Moddable Darwinia - An semi-official word

[The GoldFish]

This post is to basically tell everyone about the state of play for accessibility to the Darwinia game source code. (IE total lack there of at current)

The motive for this access would be to improve the game engine in general where possible and solve the bugs IV don't have the time or distributed hardware to solve, but more specifically, to vastly increse the modibility of the engine (as this was something it was never desigend for) in the form of additional scripting accessbility (short term) and unit/building behavoir modification (long term).

Firstly, there is no set in stone mechanism for the way the code might be released;

- An Uplink style Dev CD licence - pay your money, get a copy of the sourcecode
- Privately licencing the code for a period to a specific small group of individuals
- Privately licencing the code for a period to a specific individual
- Source code never released to anyone, suggeests taken by inhouse dev and worked forwards

Predictably, it is unlikely to be the first one due to apparent code similarities with Multiwinia, which would compromise the game due to it's multiplayer nature. All the alternativse have significant pros and cons associated with them.

As a small number of you know, I have contacted IV on a small number of occasions asking if they would be interested in any of the above choices at this time or in the near future. All of the correspondance has been between me and Mark Morris, and as the discussion has concluded as of late, I've asked (and been granted) permission to post about exactly what the deal is, just so people know.

Now, here is a semi official statement on the matter:

The staff at Introversion definately do not feel they are, or will be, in a position to support this sort of project at this time, or any time before the release of Multiwinia.

This position may change as Multiwinia comes very close to going gold, due to my lack of solid details on the precise motivation for this. This is my perception of IV's stance on the issue, and it may be inaccurate, but it is to the best of my knowledge correct.

Some further details (for example, some of the answer to the question "why?");

- I have no more information than anyone else when multiwinia will be ready. This could be months or years.
- Icepick (obviosuly) isn't currently working on his moddable fork of the code, and hasn't been for well over a year.
- Part of their motivation may be gleened from the following statement made by Mark;


"It'll be much better for us to provide decent mod support for both Darwinia and Multiwinia and I want you guys to get your hands on all that new content - just be patient!"
It's possible that they would like to see MW be modableified at the same time, even though these are almost definately very different projects.
- So far as comments have made apparent, no one is currently working on movng the scripting and behavior changes in 1.5.x over to nix and mac. This was probably apparent to everyone by now anyway. IV seem focused on multiwinia, and the 1.5x was gimmicked towards the vista release anyway. This is however conjecture on my part
- Duration of time needed to perform minor and major engine overhauls isn't a factor in their position
- They seem to be (or at least Mark is) positive and keen on the idea of the project, although they haven't confirmed that this is the path they would like to take (eg they may do the majority of mod support for MW themselves and port it backwards). The original comment from Mark I received read as follows:


"Thanks for your comments and thoughts on the issue. I actually agree with the core of your argument. It is so important to provide good mod support, as it enables the games to grow in a completely new direction with the next generation of fans adding new material and allowing the game to morph into directions that we had never previously considered. The problems generally occur toward the end of a project when we are working so hard to get the game out the door, that we tend to break a lot of the principles behind the game and thus make the release of quality modding systems more complicated - perhaps that is no excuse.

The reason that we are uncertain about kicking off this project prior to Multiwinia is really a technical one. The Darwinia and Multiwinia code base are now incredibly deeply intwined. If we were to make the Darwinia code available, it would come with the multiwinia code base and an early leak of that could be disastrous for us! In addition it would be difficult for you to produce a mod system that would still work once Multiwinia was out there. It would be far better to start the project when the Multinwinia code base was stable so we could ensure good support for Multiwinia too."
This was in responce to my initial inquiry+justification about why it would be a good idea. He said he would, even though the 2nd paragraph was the case, talk to 'the guys' and " perhaps we can find a time at which your involvement would work". Apparently the product of that dicussion was 'not until after MW'.

A final note; This is not really a discussion and I don't want to see people particularly trying to argue for or against their motivations, or if they're counterproductive or invalid or are based on a flawed notion of the project's objectives etc. This really is all about information, information I think everyone who might want to know should know

Plus I don't know how many people even care any more.

[martin]

Ooh, that's really exciting actually, because it sounds like multiwinia will have more modding support built in (or at least that's how I read it).

anyway thanks for this goldfish, and here's to hoping that multiwinia comes out soon

[xander]

Thank you for posting that, TGF. It gives me hope for the future. ;)

xander

[The GoldFish]

it sounds like multiwinia will have more modding support built in (or at least that's how I read it).

This isn't how I read it, nor is it the impression Mark's statement's have really given me, could you elaborate?

