Greetings.
I am collecting World Editor suggestions and feedback on a single thread.
Please share your ideas & feedback.
Please do not derime on other people ideas. Leave it to blizz to set a priority list and evaluate feasibility.
Overall
It’s the usual world editor. It is as good a tool as it’s always been, but outdated for today standards.
Adding LUA support was a blessing but there’s still a lot of UX needed for proper development, and some new APIs perhaps could take things up a notch.
Generic
Improve / implemented protected maps to avoid credit stealing
Implement libraries akin to SC2 libraries
Please add a dark mode. To many of us used to unity, visual studio etc it’s just nicer.
Allow exporting / importing gameplay constants
Add search boxes to the various sub-editors.
Terrain Editor
Increase tile limit.
Further increased size limit.
Connected maps in multiplayer akin to Rexxar campaign would be a dream - albeit a big technical challenge.
Allow more than 2 cliff types.
Trigger Editor
LUA linting and syntax highlighting. Autocompletion, snippets and API browser would be also incredibly useful.
Allow GUI to be converted to custom text on LUA maps.
CTRL-A + CTRL-V on a custom script glitches and adds in a bunch of asian characters. Same with ctrl - backspace
Double clicking on a word should not select adjacent parentheses as it does.
Please add an option to turn tab into 4 spaces
Please add line numbers.
I’m saying this again but API BROWSER.
API documentation.
It would also be great to be able read only view map-generated script from the editor (creature spawns etc).
Saving as a folder could save all triggers / custom scripts on a subdirectories, keeping categories as further subdirectories. Add live re-importing and that would make it incredibly easy and satisfying to work on scripts
Garbage collector for groups / unit / player etc handles.
APIs to manipulate ability cooldowns.
APIs to manipulate buff durations.
APIs to detect passive abilities triggering.
APIs to listen to mouse events or movement.
APIs to listen to any keyboard key.
Improved missile APIs
Improved camera APIs
Object Editor
Make object categories (currently race-based) user defined & dynamic. Both for units and for spell. Would greatly help organising data.
No sight of model editor. We’re waiting.
Make Hero Glow toggleable
Make autocast border a toggle / automatic instead of inbuilt in spell icon
Generally increase maximum and minimum values for unit or ability statistics where technically feasible or allow negative values.
Allow hiding a buff effect icon
Allow adding cooldown or mana cost for passive abilities
Make buffs dispellable / indispellable
More generic options on abilities to allow greater flexibility (Eg. add lines to Defend to handle any damage type)
There seems to be certain a glitch causing custom ability to display a random icon from the unit default command card.
There seems to be certain a glitch with cargo ability not disabling attacks.
Sound Editor
Allow creating new soundset from scratch
Import Editor
It still just sucks big time as it’s really always done. Just turn it into a something like a directory browser. Currently still bugged (imports unavailable until map is saved on drive) and glitchy (renaming an import sometimes results into the editor complaining it already exists)
Other features are untested. If anyone has anything to add I can edit it in and we can make a single thread perhaps.
Easier said that done given how the editor is using APIs and code from early 2000 if not even before then. I doubt the solutions is as simple as changing a style sheet like with more recently created UIs.
The purpose of saving as a folder is to save the map contents in a folder and not create a new, unrelated, way to represent the map. The same files appear in the folder as in the map MPQ.
One can extract them easily. Use CASCView to either extract them from the local CASC storage or from the cloud.
If that is too much effort one can take the copy JASSHelper dumps near itself.
These both exist as of 1.31? Although there are latency issues with them due to network synchronization.
Does not work like that. The hero glows are baked into the models in classic.
It already has been. You can use file explorer to manage all your imports by saving the map as a folder. No need for Blizzard to recreate file explorer.
Which makes sense since they have not actually been imported until they are copied into the map space, which will only happen when you save the map.
A bigger problem is that the editor does not refresh imports when they are changed. If you load the model before saving the map you need to close the editor and open it again for the model to be visible. Instead it should become visible immediately after saving the map.
Personally I’d love to get missile support. With “a missile/attack is launched” event, functions to create missiles, and event “on missile hit”.
Giving us a generic “a unit takes damage” event, as well as natives to get unit’s armor was great, as I could greatly simplify my Custom Multishot system.
However, I am still using clunky workarounds in order to trigger the event as soon as the unit attacks. I can’t dynamically give the Multishot to just any unit I want, unless I’m expecting the unit to be receiving it, so I can prepare it from beforehand.
Also, creating the missiles is also using a clunky workaround…
A missile support would allow me to finally make my Multishot work the way I want it to work (and simplify it further)
Obviously. Of course it will take some work on their part, but if I’m purchasing something in 2019 then I expect it to look like it’s from 2019.
Please explain to me why I’m forced to use unofficial software in order to view the assets that come with the game. This makes absolutely no sense considering half of the game is reliant on custom map developers.
And they aren’t in Reforged. So why is there no boolean in the REFORGED editor?
Besides everything about the file explorer, why are you defending software made in 2002 that ships with a game released in 2019?
