HoMM III: The Board Game Gamefound campaign
Horn of the Abyss team spoke about the new Map editor features and more – HotA update #21
Many thanks to Mitsche who sent me the link to this interview with the latest Horn of the Abyss informations. The entire interview is in Russian, I translated it online using DeepL.
Horn of the Abyss is a global unofficial add-on to Heroes of Might and Magic III that expands the classic game elements and adds new ones. From the HotA team news comes very rarely, but today they told about the new features of the map editor of the upcoming update:
1. The ability to customize a number of objects that previously could not be customized. Previously, a customization option was added for creature banks, and the next version will allow you to customize almost all random objects – such as Corpses, Treasure Chests and Shipwreck Survivor.
The ability to customize the presence of a specific artifact or resource in an object gives the map editor more opportunities to atmospherically play with giving out that artifact or resource to the player.
2. It will be possible to specify the value of the stack instead of the number of monsters in it. With this setting, a random monster’s stack size will depend on the strength of the dropped monster type; on average, regardless of the type, the stack strength will be about the same.
A similar mechanism has long been used in random maps, but the map editor didn’t have such a feature until now. It will allow the map editor to design battles more accurately.
3. it will be possible to place Spell Scrolls on artifacts in many cases: for example, they can be given to heroes at the beginning of the game; a scroll with a certain spell can be demanded as a task in the Seer’s Hut.
4. In the new version it will be possible to configure whether a hero gets skills for his initial level or not. Thanks to this you will be able to put on the map heroes of high level, which will not be “filled” by randomly dropped out skills.
Also will improve the hero’s experience settings interface: now you can set the amount of experience, as well as a specific level. Allowed to prescribe a fixed level for the hero.
Such heroes will not gain experience, but their level can be as large as you want. This allows you to implement the specialization of some heroes on puzzle maps.
5. It will be possible to configure in random towns specific special constructions of specific types of cities. For example, it will be possible to prohibit in a random city Vortex of Mana, but allow all other special constructions.
6. Pandora’s Boxes will be able to drop extra movement points. This innovation will allow map builders to better control the actions of the AI or player on the map, and can also be used to implement all sorts of tasks related to the calculation of movement points.
Smaller innovations:
- In the new version, the map builder will be able to specify what difficulty levels you can play on his map.
- It will be possible to forbid the player to hire heroes.
- It will be possible to set non-standard requirements for lifting artifacts: for example, the requirement to have a leadership skill. These requirements worked in The Restoration of Erathia and with some chance were randomly set for all artifacts.
- Added several new sections for some objects, making navigation in the “Objects for any terrain” section much more convenient.
- New features will be added to the template editor, but it is not explained what kind of templates.
The authors talked about the progress made in the other components of the update. Work has been completed on such a critical front as the Factory town screen. The new campaign’s storyline cutscenes are also finished. We will find out more about this later.
No release date for the update has been announced.
Source: https://dtf.ru/games/1308084-avtory-horn-of-the-abyss-rasskazali-o-novyh-vozmozhnostyah-redaktora-kart-gryadushchego-obnovleniya
Can anyone explain why I dont have permission to use the hota map editor?
You have to be a little more specific. Does the game display an error?
In which folder and on which drive is HotA installed?
Would be nice to add a toggleable ally spectator mode while waiting out your allies turn
I like some of the changes to the Map Editor, the more there are, the more customizable maps people can make. Some time ago I used to be obsessed about creating and playing my own HoMM3 maps and I think I reached the complete extent that the Map Editor allows me to make very specific maps. One thing I realized was that I should learn WoG scripting, and I really did not want to do that so I never did. I do hope that the updated Map Editor can provide some really powerful options here and there.
English explanation of item 6 is about Pandora’s Box, but it is about Event object depicted on the screenshot below.