Official CA comment - Total War: The modding situation

[leeho730]

Now all minor clans are playable...

In a very limited way.

Anyway I really hope CA will release S2 raw DB when they release RotS campaign and the new patch.
What's the point of holding them anyway?

[Kenny Works]

What horror! A company trying to make profit! Why can't all their staff work for free 36 hours / day so we could get everything we think we need and more at no cost?
A company which makes no money disappear, and then I doubt the player can enjoy their game anymore.

What's really funny about this quote is that I just discovered Roma Surrectum II, which is a beautiful and amazing overhaul mod for the old RTW engine. To orient myself with the mod, I read through the mod dev forum. Before it was released, there were any number of people complaining about how long it was taking to finish. And that team was working for free! One particular post sticks in my mind: the guy had the audacity to say something like: "If you were a game dev company, you'd be out of business!"

No kidding. Modders can do what development companies cannot - spend years making an incredible project. It's kind of like those lead miniatures they used to sell for table top wargaming. You bought them unpainted because if the company had to take the time to paint them, we wouldn't never have been able to afford them.

To Craig and Jack:

I really appreciate the information you've given us. I suppose I was frustrated when I bought Empire because of the number of obvious problems it had (when you move a land unit and the unit voices a track that's clearly mean for ships . . . yeah, that's a problem). When I heard that you weren't going to make a patch, that was frustrating, too, particularly considering the cost of video games today.

But okay, you've given us something and a sincere acknowledgement that you're going to try to fix the problem as best you can. Thanks for both of those deliveries.

I can't remember the last game I bought that came out perfect. It certainly wasn't Oblivion - Construction Set or not, it still needed the Unofficial Oblivion Patch to fix some fairly obvious errors.

Point is, don't let the critics get you down. People who are now singing praises to Bethesda were probably complaining about the problems with Oblivion when it first came out - and I do recall lagging and memory problems were some of the biggest complaints.

But, just a suggestion for future games, maybe CA could see it's way clear to create - as part of your normal workflow - a tool like the Bethesda Construction Set that would included a landscape editor, a unit editor, and so on. It would certainly prolong the life of your games (I still play Morrowind!).

But I think you know that. Anyway, thanks for doing this. For now, I'll keep buying your games.

KGG

[last_name_left]

Oblivion - Construction Set or not

Construction set

[Rorarii]

This thread just goes on and on ..

Here's my 2 cents, we all know CA / SEGA won't be given us tools especially the tools i'd need (mug) - ie point-n-click - WYSIWYG - like CIV5 ... so no point is whinning, just keep your eyes open for another developer who might build a pre-gunpowder wargaming simulator .. one hasn't been developed yet, CA came closest, the russians might surprise. Others?

As to the next TW, I'm expecting Rome 2 but I'm not getting excited because I feel CA Sega have lost the dedication to build a proper wargaming engine. Dedicated developers give the extra time, for free, to create new addictive features. you get dedicated developers if they are also history-buffs / wargamers themselves, do we have these now ?? we seemed to have them for M2TW which was a nice engine, scripted, moddable for those who were programmers. Considreing CA's recruitment drive, must be getting tough to find talented, dedicated developers who don't cost the earth? That's probaby why the next wargaming Sim engine will probably come from somewhere else.

R

[last_name_left]

Quote:
Is it possible to add a new unit_type_icon? I tried adding something in Ui\Templates\Skin, but then it crashed.

Like, if I want to display the icon of an elephant, can I add "Elephant" in the "unit_type_icon" column of the unit table, and then create a small tga named unit_cat_elephant and add it to Ui\Templates\Skin or must it be referenced somewhere else in the db?

JL/CA: Unfortunately no, you would need to edit the UI layout files to add in your new unit_type_icons into the battle ones.

Unfortunate........ ? ah, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. WYSIWIG? You must be joking! dream on.

Anyway, beyond being finally told "No Mod Tools" what is the ongoing situation? What is the future of modding for future CA titles? Have we been told anything at all, other than platitudes about how it's so important? (NB - platitudes we heard before, but they've clearly produced nothing in the way of results).

Will CA be designing the future titles with a view to making modding easier - rather than continuing with a design philosophy which as they eventually admitted makes modding much more difficult?

If modding is to be fully embraced it needs be built in from the ground-up.....a very moddable engine is not designed by chance, it has to be purposefully made that way. Clearly, as CA now confess, Warscape does not fit the bill.

So where's the assurances? Where's the stated commitment to do it, beyond platitudes that it is oh so important?

Where is there the least bit of evidence that CA actually want to make an engine and provide tools for modders in the next iteration of the TW series? There isn't any, is there? Rather there's statements that development will turn to greater use of compiled binaries, locking away even more of the previously accessible gubbins, and of course DLC has a real potential conflict of interest vs modding (something CA perenially breeze over).

So what's the deal? What does the future hold? CA promised to engage in some dialogue over the future strategy, but all we have is silence (apart from "no mod tools"). So, what's the score, going forward?

