Warband Modding Community Survey

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The Forge, our Warband Modding Section at the forum, has gotten quite a facelift over the past year. I indexed, moved, or deleted around 10,000 threads to strengthen the organization of the forum. All information stored in the old Modding Q&A thread was indexed inside the Forge Scrap Yard, and nearly every OSP Asset on MBRepository that previously did not have a thread in the forums was brought over and is now properly linked and sourced.

A new, complete, one-stop modding documentation, the Modding Guide, has been in the works and we are actively working on a complete, updated header_operations.py documentation with technical engine information not previously accessible to the community.

Still, there could be more to do, hence this survey. We would be happy if many of you would take the time to take part at it :grin:

Most Questions are Optional. We do not want to make members of just the Forums or just the Discord be forced to answer questions not relevant to them. Only answer questions about the things you would personally engage with.

Please note: This survey is unofficial and unsanctioned by Taleworlds Entertainment, and totally anonymous. If any of your answers need follow up with you personally, please leave an email, forum name or discord name inside the response for someone to reach out to you with.

Also, don't shy away from a suggestion if you think it may have been made before. This isn't meant to only collect a list of new ideas, but to see how many people agree on the same idea to drive engagement, so any and all suggestions are happily encouraged.

 
This thread is somewhat vital to The Forge, therefore I decided to make my responses open-source, so that people might discuss them if they want. Discussions often spawn new, better inventions.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions to expand or improve the Warband Modding Section of the Taleworlds Forums?
Yes, I think that The Forge lacks a thread endorsed by community volunteers (like moderators) enabling people to showcase their works and advertise them. Just like Mod Showcase before the forum upgrade, a topic updated monthly with new creations would be nice. Also, consider this case study. I need some scripts for my own mod, but I am a mediocre scripter. I am, however, a good scener, so I want to make some scenes in exchange for scripts. A thread enabling people to meet and barter their skills (like scenes for scripts) would be great.

In the context of Tutorials, do you feel that difficulty ranking tags are helpful?
Not really because the content reveals it all.

Do you have any suggestions for future contests (themes, structuring, etc)?
In my opinion, it is not needed to organize any new contest for Warband; that would merely be a waste of resources (time, effort, possible prizes...) given that Warband has rapidly declined since Bannerlord's release. There are barely new modifications in works and the community has an entire set of tools at their disposal. Having assessed the state of MP (which reflects the overall playerbase of Warband), I think it is time to reconcile with the fact Warband is decaying. People have spent more than decade with it and it is time to discover new opportunities/ games... It is best, according to my beliefs, to not organize any new contests.

What sort of prize might you want from winning a community-run modding contest?
The best prize would be fun and inclusion of my possible works in a modification... There would not be the latter, and it would not be the former because there are not many Warband modders nowadays.

What would you like to see the community do to encourage your fellow modders and help one another stay motivated?
There is not anything; the community has always been great. Now, there is only a remnant of it.

How would you feel about community pool where we commission artists to make Asset Packs for Warband, licensed for the community at large?
Good idea, but not applicable to Warband at this point. Bannerlord needs such initiatives.

A question about prolonging Warband's attractiveness.
The game already has plenty of modifications, hence its longevity is assured.

Edit: I did not know that all responses would be visible later when I was writing mine (before sending them), but I will just leave them here regardless.
 
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Yes, I think that The Forge lacks a thread endorsed by community volunteers (like moderators) enabling people to showcase their works and advertise them. Just like Mod Showcase before the forum upgrade, a topic updated monthly with new creations would be nice. Also, consider this case study. I need some scripts for my own mod, but I am a mediocre scripter. I am, however, a good scener, so I want to make some scenes in exchange for scripts. A thread enabling people to meet and barter their skills (like scenes for scripts) would be great.
Actually we have two threads for that, the Official 3D art thread - Warband and the Nordous' Sceners Guild threads. Both haven't seen any posts since more than a year though and I have even been thinking about unsticking them due to that.

In my opinion, it is not needed to organize any new contest for Warband; that would merely be a waste of resources (time, effort, possible prizes...) given that Warband has rapidly declined since Bannerlord's release. There are barely new modifications in works and the community has an entire set of tools at their disposal. Having assessed the state of MP (which reflects the overall playerbase of Warband), I think it is time to reconcile with the fact Warband is decaying. People have spent more than decade with it and it is time to discover new opportunities/ games... It is best, according to my beliefs, to not organize any new contests.
It might actually become a trade-off, so either to have contests or to open up a community pool and do the modding conferences. If there are however small and easy to organise contests which attract enough participants, I would still be willing to organise them.

Good idea, but not applicable to Warband at this point. Bannerlord needs such initiatives.
Well, it's about what we do at Warband. What the Bannerlord modders will do is up to them and not a concern of us Warband modders.

