Second Modding Summit - 03/03/2014

[Magnar]

Soooo, anyone was there today?

haha, i sure hope not, unless they were going to CA for another reason

[m_1512]

Gameplay -> Campaign Mechanics

I have some questions regarding some of the campaign mechanics. Please feel free to add, amend, or duplicate the below as approrpriate.

Cultures and Religion
- Is it possible to change them, and/or add new ones, including emergent ones?
- Can any new triggers/mechanism be added to influence the above?

Politics
- Is family trees possible via modding?
- Is it possible to mod the political system and possible add new variations?

General
- Can be triggers and decisions be modded in the game?
- Could you put forth a list of the scope of campaign modding?
- Would there be a tool for modding campaign script and other mechnisms in the kit?

[Durruti1936]

Re: CS2 Exporter and raw models for TW: Shogun 2
1) Must echo what wangrin states about the CS2 Exporter only working for 3DS Max 2009/10 and the example .max models in the Assembly Kit
only working for 3DS Max 2012/13. Surely this should have been rationalised by now with a CS2 exporter provided for the later versions of 3DS max.

2) I remember mention of problems with the raw files in the Assembly Kit following the release of the Otomo patch - is this still the case?

[wangrin]

OP updated

[manolops3]

maybe add a question about the possibility of make new animations ?


EDIT :

sorry, now i have seen that it is already collected.

[ToonTotalWar]

I understood this summit was in relation to Rome 2? I am not wasting my time to turn up to a summit that is going to also discuss shogun 2 as I have no interest in this game whatsoever as a summit has already been and gone in reference to this game.

I will make contact with CA to confirm their intentions.

[wangrin]

The Modding Summit is about TW:R2 and feedback about Assembly Kit (the one for TW:S2).

Hi everyone,

We mentioned a couple of times in the run-up to ROME II’s release that we were looking at hosting another Modding Summit here at the Creative Assembly in order to best understand the needs of the modding community and to share insight on the game’s development from the team.

The event we held last year was fantastic, and it was great to meet with some of the key members of the modding community face-to-face. We put a lot of stock in such direct relations with the community and we’d like to do it again. It’s a great opportunity for you to meet the team.

We’re looking for attendees this year. If you have a keen interest in modding and you’d like to take part, and are available on Friday, December 6th, we’d like to hear from you.

Please drop us a line on RallyPoint@Creative-Assembly.com with the subject MODDING SUMMIT.

----

Here’s a work in progress agenda for the day so you can see what we’re planning:


10am Welcome to CA by CraigTW, Community Manager and introduction to the new members of the CA community team.

10.15am Rob Bartholomew, Brand Director, discusses modding from a corporate standpoint and our vision for the future.

10.45am Guy Davidson, Coding Manager at Creative Assembly, discusses why our codebase works the way it does. Opportunity for Q&A.

11.45am Jack Lusted discusses how to best mod units and how the AI copes with modded troops.

12.30pm LUNCH

1.00pm Round table: What’s your experience with our mod tools to date?

2.00pm Round table: What could we do better in terms of modding?

3.00pm PUB

This is the reason why I've create two separate post, one about TW:R2 modding and an other about TW:S2 Assembly Kit.
Interestingly, I've collected more questions/feedback about TW:S2 Assembly Kit rather than about TW:R2 modding here.
Maybe peoples are not that interested to prepare questions about TW:R2 modding ? I don't know.

[crzyrndm]

This is the reason why I've create two separate post, one about TW:R2 modding and an other about TW:S2 Assembly Kit.
Interestingly, I've collected more questions/feedback about TW:S2 Assembly Kit rather than about TW:R2 modding here.
Maybe peoples are not that interested to prepare questions about TW:R2 modding ? I don't know.

The assembly kit is out and in-use, it's understandable that people have questions about problems they may have encountered which allows them to be more specific (such as the version mismatch with the models). With Rome 2 we can only speculate/hope at this stage and as such can only really generalise (eg. possible avenues of expanding modding functionality, whether through a toolset such as the assembly kit or additional documentation).

It would be good if after the official tools are released we had an official feedback path so we can report issues and suggest improvements for further iterations.

[ToonTotalWar]

The Modding Summit is about TW:R2 and feedback about Assembly Kit (the one for TW:S2).



This is the reason why I've create two separate post, one about TW:R2 modding and an other about TW:S2 Assembly Kit.
Interestingly, I've collected more questions/feedback about TW:S2 Assembly Kit rather than about TW:R2 modding here.
Maybe peoples are not that interested to prepare questions about TW:R2 modding ? I don't know.

Ok I see that now, my mistake at 1.00pm there is a discussion on current tools which indicate that S2 will be discussed. In that case as the dragons would say on "dragons den" - "am out"

[rhinoinsomniac]

For Rome 2: I would like more programming comments placed in their code as to what things actually do and what they interact with. Navigating through the files is time consuming and frustrating. Since the code is already out and being used, I would settle for a document that actually explains what each DB file, script, and various other files do. It makes me wonder how they even know what their own files do. They must have a commented version or some kind of reference document as to what each thing does.

for the campaign category - I'd like to know if modifying missions - the chapter missions for Rome 2 - is possible. The script is located in data_rome2.pack Every time i have tried to change it - it just doesn't work.

I second the need for a debug tool that has a log of exactly why a CTD occurred. And the ability to load/unload mods ingame thro console commands.

[crzyrndm]

For Rome 2: I would like more programming comments placed in their code as to what things actually do and what they interact with. Navigating through the files is time consuming and frustrating. Since the code is already out and being used, I would settle for a document that actually explains what each DB file, script, and various other files do. It makes me wonder how they even know what their own files do. They must have a commented version or some kind of reference document as to what each thing does.

Code? Bar the lua script files, which are fairly good for readability, we don't have access to anything that even resembles code. The database: Judging by the day1 db release and DaVE, they use xml files for their raw data. However, we have to make do with the packed/compiled version for now, which is pure data (for reasons of size/access speed). Hence any extraneous information and such are not included. The day 1 db might have some comments, but I haven't looked too hard.

RE: missions
They're quite easy to modify. Missions_tables, Missions.txt, missions_txt.loc, and probably missions.loc control those. The scripting for them (missions.txt) is quite nicely laid out too.

If you need help, don't hesitate to ask. We don't bite, and collectively the people around here know just about everything database/scripting related

[Magnar]

day 1 db files refers all linked tables and has some commenting for some tables

[crzyrndm]

day 1 db files refers all linked tables

Why did someone not mention this before. Would have paid more attention then...

[rhinoinsomniac]

Sorry bout my newb post.

day 1 db files refers all linked tables and has some commenting for some tables

That's good to know.

[Magnar]

Why did someone not mention this before. Would have paid more attention then...

sorry thought it was common knowledge, ive been refering to them since they came out better late than never

[JaM]

i have one question - It would be great if they put some light into BAI, in all Warscape games this is one big area that is not moddable. Is there anything CA could tell about it, is there any possibility to externalize it into packs?

[wangrin]

OP updated :

#2 : {Battle Mechanics} moddability

Several aspects of battle are not moddable or not really understood : Possibility to mod formations and formation A to formation B transition even if it means to create animations ; Explaining how BAI work, how it handle parameters and what parameters ; Possibility to mod BAI, maybe through an SDK (Software Development Kit) #36

I agree with you that a lot has to be done with Battle environment (BAI, formations, etc.).

[ray243]

Can anyone ask CA whether is it possible to implement the family tree for Rome 2? Given that they are using the same engine as Shogun 2, some of the data could be found in Rome 2.

[General George S. Patton]

Could we ask CA to give us a list of the db files changed with every patch? Would save modders a lot of time.

[crzyrndm]

Attaching custom maps to the campaign map.

It seems this was a problem even with Shogun 2, you had to replace the models to get custom maps into the campaign, additional maps weren't possible.