Rome 2's Mod Summit took place in Horsham, England at the Creative Assembly HQ. This year a total of 8 of Total War Center's own modders were invited: Kinjo, Mitch, Radious, Mackles, Noif, Spartan Warrior, Wangrin, and Lionheart.
On the CA side of the table was Craig, Joey, Nico, Trish, Jack Lusted, Guy, and Will. As some might know, Jack Lusted was one of TWC's own modders, before CA hired him to work for them.
From the back row, right to left: Spartan.Warrior, Wangrin, Mitch, Noif, Radious, Guy CA, Kinjo, Mackles
Middle: Joey CA
Front row, right to left: Lionheart, CraigTW, Nico CA, Trish CA
A variety of topics were discussed in relation to modding, and modding support, for CA's latest title Rome 2. The current Assembly Kit is quite powerful, and capable of modifying quite a bit of the game as it is, but TWC's modders stressed an issue with its lack of proper documentation – even if the Kit can help make overhaul mods of great detail like Medieval 2's “Third Age Total War,” the evolution of the series from text files to a modern gaming engine that requires a specialized set of tools, has left many modders doubtful.
CA is aware of the lack of documentation regarding the Assembly Kit and will look into providing documentation to allow more modders to be able to mod the game without the fear of trial and error to make things work. The modders at the summit were, in fact, treated to a tutorial by the CA staff present.
Another hot topic of disappointment in Rome 2's modding scene was the new file format used for music, .wem. The new format is stated to have a better compression, allowing the music to be kept to a smaller size while still retaining quality, and having a higher 3D sound. However, the new music file requires a $100,000 license to modify – a pricetag far too high for modders to even consider. While CA is not the only company to use the .wem format, they were going to look into talking to the creators of the format to see if they could allow the free version of the software to be used to modify the sounds of Rome 2.
TEd was a battlefield map editor released for Shogun 2, which allowed for modders to create and edit the battle maps used in the game. When modders asked about a TEd2 for Rome 2, they tried to stress the importance of the software to create custom tile locations. This time around, CA is unsure if devoting time to creating a TEd2 would be worth it, as there was not as much widespread use of TEd for Shogun 2 for them to believe it was a highly sought after tool.
While a number of subjects were taken into consideration for CA, a number were also equally turned down.
New diplomatic options, or previous ones from earlier Total War titles running on the Warscape engine, will not be possible to be modded in. While there are remnants of Empire Total War's diplomatic coding in Rome 2's, even if modders could find a way to reactivate them, the AI is not programmed to recognize or use these unused bits of coding.
Some hardcoded features – such as the general being required to lead armies, torches being present as an option in siege battles, or allowing minor settlements to have walls – were also discussed, and are too intrinsic to the game's design to be modded.
All in all, the modders were quite pleased with the Summit and have assured the community that CA is still strongly supporting the modding community here at TWC and for all modders in general. Besides all the business of modding, the modders and CA had a bit of fun as well, and the relationship between the two groups is still strong.
However, reaction to the Summit in the general community is largely divided. While some share the optimism of the modder's regarding Rome 2's future, an equally large number have labeled the entire Summit little more then a PR stunt, meant to restore faith in CA's image with the community.
They cite that the summit largely consisted of “maybe” and “no” answers, with very few definitive “yes” answers in regards to many questions. The inability of CA to give a solid “yes” on many things, is seen as a sign that CA is unable to commit to any obligation, and can quietly sweep it under the rug if it turns out to not be possible.
The issue regarding .wem sound files has also been attacked, as other games using it have allowed the files to be modded using the free version of the software, and do not believe any copyright issue exists between CA and AudioKinetic.
Unpopular hardcoded features – such as the torches, naval transports, major and minor settlement limitations, the general system, or political system to name a few – also being said to be unmoddable, due to their intrinsic nature to the overall game design, have also been met with much negativity from many community members. Many view these features as fundamentally broken, or flawed, systems and were hoping modders could either improve them, or remove them entirely, in an effort to fix the issues surrounding them. Seeing as this is not a possibility, they believe that no amount of modding will matter, as these fundamentally broken features cannot be modded.
While the Mod Summit may not be widely praised this year, TWC's modders who attended have stressed patience with CA. They did not go into this Summit expecting a miracle, or to suddenly have tools fall into their laps. It will take time following the Summit for CA to work on delivering what they can to the community, and there is no rushing this.
Written by: krisslanza
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Eagle Standard, Volume XI Issue III, Overview of the Modding Summit
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The first of all fish
Give Life Back to Music
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