Modding Summit and related discussion

[spartan_warrior]

Howdy folks, just got back home, rather jet-legged after the long flight. I'll be happy to answer a few questions, though it seems a few of the attendees have already gotten to many of the main queries. I'll look through the last few pages to see what I may be able to comment on further.

[brandbll]

My whole thing with this is, wouldn't this have served all parties involved better if CA had done something like this during or before the developement of the game?

[krisslanza]

My whole thing with this is, wouldn't this have served all parties involved better if CA had done something like this during or before the developement of the game?

Wouldn't it be hard for modders to know what they want out of the game, without seeing the game finished in the first place?
There's also the fact if they had, hypothetically, done this we would never hear about it, and the selection would have to all agree to an NDA, most likely. While they can't do as much after development, it does mean the modders go in knowing exactly what to ask - and we can, in turn, submit questions to them, to ask on our behalf.

[jockmcplop]

My whole thing with this is, wouldn't this have served all parties involved better if CA had done something like this during or before the developement of the game?

Isn't that what they have just done?
Last i checked the game was still unfinished.

[brandbll]

Wouldn't it be hard for modders to know what they want out of the game, without seeing the game finished in the first place?
There's also the fact if they had, hypothetically, done this we would never hear about it, and the selection would have to all agree to an NDA, most likely. While they can't do as much after development, it does mean the modders go in knowing exactly what to ask - and we can, in turn, submit questions to them, to ask on our behalf.

Ummm no. Pretty sure these modders are some bright guys and could tell them what was important to them and what they'd like to see based on their previous experiences with modding the games. And, we could have all still sent them our questions and concerns. Wouldn't have gotten any info after due to NDA, but would have gotten a good peace of mind knowing that CA was taking these things into consideration at a point where important features and options could have still been implemented or intergrated into the game.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Ummm no. Pretty sure these modders are some bright guys and could tell them what was important to them and what they'd like to see based on their previous experiences with modding the games. And, we could have all still sent them our questions and concerns. Wouldn't have gotten any info after due to NDA, but would have gotten a good peace of mind knowing that CA was taking these things into consideration at a point where important features and options could have still been implemented or intergrated into the game.

it would not really fix any issue the game had at launch

[Lionheart11]

All this bickering about sound files, i think the game needs a lot more than sound mods

[JaM]

I'm with you on this one..

[ToonTotalWar]

Can I have clarification why no member from DEI mod was not present at the mod summit?? by far one of the largest and most popular mods for Rome 2 and there was no Dresden, Selea, Meneros or Epaminondas etc..???

[iWarsaw]

Wouldn't it be hard for modders to know what they want out of the game, without seeing the game finished in the first place?
There's also the fact if they had, hypothetically, done this we would never hear about it, and the selection would have to all agree to an NDA, most likely. While they can't do as much after development, it does mean the modders go in knowing exactly what to ask - and we can, in turn, submit questions to them, to ask on our behalf.

Whats stopping them from talking about what will be in the final release of the game?

I just read in another post that to mod the sound files it costs money but there is a free version of the program that lets people mod sound files. If they had simply talking to modders about what they wanted to mod they would of said sound. or if they had used common sense they would know people like to mod sounds so only now is apparently CA) is trying to set something up like that. anyway my point is CA could of talked to modders before the game was out and could of done a lot more so when the game came out they had access to modding the sound files not waiting until the game is release and waiting until everyone is pissed for something that obviously should be able to mod. And why not just pay for the ? Maybe if they didn't do stupid things like having Mark Strong in their game they could of afforded it.

Can we not make it personal?-Garb

I had actually edited it out so you edited my edit.

All this bickering about sound files, i think the game needs a lot more than sound mods

It's a good example of how CA is completely off their rocker. Why only now is this becoming a thing? Clearly people would want to mod sounds so why the didn't this get done before release? WTF CA!?

Or having club animations for axes and then even in the Blood and Gore DLC they dont change the club animation so you have clubs cutting off arms.

Or you have the ability to change your armies symbol indicating maybe you'd change their banners/shield symbol but it literally only changes the symbol on the loading screen into the game so it's quite a waste of codding and I really have no idea what the point of the thing is.

I don't understand the thinking process of CA. It's ed. Bugs aside.

There's a hint in the loading screen telling you how to move your general. I've only seen it once in hundreds of hours of playing. How many devs saw this hint on how to move your general. Did none of them think, "Man if someone doesn't know how to move their general, and has to wait 500 turns to see this hint they must be pretty ing stupid. How about we don't put this hint in and we treat our players a little more intelligently." but they dont. Rome 2 is a dumb game. It's fun but it's dumb.

[weirdoascensor]

Yes, tactical map of the 2004 Rome I is way bigger than the 2013 Rome II. As they said in the past, they didn't put a full walled city on Rhodes because there was not enough space...
This is a battle fought outside the city of Rhodes on Rome I vanilla: as you can see there's a lot of space

No.
Siege Maps have nothing to do with the tiles: In S2TW, if you sally out of a castle, you can see castles in the distance, but they are not the representative of the Real Siege Maps. They always loaded from small pool of predetermined Siege Map templates, hence the incredibly monotonous variety of Warscape Sieges. Take Shogun 2 for example, it only have:
1 flat coastal
1 mountainous coastal
3 Mountainous/Hilly
2 Flatland
1 Kyoto
6 tiers each, from earthen+Palisade Hill Fort to Stone+Cannon Star Forts
Very Limited Selection for many tens of Provinces nearing a hundred castles...
Island Size doesn't matter. Whenever I landed in Sado in Shogun 2, I always battle in the same coast...but since the island is small, The Tile assigned to the battle seems not of the Sado Island itself, but from somewhere in Northern Niigata Coast...This different than for example, when battling in the narrow Shimonoseki Strait between Kyushu and Honshu in FoTS, I can see factory chimneys faraway in Fukuoka City...but surely when I sieged the city, Its just any old Japanese Castle all over again...

