Modding Total War: The Future...

I thought I would start a thread to review what has been learned over the last couple of years in regard to Mods and Mod Teams.

I think this would be a very useful discussion both in preparing for the release of M2:TW (and the subsequent modding thereof) and the converting of R:TW/BI mods to the same. It may also be of some use in seeing how we can complete those advanced mods now under construction.

I think we would benefit from identifying what has worked well and what has not worked well in regards to mods and mod teams. The following are my personal views and I hope others will add to them (and maybe disagree if they wish!)...

Things That Have Aided The Modding Community

1. Specialists

We've seen a great deal of aid to mods generally by those who have focused on specific areas of modding and provided various tools, packs etc. to the Community.

Things That Could Be Improved

1. Modding forums generally have not be archived or organized in such a way so as to make easily accessible modding information. This results in *many* newcomers (or even long-time members who cannot find a lost thread) asking questions that have been asked before. This wastes countless amount of time and energy of forum readers and those answering the questions (as well as the time of those asking the questions).

I would propose someone be dedicated to providing an organized, categorised forum site.

2. Too Many Mods

So many mods start up and then fail. If forums were a little more cautious in offering mod teams their own subforums this would I believe make people think more about how realistic their endeavour is; it would likely see more people joining up with stronger mods.

I would propose higher minimum criteria for mods to be accepted for hosting; though of course anyone could still put out an advert for putting together a team.


These are not well-developed thoughts or ideas but I wanted to get the ball rolling so to speak...please do contribute and I'll keep an update below of all supported suggestions.

At TWc, and at SCC, there is the idea of a Guild of modders, who can help each other out, and work on mods, finish them then move on.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46399
http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...howtopic=15365

If we could get a cooperating group of moodders across all the major TW boards, helping to create tools, write tutorials and finish mods i think it would be great.

I think Dol Guldur is on a right track here.I believe that the main problem in modding is in organization.Some inviduals can ofcourse do pretty much everything themselves,but if we look at the larger projects that have been able to make a release like EB. The main thing a succesfull mod seems to need is an big enough pool of modders in the team and that the team leaders can put them in usefull work,becouse this is hobby not a work.Ofcourse the team and subteam leaders should be highly motivated, but the main problem seems to be that most mods have only few active members.Then somekind of amount of others that in some cases dont have the time to work in project and sometimes just doesnt want to commit to the big work that making of a big mod is. Now that the MTW2 is on its way, im very concerned that new MTW2 mods are started all the time with only few team members.Im sad to say this but i believe that the majority will die before MTW2 is even out.I believe that the best way to create more and better mods is to modding teams to grow.:bow:

Well, I disagree (friendly, of course :2thumbsup: ) in part with you.
For me there are things much more important than a large team, namely: objectives and motivation.

I've worked in only two mods, one for MTW and one for RTW.
In the first one (Reconquista), the entire mod was done by only two people, working almost independently.
Perhaps it is not perfect, but everybody that tried it said it was funny, different and original.

In the second one (ITW), we started also with only two team members. Now we are 6, and one of the reasons for this is that the new members saw that the mod was not only possible, but also probable.

What was in common in both projects? We knew what we wanted to do (clear objectives) and the work of one of the members stimulated the work of the other(s) (motivation).

In both cases I consider that the efforts were fruitful. Both mods were released, with no important bugs, and both try to show the complexity of one small part of the big map (Spain), when we zoom in it. In summary, the objectives were accomplished.

In my opinion, the vision of a new mod must be realistic. Questions like: what do we want to do? how will we do? are we able to do? must have answers from the very beginning of the mod development.
Threads started with something like: "I want to make a phantasy mod, with dozens of factions, hundreds of units, new maps from scratch, new buildings (also in battle maps), scripts... but I don't know a word about modding, Who join the team?" are not realistic.:no:

The normal evolution of a mod should be from short-term feasible objectives, to large modifications involving different aspects of the game.
At least in my opinion.

[QUOTE=Monkwarrior]In my opinion, the vision of a new mod must be realistic. Questions like: what do we want to do? how will we do? are we able to do? must have answers from the very beginning of the mod development.
Threads started with something like: "I want to make a phantasy mod, with dozens of factions, hundreds of units, new maps from scratch, new buildings (also in battle maps), scripts... but I don't know a word about modding, Who join the team?" are not realistic.:no:
QUOTE]

That's a funny thing and one of many things that we can see in any forum in the mod section, only to have died after few months.

Anyway, in terms of mods however I believe the bigger the mod, the more 'internal' problem will happened. It happened in RTR, in EB I believe and many other mods that hasn't see the light yet after great reviews and previews which I find very sad.

