What i think will happen with modding M2TW

[Darkarbiter]

Wel as an offical unpacker tool has been confirmed by CA, as wel as news that model and texture editing will not be as easy as they were in RTw, i got thinking about how modding M2TW will pan out. These are my main thoughts:

More Gameplay Mods

With parts of the ai now open to modding, as wel as diplomacy, pathfinding, and other things i think we will see more mods that focus on improving the campaign and battles through those files. Most likely these will focus on improved campaign ai and diplomacy, perhpas refining some of CAs features.

New faction mods

As there are now 9 factions slots available, as soon as the unpacked is released i think new factions will also be one of the main things done, probably in combination with a new or edited campaign mod. I think they will probably use modified M2TW textures if we can edit them, maybe recoloured so as to make them fit in with the rest of the factions.

Less Major Mods

With the graphical side of things harder to mod i cannot see as many major mds for M2Tw as we saw for RTw, and mods set in another time period/fantasy setting will be almost impossible to do considering just how much will need to be changed. Maybe fantasy mods with basically a medieval setting might work, but who knows. Realism mods will also be limited in how much they can edit unit models to make them more accurate, hopefully textures will be easier to edit.

What do other modders think?

I think you have a good understanding of the modding community and m2tw. Although my guess about graphics is yesss you can have 15 (e.g. number) different models per unit but most likely people can just copy and paste 1 model for all 15. Or is there something else about m2tw thats graphicly harder to mod that ive missed?

[Callatian]

I personally think that they are delaying us with good reason - so they get more time to choose and partially complete the new expansion.

[Lusted]

I think you have a good understanding of the modding community and m2tw. Although my guess about graphics is yesss you can have 15 (e.g. number) different models per unit but most likely people can just copy and paste 1 model for all 15. Or is there something else about m2tw thats graphicly harder to mod that ive missed?

Well, that is true, but from what i understand the resolution of textures has been increased, and the number used a unit, so that more work already. Personally im looking forward into digging around in the diplomacy and ai files once the unpacker comes out.

[econ21]

Realistically, without the opportunity to add new graphical content.... be that skins or models, then there isn't really a 'mod community' for MTW2 to worry about. There will be a few people tweaking preferences and re-balancing stats...but that is it.

I know what you are saying, and you are probably right, but isn't it a little bit ironic? The "hardcore" TW fans, among which I count myself, bitch and moan about the limitations of the AI and lack of realism of TW while conceding the graphics were pretty and state of the art. Later, when M2TW comes out and (worst case scenario) they find they can't change the graphics, they abandon modding the game at all.

With M2TW, we have better AI but (maybe) can't change the graphics. With RTW, we have inferior AI but can make even better eye candy. So the hardcore choose to stick to modding RTW. I'm not wanting personally criticise someone, but it seems almost hypocritical. To repeat - I am not criticising anyone: I guess it's human nature, we are preprogrammed to like eye candy, just like we are preprogrammed to have a sweet tooth.

Take EB and RTR. Those are two massive, major mods. I can't imagine the labour input that has gone into them - it must run into person-years of highly skilled labour. Did they start out because they wanted to make RTW graphics prettier? Surely not! Would I be less motivated to play them if they used RTW skins, but modded the maps, stats, starting situations etc as they have done? Not really. But I reluctantly agree with Lusted and Bwian - without the ability to edit the unit skins, I don't think we will see their like for M2TW.

Or take the Crusades mod. It looks utterly gorgeous, I agree. And I agree Caius would have not bothered doing it if he could not use it to showcase his amazing skinning ability. But the concept of such a mod focussed on a particular part of the world, covering particular conflicts, with just a couple of factions etc is still a good and worthwhile concept.

Maybe there is some consolation in this - maybe M2TW is good enough in the gameplay and the history not to make a spectacular major mod required? Rather like MTW (no offence to MTW modders).

And ironically, maybe it was the much derided "pretty" graphics of RTW that allowed the hardcore TW modding community to really take off and thrive.

[Lusted]

Well personally, with the news that diplomacy and ai will be moddable to some extent in M2TW, i think it would be silly for modders not to mod M2Tw, as it will allow for so many more possibilities. Hence why i think we will see more gameplay orientated mods which focus on improving and tweaking the diplomacy, ai, unit stats, the campaign etc.

[Lord Zimoa of Flanders]

I know what you are saying, and you are probably right, but isn't it a little bit ironic? The "hardcore" TW fans, among which I count myself, bitch and moan about the limitations of the AI and lack of realism of TW while conceding the graphics were pretty and state of the art. Later, when M2TW comes out and (worst case scenario) they find they can't change the graphics, they abandon modding the game at all.

