Modding Guide
Preliminaries
I’ll be updating this as time goes on. I’ll get turned into its own article eventually with a live version in the modding area of the forums.
The Tools
On the main menu is the “Workshop”. This is the gateway to the modding tools. The tools we include in game are:
These tools will be in a perpetual beta as we plan to provide regular updates but we don’t have any plans to encourage casual players to make use of them.
Understanding objects
It will help you if you forget that Fallen Enchantress is a fantasy strategy game. Instead, think of Fallen Enchantress as being a particular “Mod” of a game engine called Kumquat (I didn’t name it so don’t yell at me <g>). We could just as easily have made a Baldur’s Gate style game with it. Or more specifically, YOU could make an Ultima style game. Or a Civilization style game.
With this understanding, let’s talk about what ties them together: XML
That is, all of these tools do is create .XML files. We use PNG for most graphics (we do use .DDS as well which is another graphics format).
The Builder’s Forge
The Builder’s forge is there to create non-mobile objects. For our purposes, we’ll call these “Tiles”. The left mouse button selects and places. You can move the view around with your middle mouse button.
When you save the tile, it is placed in the \documents\my games\fallenenchantress\tiles directory. A tile includes an XML file and a shadow PNG.
A tile, on its own, is just eye candy. It’s what you do with it that matters. That brings us to…
The Map Editor
This is what it looks like if you select the cartographer’s table. There are generally 3 things you can make with this.
Making a Custom Map
The basics of a custom map are as follows:
Someone could make a Civilization style map where everyplace is settleable.
Left-click to select a type of tile and right click to set it. You can click and drag some things (like mountains) to go nuts with it.
Different types of terrain tiles
Different types of objects
We don’t really use triggers in the sandbox game. But in the campaign, we use them everywhere. A trigger is specifies a condition in which an event is launched. A typical one would be to have tiles marked as triggered and if hit, it then tells the game to open up a cut scene or start a quest or spawn monsters or something.
When you save a map, you can specify it not to create any objects for you. If you’ve created the perfect map with every resource placed and every NPC placed just so, then select that option. If you want the game to go ahead and randomly spawn the resources for you, then don’t check that option.
Making a tactical map
A tactical map is a special type of map that the player is sent to under specific circumstances (a tactical battle for instance)
Like strategic maps, modders need to tell the map where players are going to start out at with their units. Tactical maps tend to have (as you can see in the screenshot) a lot of blocked tiles. That’s because most of the tiles you see are simply decorations and as such, need to be flagged as untouchable.
One thing to note is that Kumquat doesn’t yet support blocked tiles in terms of weapons. That is, putting up a wall won’t stop a unit’s ranged weapon from going through it. So cosmetically, don’t put up a wall expecting it to block line of sight or weapons. This is something we hope to change in a future version.
Making a tactical map, on its own, won’t buy you much. It has to be connected to something to be used.
With custom maps, players can explicitly load them at the start of the game. But with tactical, they have to either be connected to a triggering event of some kind (like a quest or goodie hut). We don’t currently support generically pulling in unspecified tactical maps.
Making Stamps
Stamps, are used by the random map generator. We wanted to give modders a way to contribute to the post-release map generation experience. And so stamps were born.
Here’s how they work:
You create a piece of a map. Maybe it has a starting location on it. Maybe it doesn’t. It can be big or it can be small.
You are better off making the stamps fairly small so that they’re more likely to be chosen (huge stamps may have a hard time fitting into a given world).
Once you’re done, choose the magic wand tool. Select a tile and it should select all of them. Then select the selector tool (the arrow tool) and then using the Ctrl key LEFT click on each tile you want to de-select. This is the fastest/easiest way to do it I’ve found. Specifically, you should generally de-select cliffs and beaches (anything on an ocean) because otherwise, your stamp will only be selected when it’s trying to find an ocean sided stamp and that could be pretty rare.
Once you’ve done that, select “Save Stamp” from the top.
In the Save Stamp area, you need to choose which type of map it’ll be used with. Tiny, Small, Medium, or Large. This sets the minimum map size that the stamp requires.
The file gets saved to the stamps directory in your \documents\my games\fallenenchantress and the game will pull from it as long as “use mods” is on. Make sure you choose the frequency you want it to show up on. If it says “no inclusion” it means it won’t use it unless it gets explicitly specified elsewhere (like a spell). I’d recommend “common” for most stamps.
