1.06

[rezaf]

Well, great diplomatic writeup mongo, but that's not exactly my line of thinking.

The short version: I was thinking of a newsletter as a means to highlight noteable mods from an official source (as discussed earlier in this thread) without creating an actual new site ... and LZ pointed to his dev diaries, in which mods are not mentioned. As a german teacher would put it: Thema verfehlt.

The long version: I think, for various reasons that are even further beyond the scope of this thread than this point, the PzC community is too small for a community hub site like other games have them to be successful. Such a site would also not change much - people interested in mods can browse the forums, and a new site where they could go instead would change very little. Finally, we still need to have someone running the site - if such a person exists, why hasn't he launched the site yet?
So no, I don't think a fansite kit would help. The newsletter was just an idea, and would only improve the situation a little bit, but it shouldn't be too much work either, which is something to keep in mind. There's a more in depth discussion of this topic in this thread of the modding subforum.

Let me make one thing clear again, though: I'm not demanding anything here, this was merely meant as a suggestion (in response to Rudankorts remark/question) which - in my opinion - offers a way to officially promote some mods to people who would not otherwise bother with modding without too much additional workload. Again, a more in-depth discussion of additional things that might be helpful in the thread I linked above.
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rezaf

[airbornemongo101]

Well, great diplomatic writeup mongo, but that's not exactly my line of thinking.


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rezaf

Ooops

[VPaulus]

Thanks rezaf to point to that thread.
It would be great if even people who usually are afraid of using mods could contribute on that thread.

[Rudankort]

Rudankort, I think all mongo is asking for is, say a comments column in the equipment file with a version number in which the unit was added (or changed, possibly).
The point is, if you have a mod that leaves the basic unit stats unchanged, but adds some additional units, you'll have your own equipment file. Now, if a patch introduces some new units, these won't break anything in your mod, but they won't be present in your mod. You'll have to scan through the original equipment file to single them out and then adjust the entries in your own equipment file.
This is especially true if you made some minor tweak yourself, otherwise you could just use the new equipment file as a base and append your own units, which you likely added to the end of the old file anyway. You'd have almost no additional work by adding a comments column, I imagine, and it'd help some modders keeping their stuff current.
At least that's how I understood the request - did I get that right mongo?

Merging equipment files is not easy, to be sure. Even if a column with version is added, you still need to track and copy all new entries manually. And if some unit is not new, but changed since the last version, you need to track and copy that as well. And if you changed that unit in your custom file too, you would need to figure out what changed exactly, and then basically "merge" your own changes and official changes in that unit. Hmm... Did you guys try to use WinMerge or a similar tool to do the merging of equipment files? It should be able to automate merging process for you, and it would also show all changes in the file in a convenient form.

About the promotion part - since there doesn't appear to be any major fansite for PzC, I think having something like a monthly newsletter could be a start. Promote your own DLCs, hint at things to come in the future, cross-promote some other Slitherine/Matrix games and have a section about endorsed modding projects. That shouldn't eat up too much time or resources and would be at least something. Also (I just posted some ideas to the Dwight's Camo Sprayshop thread), it'd be nice to finally get a proper modding filetype, i.e. custom archive which end-users could use to one-click activate a PzC mod that's in the right format. That'd be a little bit more work (but not too much, I made a rudimentary version of such filetype for DCS), but well worth the effort, imo.