I'd expect to see something maybe on the scale of DEFCON mod support for graphics (and it's integration into the ui etc) mixed with Darwinia's easy map creation, because for a start that's the easiest way to design and develop the game in the first place. There really isn't much more to add to MW mod support beyond the long term scope of anything I can see being realistically implimented into DW for the sake of mods. (For example, outsourcing the majority of the units, programs and their supporting code and behavoirs to external Lua scripts, which would be a *major overhaul*)

I've quoted basically all the communication I've had with IV, and Mark says they're pretty focused on shipping MW, and that in his experience, as things get closer to shipping, things tend to start getting a little hacked and mod support breaks down (example, officer absorb has no state variable) which actually suggests the quality of mod support could actually be pretty bad at release. He adds that they'd like to see good mod support in Multiwinia and Darwinia and that he feels that no one could make a modding system for Darwinia which would also work with Multiwinia (which I questioned because it makes little sense to me, as why would that ever be a requirement - I didn't get any feedback on this question). He makes no mention of any plans they have to add to it for release on any scale themselves, and also seems to imply that they might actually be interested in looking to community assistance in adding any additional mod support in to MW at some stage in the future.

You can make some predictions, in that, mod support has in general improved with each IV game. But then, the way the games work in each case has changed, and the gameplay fodder has shifted from fundamental programming (new missions for uplink) to new levels and storyline (can easily be outsourced or made with ingame editor) to basic appearance and start locations (units and world map in DEFCON). They certainly seem to know that mod support is important in perpetuating product life and interest in the game, but thus far, the modding accessability into the engine we've seen from their products has been to the extent that it made sense to design them for in the first place. The "modding barriers" we run in to in every case are where the game becomes inaccessable to modders, no new missions for uplink so no real reason to be able to get use new gateways, no new units or buildings or behavoir or story management for Darwinia which limits the games you can actually make with the mods - defcon is a lot better off because it doesn't need any of those things because it's purely competitive and has no plot scope, but again, you can't change the game in any way past being DEFCON with maybe banana missiles really. MW will probably have lots of units and new buildings, but odds are game types will be governed by specific objective buildings, points, or number of units.

To be honest, I can't see that beyond being able to add new units and levels and maybe a gametype or two, there isn't that much more to add to MW than that, and I doubt that we'll be seeing custom units or gametypes. If having as much mod support as most of the other games, but requiring less support to be functionally modable, is your definition of more mod support, then I agree with you. This level of modability is fine and combined with high quality gameplay has perpetuated games like Worms 2+ into still being fun today - having a large variety and limiting it so you rarely have it all available seems to be a mechanic MW is going to use, and hopefully use well.

Basically I'm not sure what message I was giving out, you both seem very positive about this news, which I suppose is good! To be honest it makes me very sad that no progress can be made at the moment, but this is more than likely because I've become so involved with the idea of it. Obviously, this is a difficult subject for me to not talk about because I do feel quite strongly about it and am really quite frustrated, but I don't want to be rude, incite any real arguement about things we just don't know, and most of all I want to respect IV's position and reasoning. I just wish I understood it all better :/

[xander]

Basically I'm not sure what message I was giving out, you both seem very positive about this news, which I suppose is good!

Indeed. This is some news, which is better than the no news we have had for the last year. At least IV is still thinking about the modding community, even if they are unable to do anything about it right now.

xander

[martin]

well there seem to be a lot of pointers towards more and better mod support to me, for example:

It is so important to provide good mod support, as it enables the games to grow in a completely new direction with the next generation of fans adding new material and allowing the game to morph into directions that we had never previously considered.

that seems to say to me that they're hoping the game will be properly moddable - I mean not even the best mods for darwinia really went in new directions in gameplay terms, only storyline really. I mean yeah some clever stuff was done with insurrection and all the scripting stuff going on there - but maybe MW will have better support built in without needing so much scripting hax

[nihilesthetics2]

I nearly fell off my chair when I read the title of this thread.

So the codebases for Darwinia and Multiwinia are now inextricable. Is there a revelation in there about their plans for these two products, or is it all in my head ?

N2

[The GoldFish]

To what end to you imagine scripts even being involved in Multiwinia?

[martin]

To what end to you imagine scripts even being involved in Multiwinia?

well I was imagining that the modding system would be similar to the darwinia one, anyway how exactly would a decent modding system work without scripts being involved?

[trickfred]

I'm just happy to hear they haven't forgotten about us.

I'd still like to do EW4 one of these days (and now actually may have the time to do it, as I'm doing the stay-at-home thing again with the new baby), but as was said, without new modding features, we're pretty much doing the same things over and over again, just with different story-line motivations.