But I do support you idea very much though many idealistic ideas will remains as ideas in this unrealistic world. :2thumbsup: One should start, then others might follow, or worst, start another one. Human nature.

What would be good would be a nice, central site where each mod has its own page where updates are posted and help is requested; not a forum, something more like Moddb. Any requests for help can be posted there for specific new recruits (modeller, skinner, scripting etc). Users browsing the site could click on "skinner" and all requests for a skinner would pop up. It would certainly get modding more central and might possibly lead to more focused modding, which is certainly necessary when MTW2 creates far more work in the models and skins department.

People could also advertise their skills, say that they're looking for a mod to help on.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

1. Specialists

We've seen a great deal of aid to mods generally by those who have focused on specific areas of modding and provided various tools, packs etc. to the Community.

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I agree, I think we've been very lucky in that a few talented people have been able to do a great deal for the community. The only concern is of course that there are so few, should they drift away then we'll be rather stuck.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

1. Modding forums generally have not be archived or organized in such a way so as to make easily accessible modding information. This results in *many* newcomers (or even long-time members who cannot find a lost thread) asking questions that have been asked before. This wastes countless amount of time and energy of forum readers and those answering the questions (as well as the time of those asking the questions).

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I'm always interested to hear suggestions as to how information can be better presented. Currently we have the tutorials forum, an Important Modding Index thread in Modding Questions and, of course, people can stick and unstick threads for their own view. But I agree that ease of access is very important. What improvements would you recommend?

The challenge is always the balance between presentation and maintenance - ideally you want all the information immediately obvious to the eye without the need for any regular maintenance such as manual moderator involvement which leads to delays.

I remember a Rome wiki was started, but failed to catch much interest.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

2. Too Many Mods

So many mods start up and then fail. If forums were a little more cautious in offering mod teams their own subforums this would I believe make people think more about how realistic their endeavour is; it would likely see more people joining up with stronger mods.

I would propose higher minimum criteria for mods to be accepted for hosting; though of course anyone could still put out an advert for putting together a team.

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I think there are quite a few matters tied up with 'too many mods'. One is that when a mod fails much of the material made for it is lost. Equally, there is a 'time delay' between creation and distribution and also increasingly with complete mods the modding community has become more conservative over its IP.

I would think that some ground could be made on all of these fronts by re-emphasising creation of 'building block' material that can be compiled into mods.

Say a skinner makes a new skin for a Spartan then if he is just making it for himself he can immediately release it - and he will be more likely to agree to others using it in other mods. Contrarily, if the skin is developed for a long-term modding project it may be months before it is released, if at all, and the modding team will most likely be that much more defensive about its re-use (as it is seen as 'special' to their mod) than the individual (who just wants his work to be used).

This is not to get on the case of 'big mods' especially those TCs who's stuff is so individual to be of limited use to anyone else. But even those can potentially benefit from being able to share models and skins as placeholders or for to fill in factions which they aren't concentrating on.



I think the question about IP is a larger issue so I'll split that off into it's own thread. Generally - and this applies to kagemusha's comment about larger mod teams as well - I think more focus on completing bricks rather than struggling with houses will only be of benefit to the community for whom - after all - the only upside is if something is actually released.

The Hosted Mod question is slightly separate to my mind and one worthy of more focus - so I'll split off that topic also.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

If we could get a cooperating group of modders across all the major TW boards, helping to create tools, write tutorials and finish mods i think it would be great.

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Some of that is relatively straightforward. It's easy for different forums to have links into each others tutorials for example. Tools tend to be the creation of a motivated single person so are less given to co-operation, but when made can be equally shared.

Finishing mods - a kind of modding International Rescue - I think would be very difficult to pull together. What you would need would be a group of experienced modders prepared to down tools on their own projects and fix up another mod whose own team didn't have the motivation or skills to finish it.

The general idea of a Guild that you mention is one which is unfortunately somewhat fraught with pitfalls and we've seen a few well-meaning attempts. The first question I have always asked is 'How is this collective different from the wider modding community?'

If it's seen as selective then it's open to charges of exclusivity, if it's open to all to join freely then you have to wonder how it really differs from the whole modding community. Collectives that need to be organised tend also to be viewed with suspicion as a 'power grab' by the organisers (completely ludicrous of course - what power is there in an online gaming community?
Also there's ultimately there are no punitive sanctions to make any member actually do anything

Ahh, the joy of modding :)

Trust me, none of the issus raised at the start of this thread are in any way unique to modding in this game, it's a universal issue.

