What i think will happen with modding M2TW

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

More Gameplay Mods

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

New faction mods

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

Less Major Mods

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

What do other modders think?

Well the question is when or if we'll be able to mod the models at all. If we aren't, I can't see the modding community go very far with M2, which would be a shame.

We couldn´t in RTW as well until Vercingetorix made his .cas importer. Though I don´t know if he´s still active in the TW community.

If we can't change models i see the mod community becoming much more test editing orientated as we now have more to work with, the most important being moddable ai.

I don't see why graphical modding will present such a difficulty. Although you CAN create many varieties of a skin, it doesn't mean you HAVE to. So if you had a model for an Armored Hoplite from RTW, you could just split up his one texture into 4-5 separate ones that M2TW requires, and your work would end there. You could then add varieties if you WANTED to. Besides, as I think the M2 engine will allow, you can probably share textures/models between units, so that the many different Greek units can share the same muscled cuirass for instance, cutting down the graphical development DRASTICALLY. All in all, we'll just have to wait a few days for all these things to clear out.

CA have said Rome models wont more in M2Tw, so it wont be that easy.

Well right, some transitional issues will have to be accomodated between Rome and M2, but people have made it sound like 4x or 5x as much work will have to be done on each model, and I think that's just not the case. It will go a little slow at first, but it was also SUPER slow at the beginning for Rome, with some extraordinarily primitive textures in the beginning, and only arriving to quality work in the last year or so.

Well as it is CA has not announced anything about model/texture tools which we as the community do need. I really kind of doubt that we'll able to reverse engineer the stuff this time as apparently everything is much more complex. So we're kind of stuck at CA's mercy. And if this is the case and CA doesnt provide us with these tools then the modding community is pretty much dead in the water.

I kind of really wished i would have known this stuff earlier. I wouldnt have preordered the game then.

Well I don't think we should jump to conclusions just yet it may take time but CA seem to be definitely helping the community this time and they say they will look at the models so lets just be patient for a couple of months or so.

Who knows. There are some things I want to create (model) but, if I can't I might as well not bother.

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Originally Posted by shifty157

Well as it is CA has not announced anything about model/texture tools which we as the community do need. I really kind of doubt that we'll able to reverse engineer the stuff this time as apparently everything is much more complex. So we're kind of stuck at CA's mercy. And if this is the case and CA doesnt provide us with these tools then the modding community is pretty much dead in the water.

I kind of really wished i would have known this stuff earlier. I wouldnt have preordered the game then.

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I'm in the same boat. 'Modder Friendly' except you can't make any actual major mods... at all. I refuse to buy the game until they provide us with some way to add models, skins, and animations, and I would encourage others to do so as well.

As it stands now, CA has put a nail in the coffin of the community who has done nothing but add options and refinements (and hence value) to their game. I can't help but take it somewhat personally.

There will be NO major mods, and NO diversity in the game if we cannot add/edit models, textures, and animations.

After having played the game since it was released I have taken my decision not to bother with modding it or playing it anymore. It's quite a crap after spending 50 Euros not to feel anything more then you feel for a mod like Chivalry. The things I don't like are many more then the things I like, the things which should have been are many more then what it is. I don't think there is an extra-feature here which can't be scripted or managed (even without scripting) in RTW as well.

Arbaces.

V's tool made the major mods of RTW possible.

If CA does not provide one (how did they get the models in in the first place?) then there will be no major mods for M2TW. If we cannot alter the or create new battle unit models then why bother making a new faction mod?

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Originally Posted by Lusted

As there are now 9 factions slots available

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Only nine?!?! :wall:

If we cannot edit models and textures, then the TW modding community will wither and die, as others have said before. I'm not sure what to think, but I hope the people at CA have enough sense to see that the longevity of RTW is in large part due to the hard work of modders.

The thing that worries me is that if they didn't release tools for RTW (we have Vercingetorix to thank for those), why should we believe that they will do so for M2?

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Originally Posted by -apocalypsis-

The thing that worries me is that if they didn't release tools for RTW (we have Vercingetorix to thank for those), why should we believe that they will do so for M2?

