thats good news. I hope it will be easier to mod than Generals was or even Battle For Middle Earth.

[Cain]

Here is Joe Bostic's new small interview about EAW :

 

 

 

 

http://swempireatwar.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=241

[Quickshot14]

an exceprt from the above mentioned q&a:

GS: One thing we're wondering about is whether the units are rendered to scale in the game. For example, did you modify unit sizes so that certain units look larger or smaller on the battlefield than they should to make them more clearly visible, or did you go for a 1:1 scale? It seems like space battles aren't to scale, since the fighters looked considerably larger than their counterparts in the movies.

 

JB: The sizes of units have been adjusted to lessen the extremes for visibility reasons. We are still adjusting sizes of some units, but they will be similar to that shown at E3. The game has almost every aspect controllable through text data files, so changing the scale is possible for the more adventurous technical players

 

This pretty much confirms that the game will be moddable witch i figured as much as with any good rts anymore it's pretty much a requirement to make it moddable. The extent of how moddable well that we may not find out untill closer to release or untill it is released. Needless to say if I wasn't excited enough about the game before to know for sure it will be moddable has pretty much sealed it for me, is it spring 2006 yet?

[Eko]

EaW being modable will severly expand its life.

 

I had read on one of the external forums moderated by Cain that the Xml it was being coded with was editable in notepad which would help the average person to fiddle with the game values.

 

It may also be a good omen for the possible release of the Rebellion source code, with EaW being more mod friendly there will be little need to so fiercly protect Rebellion.

 

Then again maybe not, but we can hope.

[Cain]

.... It is not moderated only by me a Game Designer from Petroglyhp (Delphi-PG) is also admin there - cool no ?! for a free forum ... anyway it's the biggest place for EAW wich makes me more upset on Evaders cause he didn't let me host it here ... .... ohhh well.

[Eko]

I've got a question for you Cain:

 

Will EaW be being run on a kind of Total War type mega map, with action on the planets with ships and groudn troops? The video you posted (somewhere) seems to suggest that.

[Cain]

Something like that ...yes.