| Home Start Role Playing Game Start Defense Game Premium Account Forum | ||||
Realm Architect (BETA)'Realm Architect' is the name of the editor of Darkness Springs. It is possible to create new realms with own quests, stories and maps with it and publish it on this website for everyone to play. Browse and play existing user created realms to try it out.This short manual shows how to use it. 1. How to Start the EditorThe editor can be started from within the game, by selecting 'Menu' and 'Start Realm Architect'. Note that you have to be logged into your account in order to start it, and that you need to have a Level 4 character at least already (This is necessary in order to verfiy that you have at least a little experience with the game). 2. How to create a simple realm2.1 Creating a map and testing itOnce you started the editor, it will prompt you to load an existing or to create a new realm. Create a new one, give it a name and you will end up with the editor presenting a black, empty space. This is where you can draw the map: Just click, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse and you can simply draw the area. In the room palette to the left of the screen, you can select other floor and wall types, cursor sizes and depths to draw the map as you like. To scroll around, move the mouse to the border of the flash application, and it will scroll in the direction of the screen border. Should you scroll away accidentally and not find back, just use the menu point 'Options' -> 'Scroll to map content' to scroll back to the first map content. Once your map is finished, click 'Map' and then 'Test Map'. The game will open and you are able to test your created map as if you would play the realm as a user. Once you are finished you can click 'Back to Editor' and continue to improve the map.  2.2 Adding MonstersOn the editor palette on the left of the screen, select the tab 'NPCS' in order to open the palette with monsters, enemies and NPCs. Select one of the monster buttons and click on the map. The monster will be created and automaticly behave just as expected when playing the game.Monsters appearing on the map in the editor as real creatures have a fixed level and fixed capabilities. To add more realism, it is also possible to set yellow monster tags on the map instead:  On the map above, there are 2 'real' Skeletons and 2 ones created by a tag. Just test the map (Map -> Test) and you will see that the game will generate real skeletons from it. The advatage of those yellow tags is that the monsters generated from it are are adjusted to the player. Some of those monsters will have magic abilities and the level of the monster is automatically set to a level fitting the player. There are several yellow tags available:
2.3 Adding more mapsTo add a new map to the realm, select 'Realm' -> 'Add new map'. A new empty map will be created which can be edited as well. When adding new maps, it is a good idea to
2.4 Linking maps using gatesOnce you have created several maps, you might want to link them, so that the player can walk from one map to the next one. For this, place a gate on each of your maps. Gates are Doors, Gateways and Ladders and can be found on the item palette in the Tab 'Spr' (for 'Sprite'): Then, still on the 'Spr' Tab, press the 'Select' button and click on the gate so it is selected. (The Gate will be white while your mouse is over it in selection mode)  On the top of the item palette, the gate name will appear and a 'Properties' button as well. Click the 'Properties' button to set a target map for that gate.  Select 'set target map' and a list with all maps in the realm will appear. Select the map and the gate will from now on lead to this map. Just try it out using 'Map' -> 'Test'.  If you also add a gate on the other map back to the first map [which should be done for sanity ;)], the game will know automatically the place where the players will appear (next to the gate, of course). 2.5 Saving and PublishingOnce you created a nice little realm, you need to save it to the Darkness Springs server if you don't want it to get lost. Simply click 'Realm' -> 'Save Realm' for this.But saving the realm doesn't mean that it will automatically be playable by other players or visible in the Realm Browser: You will have to publish it first. But fortunately, this is quite easy: Just select the 'Other' tab and click the 'publish now' button:  3. NPCS, Quests and Dialogs3.1 How to create NPCsNPCs, Non-Player-Characters are quite important, they are the key to the story and to quests in the game. To create an NPC, simply select the 'Items' and then the 'NPCs' tab and place an NPC on the map. There are a lot of NPCs to choose from. If they have the addition '(patrolling)' on their name, they will wander around in the map, otherwise they will simply stand still. Special NPCs like Blacksmiths, Landlords or Mages will not move at all. When selecting an NPC and pressing the 'properties' button, it will have some useful option: 
3.2 Adding DialogsUnder 'Quests' you will find several options to 'Add', 'Edit' or 'Remove' a 'Dialog'. These are one liners which are randomly chosen when talking to NPCs in the game which do not have a quest attached to them.3.3 Editing QuestsCreating and editing quests may appear complicated when facing the Quest dialog for the first time, but it is actually pretty simple, if you notice that you can create and edit quests in Darkness Springs without any programming skill. To start, simple click 'Quests' -> 'Add Quest' and the quest dialog will open: All aspects of a quest can be edited with this dialog. The first, most important thing is the 'quest type'. You can toggle it with the 'toggle quest type' button at the bottom. Available quest types are:
Here is a simple example of how to create a simple quest: Create a new quest and fill out the texts like this:  For 'Quest type' select 'Fetch items' (use the 'toggle quest type' button for this). And as Item/Monster Type select 'Pufftooth Mushroom' using the 'item/Monster type' button. Create an NPC in a map, place a 'Pufftooth Mushroom' directly in front on him and and then select the NPC. Press the 'properties' button of the NPC, set 'Interaction Type' to 'Quest' and as Quest select the newly created Quest which should be named 'Get me a mushroom'.  To test out if everything works, select 'Map' -> 'Test' and Voila!  4. Maintaining tips4.1 Making your realm more popularThere is a description field for each realm, where you can also add HTML tags to link a forum thread about the realm or add images describing your work. Additionally, you can freely link or mail the page of your realm which you can obtain using the realm browser or the menu in the editor ('Options' ->'Open realm web page'). 4.2 Deletion of maps and questsNote: After you have published your realm, be careful when deleting maps or quests. Both is a bad idea because there could be players playing your realm right now or even have saved characters in your realm. When you delete a map or a quest a player is currently playing, there will be trouble for him or confuse him at least.4.3 CheatsWhen testing created maps using 'Map' -> 'Test', there are some cheat codes available in order to make testing more simple:
|
||||
