No, it works great here on Ubuntu 10.04. Any reason in particular you're using Fedora for your testing?

Anyway, this was also my first time trying out the editor. Great work! You've clearly put a lot of time and effort into this. Has anyone thought about creating new maps for the game? It seems like it might be possible to make some interesting additions to the game and share them with other fans. It might help to have some better documentation on how to use the items, scripting, etc. but I could probably figure it out on my own.

I had actually tried both Fedora and Ubuntu. I prefer Fedora for the default install just 'cause I tend to prefer Redhatalikes to Debianalikes, though I'm by no means fervent about it. :) We use a lot of CentOS+RHEL at the place I work, which helps skew the preference slider over that way. In the end, btw, I think it was just some weird AGP-related hardware issue on my end; you can read a bit about it here. I've had plenty of other Fedora folks say that it worked fine for them, too.

Yeah, that's honestly what still excites me the most about the project, though I admit that the editor isn't really ideal for that yet. The forthcoming version should help with map design; it's got the ability to drop in more complex "objects" like chests and doors and creatures and stuff, without having to go fiddle with all the values manually. Perhaps in another version or two it'll be Awesome. Of course, if BW releases his own tools along with Book 3, as he's hinted, I expect those would quickly obsolete my own imitations. :)

Anyway, if anyone does create something cool with the tool, I'd love to see it, of course.

I'm not sure that'll be true, actually - I suspect the Eschalon editor that BW releases will be for Book II/Book III-type maps (which are of higher resolution), and not Book I maps.

For the latter, I suspect your editor will be the only game in town (or, at least, for those interested in editing Thaermore maps!).


I may and try to get your editor working on my Mac, if you report that editor is to the point that you are satisfied that your mapping tools are quite robust...

For that matter, is there a version of the map editor for Book II? I seem to recall seeing a screenshot of an XP machine using the model for the computers from Talushorn level 4 - or was that just done by hand?

Announcement time, again! Version 0.7.0 of my Eschalon Utilities is now available from the usual place:

http://apocalyptech.com/eschalon/

There's two major new features in 0.7.0:

• First, this includes full map editing for Book 2 (at least, as full as its Book 1 editing is), which I imagine might excite some folks. Head over to the relevant Book 2 thread for some information about some extra dependencies if you're not on Windows, for Book 2 Map editing
• The editor can now place more "complex" objects with a single click, such as doors and chests and monsters and the like. Instead of having to go through and edit ten different values to put a lot of common things down, you'll be able to just choose them from a list and then click away. I think that this should make the editor far more useful than it was previously; I'd welcome any feedback about it. This is supported on both Book 1 and Book 2 maps

And of course there's a gaggle of other more minor bugfixes and changes, which you can read about in the Changelog if you so choose.

As always, be real careful and make backup copies. As far as I can tell, things are stable, but caveat emptor! Remember that map files have an associated ".ent" file which would need to be backed up along with the ".map" file itself. Let me know of any bugs you find!


Heh. There is now! That screenshot was done on my local development version of the editor.


Cool cool. I'm likely to remain at least publically skeptical about the robustness of the editor (how Midwestern of me!), but should you undertake that effort, I'd love to hear how it goes. Let me know if I can do anything to help, if you decide to do that.

Very good map editor, haven't come across any problems. Thank you xolotl for releasing the editor, and to Basilisk Games for allowing this topic.

Wicked cool stuff, JL! Keep up the good work!!

(It actually looks like you're well on your way to setting up a player-designed scenario!... )

The above are just examples, I haven't decided on anything so far.

Are we allowed to release what we create, so long as we provide clear installation instructions and make it clear Basilisk Games are not responsible for any problems?

Funny. I email you about narrative scripts and get a response straight away. I ask you something here, you don't respond. Are you ignoring me xolotl?

Heh - just whatever window/desktop I happen to be looking at, at the time. :)

Although actually the reason I hadn't answered re: permission is that I don't know. I had basically assumed it'd be fine. When I asked BW about permission to access the data inside the datapak, it was in the context of supporting a map editor, so I'd assume that the subtext of that would be that people might make their own maps and post 'em to the boards here.

Since we know that BW's aware of the editor and keeps up with these forums, I'd guess that it'd be safe to assume that it's okay, and if it turns out not to be, we'll be told. Or you could just ask him, I suppose. :)

Yes, but under certain circumstances:
1) You cannot sell what you make; it must be free. This is pretty much standard for all mods for any game.
2) If you put your content up for download anywhere else, you need to have a link that jumps back to the Book I page here at http://basiliskgames.com/eschalon-book-i

Thanks for the clarification! I've added that on the editor page itself, and I'll make sure it's in the README on any future versions as well. Thanks again...

For anyone thinking about creating new maps you can do this with little fuss, but each time you leave and return all content (monsters, loot and map) will reset. This does not happen with maps that were created by Basilisk Games.

Extended Shadowmirk or Goblin Citadel anyone?

Huh! Interesting indeed. I'll have to play around with that and see if it's related to some of those "unknown" values I'm unsure of. I admit that I haven't yet tried creating any custom content of my own. Usually by the time I've gotten to releasing a new version of the editor, I'm in the mood to take a break for a little while. Then when I get the urge to play around, I just end up working on a new version instead. :) It's a vicious cycle!

Is this true even if you travel from one user-created map to another, and back again?

Or does it only happen if you go from one user-created map to a BW map and back again?...