While Element comes packed with its own lore, players and modders can create their own fantasy universe using either the game options (while setting up a normal game) as well as making use of the Workshop for modding.
The mod tools in Elemental are designed to let players design their own worlds in great detail.
The 4 major pieces of the workshop are:
The Tile Editor is used to create new tiles in the world. These tiles can be purely cosmetic or can serve a specific purpose. Every tile in Elemental was created using this tile editor.
Designing your tile
Once a tile is created, the player then can bring it into the game and assign what that tile actually is (or in XML assign it to be a city improvement). Is the tile a sorcerer’s fortress? An evil dragon? A wish giving demon? The map editor is where the two are connected.
Making your own map
These maps can then be saved and loaded in game. With it, a player could create their own RPG/like adventure/strategy hybrid and share it with others online.
In addition, solving quests, finding secret locations, loot, etc. all can provide different types of items. Players can use our large catalog of existing art content or they can use their own created content in game.
Creating your own items
Players interested in adding new spells to the game or who want to apply affects to tiles
Creating your own spell effects and other effects.
Effects can be placed in a tile to help give it extra pazazz.
I can't wait to get my hands on that tile editor. I want to make so many interesting tiles and buildings that replicate appanage and feudal systems in Europe. As far as the roving tornado things go I'd rather have them as "creatures" and allow wizards to tame tem and use them in battle.
I have a somewhat unrelated question, prompted by the image of the map editor. In that screenshot, the whole continent looks completely flat except for the mountains. It looks pretty fake, actually! And yet, I think in other screenshots I've seen hills... Will there be hills? Are there hills in that screenshot and I just can't make them out because they're too small? If they're there, you should make them bigger! More/bigger hills would spice up the world a lot, I think.
Edit: Never mind, partially. I just saw this screenshot and this video. Clearly hills, and even rolling hills (not just individual ones) are handled quite well. Hopefully the randomly generated maps will use them well, as the screenshot in the OP here does look distressingly flat.
oh my fucking god... its like spore in all the creation but it works isn't a short and cheap game
its basicly like Duke Nukem Forever Only for us Strategy fans, can't wait till the modding beta thats where most of the money went i bet and worth every cent.
I have to say it looks Civ 5 won't be the next king for tbs after all.
Ha, Civilisation V doesn't have Dragons, and Dragons always beats no-Dragons. If Elemental had Ninjas and you were able to either have a Ninja VS Dragon battle, or combine the two units into some kind of Dragon Ninja, we'd never need another game. Ever.
Three Headed Pirate Ninja Monkey-Dragons?
What about the dinosaurs? Dinosaurs rule!!!
Don't toy with my heart...
Well that screenshot is likely just an example of a user generated map. It does look on the small side for a full map, so it is more than likely that it is a minor island that doesn't really have room for hills.
Think I read somewhere you can make such an island and place it in an otherwise randomly generated map. So such an Island wouldn't necessarily be useless.
So... Are we getting beta 2 today?? PLEASE?
I wonder if the editor can be used for implementing a time travel spell for the sovereign.
Does the game keep a record of what happened in the previous turns that can be accessed by other features, like spells?
For those of you who aren't subscribed on youtube to Draginol, here's a video of Brad (Wardell) playing with the Elemental tile and map editors
Nice, thanks for the linky, Thrawn.
Also, looks pretty impressive.
For those of you interested in Dinosaurs ... I am indeed planning on (eventually) creating a mod with Dinosaur races. Primarily, the main Sovereigns/Champions will be true dinosaurs, and then the grunt soldiers will be more humanoid dinosaurs (kind of like DK's lizard people, or Mario's turtle people, only dinosaur people).
I plan to have a unique faction for each popular race ....
For instance, T-rex (large therapod faction), Velociraptor (fast smart faction), Dragons (powerful magical faction), Lizards (smart magical faction), Humans (numerous faction, sovereign is a Demon/Devil), Snakes (Evil, fast, numerous faction) ... im not sure about how im going to implement Stegasaurs, Triceratops, Sauropods, Turtles, Frogs, or Crocodiles ... although im definitely thinking about it.
Snakes, Lizards, Humans, T-rex, Velociraptors, and Dragons are definitely making it in as separate factions however.
Velociraptors, Lizards, Snakes, and Humans will probably all have a sort of assasin (ninja) type unit. I think humans will have sniper teams, while velociraptors will have "Black Raptor Death Squads" and Snakes will have "cobra ninjas", and Lizards will have magical teleporting blowdart using chameleon ninjas.
this is, thus far, a rough sketch.
Meanwhile, T-rex and Dragons will have the biggest, most powerful creatures.
AWESOME!! I would like to see something in this fashion...
have the Karma!
Is it just me or do the Tiles shown have 16 segments, versus our current 4?
Certainly the OP image is not 4 combined, or single 16 Tiles, given the text included...
So the tile editor covers units too? Like, say I did make a dragon tile, does it -have- to be stationary or can I do things to make sure it is a moving monster?
Thanks!
Monster editor idea and animation
I know that in the world of 3d animation, you need to give a squeletton to 3d modelsand then animate it. WHich mean that in a monster editor like I expalined above, you would need to select a preset animation model since you do not want player to manage their animation. Here are some example solution:
You would have varous tyeps of creatures: Huimanois, Quadruped (dragon), Inverted bipede (T-rex), Inverted quadruped (horse), rampant, floating, etc.
If we take the humanoid model, you would get various animation model possible:
walking/running: Like human
Swimming: Sea creature
Levitating: Legs stand still while moving
Flying: Draconian, Vakyrie,
All these creatures above are humanoid, but their movement patterns will not be the same.
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Off topic: Dragon-ninjas, that is a cool idea I never thought about. Still, considering the size of the dragon, you would have to forget about stealth. Unless you sneek other dragons.
Even MORE! LINK
It's got room for snow-capped mountains and forests. It has room for hills. Frankly, I'd like to see the generator have a tendency to surround mountains with hills (foothills). It'd make the world look more believable. Not the end of the world, of course, but it'd be a nice touch.
awesome cant wait
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