What BigTimeSftwr should learn from Id Software and others

[Hamstersss]

It is a good idea Peter and BTS has said they won't do it but I think this is a mistake. Now, as Slapdragon has pointed out, their not doing it is canon, and I have an extremely difficult uphill battle to convince them otherwise, that's why I've stripped down the proposal to the tightly reined one it has become, so that the realism of CM does not get compromised nor do any changes occur that BTS does not explicitly or implicitly approve.

And David, there does need to be a delegation of authority for this to work. I don't see a problem with this and, if we make sure BTS doesn't need to touch anything but the best objects, than they won't be swamped by the approval process. Yes, if BTS had to respond to every crappy tank or stupid commando squad but, it would be an incredible hassle, but if the vast number of competent people here could create an infrastructure to lessen that hassle to a bare minimum, than the return on investment would be high enough to warrant the effort.

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Did someone compare this to the Ealing comedies? I've shot people for less.

-David Edelstein

[This message has been edited by Elijah Meeks (edited 10-18-2000).]

[Guest Madmatt]

Ok, perhaps with my unique perspective I should weigh in on this issue.

Any type of peer review isn't going to cut it. I am involved in many side projects with regards to CM and believe me it is nearly impossible to devote the time and energy necessary to coordinate such ventures without sacrificing almost everything else. Also, who says the peers know what they are talking about? Who decides who grades the submissions?

Let me make a few issues clear. BTS knows what they are doing. The success of CM is proof to that and they have said in interview and post and after post that they are not interested in licensing the engine. Go and have a nice read of what sort of issues are involved with selling a game license. They come with commitments of support, documentation and time that quite frankly we have no interest, ability or inclination in providing.

Do you want CM2 or do you want us helping Software Company XYZ make their new CM engined powered Demolition Derby Game?

There is no way to import a 3rd party model into the game. There is more to a vehicle than its texture and data. There are the hooks that bring it IN to the game. The mapping info that tells the engine how to wrap the textures. The LOS code that knows the height of the a given unit. The units ability to spot, to move to fight.

So someone submits a Sturmtiger that looks great and the data seems to check out, but we still need to do modify elements to make it work and that requires close co-ordination between the programmer, 3D modeler and texture artist. Currently those people are all in-house but in your proposal you are adding an additional level of involvement which makes this entire process needlessly complicated.

Read the interviews with Steve and Charles and read the manifesto again. Big Time Software and Battlefront.com don't want to be ID Software or Bungie or Sierra or Talonsoft. We are who we are and we make the games that we make, and if the past is any indication, we do a damn good job of it.

Personally, I will continue to petition for the engine to be more Mod Friendly but I know where the limits are, and I realize why those limits are there.

So while I think it's great you guys want to co-ordinate and help out at the ground level with models and such, it's not what we need or are interested in.

Thanks!

Madmatt

[Chupacabra]

From a post titled "open source, fan extensions" (http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/001511.html):

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Originally posted by Big Time Software I hope you can see it from the larger picture. Everbody having their own flavor of CM is *harmfull* to the game and the overall gaming experience. If CM were flawed this could be excused to some extent (as with CC3 especially), but this is not the case.

Steve

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As for the system of having fans design mods conditional on BTS' approval, I remember reading a thread a little over a month ago in which someone (Madmatt? Steve?) stated that this kind of system would take almost as long as doing the work themselves, and would be more of a hassle. I've been looking for the thread, if I find it I'll post a link.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[PeterNZer]

It was a thread i started out of curiosity. They answered fully, gawd bless 'em

PeterNZ

[Maximus]

OK, imagine this..

You're playing a multiplayer game, hopefully over TCP, and you have a King Tiger. The King Tiger sees a US M8 Greyhound topping a hill. The King Tiger shoots at the Greyhound and the shot ricochets off the side armor! What the Hell! Then the Greyhound turns and shoots at the King Tiger. BOOM, the King Tiger violently erupts after a front turret penetration by the Greyhound's 125mm gun!

Now insert any type of modded vehicle in place of the King Tiger and Greyhound.

What you you have here is a poorly researched mod. BTS had deliberately made CM's core engine and unit statistics unmoddable for this very reason. An extensive amount of research was put into creating each and every unit in the the game. BTS even did live-firings of small arms to get accurate data.

CM was in development for over three years for a very good reason. And for a customer to whip out a half-baked mod in a couple days is not going to work well with the core modules.

As a modder myself, I am perfectly happy to just beable to work on the textures.

Just a few words to say about the exclusion of community core modding.......

Historical Accuracy & Proper Balancing.