My view of the situation is this. There are two fundamental problems with user mods.
- They are not easily accessible. You cannot access them in game, you need to do something else. From this point of view a newsletter is not much better than the forum - many people will not subscribe (and there is no way to access all the crowd which already owns the game - the peak of sales was during the first months), and people who subscribe in the future will miss previous issues of the newsletter. The only real way to solve this is to have a certain mechanism to access mods inside the game. We have discussed this internally many times, and such mechanism is desirable for DLC content too, so if it is implemented, why not extend it to support user mods. This is a technical problem, and so one for us to address, there is not much community can do to help here.
- They are very hard to choose. This is another fundamental problem. Even I would have difficulty to choose the right campaign from all mods available now, and this problem will become only worse as more content is developed. There is no easy way to find complete, well-tested, well-balanced and fun to play campaigns. I've just opened the modding forum now, and I don't even see a full list of all available campaigns in one place. This is not to say it is not available, but a quick glance did not reveal it. So yeah, this is another problem which needs a solution. Even if mods will be accessible inside the game, we would still need to pick the best ones, because listing everything there, including poor quality and incomplete mods, is not an option. And this is where the community could help immensely. That is basically what I asked above - let us know what mods deserve to be promoted to players out there, and we shall see what we can do about this.

Btw., I don't think we've posted in the same thread since your return Rudankort, so, welcome back.

Thanks, and yeah, nice to talk to you again.

[VPaulus]

They are very hard to choose. This is another fundamental problem. Even I would have difficulty to choose the right campaign from all mods available now, and this problem will become only worse as more content is developed. There is no easy way to find complete, well-tested, well-balanced and fun to play campaigns. I've just opened the modding forum now, and I don't even see a full list of all available campaigns in one place. This is not to say it is not available, but a quick glance did not reveal it. So yeah, this is another problem which needs a solution. Even if mods will be accessible inside the game, we would still need to pick the best ones, because listing everything there, including poor quality and incomplete mods, is not an option. And this is where the community could help immensely. That is basically what I asked above - let us know what mods deserve to be promoted to players out there, and we shall see what we can do about this.

Yes, I agree, and I already intended to reorganize the Sticky mods.
That's part of the problem. The other part is about well balanced, fun and tested... I speak for myself, but my last sound mod was downloaded more than 500 times, and yet I receive little feedback when comparing with those numbers. Ok, it's just a sound mod, not important as a campaign, but I've the feeling that this also happen with the other modders. So it seems there's enough interest, but how to surpass the lack of feedback? How do you know if it's bug fee, fun to play and well balanced?

[El_Condoro]

+1 ^

In the Freedom Fighters Wargame Club (PG2 PBEM focus) we designated a group of testers for scenarios that were deemed by the designer to be ready for inclusion in the official list of scenarios. Balance was not the issue, although glaringly obvious one-sidedness was discouraged - the focus was on the technical aspects of the scenario. Could it be played bug-free? Were the objectives working? Documentation? That sort of thing. A similar process could work here if there are enough volunteers, and that was the problem - getting people to put their hand up.

The FFWC group tested scenarios - whole campaigns are much more difficult. I do not think balance can be properly tested without a number of play-throughs but at least we can get them bug-free.

Is this the list of mods you were looking for Rudankort? It may not be 100% up-to-date but it is not too bad. It is stickied, too.

[MickMannock]

Yes, I agree, and I already intended to reorganize the Sticky mods.

I was about to suggest the same. It's good that you are already thinking of this.

That's part of the problem. The other part is about well balanced, fun and tested... I speak for myself, but my last sound mod was downloaded more than 500 times, and yet I receive little feedback when comparing with those numbers. Ok, it's just a sound mod, not important as a campaign, but I've the feeling that this also happen with the other modders. So it seems there's enough interest, but how to surpass the lack of feedback? How do you know if it's bug fee, fun to play and well balanced?

Totally agree with this. I don't know how many have downloaded my two mods but I have gotten quite little feedback, especially for the last one I created. I assumed it's because people didn't find it interesting, but it could also be that they just simply don't take the time to write any feedback.

So my suggestion is that the community sit down and nominate a bunch of mods that we think are worth "bringing into the light" and then we all download them (if we haven't already of course) and test them extensively (to make sure they are bug free and/or well balanced) before putting them forward to the devs as the "10 best mods of the PzC community" (or however many we judge to be good enough).

