Game should be modding-friendly

[Geras]

I would like all those willing to do something themselves to share their earlier work so that all could see what we could expect after such mod kit would be released. I'm betting that 99% of it would be crap which would make mod kit a waste of money since talented and skilled people would make a good mod without a mod kit anyway.

There you go.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewto ... 8c40fcd9ec

[Muk]

First and foremost I want a good RPG that is true to its heritage.

Setting out to develop a general RPG engine with versatile modding support is a big task on its own.

If they don't have the budget or the experience to do it, I say don't care too much about modding.

Agreed. First priority is to make sure the game can be made to its fullest possibility. Then if there is room to maximize moddability, then lets do it up.

[SXX]

If you knew a chef was good enough to cook you an awesome cake would you make him bake without an oven? "You talented chef, make cake without conventional ovens, use brick, wood and fire like in medieval times, go now, bake me cake"

You made my day!

[SXX]

There you go.

Wow... Well done!

[Goral]

There you go.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewto ... 8c40fcd9ec

Nice. I'm still afraid that you're an exception here though. And you did manage to do this without a mod kit...

[Agrajag]

I would like all those willing to do something themselves to share their earlier work so that all could see what we could expect after such mod kit would be released. I'm betting that 99% of it would be crap which would make mod kit a waste of money since talented and skilled people would make a good mod without a mod kit anyway.

As I already said in this thread before, modding for fallout 2 was really hard. I know this because I tried it myself - in four years I spent many, many hours working on the Fan Made Fallout project, which was subsequently cancelled. You're right in that surely the modding difficulty prevented a lot of bad mods from being made. It also surely prevented a lot of good mods from being made. And sure as hell it failed to prevent all bad mods from being made - ironically enough, one of those bad mods (in my opinion), Wasteland merc 2, was what triggered me into joining FMF in the first place.

I can say for sure that the modding difficulty was one of the main reasons why Fan Made Fallout never finished. We really tried, and although there were surely a lot of not so good ideas in there, some of it was really good. We also had some really, really talented people on the team (Temaperacl, for instance, whom I've seen lurking about these forums as well), but to make a full conversion mod the size of FMF, it's not enough to have one or two guys that knows how to do the modding, even if you have a group of 40 people to flesh out all the quests and ideas and dialogues. That's what we had in the end: a bunch of maps, about 40 fully fleshed out quests (and over a hundred in the making), a lot of fully written dialogues, new art, including a new world map, loading screens, in game items and scenery, new music and even a couple of talking heads (but no audio for that). All of it very well documented and organized.

In terms of a working product, however, all we managed to get after 7 years or so in the making, was a half-working demo and some prototype in which you could hardly do anything. The actual implementation was, along with too high ambitions, the main reasons why the project was cancelled. And again, that's not because there weren't people who didn't know how to do it - we had those people. Those people just didn't have enough time to implement everything themselves, and so the project died. If it was easier to actually implement these ideas, then surely the situation would have been much different.

Sadly the FMF forum has been down for a while (I don't know if it's ever coming back up - I suppose you could go to the codex and ask DarkUnderlord about it), but you can catch some glimpses of it through the waybackmachine if you like: http://web.archive.org/web/201001071456 ... om/forums/

In any case, I can see the point you're trying to make, and I disagree. Sure you can make mods without good tools, but those tools make it so that people who might have good ideas and are capable in other ways than programming and hex-editing executables have a good chance of implementing those ideas into a mod that everybody can enjoy. And even if there is no modding toolkit, I think at least the developers can try to make the game as modding friendly as they can for those who are hardcore enough to try modding with only the dev tools (or less) at their disposal.

[Pachterballs]

No.

[blooshoo]

Modding would be awesome, but like others have said it should be secondary to making the game its self solid. If at all possible though I'd love to see tools and what not for it.

[Sxerks]

There was already a thread about Level Editor - Custom Scenarios in this section

[SXX]

There was already a thread about Level Editor - Custom Scenarios in this section

I do not ask about some special tools, because its can be impossible to publish them for some copyright reasons.
So its different.

[Alaseur]

SSX,

+1 for your original post.

Do you think you would begin modding the game were a mod kit made available to the public? Would you start a mod team?

Once we see what the actual game will look like and get a confirmation or general idea of what kind of assets the game will be built with it seems plausible to start making custom content for it before the game is even released. Albeit only art, 2D or 3D models, and textures. To start making a library of content that could later be modded into the game.

Still a fair ways away.

[SXX]

Do you think you would begin modding the game were a mod kit made available to the public?

Definitely yes!
I always have some ideas to change, don't sure somebody need the same things, but I love to script NPC's AI and make games little bit more realistic.
Some of these things need lot of developers time, but I really can work on it for hours.

Would you start a mod teaIts dependency m?

I don't know what could happen in my life for next two years, so I don't want promise something what need lot of time.
I sure community of people who love post-apocalyptic RPG is really huge, so it will be better to join other team.
Right now I don't have enough free time to lead somebody.

[madmax]

First and foremost I want a good RPG that is true to its heritage.

Setting out to develop a general RPG engine with versatile modding support is a big task on its own.

If they don't have the budget or the experience to do it, I say don't care too much about modding.

Agreed. First priority is to make sure the game can be made to its fullest possibility. Then if there is room to maximize moddability, then lets do it up.

But surely the developers need tools to develop the game itself. Then they could simply release those tools with the source code as open source and let the modders continue to develop tools as well as other mods and it wouldn't cost a dime?

[anubite]

Certainly, the capacity to mod a game improves its longevity and helps to grow a fanbase/community for future sequels, but does Wasteland II need user-friendly mod-capabilities?

I'm not sure.

But it would certainly be great if some basic aspects about the game were relatively mod-friendly. Baldur's Gate certainly isn't easy to mod, but that level of mod-friendliness wouldn't be too bad. I think it's a bit much to request something on the same tier as Skyrim's world editor, or some kind of devkit with the game... but keeping the game more "open" might be something the devs could keep in mind? The ability for users to create and share their own quests, NPCs, and tweaks... well it's such a nice feature to consider.

[SXX]

I think it's a bit much to request something on the same tier as Skyrim's world editor, or some kind of devkit with the game... but keeping the game more "open" might be something the devs could keep in mind?

Skyrim's creation kit wasn't specially created for modders.
Its just internal developers tools, might be little bit polished, so I agree it will be great if Wasteland 2 fan community get toolset with release or even before.

[Celtic927]

I don't really understand the modding community, but despite my bias I still think their needs should come second to the developers wisher

[ijusten]

I'm not a modder, but the mods to Baldur's Gate 2 greatly increased the value of the game for me.

I'm not asking for Neverwinter Nights (where the tools came before the story), but try not to make the life harder for modders. The mods make a huge difference on the long term

[madmax]

Yep, but I prefer wastelandnexus.com

Yeah, that's way better! I second wastelandnexus.com too!

[Ekaros]

Yep, but I prefer wastelandnexus.com

Yeah, that's way better! I second wastelandnexus.com too!

Who is the first out there to register it? ;D

[SXX]

Who is the first out there to register it? ;D

It will be little bit unfair and also nexus owners choose something like wl2nexus.com instead.
But it will be great to have some central website for mods.