Official map editor released
The official map editor has been released, at least in some form (hat-tip to Wuped). To find it, go into “The Vault” on GPGnet (located in the Tools menu), browse to the Download tab, select the Tools list item under “Search For”, and then hit the “Run Search” button in the upper right. You should see the map editor on the list at the bottom. Yes, it’s quite the round-about way of releasing anything for download, and without any sort of announcement, the vast majority of people would have simply missed this.
Unfortunately, I haven’t given the map editor a whirl just yet. When I said “in some form” above, I was referring to these weird reviewer-only restrictions that GPG have placed on the download. Clicking on the Download button next to the tool doesn’t start the download, oh no. It refers you to a “Volunteer Effort Details” screen with a blank legal notice (that you nevertheless have to agree to!), and once you agree to that, you have to fill out your times and days available as well as your email address. I’m not really sure what this is all about though, so I didn’t go any further. What exactly am I agreeing to do by downloading the map editor? Am I volunteering my time for some kind of a review process, and I have to be involved at various days and times? Sorry, I’m not interested. Oh, and GPGnet has crashed on me at this screen twice now, so I couldn’t download it if I wanted to.
Hopefully GPG will get their act together and release the map editor in a much more intuitive form that doesn’t require bizarre time commitments. Hopefully they will also have a big announcement about this (after all, they should be proud), and hopefully, the download won’t keep causing GPGnet to crash. If anyone does get it working, do feel free to tell the rest of us what it’s like. Is it everything we had hoped for?
Update: Okay, so maybe it’s not really officially released yet. See the comments for more details.
Update 2: Nope, this looks about as official as it’s ever going to get. Son of Shagrat posted a thread announcing its release on the official forum — a thread that is also chock full of legal disclaimers, I might add. Looks like THQ wanted to protect their ass five ways to Sunday.
Update 3: Check out the best tutorial I could find.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Cyde, obviously this isn’t ready for primetime hence why there was no announcement, so you have no reason to be bitter or upset since you basically found a back way into where they are in progress of preparing the map editor for download.
That said, I encourage you to be as bitter as you want regarding how long it has taken to GET the friggin map editor out. ;P
June 11th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Crashed GPG net when i tried to download it. I was also confused about the volunteering part..
June 11th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
This review version has been available for some time. See zordon’s comment to my last post. No disrespect to Wuped : ) I am also interested to hear any first hand experience.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I should pay more attention to things…. Oh well *goes off to play more SupCom*
June 11th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
okay so apparently it IS the official release…
As one stated in the thread on General Discussion:
GPG will not be fixing bugs in the editor; nor will we be providing support. However, we will keep the editor current with the patch releases of Supreme Commander.
…
The SC Map Editor is a fairly technical *internal* tool, not for the faint of heart.
…
To create the high resolution heightmaps also requires other tools such as Photoshop.
…
If you are not into technical tools that have some hard-core components, don’t download the tool!
Wow, so not only do we not get true mod tools, we don’t even get a legit map editor for folks to use, we just get the hacktool you guys used internally?
Does anyone from GPG care to explain what exactly happened with the claims of amazing mod/map support versus the actual delivery?
I doubt you guys are at fault… from everything we’ve seen here on the forums you guys do a lot of work to support this game, answer questions, work on patches, etc.
Is it THQ that’s the source of the problem?
Do tell, because I’m pretty sure we customers can fashion some nice pointy stakes and firey torches and march on THQ castle if that’s where the blame lies.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
The further disclaimers of us being “testers” of a “tool” hints that perhaps included in the SC expansion will be a proper map editor for users (as opposed to an internal tool).
It almost sounds like GPG pushed THQ to allow this to be released for us fans so we’d have SOMETHING in the meantime and that is why there was such a need for legal disclaimers since you basically are releasing a development tool.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
We shouldn’t have to buy an expansion pack for a map editor. A fairly easy to use map editor is standard with todays RTS games, them not including one when they promised it pretty shitty of them.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
yeah this is pretty much RUBBISH.
way to F the community over. First no mod tools, now even the map editor is a joke. wtf!
