june gloom on 21/2/2014 at 02:47
Nope.
qolelis on 21/2/2014 at 05:17
It's all just opinions, so I won't argue yours. I can, however, somewhat agree with your sentiment: There are a number of FMs I didn't like much, which many others loved.
Azaran on 21/2/2014 at 05:31
Quote Posted by qolelis
It's all just opinions, so I won't argue yours. I can, however, somewhat agree with your sentiment: There are a number of FMs I didn't like much, which many others loved.
Same here, not a lot, but there's a couple of famous FM's (which shall remain nameless) that I just didn't get into; not that they weren't good, they were amazing and unique, but the theme or style just didn't appeal to me.
As for hard FM's, there's only one I haven't been able to finish, but I plan to at some point in the near future. I find it insanely challenging, but it's a brilliant mission and I'm sure will make it on my favourites list once I manage to get through it. Finals at the Academy. If you want tough, that's as tough as it gets.
Now back to the thread, did EM even give a valid reason for not adding modding support?
scumble on 22/2/2014 at 12:45
Quote Posted by Another_Taffer
Good point.
Skyrim is an exception here, because Bethesda made it their tradition to deliver a level editor on top of their game.
It's probable that the creation kit ended up being releasable because they had to have a tool like that to make it possible to create the enormous amounts of content in the game, and it had to be stable. Similarly Bioware's toolset is usable for the same reason, although with Dragon Age 2 they haven't released anything. However they do tie into the community of players because lots of mods means increasing long-term sales and increasing the fan base for the next game.
I think things get tricky with games that have a load of cinematic content, or possibly a load of specialised hacking to get them to work. I remember Unreal 2's version of unrealEd was considerably broken because of the number of specialised tools the team had added to the engine. This sort of thing is probably more frustrating than having no editor at all. In addition, some development companies just don't have longevity or continuity, and can just exist for one title.
Probably the best tools come from companies that want to license their engine or re-use what they've done. Crytek's editor is pretty impressive, and UnrealEd has been generally stable unless the licensee has screwed with it too much to add features.
But NuEffect is right - modding tools are probably the exception these days, where games can approach the feel of an interactive movie and the tools are possibly tightly designed around the game and not terribly adaptable.
june gloom on 22/2/2014 at 20:30
Quote Posted by scumble
It's probable that the creation kit ended up being releasable because they had to have a tool like that to make it possible to create the enormous amounts of content in the game, and it had to be stable.
Or because they have a history of releasing toolsets with their games going back to at least Oblivion. (Dunno about Morrowind, modding that thing is a friggin' nightmare, though not as bad as actually playing it.)
trudnicki on 24/2/2014 at 20:22
Quote Posted by dethtoll
I do admit there are some truly quality FMs.
They're not from Central or Eastern Europe, though.
There is no bad Thief DP or Thief MA :) fm's There are BAD nonsensical monotony irrational ppl
LONG live to the Garret Long live to the authors and long live ttlg community may the Builder bless You (and me of course) and may the shadows lie upon You forever.
Seriously R U a racist or WTF 2 ? Why is Europe BAD especially Central or Eastern there are lots of ppl i know from that region and they are nice there are some assholes either but that's everyplace in the world reality. I don't see a difference between authors from different places and difference in their work all i can see is the ppl who are committed to do something for our amusement - for free.
I dont mean to be harsh but if You dont like it dont play it capissi ??
thiefinthedark on 24/2/2014 at 20:27
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Or because they have a history of releasing toolsets with their games going back to at least Oblivion. (Dunno about Morrowind, modding that thing is a friggin' nightmare, though not as bad as actually playing it.)
Morrowind was the first game they released with mod tools, yes, The Elder Scrolls Construction Kit was a big thing at the time. Morrowind actually tends to be more stable than later titles when modded, due to the lower reliance on scripted events thanks to the hand built nature of the world. There's less for uncleaned ESP's to conflict with when loaded.
Renzatic on 24/2/2014 at 20:31
Are you saying that Skyrim and Oblivion are somehow "less" handbuilt than Morrowind?
thiefinthedark on 24/2/2014 at 20:42
Uhhh, yes? The procedural nature of enemy spawning in Oblivion, and generation of some dungeons, was both a selling point and a constant complaint leveled against the game. Loot is largely generated on the fly, for example. It ramped up in Skyrim with the addition of the Radiant quest system, which uses scripting to randomly generate entire quest chains and place items in the world.
Quote:
The Radiant quest system is a quest generator that creates quests from a series of components such as location, enemy type, and reward. Some, but not all, of these components are randomized. The randomized components are generated every time the quest is triggered. Radiant quests are used throughout the game in various faction questlines, and in miscellaneous quests.
Morrowind by comparison was entirely hand placed down to the terrain features. While some areas of the world use leveled lists to spawn monsters around the players level, the bulk of them are placed spawns. It's quite an anomaly in the series, given that Arena and Daggerfall are almost entirely randomly generated affairs.
bukary on 24/2/2014 at 20:45
So... that's why Morrowind was so much better than Oblivion. :idea: