Looking 4 a DECENT Map EDITOR

[David boutwell]

Cheers, Sniper <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Nothing like a bit of heated debate that ends well.

You are definitely right about this game. I'll bet the gaming industry is thanking their lucky stars that most gamers aren't Steel Panthers fans. This game, thanks to the Matrix guys and those that preceded them, such as editor pioneers like Jim Bello, has had so much staying power with the serious SP players that the game manufacturers would have gone out of business for lack of sales in the last five years.

Granted, I've bought other games (Campaign series games, Shogun, Cossacks, Age of Empires series), but I keep coming right back (in a very short amount of time) to SP.

The book publishing industry has definitely benefitted from this game, though. I've bought many a book just to research a scenario. In fact, in the last month, I've bought three books on the US airborne portion of Market Garden, just for research material. Hell, I bought Major and Mrs. Holt's tour of the Market Garden Battlefields on the day my second daughter was born, right after I bought my wife flowers!

Am I a purist? Damned right! I'm a map purist. I believe it is purists that provide the long-term foundation of this community, whether they be purist from the OoB area, the penetration/impact angle crowd, the editor guys like Fred Chlanda and Rockin'Harry, or the icon guys like Mike Amos, just to name a few.

It takes guys who are nuts about their particular favorite area to have moved this game forward to where it is today. Just go back and load Steel Panthers I onto your computer, If your computer will run it, to see how far it has come. Remember, Grey tanks represented Germans and neon green represented US forces. If there weren't people who weren't anal retentive about authenticity and detail in a lot of different areas, we'd still be there. No, we wouldn't because we'd all be playing something else by now.

And, yes, Fred Chlanda and his editor is one of the foundation stones of this community. I remember when I first checked out Fred's programs. I thought, "What in the heck is this???". When you figure out what you can do with it, you'll look at it in a whole new light.

So, since you're into Warcraft and SPWAW, when are they going to come out with a game that allows us to play the War of the Rings in one big, turn-based, 2,000 x 2,000 hex map, multi-player campaign?

Regards,

David Boutwell

[RockinHarry]

Originally posted by Sniper-for-hire:
I appreciate that Harry, but if you read earlier up (or maybe it was in another thread), I found his program to have a very difficult learning curve... I guess I like the more no-nonsense click & drag programs.... I opened his up & it was like using an abacus to do my tax return. <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

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yes,..you´re right on this and Freds programs have some difficult learning curve. Unfortunately they´re the only ones available for map tweaking. Maybe someday Fred Chlanda will update the Map Editor, although this may take a very long time! (..due to his stroke last year)

Did send him a huge "improvement wish list" last year, believe me! <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> We can be glad that Fred is back to programming work a little bit. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

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Harry

[El Vito]

My eyes glaze over when I try to figure out the map editors. I gave up long ago. Just wanted to quickly change the victory hex values and/or start lines on custom maps but it ain't happenin <img src="frown.gif" border="0">

[David boutwell]

El Vito,

I know you don't want to hear this, or maybe you do, but those are very simple tasks that are found in the Deploy menu. To change victory hex values, all you have to do is click on "Edit Victory Objectives". To change start lines, you click on the two little green flags in the bottom left of your deploy menu.

And make sure you save! Or else you'll get the impression that you didn't do it right, when you just didn't save the changes. It happens when you are learning the ropes. Believe me and everyone else in here.

Regards,

David Boutwell