View Full Version : The reasons for the mddoing community being so strong
paramedicguyer
08-09-2009, 13:14
Ok, so I just had my wisdom teeth pulled, am basking in vicadine, and sucking down mash potatoes. So i am out of it, so please forgive me if this is off topic. Oh and my fallout3 came. I have been around the nexus for a while, and it seems to me that those fallout moders have a lot easier time modding FO3 than TW does, I mean peoples biggest problems are gettin mods to work together. Why is it then do you all think bethesda goes to such lengths to help people while CA seems to try and make it more difficult. ( i am baised tho, as I do hold bethesda as being one of the most reputable gaming companies in the world). TW modding community is just as large as FO3 (of fallout in general), and yet it is always a struggle to figure out how to get things done.
just my 2 cents, if i'm wrong, tell me, just don't give me crap.
Skullheadhq
08-09-2009, 14:04
Bethesda's vanilla games are GREAT already, like Oblivion, it's second to none, not even EB (had to buy it 5 times since the discs where scratched.
But then, RTW is not great, but it is a whole different game and genre then Oblivion/Fallout.
And yes, Bethesda actually cares for fans, while CA only cares about the big masses who they have to sell their game to, and so they make cool graphix and a shitty AI, because, let's be honest, the average RTW player is a complete noob and will lose from the AI on VH already. So a hard AI will make the game accesible to less players, if the RTW would be as it should be , and you play vanilla Macedon, you will get barbarian invasions (galatians, thraikans) that will raid your entire country, get stuck in a completely difficult diplomacy that is ever changing, conspiracies, sea invasions that are actually NOT BUGGED and no hardcodes and nasty surprise invasions.
The average John Doe would be dead at turn 5!
That's why your AI and moddables are stupid.
mountaingoat
08-09-2009, 14:24
something must of gone on in the CA hq after the release of MTW VI ... probably something to do with making a shit load more money .... :thumbsdown:
.. seems the last of the series have been passed off as finished games.
Power2the1
08-09-2009, 16:43
CA/SEGA realizes there is no competition the market as no other company has a game that really does what the TW series can do.
Therefore, a sub par product has no rival or competition, therefore will not improve because it sees no need to improve. Theres no industry standard to meet I suppose.
So for historical enthusiast, we have to shell out the money for the vanilla game to get a finished product, namely, the player made mods that the modding teams come out with. Bitter sweet.
paramedicguyer
08-09-2009, 17:12
Perhaps we should just stop buying CA games. Wat is still mindblowng for me is that the EB team has done for free wat CA couldnt do for all the millions they've earned.
From wat ive seen of EB2 previews and my first hand experience of ETW. EB 2 will be far superior, jeez even EB is superior to M2TW and even some aspects of ETW already. The unit skin for ETW are absolutely terrible. It's as tho they took a step back, variation is almost nill, and detail even on very high (ultra) is still not appetizing. While the campaign engine itself I like, everything is terrible. There are only wat 5 or 6 buildings to build then you can just upgrade them, and a village can only support one building. That really has taken the strategy out of it. The whole campaign seems to be just setup to fight battles not actually engage in empire building. The only highlight of the game is the sea battles, but even those get old after a while (no variety between ships). CA really seems to be marketing to the lowest common denominator. Imagine if bethesda bought CA, holy crap wouldn't that just be amazing.
I know this is not an EB topic but I posted it here because, I think many would agree the EBer's are one of the most devoted, experienced and attuned groups for any TW game.
Whatever Scortamareva
08-09-2009, 17:36
To be honest I know you guys already realise how little scope there is for a game like EB on the wider market, to spend time (what the EB were rich in but CA had little of) and money on something like this would be ridiculous. To be honest, I think they made a groundbreaking, and ultimately really fun game in RTW, and the fans, helped along by the moddable coding, could easily sculpt the original game into different versions to improve and transform it.
For the guy above me, there's no reason to stop buying CA games (I know you weren't being serious :clown:), I know that, even for their millions, they wouldn't want or need to make a game like EB, and it's decisions like that and the sick games they made which appeal to the majority and made them so successful. To be honest i applaud CA for bringing the Ancient world into light, historically accurate or not (not), and this is what made me so interested in it, and also made the EB team strive to change it into something less ahistorical.
Aemilius Paulus
08-09-2009, 19:41
Yeah, but what it worse is the fact that CA is most likely undoubtedly will turn in the direction of the History Channel and Empire Earth III... The only question now is whether the games will remain just as modable or not, so that real people can fix them.
So, why would a company NOT makes its games easily modded with little hardcodes, other than to make the game run faster? Surely history shows that the most successful games are usually also the least hardcoded? Oh, wait, CA wipes its rear end with history... Shoot, I did not think about that...
Krusader
08-09-2009, 21:22
To be honest I know you guys already realise how little scope there is for a game like EB on the wider market, to spend time (what the EB were rich in but CA had little of) and money on something like this would be ridiculous. To be honest, I think they made a groundbreaking, and ultimately really fun game in RTW, and the fans, helped along by the moddable coding, could easily sculpt the original game into different versions to improve and transform it.
For the guy above me, there's no reason to stop buying CA games (I know you weren't being serious :clown:), I know that, even for their millions, they wouldn't want or need to make a game like EB, and it's decisions like that and the sick games they made which appeal to the majority and made them so successful. To be honest i applaud CA for bringing the Ancient world into light, historically accurate or not (not), and this is what made me so interested in it, and also made the EB team strive to change it into something less ahistorical.
