Just wondering what people's tastes are for things in an editor.

Personally I think eyecandy is the most important part of an editor, as it expresses the author of the scenario the best and reflects his style. The more diversity you have in eyecandy the more style one can express in his scenario.

I say eyecandy since what an editor must have the other things. Units, Triggers, and nice landscapes are a must but what can put it over the 'mediocre' editor and make it above average is eyecandy and cool things that fans make up with the editor's tools.

I reckon usability should be considered over flashy extra's. If you get a good user experience then imho its a better editor than one that is hard to use but lets you do some flashy stuff.

eyecandy, because trigger noobs will always try to get their fame with eyecandy first.

Yeah, I as well said eye candy but I wanted to say triggers, becasue face it, a map can look good but without the right triggers it would be boring. But a ugly map can still be cool with good triggers

One thing AOM seriously lack is the variety of plants featured in the aok editors.

Plus that not only Newbs gain their first fame with screenshots, I think the game gain its first fame with screenshots too. Thus I consider objects and eyecandy making the most important, triggers second, elevation and terrain in comparison the last.

Well, I say Eye-Candy, too... it makes an editor great if there's the possibility to produce real looking cities and landscapes with eyecandy, while generic and object-less landscapes make the editor quite mediocre.
A personal example: At MWD, we have some good triggerers, but also two guys who are excellent at doing eye-candy. They can do things with the AoM editor I never had imagined (just found myself looking at a full-blown greek city with Thermae, rural suburbs, port and theatre today - everything done by combining objects in unusual ways), and that is what makes their maps look great, though their triggers are average of even below (we do cover this by having good triggerers doing the triggers, so expect some great things to come out in the future... ).
But what I wanted to express is that their maps really come to life through the eye-candy and you can imagine to live in the story. That's why I (as a triggerer) think that eye-candy is very important. Second would be good triggers for me, because simple things like renaming units gives your stories much more potential (word?).

I voted for the underdog, Triggers. I knew (don't anymore) my AoK triggers back and forth. If you know your triggers, you don't need a bunch of eyecandy.

I said landscape. The feel of your scenario, the crispness comes form how you navigate and if the map is pleasing to look at. Nothing says newbie map like a flat grassy map.

Are you saying that a flat grassy map covered in the most shocking eye candy you've ever seen says newbie to you?

I think Triggers.

I went for this one.. .. the landscapes you can create with elevation and terrain but triggers was a close one . . .

Objects... I want a ton of different objects to use. Without the various objects, you can't MAKE eyecandy. LOL

I vote triggers, objects would be a close second.

I vote triggers. It's what seperates the pros from the newbs IMO.

nothing further...

(weew, old thread)

Well, from the poll results I think it shows clearly that all aspects of a scenario editor are the most important.

Besides maybe the objects you can place. Which is smart considering that with combinates of triggers and eyecandy you can come up with alot of interesting creations, not limiting you to types of units placeable.

The objects I can place are the most important, without objects no scenario

It's got to be............. Triggers

Triggers. That is what makes all the user made scenarios neat. The rest is extra and the more stuff you add to the editor the better.

hmm i gotta say Triggers. an editor without useful triggers will make the oportunities to make cool effects and tricks very limited......



the buildings and objects arent that important, as long as you are able to overlap buildings, which is a way of creating eyecandy and "new" whicked looking buildings. besides, from what i've seen you are able to create new units, and this also involves new buildings

the landscapes arent that important since the most escential thing to make a well looking map is to know how to place objects.

I say its eaqually important. a blank grassy map can have 2000 triggers but it still looks like a blank grassy map. and a highly RPG style map is useless without triggers. and everything is useless without units so I say its all important

yes, but the point is voting for what is the most important of all of them;) Centurion_13:P

but i do agree with what you said.

Depends on the editor.

Yees it would because itr started as one


Bewsides my point is, trhey should equally concentrateon all aspects of the editor, that way when we finally get it, everything is perfect, not just some things perfect and some things bad

What is this 'trigger' thing I've been hearing so much about? I've only heard of C...

C? whats C?

Triggers are customizable events whichc you set up and decide what triggers them.
They are made of 2 parts.

Conditions: You use these to determine when the effect will take place.
Effect: This is the event which will happen, it could be for example new units being created, or maybe moving some units. there are many other possible events.

My scenario EUF3 for Empires starts out as a blank map with only water outline details. I then use triggers to place everything on the map. I do this because by designing the map via triggers I can cut down on the total map size by almost half, which makes multiplayer transfer a lot easier.

It actually turned out to be easier to edit the map this way. If I decided that a forest was a little too sparse I simply edited a single object definition to make it a little denser.

I suppose your right, but in the editor it would look blank.