Topic Subject:What is so bad about not being able to change hero names?
Zanzard Lothar Squire
posted 12-12-99 01:43 AM CT (US)
I keep seeing people complaining about changing hero names. Now, sincerely, if i worked at ES, i sure would have placed one of my very last priorities to making able to change hero names. I simply state in the instrunctions who is who and what unit is representing who. I, for example, am making a campaign where the main character is a longbowman (not a hero, but a common longbowman) whose name is Adol. I state that Adol is the longbowman and all around the scenarios of the campaign every dialog he is adressesed ss Adol.
What is so bad about being unable to change hero names anyway? I am curious to hear what those who don't share my point of view have to say.
Author
Replies:
Mia Squire
posted 12-12-99 07:43 AM
CT (US)
1 / 6
Well, if someone makes a campaign with more than one hero, people can get confused with remembering who is who. Say that you are the British and have access to Longbowmen and your hero is a Longbowman. People get confused!
That's why it's so important that you could change the names. I know I wouldm't ming to change the names.
Merlinthewizards Squire
posted 12-12-99 11:02 AM
CT (US)
2 / 6
I don't know what's wrong with changing or not the heroes names. Those who got age 1 before, you remember the heroes. There wasn't a lot of heroes. In aok, there is a lot of heroes(even if heroes who are not in the ES campaigns). If you want to change the names of the heroes, buy Blizzard's games.
------------------ The king is dead, the earth is dead.
Park305 Squire
posted 12-12-99 11:56 AM
CT (US)
3 / 6
I still remember playing many scenarios in ROR where they said "Rescue Tom (Hero Jason) from the Enemy" It isn't hard to go around the name problem. Also there is a way but a hard one to change the hero names.
------------------ Old beta tester New Age of Kings master My ICQ is 48273398 My map making site is at http://www.geocities.com/park305/index.html Also known as EliteKnight
Yogurt VIP
posted 12-12-99 01:09 PM
CT (US)
4 / 6
I don't think anyone is suggesting that customizable hero names should come before bug fixes or rebalancing the town centre, but it is a fairly obvious way of customizing a scenario and creating your own story.
For now, as Park notes, we can say "Move King George (Shah) to the castle" but even that small break in the consistency pulls you out of the story and reminds you that this is a rough workaround.
There are apparently good technical reasons why naming heros isn't possible in AoE2, but the very fact that people ask for this feature every week in this forum should put it on the feature list for AoE3.
I liked Merlin's comment in defense of ES: "If you want to change the names of the heroes, buy Blizzard's games." You know, if I worked for ES that's exactly why I'd want to ensure popular features like this one make it into AoE3. Why send people to your competitor? Ensemble might have made the most fully featured RTS out there, but their editor is still inferior to games that came out years before.
Silvercloud_12 Squire
posted 12-12-99 04:30 PM
CT (US)
5 / 6
The heros in aok have enough faces for you to use to represent histroical figure. for example, you can use Genghis Khan for an old man (no offence)
BlueRio G Squire
posted 12-12-99 07:16 PM
CT (US)
6 / 6
Deathshrimp:
New Idea:
Hero Editor
Why does everyone keep talking about a "Hero Editor" that is exclusively for the Scenario Editing Croud? (which, by the way is a smaller croud than the rock-em-sock-em croud that accually PLAYS the game as opposed to fiddling with how it works).
We all know that though ES would love to please everyone, but lets face it, the other croud gets priority because they are bigger. So...if you guys want an idea, you'd better make it so it can integrate into the multiplayer gaming (and improves it, which is hard to do because it is NEAR perfect already) as well. Or ES won't bother. Here is how:
Hero Editor should be a branch of the Options menu. With pull-down menus etc. Here is how it should be set up:
(name) should be a text box that you can type in your own unit name.
(unit type) should be a pull-down menu that has all the military unit types to choose from. No stats. No changing stats. That gets to be a mess for gameplay balance.
To understand what I mean by Vassals, please read Angel Oldgrex's Scenario Editor Ideas Topic and my post there to understand.
As to the Hero Unit:
The hero unit should be buildable in the University as soon as you get it and should cost the same as it's unit type. But it should have (as all hero's tend to have) steroid-injected stats. You can only build it once, then the icon to build it disappears, naturally.
Questions? Comments? Tell me what you think. Especially ES. Or acctually, ES, if you don't respond I will take it that you are busy programing it already.