Seems to me the message is "Modders, please don't abandon us, you're important to us (sales=$$$), but we refuse to do anything to really help you (DLC sales=$$$)."

I feel really quite let down by the way things have gone. I used to be a huge fan of the series, an avid player - especially because of the mods adding variety, detail and longevity. But as time has passed, the ethos has moved in a counter-zeitgeist way.....against modding, against user-content, against longevity, against variety - which is now supplied by DLC ($$$). Of course that's understandable to a point - it's a business. But.....if it's just a business......business will suffer.....which is why every business tries to convince it is more than that.

I'm still waiting to be convinced. So what's the score?

[Jace11]

It's all about the cash. CA see broad scope in depth mods for rome and m2tw like europa barbareium, stainless steel, broken crescent and are scared we'll never buy another game from them. With tools, modders could make a sengoku jidai dlc pack in a few weeks.

They can't say they are deliberately impeding mod development as that would alienate them from most of the community so they say they are trying their best *cough* and make their excuses. It's a shame we will never see anything like Rome and medieval again from them.

[Okuto]

Can't blame them..they are under Sega's umbrella after all...

Though this is very helpful, time to get out the pack file opener again and off to modding empire TW again

[kronpas]

Why would they help modders? They selling us stuff we used to unlock/mod (extra factions extra units etc) for free, they don't want us to keep hanging onto their games like RTW and M2tW and play mods based on them: they want us to consume and move on to the new stuff they release. Its a sound strategy.

It might be purely business decision from SEGA, not what CA can do on their own. CA releases games pretty fast considering their big tittles and nature of the genre (strategy). Other companies like Blizz and Firaxis keep their games around much longer with constant updates, DLCs and expansions, mods help lengthen it. Coincidentally, those are the ones with excellent modding support.

[betto]

if they really wanted to help modding why not release m2tw source with license that only allo modding and redistribution for who own the game ,they said that the old engine model(m2tw kingdoms) is crap for they work . fine ,give that crap to us.

[last_name_left]

Don't differentiate CA from SEGA. They're a wholly owned studio - they are SEGA. Just like Choccie Biccies are McVities. If only the big bad mr McVitie would let us put more Choccie on.....whatever...it matters not. If SEGA chose to close it down, it would close.

My previous post was made with the following in mind:

games.on.net: There's been some concern amongst members of the modding community that CA has deliberately made modding of Shogun 2 harder than in past Total War games - what's your reply to these concerns?

Mike: We don’t deliberately make modding harder, but it would be a fair criticism to say we don’t deliberately make it easy either.

We’ve always wanted to have a coherent strategy on modding, and we’re working on that now.

Well, WHAT IS IT???? What is this coherent strategy? A piecemeal ramshackle thread answering questions about XML? It just doesn't cut the mustard, does it?

So when are we going to get this coherent strategy?

games.on.net: Is there any word on whether CA will be releasing a unit editor or any other modding tools to the community, and if so when those can be expected?

Mike: We’ve not yet planned out how we’ll support modding for Shogun 2, and there are still unfulfilled promises for the past products. We’ll be discussing this with the community to get some idea of what their priorities are, and then figuring out how much we can do to satisfy them.

Well, where is this discussion? Has it happened already and I missed it? Was the result of this 'discussion' "NO MOD TOOLS"?

Or is the discussion and coherent strategy still to come? There's no sign of it. Just like there was no sign of the mod tools other than sweet promises.......promises which we were finally informed had been abandoned with the terse "NO MOD TOOLS".

Personally I'd like some indication of this "coherent strategy" (or not) because I'll simply abandon the entire thing if "NO MOD TOOLS" and increasing lock-out to binaries is to continue. One suspects that is the exact reason why there is no discussion, and no coherent strategy - at least not any made public.

And yes, I am grumpy about it - the way it's happened. Fool me once.......

Mike Simpson again, from elsewhere:

We are intending to come up with a more comprehensive long term strategy on encouraging and facilitating mods, and will talk more about this soon,

When? IS a thread saying "NO MOD TOOLS" a "comprehensive long term strategy"? Seriously?

[Huberto]

Personally I'd like some indication of this "coherent strategy" (or not) because I'll simply abandon the entire thing if "NO MOD TOOLS" and increasing lock-out to binaries is to continue. One suspects that is the exact reason why there is no discussion, and no coherent strategy - at least not any made public.

+rep for writing this even if I don't agree that there is no discussion and I do think they've taken small steps in the right direction. However you are quite right that CA lacks a coherent strategy and a credible scenario at this point is that they may wind up doing next to nothing in the future to support mods.

I think you are looking for the same answers that many of us are. I asked Craig about this recently in one of his interview threads:

Originally Posted by Huberto
Nice interview, thanks for doing it. One question I have, anyway:what's next in terms of support for modding?