Organising:
When you have people free to contribute to a forum, you are always going to get a bit of a mess. No reflection on the moderators! You get a good focused discussion thread, or a tutorial thread, and people will post comments. some good...some utterly off the topic. You can't really do it without having a set of threads, locked, containing the sum total of useful knowledge. It requires someone willing to trawl the forums, and condense down what they find. They also need to be willing to actually follow the tutorials and information, and check it works. Ideally.... you want an expert modder....with plenty of free time...:oops:

Too Many Mods!
NO NO NO NO NO! How can you have too many mods? I know most never get finished, but I think saying we have too many is missing the point. You have to consider WHY people start these mods. They want to make something partly for themselves, and partly because they see all the top class mods getting praise and attention, and want a slice of that! Nothing wrong with that.... we all have to start somewhere.

What we DO need to do, though, is push some of the points that have appeared in threads about starting mods. Mods that fail early do so because they are poorly planned, poorly thought out, and done by people who lack the basic skills needed to complete the Mod. A simple 'checklist' thread would be a good starting point, but not everyone will bother to read it :wall:

People need to be made aware of the barriers:

You want new models....learn to model...find a modeller FIRST...understand the tools you will need. Don't expect to re-skin a couple of peasants and expect a skilled modeller to turn up to make you wonderful fantasy units.

That aside...I don't see how ANY mod would qualify for hosting without some definite quality content available for testing. Doesn't have to be an actual Beta, but it should include DEFINITE proof that your concept is workable, and that you have the team in place to deliver. Those sort of guidelines should ensure people do the work before asking for hosting.

A good point was raised about IP for mod content. Personally, I don't see why anyone should give away their hard work if they don't want to. If they have made the mesh...the skin...thetext files, it's down to them what happens if the mod folds. Thats Mods though....what I never understood is why new modders always dive into a full blown mod!

Why not just make a few units! Add them in as random mercenaries for a bit of fun! That's what I did. I made some skeleton warriors and played with them as mercenaries. They didn't have a huge impact on gameplay, and were a bit of fun. This sort of thing should be encouraged. If you make more of those....you might end up with the beginnings of a mod.

When it comes to rescuing other mods, though, I see that as a real non-starter! I would not have the enthusiasm to finish off someone else's mod, and would never be able to find the time. Take the Wheel of Time mod...I nevr read the books, don't have an interest in the story, and would never pick up the mod..or, in fact, play it. It's nothing to do with quality, but purely down to having no interest in the subject matter. If anyone was that enthusiastic about it, and was willing to take on work, you would hope they had already joined the mod.

This whole topic is a bit of a minefield. You cannot impose rigid order on a forum, nor chain modders to a project.....it's been tried before...and everywhere I saw it tried, they failed.

The best we can hope for in a forum is a solid and sympathetic Moderator team, who can skim off the cream of thoughts and ideas and...preferebly...build a Guild of Modders website, where they can host all the news, tutorials, tools and experimental ideas once they have been proven in the forge of forum posts :laugh4:

Thank you for your comments. There is no doubt much wisdom and truth in your words, Bwian. Forum organisation, for example, is a nightmare - it is highly unlikely anyone would have the time to get it as it should be and, as you say, such a person would need certain knowledge and such a person is likely working on something far more important to them.

In saying that there were too many mods I did not wish to put across the idea that the enthusiasm and creativity should be in any way curtailed, only that forum owners should be more rigid in what they host and the way they classify.

One way to organize the tutorials/discoveries would be to have a section divided into different areas: campaign map, units, battle map, tools, interface, audio, animations, etc. and then a link to a discussion thread. I have tried to set this up with my own tutorials to keep the tutorial thread clean and easily researchable. The discussion thread would include a link to the tutorial of course.

I did like the idea someone started of a subject tree - but, again, lot of hard work on someone's part.

Originally posted by Bwain:

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Too Many Mods!
NO NO NO NO NO! How can you have too many mods? I know most never get finished, but I think saying we have too many is missing the point. You have to consider WHY people start these mods. They want to make something partly for themselves, and partly because they see all the top class mods getting praise and attention, and want a slice of that! Nothing wrong with that.... we all have to start somewhere.

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Additionally please be aware that many people trying to create their own personal mod are not doing so in the mistaken belief that they can necessarily improve on the existing mods, but rather, like myself, are just trying to learn how to do it!

Please continue to help us out, hopefully occasionally things can be learnt from resolving our errors, and some newbies can eventually learn enough to go on to help with the major mods.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

At TWc, and at SCC, there is the idea of a Guild of modders, who can help each other out, and work on mods, finish them then move on.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=46399
http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...howtopic=15365

If we could get a cooperating group of moodders across all the major TW boards, helping to create tools, write tutorials and finish mods i think it would be great.

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Good idea, a modders guild.

Remeber the mod acadmey? That went down in flames after a week. Sad. I enroilled cause I wanted to mod.

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Modding forums generally have not be archived or organized in such a way so as to make easily accessible modding information.