There are reasons enough to stop buying CA games. But for me the sole reason is that the quality of their games has seen a deterioration since M2TW in my own view. I'm not going to support a company that does not make games I want to buy.
There will be no EB3 for ETW simply because the game is not that moddable and most importantly the focus is on armies that kill eachother with ranged weapons, so naturally the engine is the same.
Yeah, but what it worse is the fact that CA is most likely undoubtedly will turn in the direction of the History Channel and Empire Earth III...
Gah, don't get me started. Ice Road Truckers be damned... :furious3:
There are reasons enough to stop buying CA games. But for me the sole reason is that the quality of their games has seen a deterioration since M2TW in my own view. I'm not going to support a company that does not make games I want to buy.
There will be no EB3 for ETW simply because the game is not that moddable and most importantly the focus is on armies that kill eachother with ranged weapons, so naturally the engine is the same.
If CA announced R2TW... and it appeared that the game would be sufficiently mod-able... would there be a chance of EB3? I don't request a concrete answer, but it seems like you share no love for CA.
Krusader
08-09-2009, 22:18
If CA announced R2TW... and it appeared that the game would be sufficiently mod-able... would there be a chance of EB3? I don't request a concrete answer, but it seems like you share no love for CA.
I don't hate CA. They are a business and for them it is important to earn money. Which is why TW games have become more Hollywoodish. The sales figures for ETW should prove that, along with DLC.
ETW however seems to be much more mod-unfriendly and the crackpot conspiracymonger in me thinks they might see mods as threats to their DLCs. I can't imagine R2TW becoming more modfriendly. And if there will be EB3...don't know. A persistent problem with EB2 is that we have had a lack of modelers and skinners.
A suit in Activision had apparently once said that they aren't happy about modding, because they want gamers to play their games for so so long and then move on to the other games they are releasing later. To me that was a quote that shows someone doesn't understand the videogames market that well...seems to think gamers will buy anything that is released.
johnhughthom
08-09-2009, 22:21
A suit in Activision had apparently once said that they aren't happy about modding, because they want gamers to play their games for so so long and then move on to the other games they are releasing later. To me that was a quote that shows someone doesn't understand the videogames market that well...seems to think gamers will buy anything that is released.
Ummm, isn't that actually true of a lot of gamers?
Apázlinemjó
08-09-2009, 22:31
Ummm, isn't that actually true of a lot of gamers?
Maybe the younger gamers, but I doubt that the older ones will buy games just because they are new and fancy.
Watchman
08-09-2009, 22:37
Largely irrelevant if the company keeps turning a profit anyway, that. Which after all is what they exist for.
Aemilius Paulus
08-09-2009, 22:46
Heh, CA probably hates the EB Team's guts for making turning so many people into CA-bashers/haters. I mean, seriously, after I played EB I lost all desire to play any vanilla CA game.
And is it really true ETW is less modable? Or is it just that it is so dumbed-down that there is little to choose from anyway?
Krusader
08-09-2009, 23:09
Ummm, isn't that actually true of a lot of gamers?
For younger ones. I was like that. But I don't know anyone who buys or heck even pirates any and every game that comes out.
Heh, CA probably hates the EB Team's guts for making turning so many people into CA-bashers/haters. I mean, seriously, after I played EB I lost all desire to play any vanilla CA game.
And is it really true ETW is less modable? Or is it just that it is so dumbed-down that there is little to choose form anyway?
From what I read yes. And seeing that you have to edit files "hex-style" to enable factions in ETW compared to RTW/M2TW I'm inclined to agree. Do note I'm talking about heavy modding, like EB, RTR, Broken Crescent and I'd think Stainless Steel too (never had the pleasure of testing that mod. Haven't bought Kingdoms).
Whatever Scortamareva
08-09-2009, 23:39
A (possibly contraversial) solution could be for CA to become a part of the larger mods and help sponsor/promote/develop the larger mods for advertising space inside the game or the ability to market the mod as an expansion pack.
But that'll never happen, and bringing money into EB would be like putting a crack pipe and a loada crack in heaven.
Andy1984
08-09-2009, 23:57
Don't hope for any help CA offers EB. For them EB is indeed a cost in lost (or later) sales revenues as Krusader pointed out. Should they focus on the older gaming market, they'd be aiming for a market that spends relatively less on games (compared to the younger ones) while far higher quality of the game is being demanded. They'd gain a slightly bigger share on the gaming market, only to actually loose relative profits. The people who own CA (market-share holders) aren't going to be happy to earn less per share in turn for owning a part of a bigger company. Sadly, that's how the market works.
Aemilius Paulus
08-10-2009, 00:03
Yeah, nobody wants to buy EB. The vast majority of RTW players were most likely casual players. I talked to a few. Good fun it was. I spent 20 minutes of my art class interrogating until I finally got they first played Greek Cities and then some Roman faction. That bloke did not have single idea what each unit was, and did not care. He did not know what time-period the game was set, nor anything about the history of that time.
