So, why not release a Level editor?

[Sagara Sousuke]

Making a user friendly level editor, using the props and stuff the game already has, would be amazing, would give infinite playing hours to the game, since levels would be made all the time by users.

[JustOnePepsi]

Level editors are really difficult to make. The ones developers use tend not to be the most intuitive things and releasing them to the public isn't really feasible.

To release a bonafide level editor, it would require as lot of time and effort. It's also usually not as simple as just "using stuff the game already has". Especially for a game like this, where a lot of things are custom and meant to be used in very specific portions of a level, as opposed to being made almost entirely of tileable "legos" as you see in most editors.

[Mahasamatman]

Why cant they release the same one that they use?
Contracts are lame in my opinion, lvl editor would give most people hundreds of hours of extra play time

[BOT Cecil]

Escrito originalmente por Che:

Why cant they release the same one that they use?
Contracts are lame in my opinion, lvl editor would give most people hundreds of hours of extra play time

Because they're hard to use. It's not just about putting things together, you need to basically know programming to work with it. And just like Homicidal stated, the levels are not made of tileable pieces, many models in the levels are unique and not reused. It's just not the kind of game that would come with a level editor.

[Mahasamatman]

Escrito originalmente por Sl1ngShot:

Escrito originalmente por Che:

Why cant they release the same one that they use?
Contracts are lame in my opinion, lvl editor would give most people hundreds of hours of extra play time

Because they're hard to use. It's not just about putting things together, you need to basically know programming to work with it. And just like Homicidal stated, the levels are not made of tileable pieces, many models in the levels are unique and not reused. It's just not the kind of game that would come with a level editor.

What do you mean? Valve uses Hammer to make maps and Hammer is easy to use and doesnt not require programming

[BOT Cecil]

Escrito originalmente por Che:

Escrito originalmente por Sl1ngShot:

Because they're hard to use. It's not just about putting things together, you need to basically know programming to work with it. And just like Homicidal stated, the levels are not made of tileable pieces, many models in the levels are unique and not reused. It's just not the kind of game that would come with a level editor.

What do you mean? Valve uses Hammer to make maps and Hammer is easy to use and doesnt not require programming

Well, Hitman is much more complex than any Valve game.

[Mahasamatman]

Escrito originalmente por Sl1ngShot:

Escrito originalmente por Che:

What do you mean? Valve uses Hammer to make maps and Hammer is easy to use and doesnt not require programming

Well, Hitman is much more complex than any Valve game.

So? Editor is an editor? And i doubt that Hitman is more complex than any Valve game, especially TF2

[Sagara Sousuke]

So the the developers of Far cry 2 are genious when they made that great level editor.... idk what's with this myth running around, everytime someone suggest a level editor in a game, i always get the same answers "is too hard to make, it would take too much money to make, i prefer the devs to invest that money in another thing"

[zerofiftyone]

Escrito originalmente por Sagara Sousuke:

So the the developers of Far cry 2 are genious when they made that great level editor.... idk what's with this myth running around, everytime someone suggest a level editor in a game, i always get the same answers "is too hard to make, it would take too much money to make, i prefer the devs to invest that money in another thing"

Any game that has a user-facing level editor has one because it was planned in advance and budgeted for in advance as part of the development plan. Depending on the game, it can be a huge task, and it's one that, because of infrastructural issues, becomes practically impossible if the decision wasn't made right at the very start.

This thread has come up in the past, so I'm going to say here what I said a few months ago.

As much as I would love to make and play user-generated levels for this game, I feel like I have to manage expectations a little bit here. From a development standpoint, this level editor would be a huge huge task. I'm not intending to put you on blast or anything; I'm just going to point out some of the design and development issues that stop a level editor from being a simple proposition.

Now, the dev team do have level creation tools; but "not the most user-friendly" would be putting it extremely lightly. Internal-use level editors are messy tools that are not easy to work with. Not only would they have to create (from scratch) a polished and intuitive tool that can create levels (at runtime, no less); they would need to redo all of their level assets so that they were usable in the user-facing level editor, and make all new assets for the purpose of user-made levels. They would need to do something about letting the player control AI scripting. They would need to do something about the inevitable performance issues inherent to runtime level creation. They would need to provide an infrastructure for uploading, disseminating and playing these user-created levels. If this level creator is going to be available for all platforms, they would need to design the editor for gamepad use too, which is another huge design change which affects everything.

Think about the time and resources needed to develop Mario Maker, and bear in mind that the level structure in Mario is way more conducive to player-created levels than Hitman (tile based 2D platformer levels with small numbers of relatively simple AI). The scope of this level editor would be so huge I can't see it being a feasible thing, even if the demand for it was hypothetically as large as the demand for Mario Maker.

Again, not trying to call you out or anything. I wrote this in an effort to share some knowledge about the game development process. It's an industry that, unfortunately still has a lot of disparity between how players think things are made and how things are actually made.

[zerofiftyone]

Also just found a
comment from an IOI developer from a few months ago.[i.imgur.com]

I hope this and the previous comment gives you some context as to why putting out a level editor is bigger deal than you may think.

[BOT Cecil]

Escrito originalmente por Che:

Escrito originalmente por Sl1ngShot:

Well, Hitman is much more complex than any Valve game.

So? Editor is an editor? And i doubt that Hitman is more complex than any Valve game, especially TF2

Are you really saying TF2 is more complex than Hitman?
TF2 doesn't feature any sorts of AI, which is where Hitman's complexity lies in.

[Mahasamatman]

Escrito originalmente por Sl1ngShot:

Escrito originalmente por Che:

So? Editor is an editor? And i doubt that Hitman is more complex than any Valve game, especially TF2

Are you really saying TF2 is more complex than Hitman?
TF2 doesn't feature any sorts of AI, which is where Hitman's complexity lies in.

Tf2 doesnt feature any AI? TF2 has bots that can work on tens of thousands of maps, without the creator having to do any AI path.

[JustOnePepsi]

Escrito originalmente por Che:

What do you mean? Valve uses Hammer to make maps and Hammer is easy to use and doesnt not require programming

Glacier is not Hammer.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The issues with releasing a level editor have been explained multiple times. It's not as simple as you want to believe it is. Deal with it.

[moleface237]

The Hitman games have never been mod-friendly, have they? As far as I know, there aren't any graphic overhauls of the oldschool games like you'll see in the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or GTA modding communities.

Dunno much about coding, but the logistics of having a full level editor seem pretty mindboggling - plus Io would hafta somehow come up with the time and money to build a crazily intricate map editor when they're already struggling to finish the game.

[Sagara Sousuke]

I will never understand when people go against adding new fun things to the game.

[zerofiftyone]

Escrito originalmente por Sagara Sousuke:

I will never understand when people go against adding new fun things to the game.

Nobody here said that they're against a level editor; just that they understand that it's a huge task for the developers and because of that is extremely unlikely to happen. Did you read the screencap of the post from the IO developer?