I did not know that all responses would be visible later when I was writing mine (before sending them), but I will just leave them here regardless.
No worries. It's still interesting to discuss some of the responses ^^
 
Posting the results of the survey, at which 25 people have participated. Feel free to comment or discuss the results here!


Forum Organisation
First, What is your Modding Discipline?
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Do you have suggestions for how the Forge structure could get improved?
  • No (2x)
  • More tags, such as "scenes"
  • It's perfect!
  • Not really, best would be to integrate the whole modding board into the main board but this don't gonna happen.
  • It's pretty good as it is right now but I suppose it could be tagged further with types of modding (scenes, scripts, etc)

Do you have any ideas or suggestions to expand or improve the Warband Modding Section of the Taleworlds Forums?
  • Perhaps difficulty tags at tutorials and Code OSPs? Eventually replacing the SP, MP, Both ones
  • No (3x)
  • More contests!
  • A section of the server reserved for links to the many OSPS there are
  • Yes, I think that The Forge lacks a thread endorsed by community volunteers (like moderators) enabling people to showcase their works and advertise them. Just like Mod Showcase before the forum upgrade, a topic updated monthly with new creations would be nice. Also, consider this case study. I need some scripts for my own mod, but I am a mediocre scripter. I am, however, a good scener, so I want to make some scenes in exchange for scripts. A thread enabling people to meet and barter their skills (like scenes for scripts) would be great.
  • since Vault of Knowledge is up-do-date, all good.
  • Some of the old tutorials are just that. Old, and spread out, relevant information could be combined into one post, but that is a daunting and time consuming task.

Are there any topics for which you would like to see tutorials?
  • Presentations, perhaps updating/expanding some of the older tutorials
  • all of them
  • Scripting scene objects. Simple stuff like a windmill. It's already done a lot, but simple things like that, will help modders make even better scenes.
  • More music making tutorials
  • Armor Retexturing, Particles, Animations, OpenBRF material/shader managing
  • armor rigging for warband, fx and mbfx file development for warband, warband world map improvement, detailed descriptions about what shaders have what effects and why
  • Tutorials for open source software such as blender, and tutorials for in house software used at Taleworld.
  • rigging/skinning a model to the warband skeleton, from the start.
  • Having a proper tutorial for all frequently asked features, making it easier for modders to know what to do exactly
  • Diplomatic, faction to faction interactions in scripting

In the context of Tutorials, do you feel that difficulty ranking tags are helpful?
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Modding Contests and Community
Have you previously participated in a Modding Contest?
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Would you participate in unofficial, community-run Modding Contests?
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Do you have any suggestions for future contests (themes, structuring, etc)?
  • Blind Modding (texturing related), OSP Retexture Contest, Ranking Up Texturing Contest
  • Medieval Engineering, would be a good theme. It could be a watermill, catapult, trebuchet, in theory a cannon. It involves 3D art, texturing, scripting and a little bit of scening.
  • Music making contests (battle, scene, campaign map)
  • 3D art contests are best, especially about bows/crossbows. There is very limited amount of osp models of these, maybe becasue they require vertex animations
  • I would definitely participate in scening. haven't before because wasn't modding yet then. I think future themes should focus on game improvements that would allow warband to better compete with bannerlord. If not specific contests for each category this could be an overall theme to a general contest, with some suggestions for all like below.scripting: theme of new warband feature that bannerlord already has, or bonus if its a totally new feature to both games.
  • We really need a 2D art contest for GUI, pictures and such. While scening and 3D Art contests would be fine aswell, the scripting contest isn't a good idea due to the fact that people who code are usually extremely busy either with their job or own projects running.
  • Make contests also focus on using proper 3D workflows, with focus on retopology and well made meshes (ex. watertight meshes, proper vertex counts for mesh size etc)
  • 72hr Team Jams where a number of people sign up a few weeks in advance and get randomly assigned to a team so we can get acquainted with different members of the community and do a small themed minimod. Scifi, Post-Apocalypse, Modern or Cultural themed art packs could be useful for those types of projects as well.
  • In my opinion, it is not needed to organize any new contest for Warband; that would merely be a waste of resources (time, effort, possible prizes...) given that Warband has rapidly declined since Bannerlord's release. There are barely new modifications in works and the community has an entire set of tools at their disposal. Having assessed the state of MP (which reflects the overall playerbase of Warband), I think it is time to reconcile with the fact Warband is decaying. People have spent more than decade with it and it is time to discover new opportunities/ games... It is best, according to my beliefs, to not organize any new contests.
  • Tutorials
  • Viking Conquest themed contest, it's a pretty powerful base for modding that has been neglected a bit.
  • Out-of-the-box solution in multiplayer scenes, e.g. magic environments, parajumping, flying stuff etc.

