2.8 SitRep

[Stoner]

http://www.americasarmy.com/community/

V2.8: MAP EDITOR
Posted: December 19, 2006 - by Phoenix


Over the past four years America's Army has brought you many innovative maps. "Bridge" introduced linear style, assault/defend game play, "Border" combined both long range and close quarter battle, and "Steamroller" brought multiplayer gaming to new heights. Now we're ready for you to show us what you can do. For the first time, you have the ability to create your own America's Army maps.

Creating successful Multiplayer Maps is a balancing act and sometimes a test of patience and endurance — but all successful Level Designers (LDs) know the incredible feeling of seeing their creation at the top of the "most played" lists. There's no question most gamers can imagine numerous ways to improve an existing game level and just about everyone has had a great, "never been done before" idea for a new map — but all too often aspiring LDs are put off by arcane level editing tools and/or find the creation/submission process too arduous or unrewarding.

The key, we believe, is not just releasing a tool for map/mission creation but defining an entire process for submission, feedback and ultimately hosting maps on Official Army servers.

The upcoming release of America's Army: Coalition will debut a customized version of the America's Army Mission Editor. Additionally, there will be tutorials, online editor forum support and an organized submission-review-hosting process that will allow our player base to create game play for America's Army in a system paralleling our actual internal development process.


If you're a first-time Level Designer, don't worry. We've prepared an extensive online instruction manual (an updatable Wiki) and a number of tutorials using actual America's Army maps. We'll take you through many of the steps used to create two of our existing missions, Border and Dusk, so that you can apply these techniques to create your own maps.

Via the America's Army Mission Editor you'll learn the simple steps required to construct elements in the game world using Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) to create buildings, staircases and terrain. The entire America's Army library of assets or "Static Meshes" will be available for use in your levels, including radio towers, doors, vehicles and a variety of sound effects and particle effects to suggest smoke, fire and wind.

Scripted events and special functionality can also be added via easy-to-use "triggers" and "movers", which allow for breaking glass or doors that open and shut, for example. Finally there are critical elements like scoring, zoning (to improve performance) and writing the mission briefing — all of this is also supported in the Mission Editor to make the overall process more streamlined and flexible.

MISSION DEPOT
The final and most important step in creating America's Army missions will be the submission process. After you complete your new map, you can upload it to the new Mission Depot site located at http://www.aamissiondepot.com/. Mission Depot is hosted by Pragmatic Solutions and is the official map submission site and repository for the America's Army game.

Once your map has been received, the Mission Depot will display screen shots plus allow the community to vote and provide feedback in order to ensure everyone's work is thoroughly vetted, which will give each designer the means to improve their map. Any good LD will tell you, it's the feedback that makes or breaks the best levels!

The core of Mission Depot is the map review process. Maps uploaded to Mission Depot will be reviewed by a panel of experts. The most creative and well constructed maps that best fit within the America's Army game may be chosen to become Official America's Army maps! Only maps submitted and approved by Mission Depot will be designated Official Maps for deployment on Honor Servers.

MAPPING FORUM
Coinciding with the release of v2.8, we're also rolling out a brand new section on our Official Forum dedicated to mapping. There you'll be able to discuss the art of map building with others in the community, learn mapping tips and tricks, ask questions and more.

There are sure to be exciting times ahead with the release of the Map Editor, Mission Depot, and the Mapping Forums.

Version 2.8 America's Army: Coalition, "the next mission could be yours!"