Testing your stamp
To test your stamp, you’ll need to open it up in a text editor. There will be a tag called “frequency”. Set it to 5 (remember what it was previously). This will make it show on on a given map size for certain. DO NOT share stamps like this.
I try not to think about the stamps users are going to share. It’s too disturbing.
Up Next…
Goodie Huts
Quests
Monsters
Just how moddable is FE? Can i create new resources and systems?
Always thought the Elemental's base would suit a Wheel of Time mod. FE doesn't seem to be require extensive (mostly modifying XMLs seems to be enough, some custom models, maybe custom city models) modification to turn it into a WoT game.
I have my own mod ideas but they're somewhat more demanding (requiring extensive re-texturing or making new models, and other stuff), i'd probably should do something simpler first. If people ever start making a WoT mod, i reckon i could help (as long as i can stick to writing (quest, flavor texts) and modifying XMLs, and using in-game editors). Provided i can get my life in some reasonable shape so that i can focus on things. Currently jumping from one thing to another.
I would be willing to work on the first and second iteration of the WoT mod. After that I will probably start making my contributions significantly shorter and less meaningful. I would totally phone in the last couple of iterations until half the players pretty much stop playing. I want it to be as much like the books as possible.
All kidding aside, you could make a pretty cool WoT mod, but each game would have to take place in only one plane. Oddly enough, the books are descriptive enough to allow for some very interesting strategic gameplay. I am pretty sure the magic could be done reasonably well too. But what tangent would you base the game off of?
I bow to you. No autographs here, unfortunately. I vote for Peter Jackson to bring it to the big screen!
Plane? You mean place?
The magic certainly won't be an issue. The way magic is used in the books, mostly in form of spells makes it relatively easy to translate to FE mechanics.
What do you mean "what tangent..."? I'm either too tired to understand this or i've never seen "tangent" used like this... or both. I feel i'm learning something new about English every week...
Physical plane of existence. The world is split into several planes in the lore. You can have the jungle or the dying fire or the sea plane, but you can't transport through planes like you could in the book. So each game the player plays must be focused on only one of the planes. But you can mod the game to very realistically mimic any given plane. The air plane could even be mimicked by replacing the water textures. That would be cool.
Wheel of Time looks at time as a circle. In that respect, any point of time would be a tangent off of the circle. It was just a bit of word play. I was asking which point in time would the mod focus on.
I honestly don't know yet. I have alot to learn about xml and such but you, HF, Murteas, etc. have inspired me to do something. I was thinking earlier today the first thing I could do, when SD releases the mod tools, is make a playable map of the main continent. I actually farted around with that a little in EWOM but my rig kept crashing all the time so I gave up. I'm picturing Trollocs, Myddraal, balefire, Rand, Forsaken, all that jazz. I'm under no illusion of how much work it would require though. Ahh, head in the clouds...
[Edit] @Sean - ahh, I see. I would envision current time but I think a playable map post-breaking during Artur Hawking's time would be bitchin' too.
Huh, you sure you aren't thinking of the Deathgate Cycle by Weis & Hickman? Different planes doesn't sound like WoT. Unless my memory is really shot now.
edit:
Hmm, well there is the dream world, and the Ways. That stuff may not be able to be used at the same time in a game. Oh, nm, the traveling stones or whatever they are called. That must be what you are talking about right?
I was indeed thinking of Deathgate Cycle. Got some wires crossed somewhere.
Ah, i see. Well. The World of Dreams is pretty irrelevant in strategic scale like Elemental is. It can be used for scouting, which can be easily implemented as a special ability spell for certain champions/magi, simulating its use in the books close enough.
The Ways, Traveling, Skimming and the Stones (ah, i don't remember what they were called) are used for near instantaneous traveling and in strategic scale and time like Elemental's (one season) making them all work identically in gameplay is close enough to books. Each one can have its own quirks, like the Stones being a gamble but not requiring proper spell and the Ways can corrupt your units but don't even need a magi to be used.
Clever worldplay. Exactly the sort that i don't recognize. As for the time, i'd say Third Age though not sure Trolloc Wars or some other "historical" events should be used, they'd allow more creative freedom.
We need to make a preliminary planning and discussion thread for this...
I am quite skilled at modding E:FE and could probably make a WOT mod. I have been wanting to make some kind of mod, just didn't have any inspiration. If you are serious about it Allanmandragoran, let's discuss.
