The Mod History Page (Part 2) 07/17/2012: "Modding Quietly"

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Mod History Page (Part 2)
I'll be keeping this as a personal but public log of events and progress for mod development. Feel free to post in here if you want. I'll be making Logs and updates every now and then and post here on this page. I guess in this way you can get an inside look of the mods progress.

I ran out of room on the Original Thread Woot! I had hit the 40,000 character limit. I'm going to start it on this thread now.

(Mod History Page [Part 1])

UPDATE 01/02/2012: "A New Year"
It's hard to believe that it is the year 2012. Last year was a bit rough for the mod. But much progress was made since the 2.4 release in February of last year. I know this year will be a good year. I haven't been modding too much since the 3.92 release but the reaction and support from the community has been busy. I'm glad to come into the forums and see that people are being active here. It's a good start for the community. I apologize about the lingering bugs left after 3.92f1. I promise that I will make a fix for them before I start working on the next beta release. At least I can count all the bugs the game has on one hand which is superb. My current plans are to greatly reshape gameplay on both the world map and during battle. If I can achieve that then the next release will certainly be the best one to date.

Also I'd like to thank everyone for being patient with me; since the 3.92f1 release I've been taking a time out to do some thinking about my short term (real life) goals. I really want the mod to succeed, but it'll be almost impossible if I can't reflect the same success in my on life.

UPDATE 01/11/2012: "Active-Again"
This is just a quick update to let everyone know I'm active again. After much thought I need to push harder and as far as I can. If wasted enough time already this month thinking about what to do. For this next beta I'm focusing on re-balancing in-game items and weapons. After that I can go ahead and re-balance troops (again). It should be fun I hope. I really want to get into implementing the formations into the game. I feel that would be thee most exciting part as I can really try out some new things. After the formations are in I'll be able to expand and implement the voice system. This should be a fun release to put out. I'll also be continuing my HLSL Training. By the time I'm done doing that I should know the more advanced techniques when it comes to shading.

UPDATE 01/25/2012: "Kicked Hope"
It is time that I've gotten serious about why I can't develop this mod like I want to. I've promised to myself that I'd finish this mod and become a game developer. This mod is not just a game for me, it is a challenge. It'll let me know if I really have what it takes to accomplish my goals. Regardless of all my accomplishments and failures, this mod will let me know if what I seek to achieve is really worth it. So from now on I'll start writing not only about the mod but about my life as well. My life has a huge effect on the progress of the mod. So why not write about it? Hopefully someone somewhere could be able to gain something from reading this, you never know.

UPDATE 01/26/2012: "Clinging to Cold"
When I first began this project, all I ever wanted was to port SOD to Warband. The first game has such good revolutionary concepts that it was hard to ignore the mod, but the people involved really couldn't finish it like they wanted to. To make things even worse they were a bit disorganized as they had at least 4 different modders during the making of the mod after version "4.1". So by the time they each put there codes into one source the module was a huge mess. I could see and understand what they were trying there best to do. Many of those concepts are things I would like to see in my ideal game of Warband.

At the end of the day the mod's main purpose is not to put you behind the throne, but on it. Right in the very seat that Damocles sat in, I want the player to feel that even just for a moment. You should be able to make decisions like a king, make war like a king, suffer consequences like a king, live like a king, fear like a king, and die as a king. If the mod can make someone feel like that I would be satisfied.

So here I am in the cold... right now I'm 23 years-old and due to be 24 in May. I grew up in Detroit, MI born in '88. It was only until I was much older I was able to confirm that I was a bastard child. Regardless I did have a father growing up even though he wasn't mines by blood. I noticed that we were so opposite while growing up, even as a child even though I had a father by law you can tell when something isn't right. Even with us having the same dark colored skin. My little brother or half brother was born in 1992, his skin was light skinned like my mother.

Here I am in the cold and in my car. I've been kicked out the house because I can't find a job out here in this area that used to be all country. Hadn't had a full-time job since June; and the job I did have was a temporary position. Where I live now is not like the city, its white suburbia, cul-de-sac status. It looks nice but the loan this house came with is ridiculous. I'm glad it is not my house, some things that look nice on the outside aren't too nice on the inside. North Carolina has never liked me and I've never gotten used to liking it. Moving down here threw my life off the tracks, compared to what I used to have, and what I was going to have.

I used to regret that I moved away from my friends and family during the middle of High School move. The transfer from becoming a junior in a new school that only used full credits and not half credits was horrible. I had to drop out and get my GED because of it. The fact that there were more White people and not a broad mix of many races (White, Black, Latino, Asian) made school even harder to adjust into. Especially with me being different from most black people my age. If the only reason we really moved down here was because crime was so bad in Detroit. We actually moved because my dad was a cheater, and I guess as a last ditch effort on my mom's behalf we all moved here... far away from family... and who ever my pops mistresses were.

I'm glad that I have a van as a car, a laptop, a zune mp3 player, clothes, a suitcase to put them in, and a blanket and pillow to keep me warm. I have little money on me and my car battery needs a boost. Hopefully that is all it needs, I no longer have access to the tools I used to have in order to fix on my car or the house. In the evening I'll end up asking one of my most helpful neighbors to give me a boost so I can get the 20 year-old bird moving again. Yeah my car is parked in front of my house still. I have enough money to get an inspection. But that could take forever to get the papers for, if I do get the this car moving and get pulled over, I could easily get fined for not having insurance. So tomorrow I'll see if I can take out a loan. I need to leave here so I can move to where the jobs are. I'm on my own for now.

UPDATE 01/27/2012: "For the love of it"
As luck may have its on plans, I figured out from my neighbor that I would need to get a new battery for my car. The battery I have is not even the correct type of battery for this model. So I'm stuck here unless I can go and buy a new battery to use. I'm in my car again tonight but I'm sure that I'll be OK. I'm trying my best to get hired as a game developer if I can.Just so you know, I love my Mom & my Pops. Even though they aren't perfect, and they made some horrible decisions in there lives... I'm glad that I at least have some opportunity to try to do better.

Since I've been an adult I've lived a bit over 2 years of my adult life away from home. First was in Franklin, NC for a year. The 2nd was when I went to college. College was supposed to be my ticket out of my parents house, but I ended up finding out how ****ed up the economy was the hard way. But I'm glad I dropped out when I did though, I stayed long enough to figure out if doing so was the correct thing.

College is so overrated now; they pump that "need to go to college to be successful" speech into you so you can be in debt 80,000 deep later on. College may have been the thing to do over 10 years ago but it sure isn't the thing to do now. Grain farmers are starting to make more money as time goes by, why do you think food prices are becoming so high? No one goes to college for farming, so therefore there are not enough people to do so because most people growing up are told to get white collar jobs to be successful. But that's just my opinion

The college I went into was horrible. People would do anything in there power if there greedy. Every kid coming out of high school is like a potential money crop. All they need you to do is start spending money that you don't have. I have matured to believe that loans are the American dream. Even though it is a gamble no one stops and says "hey we need to stop giving people money they don't have." The ****ery of it all is that people will make you think that you can pay loans off. It's modern day slavery without the whips. Oh and if your loan is a student loan and you call out bankruptcy you still have that loan for life. So far there isn't a sure fire way to get rid of them. I'm lucky though. I know too many people who are still going to school so theey can find a job and are more than a $100,000 deep and still can't find anything decent.

Maybe I'm not lucky at all, but just smart instead? Hmm... I find out when it all finally blows up. I'm not too sure if it will be impossible for me to grasp a job in game design, but I do know that there's a large number of people who will realize how much they've been raped after they graduate from school. Job or not, those people might end up working there entire lives making games without ever being able to make them for the love of doing so. It will always mean to make money from and the next big thing to bring the money in. That's is why we have child predator phone apps like smurf village today.

It's been getting easier to sleep in this car. Only problem is that time doesn't move fast enough when I sleep. I kept having a dream that there was a drunk guy walk around outside. It wasn't a nightmare or anything which I'm glad about. It's starting to rain again... I'm glad I have my mp3 player.

UPDATE 01/29/2012: "A Valuable Lesson"
I'm not sleeping in my car anymore and I'm back in my house. I didn't have a message last night because it was freezing outside. The experience I've had these past few days has made me more mature. The first lesson I have learned was that I need to get out more regardless of what's going on. I'm a good people person and I've forgotten that. I've been spending days shut up in the house looking bummy. So it was time for a reality check.

My moms might not know what exactly to say, but she does know what to do. A good kicking out the house was the best medicine I needed. Being staged in the house all the time isn't a good thing. I noticed that after getting kicked out I started a cool daily routine; every morning I would walk outside and bunk in at different places that had wi-fi; and since I'm around people I'm more aware about my hygiene and how I look as a person. Just so you know I'm quite handsome when my hair is groomed. Bummy when not. Plus I'm able to be social this way. I still haven't found a full-time job yet but I'm still looking.

I'm going to pause on development a bit for now but I might start modding again tomorrow. I'll try to get more sleep at night while I'm at it to boot. Being up during sunrise is a wonderful thing. I can't believe I forgot about how that feels. So in a way, this didn't turn out as tragic as I thought. Having the time to just think why I was out there sleeping in my car did a lot of good for me. So I guess I say all this to say, if you find yourself in a horrible situation or obstacle, just remember that your bigger than your obstacles and greater than your situation. Without the occasional hardships and challenges you can never get better. So don't get discouraged when things seem to be going bad.

UPDATE 06/09/2012: "The Blueprint for A New Economy"
It's been a while since I last updated the history page. *Stretches* Since I'm not in the mood to stay up and write a paragraph long message I'll let the new economy blue print do the talking:
resourcechart.png
In short, Warlords is getting close to a 100 trade goods and a completely new custom made economic system based on real supply & demand and an extended population overhaul. Maybe I've said to much already though.

