Modding Summit and related discussion

[Plain Speaking]

Lionheartx10 took video-interviews with each modders at the end of the Modding Summit. Radious interview is the first released.

To be honest I believe that's not the sort of content the TW community was looking to come out of the summit.

[Duncan III]

Lionheartx10 took video-interviews with each modders at the end of the Modding Summit. Radious interview is the first released.

Will we get one a month? Then maybe some substance?

[wangrin]

To be honest I believe that's not the sort of content the TW community was looking to come out of the summit.

I agree with you.
But interviews are easier and faster to release, I think.

[keldor]

I was hoping for a simple video record of the discussions, not the RallyPoint style 'product' that Lionheart seems to be trying to put together.
He may have become infected with the 'style over substance' mindset that is prevalent at CA.

Thats what I was expecting too. So thats why I asked why for such heavy editing.

[Plain Speaking]

I agree with you.
But interviews are easier and faster to release, I think.

I cant understand why the CA presentations havent been released. Surely they are like University lectures? Many colleges now make their lectures available online to students.
As I said above, CA were going to "live stream" them. Radious' interview had extensive editing. I think the community just want to know what CA actually said.

Thank you Wangrin for your notes they have been interesting.

[Dago Red]

Did I miss something? Wangrin where's your report, everyone is waiting for it!

[Huberto]

To be honest I believe that's not the sort of content the TW community was looking to come out of the summit.

Agree completely.

[alQamar]

Wangrin the information you shared on what we can expect on the recordings is a gem.
Actually this stuff now disqualified itself as another marketing show instead having insights like being there.

That frankly spoken is poor. Lion save your time. As wangrin said we looked forward to another content and format.
At least I'm fed up by more marketing and acknowledged content.

We aren't child's altogether you know.

[GRANTO]

To be honest I believe that's not the sort of content the TW community was looking to come out of the summit.

yes where is the footage and why all the secrecy?...its like trying to get footage from the CIA...honestly ...signing documents and long awaited 'edited' videos ...looks like theres something to hide in amongst all this.

[wangrin]

Peoples should note this is the first part of the report and it's about CA presenting their game, process and "challenges" (or issues).
The second part will be about Q&A, but, again, I have to :

• translate the document in English (I'm French and, curiously, I've used French language to write my report... as I will release it in MundusBellicus too)
• send it to other attendants to complete it (I do not claim to note all what was said and I have certainly forgotten informations)

But,

1. peoples should not expect sensational or true/deep technical informations
2. I'm quite busy due to RL and I do not have the time to focus on translating the report and managing a "collaborative work"

So, I'm very sorry, but peoples will have to learn patience.
Rome was not built in one day

[keldor]

In Rome II it only takes but a turn to build it

[alQamar]

Thank you so much wangrin for the release of these notes and the time you invested into it to write and translate them from your scrap to a well reading format.

I saw a lot of things there that were of course interesting for me as a TW player, that is highly interested on the technical things aswell.


CREATIVE ASSEMBLY : PRESENTATION



CA and Modding : fact & feeling

Basing on statistics, CA stated that they have no irrefutable evidence that mods contribute to an increase in sales.
This doesn’t mean that mods don’t help, it only means that they can’t prove that there is a correlation.
This perspective of modding not necessary increasing sales is true, but not just at CA. It is true within the video game industry.
Games like Day Z (Armour 2 mod) and Defence of the Ancients (Warcraft 3 mod) are the rare exceptions to the rule with mods equating to higher sales.

However, developers are in favor of modding (they are also players and they enjoy mods and the creativity of modders).
CA and developers want to help because they love modding.

the first sentence of this report is already discussed and very controversional in another thread. When I think about the amount of games that benefit from modding this quite objective resolution of CA was of course shocking but interesting enough to know.

I can remember people calling how much would be interested to learn and buy Rome 2 if they never played Rome 1 and RS2 and sorts. I think statistics may not be good enough to measure a awareness level and sorts, which actually helps indeed to increase sales.

Also from the point of view having said more than 600.000 sold units until 31 Sept. is quite questionable, they only were generated on their epic marketing campaign. Assuming this, imho, would be self-adulation at a high level.

