Just how far can one mod the game at this point?

It's hard for me to descibe what can be modded and what can't. I'm not even sure what Stardock might have planned to add into the list of things that can be modded.

GC2builder is a tool in development that is planned to support all data modding the game has to offer. It's current focus is maps and scenarios. Stardock has it's own program for modding the GUI (DesktopX), and there are a few programs for creating models (3Dsmax, blender).

Is there/will there be a way to mod game physics and such? There are things I would like to see in the game that will not be added because of “balance”, so I would like to know if there is a way to do so on my own. (IE, blow up planets and all such fun things ).

Right now, modding possibilities are very, very limited. Changes to models and interface are purely superficial and doesn't change the game. The only changes that can be made beyond that is basically adjusting values in the .xml files, which means that no actual game mechanics can be changed. We can make new versions of existing weapons, reorganize the tech tree and stuff like that, but we can't change the way the economy works, they way combat plays out or anything about the AI.

Right now, modding possibilities are very, very limited. Changes to models and interface are purely superficial and doesn't change the game. The only changes that can be made beyond that is basically adjusting values in the .xml files, which means that no actual game mechanics can be changed. We can make new versions of existing weapons, reorganize the tech tree and stuff like that, but we can't change the way the economy works, they way combat plays out or anything about the AI.

Well, to me being able to change all the structures data, the tech tree, the ships adn their weapons, as well as the 2D bitmaps, 3D models and textures, and the UI, goes near as far as "modding" can go. The only lacking thing is IA scripting.
Anything more is not "modding", it's called "making another game"

Well, so far the Limit i have reached is about creating "Hangars" for Ships and Starbases. If Stardock really wants to support the modding community they should bring a solution how we can integrate hangars.

There are so many sci-fi "universes" that could need hangars:

Star Wars, Star Trek, Battle Sar Galactica, Babylon 5, Wing Commander,...

I know that the original game didn include such things (except planets) for any "gameplay" of "balancing"-reason.
But by creating and using a modd you do it at "own risk" that's always so with modding.
So no one is forced to use a modd.

2nd thing is that I really hope that the Stardock Modding-Tutorial/FAQ will be done and that it wil be as detailed as possible.

"Modding" is such a subjective term. Realistically, you could do anything you like given enough time. Anotherwords, If you invest enough time looking through the game exe, you could patch it to do certain things like decouping research and industry sliders, however, that is something that not everyone can accomplish. Add to the problem is that Stardock likes to update their game a lot, and you can see why no one will even try this at least for a year.

Now, if you're talking about what is "supported" Modding, then you really are very limited in what you can accomplish. Many have already said what you can mod, which basically falls into two category:

1) Graphics: models, interface, etc, which really only requires some creativity and patience.
2) In game items: technologies, facilities, starbase modules, ships and components, etc..

While it may seem restrictive, it is actually a lot of "supported" modding. About the only game that I can think of that might allow more would be Space Empires V which will come out in June (at least from what I've seen of it). Aside that, you're probably better off picking up a game engine and program the game from scratch.


That isn't to say that you can't be creative with what you have. Take the poster above me for example, like him, I've seen many people request for a "hangar". Now I don't know about you, but with a little creativity I can come up with a pretty decent solution using the current logistic system just reading the post. That is, have your carrier ships give negative logistics. In that sense, carriers will allow a lot more ships to be put into a fleet. To prevent this from becoming unbalanced, change tiny ships to 20 logistics, small ships to 30, medium to 40, etc... and make your fighters cost 1 or 2 logistics. That way, a carrier can "carry" fighters (in a fleet), and a group of fighters can be viable. Granted, you'll still have to do something about engines and life support , but there are various solutions to that (like giving it a ton in the fighter hull). I'm not saying that it will be perfect, you may have to intentionally limit yourself while playing, but lets face it, the AI is never going to be able to use something like this correctly, so you will have to determine how you use them. So, what do you need for something like that to occur? Maybe a module that would support the {logistic} tag, or just set it on a "carrier" hull, and maybe allow for a negative logistic value as well (since I haven't tested that...). I'm sure if you request negative value modifers, it can be added it much easier than, "please make a hangar module", because that would take weeks. There's a thread in this forum dedicated to requesting simple things like that (/end blatant self advertising ).

Of course I wouldn't mind a separate .xml file that is dedicated to modifying game rules, like the various functions and effectiveness of abilities, population growth rate, taxing formulas, etc... That might take some work for them to add in though, so right now I'm just requesting extra xml tag support in existing files.

