Post by TAfirehawk on Jul 22, 2007 9:10:26 GMT -5
Dear friends, colleagues, civilization fans, modders, programmers, art designers, tweakers, scenario makers, map makers, and everyone I forgot about who is willing to read this article!
In this article I hope to stress out the importance for me personally as well as for many people on this planet, from the upper north of Scandinavia and Canada to the south of Chile and South Africa, from the most eastern corners in Japan, Russia or Australia to the most western part in Alaska, of the following:
the civilization community is alive and will stay alive!
As we all know, good people left the community already, because they wanted to quit, or simply because they don’t have the time anymore.
@sevo
@iustus
@dale
@jdog
@lopez, hasn’t been online since April!
…..and all those others who contributed to the modding community
Knowledge is lost, code is lost, and development is halted!
Even Projects and Ideas will never get foot on the ground, because the number of members actively working in this modding-community is going down!
Projects as proposed by people who don’t have the skills to do it themselves:
Lands and Roads (V Soma) for example,
but there are a lot of Projects listed in the Lopez request thread, where neither he nor anyone else ever got the time for.
And we will never get that time, because everyone is working in his/her own vision.
My Hopes, Visions, Dreams for civilization Modding
On the SDK basis, collaboration wouldn’t be too much of a deal, since every modification/addition could easily be switched on or off in the CvDefines.h or even an own “mod-defines” header file. We have this project from Impaler CCCP, which could serve this purpose, but on the XML, this would have caused major troubles!
Since Beyond the Sword part of that Problem seems to have been solved!
We could have 2 different sets of XML’s
(1 set of African Nations for example, and 1 set of Asian nations)
and let the DLL load either one of those, or both.
Now, this would request a lot of work, and kind of: ”start from the beginning”
and I totally understand people might look up at this.
My Vision is however, despite the “fresh start”, it won’t be totally fresh since we can integrate existing stuff modular based, that a lot of modders:
AMRA, VISA-Team, TR-Team, CCCP-Impaler and hopefully many others
(art designers who can make units, sound-producers, map makers, scenario makers)
or any other team will actually join an all-in-one project.
My beliefs, as I worked on SDK/Python for civilization, where always:
- You don’t just Mod for yourself, it’ll be too much work
if I were the only one having benefits from it
- Since you also do it for other people, put the upmost flexibility and
give as many choices to the players, let them decide what they want to get
- Combine everything belonging to your style of gaming (realism is my style)
that you can find, all mods there are, and combine them in one package,
and present your players full flexibility.
I found realization of these dreams with Keldath, and in the ViSa team we got a nice bunch of group players, including beta testers, people helping to answer to other players, and it would be a shame if we’d be just sitting here doing our job, which we definitely like, while other teams or modders, are just doing the same, and we do the same work twice, three times, four times. But the moment someone leaves the modding community, expertise on that specific mod is lost, and development halted!
Also the share of expertise between modders is minimal this way, collaboration would not only serve the purpose of “keeping expertise on the project and actually keep it alive” but it would also serve the benefit of:
”learning from each other” and most of all:
”save time eventually”
In my experience, when you start something in a group, you’ll lose a lot of time in the beginning, by utilizing, streamlining, communication, understanding, get to know each other, but you earn that time back double or more later on!
On the ViSa team, each one of us got expertise (which definitely wasn’t there from the beginning and a lot was done in a manner we wouldn’t do it again if we had to do it a 2nd time) on his/her field. Most coding was done by 1 person (who, if he looks over his first codes, starts to pull hairs out of his head how stupid the solution was he came up with) but in future 2 Professionals will join (back) into the team to work on a “Beyond the Sword” mod we want to start from scratch, make sure mistakes are not merged!
But we’d love to collaborate with others on this, and not make a ViSa – 2,
but make something completely new.
World of Civilization (WOC)
This name is just a “first shot” but I think it tells what it should hold!
Not 1 Mod, not 1 Team, but a collaboration of many teams, working on a huge project, based on Impalers idea for CCCP, but going far beyond that! Merging everything! And making everything Modular!
- The big question is, how do we define the Total Realism Mod to be
different from the ViSa mod (Just as an example I name those 2)
I have come up with a solution about that!
1) We don’t use the ini-file anymore for settings
2) We try to get all python codes into the SDK, for the sake of performance,
as well as debugging options! Debugging directly in VS 2003 is a lot more convenient then chasing python calls in the heap back to the python files
in the python folder!
