Why did your mod fail?

[Phelanpt]

C) To anyone who's ever USED the mod system: I know we all sort of take the mod system for granted, but think about it - Someone coded the mod system into the game, they spent time trying to make it work. Do you think this ever shone through? How do you feel about the modibility of Darwinia? What mistakes do you think were made?

I can't comment on the mod editor, since I never tried it. What I can comment on, is that the mod system itself seemed tacked on, since some mods were a pain to load. "Create a new profile, load the mod, close the game, re-enable intro animation, start the game again" seems a bit too much trouble. I tried it the other day, and the game crashed when I tried to switch profile before switching mod, or the other way around.

D) To anyone who's ever played a mod: Was it worth it? Most of the high end mods had a lot of work go in to them. Did this come across? Just how "good" do you think these high end mods even were? Feel free to be harsh and brutal - I would say that most of my mods were actually pretty 'bad' in terms of story writing and editing, and even sometimes gameplay. Were there some mods you really enjoyed and some mods you really hated?

Definitely worth it! I remember being sad when I finished Darwinia, and wanting more. According to what I remember from my profile list, I played around 8-10 mods, some single level, some Darwinia sized. Some simple things like limiting you to different units or switching enemy and friendly colors really put a new spin on the game mechanics. I loved Insurrection and the Enemy Within saga, and probably one or two others I can't remember right now. I remember hating a Lemmings mod, since you had little control over the game, and having problems with The Desert (although it seemed to have good story ideas). Btw, the Mod List would benefit from a rating system of some sort. The first time I was trying mods, I got a few bad ones, and stopped trying. Only when I came back to Darwinia did I read some nice things about Enemy Within and decided to try again. I'm glad I did.

G) To anyone, really: Do you think anyone still cares any more? If a new mod came out tomorrow, that was either 1) using the existing modding system or 2) With all new spangly effects and some different gameplay, would you even bother looking into it, or is the time for Darwinia been and gone? Do you think that the imminent multiwinia release might inspire interest in Darwinia again, or do you think the kind of people it will attract will be mostly uninterested in Darwinia.

Yes, I'd be interested in trying it. My only problem with trying all the mods is that I don't have enough time to play through them all. I think that most people trying Multiwinia will not be very interested in Darwinia, since the focus seems totally different: one is hectic multiplayer battles, the other is strategy and story.
Still, I think some will be curious to know what the story before multiwinia is, to know more about the origins of the Darwinians and the virus.


briceman2, those seem like interesting ideas for a mod, please finish it. I started reading your post and getting interested, and then stopped reading your post in order to avoid spoilers when I play it.

[xander]

I can't comment on the mod editor, since I never tried it. What I can comment on, is that the mod system itself seemed tacked on, since some mods were a pain to load. "Create a new profile, load the mod, close the game, re-enable intro animation, start the game again" seems a bit too much trouble. I tried it the other day, and the game crashed when I tried to switch profile before switching mod, or the other way around.

To be fair, the proper mod loading steps are generally (1) load the mod, (2) quit and restart Darwinia, and (3) create a new profile. The whole starting over with the firsttime bootloader, is, I think, unique to Insurrection. However, I agree that the profile system with regard to mods is a pain in the ass.

I have already explained how I think that could be improved: inside each profile directory, there should be a subdirectory for each mod. So, let us say that I create a profile named 'xander'. A directory called 'xander' would be created in my users directory. Then, a directory called, say 'MainCampaign' could be created inside that directory. This directory would contain all of the save files for each level as you play through the main campaign. Then, when you play Stricken Souls, another directory would be created in 'xander/', corresponding to Stricken Souls. I don't know how the code is written, but I can't imagine that this would be terribly difficult to implement.

Come on, Icepick! Make xander very happy, and fix the profile system!

xander

[briceman2]

briceman2, those seem like interesting ideas for a mod, please finish it. I started reading your post and getting interested, and then stopped reading your post in order to avoid spoilers when I play it.

Thanks. You can read the rest if you want -- there aren't any spoilers there -- not compared to the stuff that will make it into the mod if I finish it. Like: the commando level takes your squad *inside* buildings, and there's an evil maze which changes every few seconds and that's just the stuff I can easily describe without giving things away. It will be nothing like the original game.

[Dover]

briceman2, those seem like interesting ideas for a mod, please finish it.

/second

[The GoldFish]

Lastly, I can't understand how you can claim "nearly every single loose string of plot is tied off," with such certainty. What about the future of the Darwinia universe? I haven't yet decided if my mod will take place on the original Darwinia planet/server, or on one of the other servers in the starry internet sky above.

Simply put, I think that's because either you haven't quite got what I was saying, or I didn't say it well enough;

It's not that there is NO further potential for stories - there is LOTS of opportunity. It's that the story threads from the original game all tie up at the end - there's no way really to neatly 'thread' your mod plot into Darwinia's existing lore, you always have to work from the ground up. You have to invent and manufacture loop holes to connect on to. There's no reference to competing scientists in the original game, that was manufactured by xander. There's no reference to revelation, shady figures, Darwinians stuck in Squads - that was all manufactured by me. I had to make that up. There was very little capacity for using the existing locations and characters from the original story if your mod takes place after the events of Darwinia, which is pretty much where everyone is going to be operating anyway.

Now, the MAIN loose end of the original story was the "uncertain" fate of Darwinians eaten by soul destroyers. They're destroyed and no longer exist, but you can see their ghosts - maybe they're somewhere... plot plot plot etc. Several mods used this. Do you see what I'm trying to say? The game doesn't really have latent brooding ideas to let modders run with, they have to create a whole new pocket dimension to have their story in. To top that, there's almost nothing talked about OUTSIDE the world of Darwinia that could later have an effect on it, so modders really did have to work quite hard to get something going.