@ Kalin:

Well, if Stardocks tells me how I can creat Hangars myself, I would not bother them asking to help the Modder-community with the "Hangars".
You got me real wrong about the Carriers. If you know Civilization, then you know how my Idea of carrier should work.
You build both, the Carriers and the Fighters in the shipyard.
The you bring the Fighters on the Carrier. Could work like it works with a planet, simply let the Fighters "fly" on th the position of the Carrier.
Number of the Fighters on thw Carrier should be limited.
And of course you have to think over it that bigger Ships can't land on a carrier. Having a Dreadnaught deployed on a carrier would be "strange".
Fighters can be repaired on the Carrier, but not be build, because a Carrier is not a Shipyard!
The Strategic clue: You don't to move your Fighters to a Planet for a repair, that's useful if you are deep in enemy Territory or you are just far away from the next Planet with a Shipyard/Starport.
The rest is just optic influence. A Wing Commnander, Star Wars or Battle Star Galactica Modd without Hangars is just 1/2 the fun.
But I don't know how Logistic Points are helping to have "phyiscal working" Hangars?

Well, if Stardocks tells me how I can creat Hangars myself, I would not bother them asking to help the Modder-community with the "Hangars".

Decompile the exe, add all the necessary code changes (knowledge of atleast c++ and whatever other languages & API's used), edit the GUI to show all the changes you made (you'll need to learn DesktopX), debug the new game, and repeat whenever a patch is released.
This is probably against the EULA and/or violates Stardock's copyrights.

Disassembling the .exe requires knowledge of assembly, not C/C++. You can't magically turn a binary file back to its original source code. The best you can do is disassemble it to assembly level code. Doing that and introducing significant changes on a modern .exe is not realistic. And as you said, it might be illegal.

Someone said that the current modding support in this game is almost unrivalled. I beg to differ - strongly. Look at all games from ID, Epic, Croteam and Valve that have come out in the last ten years. Each of those games is vastly more modable than adjusting a few numbers here and there. Other examples of games far more modable than GC2, though not quite to the extent of previous examples, is Starcraft, most of the latter-day Westwood games and Bethesda's games (The Elder Scrolls construction kit is amazing).

Granted, most of these examples are FPS games, but that really doesn't matter. Genre should not affect modability. It's a shame that only the FPS programmers seem to realize how, why and to what extent modding should be supported, because games like GC2 would benefit from it just as much as the Quake games, for example, did.

Anything more is not "modding", it's called "making another game"

"Making another game" IS what modding is about, ever since the days of the old-school Quake TC's. Any amateur can switch a few numbers and names around and call his work a "mod", but for those of us who really want to make significant, creative and unique changes that we can be proud of, that's just boring. And having access to several free "games" through user-made mods by just buying one game is a huge selling point. Do you really think Half-Life would have sold even a tenth of what it did if it wasn't for mods such as CS? That Quake would have become what it did without AirQuake, KillerQuakePack, QuakeWorld and Team Fortress? I want games in other genres, particularily space 4x and space shooters, to share this success by allowing the same kind of modding that those games did and their successors still do.

But no games in these other genres with the required support ever seem to be released. The developers have claimed that GC2 is "incredible moddable" on several occasions, so I got my hopes up that I'd finally get my wish. I'm ranting because my expectations turned out to be false (again).

@ Hnefi:

The good thing about how you can modd galciv2: It's easy for beginners to make some changes.

But you are right other games like HL or Quake are are much more moddable then galciv2.
So I hope Stardock recognize this problem and helps us.
Would be sad if it doesn't keep the promice: "Full moddable"

I think the "problem" I have with the "Hangars" shows this "problem" pretty good.
Because Hangars would "harm" gameplay of galciv2 modders should not have posibility to use such a thing, or what?!
I sayd it and I say it again most modds really NEED Hangars, on starbases and ships.


So think over such scenarios:

1. Wing Commander

CAG (Commander Air Group) on the Terran Carrier "Tiger's Claw" to Colonel Halcyon, his commanding officer:
Colonel Halcyon, a huge fleet of Kilrathi Ships as jumped in near our positon! ....Should the Tiger's Claw launch
it's Fighters to attack the enemey fleet?
Halcyon: No,...
CAG: WHY?!?!
Halcyon: Galactic Civilizations 2 doesn't support Hangars,...