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This should get the greatest attention. Appointing a single member to take care of it should not be necessary. A person either cares for it or not and does not need an official position to get the job done.

Enforce a small set of rules:
- Include the question in the thread title when asking a question. Promote the use of background of information. Perhaps even close "I need help!" threads with "Campaign is not working, why?".
- Answered questions related to a tutorial are deleted and the answer is added to the tutorial.

And:
- Bits of modding related info found on the entire Org or other forums should be collected and added to the tutorial forum.
- Make a Post-mortem of a failed modding project. Or an article about EB and lay out how many files were edited, models made, the amount of people joined and left, how much time it took to complete certain stages, etc. The numbers are pretty huge and should give a good insight to people how much time goes into a big mod.
On a smaller scale tell how much time it takes to complete a single model (different LODs, textures). Then people can multiply it to see wether 50 new units is that feasible.

I suggested a guild because at the moment the community is spread around several sites such as .com, here, TWC and SCC. The problem is that at the moment at TWc i am perhaps the most skilled modder answering new modders questions, but i do not really have the time to post in the detail that they need. If we had one site, or all the information needed complied better, it would allow theses questions to be anwered quicker, and so new modders learn faster.

We also really need to make people aware of the sheer scale needed for a huge mod such as EB, many new modders just have no clue about what is involved. Having a couple of articles about why mods failed, and how much work went into succesfull mods would help this no end, as we culd point people to them to make sure they know what they are getting into.

Yes, and I like the idea of the time estimation. A "Thinking of Starting A Mod? Then Read This First!" pinned post would be useful.

As an example, the Fourth Age campaign map must have been about 6 months in research and then concept design before even the first TGA pixel was created; not so much a problem for maps set in the real world but it would give someone an idea if they had a fantasy mod and wanted the map accurate.

If someone knows this then they might think twice before starting a fantasy mod, though perhaps Middle-earth is not a good example as other fantasy maps are likely less demanding due to the lack of information on them.

Concept design for units is important too - far more time is spent on conceptual art & design for a unit than the actual modelling and texturing. If you have no base reference (i.e. your mod is not historical or is not based on a movie) you might spend a great proportion of your time researching text for clues as to how the unit should look and trying to fill in the gaps in the right spirit of the book it is based upon.

All in all, beginners should probably start off with a roman-era mod even if it is a small one.

But I think an article discussing this and warning would-be mod starters would be a great idea. I'd certainly chip in for the fantasy side as well as coding time considerations.

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I suggested a guild because at the moment the community is spread around several sites such as .com, here, TWC and SCC. The problem is that at the moment at TWc i am perhaps the most skilled modder answering new modders questions, but i do not really have the time to post in the detail that they need. If we had one site, or all the information needed complied better, it would allow theses questions to be anwered quicker, and so new modders learn faster.

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Well, the Org was around before TWC and SCC :wink: I think the last thing we need is another website to make the fragmentation even greater.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

Yes, and I like the idea of the time estimation. A "Thinking of Starting A Mod? Then Read This First!" pinned post would be useful.

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We have this:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=35969

You should feel free to add to it from your own experience.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Having a couple of articles about why mods failed, and how much work went into succesfull mods would help this no end, as we culd point people to them to make sure they know what they are getting into.

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I'd be very interested to read why some projects never reached a release. I think, though, the danger here would be making public private disagreements between team members. But presuming someone could write a dispassionate account identifying the problems hit and the lessons to be learned for the future then I think it could be very interesting.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

I suggested a guild because at the moment the community is spread around several sites such as .com, here, TWC and SCC. The problem is that at the moment at TWc i am perhaps the most skilled modder answering new modders questions, but i do not really have the time to post in the detail that they need. If we had one site, or all the information needed complied better, it would allow theses questions to be anwered quicker, and so new modders learn faster.

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The modding community is dispersed because new modders come through in different sites and mod teams that come together choose one as their primary hang-out. I don't know whether you'd ever get them to move to another single site. But for information though, I wholeheartedly support linking between the different sites of the modding community - if there's a tutorial on TWC that answers someone's question then I won't hestitate to link over it, equally I'll link over to the Org if someone asks a question over on another site.

I remember Myrddraal posted a thread of Org tutorials on TWC a while ago and Sim has a similar thread stickied.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

One way to organize the tutorials/discoveries would be to have a section divided into different areas: campaign map, units, battle map, tools, interface, audio, animations, etc. and then a link to a discussion thread. I have tried to set this up with my own tutorials to keep the tutorial thread clean and easily researchable. The discussion thread would include a link to the tutorial of course.

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Your own tutorials, Dol Guldur, and the ongoing support you provide for them are are a model for others to follow. These different sections - would you propose they be in different forums or just different sections within an index thread?