Really, for most people anything before 18th century is a haze, and for an average American high-schooler, anything before 20th century is clouded. And yes, that kid in my art class was, believe it or not, a 10th grader. Not a dull one either. He made decent grades. But they barely teach world history in US, preferring to shove American history and the Holocaust until your brain pops or until your late high-school years when you actually get a real, world history class with a crappy teacher who makes mistakes all the time and has no in-depth info (by that I mean something more in-depth than the Wikipedia opening paragraph) on anything even though he had a Master's in history (that's what happened to me).
My American History (bah, I had it even in 11th grade, and I will have American government in 12th - I am sick of America by now, as I literally know more than a bloke with a PhD on American history :laugh4:) teacher the 2008-2009 year had a PhD in American History but failed miserably when she attempted to explain World History. (you have to, in order to understand how it affected US) She knew so little, it was pathetic to the tears. Talk about specialisation... Oh, and what is her favourite book of all time? Not Churchill's Second World War of course. No. It was Twilight!!! :wall::whip:
/rant mode off - I had to let it out
From what I read yes. And seeing that you have to edit files "hex-style" to enable factions in ETW compared to RTW/M2TW I'm inclined to agree. Do note I'm talking about heavy modding, like EB, RTR, Broken Crescent and I'd think Stainless Steel too (never had the pleasure of testing that mod. Haven't bought Kingdoms).
I imagine most ETW modders are hoping that CA will make good on their promise of a MDK otherwise they are pretty much screwed.
ps: I'm enjoying the irony of you making a mod for Kingdoms without owning it:laugh4:.
Azathoth
08-10-2009, 01:01
Hey, in my school you take 2 years of World History, 1 year of US History, and 1 year of Economics. And we only spent a day on the Holocaust (documentary). So no need to make generalizations.
The Total War games aren't for history buffs, and while they may be arcadey they are fun for pure, mindless slaughter. It's like criticizing a kung-fu movie for not having an excellent story.
I do wish they would make at least one superhistorical game, or maybe a universal simulator so that you can get everything from Mecha Total War to Star Wars Total War to The Mummy Total War to Africa Total War (though that would be quite a feat of programming :dizzy2:).
Aemilius Paulus
08-10-2009, 01:35
Hey, in my school you take 2 years of World History, 1 year of US History, and 1 year of Economics. And we only spent a day on the Holocaust (documentary). So no need to make generalizations.
Yeah, your school. I have been to 7 different American schools, and all the same in regards to history, minus minor variations. Not to mention, 98% of America's public schools are sure to be worse than yours. And shoot, I know the school you go to. It is quite (very!) prestigious for a public school.
As for me, I should have went to my school's rival. We have two superb schools here: a technical school here, and an IB program school. Both are good, but one is "technical" and the other is purely academic. I go to the technical one, ans Social Studies is what suffered the most in my school when the board decided to draw up the course list.
Not to mention, all the schools around us likewise have 2 world history courses (European History & generic World History), 1 Economics, and 1 American Gov't courses. We lack European history. But then we have several business classes. In any case, that is laughably little. And we no longer have a Geography course. I guess all hope for Americans to gain a sense of even as much as a minor understanding of the world map was lost. Most schooled Africans know much more than an average national here. No one cares about Geography :sad:
WinsingtonIII
08-10-2009, 02:38
We should just make people take the countries of the world sporcle test until they score at least 95%.
I'm actually really heated about this issue right now because I just found out that the high school I went to is cutting European history for a SECOND year of U.S. history. Like that's what we really need..... and this from a superintendent who says he's all worldly and worked at an international school in Beijing. We still have "world cultures" freshman year, which does cover pretty much everything except the West, but it's a very shallow understanding due to the broad focus.
Sorry for participating in the derailing of this thread haha.
moonburn
08-10-2009, 04:41
nothing wrong in ca bussniess model imho if i was to invest in it i would be more worried with the lack of barriers for competition to enter the market then modding...
problem with ca games is that they have a unique aproach that if others decide to take advantage off or even copying it´s functionality they would have a harder time selling the games
as for the lack of competition some people mentioned, i´m sorry to disagree but in the world of real time tactics game there´s plenty of amazing games some are even over 10 years old but still work great and are great fun (most notably and my all time favourite dark omen) . as for the strategy part anyone who played pharao or civilization or even the original setlers know it´s not that hard to create an evolving gaming experience that despite being complex is still great fun.
they are just capitalizing on a fresh aproach that they "found/invented" a few years back.
however as a gamer i must agree that since the medieval total war the games have lost interest for me at least, i must admit i always "buy/download" a pirate copy before deciding if i buy the original or not (demos tend to be less then .... no fun in them) and i only bought rtw to try and play rtr and then when i went to download it i read that eb was better.
the big competitive advantage that ca should have was a proper artificial inteligence (been how many years since shogun??) that could be customised for the target audience cause when a game good in strategy and tactical batle finally emerges they will loose ground/market fast and will drop big time because of their easy profit aproach.
even the mindless kids who currently buy the games will evolve and demand bigger challanges.
as for the off track into american education anyone with a computer can learn more and faster then at a school class, actually homeschooling is the future if we consider the way society is evolving and school is very close to becoming obselete except for it´s socialisation valour (wich wierdly is becoming more and more important as they loose ground in education values to new ways of teaching)
Azathoth
08-10-2009, 05:09
as for the off track into american education anyone with a computer can learn more and faster then at a school class, actually homeschooling is the future if we consider the way society is evolving and school is very close to becoming obselete except for it´s socialisation valour (wich wierdly is becoming more and more important as they loose ground in education values to new ways of teaching)
Lol, the "future" is downloading data into our cerebral implants by the petabyte.
