Do CA Employees Mod their Own Games?

[Colovion]

Here's a question I'm really interested in at the moment.

When you, a CA developer, play Rome: Total War do you mod the vanilla version of the game? Obviously for play-testing it must be the release version; I'm talking about personal time. Now I know that you most likely do try out a mod or two which the community produces - which would be nice to know how prevalent it is in the CA Headquarters - but I'd like to know if you mod the game yourself and to what extent.

You see many of us here would say that we're rather large fans of the Total War Genre and I remember some CA dev once mentioning the fact that you, being the creators of the series, were the biggest fans of them all. So being that some of the most fervent supporters of your work feel the need to mod the game to their tastes I'd like to know if this is something that you find yourselves doing as well.

Have you Frankensteined together a number of mods to make what you desire most? If so, what aspects do you find yourselves changing the most?

[HarunTaiwan]

You will not get a reply to this post.

Okay, maybe they could admit to RTR or something, but I doubt it.

Obviously, they have to use CVP or Bug-Fixer because no matter how much you love Pacino, 12 scarface generals is annoying.

[Colovion]

ps - I don't expect a reply. just the idea of it is amusing.

[Captain Fishpants]

I'd like to assume that this wasn't a loaded question, an exercise in coat-trailing if you will. Any reply here will have to be carefully worded indeed to avoid giving ammunition to the gamers who want to think the worst, no matter what.

So, do people mod the game? Yes, of course they do. But not in the way that you mean. BI, for example, has reached a state where it works as intended, sort of. What follows after that is an exercise in 'modding' the systems until they produce the results we want. That might be data modding, or it might be new code. The whole process is often an exercise in large leaps and then many iterative steps towards a finished result. We do have a semi-secret advantage over the modders, of course, in that we can work on data and code; they are limited to the data.

But as to whether people mod the finished game and then play, I'd think it would be very unusual. I don't, and I doubt that many others do either. There are two reasons. Builds have to be rigorously tracked for development purposes, and multiple mods 'muddying the waters' when it comes to reporting bugs, features and what have you would just make our lives more difficult. Secondly, we consider it finished; by definition what get's published is as close to what we want as can be achieved within time, budget and publisher's constraints.

Obviously, when we start working on an expansion, the first thing to do is start modding... then new code... more modding... more code... ad infinitum. Or until the grown ups tell us to stop.

ps: Harun, you're wrong.

[HarunTaiwan]

You find having Scarface after scarface to be not annoying?



I notice a big uptick in CA posts...must be crunch time is over.

[Mount Suribachi]

Of course it could be like the gag in friends where Rachael meets a gynocologist

Rachael "wow, you must really be a hit with the ladies, what with your specialised knowledge "

gynocologist "What do you do for a living Rachael?"

Rachael "I work in a coffee shop"

gynocologist "Do you ever go home after a hard day at work and say "I don't want to see another cup of coffee ever again" ?"




Anyway, I would imagine that CA, like any other organisation has loads of ideas within it as to how things get done, but the only one that happens is the idea that the head honcho likes the most. Nothing to stop the devs putting their own little tweaks in there - or playing with the content that never made it into the final game (y'know all those tantalising entries in the text files )

I know that some of the devs for BG2 released their own unofficial add-ons and mods for BG2. Don't anticipate CA to be doing the same, but it does happen with some games.

[Colovion]

I'd like to assume that this wasn't a loaded question, an exercise in coat-trailing if you will. Any reply here will have to be carefully worded indeed to avoid giving ammunition to the gamers who want to think the worst, no matter what.

So, do people mod the game? Yes, of course they do. But not in the way that you mean. BI, for example, has reached a state where it works as intended, sort of. What follows after that is an exercise in 'modding' the systems until they produce the results we want. That might be data modding, or it might be new code. The whole process is often an exercise in large leaps and then many iterative steps towards a finished result. We do have a semi-secret advantage over the modders, of course, in that we can work on data and code; they are limited to the data.

But as to whether people mod the finished game and then play, I'd think it would be very unusual. I don't, and I doubt that many others do either. There are two reasons. Builds have to be rigorously tracked for development purposes, and multiple mods 'muddying the waters' when it comes to reporting bugs, features and what have you would just make our lives more difficult. Secondly, we consider it finished; by definition what get's published is as close to what we want as can be achieved within time, budget and publisher's constraints.

Obviously, when we start working on an expansion, the first thing to do is start modding... then new code... more modding... more code... ad infinitum. Or until the grown ups tell us to stop.

ps: Harun, you're wrong.

Thankyou for your response.

I didn't intend it to be a loaded question. I just feel that the creators of the game that know it inside and out must have various things they might want to mod into the finished version for their personal tastes. Obviously the game is made by many people with many diverse ideas. Too many ideas can't fit into one game, though they're out there in the minds behind the product.

Maybe some of you enjoy furnishing the finished product with some long-lost ideas for the game.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Another unloaded question:

Do you guys at CA find Rome: Total War to be challenging?

I mean, since you made the game, I guess it wouldn't be so difficult, but has it ever, you know, surprised you? Made you go, "Where did that come from?!"

I am curious, though I don't expect an answer (though my hopes are up, thanks to your diologue with Colovion).

[Captain Fishpants]

Another unloaded question:

Do you guys at CA find Rome: Total War to be challenging?

I mean, since you made the game, I guess it wouldn't be so difficult, but has it ever, you know, surprised you? Made you go, "Where did that come from?!"

I am curious, though I don't expect an answer (though my hopes are up, thanks to your diologue with Colovion).

Actually, the game surprised me only the other day.