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Originally Posted by Bwian

Too Many Mods!
NO NO NO NO NO! How can you have too many mods? I know most never get finished, but I think saying we have too many is missing the point. You have to consider WHY people start these mods. They want to make something partly for themselves, and partly because they see all the top class mods getting praise and attention, and want a slice of that! Nothing wrong with that.... we all have to start somewhere.

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Well, quite. Having lots of completed mods is great, but a mod that's never completed, that never even makes a release, doesn't help develop the community at all.

I most certainly agree with why not make a few skins first (for example) - completing bricks and not struggling with houses. My question would be how best to encourage this kind of behaviour - given that we do not want to discourage people from stating full blown mods if they want to.

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Originally Posted by Bwian

A good point was raised about IP for mod content. Personally, I don't see why anyone should give away their hard work if they don't want to. If they have made the mesh...the skin...thetext files, it's down to them what happens if the mod folds.

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Indisputably - but wouldn't you agree it's better for the community to release what they have made? If so, then it's a matter of how do we best encourage people to do so?

And the other point on IP was the reuse and updating of released material - but it's better for that conversation to take place in the IP thread.

I agree that we do not need more fragmentation

I always try to link to whatever tutorial is best when answering questions at TWc, most of the time i link to ones at TWc because im lazy, but when i have the time i link to ones here as well. Having information shared better between the sites can only help the community, as information is easier to find.

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These different sections - would you propose they be in different forums or just different sections within an index thread?

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Thanks for the kind words.

As the Scriptorium is now except with more divisions than 2. And with tutorial and discussion kept separate. And I think Moderators should be able to delete those "tutorials" that are not really tutorials at all. Snippets of information or improvements to tutorials (when not the author) should be posted in the discussion thread for that tutorial and then the author can update the original tutorial . If he does not then the information is still in the linked discussion thread for researchers to find.

I'd be quite detailed with the forums. For example:

campaign map - editing (TGA files, creating and editing the map)
campaign map - coding (map-related text files, descr_regions, descr_strat)
campaign map - misc. (mercs, resources, wonders, etc.)

Or for buildings:

tech tree - EDB (EDB, EB)
tech tree - TGAs (cultural building folders, descr_ui)

Each of these (and many others) would have a list of tutorials within them, though hopefully not so many (due to their specific nature) that would make research hard (by having multiple pages).

I know some files will overlap, but not in the context of the tutorial. The DS file would apply to some tutorials in both the building forums for example

I have been toying with the idea of making a 'get you started' kind of website for modding. Now might be a good time to throw it together, since I am not currently able to do any modelling work!

It is a REALLY good point about outlining the time it takes to do something. Even for an experienced modder, it is impossible to put a complete mesh in game in less than an evenings work .... assuming you are going to make 4 levels of detail anyway ;). This might help to give people the sort of man hours a mod actually sucks up. If...say... making a unit model takes 8 man hours, then you know the sort of workload you would have for 20 units. If you only have one modeller, then you are looking at 160 man hours to make your meshes. Since a full blown total conversion may have 80+ models...

DJ also made an interesting point about mod failure. Whilst it could be a toucjy subject, some mods fail because the TW engine just won;t do what the modders needed it to do. This sort of knowledge has value to the community. If you find the AI can't play the game....the animations don;t work if you do X,Y or Z .... that sort of thing. Would save people going down the same blind alleys! I mean... how many people tried to make WW2 mods only to find that you can't make effective modern guns and the formations were too inflexible!
:wall:

So what we need is NOT a guild or more rules but a newsite with articles and research materials (on modding, not history). Basically a pool of relevant information with little to no noise.

Heck, maybe "retired" or inactive modders like Bwian could man it as he can safely say he has no attachment to any project and could give a fairly unbiased point of view.


No, I don't agree with the "too many mods" point of view. Modders are not employees. We work on whatever we want to. Not a lot of people want to work only as he's told. He has his own visions and ideas too. Saying that all similar mods should work together is like saying no one should mod RTR, SPQR or EB and instead they must strive to join or not at all. See, if the difference in "vision" is small, they'd just mod an existing mod. If the difference is large, they'd make their own, even if the setting is the same. Saying modders should not create another mod that is similar to an existing project is the same as saying companies should stop making WW2 shooters game because goddamn there's a truckload of that already.

As I think I can say with some confidence - no one here has any problem with many many _completed_ mods. It's the huge number of uncompleted mods which release absolutely nothing which what they're trying to avoid.

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Originally Posted by wlesmana

So what we need is NOT a guild or more rules but a newsite with articles and research materials (on modding, not history). Basically a pool of relevant information with little to no noise.