3) We use a stand-Alone program to export data into
an “initial global mod defines XML file”
4) We distribute various basic settings in different init_globalmoddefines.xml files
(to cope with our ideas what would be a nice basic pack of game modules,
to stress out (if wanted anyway) the difference between TR ideas and VISA
or any other default settings.
This stand-alone could easily be done in VS as well, or Delphi, whatever is preferred, and should look like the modding-interface from civ3, I guess we all still know how that looks like!
- An “import settings” functionality
(we could distribute various basic settings in the init_globalmoddefines.xml to make the difference of our own ideas what should be included or not)
- A “export settings” in which the players (if they changed anything according their wishes to play the game) are able to export their own init_globalmoddefines.xml file
- Pull down menus to select modules
- Radio buttons for enable/disable functionality
- Boxes for setting values
- This of course can be organized pretty neat, with mouse-over help, info’s,
and such(avoiding the ini troubles and questions people always ask)
- A history of the exported files with dates and the COUNT of the export.
Exports should be counted! This counter value will be exported
in the init_globalmoddefines.xml as well, and written into the save game!
- Probably put the “settings” in the save game as well
- Functionality to import stored “count” or “settings” from any save game
to re-export a save game compatible init_globalmoddefines.xml!
People tend to have a lot of saves and in the end not figure out which save game belongs to which mod, version, etc (this is now the case in civ4 and Warlords and will be in Beyond the Sword unless we all really join together
and make this kind of collaboration come true)
The exported, or default, init_globalmoddefines.xml should be initialized first of course, to set the proper DLL modifications one wants to use, to load the proper xml files, etc.
Overall benefits of this kind of collaboration
- People can always retrieve stored settings and count number from their save games into their “stand alone” program to make sure they always can load their save games by just re-exporting the init_globalmoddefines.xml without having
to store version/setting info/etc into the filename of the save game or keeping
a separated txt or xml file to keep track on which save game belongs to which mod/set of settings/version …
- 1 SDK set, collaboration and joined expertise on the knowledge of coding
- 1 XML set, texts, hints, tweaks, game speed tweaks art definitions
only have to be done once
- Arts have to exist only once(people don’t need to keep 5gigs of various mods stored on their local pc’s (space is not a big issue these days anymore, but still)
- Bugs, also in xml’s and arts and definitions only have to be fixed once
- Only 1 repository needed
- Only 1 installer for players needed
- Only 1 bug-tracking facility needed, and 1 webpage representation as well as 1 representation on civfanatics (could even try to beat the nr 1 rank at most popular download!)
- Check visa.family-veldman.com/mantis for how the bug tracker can be (just register and you’ll have viewers rights to look around, won’t grand you any admin/manager/developer rights though! but it’s all there I can tell you!)
- Even if someone quits, the project won’t die!
- Ease for players, with a standalone program taking care of the init_globalmoddefines.xml even newbie’s can’t screw it up
- Scenario and map makers can develop special Africa/Europe/Americas/Asia/Imaginary maps,
or special times (early ages only, modern ages only),
and use this stand alone program to export a special for their scenario/map designed init_globalmoddefines.xml loading only those Civilizations/Leader heads/Units and enable/disable the DLL-options appropriate for their scenario
Basically, you have everyone working on his/her own mod (like previously in the modding community, 1 makes an airbase mod, the other a great statesmen mod, the other one an expanding cultural borders mod) but with the difference, there is no need for all the teams to “merge” as they please, because everything will already be merged totally! We supply here the community an “all in one” solution.
Even new members, with new ideas, don’t need to create a new thread on civfanatics with a new mod which then has to be merged in by 10 teams; instead, this person just expands the Project with new “xml modules” an entry in the “standalone program” and the proper “SDK changes” and it’s already merged. Any bug regarding any module can easily be isolated and be found!
I truly hope I can get your interests for this, imagine what a team of:
- 7 or more programmers
- 3 or more 3d unit designers
- 2 or 3 html/scripts/php people
- 1 manager taking care of civfanatics representation and keep an overview
who is doing what, to appoint tasks/bugs on the bug tracking facility
to the appropriate person
- 5 people taking care of proper texts in the XML’s
- 1 person writing a decent MANUAL for players, and keep it up to date
- People making scenarios, maps
- People making beautiful sounds
All we need to do is find a person willing to manage this, and capable of doing it, which will be the difference between success and failure and of course,
the willingness of you!
Whatever your choice and interests are, I wish you all the good luck with your own Mod/Mods and hope you won’t leave the community as many others have done,
and we, your colleague modders as well as the players in the community are enjoying and recognized the efforts we all spend thus far into the Civilization Community.