Aemilius Paulus
08-10-2009, 06:00
When will people stop nagging and bitching (is "bitching" a vulgar word BTW :sweatdrop:? I heard it being used in a Pixar animated film, so it cannot be vulgar, can it?) about AI? That is the most difficult thing to do in the whole entire game. It is like filling a bucket with cherries when there is a moderately-sized hole on the bottom. It will take you an immense amount of time and cherries before the whole is plugged due to a random chance of the cherry structuring themselves the correct way, especially with the help of pressure. And even when the hole in the bucket is plugged, it is still not guaranteed to work
Bottom line, there are engineers/programmers working all around the world to create better AI and they still have an eternity of work in front of them. AI is perhaps the single part of a game you can pour thousands of dollars USD in, and still not have it work properly. The current TW games are immensely complex, far from the simplicity of Shogun (especially the campaign map). This requires remarkable skill in AI coding, and bugs will still remain. The more complex TW gets, the more difficult the making of AI will be.
After Shogun, the AI declined as MTW came in, and then took a nose-dive when the Shogun-MTW engine was abandoned and RTW-M2TW engine came in. More complexity=poorer AI, as it has more choices. I cannot imagine a more striking contrast than the one between MTW-style campaign map and RTW counterpart. A world of difference. No wonder RTW campaign AI seems so imbecilic. it can move anywhere, bypassing or stumbling on many things. Not like the "I move from this square to that square of MTW".
Skullheadhq
08-10-2009, 09:26
You're right, AP, but then make the AI completely moddable, so we could at least improve it.
You're right, AP, but then make the AI completely moddable, so we could at least improve it.
Agreed. But even the AI will take so much time to finalise.
A world of difference. No wonder RTW campaign AI seems so imbecilic. it can move anywhere, bypassing or stumbling on many things. Not like the "I move from this square to that square of MTW".
Actually RTW still had "squares" there's just loads more than MTW. In ETW they got rid of them which strikes me as one of the more odd improvments they made, it vastly increased the complexity of the map (and thus difficulty for AI coding) for very little perceivable gain.
Aemilius Paulus
08-10-2009, 17:15
Actually RTW still had "squares" there's just loads more than MTW.
Yeah, I have seen that. But you know what I am speaking of. Even ETW has squares, they are just too small to matter. Well, everything has to be made of polygons...
You're right, AP, but then make the AI completely moddable, so we could at least improve it.
Good suggestion, but how much of the finer points do we understand? What M2TW offers us to mod as far as AI goes is basic, but can we do more? Do we understand their coding enough to mod it? I am not doubting the modders, just asking. Making AI is the most complex thing in the game. How many people can mod it from the very basics and show reasonable success?
And how much will the game speed plummet with absolutely non-hardcoded AI?
Skullheadhq
08-10-2009, 18:01
they could better just give us the source code, Some devs do it after x years, and than you get the best mods you can imagine, of course, not everyone is able to do that, but a small group could, and with wondrous results. And I can't imagine they're turning big profits on RTW now, with €5 a disc.
Maybe with E:TW they'll release better AI is DLC :P
So, why would a company NOT makes its games easily modded with little hardcodes, other than to make the game run faster? Surely history shows that the most successful games are usually also the least hardcoded?
Which ones? I do believe you're mistaken.
Andronikos
08-10-2009, 20:48
Well, companies want to release games that will give them money, that will be popular with many gamers. One of my friends said that EB is a game for "gourmets" (the best English word I can find for proper translation) and I agree. EB is about historical accuracy, details in unit skins and other features, a huge amount of text in events, traits, unit and building descriptions, year in history... Average gamer is too impatient to enjoy all of these. I would say that majority of gamers wants game that offers them action and enjoyable waste of time and when they have enough, they will buy another game. Game like EB is for small audience and selling such game wouldn't give developers enough money and fame.
Yeah, nobody wants to buy EB. The vast majority of RTW players were most likely casual players. I talked to a few. Good fun it was. I spent 20 minutes of my art class interrogating until I finally got they first played Greek Cities and then some Roman faction. That bloke did not have single idea what each unit was, and did not care. He did not know what time-period the game was set, nor anything about the history of that time.
Really, for most people anything before 18th century is a haze, and for an average American high-schooler, anything before 20th century is clouded. And yes, that kid in my art class was, believe it or not, a 10th grader. Not a dull one either. He made decent grades. But they barely teach world history in US, preferring to shove American history and the Holocaust until your brain pops or until your late high-school years when you actually get a real, world history class with a crappy teacher who makes mistakes all the time and has no in-depth info (by that I mean something more in-depth than the Wikipedia opening paragraph) on anything even though he had a Master's in history (that's what happened to me).
My American History (bah, I had it even in 11th grade, and I will have American government in 12th - I am sick of America by now, as I literally know more than a bloke with a PhD on American history :laugh4:) teacher the 2008-2009 year had a PhD in American History but failed miserably when she attempted to explain World History. (you have to, in order to understand how it affected US) She knew so little, it was pathetic to the tears. Talk about specialisation... Oh, and what is her favourite book of all time? Not Churchill's Second World War of course. No. It was Twilight!!! :wall::whip:
/rant mode off - I had to let it out
It's unfortunate that you haven't learned to appreciate American history more. I have always been more interested in world history, but American history is unique and extraordinary, and it has a lot to teach us. I think in time you will understand.
Aemilius Paulus
08-11-2009, 15:40
Which ones? I do believe you're mistaken.
Hmm, most gamers I know would agree with my statement. What is your argument?
Mine is that TW games (especially RTW - no description needed); Valve games (think how Counter-Strike began, or Half-Life, which started them/many other games); and Mount and Blade (once again, too many mods to list - just go to TaleWorlds, Hegemony 268 BC is one of them); id Software games such as Quake (spawned Team Fortress); Civilization games; Rise of Nations; Elder Scrolls games (they even made a special program to assist mods), Battlefield games; Paradox games; etc; etc.
It's unfortunate that you haven't learned to appreciate American history more. I have always been more interested in world history, but American history is unique and extraordinary, and it has a lot to teach us. I think in time you will understand.
The very same could be said of the history of every country in Europe or Asia or Africa. And yet, what opportunities are we given in school to learn of these histories? Precious few. I completely agree with AP on this.
And what's this about not appreciating American history? Having taken APH (http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_ushist.html), I have a relatively good understanding (for a high school student; I don't claim to be an expert upon the subject matter) of the history of the United States. All well and good. However, the little European or Asian history taught in schools tends to revolve around subjects that US played a major role in, i.e. the two world wars, the Cold War era, etc. It gets to the point where one would think that America had a part in every part of every country's history, which is obviously not the case. There's more to Russia than the Bolsheviks and the Cold War. The history of England goes beyond King George III and his war against the Colonies. And yet, we're not given much, if any, of that history in the school setting today. It's a shame, plain and simple.
Aemilius Paulus
08-11-2009, 16:06
Well, when I came to US, I entered 5th grade. I had American History. And I continued having it all throughout Middle School (grades 6-8). Then I had no history courses at all in 9th grade (we were not given any to choose from). After that I had World History in 10th, and then American History again in 11th and 12th :wall::wall:. How many fluffing times do I have to learn the same fluffing country's history!?!?!! I am sick and tired to the bone from learning the same history. Especially when the reason I am learning it is because US is so chauvinistic, nationalistic, and arroga... that's Backroom material now. I shall stop here.
But basically, in my entire life in US I had only ONE SINGLE social studies course that was not American History. Tell me that is normal. Tell me that is how it should be. Tell me, lobf,would you like to waste all your school years but one learning the same thing over and over again, especially when the nation you are studying is not yours? This is not right.
Skullheadhq
08-11-2009, 16:19
Long live my european variety in history :clown:
American History, well it's barely history, since it exist little more then 300 years, you can barely call it history at all. We don't have any American History on my school, lucky me.
History Teachers of mine don't like it either, say it's a load of bull, american history. Well, we get a little South-American history, not US history.
godsakes
08-11-2009, 16:20
i think games like unreal are cases where the modding community has really helped to make the series what it is and as such the devs have gone out of their way to make it easier for the modders to do their thing.
i think the problem with our genre is that as flawed as the vanilia CA games are - they are considerably better than anything else out there (at least to my experience). hence why there is so much modding support despite CA not going out of their way to help
with no real competition, modders are probably are seen as the closest thing, as each time period that's covered by modders means fewer potential sales/sequels - if i was a cynical accountant i would want to recycle the same engine several times over and just have the devs working pumping out a new game in a different time period or add ons (i.e. the stuff modders do).
however if there was another competing dev that wanted to release a turn based/real time hybrid strategy game they would do well to get the support of a modding community.
Meneldil
08-11-2009, 17:12
Long live my european variety in history :clown:
American History, well it's barely history, since it exist little more then 300 years, you can barely call it history at all. We don't have any American History on my school, lucky me.
History Teachers of mine don't like it either, say it's a load of bull, american history. Well, we get a little South-American history, not US history.
Huh? Something that happened in the past is history, whether it was 2000 years, a century or 2 hours ago. The US indeed have an interesting history, given how young the country is. Obviously it's not as long as the history of say France or Spain, but it's history nonetheless.
Tellos Athenaios
08-11-2009, 18:11
Back on track: the reason that the modding community is so strong? Well, RTW was for all its flaws a pretty good "plaform". You could take it to the Wars of Napoleon but also to the Fourth Age and you could stay closer at home with Europa. It seems more or less "accepted fact" that modding the TW series really took off with RTW. Be it how RTW was more open than previous TW games (I wouldn't know) or that RTW was the first thing suitably attractive (or ugly if you disagree with that notion) by itself that modding it became "worth it"?
At any rate, RTW spawned a lot of modding projects. Widely different yet quite a few fairly successful projects which fostered intimate knowledge of the engine, its quirks and the tools at hand in the people that "brought those projects to life". Since these people were pretty brilliant but still only human there has been a certain amount of "openness": tutorials, guides and behind-the-scenes collaboration of modding teams.
At least from what I have seen once a type of feature/technique was established (or just previewed) it quickly became "common enough". Furthermore some of the mod projects were successful enough to attract attention of people "form elsewhere": CGI graphics professionals, musicians, actors. This does help to "improve" already pretty good work/ideas and drive other side-projects home. I have myself seen these last paragraphs "work within EB". Yes EB has collaborated with FATW people and RS people; yes EB has contributed with and benefited from modding tutorials and "drop-in packs"; yes EB soundtrack features tracks specially made for EB by professional musicians (not to mention many tracks which though not specially made for EB that are 3rd party work and allowed to be used inside EB); yes EB has worked with someone in the CGI business and yes EB has spawned a recording project in a real studio with people studying to become "real" actors.
