Darkhorizons Lore, GuiEditor and WorldEditor MOD
by Warpy · in General Discussion · 11/23/2004 (6:11 am) · 30 replies
Hey,
the other day i decided to make a small mod to darkhorizons, basically i replaced a few scripts within the game itself
to enable level editing in single player and gui editing.
if anyone is interested in this. let me know and i'll post it somewhere.
i would also like to know if this kind of thing is of any interest to anyone.
Warpy.
the other day i decided to make a small mod to darkhorizons, basically i replaced a few scripts within the game itself
to enable level editing in single player and gui editing.
if anyone is interested in this. let me know and i'll post it somewhere.
i would also like to know if this kind of thing is of any interest to anyone.
Warpy.
About the author
#2
i talked to Ed gardner and he gave me his blessings to post here.
he also said they will not release a guiMod.
beside as you can see i didnt post the files yet, just want to get people's impression on things.
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (6:21 am)
Before you lose control :)i talked to Ed gardner and he gave me his blessings to post here.
he also said they will not release a guiMod.
beside as you can see i didnt post the files yet, just want to get people's impression on things.
Warpy.
#3
11/23/2004 (6:25 am)
There is already a mission editor for Lore Warpy, its -mod mapping, and I highly recommend no one change the GUI, as we will not support your game if partions are broken while you edit guis.
#4
i know but with my way you can just do it without the command line. its nicer :) imo.
if you guys change your mind about me releasing it (only) to the GG community just let me know.
but i feel that the modding community can benefit from learning how to mod torque in other ways, rather than
just content.
i also agree that if someone messes around with the game in ways that are not in terms with what the
developers gave him to begin with. he should not seek assistance and support from them regarding those issues.
modding should be fun :)
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (6:30 am)
Adrian, i know but with my way you can just do it without the command line. its nicer :) imo.
if you guys change your mind about me releasing it (only) to the GG community just let me know.
but i feel that the modding community can benefit from learning how to mod torque in other ways, rather than
just content.
i also agree that if someone messes around with the game in ways that are not in terms with what the
developers gave him to begin with. he should not seek assistance and support from them regarding those issues.
modding should be fun :)
Warpy.
#5
11/23/2004 (6:37 am)
If you support modding, support it whole-heartedly. Look at id (Quake) and Valve (Half-Life). You don't have to support every mod that comes out, just the high quality ones (id never supported any mod, Valve bought the good ones).
#6
i feel so too. games that give out full mod abilities to their community get themselves more copies sold.
people like to change and meddle, i am sure there are alot of potential clients out there that get the urge to buy a game
when they hear its 100% mod-able they are more inclined to buy games.
people like to fit in. people like to be involved in development.
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (6:43 am)
Michael,i feel so too. games that give out full mod abilities to their community get themselves more copies sold.
people like to change and meddle, i am sure there are alot of potential clients out there that get the urge to buy a game
when they hear its 100% mod-able they are more inclined to buy games.
people like to fit in. people like to be involved in development.
Warpy.
#7
is that cool or what :) ?
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (7:05 am)
It just accured to me, this method of having guieditor and worldeditor can be applied to ANY torque based game.. is that cool or what :) ?
Warpy.
#8
Joe posted about this a long time ago, but no matter WHAT your company policy is, customers are still going to be driving your CS nuts trying to get help on their modded games.
11/23/2004 (7:27 am)
Honestly? No, it sucks. Ask any of the folks out there that have released games...you don't WANT your customers modding things. It makes Customer Support (any company's WORST nightmare, and even worse in a field like this) bad enough that it might just kill your company off.Joe posted about this a long time ago, but no matter WHAT your company policy is, customers are still going to be driving your CS nuts trying to get help on their modded games.
#9
people can allways re-install the application if something goes wrong.
beside where would be today with halflife/counterstrike/quake/tribes without modding.
(i guess this thread is turning into a "do you think modding is ethical". lol)
i have been modding games, changing offsets, revising save games since i was
a kid. these kind of things attracts people to get involved. imagine a world of games without you being able to finish those games,. when i was a kid there were so many games i couldnt finish, so i started learning the craft of savegame editing and memory debugging, it has changed my experience of "this game is so hard i will never play with it anymore" to "this game with unlimited ammo and health is so much fun now". games became stories and playing those stories were so much fun. do you remember the old quests ? where would we be today without solves/walkthroughs ? back in the days quests were hard and you could die and had to lots of parts all over again. with those solves the games became beautiful stories and lots of fun.
my point is modding is inevitable, so you better live with it peacefully and let it help you grow.