What sort of prize might you want from winning a community-run modding contest?
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What would you like to see the community do to encourage your fellow modders and help one another stay motivated?
  • Strict social controll that Warband modders are not playing other games so that are not getting distracted :grin:
  • compliment each other
  • Off topic fun between members of the modding community, like community games
  • If people knew their creations would be used they would probably be more motivated. Maybe some themed contests for the various modding types and the results are put into a small multiplayer module that the community gets together and plays at least once or twice. Start out with some new scripts such as for an item or gamemode, make props and art for that, make scenes to accommodate this, and tie it together. Maybe put some restrictions to limit the number of compatibility issues. Could potentially be a lot of work for the person running it. Maybe do one of the collaborative conferences to get it all working together?
  • Something like a huge community collab mod that would engage modders of all kind would be great in my opinion. Also, I personally stay motivated just by looking at stuff that other modders showcase either on Discord or on the Forum.
  • Be helpful at all times, don't drive away newer artists.
  • Encourage Socialization, maybe some sort of drop-in-drop-out social games. We've done well to create a pretty positive and encouraging group, if we keep that going, we should be in good shape.
  • There is not anything; the community has always been great. Now, there is only a remnant of it.
  • an integration into the main board it the only thing that would help, so people actually go into the modding board.

How would you feel about community pool where we commission artists to make Asset Packs for Warband, licensed for the community at large?
  • Would be a nice idea. Would require some communication about what is needed, etc.
  • Positive, warband is still alive and deserves more attention
  • That’s a great idea!
  • could be helpful but probably wont apply equally for the whole community based on mismached themes. assets that i think would be most beneficial for all in the long run would be more moving siege props and more destructible props, however modders that dont do scenes wouldn't necessarily be excited about these.
  • I strongly support this idea!
  • Excellent.
  • It would be great
  • If we want to benefit the community, maybe we should commission pre existing community members first, and use them to advertise on other platforms like ArtStation. Could attract more artists for the future.
  • Good idea, but not applicable to Warband at this point. Bannerlord needs such initiatives.
  • Great idea (2x)
  • Sounds good, shall be free for the user though
  • Would love it.
  • While i like the general concept, I don't think that it would work in practice. Even tho Bannerlord is broken af, working on Warband is a very delicate thing to do at this point knowing that it might be wasted time as soon as TW decides to open up custom servers and proper modsupport for Bannerlord.

Open Suggestions:

  • although difficult/ impossible? some way to improve lighting to a more modern look would drastically improve comparability to bannerlord. Also, world maps in mods tend to look very dated, if there was some way to improve those easily for all mods i think it would be beneficial for warband.
  • Huge community-collab mod again UwU
  • Create the engine in a way that allows modders to really strip into it and tear down features/add new ones, this requires less hardcoding, If this is achieved, you will get an engine that can be modded in ways that will extend the longevity of the game to the point where it will outlast it's creators. Also proper workshop support, that's pretty crucial.
  • The game already has plenty of modifications, hence its longevity is assured.
  • I think, the engine should be modified. Fix bugs, change physic, create new operands.
  • Being crazy enough to call myself one of "the" most influential administrators in the Warband MP community, especially NW and PW, I'ld just like to say that private servers are the lifeblood of Warband. Server-sided scripts, custom maps, and properadminsitration are what makes us better than Bannerlord.

Modding Jams/ModCons
Primary Spoken Language
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Preferred Time (UTC)
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Type of Conferences
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* Open Discussion (Egalitarian, Hangout Style Chat, All are free to speak at any time)
* Guided Discussion (One is given the Conch and leads the discussion that week)
* Presentation (One gives a presentation about whatever, the crowd asks questions at the end)
* Collaborative (We all jam on a joint, guided project for the duration of the time and release it at the end as OSP)
* open discussion i would just see as extended general chat, and i don't think would help improve warband modding longevity much if at all.

Frequency of Conference Calls
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* Monthly, i think if a presentation route is taken, trying to host them too often would get people burned out quicker.
* I think weekly open discussion, with scheduled events for presentations, guided discussions and collaborations
 
Trying myself at a first interpretation of the survey results:

Forum Organisation
It seems like most people are happy with how it is currently. Not sure about the suggestions for more tags since all those tags are already present at the respective tutorial and OSP sections, there is only not a lot of content with them. A better integration or more prominent place at the forum is not really possible.
Veledentella wished for threads for members to showcase their work. As mentioned above, such threads are already existing, the Official 3D art thread - Warband and the Nordous' Sceners Guild threads, but aren't getting actively used since one year or more. It's up to you all if they float or sink when I unstick them.
Regarding the tutorials we got quite a big list of wishes. Some of them are not that useful in my opinion, for example the tutorials for blender or music making. The chance is high that you will simply find some youtube tutorials about the software which you use. There is also no real in-house software used by TW devs except the ModSys and the in-game scene editor.
I however noted down to look into tutorials for presentations, retexturing, particle and postfx effects, animations and Resourcemanagement. Rigging/skinning seems like a minor topic in my opinion but was listed also a few times. Updating some older tutorials might also prove useful. Interesting would also be one for scripting scene objects while I think that diplomatic and faction-faction interactions should be rather handled with in OSP codes and kits.
At the tutorials it seems like a bigger majority would like to see difficulty tags. I personally would replace the SP, MP and B tags with them since difficulty tags might prove more useful here.

Modding Contests and Community
4 out of 5 have never participated at one of the past Modding Contest and only a third would take part at a future one, with a bigger group being unsure about. There is a very mixed and interesting list of suggestion about themes for modding contests, I noticed that a pure scripting contest is the only thing not really wanted. Most people would also participate if no prices are given. There is also a positive feedback for the idea of having a community pool, so perhaps it would be good go into a direction with some mixed skills contests in combination with some pool. Some thinking would be needed about how the commissions get organized but we can go step by step here.
Some contests and community suggestions are pretty time-intensive, like the 72 hour modding jam or the collaboration mod. It are interesting ideas but I think the amount of work needed for them is better put into tutorials and more little things like the modding conferences for example. We could however look if we want to improve the Native module (scripts, models, textures, shaders, etc.) to improve the performance and look and could hand it in to the TW devs for a Warband update. That would be a nice thing and many players would benefit as well. This could become some kind of community collab project.
Also I can say already now that there is hardly anything we can do about the game engine or the workshop support. We are all merely modders and while K700 can do some fancy work with WSE2 we others are more restricted by our skillsets :lol:
Regarding off-topic community games, are there more detailed suggestions for what to play?

Modding Jams/ModCons
There is no real tendency for which kind of Modding Conference is prefered, every category seems to have its benefits. As expected, the weekend would be the best for most. Late evening might perhaps prove the best, so that the fellows sitting in the American timezones have a fair chance to participate too. Regarding the frequence I think monthly might be the best if something bigger is planned (presentation or collaborative) and bi-weekly for discussions. I will take a look for how we can get it organized the best and perhaps I manage to get them started in September already. You are all free to send me suggestions for themes or topics, also if you want to be yourself in the role of the hoster/presenter. Out of some topics there could also evolve some tutorials, to make some connections to the other topics here :fruity:
 
Interesting. I agree with merging back normal and modding forum sections. Something neat about the old SMF layout was that you could see every section at a glance, so normal people checked out the modding section and vice versa. Now the modding section is tucked away into its own button, and the hierarchy is a bit too deep for discoverability, I think.
 
We could however look if we want to improve the Native module (scripts, models, textures, shaders, etc.) to improve the performance and look and could hand it in to the TW devs for a Warband update. That would be a nice thing and many players would benefit as well. This could become some kind of community collab project.
That would be great, because if nothing happens, the game will die in a couple of years, everyone has their eyes on Bannerlord and many no longer play on the servers ..... in my Chilean Latino community, I am one of the only ones that try to keep the warband alive
 
Interesting. I agree with merging back normal and modding forum sections. Something neat about the old SMF layout was that you could see every section at a glance, so normal people checked out the modding section and vice versa. Now the modding section is tucked away into its own button, and the hierarchy is a bit too deep for discoverability, I think.
This, but also since I'm a moron it took me ages to see the Modding button at the top of the screen and I couldn't figure out where these forum sections had disappeared to.
 
I have now asked for a better integration of the modding section at the forum, suggesting to place it there like the "Released Mods" boards. I got told that a redesign of the front page is planned of which I wasn't aware and perhaps we get some more lucky arrangement here before or while the redesign :grin:
 
To get a hype I would like to suggest a modding contest under scripting discipline. Subject of the scripting should be debatable (poll) because of many people would participate in such a way. I suggest a flying script to make yourself medieval iron man, scripted missions like in Evlat or even a mini mod. To be in short we should start from basic ones like medieval iron man or such. Thanks in advance!
 
To get a hype I would like to suggest a modding contest under scripting discipline. Subject of the scripting should be debatable (poll) because of many people would participate in such a way. I suggest a flying script to make yourself medieval iron man, scripted missions like in Evlat or even a mini mod. To be in short we should start from basic ones like medieval iron man or such. Thanks in advance!
A poll would not get much traction if introduced, I guess. A small SP feature would be fine in my opinion; much bigger stuff would take too much time and scare away prospective participants.
 
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