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Because at least an unpacker tool is already announced, they invited ER over before their release, and they seem to care at least a bit more for their consumers this time around.

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Only nine?!?!

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Meant nine new factions, not just 9 faction slots.

I don't personally think the mod community will die, just become much less varied when it comes ot MTW II. The mods will have to focus on the same time period and use the same units, which will be a definate shame, but wont completely eradicate the modding market for the game. In any case, the differences from a modding p.o.v between Medieval II and Rome seem to be very few and hence I feel that most major mods will continue for the Rome engine, which is going to be a shame. I guess we all jsut have to wait and see

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Originally Posted by alpaca

Because at least an unpacker tool is already announced, they invited ER over before their release, and they seem to care at least a bit more for their consumers this time around.

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I still do not dare to get my hopes up. Without a way of editing models, skins, and animations, the unpacker will be virtually useless (as far as larger mods are concerned, at least).

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

That would be a HUGE backward step, and would mean that MTW2 would effectively become useless as a sandbox. I for one would rather mod for RTW and finish off some projects there than move onto a newer engine with no toolkit.

Mind you....why are we assuming that someone can't make a tool like Vercingetorix did for MTW2.....CA provided NONE of the tools we use for RTW...the community did it all. Why can't we do it again?

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Originally Posted by -apocalypsis-

I still do not dare to get my hopes up. Without a way of editing models, skins, and animations, the unpacker will be virtually useless (as far as larger mods are concerned, at least).

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I don't agree there. You can still work a lot on gameplay-enhancing, and I think the skins won't be such a tough nut to crack when compared to the models.
Don't forget that Vercingetorix also released his tools only a few months after the release, so if we get something within, say, half a year, that's perfectly all right. If we don't get anything... Well then, can't help it really.

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Originally Posted by alpaca

I don't agree there. You can still work a lot on gameplay-enhancing, and I think the skins won't be such a tough nut to crack when compared to the models.
Don't forget that Vercingetorix also released his tools only a few months after the release, so if we get something within, say, half a year, that's perfectly all right. If we don't get anything... Well then, can't help it really.

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You don't agree that the unpacker will be virtually useless for modders working on larger mods, without a way to edit models and animations? We may see a lot of smaller mods focusing on the medieval era, but that will be it. And I wouldn't say that it is 'perfectly alright' to get those tools after half a year - if we get them then, then we'll get them then, but it won't be 'alright'.

Now, I'm looking at this from a "Middle-earth modder's" point of view, and as things are now, they are pretty disconcerting. But, of course, I may be overly critical, but what I'm talking about is the 'worst case scenario' - if CA releases tools within a few months, I will be the first to sing to their praise.

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Originally Posted by Bwian

Mind you....why are we assuming that someone can't make a tool like Vercingetorix did for MTW2.....CA provided NONE of the tools we use for RTW...the community did it all. Why can't we do it again?

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That's what we'll have to hope for, I think (or fear) - though CA has said that the way models are done now is more complicated.

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Originally Posted by -apocalypsis-

You don't agree that the unpacker will be virtually useless for modders working on larger mods, without a way to edit models and animations? We may see a lot of smaller mods focusing on the medieval era, but that will be it. And I wouldn't say that it is 'perfectly alright' to get those tools after half a year - if we get them then, then we'll get them then, but it won't be 'alright'.

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You said the unpacker would be virtually useless, not virtually useless for complete conversion ;) That, I can agree to.
And I can wait a few months for modding tools. I don't really expect a company to work on modding tools before being finished with the game (although some companies do it, and it's of course better for the community, and maybe the game's selling rates). The Civ4 SDK was also released a few months after the game, before that, you couldn't most mod things (well you could rebalance and make new maps but you couldn't add really new features).
I don't think we can demand anything from CA, what tools they give us is completely their and SEGA's decision, and I for my part will be happy if we get something after half a year instead of getting nothing at all, like with R:TW.

I said useless (as far as larger mods are concerned, at least). ;)

And I agree we cannot demand anything from CA - but we can, and should, loudly voice our opinion on how we think things should be. Modding tools would be great for the modding community - but, perhaps more importantly, it would be great for CA, the Total War-series, and the larger TW community, as well.