UPDATE 07/17/2012: "Modding Quietly"
Oh my goodness, I can't believe it is already past the middle of June. I'm currently on a slow modding roll but I've stayed away from heavy duty coding until I'm sure exactly how I want the economy to work in-game. Most of my time has went into Medieval research the past few months. I've watched documentaries, read books, read articles, read reports, and even played games dealing with the Medieval period. At the end of it all I still find myself a bit frustrated of it all and not too sure how I want to proceed when it comes to converting real life mechanics, and translating that into *fun* game play.

Warband is the medieval period on acid & speed at the same time in terms of pacing. What should take years in real life only takes days to do in Warband. Situations like castle sieges are a good example of it. Castles were difficult to take, and take days to siege. I learned that if an offensive army has a better chance of waiting things out during a siege than attacking in most cases. Also the lifespan of people during these times were really short. This fact can conflict with the pacing of my population system for SoD, as population growth is very slow.

On the upside of my learning I have a much clearer understanding of all social classes of the medieval period. Even learned that outlaws aren't really portrayed very correctly in Warband. I'll have to make lots of changes based on the things I've learned about the different social classes. I know you might be wondering why I'm not focused on more typical mod like things (i.e. combat), but a lot of that stuff is pretty much set out and done already. I'm currently trying to better the role play aspects of the mod; the downside is that it is taking me much longer than I expected because I didn't know anything before about living in the medieval period. All that has changed now though now. I know enough about the various duties of people during this time to come up with some fun way to convert what I learned into a major part of SoD.

I have been very active the past few weeks though,  since it takes me awhile to get back to coding after being off of it for a while I've been slowly easing back into it by doing other things like texture work and adding new models that don't necessarily concern the combat portion of the game. So far I've made some new male faces that the M&B community hasn't seen, I've also added 20 sky boxes to the mod. Now I'm focusing on adding new flora to the mod. If they come out better than the default flora I'll have them replace the old flora instead.

So I'm trying some new things, and will continue to rewrite a lot of things too. Also the troops might end up going into a total facial code make over. I'm content with the new faces I selected so those will end up being reordered into the game as soon as I add face paint variations to the game. I'd love to start working on the User Interface but that may have to wait. As far as the in-game voices go I'm won't be ready to integrate those just yet until I make sure the advanced formations are working, and that I have the formation mod working smoothly in-battle.

So I'll continue to work quietly until the new economic system is showing some progress. That feature will be the thing to look forward to for the next major release.

Comp-out
 
Very nice postings. I can empathise with some of your story, and I get a sense of inspiration, or something, from knowing that other people face similar challenges as me.
 
:cool: Cool, that is the main reason I have the mod history page. For this who are having a hard time with real life and those who are having a hard time modding. I hope to be an actual game developer one day and want to be an example for those people trying there best to follow the same path.
 
Very intresting read... Somehow sad but hopeful at the same time.
And i agree with you since society cares a lot about how you look.(sadly)So, do your grooming everyday i started that too about a year ago and the impact was phenomenal. [at least with all the ladys except the one i would have liked to impress.]
 
Hehe, yeah, I have to be careful with my beard, when I cut it off most of the older men around me approach me like a kid sometimes hehe, I'll never understand it but practicing a nice clean cut beard is must.

Normally depending on the first sentence that comes out of your mouth decides on how people will perceive you as a person.
 
Just checking in on the mod. I used to be a huge SoD player back in the M&B days. Had a good 400 hours logged on that one. It's really good to see you're still working on it!

I'd love to ask a few questions though:
*I saw in one of the threads that the Invasion is still in the works, but that was a rather old thread. Is it still something you're planning on doing come April 2013?
*In terms of building, I love building my kingdom and put my engineering skill to good use. Does the mod feature extra buildings for your towns, castles and villages?
*I read that Faith is still part of the game (woohoo!) is it still used in the same way as the original? And does picking your faction / religion still effect what type of Faith Unit you get?

Just wanted to let you guys know you're doing a great job :smile: keep it up and looking forward to playing!
 
It depends if you are asing about the current version or future versions.

The whole thing is in a complete overhaul at the minute, and no one (not even compy) knows what the end result will be like...yet.

As for now:

Invasion: will be added
Buildings: Yes there are new buildings (at least I think they are new they have now been in the game more than a year so...new?!?)
Faith: At the moment faith is really only about getting faith troops, the more converts you have the more zealous troops you get. More on that in my help guide in my sig.
At the moment I am not sure if every faith has unique faith troops, or if it is just 1 type of faith troop for each faction..I now your choice of faction affects your faith troop, I am not sure if religion does in this version.

In future versions of the game everything will be different.
 
So you are remaking the mod from the scratch eh? What does that exactly mean? Do you still use stuff etc from previous versions?
 
yes and no, the code is not compatible so all the elements had to be remade anyway to work, I can't answer exactly what that means yet as we haven't done it yet, in broad terms we are looking to develop the grand strategy element of warband and the concepts of managing your own kingdom, All in the SoD world.
 
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