I. Using the World EditorII. But what do I do with my server?III. Being a good adminIV. FAQs Using the World EditorThe World Editor is a handy tool, used to literally... edit your world.
However, before you can use it, you need the editor files. If you have blockland, the easiest thing to do is just copy a folder called 'editor' out of your root blockland file, and paste it into your root AoTv3 file. Then, go back to your blockland program file and find the folder called 'common'. Within this folder is another 'editor' file. Copy this and paste it into your AoTv3's common folder. Now you should have the World Editor installed on your AoTv3 game.
Controls[/u]
Once you've launched your AoTv3 game and started your server, press f11 to open the World Editor. In areas like Port Town, you may just see a jumble of lines and dots. Each dot represents a certain item (i.e. a building, a sign, even water.) The first thing you should do in the World Editor is find out how it works. Press alt Q to leave your body and fly around. You can press shift 1-7 to change how fast the camera moves while flying. Now, find a certain isolated object that's not in a jumble of other objects. First, click on the object. The pane on the right of your screen may or may not change to show the properties of your object (depending on what setting the World Editor is currently in.) Press ctrl W to drop your player at that location. The easiest way to move an object is just by clicking on it, then holding the mouse down and dragging it. If you want to move the object up or down, press and hold
ctrl, then click and drag the object. You'll notice it'll move directly up or down. If you want to move your object across long distances, it's best to move it the second way. For this way, you'll have to press ctrl Q to leave your player again, and move the camera backwards to 'zoom out' a bit. Now, notice the three light-blue bars sticking out of your object in different directions. These bars control the
axes on which your object moves. If you put your mouse over a certain axis, you'll notice that you can click that axis and move it only in that direction. You can move forward and backward, left and right, using the
x and
y axes (depending on which angle your camera is at) and you can move up and down using the
z axis. One last thing, to rotate your object, hold
alt, and click and drag a certain axis to rotate your object.
*Note*: There are 2 ways to change the scale of a certain object.
1: click the object, press f3 to open the World Editor Inspecter (see below for details), click Transform and change the scale.
2: (this is to be much more precise) hold ctrl
and alt
, then click and drag a certain side of the object to change it's scale.
^Screenshot showing the World Editor, notice the 3 axes on the log.
World Editor windows
In the World Editor, you'll see that at the top of your screen, there will be a menu. The first button, File, allows you to open missions, and save your current mission if you've changed it. The next button, Edit, allows you to, among other things, copy objects and paste a duplicate in other places. Let's skip over to the last button, which is Windows. In this menu, you'll see a series of World Editor buttons, with hotkeys f2-f5. If you press F2, it will only show you the World Editor Screen. F3 is the World Editor Inspecter. This tool, which opens a small pane on the right of your screen, allows you to edit individual objects. When you click an objects, certain buttons appear on the pane on the right of your screen. The first button is always the same: Transform. This allows you to change the position of your object, as well as the scale. The next buttons differ depending on which item you have selected. If you click some items, such as Water, more options will appear in the World Editor Inspecter pane than others. One of the most common buttons on the World Editor Inspecter pane, other than Transform, is 'Item Properties'. This will appear if you click any non-static shape, such as a sword. If you click this toggle-button, you will see a series of input boxes labeled 'mat1'-'mat5', 'quantity', 'price', 'name, and 'quest item'. If you change the number in the five 'mat' boxes, you will change the item's appearance. For example, if you change all of the 'mat' boxes to 7, it will make your item have a plutonium texture. The next box, 'quantity', simply changes the number of items you will get when you obtain this item. For example, if you changed the 'quantity' of a certain sword to 5, whenever somebody purchased this sword, they would get 5 swords instead of 1. The 'price' field changes the amount of money players have to pay when they want the item. The 'name' field changes the name that appears under the item in your inventory. Lastly, the 'quest item' field changes whether or not this item is a Quest Item. If this field is 0, then the item will
not be a quest item, and the player can purchase this item as many times as he pleases (if he/she has the money.) If this field is 2, then it
will be a quest item, and this item may only be purchased once.
You must press apply on the World Editor panel on the right of your screen to make these changes take effect!Now, let's think back to the Windows menu on the top of your screen. Remember, you pressed f3 to go to the World Editor Inspecter window, now let's press f4 to go to the World Editor Creator window. This allows you to add your own items into your server. The World Editor pane on the right should change to display a tree-like menu. If you want to spawn a tangible item the player can touch and even pick up, expand the 'Shapes' menu. When you click an item, that item will spawn somewhere on your map, and it will automatically be selected. Sometimes, it will spawn really far away and you have to press ctrl Q to leave your player and zoom out to find out where your item is, then move it to the correct position. So now you know you can press f4 to spawn an item, and f3 to edit the properties of this item. Just remember to save your changes when you're done!