I would think that a plugin for Max to allow models to be imported and exported, plus a converter for the texture files so they could be edited are the minimums.

Even better would be something to allow reliable modification of animations as well!

Without those, no major mods can be done.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

Meant nine new factions, not just 9 faction slots.

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Ok good. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Bwian

I would think that a plugin for Max to allow models to be imported and exported, plus a converter for the texture files so they could be edited are the minimums.

Even better would be something to allow reliable modification of animations as well!

Without those, no major mods can be done.

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My intuition tells me that CA is in a conflict when it comes to models/textures. They said they developed a way to improve the performance of their engine. Now, if this was an in house development, they may want to keep it secret, which is reasonable. After all they want to keep an edge over the competition.

Just my speculative intuition.

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Originally Posted by zarkis

My intuition tells me that CA is in a conflict when it comes to models/textures. They said they developed a way to improve the performance of their engine. Now, if this was an in house development, they may want to keep it secret, which is reasonable. After all they want to keep an edge over the competition.

Just my speculative intuition.

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Competition?
What competition?
Like the dumbed down archaic basebuilding, build order memorising clickfests that bare the "RTS" title?
Name one game that even remotely approaches the scale and tactical deepness (SP?) of the TW series...

I suspect that the skins and how they are randomized makes it much more difficult to create units for M2TW than RTW. I sincerely hope that CA will release a tool to make it possible. Yet they did not do this for RTW for whatever reasons.

Hopefully, in the next few months someone with far more talent than I will figure out to at least alter existing models. Being able to alter existing models would open up major mod possiblities.

I don't think modeling and skining would be so harder for people used to it, there was a lot of projects for RTW who were unable to find a modelers and died it made the sad "natural selection" for mods.

The main problem is, would CA/Sega allow us to create new models and textures for the game ? I'm not sure because of concurency...

If there's no way to mod MTW 2 with graphical enchancements. Most will consider this game just for time to time playing and It'll go after one or two months. If there's no possibilty for graphical enchancements there'll be no major mods nor realism mods, just a lot of gameplay mods who can be intresting to try for your second game but quite boring in the long term, because you basicly see the same things that just behave a bit different.

About more factions, hem... what's the point of having more factions slots if we can create units and/or edit textures for them ? Creating Sweden faction with Dane skins and units ? :no: .

It'll kill most of the community enthusiasm, mine for sure. Because TW game are making the emphasis on graphics during battles otherwise you can play europa universallis, crusader kings or Dabol online... and RTW/STW and the first MTW.

I've the same feeling regardin MTW 2 as Abraces, I jumped from intense excitement during the first week to intense deception after the feever. I've unistalled to make room to install chivarly mod and I enjoy it more :inquisitive: :wall: .

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Originally Posted by Lusted

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

More Gameplay Mods

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

New faction mods

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

Less Major Mods

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

What do other modders think?

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by Bwian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think that is what Bwian is saying.


LZoF

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Originally Posted by Lord Zimoa of Flanders

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

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

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Originally Posted by econ21

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

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

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

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

Lord Zimoa is exactly right about what I was saying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


But what is subject of all this debate is this :

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

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

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It looks good but as you see they want to avoid concurency to copy them and this is were it may be problematic I think not especialy from CA but more from SEGA who knows :dizzy2: .

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

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

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

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

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

LZoF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Originally Posted by econ21

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

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

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Originally Posted by econ21

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

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

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Originally Posted by Lusted

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

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This is boring.:thumbsdown:

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

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This simply isn't true btw.

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Originally Posted by Neon twilight

About more factions, hem... what's the point of having more factions slots if we can create units and/or edit textures for them ? Creating Sweden faction with Dane skins and units ? :no: .

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This is a smart statement (never would've thought of that :2thumbsup: )

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

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

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

W

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Originally Posted by Myrddraal

This simply isn't true btw.

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Interesting. Lusted in twcenter claim it. :wall:

Thanks anyway.

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

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This is boring.

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

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Lusted in twcenter claim it.

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Im guessing, i do not have any hard facts.