[airbornemongo101]

+1

[bebro]

So my suggestion is that the community sit down and nominate a bunch of mods that we think are worth "bringing into the light" and then we all download them (if we haven't already of course) and test them extensively (to make sure they are bug free and/or well balanced) before putting them forward to the devs as the "10 best mods of the PzC community" (or however many we judge to be good enough).

I think it's a good idea. Participation could be a problem though, at least from my personal experience I already find it hard these days (time-wise) to test all mods I'd like to, keep up my on modding efforts etc etc. But maybe we should just try and see how it goes...

[VPaulus]

We could get maybe some volunteers, non modders. In a way I would prefer them to be most non modders.

[bebro]

Agreed, that would be cool, esp. since we modders are maybe be a tad too biased...

[Chris10]

since the party is going on here I copypaste my own post from here
posting.php?mode=edit&f=147&p=325493

22.05.2012

The most important thing would be that installing and playing a mod doesnt cost any more effort then to throw it into MyGames/Mods and go..this would even the most hesitating person allow to approach mods in the first place but when stuff goes whith copypasting this over here and generic mod enabler over there the averag PC user can and will not bother with this...
therefore I repeat it again and again..
sry..I copypaste cause Iam to lazy to write it over and over again

.......but what help exactly can we give in relation to these? I was talking more about making the mods more exposed to the player community in general, to people who never visit this and other forums in the first place (and such players are a majority).

saying that the mod support should be increased making the exe always looking in the mod folder first and only drag from the main game what it doesnt find there..this would enable complete conversion,user ui customization,overlays etc etc and a generic mod enabler would be completely obsolete for PzC which could boost the amount of people willing to look into mods.

apart from this there could be some choosen mods (only 100% finished stuff) in an extra section of the forum which is endoresed thru offical statements...not simple UI mods or alike but really finished campaigns and scenarios...polished stuff, this would even encourage modders to be more exact and deliver better mods...there could be a voting from time to time which mods to promote to the choosen section..
as well there could be an extra release like with Civilization IV Beyond the Sword which only consisted in User Scenarios...the real knightly accolade for a modder...I imagine this could really work if there are enough first quality mods aound

[MickMannock]

We could get maybe some volunteers, non modders. In a way I would prefer them to be most non modders.

In principle I agree with you. Problem is, most people active on this forum seem to be modders to some extent themselves.

I think we will have to take the people we can get. Which basically will be the people posting in this thread I'm afraid.

[nikivdd]

We could get maybe some volunteers, non modders. In a way I would prefer them to be most non modders.

It is worth trying but in my experience i should be glad that 1/20 volunteers kept playtesting and wrote feedback.

[rezaf]

Merging equipment files is not easy, to be sure. Even if a column with version is added, you still need to track and copy all new entries manually. And if some unit is not new, but changed since the last version, you need to track and copy that as well. And if you changed that unit in your custom file too, you would need to figure out what changed exactly, and then basically "merge" your own changes and official changes in that unit. Hmm... Did you guys try to use WinMerge or a similar tool to do the merging of equipment files? It should be able to automate merging process for you, and it would also show all changes in the file in a convenient form.

Automation and managing changes to units the update also changed are tricky, yes, but having a "last touched" column is something that should cause VERY little additional workload and thus should be done.
Everything else, we'll see. Someone could write a software to handle these cases automatically, but that can be done by anyone who knows how to program, it mustn't been done by you. So just make such column and be done with it already!
Why the heck do you keep trying to impose additional workload on yourself when we are trying to keep it away from you?

