Community Mod: Possible/Any takers?

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Stonewall382

Knight at Arms
Disclaimer: This was originally my post, but I couldn’t make it sound right, so mablung of the heavy hand took a crack it.

Martin Luther King said:
I have a dream…

A dream where the many original and spectacular components of individual mods are harnessed and combined into one, all encompassing mod. I want the mod to expand on the original, not supplant it.

Alright, hear me out. I'm going to go slowly and non-committal…ly here.

Quite obviously, there are a lot of great modders and mods in this community. The problem we have at the moment is the lack of (overall) compatibility. I don’t think we can do justice to either this mod or all the modders out there by taking the good from one and putting it in the others. So, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in making a large-scale addition to M&B.

This way, no one is put off by the historical period, subject matter etc. I'd like this thread to be about possible ideas for a mod, and to see who would be interested in contributing and joining the mod team. Let me stress one thing; in no way is this my own mod, this will, if all goes to plan, be a community mod and as such, the credit will be community wide. Your input is not only valued, but needed.

What I see as essential, is a design council, if you will. A group of experienced modders who will decide the ultimate direction of this mod, pertaining to what it will include and what it will not. As most councils do, there would be a head of the council to help provide directional planning and have the final say if a decision could not be met. This head would be chosen from the council by both the council and the rest of the mod team.

I know some things, but am certainly not on par with the experienced modders, and with someone more suitable at the helm, the mod can really go places.
 
Ok, I have very very little experience with modding, but I do have ideas, as everyone does.

What I see essential to creating a good mod, is a storyline. I have no idea what that could/would be, but that can wait for the moment. In order to have some level of immersion, in this story we need relevant quests ALA Mag 7 and The Last Days etc. Another very useful combination with this, is the brilliant faction influence that exists in Ancient Wanker's TLD mod. The plot can be hugely expanded with the addition of more than one faction (again, seen in TLD) along with faction strength etc.

Now, I haven't played many mods, but have falled in love with both TLD and Huge mod (as you may have guessed :wink:). So with my limit experience in both playing mods and creating, I have limited ideas on what to include.

I have an idea that I would like to increase interaction, in other words, flesh out the conversations etc. Of course, there is always the standard more troops types/weapons etc. -- what kind of all-encompassing mod would this be if it didn't include that kind of stuff?

Sieges would be nice, if they can be made to work properly, I know Stoney was working on a Siege mod, which I would imagine will be incorporated once they are bug free/balanced etc.

I feel we need more of a flavour to the factions, an invader and defender, per se. At present, it all seems somewhat ambiguous and indistinguishable. I am aware that the game is still open beta, but I believe we can take a storyline of our own and create a "full" game before M&B is finished. Of course, then we can later look at playing with the full version :smile:

Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now. I leave it to the more experienced heads (which let's face it, is virtually everyone) to have their say.
 
Disclaimer : This opinion is an uninformed one, coming from someone who merely plays the mods for M&B, writes a few dialog entries for Storymod and enjoys reading this forum tremendously.

What you envision is ambitious as hell and its on a time scale of several months that this project would take place. Now I don't know how quickly Armagan will update the beta over time, but that might put a damper on the development of such a project, if every two months several parts of the E-mod had to be re-written, re-coded, etc. because new features aren't compatible with the work-arounds modders often have to come up with to make their innovative mods work.

As far as thinking whether this is a good idea or not, I do think it is. But for it to be more than just another mod with a lot of people working on it, and have it become an expansion mod, that would require something more than what we see in the mods out there (which is already bloody awesome).

So, is a total conversion for M&B even possible with the game as it is today? Is this a project that should take place once v1.0 is released?

Food for thought, I hope.

Cheers,
 
If you are looking for a large-scale mod that is extends M&B gameplay in many different aspects, but is grounded in the central M&B medieval paradigm (i.e. not set in fantastic worlds or incompatible time periods), and with a strong emphasis on well-written, engaging plotlines, you need look no further than Storymod. Join the team!

http://forums.taleworlds.com/viewtopic.php?t=6949
 
I've almost (arghh... Python code!) a mod that adds farms, guilds and blacksmith ownership/management to the vanilla game. I was going to suggest that people adopt it as a base for their mods and I've always thought we should try to get more compatibility.

It's quite basic right now but I've got lots more ideas to develop it. So anyway, sign me up for this project. I can also do other generic coding features as the council decides.
 
BCO_Prowler said:
Disclaimer : This opinion is an uninformed one, coming from someone who merely plays the mods for M&B, writes a few dialog entries for Storymod and enjoys reading this forum tremendously.

What you envision is ambitious as hell and its on a time scale of several months that this project would take place. Now I don't know how quickly Armagan will update the beta over time, but that might put a damper on the development of such a project, if every two months several parts of the E-mod had to be re-written, re-coded, etc. because new features aren't compatible with the work-arounds modders often have to come up with to make their innovative mods work.

Sure, but if you always say that nothing ever gets done. There are a lot of plans on this forum but with a few exceptions (Ancientwanker especially) very few mods that have been completed. The way things are going I think most of the ones being discussed now never will be. A community project is the way forward.

Why? First of all it's a hell of a lot more motivating to work in a group. Second the more people get involved in modding, and a community project is the best way to do that, the bigger the pool of experience becomes. Modding will become quicker and better, more ambitious ideas will become feasible.