BTS worked long and hard to do this and there is simply no way for a half-baked FPS freak to whip up a mod for a ganme that is as complex as CM. Hell, even Fionn would have a difficult time.

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Coming soon to a web near you...

The Maximus CM Mod HQ

This site will be host to a plethera of mods from myself and others.

Please send questions and comments to: davem@shawneelink.net

[Hamstersss]

Madmatt,

Are you saying that BTS never developed any tools to place objects within CM? They have to reinvent the wheel every time they wanted to add a new object?

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Did someone compare this to the Ealing comedies? I've shot people for less.

-David Edelstein

[Kali]

Somehow, I think you guys are tainted by fear of mods because of Q2 and CS. How about we look at a good example like Starsiege Tribes? This game has been around for 2 years. There are numerous mods that people play and support. The mods have extended the life of this game. Intelligent coding has absolutely prevented "aimbots."

What these pro-mod people are suggesting is something that will extend the life of the game and enhance the gaming experience. If you don't want to play the mods, then don't. That's your choice. But to argue for preventing other people from having a choice is simply isolationism at it's finest.

I disagree that incorporating modablity will hinder the dev team. Instead, I argue that the flexibility and interchangeability will make development of add-ons, patches, and future versions will be MUCH easier. I dunno if you guys know much programming, but there's this little something called object-oriented programming that lends itself to modability.

Anyway, that's my $.02.

[Guest Madmatt]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

Madmatt,

Are you saying that BTS never developed any tools to place objects within CM? They have to reinvent the wheel every time they wanted to add a new object?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Elijah,

Not at all, I am saying we have no interest in making those tools available to the public.

This is not a new issue and I have done more than most to help build and promote the mod community. However, what you are asking to do is much more involved, time comsuming, and totally out of the focus of what we are willing to do.

We are well aware of what a strong Mod cottage industry represents to the Combat Mission line of games but it is totally against our design philosophy to open up our code to people outside the fold. The types of mods you are desiring would require this and we simply don't have the time or interest in doing it.

Thank you,

Madmatt

[Steve Clark]

The main question is (for me) can another developer duplicate the 'look and feel' and 'graphics engine' of CM but with an American Civil War (or any other war) focus?

[Schrullenhaft]

It's interesting to see that the mod-ability of Panzer Elite hasn't exactly sent it through the roof in terms of sales. The game still has its problems and a number of the mods aren't compatible with each other or there are limitations as to how you can use/employ the mods. Admittedly their sales problems are mostly due to a buggy multiplayer option and distributor problems.

I don't know how extensive it would be to modify CM so that it would support user-mods. Quite a bit of the engine would have to yanked apart and rebuilt (and OOP code still isn't anywhere near perfect in this regard). Also it would probably have to support some sort of scripting ability (which I assume doesn't exist at the moment within CM) that would allow a mod to "act" intelligently and be employed by the different levels of AI, etc. To top it off, a number of the things people gripe about in CM would require that it be open-source code in order for them to "add" that feature or modify the play of CM so it behaves the way they want it to.

User mods sound great in many ways, but there are justifiable fears that uber-AFVs and mis-modelled data would make a mish-mash of the game we are all fond of. CM will have a life span beyond that of FPSs and other user-modable games because there is more to it than just graphics, guns and reflexes. Admittedly CM's audience has grown beyond those that admire the near-historical accuracy it is able to simulate. Sadly some of this audience will go on to the next great 3D game, whatever its premise, that comes out and leave CM to gather dust on the shelf. This isn't something that can be "prevented" by just making CM user-modable. The gaming world changes often and BTS is a small company that can't afford to go with every whim of the audience for the sake of imagined longevity of sales. In fact user-modability could negatively affect sales since anyone could add the requisite AFVs/OOBs and make a bastardized version of CM2 without the need to purchase it. Sure, BTS could concentrate on making game engines like Id and provide a framework instead of a complete game. But CM is a fine tuned symbiosis of data and code that make it what it is rather than some game engine with everyone's id sitting in for the data.

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt:

Elijah,

Not at all, I am saying we have no interest in making those tools available to the public.

This is not a new issue and I have done more than most to help build and promote the mod community. However, what you are asking to do is much more involved, time comsuming, and totally out of the focus of what we are willing to do.

We are well aware of what a strong Mod cottage industry represents to the Combat Mission line of games but it is totally against our design philosophy to open up our code to people outside the fold. The types of mods you are desiring would require this and we simply don't have the time or interest in doing it.

Thank you,

Madmatt

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you also refering, in that same way to, folks who would like to help out and volunteer 3D models of things like buildings, bridges and vehicles for CM2.?