My view of the situation is this. There are two fundamental problems with user mods.
- They are not easily accessible. You cannot access them in game, you need to do something else. From this point of view a newsletter is not much better than the forum - many people will not subscribe (and there is no way to access all the crowd which already owns the game - the peak of sales was during the first months), and people who subscribe in the future will miss previous issues of the newsletter. The only real way to solve this is to have a certain mechanism to access mods inside the game. We have discussed this internally many times, and such mechanism is desirable for DLC content too, so if it is implemented, why not extend it to support user mods. This is a technical problem, and so one for us to address, there is not much community can do to help here.
- They are very hard to choose. This is another fundamental problem. Even I would have difficulty to choose the right campaign from all mods available now, and this problem will become only worse as more content is developed. There is no easy way to find complete, well-tested, well-balanced and fun to play campaigns. I've just opened the modding forum now, and I don't even see a full list of all available campaigns in one place. This is not to say it is not available, but a quick glance did not reveal it. So yeah, this is another problem which needs a solution. Even if mods will be accessible inside the game, we would still need to pick the best ones, because listing everything there, including poor quality and incomplete mods, is not an option. And this is where the community could help immensely. That is basically what I asked above - let us know what mods deserve to be promoted to players out there, and we shall see what we can do about this.

These are good points, but it was partially addressed in the thread I linked to. VPaulus linked to it again, for good measure. Still, appearently you didn't have a chance to click on either link yet.

To give you a summary:
- Yeah, there should be a one-click format supported by PzC which can run mods on their own, without end-user interaction. No conflict handling is neccessary, just a "use modded file if present, otherwise use original file" mechanic.
Essentially, a GME-light. Shouldn't be too hard to code.
- A "spotlight" window on the PzC launcher or the main screen would be great. Should be possible, considering the whole UI is build on HTML files. Here, mostly the DLCs should be promoted, but also good mods, occasionally.
An ingame mod-browser like in BA would be even better, but it really depends on how much work that'd be for you guys.
- Picking valuable mods is indeed a problem, and I don't have an easy answer for you. Maybe pick someone or a few guys to test the mods (like a game reviewer would test a game) and offer them something as a little compensation - again, it could be something like the occasional free DLC or a $5 discount voucher, nothing that will be costy to Slitherine, but just a little something "symbolic" to show that or these person(s) that their services are being valued.

We're in a little catch-22 there, I guess - mods are not being played enough because too few people know about them / are willing to test them, but we can't make recommend mods to people because too few people can vouch for their quality.

Finally, allow me a little egoistical note (skip this at will): I think what often elevates modding community awareness is: outstanding mods. I wouldn't want to belittle the great efforts of the existing modders (you guys all do a great job!), but they can only do so much - essentially more-of-the-same, like the DLCs. The engine doesn't allow much more.
I've been preaching it long ago, modders need TONS of more options to do crazy stuff. I was working on a pretty ambitious mod that would have required only a few minor new flags (I'm not one to expect spectacular engine changes), and IIRC only features that are already in the game, only tied to certain unit types. For example, the battleship's ability to do direct-damage across multiple tiles or the scout's ability to move, stop, and move on. Nothing fancy, really.
I was going to open a thread about it, but by that time, you'd - poof - all of a sudden bid us all farewell and went on a half year creativity break (at least that's how it was communicated).
At that point, I stopped all scenario based modding, words can hardly describe how discouraged I was. I don't think I've started the scenario editor since.
Many such subtle changes were held out in prospect before you left, but nothing has happened then or since. So, no groundbreaking, exciting mods can be created.
Please, for the sake of all modders, consider at least laying bare some additional stuff that would not have to be implemented from the ground up but already is in the game.
And maybe occasionally read up on and post at least in threads you started yourself, like the AI discussion thread. If you can't spare the time, I'm sure you can get a mod or something to compile a list for you every now and then and handle the communication - we all understand (and appreciate it) when you're busy working on the game.
It's not only the "public" that ignores most mods and modders, it's the developer(s), too.