*Note*: If you want to spawn a log, like the ones in the log challenge, press f4, then go to Static Shapes > base > data > Shapes > Sharp_Trees > Trees > deadwood > sharp_log03
If you want to spawn a building, press f4 and go to Interiors > base > data > interiors > vectrexis
^Screenshot of what the World Editor Inspecter looks like.
But what do I do with my server?The best thing to do in your server is to make some kind of unique series of challenges or things to do, with prizes at the end. Everytime you make a challenge, try doing it
yourself to make sure it's not too hard and not too easy. Some types of challenges I put on my server:
-A series of logs; you have to hook the first, swing to the next and hook it, swing to the next, etc.
-A pile of logs like the log challenge.
-A series of skinny boards (resized boxes, you can get these by going into the shop and clicking one, then pressing ctrl c to copy it. Press ctrl v to paste a duplicate wherever you want.) You have to jump from board to board without falling.
-A tall tree (like the treehouse challenge) that you have to climb up.
Being a good adminWhen you start your server you are automatically the server administrator. The admin panel (ctrl A) is really useless and in AoT it's only used to kick or ban people. You can change the admin password if you go to your root AoTv3 folder and go to Base > server, then open prefs.cs (using notepad.) Type in whatever you want your admin pass to be on the very top line in the quotes. You can also change your default server name here. You're not done yet though! You also have to go to AoTv3-root folder > common and change
that prefs.cs to be exactly like your other one, and also go to AoTv3-root folder > common > server and change
that prefs.cs to be exacty like your other two. But now you're done *whew* and your changes should take effect next time you launch AoTv3.
The first thing you should know about being a good admin is that you should
not just go ahead and give everybody plutonium swords and hooks and all the money they need, and the admin pass. The people on your server may like this at first, but they'll get bored and leave really quickly. You
should make it so they have to complete challenges to earn money or cool items, because this will keep their interest, and make them want to come back to your server later. You should also keep your admin pass secret, because people can just type /god to be invincible, and /fly to fly around and uncover all of the server's secrets. WHEN you finish making your server, you
should delete the editor files I told you to put in (see the top of this page just under "Using the World Editor.") This will disable people from press f8 and flying around your server. If you do this, people will not be able to find out everything about your server, and they'll want to come back to see if you have any really things they haven't seen yet.
*Note*: as an admin you can type /ai admin to spawn a random person, /ai orc to spawn an orc, and /ai horse to spawn a horse.FAQsI. How do I make teleporters?
Teleporters are a tricky thing to make in AoTv3. The easiest thing to do would be to find a place like the Chartres Labyrinth and just move that teleporter wherever you want. Remember, there are 2 parts to a teleporter. The invisible 'teleporter trigger' box (your player gets teleported when you touch this box), and the teleporter 'SpawnSphere' (this is WHERE you player gets teleported.) If you are going to use the Chartres Labyrinth's teleporter, DO NOT just copy and paste, and DO NOT just cut and paste, as these often lead to weird side effects. The best thing to do is just MOVE the teleporter and the spawnsphere wherever you want. There is a way to edit your mission file to add a customTeleporter SimGroup. This will create a brand new tele for you to use. If you guys wanna know how to edit your mission file to add this SimGroup, just tell me. For now, though, I don't wanna confuse you :).II. I can't host?! WTF?!?
There are lots of reasons why you may not be able to host. Most of these solutions are quite simple. I'll show you to host correctly step by step:
1. Launch AoTv3
2. Click 'Start a Server'
3. Select whichever mission you want to load
4. Make sure 'Host Multiplayer' is selected if you want people to be able to join
5. Click Launch
If you still know that people can't host to your server, your router is probably blocking the ports needed. I suggest you see This Topic to solve this problem.III. How do I make a super-Horse? (These were invented by Fireball) (although I found out about it before he told me :D)
To make a super-Horse, just type /ai admin. This will spawn a random admin.... person... The admin's default properties allow her to run super-fast, jump super-high, and be able to climb almost verticle walls. Press f3 to open the World Editor Inspecter. Click the admin you just spawned. On the World Editor panel on the right of your screen, click item properties, then Misc. and you should see a button that says something like adminBody. Just click this button and a list of things (in alphebetical order) should come up. Select horseBody. Then go up to Transform, and look at the location field. It should show some numbers. In fact, there should be 3 numbers with long decimals (each of these numbers represents an axis.) Go to the last number and change it to 2000 (really all you did is change it's z axis to 2000.) Click apply. The admin should disappear, but don't move. After a few moments a horse should come falling out of the sky name 'admin.' Say hello to your new Super-Horse!'
IV. How do I make it so when i quit my server, my server is still up?
This is called making a dedicated server. Go into you AoTv3 root program file and double-click dedicated.bat. A console window should pop up displaying some info... that's it! Your server is up! But remember, you can't choose which mission your server puts up, it just does the first one on your list.Coming Soon: Pictures, and some more info.
Please post any comments or suggestions. Thank you.
This guide was done completely by rudyman.