Because classic and reforged share the same editor? What would it do in classic? Add another hero glow?
Because I have used it for a very long time? Just because it is old does not make it bad.
Features like dark mode are a new fashion. Just like RGB plastering the inside of PCs. It does not make it any better, it does not add new functionality, it just is a fashion.
You’re kidding right? You sound like someone involved in software development. I understand that legacy software can have its advantages, but that is absolutely not the case here. You’re talking about an editor that was fantastic back in 2002, but is arguably garbage in today’s standards. Look at the Hammer Editor for DotA 2.
Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe it could do… you guessed it… nothing?
Just because you are used to a piece of legacy software and are comfortable using it in its stale state does not mean that the software is good. It does not make the software reliable. It does not make the software efficient.
Yes, a fashion that reduces eye stress when looking at a computer screen. This is literally the entire reason for dark themes. Dark themes are not even in the same ballpark as RGB set ups, as both of them do the exact opposite. One makes your software bearable to look at for long periods of time without losing your eyesight, and the other is a personal preference in what people want their PC to look like.
Yes. Yes actually, it does. A toggled dark mode does nothing but make the editor better. There is absolutely no down side. Like I said previously, you are sitting here defending antiquated software and resisting any new and improved changes to it just because you are either uncomfortable learning to use new tools, or are such an absolute “purist” that you don’t even want to see the world editor, out of all things, THE WORLD EDITOR, changed for the better.
Remember, the people who made the greatest custom maps back in the day are older now. They have jobs, families, children, responsibilities. The new generation of map makers will arrive soon, and if you honestly believe they will want to deal with software that looks like it was created before they were born, you’re out of your damn mind.
They implemented raytracing on the main client don’t tell me they can’t add styling on the editor.
Toggleable hero glow can be implemented on SD too. If Hiveworkshop can remove glow and make it attacheable, so can the classic team.
Also increase the tile limit from 16 to something higher if possible, Blizz.
EDIT: I kinda have low expectations from Blizz on the editor part. For example back in the day they released “star tools” for sc2 editor (3ds max addon actually). They never updated it or expanded on it or did anything related to it. It was just thrown in there and abandoned. They don’t want to update their editors as far as I’ve seen. It’s so sad. Few even minor changes would extend the life of their games for years but they don’t see that.
I think Kam (community director) said adding the natives is being worked on now.
So how much time there is left to add extra features before launch - only they know.
Hopefully there will we more to come after launch and not just a one time thing.
Warcraft III is still very popular because of the way the editor works. One of the reasons StarCraft II did not take off as much as Warcraft III was the editor.
Or one could use the same approach to add hero glows to models that lack them that people have been using since the beginning. Attach a hero glow model to the origin of the unit via ability or trigger.
Well I can think of 5 reasons people use dark themes.
They are even older than me or like Linux so love terminals. Terminals have conventionally be bright on dark.
They are using a mobile device with an OLED display. This saves power because display power usage is based on the rate of light being emitted from the screen. This does not apply to LCD displays as power usage is directly proportional to backlight brightness which is usually constant.
They have their display incorrectly set for the viewing condition. Specifically pitch black room with brightness turned up on a modern HDR or other very bright display. Black mode is a hack to get around having to adjust the brightness dial which would also fix this problem.
They actually have a medical reason to use dark mode. Some people are incapable of reading small dark on bright text but have no issue doing the opposite. It is a very rare condition.
They just want to be cool or hip and think using Dark Mode makes them that. I think most users of dark mode are in this situation.
Next to possibly requiring that the entire UI system be rewritten in order to support this. They could use that same time writing new map making features for the editor, or implementing dark mode. Which would most people prefer?
Does StarCraft II Editor even support dark mode?
They did? For some reason I doubt they have done that seeing how Warcraft III does not really present many opportunities for ray tracing to add anything of value. Realistic surface reflections (water, mirrors, etc) are the only possible use cases I can think of. Everything else is almost certainly better off using traditional drawing since ray tracing is very slow.
They cannot modify the classic models as it would break existing custom maps which used them and maybe expected them to have hero glows attached to them.
Dark mode is not only easier to the eye but makes syntax highlighting colours stand out more. Plus I and many others I guess use visual code at work so I am just used to it. Be it a trend or not, most younger developers work better in such an environment.
As for hero glow your objections are just obtuse. Don’t want to break back compatibility on SD? Just default hero glow to YES for units using hero models. Import models won’t break either because they won’t be altered since they’ll still have hero glow inbuilt.
Hey also a good thing would be for Blizzard to try to improve security of player created custom maps. It’s just too easy to hack and steal custom maps (actually true in both wc3 and sc2).
They should really do something on that front. It’s just like stealing a candy from a child when you’re de-protecting a custom map which is unacceptable.
The Sound Editor
If you want to import a whole set of sounds, with some ‘what’, ‘yes’, ‘ready’, ‘attack’, ‘pissed’-sounds, you have to search some of the existig sets which fits perfectly your requirements AND you have to completly replace the existing one. It would be a lot better if you could create your own set, instead of destroying an existing one.
nice ideas so far