I'd left an auto-run going and when I came back nearly all the barbarian leaders were so crippled by drink that they could barely move, let alone lead their factions.

The cause was straightforward, as it turned out.

The easiest way of keeping a barbarian settlement happy is to build a tavern, and that's what the AI does. A barbarian faction leader often spends most of his time in the capital, with its tempting tavern in sight. Result: many drunken fools in charge of mighty tribes!

Over the course of many years, one unfortunate Goth managed to collect a Slubberdegullion, a Drunken Uncle, a Drinking Companion and turn himself into a Sot. Any good traits he had were sloshed away in a sea of booze.

I've altered the triggers for these things since, and now this doesn't happen. Still, a minor example of emergent behaviour.

[Puzz3D]

Anyway, I would imagine that CA, like any other organisation has loads of ideas within it as to how things get done, but the only one that happens is the idea that the head honcho likes the most.

I don't think the development is that rigid. Captain Fishpants has often refered to it as a creative process, and, while the boss may insist on certain features being in the game, I doubt the development could be micro-managed by the boss and still be as innovative as it is. At the same time, a highly collective method of development could be what leads to more problems slipping through QA. I saw an excellent effort on the part of CA on the v1.2 patch, but some problems still slipped through or couldn't be addressed within the time frame available.

Identification of problems in the game by the player community is needed and been requested by CA because they don't have the time to find everything. BI is an add-on, but it's also the next patch to RTW. The rational for not issuing another RTW patch was that outstanding issues would be taken care of in the add-on. I don't mind spending more money on the game as long as outstanding issues are addressed because it is a complex game and it takes time to get it working more or less correctly. Granted the AI can't be reworked extensively, but if something simple such as the locical errors in the traits are not corrected, then something is wrong with the way this game is being developed.

It's encouraging to hear Captain Fishpants say that CA has BI working approximately as intended. I hope this isn't just PR. I also hope the game is brought back closer to a realistic type of gameplay, and I doubt doing that would loose the expanded customer base. The game already has an arcade mode for those who can't handle more realism. BI has a shield wall feature in the battles. That feature should work at least something like it did in reality. The phalanx performance in RTW leaves a lot to be desired, and I don't see how making the phalanx function more realistically would loose players.

I think the original design decision about the AI starting over in it's assessment of the strategic situation when a savegame is reloaded was unfortunate, and perhaps CA didn't realise the effect it would have on the course of the campaign. Apparently, CA is now doing a reassessment of that decision. The choice of running speeds was also in my opinion unfortunate, but I don't think it can be changed now.

On the original topic of the thread, playing mods while developing the game could be confusing, and it would detract from time you could spend with the standard game assessing its performance. Whenever I beta test, I stay away from mods altogether.

p.s. Well I see Captain Fishpants is evaluating the traits in depth. Good show!

[player1]

Over the course of many years, one unfortunate Goth managed to collect a Slubberdegullion, a Drunken Uncle, a Drinking Companion and turn himself into a Sot. Any good traits he had were sloshed away in a sea of booze.

I've altered the triggers for these things since, and now this doesn't happen. Still, a minor example of emergent behaviour.

Hmm...
Interesting, since with 1.0/1.2 RTW you can only get Drinking Companion with Fun Temples (none with barbarians).

Although, since you mentioned Goths, I guess lots got changed for BI.

Still, you guys can always drop to bug-fixer thread (sig), it's possible you could find some bug that didn't got notced before.

For example, I just discovered last week that Marriage event VnV trigger doesn't work. So I needed to add workaround for bug-fixer (while I expect real fix for BI from you guys).

[sik1977]

Hmm...
Interesting, since with 1.0/1.2 RTW you can only get Drinking Companion with Fun Temples (none with barbarians).

Although, since you mentioned Goths, I guess lots got changed for BI.

Still, you guys can always drop to bug-fixer thread (sig), it's possible you could find some bug that didn't got notced before.

For example, I just discovered last week that Marriage event VnV trigger doesn't work. So I needed to add workaround for bug-fixer (while I expect real fix for BI from you guys).

IF I buy BI, atleast I will know that player1 might be there to release his bug-fixer to fix those annoying traits/VnV bugs. I just hope that after the next RTW patch and BI (and its patch), there won't be any hardcoded bugs which player1 and other talented modders can't fix.

[Epistolary Richard]

I'd left an auto-run going and when I came back nearly all the barbarian leaders were so crippled by drink that they could barely move, let alone lead their factions.

Hmmm... what's this auto-run feature? Are we able to access it? It would help out considerably for strategic mod testing and balancing.

I tried to write a script that would just keep pressing the end_turn button but of course it gets interrupted when an enemy attacks you or tries to initiate diplomacy...


As for myself, from my own experience I found that as soon as I started working for a fiction publisher I stopped reading the novels we released outside of work. I found most of my colleagues were the same.

[andrewt]

On the topic of employees making mods, I remember David Gaider (sp?) of Bioware making mods for Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Baal. I think part of it was the original design for the final boss was too hard for your average dumbass American gamer so they had to make it easier. I found the easier version still quite difficult, though, if you didn't use your savegame from BG2. I finished the modded version with my original BG2 party only after tons of loading and perfecting strats.

There are tons of things in RTW that I felt was dumbed down for mainstream (hi, I wanna play another FPS) American audiences. I'm sure some CA employees might have modded in what they originally envisioned before playing the game like what the BG2 guy did.

I've also noticed recently that a lot of good RTS and RPG games are made by smaller European developers. The concepts are really good and the execution is ok though their production values are not up to par compared to the larger American, French and Japanese publishers (read: more bugs than a tropical rainforest).