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Poll Result |
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What level of modding would be worthwhile to you? |
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I don't know what a mod is / I'm not interested in Mods |
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8% |
[ 2 ] |
I'd play mods if they were available, but I wouldn't make them |
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34% |
[ 8 ] |
I'd be happy to make mods given the ability to alter a survival type game |
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52% |
[ 12 ] |
Unless you can change campaign mode and alter every aspect of the game, it wouldn't be worth it |
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4% |
[ 1 ] |
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Total Votes : 23 |
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Fost Pod Team
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 4:39 pm Post subject: Starscape Modding survey |
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Whilst we aren't in a position to work on anything right now (and may never be), we've already had a lot of feedback on modding from people on the board.
There are various issues relating to Starscape's internal architecture that mean adding a modding framework to it is no picnic, but we thought we'd leave this poll running to get everyone's opinions and if the opportunity ever arises to work on it, we'll have your opinions on which to base what we do.
The 'survival type' mod type would be something like that discussed in the above thread:
- Pre-defined player ship.
- Predefined enemy ships.
- configurable weapons (but doubtful any of the other equipment)
- Tool to insert your own sprites in our image format
- Tool to pack everything into one pak file.
- New option in game to load one of these mod chunks and run it.
- Possibly some support for running your own high score table based on the mod.
The last option is pretty self explanatory: you can take the campaign mode and alter that. |
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HunterXI
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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uh... I cant vote in the poll. |
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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HunterXI wrote: | uh... I cant vote in the poll. |
Hmm, not sure why that is, 4 other people have voted so far with no trouble, but I just looked them up and there's nothing registered for you. Does it give you an error message? The only restriction on voting is that guests can't vote, only registered board members. |
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Bobacles
Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 123
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Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 9:10 pm Post subject: |
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The only thing I'd like to try in campaign mode, are a few modded weapons and equipment. Changing the enemies/AI isn't really my thing. |
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X-Fighter Troll
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Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 9:01 am Post subject: |
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The most interesting mod features missing would be the ability to set triggers for kills, triggers for collections of minerals/parts/datacore amounts, text triggers(to tell the player what's up), and lastly would be sprite changes/weapon alterations.
I'm having trouble imagining anything extremely spectacular the mods proposed otherwise would actually add to the game. |
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Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 9:43 am Post subject: |
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Re Bobacles: You are kind of saying you'd like the mod features of the middle option but in the campaign mode - but I missed that option off for the reason that keeping it in a 'sandbox' environment means there's no need to put in a framework for the rest of the game (which would be a massive undertaking, and is one fo the main sticking points for mod development on Starscape). Also there is a ditinction between weapons (part of the particle system, so more easily scriptable) and equipment (part of the code).
Re: X-Fighter: I'm not entirely sure what kind of event system the middle option would have, but it would be pretty simple - maybe just a list of enemies and the order they are spawned in. Built on that, and depending on the response: text launching (pop up head) stuff might be possible, although the entire system isn't scripted any more so I'm not sure how much of a deal that would be. Generally though I'd say you want to be voting in the last option, because it sounds like you are only interested in altering the gameplay mode and trying to have a new type of game, which wouldn't be changeable with the middle option. (That poll option was actually for you after reading your Unreal post ) |
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HunterXI
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 3:06 am Post subject: |
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alright, works for me now... maybe the time limit was reached and I was autologged out? but yeah, I'd be happy to mod so long as we had grounds to do so... not asking for any proggie releases ![Smile](images/smiles/icon_smile.gif.pagespeed.ce.nuZG_6txEH.gif) |
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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Well, I'm thinking of something that could be done all in a single map, like survival/instant action goes... most things I've ever been able to mod were able to give gameplay twists that make singular maps more interesting... expanding beyond the simplistic "mine, kill archnids, mine, mine, kill node natives, mine, mine", and possibly giving it storyline.(Visit the space kingdom(probably a modified version of the rescue asteroid, as it's the only thing that doesn't attack you/require detruction in the game), make "areas" within a single map that have significance... "asteroid always respawns here, no matter how many times you kill it" place, "super boss for after you rescue the princess shows up here" area.
That's kind of why I imagine there's a bit lacking in being able to mod starscape at all... there's a severe limit of naturally non-interactive characters, and making the ability for naturally interactive characters to become non-interactive would require too much work.
Being able to mod a whole campaign is way too much work for everyone involved.
(Note that being able to add something to count as a princess, and having a place to return it to would count as part of the potential goals(I'm imagining the space-suit guys as defining the princess, but as for objects that would stand for or be modable for a kingdom/castle to return her too...)