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (7:39 am)
Stephan,people can allways re-install the application if something goes wrong.
beside where would be today with halflife/counterstrike/quake/tribes without modding.
(i guess this thread is turning into a "do you think modding is ethical". lol)
i have been modding games, changing offsets, revising save games since i was
a kid. these kind of things attracts people to get involved. imagine a world of games without you being able to finish those games,. when i was a kid there were so many games i couldnt finish, so i started learning the craft of savegame editing and memory debugging, it has changed my experience of "this game is so hard i will never play with it anymore" to "this game with unlimited ammo and health is so much fun now". games became stories and playing those stories were so much fun. do you remember the old quests ? where would we be today without solves/walkthroughs ? back in the days quests were hard and you could die and had to lots of parts all over again. with those solves the games became beautiful stories and lots of fun.
my point is modding is inevitable, so you better live with it peacefully and let it help you grow.
Warpy.
#10
Ian
11/23/2004 (7:48 am)
Yeah, what a load of complete crap. Funny how a community made up of people who cut their teeth modding now have this attitude.Ian
#11
What I said sucks is :
The only "modding" we want down to the client of a MMOG is what we allow for internally in our release (and we plan a lot of that). If what he just said is true, he's saying now that not only can the harcore hackers screw up our client, datafiles (terrains, images, etc.), but now any joe blow can download this setup he's got can do it as well--and it's completely out of our control.
Modding has it's place for those games that it makes sense with. Not all games that use Torque fall into this category, and some of them modding will downright destroy playability, and cause huge overloads on CS.
CS is a lose-lose proposition. You must have it. Regardless of how good it is, you will never please everyone. Regardless of how small it is, it cuts directly out of your profit margin. Anything that by nature makes CS responsibilities more difficult for a company that has a game they didn't design to be modded by definition sucks.
11/23/2004 (8:58 am)
I never made any claim one way or the other about "modding".What I said sucks is :
Quote:
It just accured to me, this method of having guieditor and worldeditor can be applied to ANY torque based game..
is that cool or what :) ?
The only "modding" we want down to the client of a MMOG is what we allow for internally in our release (and we plan a lot of that). If what he just said is true, he's saying now that not only can the harcore hackers screw up our client, datafiles (terrains, images, etc.), but now any joe blow can download this setup he's got can do it as well--and it's completely out of our control.
Modding has it's place for those games that it makes sense with. Not all games that use Torque fall into this category, and some of them modding will downright destroy playability, and cause huge overloads on CS.
CS is a lose-lose proposition. You must have it. Regardless of how good it is, you will never please everyone. Regardless of how small it is, it cuts directly out of your profit margin. Anything that by nature makes CS responsibilities more difficult for a company that has a game they didn't design to be modded by definition sucks.
#12
i am probably not the first to attempt this, but if a game ships with the default
settings for the gui/level editors and the devs just take out the calls to the
exec("script.cs");
its easy enough to implement it again.
i know for a fact some games take out the gui editor and level editor completely from the cpp code thus making it allmost impossible (there are allways a crazy few who can probably do something about it) to activate the editors because they do not exist. note that this method also makes the EXE smaller.
so you have your control back if you realy want it :)
also i think you are looking at CS from the wrong angle, good CS brings more customers to you and tha is something that has been proven countless times.
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (9:11 am)
Stephan,i am probably not the first to attempt this, but if a game ships with the default
settings for the gui/level editors and the devs just take out the calls to the
exec("script.cs");
its easy enough to implement it again.
i know for a fact some games take out the gui editor and level editor completely from the cpp code thus making it allmost impossible (there are allways a crazy few who can probably do something about it) to activate the editors because they do not exist. note that this method also makes the EXE smaller.
so you have your control back if you realy want it :)
also i think you are looking at CS from the wrong angle, good CS brings more customers to you and tha is something that has been proven countless times.
Warpy.
#13
Doesn't take more than 5 minutes.
11/23/2004 (9:30 am)
I don't see where all the upset people are coming from. Just disable the scripts if it's such a big problem. Delete the mission editor, remove the consolefunctions, etc etc.Doesn't take more than 5 minutes.
#14
I beg to differ however about good CS bringing you more customers. I most definitely agree that having good CS keeps you from losing customers.
It could be argued that long established and well known companies with good reputations for strong CS may well gain a few customers because of that fact. Marketers can try of course, but CS doesn't become (again, IMO, many will disagree) a sales point of impact unless/until it sucks, and then that will keep you from getting more customers!