About updates, when the next version does come (and personally I think it'll be a long time) with a group of people who know what they're doing it shouldn't be too hard to 'upgrade'. Armagan has already said the basic code won't change much so if there are any difficulties they'll be with specific files.

Mablung said:
Ok, I have very very little experience with modding, but I do have ideas, as everyone does.

What I see essential to creating a good mod, is a storyline. I have no idea what that could/would be, but that can wait for the moment. In order to have some level of immersion, in this story we need relevant quests ALA Mag 7 and The Last Days etc. Another very useful combination with this, is the brilliant faction influence that exists in Ancient Wanker's TLD mod. The plot can be hugely expanded with the addition of more than one faction (again, seen in TLD) along with faction strength etc.

I nominate Winter for that. Look at his Storymod if you don't agree with me. Khalid ibn Walid seems like another guy we could use with a lot of ideas and a lot of historical knowledge.
 
fisheye said:
If you are looking for a large-scale mod that is extends M&B gameplay in many different aspects, but is grounded in the central M&B medieval paradigm (i.e. not set in fantastic worlds or incompatible time periods), and with a strong emphasis on well-written, engaging plotlines, you need look no further than Storymod. Join the team!
Yeah, the 'big expansion' theme is what I had in mind when I started Storymod. New worlds are all well and good, but I think Calradia is already interesting, with many a story to tell if only there were somebody to tell them. I simply wanted more of everything; items, locations, characters, dialogue, a story where you actually have an impact on the gameworld. M&B is very flexible in that regard. Cities will be conquered, wars will be fought, nations will fall.

I've almost (arghh... Python code!) a mod that adds farms, guilds and blacksmith ownership/management to the vanilla game. I was going to suggest that people adopt it as a base for their mods and I've always thought we should try to get more compatibility.

It's quite basic right now but I've got lots more ideas to develop it.
I'm interested to see where you're going with this. If it works well, I could see it being incorporated into Storymod, if you'd like it to be.

Quadratically,
Winter
 
This is a great idea which should start as soon as possible with others joining in along the way.
Go community mods :grin:
 
Winter said:
Yeah, the 'big expansion' theme is what I had in mind when I started Storymod. New worlds are all well and good, but I think Calradia is already interesting, with many a story to tell if only there were somebody to tell them. I simply wanted more of everything; items, locations, characters, dialogue, a story where you actually have an impact on the gameworld. M&B is very flexible in that regard. Cities will be conquered, wars will be fought, nations will fall.

What about we base this around the story you've already written? What do others think?

I agree that we should stick with Calradia. You start trying to invent a 'new world' and everyone will have different tastes and disagreements. It wouldn't work.

I'm interested to see where you're going with this. If it works well, I could see it being incorporated into Storymod, if you'd like it to be.

Before I saw this topic I was going to suggest exactly that. If this project goes ahead but your Storymod is kept separate I'll give you the generic code... and obviously anybody else who wants it.
 
Also... what about taking the bits from the old Mag 7? In my opinion it fits right in with the Calradia setting and was an early step in the direction of an expanded 'vanilla world'.
 
sheek said:
What about we base this around the story you've already written? What do others think?

There's ups and downs to that idea. Surely I would love to have a bigger team, more graphics, more of everything. However, as it is, I have creative control over Storymod, and that's probably the single most important thing for a project that is ever going to get finished; one vision of where the project is going and someone to put all the contributions together without a committee of vetos. I don't believe in committees, which I admit is a personal opinion, but it's born from years of experience in my line of work. I've seen projects with money behind them falter and die or get slaughtered on the sales rack because of the old problem of having too many chefs in the kitchen.

Before I saw this topic I was going to suggest exactly that. If this project goes ahead but your Storymod is kept separate I'll give you the generic code... and obviously anybody else who wants it.
You should've suggested it anyway. :wink: Storymod is inclusive of anything that expands the game in a fun way. I mentioned in my last progress report, I've made an all-new system for landownership, now finished and working. I'm also going to try coding a garrison system. It's not cool owning a castle unless you get to do stuff with it. I'm also planning to include Janus's Arena Mod in the next release. The more, the merrier.

At this rate, M&B is slowly getting to be less of an RPG and more of a medieval life simulator (with slightly more combat than is purely historical. :razz:)

Residually,
Winter
 
I can't speak for Stoney, but I for one want this to a completely new mod, not an addition to an existing one. It just wouldn't do either mods justice to throw them in together. Part of the idea for this is that it is community wide. I know that is ambitious, but many hands make light work.

Anyway, the first thing that needs to be done is to find out who is interested and if they believe this is feasable. If so, we can then look at getting a design council functioning.
 
I need some elaboration. How is this community mod different from something like, say, storymod? I'm totally confused here.
 
Who knows? I sure can't see a difference. Anything bigger in scale than storymod (or Last Days for that matter...had to mention my two favourite mods there :wink:) would be an entirely new game with better and improved mechanics.

/shrug
 
I guess the difference is that Storymods direction is determined by Winter, as my mod's direction is determined by me. This would be some kind of collaberative effort where the direction was a matter of consensus.

Not my cup of tea, but good luck with it.
 
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