Neromaris Mod Manager: Online Mod Management
Hey everyone;
I've been secretly working on a project to automate most of the RTW coding aspects in a web-based environment, written in PHP.
Neromaris Mod Manager: Online Mod Management
The basic idea of the NMM is to move most of the RTW coding to a web-based environment, with these reasons:
It is quicker:
When NMM is complete, you will be completely coding AND balancing a unit in, let's say, 30 seconds, whereas it takes a lot of time and discussing to choose proper values for every stat when you do it by hand.
It is easier:
Since everything is done in web forms, you won't have to look at any tutorials to make properly working code. Thus allowing any team members to code anything implemented in NMM.
Using Historians might be the biggest breakthrough, since IE most of the time they know what equipment and rank a unit has, and the coder does not.
With NMM you also don't have to use three separate files for adding Character Traits to your mod, but it's centralized in a single step-by-step guide.
It is bugproof:
Because PHP, just as the probably used C++ in RTW, can evaluate statistics, it can also make sure that invalid stats won't appear in our mods. You will get a warning message if you want to put your 256'th model into the database, or your 512'th unit, or whatever limits there are. And if you want to delete a model from the database, which is still in use by x units, you'll get a message that you first have to delete unit x from the db.
We can make it do anything RTW can do:
Again, since PHP is a programming language, we can make NMM give you all the options available in RTW, even when most of you don't know them yet. For example: Which modding team has ever used multiple upgrades of buildings? I think you can count them on one hand (FATW and EB IIRC), while a big opportunity is being missed there. And Religions in RTW 1.5 are possible, even though they're not implemented. With NMM giving you the right options, it's very easy to get it done.
What I have planned so far:
Easy to use installer for modding categories, like:
-Units & Buildings
-Character Traits, Ancillaries and Character Names:
-Character Names
-Strategy Map
File Uploader, for:
-Importing data from your current mod's txt files
-Mod files like small patches for internal alphas/betas/RCs
- - - - - - - -
There are probably some cons also, especially on the security field, but the TWC is a varied audience and I bet there are people more skilled in PHP/MySQL than me, who can teach me how to better secure the code, or help me with development.
Enough for the introduction part now. Here's the mod manager for how far it's done now:
http://www.riseofpersia.com/nerocms/index.php
If you wish to contribute to this project in any way, let it be designing, scripting, commenting, or proposing new features, please register at the forums I've set up for it at z14.invisionfree.com/totalwardb, or reply in this thread.
-Nero
Reply With Quote
, as a modder I have to say: This will ease work ALOT. It will make coding easier, faster, and less bugs will accur. This is amazing, Nero! Amazing. 
Hope to see something like that for M2TW too - damn this wil speed up progress!
use report button to help us keep twc clean 