2. Star Wars

Officer on a Mon Calamari Cruiser to his commanding officer:
Captain,we have detected some Imperial Star Destroyer close to our position!
Captain: Launch all X-Wing, A-Wing and Y-Wing Squadrons!
Officer: Captain, we CAN'T!
Captain: WHY?!?!
Officer: I am sorry Sir, but Galactic Civilizations 2 doesn't support Hangars!
Captain: This is bad,... May the Force be with us!


3. Star Trek

USS Voyager deep in enemy teritory:
Cpt. Janeway: We are deep in the enemies territory but I hate surprises, ... I don't want to ambushed, what could we do?
Lt. Paris: We could launch the Delta Flyer. It is quick and could scout the region arround the Voyager.
Cpt. Janeway: No,...
Lt. Paris: But Captain,...
Cpt. Janeway: Galactic Civilzations 2 does not support Hangars. So no Delta Flyer, Mr. Paris!
Lt. Paris: Eye, Mam! ...

Here is a Quote from "Frogboy". It is Nr. 4 on his "The Galactic Civilizations 2 Battleplan":

[quote The long-term viability of many games is modding. We see it as our job to make sure that modding isn't just something techies can do but rather something anyone can do to the game. We have some experience in this given that we do run the world's largest Windows modding community. When the modding is done, players will be able to download a mod and then from the game point to that mod and make use of all its changes without having to mess around with editors and images. To help in mod creation, 1.1 will include a pretty significant set of mods in itself to use as examples.

So if you are seriouse, then help us if we reach "modding-barriers" like that with the "Hangars.

Someone said that the current modding support in this game is almost unrivalled. I beg to differ - strongly. Look at all games from ID, Epic, Croteam and Valve that have come out in the last ten years. Each of those games is vastly more modable than adjusting a few numbers here and there. Other examples of games far more modable than GC2, though not quite to the extent of previous examples, is Starcraft, most of the latter-day Westwood games and Bethesda's games (The Elder Scrolls construction kit is amazing).

But no games in these other genres with the required support ever seem to be released. The developers have claimed that GC2 is "incredible moddable" on several occasions, so I got my hopes up that I'd finally get my wish. I'm ranting because my expectations turned out to be false (again).

As someone who have messed extensively with Starcraft and Morrowind, I will say that these games specifically does not offer any MORE modding support. Yes, you can add all kinds of stuff, take Starcraft for example, you could make whole campaigns, add new individuals, with voices, speech, but the game play mechanics will still be the same. I have yet to see anyone mod Starcraft into a turn base RPG for example, have you? The closest thing is the Warcraft III's hero modding to make them level up a bit like an RPG, but that was built into the game in the first place. It is no different with Morrowwind, yes you can do a lot of things, but changing the game engine and how the game plays itself isn't possible. Hell, even in Neverwinter Nights, one of the most moddable game EVER, you still couldn't change how certain facets of the game plays out, in the end it will still have to follow D&D rules. I'm pretty sure this is the same with all other games, although admittedly, I don't have as much experience with the others. So to say that GalCiv2 doesn't fully support modding isn't true, it does, as much as anyone can realistically expect it to. Does that mean I wouldn't like more? No, I would love for more moddable options, and I hope they will be implemented, but...

So if you are seriouse, then help us if we reach "modding-barriers" like that with the "Hangars.

... asking for these massive changes will probably means:
1) You will be diasspointed, or...
2) you will be waiting for a long time.

You have to understand, that while they will allow you to mod their game, their first "goal" is to improve their own game. That is, they will try to make the things that are already in better, fix problems, etc... If they have some time, and your idea and/or request is easy to add, they might throw it in, but if it is overly complicated, it will be pushed aside. For a real "hangar" you will probably have to wait for the expansion, where it might show up as a "feature".

However, that doesn't mean that you can't be creative with how you handle your hangars. Like I said before, no AI in the world will be able to handle something that you just throw into the game like this, so in the end, you will have to control how your make-shift hangars behave by setting rules for yourself while playing your mod.

For example, take my logistics modification suggestion, if a player starts with 0 logistics, and all logistic adding tech/buildings were removed, you will be unable to "fleet" ships together. Now, make a carrier, and give it say... -10 logistics. Have your tiny be 1 logistic, small be 2 logistic, mediums be... 5 logistics, large be 11, and huge whatever bigger. In this case, you can have your carriers "fleet" with 10 tiny, 5 small, 2 mediums, no large, and no huge. Use "fleet" as hangar, and the whole thing is pretty much set for you. You can set the numbers any way you want it, you will just have to control how you go about using this "fleet" of ships. There are only two problems that I see with a set-up like this, and that is: 1) speed of fighters, and 2) range of fighters. To fix this, make dedicated "fighter hulls" with predetermined speed and range before hand, which matches your carrier (since a fleet is limited by it's slowest/shortest range ship). Then, you have to force yourself to use these "fighter hulls" in a fleet with a carrier as opposed to have them be ultimate hulls for you to wipe the floor with the AI.

