Posted by Dr. Willard on August 19, 2000 at 04:16:15:
In reply to: Vista Engine posted by TB on August 18, 2000 at 07:45:34:
[TB]
: ...quite after release of Turok - Dinosaur Hunter the German PC Games asked about the plans for a fanīs level editor and the Turok people said that there are no plans for the moment because they used a lot of third-party tools especially for character animation. These tools are quite expensive and donīt match the average gamerīs skills. The support mailbox soon would have to suffer from overflow.
[Me:]
There's no need to release such outside-origin tools; id has had no need to release 3D Studio Max, which id's modelers make abundant use of. Which has certainly not stopped its fans from creating their own models.
[TB:]
They also said that it would be possible to create new maps but w/ no real surprise in them. Same enemies - same environment - same look - same puzzles -> bored gamers. In that point they were quite right. I played some awful Duke levels - each one for about two minutes - and only found two or three of the custom levels really interesting.
[Me:]
Seems like a case of Sturgeon's Law -- 90% of everything is crud. However, some games have spawned whole industries of amateur mapmakers and modmakers, and some of their productions are very impressive. I've experienced some excellent scenarios for Bungie's Marathon series (a Doom-ish first-person shooter), for example, including scenarios with storylines totally separate from the original series.
In Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge, one has to travel through time to find that troublesome Morgana, and on the way, one visits Arthurian England and gets to find that famous sword. And wield it. It's currently Macintosh-only, but there is an effort under way to port the Marathon engine to other operating systems (source.bungie.org), which means that you people may eventually get to play it.