Mod Makers crash out with style.

[giskard]

Giskard, I'm going to take a shot and guess that you're just as excited about the potential of this game as I am, and that what you're really after is a way to jumpstart the mod community and get it up and running as quickly as possible. Amen brother. The limiting factor may not be the current site layout, but time. This game has a lot of depth even w/o modding, and we may both have to wait for the casual gamer to whet their appetite on what's already there before they start craving their next fix.

When that happens, I'll be ready for them

Your not wrong Burianek.

The forum is slow right now but then the tools have just appeared. It will be atleast 2 months before good stuff really starts to happen and until it does players will not want to read this forum. Lets face it, what is there in here that would even remotely interest a regular player right now ?

Only those already interested in using mods already use this forum right now. There is no starwars conversions, no B5 mods, no startrek mods, no super X2 mods.

When they start appearing this forum will suddenly become a lot more active. Unfortunately theres a major barrier to those mods right now...Lots of unanswered questions.

But id like to say not all mods will be total conversions. Some of us just want to add a little extra to X2 such as new encounters for players in space so trading and fighting become a little more interesting and X2s BBs stories become a little deeper and actually apply to things in the game instead of being pure fiction.

Basically keeping the game the way it is but expanding on the ideas that are already present.

But yes your right mate, I love mods, i love X2 so my idea of fun is not a X2 starwars mod but simply being able to mess about with X2 and make it into something that i will love even more than i currently do.

Which thankfully will not be too hard has its close to what i want already, it just needs more of some things than others. I do have ideas on how the X series should develope because i feel its falling behind in some areas.

But im more or less accepting X2 as we know it will remain roughly the same until X3 appears. Eg no major changes that would be considered ground breaking.

Giskard

[giskard]

As I mentioned in one or two PMs - are you modders signed up to the Devnet? With a track record and approval from up high, your next mod could be on a shelf in a store in X³?

The_Abyss is always forward thinking, often to the detriment of other people's opinions him

Yes thats a good idea for mod makers, I am currently trying to figure out how best to get a printed lvl5 form sent to egosoft given that i dont have a printer and do not know many people with one that would do me those sort of favours.

I will figure out a way at some point.
Mean while Lvl 3 access is helping a bit.

There is the issue of mod chat annoying some devchat users though. Not everybody wants to hear mod stuff constantly and mod chat tends to be a long and constant bombardment on their eyeballs

Giskard

[AalaarDB]

As I mentioned in one or two PMs - are you modders signed up to the Devnet? With a track record and approval from up high, your next mod could be on a shelf in a store in X³?

No response to my request for user level 5 or KC writing tools.

[giskard]

I have got some ideas but im want to clear it with the mods first before saying anything. The moderators already suggested it them selves anyway but im not sure how far they want to take it.

Giskard

[kryptyk]

A different area/chatroom/forum whatever to post mod findings and get news about the games capabilities would be a big help. Not an elitist gathering but a place to collect the modding communities experience and keeping it together to make finding any info easier. I think the X2 Scripts and Modding forum is for players having problems with custom scripts. They can come here and probably find the original author who can help them with their problems.
Maybe someplace on the DevNet or another forum....I don't know what would be ideal for Egosoft or if it's even possible. I'm just trying to offer suggestions.

[giskard]

A different area/chatroom/forum whatever to post mod findings and get news about the games capabilities would be a big help. Not an elitist gathering but a place to collect the modding communities experience and keeping it together to make finding any info easier. I think the X2 Scripts and Modding forum is for players having problems with custom scripts. They can come here and probably find the original author who can help them with their problems.
Maybe someplace on the DevNet or another forum....I don't know what would be ideal for Egosoft or if it's even possible. I'm just trying to offer suggestions.

There seems to be some confusion over CBJ's post and his apparent understanding of my message. CBJ told me over devnet that the Elitist comment was mearly an over exageration on his part to ensure I got the point he was making. Which I did.

Giskard

[kryptyk]

A different area/chatroom/forum whatever to post mod findings and get news about the games capabilities would be a big help. Not an elitist gathering but a place to collect the modding communities experience and keeping it together to make finding any info easier. I think the X2 Scripts and Modding forum is for players having problems with custom scripts. They can come here and probably find the original author who can help them with their problems.
Maybe someplace on the DevNet or another forum....I don't know what would be ideal for Egosoft or if it's even possible. I'm just trying to offer suggestions.

There seems to be some confusion over CBJ's post and his apparent understanding of my message. CBJ told me over devnet that the Elitist comment was mearly an over exageration on his part to ensure I got the point he was making. Which I did.

Giskard

Oh I know...my comment wasn't a response to anyone in particular. I believe that anybody can/should post things they have discovered or have accomplished...I don't think it should be a place for player's to post problems with any mod or for ideas....that is what this forum is for.
Plus maybe a mod or dev can stop in once in a while and say "it's not possible yet" or "we're working on it"......that would be really helpful.

[Ruuliqh]

On Devnet: seems to be a great place for ideas, I recommend it. Level 3 is enough to be involved, and I'm happy with it. There are a number of things I've seen there that are moddable/scriptable, I just don't have the knowledge to do it.

On modding forum: I need answers, I come here. I look through as many posts as I can until I forget what I was looking for. This becomes rather discouraging. I don't find myself trying to help many people either though. I feel silly typing,"wow, good question. I have no idea!"