Is the idea perfect? No. Is it doable, most probably. If not, then all you need is to request them to support a negative value for hulls (or maybe support for it on a "module" component). Is that idea easier than asking them to actually implement "hangars"? You tell me.

Modding is and has always been about using your creativity to get around set game play mechanics. If you just ask for everything on a silver plater, then exactly what, may I ask, are you modding?

@ Kalin:

Well, how will you know it is disappointing when you can't try it?
If you are at a point where you must say: "You can't do it."

The game is NOT full moddable, sorry.

And is the truth that the most known "sci-fi" universes are "working" with hangars.

@Kalin:
Well, I haven't modded either SC or Morrowind very much - I've just seen some pretty nifty stuff done to both games (particularily Morrowind). The games I have a bit more experience with is the Quake and Unreal-series. Those allow for _everything_ except the engine itself to be modded. AirQuake is probably one of the best examples of this - it changed Quake from an FPS to a tank/aircraft shooter. I remember a mod for UT which changed the game to a top-down arcade shooter, and another one which turned the game into a multiplayer version of Thief: Deadly shadows.

Still, I'm not asking for that extreme amount of modding. I don't think we need to be able to change the perspective from which the game is played, nor do we need to introduce, say, real time tactical planetary battles. But what we do need, in order to make modding interesting, is to be able to change the way the economy, politics, warfare and espionage works. If we could inject code through a .dll interface or similar, we could probably introduce stuff like hangars and initiative, for example.

@ Galactic Ambassador

Jeez, have I EVER said that hangar's don't exist in other sci-fi universes? No, I don't think so. Although it's pretty damn clear that it doesn't exist in the GalCiv universe, as far as it is being represented, Here I am, offering you suggestions on how to go about putting something like that into the current game despite it's limitations, while waiting for your hangars, and all you can do is flame me about it... I have to wonder whether you have actually read any of my posts. And here I thought my first suggestion wasn't clear and went on to clarify. Whatever... I don't need hangars anyways.


@ Hnefi

You have to realize that those mods are not actually mods of the Unreal Tournament game, but rather, it is a game built upon the Unreal engine, which is just a graphics front end (In fact, I believe Unreal sells engines for game makers, they only make the games to promote their latest engine). In otherwords, they are their own game, so I wouldn't really call them "Mods". If you really want to see an impressive achievement of that, just look at Lineage II, it is built using a modified Unreal Engine. And while I'm unfamiliar with AirQuake, I suspect it is the same. Most of the FPS are built upon very strong graphical engines that a lot of people use to make their games from for various reasons (not having the people to make their own, or they like to design the graphics - models and skins - but don't have the technical knowhow or time to build their own engine, etc...).

Requesting that we could inject code into the game basically turns it into something like that, because then you are just coding for the engine, not modding something the code already does. I'll be honest, I'm very interested in the engine behind GalCiv2 myself (the insane amount of polygons it can pull with my crappy card is incredible) and would really like to mess with the code, but I just don't think something like that will ever be considered "supported modding", if for no other reason, then the fact that it really isn't possible for everyone to get into (Stardock have specifically stated that everyone should be able to mod with little trouble). If they ever DO allow that kind of thing, I think they will be selling "GalCiv2 engine" and liscenses like UT.

@ Kalin: Maybe I got you wrong. I wouldn't flame. But I could need your support more in the direction, that Stardoch nice the "hangar problem" and offers help.

Adding hangers to the game is more than just a simple task. It would require quite a bit of code added and changed. Star Wars: Empire at War doesn't even really have hangers. The pseudo-hangers it has aren't controllable by the user and are only available on Imperial Ships and Space Stations. The latest Star Wars game and it doesn't even have hangers.

You have to realize that those mods are not actually mods of the Unreal Tournament game

Actually, those mods are VERY typical of the UT, Quake and Half-Life games. Just from the top of my head I can name a dozen such mods and I've forgotten the names of probably a dozen more. It's mods like these that makes modding fun, interesting and an important selling point.

which is just a graphics front end (In fact, I believe Unreal sells engines for game makers, they only make the games to promote their latest engine). In otherwords, they are their own game, so I wouldn't really call them "Mods".