Agree with DukeOfSerbia

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

Ok, maybe I'm being a little assertive :wink:

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

What would happen if textures cant be modded?

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

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Originally Posted by Myrddraal

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

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

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

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I'd agree with that too.

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

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Caliban

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Originally Posted by Caliban

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read my post above, each unit doesnt have all those variations, in fact england has basically one unit with 2-3 different types of helmets for example feudal knights and a different torso for billmen. Modding will not take longer.

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Originally Posted by Caliban

Hi everyone,

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

Caliban

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so its more a legal issue then anything
its ok with me
ive decided to use the time to start going over different ideas and doing all my planning

that and my portugese army is bogged down fighing the English in France, my navy depleated from a fruitless war against the moors and now im surrounded by 3 stacks of english

If Granny is indeed the format that CA had chosen, then this is potentially very good news. Here's a blurb from the Granny 3d website FAQ:

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How did you make the animations of the Swingin' Soldier pointing and saluting blend in without affecting the rest of the animation?

When you export a file with the Granny exporters, you can mark which bones you do and do not want included in the animation. However, you can also apply a thing called a track mask during playback which will mask out parts of an existing animation that you do not want applied. Either way will work.

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(Emphasis mine)

Those of you who know about animations will be completely floored by this idea. You could make a walking animation that only applies to legs, and then fighting or resting or cheering or tired or happy animations for the torso and arms, and combine those two sets (leg anims, and torso+arm anims) together for some very impressive results! Only SIX animations have to be done. Previously (now) you have to create TEN, and every time you will make changes to walking animation, you have to change it in ALL of the files. I truly hope CA used Granny, and that the legal issues can be resolved, so that we can get our greedy hands on this goodness now :P

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Originally Posted by SigniferOne

If Granny is indeed the format that CA had chosen, then this is potentially very good news.

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granny2.dll is in the root dir of the game :yes:

Still, not to cool down the expectations but to be realistic, every game which used granny animation libraries till now had some huge problems in modding models because of the copyright issues (i pointed out NWN2, another love of mine, because we're stuck there with just placeable meshes modding, same situation).

Ah, the joys of knowing stuff the rest of the community ill not find out about til later(at least what i know relates to the models, and CA having to deal with 3rd party things, might be realted to this granny thing.).

Lusted, you earned some good will before, don't waste it! :P

Well i think im allowed to loosely quote what CA said in the forum where the study is being conducted(im guessing you read the thread i posted at TWC), so i might be able to tell you, im not sure as this was rather big/good info.

I was referring to this comment

"Ah, the joys of knowing stuff the rest of the community ill not find out about til later" :P

Painful taunting! No pressure to release anything new that CA isn't prepared to yet, though. But if you have some news about models/animations, and it's open knowledge, then by all means :)

Its not open knowledge yet, its related to the study i mention in this post:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=71708

And as part of that i've seen some very informative posts by CA, with one bit of info in particular having me jumping for joy and wanting to hug them.

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Originally Posted by Re Berengario I

granny2.dll is in the root dir of the game :yes:

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Granny has been used as an intermediate mesh format from 3dsmax. Basically models are exported from 3dsmax7 into the granny (mesh) format and then built to the .mesh format which the game engine uses to render.
The .CAS format is still being used for animation with units and siege weapons. The .CAS model format is also still being utilized for the strategy map models.

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Originally Posted by Caliban

The .CAS format is still being used for animation with units and siege weapons. The .CAS model format is also still being utilized for the strategy map models.

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Then what's the problem with releasing the tools to edit CAS files?

So that means that the animations are still done using CAS files like in RTW?
And yes, Lusted, shame on you for boasting with your participation in that research project :P

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And yes, Lusted, shame on you for boasting with your participation in that research project :P

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What? I can't help it, im surprised your not boasting about it as well.

CA and Sega are probably being greedy. I would think they are threatened by such a good modding community that they are worried a good mod will be better than any expansions they can make or something silly like that. One of my favorite games of all time was Bungie's Myth II. Had a huge modding community and thrived on internet play, man I miss that game. CA will be missing out if they limit how much can be modded.