Renzatic on 31/7/2011 at 20:32
Quote Posted by Warren's Spectre
The yellow highlight overlay is fair enough for those COD fans that need to be told that the world should be interacted with but for the rest of us it is annoying and to not give us the option is just plain stupid.
But you do have the option to turn it off. In fact, it's off by default when you play in "Give Me Deus Ex" difficulty, so you pretty much have nothing to complain about on that front.
Quote:
And really how much of a job could it possibly be to create a rar archive of their development tools and host it on their site? The answer is in the scope of things none
It's not nearly as easy as you believe it to be. It all depends on what proprietary tools EM used to develop the game. Does it use a game specific level editor, or did they do all the level editing and AI placement/scripting inside of something like Max and export everything from there? Do they use any libraries in the editing process that can be freely distributed? As games get more complicated graphically, developers begin to rely on a bunch of expensive tools designed specifically to make their lives easier rather than building a bunch of programs inhouse to assist them in making a game. This is good for the developers, but unfortunately not so good for us, because they can't be handed out to any fan on the internet without breaking a ton of licensing agreements and copywrite laws. There's potentially a ton of reasons why they won't be able to release an SDK for the game, the least of which is "they won't cuz they don't want to olol".
Course that doesn't mean this is necessarily the case with DX:HR. In response to Ostriig, I'm still fairly sure I read something involving Eidos Montreal talking about a tentative, we'd like to but we'll be non-committal for the time being response regarding an SDK. Could've been in relation to Thief though. They're using a different engine for it. One that might allow for them to release something to the fans. Who knows.
Ostriig on 31/7/2011 at 20:34
Quote Posted by Warren's Spectre
The first one was not really good form from Eidos as it would have made the game really irritating for most of us here.
This is one major reason for all the friction modern sequels like DX3 cause with the old fandoms, the old guard tend to lose track of the business case for these projects. With the production values involved I doubt Human Revolution could even have a prayer to make its money back if it catered
exclusively to TTLG sensibilities. Further on this, you have to remember that when the financial backing, the publisher, has to report back to its stakeholders, the language isn't even just about making a profit, but about maximising profit. So those CoD fans you mention need a bit of love too.
At any rate, I really don't see why you're bothered by the highlights issue at this point, because it's very much a success story for us old-school fans. EM did something we didn't like but was obviously easy to correct, we whined, and they gave us what we wanted.
Quote:
And really how much of a job could it possibly be to create a rar archive of their development tools and host it on their site? The answer is in the scope of things none.
That's not correct, it's a
huge undertaking. You have to make sure that your tools are optimised for and stable to run on reasonably common configurations, you have to make sure that you've protected intellectual property that you don't want people dicking around in, and even ensuring your interface is reasonably accessible to a non-professional crowd can be a consuming job, just to point out the obvious. (And yes, with this edit, what Renz said above about those external dependencies too.) These are no small tasks, and packaging your production pipeline in a form appropriate for end-user mod authoring these days is not something that two devs can do in their lunch break, mashing their keyboards until they manage to hit the WinZip shortcut.
Don't get me wrong, I'm with you - I like games that come with SDKs, and I would love to see one for DX3. But, while I never really bought "DLC vs. SDK" angle, the required technical and logistical efforts alone make it a considerable task, not something that you can just tack on. Some projects, like Bethesda's and, to a lesser degree lately, Bioware's, make it an integral part of their plans, while others don't. For better or worse, and for various reasons. But it's not even remotely like putting in a highlights toggle or an FoV slider, not even in the same zip code.
Edit:Quote Posted by Renzatic
In response to Ostriig, I'm still fairly sure I read something involving Eidos Montreal talking about a tentative, we'd like to but we'll be non-committal for the time being response regarding an SDK. Could've been in relation to Thief though. They're using a different engine for it. One that might allow for them to release something to the fans. Who knows.
Well, that would be nice. I think it's pretty much a given that the game will sell well, at this point. If it ends up selling well
enough, who knows, maybe we'll see those tools yet a couple of months after launch. As for Thief 4, I think I might've seen some rumours over in ThiefGen that it would use some iteration of Unreal, but that could be just because some of the locals there really hate Unreal.
Matthew on 31/7/2011 at 20:51
You're getting too old to keep track, Ostriig
(PS happy birthday you old fart)
Ostriig on 31/7/2011 at 20:58
Haha, thanks dude! :D You're right, time to take my medicine. Comes in 40% and up.
Warren's Spectre on 31/7/2011 at 20:58
I was only bringing up the highlighting issue in response to Ostriig mentioing it as a victory for us when in the first place it should have been the user's choice. I'm all for people like Eidos maximising their profits by adding the types of game mechanics that we would find distasteful providing they give us the option somewhere to turn it off.
