Map and mod browser

[llamabeast]

As a side effect of work on the LlamaServer, I've made a web page where you can view all the maps I've been able to find, as well as a selection of mods. I hope this will be helpful.

www.llamaserver.net/mapModBrowser.cgi (http://www.llamaserver.net/mapModBrowser.cgi)

[llamabeast]

I hope people don't object to me stickying this. I will unsticky it if it's considered a bad idea, but I think people may find it very helpful.

[Edratman]

I think this is fantastic. Nice work. And thank you for the effort.

This must be stickied IMHO.

[DigitalSin]

Gawsh. That's excellent. I agree with Edratman, keep it stickied.

[DakaSha]

great again ^^

[Edi]

No objection whatsoever, that's fantastic! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Psientist]

Nice, I particularly like the map browser.

can I throw something on the wish list? I had kicked around making a PHP-based mod browser (but will never, ever get around to making progress on it) that goes through a mod, and assembles #newmonsters and #newspells etc. as they would show up in the stats screens inside the game. The only hard part would be those that copy existing sprites, armies, without creating a sprite / stat database (at least you could incorporate Edi's DB for the stats). It looks like you are already partway there, it would be a really useful tool....

Good work.

Let me make one small offering; I made (for myself) a little PHP based PBEM server/manager. It's got too many quirks to be worth sharing, but it does have a nice stylesheet that parallels one of the dominions 3 alternate splashscreens. I've posted the screenshot - if you want the CSS and HTML example to implement the styling, I'll be happy to share.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6562&stc=1&d=1218566581

[llamabeast]

Hi Psientist,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm afraid I'm basically done with major features for the LlamaServer now, at least for the next year, as I need to knuckle down on my PhD, and I think it's functionally fairly complete. Also I have essentially zero knowledge of anything web-based except CGI scripts - and those just because I use Perl a lot for my PhD. Certainly PhP and CSS are mysterious to me, and the little JavaScript I had to use for the browser caused me much misery (my brother says it would have been trivial if I'd installed proper debug addons for Firefox - as it was, when I had a typo, it just stopped working without an error message).

However, your screenshot looks super shiny. Given infinite time it'd be awesome if I could make the LlamaServer look like that. Very nice skills.

As for the mod browser - that sounds really awesome. However, I think that saying I'm partway there is a bit overoptimistic. Maybe 5% there. It's a funky idea though.

If there's anything I can provide from the LlamaServer for any project ideas you have, I'd be only too happy to help. The only thing I can't provide, unfortunately, is large quantities of time. Well, there are other things, like large quantities of money, but you get my drift. :)

[iceboy]

Great Site!

One thing I tried to download the kingmaker map and the link seems to be broken!

[llamabeast]

I'm afraid all the ones pointing to the forums are broken right now, because of the forums being redone. I'm optimistic they'll find a fix, rather than me having to reenter all the addresses.

[Ballbarian]

Just realized that I had hit the "Thanks" button before, but never posted here. Great work llama!

[Daynarr]

Very handy stuff. :shake:
Thanks.

[llamabeast]

Phew, I finally finished updating all the download links for the new forum.

I also added the following maps which Ballbarian found for the map list with his leet map-hunting skills, and which I'd missed:
Infinite Sands
Ring worm
Arena
Gang wars
Ander
Primea
Castles 2
"Aezeal's map" (which I've renamed to Multilayer Map)
Wraparound Water
King of the hill
3isles
Wraith bunny
Tyrande
Northwest Middle Earth
Isle of Thrones

Several of these look really good. There are so many good maps for Dom3! I'm sure most people have only seen a fraction of them.

[Sombre]

.....

Castles 2

.....

Several of these look really good. There are so many good maps for Dom3!

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

[Edratman]

Thanks for the additions.

[Sombre]

Btw, this is an absolutely awesome creation and I'm honoured to have my mods on it.

I am going to scrap the CBM versions of my mods though and simply make sure the base versions of the mods are balanced to roughly CBM standards, but will work fine in vanilla too. I will rerelease the CBM versions I did of other people's mods under the title 'Rebalanced'. Each of these will get its own thread and link back to the old one.

[llamabeast]

Sombre, good thinking, that sounds like an excellent plan.

[rdonj]

A number of the maps listed in the browser have completely different sizes listed. For example, Antilarium has either 1480 or 217 provinces, depending on which description you believe. It's a bit weird.

[llamabeast]

Hmm, how odd. I've fixed Antilarium. Did you notice any others?

[fungalreason]

I'm experiencing trouble with the map browser. It's not switching the thumbnails and descriptions when you change the selected map. (Similar thing happens when changing mods). The page error has Line 14: Character: 8973 unterminated string constant. I'm guessing one of the map descriptions has an extra single quote somewhere.

[llamabeast]

Ah yeah, I broke it a couple of days ago. I've just fixed it now. Thanks for the report.

[Torin]

It doesn't work for me. Only lets me look at the first option, first map, forst mod etc. Clicking in others on the list have no effect.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, it had acquired a glitch. Fixed!

[DonCorazon]

Hmm... I still have the problem as torin. Looks super cool though!

[llamabeast]

Yeah, it's gone squiffy again. Basically it has some chance to go squiffy every time someone uploads something, and I keep on procrastinating on fixing the bug even though it would probably take 5 minutes once I got down to it. Just recently though, there's been an extraordinary flurry of things being uploaded. Lots of new games too! It's all been a bit crazy.

I'll try to fix it later.

[llamabeast]

Hooray! At last I've fixed it. It turns out that this time it was a " that was foxing it. I've now made it "-proof.

I've also (hopefully) fixed the problem with the newlines. So I'm optimistic it will stay working for a fair old while now. We'll see!

[Johan K]

The urraparrand map I was looking for has no download link :(
Very useful web page otherwise.

[llamabeast]

Urrapparrand has no link because it's included with the game.

[Johan K]

Oh, that explains why only I would need to download it ;)

[grimogre]

I have put the mod in the mod package in dominions.I don't know how to get it working.

[Sombre]

Have a look in the FAQ thread grimogre - I believe there's a guide there, on in another sticky.