Forums > Game Forums > WarCraft: Orcs & Humans > map generator?
Rola (8483) on 8/28/2013 3:19 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
For years I was only playing the campaign missions, never tried the skirmish option.
Our trivia, Wikipedia and at least one website claim that there is a random map generator. I was unable to confirm this in documentation, and it would require quite a long test to confirm that the maps don't repeat and this isn't just random map selection (because the menu gives you a list of maps with "Forrest 1, 2...7" etc. to choose from; back cover even says "over 20 maps").
It would be quite impressive if it was true... but it sounds too good.
vedder (70822) on 8/28/2013 4:46 PM · Permalink · Report
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/showthread.php?p=425274
The trivia should be removed.
MrFlibble (18234) on 9/2/2013 4:31 PM · Permalink · Report
Yep, this seems like a widely repeated misconception that Warcraft has a random map generator (or is even quoted as the first RTS to have that). It's probably a bit justified by the fact that Dune II generates campaign maps from seed numbers, and while they are not random (each seed number generated the same map every time), it is capable of creating a very large number of unique maps that way. So the idea of a random map generator in Warcraft is not entirely implausible, but actually implementing it would probably eat up a lot more developer resources than Blizzard was willing to spend at the time.
There's a similar misconception about Rise of the Triad, most probably prompted by the existence of a random map generator that allows to create custom single- and multiplayer mapsets by randomly combining pre-made level sections, similarly to Daggerfall. Original game levels are all pre-made though.
Rola (8483) on 9/2/2013 5:58 PM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start MrFlibble wrote--]Dune II generates campaign maps from seed numbers [/Q --end MrFlibble wrote--] I assume they did this to save disk space? Why otherwise implement such an advanced feature as random map generator and then hide it?
No doubt you should add this in Dune II trivia.
By the way: thanks for solving the Warcraft issue!
MrFlibble (18234) on 9/3/2013 2:15 PM · Permalink · Report
No idea why the guys at Westwood decided to make a seed map generator. Perhaps they were experimenting with real random maps at some point, but the final result only generates random terrain, while all buildings, units and also additional spice fields were added manually and are stored in scenario (mission) files (traces of the built-in map editor can be still found in the Dune II demo EXE). This practice was in part carried over into Command & Conquer which doesn't have seed maps, but all terrain data is stored in a separate BIN file while unit, structure and resource data is store in INI files, similar to Dune II.
Would be unfair for me to take credit for "solving" the random map generator question in Warcraft II, it's only thanks to the guy who had posted tons of previously unknown information about the game in the Abandonia forums.