In other words, advertising, "and we have outstanding Customer Support!" is almost counter-productive: it immediately makes potential customers think, "uhh, you BETTER have outstanding customer support...hmm, maybe they don't and they are just trying to convince us they do..." yadda yadda.
Different strategies obviously in your marketing work for different markets, and I agree that since CS sucks so bad across the board in the gaming industry, that it may very well be a minor selling point for a game, but that type of marketing strategy would need to be carefully planned out so you don't cause more damage then increase sales.
Back to the point of the topic--modding is great for those games that intend to be modded (single player, small multi-player sessions), but modding just isn't for every game out there!
11/23/2004 (9:32 am)
@Warpy: Good point, and thanks for the clarification.I beg to differ however about good CS bringing you more customers. I most definitely agree that having good CS keeps you from losing customers.
It could be argued that long established and well known companies with good reputations for strong CS may well gain a few customers because of that fact. Marketers can try of course, but CS doesn't become (again, IMO, many will disagree) a sales point of impact unless/until it sucks, and then that will keep you from getting more customers!
In other words, advertising, "and we have outstanding Customer Support!" is almost counter-productive: it immediately makes potential customers think, "uhh, you BETTER have outstanding customer support...hmm, maybe they don't and they are just trying to convince us they do..." yadda yadda.
Different strategies obviously in your marketing work for different markets, and I agree that since CS sucks so bad across the board in the gaming industry, that it may very well be a minor selling point for a game, but that type of marketing strategy would need to be carefully planned out so you don't cause more damage then increase sales.
Back to the point of the topic--modding is great for those games that intend to be modded (single player, small multi-player sessions), but modding just isn't for every game out there!
#15
I would suggest anyone modding any game (I started my 3d game life off making SHOGO mods) to have 2 copies of the game you are modding on your HD. 1) being the current retail version and 2) being the version that you are modding.
Even as a developer we not only have multi cvs modules, but I personally have 4 local Windows versions, and 4 Linux versions of the game I use to test out changes before commiting them to CVS.
11/23/2004 (9:34 am)
If you guys are going to argue about this, please make another thread concerning modding and TGE, cause we do support modding for Lore, and will even more with the next release, but fact is if you break your game modding something like GUI's which we don't fully support then you're on your own trying to fix it.I would suggest anyone modding any game (I started my 3d game life off making SHOGO mods) to have 2 copies of the game you are modding on your HD. 1) being the current retail version and 2) being the version that you are modding.
Even as a developer we not only have multi cvs modules, but I personally have 4 local Windows versions, and 4 Linux versions of the game I use to test out changes before commiting them to CVS.
#16
In other words, I inferred that he had a setup that would allow you to mod/edit any TGE game, regardless of what was done to disable editing/modding...
11/23/2004 (9:35 am)
@Stefan: What triggered me to respond was the statement that this would work for -any- TGE game, implying that he found a way around games that do what you just said. I didn't think it through fully, of course you can literally take the functionality out of the exe itself (instead of disabling as you state).In other words, I inferred that he had a setup that would allow you to mod/edit any TGE game, regardless of what was done to disable editing/modding...
#17
11/23/2004 (9:39 am)
I've got too much time on my hands, it's hard to believe such a calamity.
#18
11/23/2004 (9:39 am)
@Josh: good song :P
#19
11/23/2004 (9:46 am)
Stephen: That would had been worse, yes ;)
#20
i totaly understand that modding can be a pain in the a.. to a company (time is money)
i dont know how many people mod or how many use modded levels and even if those levels
are crappy its still nice to have a bit more depth to the game you are playing. more functuality etc.
who knows they might like gui editing so much they'll buy TGE. lol.
there are many pros and cons to this mod. so if anyone wants this just say so and i'll mail it to him. i'm not going to let every lore newb get this. this is not what i have in mind. but for the gg community this is acceptable.
Warpy.
11/23/2004 (9:56 am)
@guysi totaly understand that modding can be a pain in the a.. to a company (time is money)
i dont know how many people mod or how many use modded levels and even if those levels
are crappy its still nice to have a bit more depth to the game you are playing. more functuality etc.
who knows they might like gui editing so much they'll buy TGE. lol.
there are many pros and cons to this mod. so if anyone wants this just say so and i'll mail it to him. i'm not going to let every lore newb get this. this is not what i have in mind. but for the gg community this is acceptable.
Warpy.
Robert Brim