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This and Bwian's suggestion is interesting. Assuming for the sake of argument that we could make improvements to the Scriptorium along the lines that Dol Guldur suggests - what kind of additional material would be of most use to modders?

Well this suggestion didn't really fit into any of the spin off threads so I decided to go back to the original. You are talking about making it easy for modders to help each other and trying to make the forums more organised so questions can more easily be answered. Well how about in the modding questions forum people start putting the program/area they are asking about in the question.

When people title threads things like "need a little help" I dont have time to read through all of them. Especially seen as most I dont know the asnwers to because they are from areas I know nothing about. If they titled the thread "Modelling Question: need a little help" then I would be much more inclined to look at the thread and be able to help. If everyone added prefixes to the titles telling us what the question is about it would make it a lot easier for those trying to asnwer the questions.

It is simple things like this which can make the forum a lot more organised and easier to read.

Regards,

Sundjata

I think the scriptorium is one of the best ways to avoid un-nessecary questions.

I see many many questions being answered in the Modding questions section, and they are useful answers being given that would widen the scriptorium. Yet I feel that a good way to prevent the 'usual' questions, are to collate answers from various questions and put them in the scriptorium. This would make the scriptorium more used, as to be honest i feel that there are still many things clear to experienced modders, that newbies cannot find out unless they post a question.

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

Well this suggestion didn't really fit into any of the spin off threads so I decided to go back to the original.

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That's ideal - as more topics come up people can just spin-off more threads to focus on them more specifically.

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

If everyone added prefixes to the titles telling us what the question is about it would make it a lot easier for those trying to answer the questions.

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That's an interesting idea - there are couple of ways for that to work, either we can encourage people to do it themselves and the moderators pick up those who don't (and make it clear to people that their thread names can change because it can be seen as unnecessarily aggressive or 'over-moderating'), or there is a way to require a prefix (but that would take a lot of admin time, even if was technically possible and then we'd have to determine the list of prefixes that would cover the options).

Which one would be more in line with what you were thinking?

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Originally Posted by Lentonius

Yet I feel that a good way to prevent the 'usual' questions, are to collate answers from various questions and put them in the scriptorium. This would make the scriptorium more used, as to be honest i feel that there are still many things clear to experienced modders, that newbies cannot find out unless they post a question.

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I'd agree with you - though collating this knowledge is not something that you need to be a staffer to do. So, how would you suggest encouraging members to do it?

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Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

That's an interesting idea - there are couple of ways for that to work, either we can encourage people to do it themselves and the moderators pick up those who don't (and make it clear to people that their thread names can change because it can be seen as unnecessarily aggressive or 'over-moderating'), or there is a way to require a prefix (but that would take a lot of admin time, even if was technically possible and then we'd have to determine the list of prefixes that would cover the options).

Which one would be more in line with what you were thinking?

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Well both are what I was thinking really but maybe we could first just tell people it is the best idea for them to do it and make a list of prefixes that they should put at the start of their thread name in order to get an answer more quickly. If we force the issue some people may be put off by what seems a strict regime and we dont want to make posting a thread too complicated for new people by listing loads of "MOD/TEX/SKIN/CAM" prefixes which ultimately end up confusing them.

Regards,

Sundjata

Re: Changing thread titles, I see Epistolary Richard has already started to do this on the Modding Questions section, great idea :2thumbsup: - if the moderators have got the patience to do this for a while it might be all that's needed. People tend to follow suit, so if the see a lot of "help needed's" they'll post the same type of message, but if all the other threads have sensible titles hopefully they'll put more thought into theirs.

Not so sure about having to select from pre-defined prefixes though, reminds me of those horrible on-line support services where the drop down menu categories never seem to include what you need to ask!

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

One way to organize the tutorials/discoveries would be to have a section divided into different areas: campaign map, units, battle map, tools, interface, audio, animations, etc. and then a link to a discussion thread. I have tried to set this up with my own tutorials to keep the tutorial thread clean and easily researchable. The discussion thread would include a link to the tutorial of course.

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Originally Posted by wlesmana

So what we need is NOT a guild or more rules but a newsite with articles and research materials (on modding, not history). Basically a pool of relevant information with little to no noise.

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Forums really aren't flexible enough to organise tutorials & discoveries in that way - aside from the large number of mostly inactive forums it would create, more importantly it'd be very difficult to cross-link a tutorial that was relevant to several different areas effectively.

That kind of functionality, however, is possible through a links manager - which a couple of staff members have been working on. As a result of this conversation we've added a Modification Guides, Tools & Tutorials section as a first step to building on the ideas expressed here.

This is the first time a section has been opened to the public, so before I make a larger announcement I'd appreciate it if the people involved in the discussion can have a look around, try things out and see if there are any problems to fix or if the process is unclear anywhere before it officially opens.