The Assembly Kit



The Assembly kit is based on “in-house” development of tools, tools needed to help developers to create the game.
The first attempt was the TW: S2 Assembly Kit. The next one, the TW: R2 Assembly kit should be more mature.
The actual TW: R2 Assembly kit is a beta version, not the final one. [/LIST]

any words of perspective when they will release a final and how much modder will play a role in beta testing and their improvement? Is the a active bilateral connection? I assume this to be very much important for the decent modders, having this discussion in a private thread, where only some subscribed modders could post and CA staff can answer. How about that idea?

Jack Lusted’s word

Documentation

One of the modding community requests is about documentation (file formats, lua sources, etc.).
Jack reminds us that creating documents need time and that development teams are already very busy.
Jack will try to provide further documents however we cannot confirm when they will be available.
CA will do its best to provide documents but cannot guarantee it.
It all comes down to time management and priorities but after the summit we now have more open discussions with CA about the future of documentation

I can understand the business point of view here very much, these is a very honest description of how a company works and thinks in fact. Nothing to question or blame here! Chapeau!

Steam Workshop

The main thrust about the Steam Workshop is that mods should be very easy to use.
This is the reason why they have add the mod manager, but it is still not perfectly satisfactory.
So, further work is needed here.

This is really a funny thing and another controversional aswell. All modders should know how easy such a mod manager works, like JSGME (applicable to all games), nexus mod manager (skyrim) and so on.
so just in case of what their mod manager does is very likely to JSGME, including some features the mod manager of Skyrim has, so subscriptions and autoupdates due Steam workshop.
Actually it is unbelieveable they call themselve being also gamers and having a drive towards modding, yet aren't able to code a simple mod manager that is actually working clean and simple. It does actually not delete files. The whole stuff is basically based on file operations files being moved back and forth. That's how at least also JSGME works perfectly since ages. So what is the issue there, except lack of time or missing priority, these issues have not being addressed by 10 patches!?!? Dudes, please you are really paralyzed here.

DEVELOPPING A TOTAL WAR GAMES & MODDING by Guy D. (Coding Manager)

Guy D. is Coding Manager, and a TW veteran.
His knowledge of TW development is great and his presentation showed how much complex a TW is.


Data
Data types

Two main data types are used:
Binaries are used for objects such as models, textures, sounds, etc.
Tables (db or data bases) are used for data linked to gameplay.


Note that data are sometimes created using third party tools.

CA should not make the same mistake here using old third party tools. Of course updating may inflict licensing costs but some upgrades may be for free.
I just want to raise awareness on things like their insecure openSSL (made topic about that) aswell an aged version of Bink video tools, while the new should give better quality in less time.

Minimizing data

Minimizing data is one of the main constraints when developing software such as a game.
It is needed because of technical limits due to software structure (example: 32 bit architecture) as well as to get better performances.

Memory address space limits :

Managing memory address space is one of the main issues of the game now.
The game is built using 32 bits architecture that limits the amount of memory that can be addressed.
As the game uses more and bigger data, it becomes more challenging.

Here again it is very interesting how much all the tech experts on TWC are d'accord with this existing problem. The average player may never understand the issues they go through with their old warscape and how it limits their work. Actually the decision releasing Rome 2, in awareness of the much more higher ressources it needs (they announced more complex models everywhere, more faction and units etc etc.). Rome 2 failed a lot because the wrong decision on this particular technical aspect!

Total War family tree

From the beginning of the story, 3 TW generations have succeeded one to another:
TW1 : Shogun and then Medieval TW
TW2 : Rome and then Medieval 2 TW
TW3 : Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2 and finally Rome 2


TW3 generation:

TW3 generation had been create by CA as a versatile architecture. Proof is that this game engine generation succeeded to accept modifications added since Empire: TW.

It is important to note that TW game is based on a set of different game engines, each one having its on specific functions. These game engines interact among each other through sets of data.
This modular architecture allows upgrading the game by successive modifications, avoiding a whole change.

For example, the « warscape engine » is the graphic engine name and is only one of the game engines.

