Community Modding Wishlist

I skimmed through the thread so forgive me if this has already been said but I think something along the lines of an addon system like Garry's Mod or L4D2 even using the Steam Workshop would make installing mods/addons a snap for people less computer illiterate and just easier in general.

My second thought is basically what a shit ton of other people were saying: Better SR2 experience on PC. SR2 being one of my favorite all time games I was pretty let down to see how unstable the PC release was and even using Idol's Power Tools doesn't fix the occasional stuttering/lagging caused by the world loading and the general bad FPS in most situations but it does make the cutscenes very enjoyable without the characters popping around and no more lip syncing issues. That and the audio for people running Windows 7 sounds horribly compressed, I heard it was caused by Windows 7 not supporting an old audio codec, something like XACT which is used for Xbox games and some Windows games, usually straight ports from the Xbox. If Volition turned around and fixed SR2 I'd be such a happy camper and my Volition appreciation would be off the charts, even more so than before and it's pretty big considering I've been humping Volition's leg since FreeSpace on PC and Red Faction on the PS2.

My third and final thought a few others have stated would be an easy to develop for/easy to use SDK.

Thanks.
 
TLDR VERSION. I disagree on STEAM workshop, otherwise great post.
Grin.


I'll just comment on a wee bit of loanstars post. The bit I feel somewhat qualified to reply on. Mostly just due to being a old cranky gamer.

I disagree on Steam Workshop for mods. Yes, in theory it sounds great. But in practice, I"ve found it useless and confusing OF THE GAMES I use anyway.
Examples. Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3, Oblivion, some others I'm not thinking of.
Steam workshop seems too generic. The interface is a mess. Much info is missing on mods there. Specifics, talk, etc. Finding them is a mess too, for me.

Modding games for many many years here (well downloading them and installing I mean) and in some
cases creating. Each mod can interact with another, it can be a total mess at times. Yes it is difficult. It is a learning curve. I don't see how a system as is done
on Steam really is that helpful .
I tried it, but gave up for using it on the above mentioned games. In that case, I use the Nexus system and either install manual
or at times use their still in beta automated tool. That tool itself can be a total mess.

I'm taking a long time to just say, I've over the years found installing manually the safest course.
The only exception to that I would have to say was the game World of Warcraft and there is a wonderful mod manager that was developed just for that at Curse.

Yes, it is work, it can be very daunting at times, even for someone that may consider themselves a advanced PC user. Guess what? It forces people to learn about
PC file structure, and other things they SHOULD KNOW ANYWAY!!! Sorry for the semi rant here but it is a peeve of mine, that so many are happy to wallow
in helpless ignorance. (not directed at you, sir) I know people , too many, that look down on 'geeks' that actually know their way around a PC. These people
think being clueless is a perk!

I can get far more information on sites dedicated to modding game X and determine first if I want to bother with that mod, and how it is maintained, not to
mention all the VERY useful forum talk with other gamers/modders. Nexus sites for Skyrim, and other games is a great example. Steam workshop can't even come close.

Maybe I"m full of shit, and Steam has vastly improved their mod shop since I looked at it a year ago.

Anyway, just me rambling. I would rather Volition burn their off time (and it is volunteer time as I understand) on the tools and info the community needs
rather than some scheme tightly interwoven with Steam Workshop. Yes, I would agree it would be grand and wonderful for more automation and making
things simpler when it comes to installing mods. I'll grant that. KISS is a wonderful concept. (Keep it simple stupid)

Maybe they might consider such from the very start of coding SR FIVE. As if one is going
to do that, it has to be done with that in mind from the start. Example in case would be Skyrim. Directory structure for maintaining is far simpler, and not
as messy than is for games such as SR games, that were not designed to be modded, or with that in mind.
 
If you really want modding to go all out a steam workshop should be implemented once the mod tools have been ironed out. The amount of activity mods get on there ( views, downloads, comments, etc.) is amazing and would only make the community larger I liked the way torchlight 2 did it the most. The tools are completely separate from the workshop but you had the option of uploading your mod to the workshop to make it easier for people install and it would not be hard to tie in a gentlemen collection such as Gentlemen of Steelport or the legendary Gentlemen of the Row since you could maybe convert the mods from being patches to maybe something else that is also easy to install and run and have them instead in the workshop's collection house and you just subscribe to those specific mods in the collection you want or just all of them. Similar to the GUI idolninjia originally set up for optional mods.

I've always disliked the nexus site for some reason. I can't decide what bugs me about it maybe its the slightly longer load times than usual compared to other sites or just how the browsing for mods on the site is maybe its both.

If you guys can just do one thing at a time and slowly polish it from beta tools and when your ready for a "real" full blown release of mod tools with a support wiki or something of the sort and have a couple of basic mods that people can use as something to help them further understand how to use them go ahead and make plans with steam/valve to get a nice workshop going.

One of the best things I've ever seen done with mods is what killing floor and dungeon defenders has done. They get the most polished and most well made mods through either just finding it themselves or through competitions and then release it as either free dlc, paid dlc(with some of the profit going to the original creator and the rest to deep silver and volition,) or just a patch for the game. Which helps alot with the coop compatibility for the game since some games with mods become so incompatible with other players that either the visual change if it be a model can only be seen by the person who changed it and not anyone else or you have to predetermine which mods your gonna use with a friend.

The most extreme/amazing feat I've ever seen so far of developers using their modding community/fan base to the their advantage with creating a game is Project Cars which is under development by slightly mad studios who made one of my favorite driving simulators nfs shift 2: unleashed. They started a new way of developing games in which the developer almost directly creates the game from the actual "game making" stages (where you go out from concept and start programming the various parts of the engine from a base and start have the art team create 3d models and textures, environment, etc.) with the community by sharing a sort of very early alpha build with them have them post feed back and even submit edits/ addons to their alpha such as tweaks to heat physics with wheel friction in accordance to speed and geforces with an elevated ground and such. They reward them with in-game rewards or just a fee copy of the game if they put enough effort into the game or actual money.