Yay! A word to the modders !
Planning to start modding after 1.0 hits for the same reason you stated- stability.
A few things I noticed that bugged me:
Testing wizard- a way for modders to check if their stuff works. It might be possible with custom maps, but letting the modder test it "properly" while in-game, without having to reload the game every time will be lovely.
Tags being "unknown". While I could go to the list of already-made spells and look for the gimmick I wish to introduce, I have to remember the name of the spell or the game term in order to find it.
Tags missing- While there is a tag to pull the player's amount of mana, I couldn't find a way to pull the amount of gilder (for example) he has. There should be tags for everything in the game (such as Get_CasNumResGILDER or Get_P12NumUntTotal(power>500)) or however you decide.
Hardcoded things- puts obstacles in the way of modders. An example of something I'd like to imitate is the cloak of fear, that rolls a magical attempt to know if it works. I'd really like to know how to make my own spells initiate such effects, but it's both "hidden" in the code, and knowing it's there wastes time by attempting to find it.
Assuming it's not hard, resolving the workarounds some modders have to employ. For example, I saw a thread on the forums with a modder requesting guidance on how to create a new shard. The workaround was quite long. Besides causing the modder to work harder to insert something into the game, it also causes additional stress (if the game has to remember an additional value into account and calculate it all the time... I'd usually call it bad programming, if it could be avoided).
I am not sure if this is possible at this time or not, but allow modding for the terraforming, in a similar way of the settle; outposts and roads. Giving a modder the ability to build, for example, 3 different outposts with different abilities instead of the current way. Thus also changing certain properties such as minimum range to build from city, itself, or the effects of the terrain on it.
Thanks a lot for giving us this game. Keep up the good work!
Unleash the modders ! ...
( Not sure that I will ever do one, myself, but would love to see what people come up with ... incidently, if anyone wants some verbal/narrative/back-story input on creating Viking-oriented scenarios, I have some ideas marshalled on the subject. )
I think it's pretty clear that they travel between different realities in wheel of time.
Yes, there is the world within that iron tower (or was it steel) of those two weird races. I suppose that is a different reality. You do have the dreamworld and then there is the portal stones that could potentially send you to an alternate reality but that isn't important to have. Those things aren't really prominent. The dreamworld sort of is but it isn't necessary for a mod.
hmm, maybe I'll finish the Midkemia map I started in Elemental way back then.
Oh, don't get me wrong. The gateways used are basically the same as "cloud walk" in FE. A few cool quests in the dreamworld and you're set. I was just speaking about the lore.
True, true. I can pretty much do all the modding in the XML that would be needed for it but I can't make graphics and such so I wouldn't be able to do the mod myself. Would need people to make new graphics and all that.
Brad, these Workshop tools look awesome. I have two questions about them for you:
1) In a previous preview, that you posted months ago, you showed us a Spreadsheet tool that allows you to change the attributes and properties of items and then export the XML. Is that still going to be part of the modding tools? I sure hope so.
2) What tool(s) is used to create campaigns, such as the one that will come with the game? Is there a tool that allows you to link story maps and elements together and carry items and progress from one map to another? Is the map editor used for all that?
Thanks, I look forward to your additional posts on modding.
How about modding the map generator. I played in WOM with the various generator parameters to generate the maps I wanted but sometimes I had to cheat. For example, In WOM, I wanted all edge to be beach, since the generator did not allowed that I had to use a search/replace script to do so. It gave the following results.
One thing I would like to do in FE for example, is to make all land colonizable, but with random map generation. The only way I think it could be done is tweaking the XML of the regular generator because players can load maps, but cannot load set of generator parameter. Unless you could allow saving an empty map with different generator parameter and the players would load a map that gets generated with these new parameters saved in the file. That could be a way to do it without changing the behavior of the basic game. You could also give the mod a default map that will select this map file with different generator parameter.
I guess it's good modding'll be steam workshop for FE in the end
Sadly not for the whole of FE community.
Sincerely~ Kongdej
"So cosmetically, don’t put up a wall expecting it to block line of sight or weapons. This is something we hope to change in a future version."
Thank you.
Is this available now or at release? I've turned on mods in the options menu, restarted etc but the workshop button is still greyed-out.
At release they will give you the tools, either that or they will tell us
What about the unit editor ? I don't see it in the list.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