TW3 generation goals

The new game engine was developed to meet following requirements:

1. Decrease game startup time ;
2. Increasing moddability (indeed ^^) ;
3. Increasing game complexity ;
4. Adding more data ;

Yet another example how short sighted the TW3 generation was developed. I am quite aware that the 64bit technology back in the times when they made the decision did not covering enough potential customers and also the tools, especially 3rd party tools were limited to be available on native 64bit basis.
However if you just check through how much they planned to INCREASE, how then could anyone of them expect this would turn out well for the next 4 titles?!?!

It was ok for Napoleon and Empire, to be honest. But stepping then into DX11 did cost them a lof time and expertise. Shogun 2 somehow managed to package that all perfectly.

Rome 2 on the same base did (still does) not, because the limits and their constant expansion of the source they had (TW generation 3) ended up as a bloathed mess. The goal to decrease loading times was taken very very late in Shogun 2 developement process, and a very remarkable contoversion since they managed to care about in a late DLC. Rome 2 of course perfectly benefit from that circumstance.

Again, going this list above through point by point, makes obviously clear how much they failed, while they also succeeded to make the best out of the given to be honest.

It is always easy to talk about achievements and the success of others from a outer point of view, and not being in their shoes. I personally do not think the guys at CA are actually happy with the problems their expansionism on the engine caused at the end.

1. Modifications during development phase impact game’s code, and regularly, several part must be rewrite.

Obvious, like said above and time intensive aswell. As it does not only need time to rewrite the source but also testing.

TW future

Major axes of evolution are:

• Increasing data size and complexity
• Example : being able to process data using parallel threads, something that appears to be quite difficult to program
• Evolving from 32 bits architecture to 64 bits architecture to solve memory addressing issues (NDLA : quite likely one of the biggest challenge today).
• Supporting multi-OS : Windows,Linux (Steam OS).

These lines at least are the MOST SATISFACTORY to read for me. While I still disgrace their utter silence on their plans, here we finally have an outlook on what they plan, and I am very happy they actually plan a 64bit engine.

All what have been stated and said in my thread trying to cause a severe awareness, at least towards the community in this particular topic now prove to be well spent time. At least for myself it is quite satisfactionary.

I am not saying they listened to the fans here. Their reason to move on just obligated itself from the statements and problems fielded above, so I am not cheering myself up to say "Yep we will finally get what we asked for". I personally think this decision was completely made off our all investigations and spent time on this forum, but at least it is very great to know CA will leave the path of this utter Warscape (TW 3.0) - somewhen, somehow.


Thanks again wangrin for these notes and thank you anyone for reading my personal thoughts about it. I am looking forward for your next part very much, wangrin!

[wangrin]

As I wrote in the another thread, I think the first sentence was about to tell us that, despite not being able to prove (to their owner) that mod increase sales, they are convince of the benefit of modding.
If they weren't, they would have not released Assembly Kits, nor try to create a communication between developers and modders.
But ROI (Return on Investment) is not the only important parameter, the image of the company is an other one.
In our societies, were communication can be so important and so fast (social networks, blogs, site, etc.), keeping a good image is certainly vital, at least if consumer have a working memory.
A society can hardly expect releasing a bugged and poor designed product and still benefiting from their image to sell the next one.
Regaining trust is a hard an long way.


Assembly kit tools are still beta version and no date was defined for their release.
Some tools are more complex to create than others, such as next TeD (battlemap editor) or Campaign map tool as battlemap and campaign map design change since TW:S2.
CA is aware that we need such tools.


About third party tools, the last example was about sound. CA now use Wwise, but the collateral effect is that sound cannot be modded.
Again, they are aware of this issue and that is an important one.
The openSSL should be reported to CA. I don't know what data are encrypted not what vulnerability can be exploited and how.
If I refer the description of vulnerabilities, it could be possible to use them to :

• remotely execute code
• ddos
• violates confidentiality

But they are vulnerability impacts, not the risk (probality to exploit the vulnerability).
And then, CA should "weight" between a risk and its associated costs (the image of the company could be badly damaged depending of the real impact of exploiting such vulnerability).

[alQamar]

But ROI (Return on Investment) is not the only important parameter, the image of the company is an other one.

Yep that is well said. I think the early post was quite misleading in some regards. Thanks for restating this again.