Good luck and Best wishes, Beyond the World of Civilization!
Yours,
Vincent Veldman
In this article I hope to stress out the importance for me personally as well as for many people on this planet, from the upper north of Scandinavia and Canada to the south of Chile and South Africa, from the most eastern corners in Japan, Russia or Australia to the most western part in Alaska, of the following:
the civilization community is alive and will stay alive!
As we all know, good people left the community already, because they wanted to quit, or simply because they don’t have the time anymore.
@sevo
@iustus
@dale
@jdog
@lopez, hasn’t been online since April!
…..and all those others who contributed to the modding community
Knowledge is lost, code is lost, and development is halted!
Even Projects and Ideas will never get foot on the ground, because the number of members actively working in this modding-community is going down!
Projects as proposed by people who don’t have the skills to do it themselves:
Lands and Roads (V Soma) for example,
but there are a lot of Projects listed in the Lopez request thread, where neither he nor anyone else ever got the time for.
And we will never get that time, because everyone is working in his/her own vision.
My Hopes, Visions, Dreams for civilization Modding
On the SDK basis, collaboration wouldn’t be too much of a deal, since every modification/addition could easily be switched on or off in the CvDefines.h or even an own “mod-defines” header file. We have this project from Impaler CCCP, which could serve this purpose, but on the XML, this would have caused major troubles!
Since Beyond the Sword part of that Problem seems to have been solved!
We could have 2 different sets of XML’s
(1 set of African Nations for example, and 1 set of Asian nations)
and let the DLL load either one of those, or both.
Now, this would request a lot of work, and kind of: ”start from the beginning”
and I totally understand people might look up at this.
My Vision is however, despite the “fresh start”, it won’t be totally fresh since we can integrate existing stuff modular based, that a lot of modders:
AMRA, VISA-Team, TR-Team, CCCP-Impaler and hopefully many others
(art designers who can make units, sound-producers, map makers, scenario makers)
or any other team will actually join an all-in-one project.
My beliefs, as I worked on SDK/Python for civilization, where always:
- You don’t just Mod for yourself, it’ll be too much work
if I were the only one having benefits from it
- Since you also do it for other people, put the upmost flexibility and
give as many choices to the players, let them decide what they want to get
- Combine everything belonging to your style of gaming (realism is my style)
that you can find, all mods there are, and combine them in one package,
and present your players full flexibility.
I found realization of these dreams with Keldath, and in the ViSa team we got a nice bunch of group players, including beta testers, people helping to answer to other players, and it would be a shame if we’d be just sitting here doing our job, which we definitely like, while other teams or modders, are just doing the same, and we do the same work twice, three times, four times. But the moment someone leaves the modding community, expertise on that specific mod is lost, and development halted!
Also the share of expertise between modders is minimal this way, collaboration would not only serve the purpose of “keeping expertise on the project and actually keep it alive” but it would also serve the benefit of:
”learning from each other” and most of all:
”save time eventually”
In my experience, when you start something in a group, you’ll lose a lot of time in the beginning, by utilizing, streamlining, communication, understanding, get to know each other, but you earn that time back double or more later on!
On the ViSa team, each one of us got expertise (which definitely wasn’t there from the beginning and a lot was done in a manner we wouldn’t do it again if we had to do it a 2nd time) on his/her field. Most coding was done by 1 person (who, if he looks over his first codes, starts to pull hairs out of his head how stupid the solution was he came up with) but in future 2 Professionals will join (back) into the team to work on a “Beyond the Sword” mod we want to start from scratch, make sure mistakes are not merged!
But we’d love to collaborate with others on this, and not make a ViSa – 2,
but make something completely new.
World of Civilization (WOC)
This name is just a “first shot” but I think it tells what it should hold!
Not 1 Mod, not 1 Team, but a collaboration of many teams, working on a huge project, based on Impalers idea for CCCP, but going far beyond that! Merging everything! And making everything Modular!
- The big question is, how do we define the Total Realism Mod to be
different from the ViSa mod (Just as an example I name those 2)
I have come up with a solution about that!
1) We don’t use the ini-file anymore for settings
2) We try to get all python codes into the SDK, for the sake of performance,
as well as debugging options! Debugging directly in VS 2003 is a lot more convenient then chasing python calls in the heap back to the python files
in the python folder!
3) We use a stand-Alone program to export data into
an “initial global mod defines XML file”
4) We distribute various basic settings in different init_globalmoddefines.xml files
(to cope with our ideas what would be a nice basic pack of game modules,
to stress out (if wanted anyway) the difference between TR ideas and VISA
or any other default settings.