TWCraig:
Thanks, Huberto. Hopefully my post above helps answer this question to an extent. I'm sorry it's vague, but we really are pushing for greater support.

I can't really say much more than that right now, unfortunately.

This is what Craig's post "above" said:

There's always going to be a limit in terms of how much of the game is open to modding. A lot of it is hardcoded, and that's increasingly been the trend as we look to streamline load times, etc. However, there are guys on the inside looking out for the interests of the modding community - the future is as yet unwritten.

[last_name_left]

Thanks for response, Huberto. I don't expect everyone (or even anyone) to agree, though I am pretty certain I am not alone on this. I'm being arsey because it's needs saying, and I'm fed up with....all sorts of things.

Elsewhere, when I raised this sort of thing, Craig said my concerns were off-topic (because he hasn't responded in the appropriate place - here - or anywhere else).

He said,

CraigTW: We're still formulating our strategy on modding, when we're in a position to share, we will.

29.09.2011

So, that's the terse response 11 months after CA were saying

We are intending to come up with a more comprehensive long term strategy on encouraging and facilitating mods, and will talk more about this soon, but for now I can say for sure that the Napoleon unit editor tools remain a priority. The tools are currently scheduled for release in the first half of 2011, this is of course dependent on how Shogun 2 progresses, and we will keep you updated. <-----Friday Oct 22, 2010

Did Shogun2 not progress at all?

So, for CA keeping 'the community' updated "soon" means announcing "NO MOD TOOLS" .....right at the end of the time stipulated.....the end of the first half of 2011......

And 11 months after announcing a wish for discussion over "a coherent long term strategy" we get a terse......"We're still formulating our strategy on modding, when we're in a position to share, we will."

Not much discussion there.

But anyway, it was the strategy that was supposed to be long-term......instead we've got long-term "coming up with a strategy". I didn't think that was what Mr Simpson had meant. My mistake, obviously.

The long-term strategy was needed way earlier than yesterday. Mike Simpson admitted it belatedly - and that was 12 months ago. Yet still we wait.......for the promised discussion.....let alone for the strategy......let alone for some actual results.

So where are we? 12 months further down the line.....the promised tools have finally been abandoned, there's been no discussion and there's still no strategy. Hmmm. Not very impressive is it?

The XML thread is an improvement, but it's really an indictment. It's ramshackle and piecemeal.......and that's as good as it's got. That thread alone stands as sufficient reason why a coherent strategy was needed, if anyone seriously needed more convincing. But nobody did need convincing, at least not according to Mike Simpson.....in Oct 2010.......18 months after 'the most moddable TW ever'......hmmm.

la de dah.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

all i cant think is streamline load times??? really are you me Shogun 2 with DX11 has the longest loading times ive ever seen for any game, and tis all shader issues, pop it on a raid 0 SSD setup it still loads slow as hell lol CA just fails there hardcoding excuse is just that an excuse,

if hardcoding is so much better why is that modding games like GTA IV with high res texture packs increases performance and shortens load times? Warscape engine is just crap the coding for it needs to be done from scratch but that wont happen seems there gonna use this engine for another 3-4 years since its DX11 updated. oh well mod support we are getting is better then nothing, i just hope that Neocore games can step up to the plate with there games and bring something new to the table, as i will say King Arthur the role playing war game has better RPG elements then Shogun 2, and Sengoku by paradox gives far better general / vassal interaction All we can do is wait and see but i do hope a developer at some point wakes up and knocks CA off the pedestal they have occupied for so long so they actually have a reason to win us back. right now there the only game in town and there lazy because of it.

[Primergy]

all i cant think is streamline load times??? really are you me Shogun 2 with DX11 has the longest loading times ive ever seen for any game, and tis all shader issues, pop it on a raid 0 SSD setup it still loads slow as hell lol CA just fails there hardcoding excuse is just that an excuse,

Well...propably the load times would be even longer when everything would be unpacked? Just imagine the fun to load an unpacked 8 GB texture of the campaign map instead of the 120 MB packed....

[Magz Empire]

I bought Rome Total War 3 months ago just to play the Lord of the rings mod. You guys should re think your marketing strategy.

[Steph]

Am I the only one finding that the latest weeks silence from CA in that thread starts to be a little deafening?

It doesn't support much there new strategy toward modders.

[Primergy]

I bought Rome Total War 3 months ago just to play the Lord of the rings mod. You guys should re think your marketing strategy.

Yep, they just earned few cents. Impressive.

[Morray]

Why don't we all stage a protest outside the CA offices? If we want mod-tools let's do that, it'd certainly make the local Gazette!

[alhoon]

Am I the only one finding that the latest weeks silence from CA in that thread starts to be a little deafening?

It doesn't support much there new strategy toward modders.

I think it's mostly because all the questions they could answer (and that were revelant with XSD and XML) were answered.

[Steph]

And most of them negatively...

As I said, it doesn't support much there new strategy toward modders.