Hi all,

I am playing with some ideas to programm a new map designer for Descent (first and second edition).
The main Idea is to make it open source. This will guarantee a long lifecycle of the programm.
Nothing is written for it, but I think if I ask you first, than I can write a programm which fits to erveryone.
The operating system to run teh programm will be windows and a .Net version 4.0 or higher are needed.

But now I have some questions to you…

1. At the moment there are some ideas to build a plugin for Microsoft Word or a stand alone programm. What would you prefer?
   A Word plugin would be nicefull but everybody needs Word. On the other Hand not everybody could be happy with a page layout which is fix.
2. The other idea is to localize the programm. This is a lot of work and if this is not needed i would programm it in english.
   If this is needed than I need help from you to translate it in different languages …
3. I am a programmer and I am not realy good to make some images (e.g. logo design, etc)
   Is there are a graphic designer which can help me?

I think these are enough questions for now.
I am realy interrested in you answers …

PS: Sorry for english, i come from germany

actually there are already 2 mapdesign programms for the 1. and 2. edition

tile system and vassal.

what your programm should have in special?

Nice idea. I could lend a hand for translating in French.

Tile System has everything I need from a map editor for basically any board game, but I also don't feel strongly compelled to combine the map and the text portions of a quest, for example. Some people might want that as a feature.

I imagine a "print to PDF" option for when it's done would also be pretty cool.

Durin-V said:

I'm happy with Vassal right now, but I use OpenOffice Writer at home rather than M$ Word. Could you do something for OOW instead? I am guessing that it might require expertise that you don't have, if it's even possible (although almost anything is possible with sufficient resources).

Looks like you might be a little late to the party!

I had recently been in the early planning stages of a Javascript/HTML5 based editor using jQuery and Bootstrap, but was juggling that with 4 other projects in my spare time so had only made progress on preliminary planning in the last 2 weeks.

But lo and behold, tonight FFG announced the Quest Vault. Very much along the lines of what I was planning (in Javascript/HTML5 w/ jQuery and Bootstrap no less, though they used Canvas where I would have tried to stick with DOM)…

I think you might be hard pressed to compete with this cross platform solution that offers built-in quest sharing and publishing. The moment I saw it, I shelved my own plans (all the better so I can focus on the other projects).

Maine said:

The new FFG quest editor certainly does look slick. I intend to try it out at some point to see how it works.

Hopefully there will be an influx of fan-made quests and campaigns now to satisfy all the various itches people have for how they want the game to play =)

It certainly does look slick; the only thing I would add is a Playtesting area where comments and advice for changes could be posted, along with a counter or something to show how many times the scenario has been tested.

Hm, I guess that would be useful. I was thinking of something a little more methodical, perhaps, but maybe this will work well, once some time has gone by and enough people have commented and thumbed the quests. Thanks!

Hm, I guess that would be useful. I was thinking of something a little more methodical, perhaps, but maybe this will work well, once some time has gone by and enough people have commented and thumbed the quests. Thanks!

I tried vasal but this is not realy good to create quest whit it.
I mean with a quest a complete quest like the quest handbook from descent itself.

I've seen that FFG afre released (now in Beta) a quest designer.I try to look what is possible with it and decide after that if this map designer is needed any more.