Quote Originally Posted by Kraxis
I can sympathise with you/those that do need it. I really can... But when it is an obvious benefit for only one side (the player), I don't want it crammed down my throat. And that is sadly the case right now. I can't avoid it.
Fair points all. In the spirit of respect for differences and to create a win-win situation for all sides, the best solution is.... make it modable.

And for that matter, I would like to put forth a suggestion that's been in mind mind for a long time, years now, and I'm sure other orgahs and probably even CA have thought about this, as they almost seem to be going in this direction. I think CA should make their engine much more generic, almost akin to ID's Quake engines. The executable would be basically a front-end that handles the mechanics of talking to the PC hardware and OS, etc, and makes use of pluggable dlls and files to handle content and game mechanics. Thus, it's possible to have extremely wide varieties of gameplay and whatnaught through the use of the same executable, as a glance at the Quake series will show. My apologies if I'm not using the exact right software terms here, it's been a long time since my programming days. The idea is sound though, and I think it'd add quite a bit of leeway and flexibility in terms of what modders and the community in general can do with the game. I do think that CA is somewhat heading in this direction already, from what the honorable-yet-not-around Epistolary Richard reported from his Brisbane visits, there are a larger number of configs and scripts that we can muck with to mess with game mechanics, a big step up from the RTW days. One could also argue this is a step up from MTW as well, even though in the MTW to RTW shift we lost the ability to change a hefty number of variables. If CA truly wants to great a game that has a good core, and also has truly vast possibilities for community involvement and addons, this is the route to go imo. (and open source your tools, dangit!)

Cheers!