This is wrong. Very wrong. A modern game engine is a heckuva lot more than just a "graphics frontend". The I/O, network code and more importantly, the data formatting are some additional integral parts of a game engine. Also, the kind of modification described above IS what most people think about when they use the term "mods". Back in the old days, people used to differentiate between PC's (partial conversions) and TC's (total conversions), but that terminology has long since vanished in favour of simply sayin "mods", because the standards in modding these days is so far beyond what it used to be. The problem is that the space 4x genre is lagging waaaaaaaay behind in this area.

Most of the FPS are built upon very strong graphical engines that a lot of people use to make their games from for various reasons (not having the people to make their own, or they like to design the graphics - models and skins - but don't have the technical knowhow or time to build their own engine, etc...).

Yes. So what's your point?

Requesting that we could inject code into the game basically turns it into something like that, because then you are just coding for the engine, not modding something the code already does.

No, it isn't. .dll interfaces don't work like that.

Modding an engine directly, like you can in the case of UT, Quake etc, gives you almost complete freedom. But a .dll interface works by adding bits and pieces of code to what already exists, and is a common tool for plugins and the like in various software. For example, I might make a piece of code that reads a number from the game data or an .xml file, randomizes a number and depending on the result, either calls the code for, say, firing a weapon on a ship in battle or does nothing. This code could be referenced in an .xml file as the function to be called instead of the normal "fire" function the game uses in combat and voila - I have implemented weapon accuracy into the game. This doesn't let me remove code from the engine, it just lets me override parts of it, and it is relatively easy to implement because the modder is responsible for getting it right. All the modder needs, besides the .dll interface itself, is to know what variables and functions he can reference within the game.

This kind of interface would not give us the amount of freedom that we have in modern FPS games, but it would give us sufficient freedom to do some serious modding. I'm willing to bet that even hangars could be implemented this way (by creating a "fire" function that spawns a number of small ships).

@ syneris:
I play SWEAW and what the Ships have is actually MORE Hangar then we have at GalCiv2.
If we take a Star Destroyer for example, the TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers launching out from it's "Belly" just as they do in the movies and in the other Star Wars games.
The only Solution, posted by "Kalin" (Member of this forum), still includes that the Fighters are forming a Fleet with the Mothership/Carrier. So the solution is more to have a large number of Fighters.
The Solution I prefer goes more in the Direction of Civilization. If you have ever played Civ 2, 3 or 4(don't know if there arecarriers in 1) and you used carriers, you know what I mean. My additional Idea is that Fighters can be repaired on the carriers.

@Hnefi

I admit that calling an engine "just a graphical frontend" is inaccurate, it was a short and gross simplification I made with the intention to explain the difference between coding for an engine and modding without going off topic and making a speech. But there's no point arguing about it since you seem to know what you're talking about, so let's just get to the problem at hand...


So... just what is modding? I don't know about who you 'hang out' with, and their standards, but in my circle there is three different 'forms' or levels of what you would probably consider "modding".

The first, we call... get this, "modding". This is basically changing data that the game uses, essentially what most 4x games try to offer, and I believe this is what Stardock means when they say "supported modding", because really, ANYBODY can do this. Usually, it's just modifying some text file, spread sheet, xml, and graphics modding... there really isn't a lot more to it than that, basically you don't need any programming knowledge to do any of this.

The second, we call, "engine coding". This is when you have a game engine that you have intimate knowledge of and can write code for, so of course, you need programming experience. This is the case with various UT based games and many other engines as well, since they know how the engine works and how to code for it. For us, there is no real difference between "partial conversion" or "total conversion" because the code is available and simple to modify. I have a few friends who are working on one of those "total conversion" projects right now, who keeps bugging me for concepts design (too bad I've been too busy with GalCiv2).

The third, we call, "patching". This is when you take out your favorite disassembler and take the game .exe apart. Then, with a hex editor or a third party program, you "patch" the .exe to do what you want. Sometimes patching is a simple hex edit to change a certain hard code value, other times it involves the use of a .dll in order to add new features. From what you say, I think you already know how it works, but it you need examples, check out the Moo3 modding community, they are trying to patch the game into new heights. You can do that right now to GalCiv2 if you want, but like I mentioned in my very first post in this topic, the fact that Stardock releases regular updates will cause all kinds of hell trying to organize a movement like this. In general, "patching" only works when the game stops being officially supported by their developers, and this is why sometimes it is often called "unsupported patching".