This stand-alone could easily be done in VS as well, or Delphi, whatever is preferred, and should look like the modding-interface from civ3, I guess we all still know how that looks like!
- An “import settings” functionality
(we could distribute various basic settings in the init_globalmoddefines.xml to make the difference of our own ideas what should be included or not)
- A “export settings” in which the players (if they changed anything according their wishes to play the game) are able to export their own init_globalmoddefines.xml file
- Pull down menus to select modules
- Radio buttons for enable/disable functionality
- Boxes for setting values
- This of course can be organized pretty neat, with mouse-over help, info’s,
and such(avoiding the ini troubles and questions people always ask)
- A history of the exported files with dates and the COUNT of the export.
Exports should be counted! This counter value will be exported
in the init_globalmoddefines.xml as well, and written into the save game!
- Probably put the “settings” in the save game as well
- Functionality to import stored “count” or “settings” from any save game
to re-export a save game compatible init_globalmoddefines.xml!
People tend to have a lot of saves and in the end not figure out which save game belongs to which mod, version, etc (this is now the case in civ4 and Warlords and will be in Beyond the Sword unless we all really join together
and make this kind of collaboration come true)
The exported, or default, init_globalmoddefines.xml should be initialized first of course, to set the proper DLL modifications one wants to use, to load the proper xml files, etc.
Overall benefits of this kind of collaboration
- People can always retrieve stored settings and count number from their save games into their “stand alone” program to make sure they always can load their save games by just re-exporting the init_globalmoddefines.xml without having
to store version/setting info/etc into the filename of the save game or keeping
a separated txt or xml file to keep track on which save game belongs to which mod/set of settings/version …
- 1 SDK set, collaboration and joined expertise on the knowledge of coding
- 1 XML set, texts, hints, tweaks, game speed tweaks art definitions
only have to be done once
- Arts have to exist only once(people don’t need to keep 5gigs of various mods stored on their local pc’s (space is not a big issue these days anymore, but still)
- Bugs, also in xml’s and arts and definitions only have to be fixed once
- Only 1 repository needed
- Only 1 installer for players needed
- Only 1 bug-tracking facility needed, and 1 webpage representation as well as 1 representation on civfanatics (could even try to beat the nr 1 rank at most popular download!)
- Check visa.family-veldman.com/mantis for how the bug tracker can be (just register and you’ll have viewers rights to look around, won’t grand you any admin/manager/developer rights though! but it’s all there I can tell you!)
- Even if someone quits, the project won’t die!
- Ease for players, with a standalone program taking care of the init_globalmoddefines.xml even newbie’s can’t screw it up
- Scenario and map makers can develop special Africa/Europe/Americas/Asia/Imaginary maps,
or special times (early ages only, modern ages only),
and use this stand alone program to export a special for their scenario/map designed init_globalmoddefines.xml loading only those Civilizations/Leader heads/Units and enable/disable the DLL-options appropriate for their scenario
Basically, you have everyone working on his/her own mod (like previously in the modding community, 1 makes an airbase mod, the other a great statesmen mod, the other one an expanding cultural borders mod) but with the difference, there is no need for all the teams to “merge” as they please, because everything will already be merged totally! We supply here the community an “all in one” solution.
Even new members, with new ideas, don’t need to create a new thread on civfanatics with a new mod which then has to be merged in by 10 teams; instead, this person just expands the Project with new “xml modules” an entry in the “standalone program” and the proper “SDK changes” and it’s already merged. Any bug regarding any module can easily be isolated and be found!
I truly hope I can get your interests for this, imagine what a team of:
- 7 or more programmers
- 3 or more 3d unit designers
- 2 or 3 html/scripts/php people
- 1 manager taking care of civfanatics representation and keep an overview
who is doing what, to appoint tasks/bugs on the bug tracking facility
to the appropriate person
- 5 people taking care of proper texts in the XML’s
- 1 person writing a decent MANUAL for players, and keep it up to date
- People making scenarios, maps
- People making beautiful sounds
All we need to do is find a person willing to manage this, and capable of doing it, which will be the difference between success and failure and of course,
the willingness of you!
Whatever your choice and interests are, I wish you all the good luck with your own Mod/Mods and hope you won’t leave the community as many others have done,
and we, your colleague modders as well as the players in the community are enjoying and recognized the efforts we all spend thus far into the Civilization Community.
Good luck and Best wishes, Beyond the World of Civilization!
Yours,
Vincent Veldman
. The code for a python call has been changed to
). Is one of the aims of the project to be able to do this, or if not, can you please consider it?