Bleeding Edge Mod - A New Approach to the Mod Community

[Vaxholm]

I've been playing TW since Shogun came out and have been following the series and mods with interest for some time. Obviously, this is my first post at TWC.

In that time, I've observed a few things about the modding community that I would like to point out here:

• Modders typically come in two forms - those who work closely as a cohesive dedicated team (RTR and SS team to name two) and those who work best on their own or with a little assistance from others (Lusted and Darth as an example).
• There are a ton of fans who follow mods closely, largely eager to participate, but with no practical skills with which to assist.
• Many mods are small, but important improvements to a single aspect of the game developed in isolation (RealCombat) or they're total or significant conversions (RTR again).

Considering these things, I've identified what I feel are gaps that lead to opportunities to make the community in general work better together. Some modders work alone because they don't have a team (or perhaps they just prefer this), fans want an outlet for their enthusiasm, and there's no alignment between the one off improvements and total conversions. Clearly, there is room to fill these gaps and together make something impressive.

That being said, I would like to propose here the development of a mod unifies these forces. How you might ask? Well, the purpose of this mod, which I've dubbed the Bleeding Edge Mod, would be three fold:

• Unite existing mods, which are not conversion specific, under one roof. For example, put Lusted's campaign AI, Darth's battle AI, BBB, and other exemplary mods in one package (assuming the author's approve of course). This package can then serve as an easily accessible source for the latest updates as well as a template for new total conversions to start with, thus saving them time and energy.
• Use the mod community to test and vote on which of these mods should be included. This allows the mods to formally "compete" to determine whose is best, which would, hopefully, push them to create exponentially better solutions as well as giving them a readily available set of testers.
• Build a community of reliable testers where there currently are none, so that the total conversion modders can begin including them along with their project teams along with the more formal positions of modeler, mapper, coder, etc. This would then increase fan support and improve quality through quick bug catches. I know some already do this.

In my estimation, this mod would only require a few TW experts to begin the compilation process followed mostly by interaction, testing, and feedback from the fan base. I decided to call it Bleeding Edge, because I felt like this was something that could be released regular (every 1-2 weeks perhaps) to keep the last and greatest mods on everyone's hard drives.

What do you say? Do we have any Bleeding Edge supporters?

[GrnEyedDvl]

The Consillium Belli is already way ahead of you lol we are putting together a forum for "modular" modding. There are already a few units in it. The idea is for modders to package their stuff up so its easy to include in other mods or in the vanilla game. Some details are still being worked out:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=355

[Vaxholm]

Thanks, and this looks like a good idea as well, but it also looks specific to the units/modelers to me. I guess I'm proposing the same thing, but more on the gameplay mechanics side (CAI, BAI, Traits, etc.).

I think there's room for both, honestly. Plus, one of the main points of my concept is to get the fans involved, which is difficult with models only.

[GrnEyedDvl]

Thanks, and this looks like a good idea as well, but it also looks specific to the units/modelers to me. I guess I'm proposing the same thing, but more on the gameplay mechanics side (CAI, BAI, Traits, etc.).

I think there's room for both, honestly. Plus, one of the main points of my concept is to get the fans involved, which is difficult with models only.

We started with units because they are the easiest to drop in a game and run. As alpaca and Lusted both said, people have different ideas about whats "best", most especially when it comes to scripting. Look at how many money and garrison scripts there are out there.

Another problem with dropping scripts in a game is that traits and settlements and all kinds of stuff gets changed, its not just one file. Any modular scripting that ends up in the Repository may end up having to be reworked anyways, unless we specifically limit it to vanilla files.

[Vaxholm]

Thanks for the posts, and it sounds like a good idea that just wouldn't work due to the setup of MTW2 and the inconsistencies of the fans.

[Lusted]

Unite existing mods, which are not conversion specific, under one roof. For example, put Lusted's campaign AI, Darth's battle AI, BBB, and other exemplary mods in one package (assuming the author's approve of course). This package can then serve as an easily accessible source for the latest updates as well as a template for new total conversions to start with, thus saving them time and energy.

Could work as a Modder Resource mod, containing the various campaign/battle AIs in different folders.

Use the mod community to test and vote on which of these mods should be included. This allows the mods to formally "compete" to determine whose is best, which would, hopefully, push them to create exponentially better solutions as well as giving them a readily available set of testers.

Difficult as everyone has different ideas as to what is 'best'. for instance myself and GrandViz have different approaches to our campaign Ais and they appeal to different people. It's very subjective what are the 'best' of anything.

Build a community of reliable testers where there currently are none, so that the total conversion modders can begin including them along with their project teams along with the more formal positions of modeler, mapper, coder, etc. This would then increase fan support and improve quality through quick bug catches. I know some already do this

I used to do beta tests with my TE mod for RTW, but i haven't done them for LTC yet for one big reason: most people who volunteer to be beta tests will do nothing, or provide minimal feedback. The only kind of testing that really works is open beta because of the large number of people playing it. Your idea sounds great in theory, but will generally fall apart in reality because people don't have enough time, some leave etc.

[alpaca]

Another problem I see is that the game itself isn't really modular so there's no sensible way of creating modular mods outside of the graphical areas (where you can have faction packs and so on).

For example when I script stuff, almost everything lands in the campaign_script but I also need the advice files, traits, ancillaries, name file and other things often.

Having a good order in the files and a documentation can help people who are trying to extract certain features but it'll never be easy.

And of course, it's as Lusted said: Everybody has their own opinion about how things should work.
Ideally, you'd have a team consisting of people who like to work on completely different areas (for example I'm currently looking for somebody who likes working on unit lists and balance because neither Solo nor I like to do that, and there's minimal friction and difference of opinion if one person is mostly indifferent about a certain topic the other cares about).