I'm not talking about changes or modifications here, just mod makers volunteering time and effort to build 3D skeletons and textures to see if some of us could get our own textures and 3D models into CM2 by giving them to BTS to "hook" and finish and polish for the next release of the Eastern Front version of the game.

Just trying to help....

really

-tom w

[Guest Madmatt]

That is yet to be determined.

There are some talented people out there that are more than willing to lend a hand. Of that I have no doubt.

I think it is safe to say that if and when we decide we have a need to *farm out* textures, people may be contacted in private. The same was done during CM. Please remember that we now have a resident in-house artist (Kwazydog) for CM2 which is something we did not have for the full design life of CM.

However, we are begining to drift into a discussion of internal company workings and that is NOT something we discuss.

Madmatt

[Dalton]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt:

Ok, perhaps with my unique perspective I should weigh in on this issue.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks, Madmatt.

If BTS is certain that exposing these APIs is not feasible - good enough.

...Dalton

P.S. - My day job is figuring out how we will shoe-horn new features into our existing 10M LOC s/w base... I know that opening/creating APIs that weren't originally designed to be open ain't easy!

[Dalton]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

I think we've crystallized the proposal at this, and correct me if I'm wrong:

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nice articulation.

...Dalton

[argie]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Long time ago wadepm post:

OT- Argie, I just got back from a week in Buenos Aires, awesome. Are you in BA?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes. I'm glad you like the city

Ariel

[PeterNZer]

I was there for one night about 5 months ago, great place

PeterNZ

[Slapdragon]

First off in one thing I agree with Elijah very much: that an open API would make no difference in cheating, since cheaters will find a way to hack the engine no matter what.

From there I would have to part company because I cannot see how an open API could be made fiscally feasible. Oddly enough, I want creatives to reap nice fat rewards, and I hope Steve, Charles, Matt, and Dog get to roll about in great heaps of money. They have a hell of a team that brings history, computer coding, online communication, and art to a table, and who can and will come up with a great CM2.

The API though should only be opend to a set of coders who will do an equally cool game, and I think it should remain closed until the engine has had a couple of years to sit on the shelf and Combat Mission: The Next Generation is ready to fly. Then the older code, API, and programming tools could be passed off to a team who awnted to extend it into the Civil War, or whatever. This is purely from a financial look at the engine and my own personal philosophy. I want to see creatives get enough money from their work to make more. I want CM2, and I want a version of CM ten years from now with photorealistic engines that run 10 times the polygons that are used now, and the only way I will get it is if Charles et el make enough money to put food on the table for the next decade.

So in many ways my desire to see the CM engine remain locked is totally selfish, while Elijah is arguing from a more altruistic point of view (and arguing well I might add -- he is one of the better writers on the board even if I disagree with him). I think of Charles and Battlefront as working for me (gee, so modest) and as my employees I want them to make the next great game, but I know I need to make sure they make some good bucks out of the deal. If I was a rich man I would set Battlefront up in a New Hampshire resort with a dozen computers and all the WW2 books they could buy and require that every year or two they came out with a new game just for me. Not being rich I rely on everyone else in wargaming land to buy copies of CM and CM2 to keep Charles in programmers books and Matt in head polish so that the next game will come out on schedule.

That said, I think there is a way to proceed on this idea, but on a longer term basis. If you are a programmer / artist team interested in the Civil War (for example), put together a business proposal for Charles and Steve and gang. in a year, when CM2 is out, offer to liscence the code base for the mature CM1 engine. Put it to them like any other business proposition: you risk the time to recode a civil war game and the money to market it, they offer the engine and get a royalty. You may interest Battlefront (you may not also -- depends on your offer).

[Major Tom]

In order to be successful a game must be reliable, flashy and most importantly have good replay value. The main reason that these Id Software, etc. have to make their games open source is because they usually lack in good replay value. Once you finish a mission of Quake, why play it again?

CM doesn't have this problem. You can model ANY single small action on the Western Front from 1944 to 1945, and if you want to get creative, 1942 to 1945! You could even try to model some battles on the Italian front!

If BTS made their product open source it would mean the end of any further Combat Mission game. Why would they bother creating a game that there is no demand for (because of the multitude of mods). You can say that you would buy the product, but, what guarantee is that?

Just because other compaines are doing it to their limited games doesn't mean that in order for any game to be successful they have to follow suit. Most of the greatest games that I have played are the most difficult to hack into, and thereby have less mods. These games are great because they don't require mods.

They created Combat Mission: Beyond Overloard, not Combat Mission: Construction Pack. They are creating a game of a theme not a game for a games sake.

