When do we let the modders go crazy?

I'm sure there's plenty of people on these forums at least as insane as jon shafer...

I'm the only sane one here...

I love the "Non-Commercial use" on the excel front bar

 

I was thinking of doing a Modding application that'll read/write the xml files and all but seeing your excel spreadsheets i'm not sure it's worth the time

I think this may be the game that will get me modding again.

Looks very useful. I am finding it a pain in the ass to add new racetypes to the game because every faction has 30 different units with 100 bits of data.

For your conundrum of when to unleash the tools, how about for beta 2-B or Beta 3 you simply set mods by default to off, then you don't accept feedback or crash reports or what have you from anyone who has it turned on? And us modders can do our part too, for example you'll find this text or something like it in my modthreads:

Anyway, the modders are already digging in to the xml, so I wish it is sooner rather than later. It does irk me somewhat to not have the workshop available, for example,

When? At release (as most late date to release it). You will be loved for it.

I say let the modders go crazy now...

Frogboy i just saw that you use *.png for the cloth map icons. can your team please switch ro *.dds with mipmaps or else those symbols will flicker when zooming in/out on the cloth map?

Stats are great and all, but say for adding in new weapons how would you go about implementing modded weapon icons/gfx

It's not like we're waiting for the tool release to start modding anyway. The only difference is that we're introducing MORE bugs with our mods currently, because we're doing it the old fashioned way.

 Edit: And be careful, tornado alerts in your area, Brad.

I had no idea you were even thinking about letting us have that. I say wait until beta 3 when things are a bit more nailed down. That is going to make modding so much faster. I am going to miss writing straight xml. Well... maybe not too much. 

Let em have it! Let it all burn...

Release it now. It makes the XML much more approachable and gives a great reference of the XML API and with real examples.

If you're the base line for sane we're in trouble.

 

Gonna wait til release before I start making space for FE mods. The potential for a scenario based storyline intrigues me more than the usual Tweaking and modding that I know I'll do to FE.

 

As to the issue of people creating their own issues.. its something that every mod friendly game has to deal with. Just make it apparent that issues that pop up using modded copies won't be supported. If people have an issue while running a mod.. they need to bug the modder about it. If the mod maker cares he'll take the time to reproduce the problem in vanilla if its possible. (something I constantly do for my mods on other games)

 

One thing modders often do is create situations that are rare in base game.. but common in the mods.  Sniffing out issues that can often be much harder to track down in the course of a normal game. Once they notice that when X and Y happens it causes Issue Z its much easier for them to recreate the issue in the base game.

 

P.S. So glad there is no GD python to deal with.

@Das123. Make a Lets play series again please

The only thing more brilliant that your modding tool are the modders who are going to use it. 

As to timing, you guys probably know best, but I would say around the time the first patch comes out for the 3rd beta (i.e. the second version of beta 3). 

Right now I think the most valuable use of beta testers time is to improve the basic game, and potential modders are often your sharpest eyes.

But I would not leave it until release - there may well turn out to be some problems encountered by the modding community which should be addressed if possible before gold.

Cry havoc and let slip the Modders of Code!

Awesome!   Despite my own efforts of creating a quest editor.  I am so (!!!) glad they are going to release one with the game.   Hopefully we'll get it sooner rather than later, but I understand the concern.  Perhaps they can flag crash reports if they happen while a mod is in use.  that way they don't chase phantom bugs.   

 

I guess they could ask modders to not release mods for a while, but give us the tools to start working on the mods.   

How about people don't report bugs or feedback from a modded game? How hard is that?

The problem is that some people might think that they have reproduced a bug in vanilla, but are actually still playing with some chocolate. Human error is likely, but easily checked. I would still prefer we do it after I get my hands on the new build. I will be too distracted with quests otherwise. I have somewhere around 300 quests to add.

As if anything could stop me from going crazy.

I say give the modders their goodies now. We have some excellent modders working on FE, and I'd like their lives to be as easy as possible so there can be some top quality mods already available when the game finally goes gold. How hard can it be to add a flag to the game code indicating whether or not a mod is in use, and then simply ignore crash dumps & error reports from modded games? Just make it clear that Stardock will not support or investigate issues with modded games.

I can see releasing it early to stress test the actual tool, but I don't think it's in SD's best interest to release mod tools early to actually create content.

What makes you draw that conclusion? Enthusiasm for modding a game is not something you can bottle up and then use when the devs feel like it. Me personally, I'm doing mods now because the main game is lacking. As the game improves, so will my desire to mod it decrease. That's my reasoning, I can't speak for any other.

Imho, the only reason not to release the tools like the Workshop and the spreadsheet in OP would be because they're not ready and filled with bugs.

Personally I find it hard to motivate myself to mod when the game is changing so much every 2 weeks.