Not all tutorials are added from the Org yet, the rest will go up over the bank holiday weekend by staff, so if you want to try adding a link then link up to one on another site, I'd recommend TWC as there are plenty there not yet linked in.

It is a great resource. I will think about suggestions for additions/improvements but for now I can see that you need a section dedicated to the Tech Trees which is wholly missing from your lists:

Tech Trees - details relating to the creation or editing of each faction's building trees, unit recruitment, bonuses and on-screen building names and descriptions.


The TGA aspect of the buildings might come under 2D artwork, though to be consistent you do have a section on unit cards. You'll have to decide under which section to put the graphical aspect of the trees.

EDIT: Also, where would research go? I do not necessarily mean player research of unmodded factors (such as the effect of roads on trade) but the research associated with modding (such as the hard-coded mins and maxs for all files). Though the former is also useful to modders as the effect of the modding can be more easily ascertained.

EDIT 2: How about a thread listing each graphical component and referencing the specific save format for each, dimensions, borders, layers, whether it is compressed or not, tga or dds extension, location in directories, where ingame they appear, will they work unpacked, etc.?

Looks good; it's a solid, easy to navigate collection of modding resources and could be very helpful. Hopefully people visiting will check there first before asking questions that are already answered.

Looks good, I think I'll wait and see how 'the staff' place things before trying to add links.

The ones from TWC I was looking at linking could go in a few places (guess that's the idea of cross linking) for example:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44952
is about changing faction icons in photoshop so possibly 'factions' but it's really more to do with using photoshop so maybe 'tools' instead, then again the alpha and .dds issues are the same as with 'skins'
(now you know why I have problems with online support menus!).

Anyway I'm sure that will all get more obvious once all the .org stuff is in, great work. :2thumbsup:

P.S. Like Dol Guldur's idea of listing all the graphical components and attributes.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

It is a great resource. I will think about suggestions for additions/improvements but for now I can see that you need a section dedicated to the Tech Trees which is wholly missing from your lists:

Tech Trees - details relating to the creation or editing of each faction's building trees, unit recruitment, bonuses and on-screen building names and descriptions.

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Good suggestion, the missing links from the Org are from the Scriptorium sub-fora so the unit/building side and campaign/map side are not properly developed yet. They'll be fleshed out in the next couple of days.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

The TGA aspect of the buildings might come under 2D artwork, though to be consistent you do have a section on unit cards. You'll have to decide under which section to put the graphical aspect of the trees.

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Unit cards are highlighted because there are simply so many questions about them - I think building cards could probably be wrapped into them as well with a small change of title.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

EDIT: Also, where would research go?

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At the moment, I think research is happy with the tutorials - it gets marked with a 'Research' prefix, such as here. When MTW2 comes around and research hots up again, we might well add a research category for those who want to get involved.

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Originally Posted by Dol Guldur

EDIT 2: How about a thread listing each graphical component and referencing the specific save format for each, dimensions, borders, layers, whether it is compressed or not, tga or dds extension, location in directories, where ingame they appear, will they work unpacked, etc.?

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:dizzy2: that's quite a bit of work - that information is mainly embedded within tutorials and how to's where it exists at all. Would people really use a central reference rather than referring to a tutorial?

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Originally Posted by Geoffrey S

Hopefully people visiting will check there first before asking questions that are already answered.

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When it gets officially released we'll add a link to it at the top of the Scriptorium.

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Originally Posted by Makanyane

Looks good, I think I'll wait and see how 'the staff' place things before trying to add links.

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Don't forget I also want to test out the technical and 'intuitive' side of it - so feel free to mark any test posts 'Test' and I can ensure they work and then delete them.

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Originally Posted by Makanyane

The ones from TWC I was looking at linking could go in a few places (guess that's the idea of cross linking) for example:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44952
is about changing faction icons in photoshop so possibly 'factions' but it's really more to do with using photoshop so maybe 'tools' instead, then again the alpha and .dds issues are the same as with 'skins'
(now you know why I have problems with online support menus!).

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That's a good example - in this instance I would say 'factions' for the reason you stated, 'user interface' because it deals with the faction buttons on the UI, maybe also 'units' because people might consider them 'unit banners'.

Looking good.

I have one dilemma from this however. So we get a written tutorial that in some occasion, is not fully understood by the new modder. So they post a question. But in many cases, the writer of the tutorial is no longer updating or even checking his tutorial thread. Either he already left the scene or he thought it's clear enough that anyone who couldn't understand just won't. Or he's trying to avoid lazy modders who wants to be guided step by step, word by word. Whichever the case, his question would've been buried in the sub-forum.