[Hamstersss]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

From there I would have to part company because I cannot see how an open API could be made fiscally feasible. Oddly enough, I want creatives to reap nice fat rewards, and I hope Steve, Charles, Matt, and Dog get to roll about in great heaps of money.B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I respond only to this point as it seems to be misunderstood by the CM community. Modmakers make money for the original designer (In this case BTS) because, and this is the kicker, if you want to play the mod you still need CM. This is why Half-Life has sold over 2 million copies and continues to sell briskly.

I argue for this because it is a win-win situation for me. If BTS never, ever releases anything to allow mods for the game, then I still have a kickass game to play called CM (Not to mention CMX+1).

That said, I think there would be benefits to the community and benefits to BTS if they allowed and supported mods. The model works perfectly for FPSs and other standard games with standard marketing and distribution models, plus it increases community loyalty and interaction, which are very important for entertainment software. BTS may have looked into it and decided that their distribution and marketing won't benefit enough from it, as CM and BTS are definitely not standard. They may also think that their rabid fans are loyal enough, thank you very much. In either case, though I will still lobby for this well into CM13: Beyond Manchester United, I respect the company, their product and their business practices.

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Did someone compare this to the Ealing comedies? I've shot people for less.

-David Edelstein

[Guest Madmatt]

Had you said CM13: Beyond Chelsea, you would have had me!

Guys, you know me, you know I will fight like hell for cool stuff to be added and that includes more *hooks* for mods. But there is a time and place for stuff like this...Now run along and play and let me bend the ears of Steve and Charles some more!

Madmatt

[hakujin]

Fear Change!!! Fear Change!!!

Old Things Good!!!

New Things Bad!!!

I mean this with the utmost respect to all of you, but some of you sound like the recording industry talking about Napster. The obvious solution for people who don't want to play mods is...don't play them. Mods for CM would do nothing but add interest in the game and raise sales. However, it would raise the bar for a CM2. CM is a GREAT game as is, but no matter how good a game is, there's always someone who can improve on it given the resouces (e.g. Half-Life/CS).

[Hamstersss]

You're right, Madmatt, we got some new ideas out there and rehashed some old ones, there's not much left. I'll bring this up again in three or four months but I'm satiated now.

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Did someone compare this to the Ealing comedies? I've shot people for less.

-David Edelstein

[This message has been edited by Elijah Meeks (edited 10-18-2000).]

[David Aitken]

hakujin wrote:

> The obvious solution for people who don't want to play mods is...don't play them.

Oh no!! We've got down to the same old argument – "What do you care if we mess around with the game – you don't have to be involved!" Comes up sooner or later with every single request.

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Guderian's anger was monumental. He struggled for words. "To say that the troops are to blame – look at the casualties!" he raged. "Look at the losses! The troops did their duty! Their self-sacrifice proves it!" Hitler yelled back. "They failed!" he raged. "They failed."

[argie]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

I was there for one night about 5 months ago, great place

PeterNZ<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks

Ariel

[Freak]

Deanco said:

And if you don't believe me, just ask yourself one question: Would this game have the same critical acclaim and rabid fan base if the screen was hexes and counters?

Right now my biggest regret in life is that I don't know how to program, because after playing CM for 3 days I knew exactly what to do to it to make this kind of game appeal to a wide public. And I would LOVE to work with other like-minded people to make my vision reality. But I can't, cause the code is locked up.

BTS is sitting on a veritable gold mine here. They have a game engine that could literally change the face of PC gaming as we know it. But instead of opening up the game engine to modders or AT THE VERY WORST licensing the salient aspects out to other game companies, they are sitting on it and instead trying to figure out how to accurately model a T-34 or whatever. OK, it's their property, they do with it as they please, but from where I stand they are passing up a golden opportunity to change the face of PC gaming, to make RTS a thing of the past, to push the envelope where it's never been before.

When it comes to this kind of discussion, most of you here have a mote in your eye as big as a 2 car garage. And I think that's really sad, and that's why I get so worked up when I see this sort of topic discussed here. It's just really too bad.[\b]

This almost sounds like you are making it BTS fault that your dreams have not been met . I Dont know I like CM the way it is. I think (assuming) most people do to. I for one do not want to see CM's code in the hand of modifiers to just make it a better revolutionary game that will"push the envelope" CM is not like a fps type game and I dont think it belongs in that kind of enviornment. I personaly think that if that game engine was to be "opened up" it could ruin the whole CM experience in many ways.

I think if you really want to make games go learn some programing. Get some books on game programing or take a class at the local community college. Your idea may be great and may really push the envelope in gaming to where it has never been before. And that may be great. And I wish you luck on your journey. But I think you need to take a step back and see CM and BTS for what it is. I think your idea could be good, maybe made as its own game, with its own community.