Map and Mod distribution » Forum Post by Spooky_

I think it'll eventually be entirely up to the community to distribute the mods themselves, perhaps through some site hosted by Stardock.

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Yeah, for Supreme Commander we had the Vault. But even with something as convenient as the Vault, sim side mods were never very popular (i.e. getting a game going with a sim side mod with random players online just like that was not possible). In the last half year or so mods like Phantom got a bit more popularity though.

For simple mods, like a balance mod for favor items for example, it would be important to have some kind of automatic distribution system, otherwise no one will ever be able to play them online with everyone (and not just friends for example).

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Quoting Spooky__,

reply 2

Yeah, for Supreme Commander we had the Vault. But even with something as convenient as the Vault, sim side mods were never very popular (i.e. getting a game going with a sim side mod with random players online just like that was not possible). In the last half year or so mods like Phantom got a bit more popularity though.

For simple mods, like a balance mod for favor items for example, it would be important to have some kind of automatic distribution system, otherwise no one will ever be able to play them online with everyone (and not just friends for example).

so it is

without a distribution system, the mod sys will be as useless as the replay sys

the replay sys looks nice, but without a game intigrated plattform, there are only a few public replays for downloading, most replays are privat saved

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You can click that big Replays button on the Demigod homepage. Gamereplays.org hosts the replays and there are way more than "a few public replays". Do check it out.

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Quoting Spooky__,

reply 2

...some kind of automatic distribution system, otherwise no one will ever be able to play them online with everyone (and not just friends for example).

Quoting DemiCom,

reply 3

...

so it is

without a distribution system, the mod sys will be as useless as ...

...useless, or even have negative impact for the number of online games.

So hopefully GPG was able set up a convenient modding concept (without too many restrictions), i mean this problem is known since Dungeon Siege 1.

An in-game support to acquire/load and even unload mods quickly would be great, inclusive any kind of download feature for custom(ly tuned) maps (since it's P2P with some potential to distribute files). But actually i have some doubts patch 1.2 will contain this...

With a manual manner of handling custom game content (mainly mods, for maps you may alt-tab probably) you just can hope there only will be a few well-/widely-accepted mods, but with numerous item/fixing/balancing mods the chance to find somebody else online with the same mod selection goes towards zero.

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Quoting DemiCom,

reply 3

Quoting Spooky__,
reply 2
Yeah, for Supreme Commander we had the Vault. But even with something as convenient as the Vault, sim side mods were never very popular (i.e. getting a game going with a sim side mod with random players online just like that was not possible). In the last half year or so mods like Phantom got a bit more popularity though.

For simple mods, like a balance mod for favor items for example, it would be important to have some kind of automatic distribution system, otherwise no one will ever be able to play them online with everyone (and not just friends for example).

so it is

without a distribution system, the mod sys will be as useless as the replay sys

the replay sys looks nice, but without a game intigrated plattform, there are only a few public replays for downloading, most replays are privat saved

www.gamereplays.org ---> demigod ----> replays

there are a over 150 good replays available for download there.

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What about simply adding a button to the 'Shift-Tab' community menu? Maybe have a mod button that allows you to browse the available mods in a central repository? Distribution could be handled via straight download or via some kind of torrent/seed/tracker system.

It should be fairly easy to implement (I'm totally ignorant of the actual work involved, but conceputally this wouldn't really have to plug into any other game dynamics or routines so it could be developed independently; and hopefully by stardock so that GPG can stay focused on the content and patches). It would be nice to avoid the alt-tab required to download things from the web.

In a later revision the interface could querry the lobby of the game you're in and highlight any mods you're missing so that you know which ones to download. Even Ideally it would just come up and ask you if you want to download them.

Keep in mind this pre-supposes that you don't have to do anything with the mods. (i.e. don't allow me to download them in game but then make me get out of the game to 'un-zip' them into the right directory.) This should all be factored into the backend of the interface subroutines.

What do you say Frogboy, can I add to Stardock's 'To-Do' list ?

Cheers,
ThanatosESC.

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Most communities have their unoffically distributed but incredibly popullar mods; Counter-Strike was one, DotA for Warcraft was another such mod - Blizzard certainly didn't add a giant CLICK HERE FOR DOTA or CLICK HERE FOR MODS buttons to the in-game menu of Warcraft 3, so expecting to see one in Demigod is simply unrealistic.

As Frogboy has already made mention of, any mods which basically become 'community standard' mods - be they balance mods, additional items, additional Demigods, additional maps, whatever - stand a real chance of being adopted offically and included in a future update.

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Most communities have their unoffically distributed but incredibly popullar mods; Counter-Strike was one, DotA for Warcraft was another such mod - Blizzard certainly didn't add a giant CLICK HERE FOR DOTA or CLICK HERE FOR MODS buttons to the in-game menu of Warcraft 3, so expecting to see one in Demigod is simply unrealistic.

Mods != Mods. There is a difference between a Mod like DotA and the Mods you can do with the Moho engine.

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Sorry, I didn't mean Demigod will spawn it's own TC Mod, I meant them as an example of how mods can be distributed quite easily without offical support.

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indeed i really dont know where the problem is. theres a modding section and i am sure that frogboy is willing to make a thread sticky in which one can maintain a list of mods. this list then will have links to different download locations like sourceforge or a homepage or something.

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I was just projecting the situation of Supreme Commander on to Demigod and was thus wondering if there are any plans for a dedicated system to distribute Maps and Mods.

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Distribution is one thing, and maybe the easier part to handle.

Actually i care more how (easily) the player should get his game content in sync with other online games using several mods.

However, let 's wait and see what comes with 1.2 before we rack our brains over it.

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Most communities have their unoffically distributed but incredibly popullar mods; Counter-Strike was one, DotA for Warcraft was another such mod - Blizzard certainly didn't add a giant CLICK HERE FOR DOTA or CLICK HERE FOR MODS buttons to the in-game menu of Warcraft 3, so expecting to see one in Demigod is simply unrealistic.

As Frogboy has already made mention of, any mods which basically become 'community standard' mods - be they balance mods, additional items, additional Demigods, additional maps, whatever - stand a real chance of being adopted offically and included in a future update.

Well actually, Blizzard kind of had a CLICK HERE FOR DOTA or CLICK HERE FOR MODS button. When you join a custom game, you automatically downloaded the map file. I know that DotA eventually became too big for the download system and the host would point the downloaders to get-dota.com, but the in game downloader helped spread its popularity. Also, I believe Counter-Strike also was able to rise up on the in-game downloader that the WON verion of Half-Life had.

Actually i care more how (easily) the player should get his game content in sync with other online games using several mods.

If someone has mods enabled and a user doesn’t have it, they can’t join the game. This is for security purposes – these ARE mods afterall made potentially by third parties. We plan to get some mods out there as soon as possible so people can see what’s possible.

Yeah, problem solved. If everybody has the same mod, I don't see howing syncing is going to be a problem.

What really makes mods popular is the community. Yes, an in-game downloader does help but the community really needs to get behind it to make it popular. I know VALVe promoted a couple of mods, which led to their (usually brief) popularity. However, if we are just going to have a couple of little mods affecting balance and items, a downloader may be more efficient.

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