The difference between the third, "patching" and the second, "engine coding" is that with patching you have to dig up stuff to patch and write code for, while with engine coding, you already know everything before hand (or it's documented for you), so it's another level of trouble. So the way I see it, by asking for Stardock to support "patching", you are not really asking them to allow the usage of a dll to add new things (you can do that anyways), you are basically asking them to tell you how the game works at an intimate level so that you can add it in without having to disassemble the game and figuring out how it works. Hell, you might as well be direct and just ask them to publish their code! Like I said in my previous post, in doing so, you are basically asking them to give you the engine, for free no less. That's why I said, the only way something like this will ever be "supported" is if Stardock starts selling GalCiv2 engines and liscenses.


(Man... Is it me, or I just can't seem to stop writting books for posts. Whenever I shorten something, I end up having to write a book to explain it.)

I play SWEAW and what the Ships have is actually MORE Hangar then we have at GalCiv2. If we take a Star Destroyer for example, the TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers launching out from it's "Belly" just as they do in the movies and in the other Star Wars games.

Yea, but you never have to build a single one of those fighters. They are free and unlimited. There is a limit per battle but they get restocked afterwards even if you're nowhere near any of your space stations. Only the imps have hangers for only dupes and eyeballs. It's on a limited spawn, so you can't launch all available ships in the hanger or call ships back into the hanger. The rebels don't even have a ship with a hanger.
Just think of all ships in GC2 as being hyperspace compatible

@ Syneris:

Well, but there is something like a Hangar, and IF GC2 would be played like EAW it could beenoight having the same.
The Problem ist that a Modd without having hangars for, carriers, motherships, starbases,... is niot really complete.
A Solution like that in Civilization for the carriers would be the best in my eyes.

So the way I see it, by asking for Stardock to support "patching", you are not really asking them to allow the usage of a dll to add new things (you can do that anyways), you are basically asking them to tell you how the game works at an intimate level so that you can add it in without having to disassemble the game and figuring out how it works. Hell, you might as well be direct and just ask them to publish their code! Like I said in my previous post, in doing so, you are basically asking them to give you the engine, for free no less.

But that's not true. A .dll interface is very different from releasing the source code. Your argument is like saying that there's no reason to give someone a piece of the cake because if they get part of it, they might as well get all of it. Obviously, this is fallacious.

Using a .dll interface does not require full knowledge about the entire engine, it only requires knowledge about certain parts that are "supposed" to be meddled with. We might, for example, need to know how to change the HP of a ship in battle (by editing a variable or calling a function) and stuff like that. We would not need to know anything about rendering, I/O, the file system or most of the rest of the actual engine. Only the game logic parts are relevant and interesting. And to be honest, I very seriously doubt that Stardocks approach to these things is so unique and efficient that it'd be of any particular value to anyone, so releasing details about it is not going to hurt their business.

I do agree with you that it's highly unlikely we'll ever recieve something like this, though.

Well from what i have seen within the files etc it will be next to impossible to release total conversions, just to many things hard coded and we have no real tools to work with. Anyway the basic "mods" will always be possible but unless we get some serious tools i kinda doubt we will ever see a full conversion.

"Making another game" IS what modding is about, ever since the days of the old-school Quake TC's.

No, it is not. What you're talking about, "Making another game" isn't modding anymore: it's total converting.

These are two entirely different concepts, and I strongly dislike the way everybody keeps considering them the same thing.

If you make a "mod" that has only superficial (at best) resemblance to the original game, it isn't a mod anymore. We have a special term for that: Total Conversion. We don't need to use the term "mod" to describe it.

So... just what is modding? I don't know about who you 'hang out' with, and their standards, but in my circle there is three different 'forms' or levels of what you would probably consider "modding".

That is a description of game modification by way of how the modification was done, not by what the results were. You can make a more substantial change at the "mod" level than at the "patch" level, allowing what you considera "mod" to be much more emblematic of a Total Conversion than what people think of as a simple mod.

From the perspective of the end-user, all he really cares about is how different the thing he's downloading is from what he has now. Minor differences make it a mod. Major differences make it a TC.

Honestly, if you're looking for a platform/engine to make a game that functions exactly as you want it, go buy one of the Torque engines or Unreal. GC2 is a game that supports user modification to some degree. It is not Unreal, which is a platform for developing action games that happens to actually ship with one. GC2 is not going to become a game engine that happens to ship with a functioning game, and it shouldn't. The developers shouldn't spend time making it such.

Providing for modability is one thing. Providing for the ability to add/change/remove fundamental features of the game's gameplay is quite another. And it is something the developers shouldn't bother with.