Platinum Arts Sandbox - Free 3D Game Maker Forum

Idea:
In World of Warcraft, Blizzard also uses square maps. These maps are stored within .MPQ files in the game's Data folder. To make the entire game world multiple maps are put into zone specific folders in the MPQ and are linked ingame by files ending in .wdt .

What if we could link maps with our own version of the .wdt for .ogz files. In WoW each .adt had coordinates near the end: Kalimdor_XX_XX.adt
That would be used in the .wdt, like Kalimdor_01_00.adt would be Kalimdor(01,00) in the wdt and then the game would search for the map. We could use that method along with fog and create extremely large game maps.

Suggestions for use:

Don't use .wdt . Maybe even put it into the .cfg ?

Give Blizzard some credit.(It is their system. )

Allow for map linking to be disabled, and have it that way by default.

Creation of a flattening tool would be awesome.(You center on a certain cube, adjust the radius and move the ground up to meet the specific cube or move the cube down to meet the other cubes. Could be useful for smooth ground effects with 0 size cubes.) Creation of such a tool would allow for "rips" to be sealed. "rips" Occur when you put two maps together but their ground is not level causing you to be able to fall between each map through a hole.


Pros:

Maps could be linked together to create large world sized maps.

More building space.


Cons:

Maps would take longer to come out.

Maps could go missing.

The link could be corrupted.

Very interesting idea, I hope the SandBox team looks into this.

yeah, I like the idea, but they already knew I thought

Im about 99% sure it can´t be used... Because if it was designed by blizzard then it won´t be compatible with sandbox... And even if it is, then how would sandbox be able to use the system? Blizzard earns millions of dollars every month (maybe even week), so they would want sandbox team to pay millions to them for using the system... Which im 100% sure sandbox team won´t have money for...

I don't think they copyrighted the system, because games as Runescape use it 2

siimvuss wrote:Im about 99% sure it can´t be used... Because if it was designed by blizzard then it won´t be compatible with sandbox... And even if it is, then how would sandbox be able to use the system? Blizzard earns millions of dollars every month (maybe even week), so they would want sandbox team to pay millions to them for using the system... Which im 100% sure sandbox team won´t have money for...

It's just using a file to tell sandbox to render one map next to another one because they are part of the same group. Maybe you could shoot for 80% sure that it can't be used?

Blizzard makes each account owner(player) pay around $15 a month * 2mil+ players global, so yeah, millions. The map system isn't what players are paying for, they're paying for hosting, up time, programming, blizzards employee's paychecks, graphics, etc. and the system probably won't even match 10% of theirs.

Adding fog, and linked maps would be an awesome addition to sandbox from my point of view.

Just adding my 2¢.

yeah fog would be really nice, so you can add as much tree objects 2 your map as you want without making it lagg