Also note: By interactive, I mean things that are attempting to kill you(pretty much everything), things you can kill(pretty much everything), and things like the Aegis, which actively assists you.
(Perhaps the various types/sizes of asteroids could be allowed to have new sprites... stacked with the ability to make some things "indestructable", might cover it).
Being able to play with the levels of minerals, and have them matter to triggers would be key to making any interesting mods(itempods, datacores, and warpdrive sections included in this). |
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, you're still talking about the last option, having everything within one map doesn't really help (much), because pretty much everything you are talking about editing is hard coded.
What we would need to do with Starscape is remove anything like that and reimplement them as scripts.
The medium option allows for people to play with designing weapons and enemies, and altering ship configs. It would need some kind of script system of it's own for when units were launched, but beyond that there would not be scope to change fundamentals about pre-existing gameplay on that map - currently this is programmed in, rather than interpreted from a script. Whereas weapon systems, particles, ship configs and graphics are all in external files, so could be part of the limited mod option as long as they are 'sandboxed in' by it. |
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HunterXI
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Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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Fost wrote: | Yeah, you're still talking about the last option, having everything within one map doesn't really help (much), because pretty much everything you are talking about editing is hard coded.
What we would need to do with Starscape is remove anything like that and reimplement them as scripts.
The medium option allows for people to play with designing weapons and enemies, and altering ship configs. It would need some kind of script system of it's own for when units were launched, but beyond that there would not be scope to change fundamentals about pre-existing gameplay on that map - currently this is programmed in, rather than interpreted from a script. Whereas weapon systems, particles, ship configs and graphics are all in external files, so could be part of the limited mod option as long as they are 'sandboxed in' by it. |
weeell, it would be a lot easier to mod if we had your little resource compiler... ![Smile](images/smiles/icon_smile.gif.pagespeed.ce.nuZG_6txEH.gif) |
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Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:03 am Post subject: |
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HunterXI wrote: | weeell, it would be a lot easier to mod if we had your little resource compiler... ![Smile](images/smiles/icon_smile.gif.pagespeed.ce.nuZG_6txEH.gif) |
Yeah life's tough isn't it Actually, being able to extract things from the pak file wouldn't help one bit, we'd need to change a lot of the game code just to support fairly simple changes. As explained about 8 million times: we aren't doing this unless we can at least give people a good chance that anything they do will work - currently I can guarantee that it won't ![Sad](images/smiles/icon_sad.gif.pagespeed.ce.WlBTWgbe-d.gif) |
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Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Or, we really could just forget the whole thing. I really would rather see Battlescape finished. There's really no point in making starscape modable, from what can be done, and the few people who want to mod it so badly that they're demanding source code should be able to write up their own game engines before you'd have time to re-write this one. (If they can't, then they really have no reason to be demanding the source code in the first place...) |
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Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:19 am Post subject: |
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X-Fighter wrote: | Or, we really could just forget the whole thing. |
I think you're missing the point in this post being here. We aren't going to add moddability to Starscape before Battlescape is out - that was never in question We are just interested in what people think and how important modding is to you. This may affect what we do on future games, and it may inform any decisions we make regarding any Starscape updates that may occur far in the future. |
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Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 10:32 am Post subject: |
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Well, my thought process is this: Which is cooler:
1: StarScape being very limitedly modable
2: StarScape getting a huge overhaul to make it extremely modable
3: Moonpod expending efforts to keep producing addicting little games that you end up beating before your CD arrives in the mail because you were willing to forgo things like sleep and food without thinking about it.
#1 seems kind of pointless, and #2 directly blocks #3 from happening. If it's not Battlescape, it's whatever will come after Battlescape.
The best bet is to develop a game with modability in mind before hand, otherwise you're basically going to totally re-develop the game you already made.(In which case, why not just go the last little distance and make it "StarScapeII"?) |
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RailGun
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Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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maybe have a short grace pariod after Battlescape to make patches and work on misc. stuff?although i'd rather see battlescape come out first i;d like to see starscape moddablen makenew archnid ships better equipment for tham and larger masses in each zone and probably unlimited enemy cap ships and maybe my own fighter hull + custom weapond like lightning gun and IPCs (ion Particle Cannon, not like the ion cannon) and ion cannon 5, 6 and 7's?
but i'd still prefer moonpod to acheive their greatness manking games than adding a little feature to ONE game that probably and will take awhile to do.
Cheers for Fost, Poobear and the rest of Moonpod!!! ![Very Happy](images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif.pagespeed.ce.-XCmWRZoxi.gif) |
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