I don't have R2, but I'm sure, when you fight in Rhodes, Most likely you'll fight SOMEWHERE in the mainland rather in the island itself, since the island were too small; then Compare by fighting somewhere you can spot any landmarks.

Old engine's way of generating Battle Map is much better gameplay wise, even if occasionally made weird things such as paved Roads built in Cliffsides, for example; and The Buildings built in the settlement also appears inside the Siege Map Template.

[Muizer]

Howdy folks, just got back home, rather jet-legged after the long flight. I'll be happy to answer a few questions, though it seems a few of the attendees have already gotten to many of the main queries. I'll look through the last few pages to see what I may be able to comment on further.

Can you tell us anything more about CA's attitude towards enabling map editing? So what I've heard is it's complicated and something for the future, but that's rather vague.

[spartan_warrior]

Can you tell us anything more about CA's attitude towards enabling map editing? So what I've heard is it's complicated and something for the future, but that's rather vague.

When asked about modding maps for the campaign and battlefield there was no definite 'Yes there will be tools released in __ amount of time.' The structure of the campaign map has changed quite a lot from Shogun 2, so it is not as simple as just reiterating the tools for a new game; the same goes for the battle maps, which are still currently in a bit of flux in regards to the tools in which they are made, so these have to be finalized before we can even see another version of TED. And a key underlying factor in ever seeing these tools is if there is even any (enough) interest in them to warrant their creation for Rome 2. I know for myself, new campaign maps and being able to integrate new battle maps into them is my primary interest in modding and I will keep urging for the release of such tools for Rome 2, I am optimistic that they will come, just not expecting them immediately.

[baptistus]

so what are really sure, what are "definitively yes" ?
because I read a lot of "may be" , "it is possible", "we will see" ect....
they already said in a QandA that they plan to add diplomatic options (give a region ect...). 5 dlc and 4 month later there is still no new diplomatic options.
I am a lot more sceptic with CA since the last months. Now I trust what I see, and not what it could be possible .

[Muizer]

And a key underlying factor in ever seeing these tools is if there is even any (enough) interest in them to warrant their creation for Rome 2. I know for myself, new campaign maps and being able to integrate new battle maps into them is my primary interest in modding and I will keep urging for the release of such tools for Rome 2, I am optimistic that they will come, just not expecting them immediately.

To be honest, for me it would depend very much on the processes involved in map making. For the original RTW, a main motivation for me was to create maps from geographical datasets. So, it was more or less an exercise in translating those data into something RTW would accept. Of course, some manual editing/drawing remained necessary, but on the whole not a lot. If it now turns out that the only way to create maps is to hand-draw everything, especially battlemaps, then I might not be interested.

[JaM]

edit: removed.

[alQamar]

I really do not have the time to browse and check 15+ pages of dicsussion. So what is the quintessence from the modding summit, what happened positively which topics have been solved? A dashed list or link please

[revan.be]

@alQamar

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Originally Posted by Retógenes
Hope it's not too late to ask

1. Any chance for modders to increase building slots?
2. Any chance for modders to make dynamic province capitals? (The province capital can change for some events/reasons)
3. Any chance for introduce the possibility for player to change his faction capital?

4. Any chance for modders to make governors appointment for provinces?

Answer for all your questions: No

About Campaig map editing:
There will come some kind tool for it in future, but not yet. Maybe, said Jack Lusted. Not confirmed yet, but still have hope on it.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- me: this, together with first something about music modding not possible due to copyright issues with the expensive program they used to encode,
which later turned out to maybe be possible, with some ca person (Guy maybe?) saying they'll talk to Wwise people about that.

positive stuff a definite maybe on uncompiled lua access
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Originally Posted by Petroniu
That is a great idea! Even if we could not add new provinces/regions at least we should be able to switch the provincial capitals! And maybe someone will ask how to switch regions between provinces. And well, if you are at it, just ask everything you can about modding the campaign map!



It is possible to do like that but max. region limit in province is 4 (so you can't make +5 regions in province). You can change regions between provinces if you want.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-me: One good turn deserves another

[perifanosEllinas]

@alQamar

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Originally Posted by Retógenes
Hope it's not too late to ask

1. Any chance for modders to increase building slots?
2. Any chance for modders to make dynamic province capitals? (The province capital can change for some events/reasons)
3. Any chance for introduce the possibility for player to change his faction capital?

4. Any chance for modders to make governors appointment for provinces?

Answer for all your questions: No

About Campaig map editing:
There will come some kind tool for it in future, but not yet. Maybe, said Jack Lusted. Not confirmed yet, but still have hope on it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- me: this, together with first something about music modding not possible due to copyright issues with the expensive program they used to encode,
which later turned out to maybe be possible, with some ca person (Guy maybe?) saying they'll talk to Wwise people about that.

positive stuff a definite maybe on uncompiled lua access
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Originally Posted by Petroniu
That is a great idea! Even if we could not add new provinces/regions at least we should be able to switch the provincial capitals! And maybe someone will ask how to switch regions between provinces. And well, if you are at it, just ask everything you can about modding the campaign map!



It is possible to do like that but max. region limit in province is 4 (so you can't make +5 regions in province). You can change regions between provinces if you want.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-me: One good turn deserves another

Most moddable TW game to date indeed...

[alQamar]

don't judge it before release they said... so perhaps we can apply it here again.