Thats just my random thoughts I got from reading these forums I had to blurt out so I hope this helps out :)
 
Last edited:
having Steam Workshop seem to be a good idea on letting everyone know the existence of modding in the game even though it is terrible. The only game I tried the Steam Workshop is Torchlight 2, it always fail to update to latest mods and download them straight from the site and update them is a lot faster.

Bit weird to see pCARS got mention above but is the best example for community and dev collaboration. The community are basically the testers, vehicle livery makers and reference finders (for cars and tracks).
 
I wasn't expecting much of a reaction to what I said but I agree full heartedly with Uzi, back in the days of WAD modding and the likes in Doom 1&II, making super cheats out of modded LUA files for Far Cry which I basically turned into Crysis before they made Crysis (Fun times) and just about every Source game in existence, I love manually installing mods but I think if they had a Steam Workshop it would keep the modding community huge for SR games, Garry's Mod has always been hugely popular and had a huge modding community and it only got bigger when he made the leap to the Workshop and I agree the Workshop can be a pain in the ass and L4D2 is a big example with mods causing multiplayer to break or just not work or make games unjoinable and not to mention you have to wait on the main menu for the addons to be detected or install updated ones from the Steam download folders. I agree with Eddie as well, Killing Floor is by far one of my favorite PC titles to be modded, the Aliens mod is amazing and some of the content we get in the Workshop on there, hot damn, triple A content. I think what they really need to do in every Workshop game is develop a file explorer in the game or even a file explorer for Steam so you can pick out the bad mods or outdated mods that cause problems because just unsubscribing doesn't delete the little package file for the mod and you have to manually go in and find it and delete it and if you have tons of mods it's not fun, specially when the file names are like; word_word_word_word.file and usually they start off with the creators name or something weird which makes finding it even harder. Another ass backwards problem is that when an item from the Workshop is updated and Steam downloads it, it goes to a folder in if I remember right under Resources in the Steam directory in another catacomb of folders and those folders never delete the contents of themselves, it just copies over the files to the addons directory of so and so games and they stay there taking up precious HDD space. Also I don't own any Bethesda games on PC so I have no clue how they react to addons or the Workshop, though I am playing FO: New Vegas at the moment on Xbox 360, so many bugs.

Also, I never cared too much for the Nexus sites, as stated it takes a long ass time to load every page and I think the download system is pretty stupid, I downloaded the mods that fixed resolutions and frame rates in Dark Souls and I never went back. Always been more of a fan of specific forums and download websites like Mod DB but mostly forums.

Also, Eddie I love you for bringing up Project Cars, I love Slightly Mad Studios, I really do, specially for NFS Shift 2 Unleashed, but I never seemed to be able to fix the lag in the steering on the PC version but I agree again, that game and the way they're developing it is amazing for the company and for players and content creators.

Tommy, yeah it can be pretty bad but it also depends on the game, personally I've played Torchlight 2 at a friends house but I have no idea what kinds of addons are available for it or how Steam Workshop works with it, some games are pretty good with the Steam Workshop and others just need to be ironed out by the game and Steam devs but I really think the Steam devs need to go back in and really make the system a lot more stream lined, ESPECIALLY the search function, I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than have to try to find old addons in the Workshop and since the search function only picks up certain words in title of the addon it fails to find things 80% of the time.

On a side note I think just having an addon folder that overrides game files like Garry's Mod and L4D2 both have would be an amazing feat for the SR games if Volition goes through and fixes SR2 especially. Extra side note: If I could just add to my original wants for SR2&3 it would be pretty badass if you guys would add back the super strength and pain resistance from smoking weed or drinking alcohol to SR2.

EDIT: Volition devs, would you humbly take a look at my request and grant me your knowledge of the situation? Request: http://www.saintsrowmods.com/forum/threads/sr2-controls-setups-like-xbox-360-controls.3119/

TL;DR for those busy devs: An exact controller setup like the Xbox 360 version, triggers for gas/brake/reverse without wildly firing your weapons out the window, for SR2 of course.
 
Last edited:
M9, I have my own a beautiful model with HD textures already ported into several games.
I just want an M9.
I don't care about adding clothes or cars, the game needs to have 100 more guns.

Edit: Loanstar have you checked out nexus mods recently, that site is 3 times better than it was before, and the mod manager tool is pretty usefull

Another Edit: Adding cinematic animations (especially ineractive ones) and editing current cinematics
And (as corny as this is) Bullet time shooting, imagine the boss bailing out of a vehicle and shooting enemies in midair while wearing the traditional hotdog suit of course.
 
Last edited:
Tayot84 said:
M9, I have my own a beautiful model with HD textures already ported into several games.
I just want an M9.
I don't care about adding clothes or cars, the game needs to have 100 more guns.

Edit: Loanstar have you checked out nexus mods recently, that site is 3 times better than it was before, and the mod manager tool is pretty usefull

Another Edit: Adding cinematic animations (especially ineractive ones) and editing current cinematics
And (as corny as this is) Bullet time shooting, imagine the boss bailing out of a vehicle and shooting enemies in midair while wearing the traditional hotdog suit of course.
Click to expand...
I was on the Nexus site about two months ago, never took a look at the modding tool they had, I was too bummed by the slow web pages and limited downloads for public users.
I don't hate Nexus, I just didn't like my last overall experience with it.

Also, totally agree, but I'm sure that BT is something that could be added easily once they release modding tools, BT in Source games is just slowing down the game engine and then there's physical bullets which is pretty advanced for a simple LUA script.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top