Finally I do think that at least in the technical department there are people inside CA who do care about "moddability" of their Games. This does not even have to be "purely altruistic". It is a simple lesson out of any beginner's software engineering book that what we qualify as "modability" is one of the key components of good software design: it makes it easy to apply cosmetic or more structural changes (additional traits/scripts) to a program (which becomes more of an engine) without requiring time consuming modifications to sources (and also leaves programmers free to care about internal workings and features when other people can take care of the actual GUI, art and other content). And this thing called modularity ensures that more components can be re-used in next iterations of the same series.
Plus of course there is the fact that at least one member of the community was actually hired by CA. While I doubt he was hired purely because he was active in the modding community, I do think that his activity there did help him being chosen over other applicants.
Whatever Scortamareva
08-11-2009, 18:13
Since this is apparently now a history thread, I mayaswell contribute :clown:
I've never learnt American History, but I find it amazing that they can dedicate so much time on it when there is so little of it (my knowledge of the syllabus is exclusively what AP just said haha).
It angers me that governments can decide to make schools spend so much time on sometimes really trivial topics, and miss out others, namely really important ones, completely. I'm in sixth form in Britain, yet I know nothing about whats happening in Ireland, i have no idea about colonialism or apartheid, I can hardly name any important events or monarchs or anything in this country from around 500-1800AD (bar maybe 1066), yet I know everything about the welfare reforms at the start of the 20th Century and everything about both world wars (yeah I accept this is important stuff, but 2 years of only learning this is excessive).
But ah well, there's always books :book:
EDIT: missed the back on topic bit, sorry
contributing again-
I think just because games generate a large modding fanbase due to their lack of hardcodedness doesn't necessarily mean they are the most popular. Furthermore, games which attract technical types and encourage modding tend to lose out, because the internet community who are modding the game end up pirating and releasing it for free in torrents.
In fact, there is little to encourage game developers to make their game moddable, if only to attract a large fanbase from which to market future games to.
And this is exactly what CA has done.
Andy1984
08-11-2009, 18:45
History is - and I'm not talking about the academic level, but rather the pre-academic (whatever you call it) - in most situations a vague description of events. These are most often selected on grounds that support the dominant ideological view of a given society. I don't believe the US-history-teaching is in that regard any different than let's say the dutch 'canon'. (The latter is a highly debatable selection of events highlighting especially the Golden era, thus creating and re-establishing an often nationalist vision. Students in the Netherlands are expected to know them, just like immigrants in Belgium get a very specific vision on history during the 'inburgeringscursussen'. I thought a similar socialisation is known in the UK and the US, but I'm not sure.)
You don't agree with history being aselect and supporting an ideological view? Ask yourself what exactly do you know about labour-history? How many socialist movements, 19th-century radical thinkers or anarchists you know? Does it stop with Marx and Engels? Do you know what exactly the opinions and theories of the other were? How many 19th-century social experiments do you know of? Which views did they supported, how were they organised and why did they cease to exist? What exactly do you know about the Commune of Paris, arguably one of the most important social events in the 19th century? Or about the way an ancient-regime royal court functioned? If you don't know too many of these, should you - as someone who has probably a far better historic knowlegde than the average person - claim to have a non-blatantly biased view on social or economic history? On political history? I for example only got a serious overview of these when I was at my second (and following) years at university. I conclude from this personal experience, most non-history students never ever get a decent view on our history, but rather a very selective one, interpreted in a way that suits modern society.
Which brings me to my next point. If popular (=non-academic) history is by it's very nature sustaining dominant views, wouldn't it be odd if you learned in history-classes any other economic principle than the (free or not) market structure? There are very different economic principles (economics of the gift, of plunder,...) that do not even start out of a market, but yet function. The same can be said about political principles. Not every state that functions decent is a democracy. Yet: how much do you know of the mechanisms that are used to make such systems work? In my personal experience: most pre-academic history-classes don't get any further than proclaiming the very same mantra about market-systems, democracy (as something 'history' tended towards) and often views that could most easily be described as anachronistic in reference to an historical object. Please enlighten me: but why do we value in pre-academic history courses the most brutal ways of subdueing a colonial population by today's standards? Different era, different morals and often no more brutal than today's society.
Am I saying a non-selective vision on society is impossible? No. A clear understanding of social sciences, debates and research-experience can cope with these assumptions. History-classes as the summing up of events or the vaguely clarifying of selected events within a modern ideological framework however can't cope with them. The popular approach to history does in reality little more than socialising her subjects to consumers, democrats,...
All that could bring me to the suggestion (=/= proof) the US as well as other nations have history classes that justify a very specific society where corporations like CA promote games in a way that would be described as clear fraud in any other area. The hunt of a corporation to make a profit is taken for granted, rather than debated. The legitimity of a political decision is based on the number of people that agree with it, an approach that is highly conservative since our system socialises her subjects. Modern western politics with their elections differ in this very little from an election held in let's say North-Korea (perhaps apart from the use of explicit violence, preferring brain-washing instead). Just take a look at the comments about ETW when that game was released...