End of rant.
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rezaf

[flakfernrohr]

Mongo, it doesn't seem to me that the Developers think very much of the mods that have been made even though the mods expand the basic game to a completely new level. They don't even acknowledge anything on the forum. So many players are missing the best part of the game when using the mods is easier than learning the game. You'd think the developers would have this light bulb turn on in their heads.

really? that's the attitude your going to have? maybe theyd care if people were making actual good mods instead of horrible projects that twist and warp teh game into rediculous abominations like million hex maps
i havent seen a single mod that has been interesting or decently sized and balanced, let alone COMPLETE

MY attitude? You need to look at your own attitude. Why don't YOU offer up something more spectacular and let us be the judge? Hell, you can't even spell teh! IT IS THE. "rediculous" is correctly spelled RIDICULOUS. "i havent" is correctly written as I HAVE NOT or I HAVEN'T. BTW, how old are you? Have a girlfriend?

The mods are free and you are free to use or not use them. So why bitch or denigrate the hard and generous work of others. I guess because you cannot come up with anything better. You and Balck need to initiate correspondence. You'll make a great pair.

[ivanov]

We could get maybe some volunteers, non modders. In a way I would prefer them to be most non modders.

It is worth trying but in my experience i should be glad that 1/20 volunteers kept playtesting and wrote feedback.

Just to let you know - you can still count on my support with the "Red Fury" Unfortunatelly due to the time limitations, I cannot get involved in anything else.

I don't think that the mods should be particulary properly tested. The main focus of the official betas is always the difficulty of the campaign - I can imagine it's due to the commercial reasons. Since the modes are available for free, they don't need to be so polished and player firendly as the official releases.

Well, I think that a clean and well organized sitcky thread in the main forum section, could help a little to promote the mods. The forum seems to be very vibrant and active but the most active forum member are the modders themselves. Most of the regular players never visit the forum, they are not aware of the mods and wouldn't be even able to install them.

[ivanov]

Mongo, it doesn't seem to me that the Developers think very much of the mods that have been made even though the mods expand the basic game to a completely new level. They don't even acknowledge anything on the forum. So many players are missing the best part of the game when using the mods is easier than learning the game. You'd think the developers would have this light bulb turn on in their heads.

really? that's the attitude your going to have? maybe theyd care if people were making actual good mods instead of horrible projects that twist and warp teh game into rediculous abominations like million hex maps
i havent seen a single mod that has been interesting or decently sized and balanced, let alone COMPLETE

MY attitude? You need to look at your own attitude. Why don't YOU offer up something more spectacular and let us be the judge? Hell, you can't even spell teh! IT IS THE.

The mods are free and you are free to use or not use them. So why bitch or denigrate the hard and generous work of others. I guess because you cannot come up with anything better. You and Balck need to initiate correspondence. You'll make a great pair.

Just ignore the guy -he's a well known troll. Don't feed it.

[flakfernrohr]

Most of the regular players never visit the forum, they are not aware of the mods and wouldn't be even able to install them.

Ivanov that is precisely the point. Most PZC players who buy and play the game are short selling themselves by not considering so many of the mods available. They would know of them IF the developers included some notifications about these mods or the chosen mods in their CD's or downloads they market & sell. I played IL2 for a hell of a long time BEFORE I ever discovered the great forums and mods available to that fantastic game.

The developers need to get the word out to the new buyers of the game and the expansions about the mods. It will only help increase the sales and interest in the game and benefit those in this for profit and those of us for fun.

[nikivdd]

MY attitude? You need to look at your own attitude. Why don't YOU offer up something more spectacular and let us be the judge? Hell, you can't even spell teh! IT IS THE. "rediculous" is correctly spelled RIDICULOUS. "i havent" is correctly written as I HAVE NOT or I HAVEN'T. BTW, how old are you? Have a girlfriend?

The mods are free and you are free to use or not use them. So why bitch or denigrate the hard and generous work of others. I guess because you cannot come up with anything better. You and Balck need to initiate correspondence. You'll make a great pair.

Flak, we all know that you have an attitude but Linai doesn't know what kind of attitude. So allow me to explain.

Flak, you have a great attitude! You have always been kind, helpful, a jedi master in maps, a great novel writer (i'm sure you know what i mean), a Da'Har Master ( for great deeds of valor) and i consider you my friend.