Offline Area Editor Tool

[Gatz]

A couple years ago, Nick Gammon created a cool tool to build areas in SMAUG (which NarutoMUD is based off of) and he stopped working on it after getting it pretty ironed out. He also released the source code for it. You can still download the client here:

http://gammon.com.au/downloads/dlareaeditor.htm

Try it out and see. It has a few rough spots, but it is really an amazing tool to build areas offline then you export them and just load them up in game and you're good to go. I've tinkered with it a bit and it really takes the learning curve completely out of building.

The point is, if I adapted this tool to work on NarutoMUD, how many people would give it a shot? Would this incourage some of you guys to submit zones if I offered rewards? We basically have a process for working out how to submit zones and a QA system setup, but would enjoy folks take advantage of the tool to make it worthwhile? I think there is at least 10 hours of solid crunching before it could be NM-friendly.

What do you guys think? Try to play with the tool before you weigh in.

[Musashi]

I've tinkered with this and I can see how it'd be -very- useful, at least to a novice like myself.

Are you still interested in tinkering with this? If so I think it'd help a lot with getting new areas made.

[Gatz]

Unfortunately, I think I've lost interest in this. I've talked to Hitoshi, before, about doing a browser based area building with a GUI, and I think I'd help provide details to help someone that wanted to make one, but I don't think I want to try to pursue it. I think it'd be a great idea, but for all the work, I don't think it'd have a great payout.

If anyone wants to try to take a stab at it, I'd help give some basic information like area formats, etc. I'd love to see someone make this work!