But they are vulnerability impacts, not the risk (probality to exploit the vulnerability).
And then, CA should "weight" between a risk and its associated costs (the image of the company could be badly damaged depending of the real impact of exploiting such vulnerability).

with the help of RedFox I published a fix for the OpenSSL issue to protect the client side. However this is only an inofficial but tested hotfix. I hope CA also read this particular thread I linked above as they normally come around on a quite daily basis.

[GRANTO]

interesting discussion.

[keldor]

What I dont understand is when they build the warscape engine. Why didnt they optimized it properly for wall sieges? They had of known that they needed that later on. Someone in another thread brought a good point. That theres no console commands. A lot of overhaul mods do need that to function properly. They obviously didnt care for modding much back for empire. If they did we wouldnt have a lot of these problems that we have now. Looking back, it seems that CA only cares about things when fans push them to the edge. I think that is bad for their image.

Going back to seige battles. That is the heart of total war whether you like it or not. Even now you have nothing but siege battles. Except its just city battles with no walls most of the time and incompetent ai. For crying out loud over 10 years of experience and still the same problems except they are worse now. *sigh* Before the game was released they even said you will have less siege battles. Why are they stuck on old type sales marketing? They seriously need to give that old marketing attitude up. We're in the internet age people remember these things. At least some do

One thing, they support modding because they have to not because they like us. Yes the normal joe/ suzi that works on the game, like mods/modders. But the ones at the top they dont give a damn. If modding didnt have such an impact on their franchise. They would of gave up on it. And they tried to do that with empire and take over with their own mods (dlc's). And people whined and complained just as we are doing it now. Except now its for far more things than before. If they 'supported' modding from empire, there wouldnt of been a need for these modding summits.

Yes they know modding brings in revenue but "hard" to prove. But the way the fans are right now. They shouldnt of brought up that point to start the modding summit with. Through my eyes that is not the way to get closer to your consumers.
What can we do about the fact that, its difficult for them to prove that? Nothing, only thing we can is feel empathy and throw them a bone. And if we do that, they just go right back to their old ways of doing things. We forgave them and gave them a break when Shogun 2 came out. It was a decent game. We got their trust. And bam look what happens afterwards. And they try to calm us down with its hard to prove modding so on and so on. Not gonna go into more details in this thread about this any further.

But people dont give a damn for CA's excuses now (not speaking for all the people). I certainly had enough of their excuses. They pat you on the shoulder with one hand and squeeze your balls with the other, and ask for more money. I wouldnt of cared so much about these things if I didnt like total war so much.

[Duncan III]

But people dont give a damn for CA's excuses now (not speaking for all the people). I certainly had enough of their excuses. They pat you on the shoulder with one hand and squeeze your balls with the other, and ask for more money. I wouldnt of cared so much about these things if I didnt like total war so much.

Good post keldor, I feel much the same.
I'd also just like to say thanks to wangrin for the info you have provided- I've learned more about the mod summit from you than anyone else.

[brandbll]

So the first four successful games they switched the "generations" once every other game. Then we hit empire, and they decided to double(probably more) the number of games they used this "generation" on?? Did anyone at the modding summit bother to ask them why they changed their approach? Not that it really needs to be asked, there's an obvious answer to that question. I would have liked to see what they said though.

[alQamar]

So the first four successful games they switched the "generations" once every other game. Then we hit empire, and they decided to double(probably more) the number of games they used this "generation" on?? Did anyone at the modding summit bother to ask them why they changed their approach? Not that it really needs to be asked, there's an obvious answer to that question. I would have liked to see what they said though.

Hear hear. I still look forward to the Q&A report and wonder if they had time and balls to be invited but still asking serious things aside modding.

If it was my hobby I would be definitely interested into the future of total war. Currently I smell nothing of that.

[wangrin]

The biggest difference between TW3 and previous game engines, is that TW3 is a modular system, allowing to modify one engine when needed instead of all the system.
This is the reason why TW3 last so long.
And the challenge now is to evolve to 64bits system.

About the Q&A report, I'm very sorry but I have to slow down translation work due to RL. I am and will be particularly busy up until early April.
Hopefully, Kinjo help me with translation, but I still cannot give you a release date.