So is it better to have it as is, or lock the articles/tutorials and let the new modder ask help in the general modding forum? A lot of new modders are already doing this when they could've just take a short trip to Scriptorium to find it themselves.

That's not really a new problem. Scriptorium threads are left open because a modder's subsequent clarification or explanation of a point is useful. A question relating to the tutorial would have a home in that thread - a random question in an unrelated tutorial tends to get a response to ask the question in the Modding Questions forum - should it get a response at all.

On balance, more good comes out of leaving the threads open than harm. As for getting people to visit the Scriptorium instead of asking a question - that's been an ongoing objective, you may recall the Scriptorium link that used to be on top of the Modding Questions forum. It states that the Scriptorium should be checked in the forum description at the top and equally members replying can just link to the relevant tutorial - a lot easier than retyping the explanation.

Re: scriptorium threads, I agree with leaving them open, some useful things do come up even if the original author isn't replying. However could anything be done about the very long ones?

I'm thinking for example of 'Making a new campaign map' (273 replies) and
'Sprite Generator...CA?' (136 replies), there are some useful findings after original tutorial but it takes about an hour to read through, which is obviously a bit of a deterent! Could the full thread get archived (and linked with clever new system!) so it's still accessible to those with patience to go through it all , but have a moderator summarise the findings or - delete out the irrelevant 'it doesn't work', 'oh, yes it does' 'oh, no it doesn't' 'oh, woops I spelt it wrong' sections - to give a shorter version on the scriptorium?

I generally don't like deleting people's posts unless there is very good reason for it - if someone would like to summarise the valuable information from the various pages I would be happy to add it to the first post so that all the info is there.

Clarity and ease of reading sounds like a very good reason to me when it comes to passing knowledge.

The links manager is looking very good! :2thumbsup:

Still trying to think of ways to make scriptorium easier to use, to keep tutorial threads clean but linked to Q & A.

Is there any structure links, sub-forum, or sub_thread (does that exist?)
that would give you scriptorium structure looking like this?:
==========================================================
Making a new Campaign map (tutorial) last post: solved landmass CTD
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Making a new Campaign map (comments, questions & answers)
last post: why doesn't my...

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Game AI stuff... (research / tutorial) last post: solved all ai problems
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Game AI stuff.... (comments, questions & answers)
last post: we love you nikolai 1962
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For existing long threads whole thread could be pasted into 'comments, Q & A'
authors first post and ammendments would be copied & pasted into top level (you wouldn't be deleting posts, ER just selectively copying them!)
Author and other users could still post additional advice, summaries of old and new findings into top level, but this level would be heavily moderated. Everything else can go in lower level without clogging up tutorial. - NB: This does all depend on having mechanism to keep the two threads together.

If it's feasible but too difficult to re-arrange existing threads, would it work as structure for MTW2 ?

Well I've been browsing through the various tutorials and it is on one hand a lot easier to navigate. The one problem that I've noticed is that some authors have written several tutorials in one thread, for example Alin's tutorials on 3ds Max. Now the link describes it as "various tutorials" but doesn't this vague description undermine the whole point of the tutorial organisation? This could particularly be a problem if someone was searching for a specific tutorial.

My suggestions to solving this problem are either to make a list of bullet points in the description saying exactly the tutorials in each thread (if there are more than one) or creating multiple links back to the same thread, each with their own description.

The first would be easier but if more than one tutorial has been written in a thread and the tutorials cover different sections then links to threads with only a small amount of information on one section may appear in multiple sections, clogging the system somewhat. A rare problem but I just thought I'd mention it.

I hope you understand all that, its quite complicated :sweatdrop: Overall I think its a great system though :2thumbsup:

Regards,

Sundjata

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Originally Posted by Makanyane

Still trying to think of ways to make scriptorium easier to use, to keep tutorial threads clean but linked to Q & A.

Is there any structure links, sub-forum, or sub_thread (does that exist?)
that would give you scriptorium structure looking like this?:

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Actually, I'm not at all sure if that's possible. I suppose the closest thing would be the threaded view that you can set though your UserCP.

The ideal situation is where the author goes back and edits in any more relevant info into the first post - or posts links to them there. I don't think it can be done automatically.

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Originally Posted by Sundjata Keita

Well I've been browsing through the various tutorials and it is on one hand a lot easier to navigate. The one problem that I've noticed is that some authors have written several tutorials in one thread, for example Alin's tutorials on 3ds Max. Now the link describes it as "various tutorials" but doesn't this vague description undermine the whole point of the tutorial organisation? This could particularly be a problem if someone was searching for a specific tutorial.

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I agree - modelling really isn't my area. The staff has just done the initial splurge of adding most of the obvious threads. But this is a community resource - and members of the community with better knowledge about an area should feel free try and make it more accessible and useful for others.