Modding

[Howard Day]

Yeah. Not the dumbest thing I've ever seen, but it's up there.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

If people honestly think the CZ works this way, they should just leave - you're wrong, but if it's what you really think then you must also believe it won't change. Anyone can look through our archives and find a million wonderful, intelligent debates about exactly this sort of issue. It's this passive-aggressive I'm-being-oppressed trolling crap that we'll make the physical effort to clear out.

 

[Howard Day]

What gets me is that he managed to say nothing at all besides "I don't like LOAF". No comments on the release plans - no arguments for or against, nothing! He might as well just not said anything.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

And what's not to like? I'm great. Show me the slightest bit of courtesy and I'll buy you a DVD of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. But no, it's cool to rage against authority.

 

[Howard Day]

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Now I hate you.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

At least you have a strong argument!

 

[Nomad Terror]

I want my DVD!

 

[Dyret]

As a rule, players don't know what they want. When a game is very easy to mod a million stupid people will add a million stupid-but-flashy things... which a million similarly stupid people will add to their games on the faulty logic that a bigger ship or a more powerful gun will automatically make the game better... and then the game will be broken. History's truly great mods are the ones that were so difficult to pull off that the mod team was forced to act like professional developers -- everything else just comes off as pureed crap.

Nah, I don't think that's really true. Personally, I don't ever use mods that "add" anything to games, but's it's pretty neat that those who like that sort of thing can. If someone decides to add some 5000 cm damage gun to the game, I don't think most people would want to download it, and those who would would eventually understand that it's a bad idea, unless of course, they really are idiots.

Though of course, I agree that easy to mod games tend to attract a lot more idiot modders than say, the vision engine.

The Freespace community is a fairly good example of things working the right way in terms of modding... They have a game that is easy to mod, and even if one could argue that a lot of them are idiot, they have produced a lot of high quality mods (Saga, The Babylon Project, Beyond the Red Line). I'm sure someone's made a mod that add superships and galaxy destroying mssiles to the game, but you don't ever hear about it.

Oh, and I'ts early in the morning, so please bear with any spelling mistakes and such.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Freespace isn't a great example because the mod tools were something that it took years to develop (and are still very hard to use) -- but look at that other 'Free' game. Microsoft encouraged fun fun fun easy modding of FreeLancer and the multiplayer experience died in a matter of weeks as everybody came out with their own stupid mashup.

 

[gevatter Lars]

You seam to have a splited personality don't you ^_^
No hard modding tools, no easy modding tools...so what do you want?

Beside that. I don't get your arguemnt about Freelancer. I have played unmodded Freelancer games online just recently and there where a lot of people. Sure not as much as if you play EVE but still they are there. Modding hasn't any thing to do with people playing or not because they aren't forced to use them.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

You seam to have a splited personality don't you ^_^
No hard modding tools, no easy modding tools...so what do you want?

I don't think you're reading my post correctly, I'm not complaining about 'hard' modding tools. I support the idea - modding a game should be tough and it should force the modders to put a high level of thought into a project.

(Although I'm not really sure how the situation you described would be a split personality... presumably a theoretical person who is against hard and easy modding tools is simply someone who is entirely against modding tools.)

Also, 'I played Freelancer and it's still fun' isn't the point -- the fact that the game immediately splintered off into a million unbalanced variations and then lost 95% of the online audience it was designed for in a matter of weeks is.

 

[gevatter Lars]

I don't see the connection of mods and the loose of interest in the basic game. Please enlighten me.

I have used some of the WC ships that where out there for the singleplayer but never bothered with modifing the online mode because there wheren't any, at the beginning, that interested me.
I had some friends that owned Freelancer and we where playing together but we mostly lost interest after a few weeks because its boring.
Fighting pirates is fun the first few times...then it became routine. Trading isn't very exiting either because of the fixed prices and as soon as you found a profitable route you got money to no end.
For me Freelancer online mode, as it was when launched, leaks many things that would have keept me playing or my friends who even sold there games. I still play it from time to time when I am in the mood or find someone to play in coop with.

From this perspective I think mods wheren't the real problem.

 

[ChrisReid]

I don't see the connection of mods and the loose of interest in the basic game. Please enlighten me.

I don't think he could be more clear. Just to restate his specific example: Freelancer quickly ballooned into a bunch of funky mods. People went off and played these instead of the main game. Many of these were of fairly low quality or just gave everyone tons of super junk, so it burned people out quickly. Sure, of course there are people playing it today. People are playing everything today somewhere. I can find a game of Wing Commander Armada at 3 AM on a work night if I want today. But the effect of so many low quality mods so quickly in a game's life just dilutes its audience. Mod tools are great, but creating a situation where you force the modders to create quality products over time is going to be a lot more beneficial to game's community in the long term.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I don't think you're following me at all. We're talking about game design and marketing, not whether or not you and your friends enjoyed FreeLancer. It is simply a fact that easy modding made the game's player base quickly splinter into a thousand unbalanced pieces instead of prodiving a readily available base to interact with new players (and that nine times out of ten these mods were entirely without merit.)

 

[Ijuin]

I don't think you're reading my post correctly, I'm not complaining about 'hard' modding tools. I support the idea - modding a game should be tough and it should force the modders to put a high level of thought into a project.

Tough, yes. Requiring people to decompile, edit hex code, then recompile, though, might be a little too far. I wouldn't mind something like having to edit C code (or whatever language you choose to use) to modify things though, but having to recompile the whole pioneer.exe file or whatever may as well be totally unmodable.

So that's where we are. We've been working on this for more than 3 years - and the end is not in sight.

Well I certainly don't mind waiting another three years to see the finished game (or five years if it comes to that)--it will be worth it. Just please don't leave us hanging for months on end wondering where you've gone off to.

 

[Howard Day]

Venezuela. In case you were wondering.

And yes, the ladies were fine.

 

[Ijuin]

~~~. But seriously, it's nice to hear from you guys every month or so even if there's no new material to show off.

 

[Dyret]

It is simply a fact that easy modding made the game's player base quickly splinter into a thousand unbalanced pieces instead of prodiving a readily available base to interact with new players (and that nine times out of ten these mods were entirely without merit.)

I see your point, but I'm not sure this would be as much of a problem with a project like Pioneer. After all it has a much smaller, more devoted audience than Freelancer had, and I'm not really sure if there will be a multiplayer portion to it at all.

Still, the way the Pioneer team has decided to do it is probably the best.

 

[Death]

Well, best or not, the general public doesn't get a say in the matter, rendering the whole issue moot.

 

[mat_yarrow]

This is something I've been curious about, given the tenative demo realease in February. Did the company(Buzzmonkey Studios) that two of the project developers work for require their employees to turn over all rights to the code that they worked on while they are employed? I recall having read that some companies state this in their employment contracts, and I thought that it might be a possible roadblock to the release of a game I've been eager to play for some time.