With regard to the SDK not being available because the devs have used third party software; that never occurred to me. However, I did stress that relatively it's not a lot of work for them to, even post release, package up the tools no matter how unstable because this would be better than none. As far as I've read the blame doesn't lie with Eidos but instead with the publisher.
In response to it being more complicated than the old days to release a SDK, just look at Far Cry 2. I don't believe this creeping new mentality recently spouted by one of the BF3 devs, 'herp derp it's way tooooo complicated for you guys.'
Renzatic on 31/7/2011 at 21:19
HA! I didn't know today was Ostriig's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLOL UR OLD!
Quote Posted by Warren's Spectre
I was only bringing up the highlighting issue in response to Ostriig mentioing it as a victory for us when in the first place it should have been the user's choice. I'm all for people like Eidos maximising their profits by adding the types of game mechanics that we would find distasteful providing they give us the option somewhere to turn it off.
So they made a mistake. They fixed it. Why hold a grudge over it simply because it wasn't initially an option during development?
And I wouldn't really call it a distasteful game mechanic developed solely to maximize profits. The whole highlight interactive objects spiel is basically the same thing as frobbing in Thief, or the bounding box in the original DX. Just, you know, real real real bright. And orange. And kinda taken a little too far.
Quote:
In response to it being more complicated than the old days to release a SDK, just look at Far Cry 2. I don't believe this creeping new mentality recently spouted by one of the BF3 devs, 'herp derp it's way tooooo complicated for you guys.'
It all depends on if the engine was initially designed to be moddable by the community at large. The TR: Underworld engine probably wasn't designed with a mod community in mind. It's an engine most likely designed to handle large, relatively high poly environments imported directly from a high end 3D editor. They didn't bother with mod tools because that wasn't the initial focus of the game. FC2 was designed to be moddable since day one. The developers took extra effort when designing the engine to make it as easy as possible to do so. Same with Crysis, or any other game with a nifty keen game specific map editor.
It isn't EM's fault that they can't release mod tools for the game, because they're using an engine not originally designed by them to make the game. DX never had that strong of a mapping community, so they chose an engine that'd let them focus on the strengths of the game, and not worry about extraneous tools that'll require extra dev time to make sure they work properly for a modding community that only barely exists. This might also be the reason why they chose a different, more mod-friendly engine for the new Thief (allegedly UE3), because it does have a strong mapping community. Once again, who knows.
heywood on 31/7/2011 at 23:20
Even if there weren't third party dependencies and licensing issues, they would be crazy just to zip it all up and put it out there if it's not in a releasable state. The whole point of releasing a SDK is to build up a modding community and you don't want to drive away interested modders by dropping a turd on them. Better to keep your people focused on patches & support for now and defer the decision to release a SDK until you see the sales and community reaction.
Besides, maybe they intend to make expansions or downloadable content. If so, they're not going to want to open it up and have the community competing against them just yet.
Ostriig on 1/8/2011 at 00:38
Quote Posted by Renzatic
HA! I didn't know today was Ostriig's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLOL UR OLD!
Was gonna make a joke about picking out a red sports car, but then I remembered I have a Ferrari flag on the wall, so... yeah. Cheers, Renz, much appreciated!
On the SDK topic, I don't think there's anything I would add at this point, but I would like to touch on this -
Quote Posted by heywood
Besides, maybe they intend to make expansions or downloadable content. If so, they're not going to want to open it up and have the community competing against them just yet.
As someone who's never bought a DLC pack so far I admit I'm not in the best position to comment on this, but from the sidelines I just never understood why this is seen as a competition between mods and DLC. At first glance, sure, they're both types of additional content, one's free and one's not, but I think there's also a difference in production standards that would place them significantly apart in the consumer's mindset. I nearly jumped on the New Vegas DLC on the recent Steam Summer Sale, but I decided against at the last minute and not because of content availability from mods. I was partly afraid of compatibility with Project Nevada (which is already ramming my save files hard) and I just figured I'm not through the whole game yet, if I finish it and want more I'll just get it then. But I'll probably end up moving to another game, plenty of stuff I gotta get through.
So, asking you guys who pick up DLC more regularly, do you really see mods as competition for it? If there's mods out there, even campaign types, are you really less likely to dish out for DLC than you would be otherwise?
Nightcaper on 1/8/2011 at 22:20
Quote Posted by heywood
Besides, maybe they intend to make expansions or downloadable content. If so, they're not going to want to open it up and have the community competing against them just yet.
Personally I don't even go for DLC. From previous experiences, they were never all that fun for me, but hey, everyone's different I guess.
PSiKoTiCSiLVeR on 26/8/2011 at 01:47
Funny thing is, the release version has an FoV slider, limited as it is.