Mind you, I do not state this selectivity on our history is purposely being created by the state. Rather the popular interpretation of our history should be understood as something that's inherent in our way of speaking. (e.g. the usage of modern day-terminology to classify older concepts and other societies that simply don't suit in these concepts) That way, any other society than ours is regarded as ill-functioning... mainly because it is not understood. Elaboration on this point would bring us too far, but I hope you at least see how I got to this point.
If you ask yourself: why is the modding community so strong, my answer would be: the modding community is big, despite CA rather than thanks to. They're hardly expected to make a finished game, let alone a decent one. They refuse to co-operate at a decent level by making EB even better by giving the code or altering it themselves, rather going after their own profits. Could you imagine the government selling you something, and after the sales utterly refusing to improving it when that is clearly easier than starting to work on something completely different for the sake of profit-maximization? I'm not even questioning their way of merchandising, which makes the compelling to purchasing a CA-product comparable to taxes... Each game is being delivered as the 'ultimate' or at least a worth-to-have, even when that's clearly not the case. Guess what? Partly thanks to the utter lack of decent social understanding and the omnipresence of techniques that aren't any different than indoctrination they get away with that. Therefore, for their utter lack of morals, their sociopathic desire for the maximization of their profits, the deceiving of the disinformed (people who believe a loyal customer matters, instead of profits) and their overly clear machiavellism, the cynic in me respects CA.
well aware I should respect most corporations,
kind regards,
Andy
edit: I hope my text as well as the reference to CA can forgive the going off-topic in part of my text
Lol, the "future" is downloading data into our cerebral implants by the petabyte.
Except that we can only store up to an 'estimated' 5 - 6 petabytes of brain data. And the vast majority of that becomes memory. So downloading by the petabyte will not be something that is very repeatable.
Azathoth
08-11-2009, 23:21
Cerebral implants, dude - they'll hold thousands of petabytes. And whenever we want to "remember" something, we can just access it electronically. That way, we can never "forget", which is useful for those who live several hundred years, lest they turn into Erratics.
Maybe not the best idea, they'd have to use software to operate....would you let microsoft into your brain?
Watchman
08-12-2009, 08:03
BSOD on a DNI implant computer sounds like it might be kinda unpleasant, certainly. And reaching the power switch to do a hard reboot could get tricky.
Not that there was much point in hooking the thing up to your CNS proper, anyway.
Whatever Scortamareva
08-12-2009, 14:02
Maybe not the best idea, they'd have to use software to operate....would you let microsoft into your brain?
You'd get nightmares of Microsoft configuring updates
Apázlinemjó
08-12-2009, 14:07
Therefore, for their utter lack of morals, their sociopathic desire for the maximization of their profits, the deceiving of the disinformed (people who believe a loyal customer matters, instead of profits) and their overly clear machiavellism, the cynic in me respects CA.
The world works like that, people like to own things and if you see that your neighbour has something, you want to own two of the said things. I meant this figuratively.
Hmm, most gamers I know would agree with my statement. What is your argument?
Mine is that TW games (especially RTW - no description needed); Valve games (think how Counter-Strike began, or Half-Life, which started them/many other games); and Mount and Blade (once again, too many mods to list - just go to TaleWorlds, Hegemony 268 BC is one of them); id Software games such as Quake (spawned Team Fortress); Civilization games; Rise of Nations; Elder Scrolls games (they even made a special program to assist mods), Battlefield games; Paradox games; etc; etc.
RTW is not particularly easy to mod. I think the Total War franchise is successful rather for having a uniquely advanced engine for what it does, no competition is anywhere near them.
Half-life was indeed a highly successful FPS. So was Doom, Unreal and Max Payne, to a somewhat lesser degree, and as far as I know those were not particularly moddable (Doom is now of course, after they released the source code, not at the time). I'm not convinced that the moddability is the reason for Half-life's success.
If you would look at the sales figures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games) of PC games, only Half-life represents moddability there. Except Counterstrike, however, which is initially a mod. You could argue that Starcraft has had modding in the form of user-created scenarios (including tower defence and some RPG-like ones), but this is very limited.
My argument is that moddability is not a strong selling point. Games can be extremely successful without catering to modders.
Atraphoenix
08-13-2009, 10:04
to mod or not to mod, that ıs the question!
I agree game developers do not care much for mods but I think the current (tendency) started to include mod supports for new games.
Unfortunately I had to agree this change is because of the indies not the big corparations. Elder scrolls is my exception. I hope they keep going with this trend.
I do not believe that there will be no R2TW, nor EB3 (I do not think ETW worths a roman mod)
or CA will make a real time strategy map like knights of Honor.