I have a very different opinion of the "detailed" behavoirs that each entity were given, but let's not go into that. And if you're still panning for ideas for your mod, I think you could possibly do a sort of rubik's cube maze, by moving between say 3-4 levels via map based script triggers and keeping the same mission to adjust laser fences. I wanted to do something like this in the latter stages of Retrowinia but that might be canned.

The main problems for me, what with the way you describe your mod, is how you seem to mostly be turning things into an abstract puzzle game, and that you're saying that there's lots more potential in the editor for things when you're performing dark text editing arts to eek them out, and it's taking you months to find them, when if anyone had wanted to, things could be implimented to do the the same thing but with more scope and more accessible to every interested modder and their dog. If red DGs listened to red officers, you wouldn't *need* to edit buildings, now would you? Also, I really don't like the ambiguity of no team colours.

That said, I think really my complaints re the puzzle element are more a case of, I like puzzles and all, but I can't really imagine them working very well with Darwinia, rather than you're doing something wrong, so, surprise me.

Finally, if there's one thing I hope I'm known for it's stitching things together (fluff AND levels) - if you'd be interested in having any help with things don't hesitate to ask, I have plenty of free time (currently working on making a frankengamepad)

[briceman2]

It's not that there is NO further potential for stories - there is LOTS of opportunity. It's that the story threads from the original game all tie up at the end - there's no way really to neatly 'thread' your mod plot into Darwinia's existing lore, you always have to work from the ground up. You have to invent and manufacture... Do you see what I'm trying to say? The game doesn't really have latent brooding ideas to let modders run with, they have to create a whole new pocket dimension to have their story in. To top that, there's almost nothing talked about OUTSIDE the world of Darwinia that could later have an effect on it, so modders really did have to work quite hard to get something going.

Ahh, I know what you mean now. You're right, the backstory didn't give modders any empty "hooks" to hang their mods on. So modding requires an extra level of creativity. And you are right again, that if IV had left more loose threads open, more people could have added their own future storylines. No argument there.

And if you're still panning for ideas for your mod, I think you could possibly do a sort of rubik's cube maze, by moving between say 3-4 levels via map based script triggers and keeping the same mission to adjust laser fences.

Nah, too much work and too many gameplay interruptions... a dynamic maze can be done with existing buildings all inside a single level -- no hopscotch magic needed.

EDIT: there are actually several ways to setup the randomizer for the powerstations -- some are more chaotic than others. One of my longterm goals was to find ways to randomize all kinds of stuff. Several of the levels in my mod will self-randomize when you first enter the level (and on every subsequent reset). So these levels will never play exactly the same way twice. I plan to make these levels accessible so people can replay them without screwing up their progression through the mod. Those levels could even be released as standalone levels if I fail to complete the whole mod...

The main problems for me, what with the way you describe your mod, is how you seem to mostly be turning things into an abstract puzzle game, and that you're saying that there's lots more potential in the editor for things when you're performing dark text editing arts to eek them out, and it's taking you months to find them, when if anyone had wanted to, things could be implimented to do the the same thing but with more scope and more accessible to every interested modder and their dog. If red DGs listened to red officers, you wouldn't *need* to edit buildings, now would you? Also, I really don't like the ambiguity of no team colours.

It's only taking so long becaue I pick it up and put it down at random times... or I suddenly get an idea in the shower and chase it down later that weekend. If I had unlimited time, all these "tricks" could have been found with a systematic search in less than a month, I think. The game engine is not that complicated.

You got the wrong impression about my mod being just puzzles. Those are just the things that are easy to describe without giving the good stuff away. A 100% puzzle mod would be boooorrring no matter how "neat" it's tricks are.

I spent a long time thinking about how to deal with the team color issue. The storyline I settled on deals with it pretty well, I think. What I really wanted all along was to play the entities against each other to create artistic displays, either as backdrops for levels or as integral parts to the level mechanics. There are some beautiful things that can be done.

And I'm NOT recommending anyone else follow my engine-bending ways. A lot of tricks in my mod will be accessable to anyone who can reverse engineer levels -- like the Triffid causing DGs to throw tons of grenades. But some of the building tricks are just painful to get right. And a few level effects are fine tuned to the point that if any of the components gets tweaked even a little bit, the effect falls apart. If people ask how I did this or that, I'll answer some of the questions, but others aren't worth explaining 'cause no one is ever going to try to replicate them in their own mods.

Finally, if there's one thing I hope I'm known for it's stitching things together (fluff AND levels) - if you'd be interested in having any help with things don't hesitate to ask, I have plenty of free time (currently working on making a frankengamepad)

I was always hoping you'd come back so I could use you as a beta tester. Plus you have a cameo in the mod!

[The GoldFish]

I've never stopped being around, actually - but when I'm the only person saying anything then I tend to get bored and operate elsewhere.

[Phelanpt]

I mentioned a rating system for mods in my previous post. What do you think of that?
Would it encourage people to try mods that were high rated? Would it also discourage new mod creators?

[The GoldFish]

I think it already happened and it was decided not to go ahead (I think this was a huge mistake)

readies!

I may have been the architect of it's destruction - who knows...

(edit though personally I think I had the right idea)

[Phelanpt]

I think it already happened and it was decided not to go ahead (I think this was a huge mistake)

readies!

I may have been the architect of it's destruction - who knows...

(edit though personally I think I had the right idea)

Thanks for the link, I didn't know it had already been discussed.