Let's face it... It will be the Hard-Core people who keep this game going. I say cater to them Egosoft! That way when some know nothing(like myself) comes in trying to do their own mod. There will be a group of easily identifiable, knowledgable, nonoverbusy moderators , I can annoy with simple questions and be referred to either the official or player written documentation. I look forward mostly to making the mod
I want to play.

So, in summary... Egosoft should cater to the mod-makers a little, and get someone to fix the search function.

[Arcane Old Man]

I thought I read that the search function was just disabled due to server load.

If someone wanted to donate a high powered server to run the forums we might just get that search function back

[giskard]

Let's face it... It will be the Hard-Core people who keep this game going. I say cater to them Egosoft!.

Egosoft have never officially supported mods for the X series until now so this is new ground for them. Hense all the chat about it aimed at them so they know what we want. If people dont speak, Egosoft will never know what we need.

Recently Egosoft have started to do their usual and listened to fans and are supporting us in ways we requested. Sure we are not getting everything we want but we are getting answers to questions now.

Its easy to sit and bitch about missing items or lack of knowledge on another site. Yet if we dont say hay Egosoft, we need this or we want to know that then nothing will ever improve.

Between the tools, the ongoing developement of the docs and the fact that the 1.3 patch was only recently released. Id say the answering of questions is probably a good sign that Egosoft will end up on the right path and will eventually be able to sit back and enjoy what mod makers come up with.

Other communities have not been so lucky, the questions never get answered so they are always being posted with ever increasing hostility from the mod makers. Eventually it just leads to the Question "Why release tools if your not willing to answer some simple questions".

The hostility stems from the fact that mod makers do stuff, fail and spend months trying to figure something out that the game simply doesnt support. One word from a dev saying thats not possible would have cleared up that issue instantly and relieved the frustration of mod makers.

Its not really frustration at the game, its more frustration at not being able to do things that look and sound posible being transfered to forum posts.

Which I am sure everybody can understand if you have ever got stuck on a difficult mission in an game.

Giskard

[kryptyk]

The hostility stems from the fact that mod makers do stuff, fail and spend months trying to figure something out that the game simply doesnt support. One word from a dev saying thats not possible would have cleared up that issue instantly and relieved the frustration of mod makers.

Its not really frustration at the game, its more frustration at not being able to do things that look and sound posible being transfered to forum posts.

Giskard

Exactly...I'd be happy with just a yes, no or we're working on that kind of answer to some of the questions...that would help planning future mods and relieve a lot of frustration.

[bryant]

I agree with the author of this topic, the author clearly understands the motivation of people who play the game.

In addition to what he said I would like to add this.

The target audience mostly, just want to play the game. So the target of the company is to make a playable game. This takes time and resources.

A target audience in this case are those who will buy the game.

In order for (Modders) to get proffesional support/training and tools they need to become a target audience.
That means they need to finance the time and resources necessary to do this and on top of that spin a little bit of profit for egosoft in, so that the motivation is there.
I am sure that egosoft would like to have long standing ties to its players in the form of a comunity, maybe magazine, with tools and support for a fee.
The question is is this really what the players want, I have found that alot of us have grown up, myself included with some rather unrealistic and somewhat spoilt views over the possible.

In the 80's & 90's we thought that technology could solve all problems. We learnt bitterly that this is not so, even Nasa have adopted a new saying, "Nobodys perfect, just dont hide your mistakes, document them."
My point is just because it would be nice it doesn't allways make sense when balanced with the costs incurred, and no program will ever be perfect.

[giskard]

There is another issue.

If a game is released with modding support but nobody outside of the community publicises the fact that mods are available then everybody assumes that game that got reviewed upon release is the same game people are playing years later. They never see or hear of the wonderful changes to the game that appear in the patches or via mods.

So keeping a game in the public eye is something thats vitially important.

Giskard

[FellFromLog]

I'd just like to enter this thread and say a little about separate forums for mods/technical questions. If anyone wants to see how this is done quite succesfully then I advise you to look here http://www.elderscrolls.com/ubbthreads/ ... s.php?Cat=
(I think that should work) and scroll down the page a bit.

I know it's morrowind but the point is that there are two fora for discussing modding, one general mod forum for asking for ideas, mod release threads, general mod user questions etc. and a forum that is devoted purely to technical discussions among mod makers. There is no elitism, anyone can post in the technical forum, but only mod makers both old and new have any interest in doing so. I would imagine something similar for X2 is what is being requested by the modders here.

[AalaarDB]

There is another issue.

If a game is released with modding support but nobody outside of the community publicises the fact that mods are available then everybody assumes that game that got reviewed upon release is the same game people are playing years later. They never see or hear of the wonderful changes to the game that appear in the patches or via mods.

So keeping a game in the public eye is something thats vitially important.

Giskard

good point
Remember how Cavedog not only provided patches on their mainsite but let you play online, provided new bots for download and strats by players. Excellent business move, it made that great game last alot longer. My advice to Egosoft and any company, even when a game is past its prime make mods and scripts and patches readily available. You will find sales on the game and future sequels do alot better at a very small cost in terms of money/bandwidth

[giskard]

Yes Cavedog did pretty well out of that, still an excellent expansion was helpful too. I would draw comparisions between EGosofts drop in scripts and Cavedogs Drop in Units. Though admittedly the drop in scripts are a little harder to get working for a noob.

Giskard