Realism, though I hate ıt prevents you from getting bigger disappointments.
moonburn
08-13-2009, 22:06
My argument is that moddability is not a strong selling point. Games can be extremely successful without catering to modders.
i can agree with it if you give me the fact that without modding and customisation the lifespawn of the games is reduced to about 2 weeks to 2 months worth (depending on how easy it is to acess the net with the game and play it worldwide and the easy includes extra costs ) and we must all agree that if a game company only gives you 2 weeks worth for the cd you just bought then you will start looking for the new hip and when they finally release their new game you won´t be going to buy it right away
thus modability = loyalty from the fanbase
when i was on my high gaming life i had 3 games nowadays i stoped buying the rockstar games and the blizzard games cause i didn´t liked the way they took the games and my last ca game was rometotal war to be able to download eb (my old cd was 2 worn out already) and that as been 2 years ago and i suspect i will only buy medieval total war plus kingdoms when eb2 is launched :oops:
i can agree with it if you give me the fact that without modding and customisation the lifespawn of the games is reduced to about 2 weeks to 2 months worth
That is a tall assumption. I regularly play the same game for years on end. It was six months of daily RTW before I discovered EB.
moonburn
08-13-2009, 23:41
That is a tall assumption. I regularly play the same game for years on end. It was six months of daily RTW before I discovered EB.
then one of us is the exception :laugh4:
I believe we can all agree that Sims and WoW have had a not so small amount of users who play it regularly for more than 2 months, without any modding? Unless you count released new content which you pay for as modding?
If you would take other criteria as success than sales figures, perhaps I could accept that moddability is a prime indication of success. Longevity may well be such a criterion, but in that case no single-player FPS could ever be successful.
Starforge
08-14-2009, 08:20
Interesting post Andy1984.
As someone who's been out of High School for 27 years it seems much has changed. I certainly remember 1-2 years at least of world history and roughly the same or a bit more of American history in High School. Add to that the civics class (something I'll never understand why it was dropped.)
To Modding:
I get Bovi's point and would say he's correct. Comparing FPS and RTS or (for lack of a better definition) grand strategy, or RPG, modding is troublesome at best. FPS and even RTS to an extent are adrenaline games - you get on, click quickly, kill lots and leave. Modding in those settings is pretty much going to be fluff and for most people looking for a fix, unnecessary. For RPG or games along the lines of RTW or Mount and Blade, you create a character (or choose a nation), and continue a game or story over an extended period of time. Modding allows you to bring the setting to life in a way that creates a whole new way of immersing onesself into the story. Making games of this type moddable may not yet be a requirement for a successful game (especially in CA's case with no real competition) but it should be.
With ETW (and I know for some the breaking point was M2TW) CA's games have fallen to the same level that (for me) Paradox games fell to with EU3. No pre-purchase and wait for a good consensus of reviews and opinions. Of course, I'm not 18 and "have to have it now" so I'm not really the target demographic.
Now if you could add a real campaign map and AI to mount and blade while shoring up the tactical AI and options, you'd have one hell of a winner. As is, I'm fearing he's going more adrenaline and less thinking. Pity.
Tellos Athenaios
08-14-2009, 16:40
An actually fairly moddable RTS game is Railroad Tycoon III. (Custom dialogs on events as part of scenarios for one thing.)
Starforge
08-14-2009, 17:54
An actually fairly moddable RTS game is Railroad Tycoon III. (Custom dialogs on events as part of scenarios for one thing.)
Quite true (and I have that one - too bad it didn't like it when I upgraded to Vista 64) but RT3 is at best a niche game and not a standard Starcraft, C&C or the like.
If you like that style of game (and I do) RT3 is worth a look.
Skullheadhq
08-14-2009, 18:52
History is - and I'm not talking about the academic level, but rather the pre-academic (whatever you call it) - in most situations a vague description of events. These are most often selected on grounds that support the dominant ideological view of a given society. I don't believe the US-history-teaching is in that regard any different than let's say the dutch 'canon'. (The latter is a highly debatable selection of events highlighting especially the Golden era, thus creating and re-establishing an often nationalist vision. Students in the Netherlands are expected to know them, just like immigrants in Belgium get a very specific vision on history during the 'inburgeringscursussen'. I thought a similar socialisation is known in the UK and the US, but I'm not sure.)
How sad is it, that lessons where we fill those immigrants with our dutch nationalistic bullshit and let them learn the dutch language
is grammatically incorrect. Because, since when is the dutch plural for Cursus 'Cursussen" and not cursi?
You don't agree with history being aselect and supporting an ideological view? Ask yourself what exactly do you know about labour-history? How many socialist movements, 19th-century radical thinkers or anarchists you know? Does it stop with Marx and Engels? Do you know what exactly the opinions and theories of the other were? How many 19th-century social experiments do you know of? Which views did they supported, how were they organised and why did they cease to exist? What exactly do you know about the Commune of Paris, arguably one of the most important social events in the 19th century? Or about the way an ancient-regime royal court functioned? If you don't know too many of these, should you - as someone who has probably a far better historic knowlegde than the average person - claim to have a non-blatantly biased view on social or economic history? On political history? I for example only got a serious overview of these when I was at my second (and following) years at university.
A lot, but I didn't learn this in school, I learned it by reading and studying marxist works myself, Schools see this history as evil. But even in the EB timescale, how many times didn't we have to learn how Athenian Democracy worked. And how many time didn't we have to learn about the Roman Republic and how that worked. But did you learn something about the Seleukid dynasty? Satrapy system? Cyropaedia? No, of course not! This is not what teh kidd0s have to learn in school, or they may even see systems other then democracy that works just fine (or even better, like Alexandros' reign), and we wouldn't want THAT, do we :wall:
Modern western politics with their elections differ in this very little from an election held in let's say North-Korea (perhaps apart from the use of explicit violence, preferring brain-washing instead). Just take a look at the comments about ETW when that game was released...
And how do you call modern day election campaigns and almost deification (Obama, hint, hint) of candidates?
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