Not ironic to me, if we cannot manipulate the meshes, textures and animations, we cannot port MTW2 to another timeframe, so in The Lordz case it will be the end of the NTW series.

For mods who stay in the spear, sword arrow period it will be less dramatic, we have to rebuild from scratch. So without those model importer/exporter and animation tool, we are dead in the water.

I think that is what Bwian is saying.


LZoF

[Apoc]

For mods who stay in the spear, sword arrow period it will be less dramatic, we have to rebuild from scratch. So without those model importer/exporter and animation tool, we are dead in the water.

Not really less dramatic - not much, anyway. A Rome mod - dead; ancient mod - dead; LotR mod - dead; any mods that require the ability to change models in some substantial way are going to be dead in the water.

[alpaca]

Or take Chivalry mod. It looks utterly gorgeous, I agree. And I agree Caius would have not bothered doing it if he could not use it to showcase his amazing skinning ability. But the concept of such a mod focussed on a particular part of the world, covering particular conflicts, with just a couple of factions etc is still a good and worthwhile concept.

I think you mean The Crusades.
Anyways, I'll be modding MTW2 because as a scripter I can already see it will allow me much more than RTW

[Lord Zimoa of Flanders]

Not really less dramatic - not much, anyway. A Rome mod - dead; ancient mod - dead; LotR mod - dead; any mods that require the ability to change models in some substantial way are going to be dead in the water.

A very sad and disheartning prospective, but the truth nevertheless unless they will release them in time.

[Bwian]

Lord Zimoa is exactly right about what I was saying.

The MTW modding field would be extremely limited if the only mods possible were medievel mods, using the stock units and buildings. You can re-balance....you can tweak stats....and then what?

For those of us who want to add new era's, build fantasy mods around our favourite fiction, or go into our own personal fantasy worlds....thats it.

Personally, I think there is an awful lot of pessimism, doom and general gloom that after a couple of weeks we don't have a full and functional toolkit to play with. People are commenting on how complex the models have become, and how you need more than one texture per model......that is NORMAL for most other games. The models and rigging is still far less complex than something like Unreal Tournament 2004.

The community cracked the code for RTW, and with the same determination and dedication, the same can be done. Quicker if CA help...but it's going to happen.

I'm building meshes ready for the day the Max plugin hit's the streets for MTW2.

[Darkarbiter]

who said theres not gonna be the ability to edit models and skins?

[Neon twilight]

who said theres not gonna be the ability to edit models and skins?

No one, but what is posted on the blog of CA is quite vague.

You can read the whole article here http://totalwardev.blogspot.com/


But what is subject of all this debate is this :

Meshes & Textures
The final area I wanted to talk about was the mesh/texture files used for soldier and siege engine models. These are a very different format to the CAS files with which Rome modders will be familiar. Currently, modders will not be able to edit or replace these files.

This is because the format is optimised specifically for rendering. We made this decision to enable us to ramp up the level of detail of the battles while retaining a good level of performance. We are investigating options to allow the community to create their own mesh files.

It looks good but as you see they want to avoid concurency to copy them and this is were it may be problematic I think not especialy from CA but more from SEGA who knows .

[Bangers]

I believe it to be the nature of many programmers to see that as more of a challenge than a clear cut impossibility. Very few games are released with official tools, and although naturally it's on the rise because of the foreseeable advantages of it extending a products lifecycle, many dedicated and talented individuals put the time into reverse engineering many formats and packs in order to develop tools for the community.

You can already see this happening in the MTW2 community, if it wasn't for the announcement of the official unpacker, a third-party compatible unpacker would still be underdevelopment. It's good to see CA have already acknowledged this but decided to directly support the community by releasing official tools for their game, as well as their optimistic view on providing additional, more advanced support for modders in the future. :)

Secondly, I'am going to wait until a few people actually manage to get their hands on the model files from the packs and experiment before passing judgement on how supposedly 'complicated' the format is.

[Lord Zimoa of Flanders]

We will wait and see, if they do not release those tools it is game over, if they release, than please I hope for the community they do not wait to long. Developing modifications for other time frames and periods, building new models, textures and animations is very time consuming and needs stable and persistent modding teams. For a good quality you need at least 18 months of research, developing and building, so if they release within a year, most real challenging mods will be hopefully at the end of development between 24-36 months. The only problem is that, we can expect the new TW game and engine around the corner by that time.