Really frustrating for folks who don’t want to deal with using Photoshop for heightmaps and just want a friggin normal MAP EDITOR like you get with most RTS games, and that’s not even to mention how MOST people don’t even own Photoshop because it’s so expensive. *sigh*
This is SO disappointing. You won’t be seeing a lot of quality maps from folks that will keep this game alive and fresh and interesting without a real kickass map editor so they’re only hurting their own community.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
you know, the worst part is they made a game that’s a lot of fun. at least if the game sucked as much poo as their support and tools it would be easier to toss the whole thing and find another game to play instead. alas, they have the only good RTS game out right now of this ‘feel’ which is reminiscent of TA, which is my favorite RTS game of all time, even despite SupCom lacking so many things even TA had. =-/
June 12th, 2007 at 12:10 am
the no mod tools is a giant load of crap, what you want them to ship notepad with lua support? Truth is mod support is more how you write your engine. The mod development forum is really well run and they’ve done their best to explain how to mod sup com. the map editor, yeah i’ll buy those complaints.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:02 am
Seems we are a bit bitter ain’t we.
The volunteer effort is really nothing much and i think it was made to scare off the majority of kids. They really just want you to say what you’d like and dislike about the editor.
That being said the editor itself really has a steep learning curve. But after about 1-2 days you should be able to finish maps rather rapidly.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:03 am
I think SupCom’s mod support is outstanding, both engine- and team-wise. Sure, it feels a little awry at times when you expect a proper editor and all you get is the internal tool with ZERO documentation (not even their internal docs). But then, modding has never been a drag&drop affair.
Modding is serious stuff.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Mod TOOLS denotes interfaces or programs, as someone said on the forums.
Well I gotta say this editor is a pretty great pile of crap.
Now I gotta go through the effort of finding another game to play that actually has decent support and not a pile of shit that’s sugar coated so it hurts to have to break away from it because the game holds so much promise that’s being denied and of course reminisces of TA which was so much fun. =-/
June 12th, 2007 at 7:36 am
So we get the same tool that the guys at GPG used to make maps and you’re all complaining? What is wrong with you people? We’ve got a tool which allows us to do anything the developers were able to do and trust me, that is a very rare thing in gaming.
It sounds like you all want an editor and mod tools that are handed on a plate to you so you can punch in a few numbers, describe what you want a voila, it’s done. Modding and Mapping is not a straight forward task. It requires a lot of study, practice, practice and ultimately talent. You can pretty much do whatever you like with SupCom if you take the time to learn, but that is only because of the way it has been written. So rather than complaining that what is available to you is rubbish, try and learn how to use what is there, and you will soon realise how much you can do.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I’m surprised no one remembers that TA only had an official map editor come out with the expansion.
And wake, I don’t know your story so I really can’t say anything, but modding for TA was a lot tougher than modding for SupCom is. I can only assume you never dabbled in modding in TA, or you’re just being bitter. I don’t know, I’m just saying random things.
Truth be told, SupCom is amazing, and I’m sure it’ll get better. lol Maybe we’ll get a whole new faction in the expansion (like from TA:Kingdoms) or, maybe we’ll get tech 3 point defense and five more tech 3 units!
Modding isn’t as hard in SupCom as you might think. It just requires a bit more reading than most people that are just playing around will want to do.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
TA was ten years ago. Most RTS games delivered since then include a pretty functional and easy-to-learn mapping tool that often also includes higher level functionality for folks who want to get into scripted events and campaigns and whatnot.
A devtool is actually the LAST thing you want because they are generally hacked together tools to just Get the Job Done, not to make it pleasant.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I agree with Wake here - just because Cavedog did something and got away with it doesn’t mean that GPG can do it now and get away with it. Standards have changed over time. I really wish that GPG would earn a better reputation for taking care of its player base by finishing up with a real polished map editor as soon as possible. It would do wonders for the long-term sustainability of the community.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I just picked up the map editor today and I am as confused as why SOS said this editor isn’t for the faint of heart. I pick it up read through the tutorial (Thank you Angery Zealot) and go make my map.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Link to the tutorial please? That’s something I need to see.
June 12th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
It’s in the folder where it downloads the Map Editor to
X:\Documents and Settings\XP Name\My Documents\My Games\Gas Powered Games\SupremeCommander\Tools\Supcom Map Editor.v0001
is the deafault.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Superb, I’ve been looking for an editor as i recently picked SC up for a bargain. I can’t put it down though :D
Will this work on Forged Alliance, i might get that soon as the Seraphim look prety cool..