And reversed community build tools are all very fine, but look at the RTW tools, with all respect to Vercingetorix and other community coders, he was the first to recognise they contained many bugs, so much so I know he asked CA for help as he hit a brick wall. He never got a reply, because of that it was allmost impossible and very time consuming to produce bug free animations, basically we could only change parts and had to bug hunt every single change we made to see what parts of the animation we could touch and what we had to leave alone. This is something we at The Lordz decided we will never do again. Unofficial tools are tricky and by far not the perfect solution, good we had them for RTW, but very frustrating to work with.

LZoF

[DukeofSerbia]

I am very skeptical about modding MII TW. If mesh/texture can’t be modded not even in future (one year) then Hosted Modifications subforum can be shut down for every conversion which will need new meshes and textures. Mods just use space in servers for nothing and community useless waits for great modification.

I don’t care any more will be modding possible. Europa Universalis III comes in market for two months. There can be modded everything; I will again easily create my own Realism mod, so why should I bother with MII TW?

Even now when CA is part of SEGA realm, it seems like both companies are (still) feared from nonexistent competition. I can’t explain it different (if we release code somebody will steal it and create better game).

Why should they allow modding of golden hen? Somebody (other companies) can steal golden hen. Calculation is easy: they know how many copies of RTW and BI they sold, how much time mods were downloaded and calculation probably said that profit margin from mods is irrelevant (I mean impact of mods in number of sold copies). The risk from stealing of golden hen (M2TW) is greater than impact of potential mods will have on numbers of sold copies.

I absolutely understand CA and SEGA (before that Activision).

P.S.
That are just my thoughts as student of economy.

I know what you are saying, and you are probably right, but isn't it a little bit ironic? The "hardcore" TW fans, among which I count myself, bitch and moan about the limitations of the AI and lack of realism of TW while conceding the graphics were pretty and state of the art. Later, when M2TW comes out and (worst case scenario) they find they can't change the graphics, they abandon modding the game at all.

I will say what an irony is. Irony is that CA didn’t provide any tools for modding RTW but in another hand in totalwar.com they advertise great modifications for RTW and BI like RTR.

With M2TW, we have better AI but (maybe) can't change the graphics. With RTW, we have inferior AI but can make even better eye candy. So the hardcore choose to stick to modding RTW. I'm not wanting personally criticise someone, but it seems almost hypocritical. To repeat - I am not criticising anyone: I guess it's human nature, we are preprogrammed to like eye candy, just like we are preprogrammed to have a sweet tooth.

AI is just maybe better from RTW but 1.5 and 1.6 patches improved both RTW and BI.
Look FIFA by EA and ISS Pro Evolution by Konami – the first always had much better graphics but because lack of gameplay ISS now plays everybody.
And CA had no direct competition in their market segment! In FPS market segment where competition is ruthless many games are open for modding.

Well personally, with the news that diplomacy and ai will be moddable to some extent in M2TW, i think it would be silly for modders not to mod M2Tw, as it will allow for so many more possibilities.

This is boring.

[Myrddraal]

how much time mods were downloaded and calculation probably said that profit margin from mods is irrelevant

This simply isn't true btw.

[WImPyTjeH]

About more factions, hem... what's the point of having more factions slots if we can create units and/or edit textures for them ? Creating Sweden faction with Dane skins and units ? .

This is a smart statement (never would've thought of that )

Why do they make it more modable if we can't mod anything except the .TXT files. aka. rebalance, make regions and borders more realistic, some scripting but that's it.

The mod is what kept me playing RTW. The first time i played the vanilla RTW campaign, I thought it was the most awsome thing i would ever see, but when the mods came out, i got bored when playing that campaign.

I sincerly hope that CA will release some tools for us and for them. I also hope that they will realise that releasing some tools could make M2TW's sales explode + the community can mod, which means: larger and stronger community

W

[DukeofSerbia]

This simply isn't true btw.

Interesting. Lusted in twcenter claim it.

Thanks anyway.

[Lusted]

Well i believe the issue with the models is to do with possible legal issues as its something new CA has done just for M2TW, but hopefully they will release a tool to allow us to edit the models. CA are certainly taking more interest in supporting the community, hopefully they will supply more tools than just the unpacker that we know is going to come with the first patch.

This is boring.

So being able to mod the ai and diplomacy to possibly act how you want it to is boring?

Lusted in twcenter claim it.

Im guessing, i do not have any hard facts.

[Neon twilight]

Agree with DukeOfSerbia

The most number of users just read what is behind the box, buy play, enjoy or not then go for another game, that's why PC game sales are going down as console sales are getting even better. Regarding mods people have often the same reactions : "oh no, mods aren't safe it often bugs and they have no guarantee, I don't want to **** my PC for this", "if you mix with the game files you'll break the original gameplay made by professionals" they simply can't belive that something made by an ammateur for no money can be better than something they paid for but it's more a society problem than anything esle.

[Myrddraal]

Ok, maybe I'm being a little assertive

Basically, modding goes beyond simply attracting modders as fans. Modding increases the life span of a game, and the publicity a game gets. This is of significant benefit to CA, there's no doubt about it.

[Thorn Is]

What would happen if textures cant be modded?

well the overall enthusiasm of the game will die and even if it is a success the shelf life of MTW II would be relativly short
and its possible for the shelf life of RTW to expand
pretty simple
I think CA probably knows this, and if they don't they will when they come out with and expansion
I remain optimistic over it
If you read the post from their blog it sounds like their just telling us to wait for a bit

[Thorn Is]

Basically, modding goes beyond simply attracting modders as fans. Modding increases the life span of a game, and the publicity a game gets. This is of significant benefit to CA, there's no doubt about it.

Im in total agreement
RTW remained popular enough for long enough that they had 2 expansions and most stores stayed stocked
If there wasnt the shear number of mods of RTW and an overall enthusiasm in this community and TWC I probably would have enjoyed RTW for a while then moved on, not buying BI

[Myrddraal]

If you read the post from their blog it sounds like their just telling us to wait for a bit

I'd agree with that too.

[Ozzfest20]

If there was actually competition for this type of game, CA should be worried about others stealing the engine, but mods keep games alive, so they should give us the ability to skin... and model.

[Caliban]

Hi everyone,

I have been lurking around in the background for a while, thought I would talk about some of the issues raised here.

The model exporter is most definatley the key to creating true total conversions and it is something we are looking into.
The main issue with releasing the model exporter is that it utilizes 3rd party technology (a format we purchsed) that we arn't allowed to re-distribute. This doesn't mean we are holding it back. It just means that it may take longer than we would like before we develop a solution.

We know how much value the modding community is and I totally agree that your mods increase the shelf-life of our games; This has been demonstrated everywhere through-out the pc industry. There is some great talent out there and we want to help nurture that as much as we can.

The unpacker is on its way now and I just sent Epistolary Richard a bunch of descr files alot of you might want to check out in the meantime.

Cheers,

Caliban

[Re Berengario I]

The model exporter is most definatley the key to creating true total conversions and it is something we are looking into.
The main issue with releasing the model exporter is that it utilizes 3rd party technology (a format we purchsed) that we arn't allowed to re-distribute.

Granny, as in NWN2, and we modders have the same problems. There it seems Obsidian is studying the way to keep the "grannyfied" animations fixed as supermodels and give modders the chance to link their meshes to them.

So actually the problem more in deep is not having new "models" but new animations because Granny is a standalone library like Speedtree and cannot be changed or distribuited.

[Lusted]

Oh Caliban is a CA dev for those who don't know.

[Throumbaris]

Good news that you guys are looking for ways to make an exporter possibly, even better news that we are getting the descr files soon.
But i have to disagree about the fact that it would take more time to create mods this way. If you notice units have a global scale that is applied to the whole culture. There is a basic torso from unarmoured to advanced plate, the same with arms, legs and heads. All the units are just a mix and match. You wont have to make 5 variations on all 150+ units but make variations on different armour levels and some other uniques like those spanish fluffy clothes. Im personally looking forward to mixing some bodyparts to add new units instead of messing around in 3ds max.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Am I the only one here who thinks that CA saying modding for M2TW will be more difficult than for RTW isn't because of inability to modify models - CA says it's looking into it, and I for one trust them to deliver - but rather the sheer number of models that a mod will require?

And skins too. Think about it. I saw somewhere that each unit has 3 torsos, 3-5 heads, 3-4 shields, and 2-3 legs/arms, or something to that effect; this allows the awesome variability within M2TW units, because when you do the math there's something like 1,000-plus possible variations.

That's fine and dandy for CA, which has the resources to have a zillion modelers and skinners. But the average mod doesn't have very many skinners or modelers at all.

I've made skins and models, and I know how time-consuming they can both be - and I'm not even very good at either task; really good ones must take forever. Now consider that you need to create at least 8 "skins" for an individual unit (2 each for head, shield, limbs, torso) with enough variations so as to justify making them in the first place - AND you either need at least 2 models for each unit (say, one with a hat/helmet, and one without), or you need one model and then rely on alphaing out the hat/helmet, which is horrid for performance.

Make no mistakes, boys and girls - M2TW modding, if it can happen, will be a slog.