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The Modding News Destined to Change Everything
- Thread starter [V] IdolNinja
- Start date
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[V] IdolNinja
Volition Staff
I just wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts...
Once we start getting the documentation and building the new tools I want to mostly focus my initial efforts on useability and documentation. The thing I really want most is to make the process as easy as possible for users who are creative, but aren't as technical. The more people that we have releasing content, the better and more enriched our community will be.
Naturally, we'll need to do mods and projects to test things out with the new tools. I'll be using these initial projects to build the guides and FAQs as I go. I think our current structure is a good one with a stickied modding basics thread, and then each additional thread in that subforum being its own guide on a single subject, so anyone can create their own guide as a thread.
This is naturally a big task, so I would certainly welcome help when the time comes (hopefully soon!) Let's also try to keep open communications and transparency about what we are all working on. A lot of us have a tendency to bury ourselves into our modding work and not come up for air until things are perfect, including me.
Once we start getting the documentation and building the new tools I want to mostly focus my initial efforts on useability and documentation. The thing I really want most is to make the process as easy as possible for users who are creative, but aren't as technical. The more people that we have releasing content, the better and more enriched our community will be.
Naturally, we'll need to do mods and projects to test things out with the new tools. I'll be using these initial projects to build the guides and FAQs as I go. I think our current structure is a good one with a stickied modding basics thread, and then each additional thread in that subforum being its own guide on a single subject, so anyone can create their own guide as a thread.
This is naturally a big task, so I would certainly welcome help when the time comes (hopefully soon!) Let's also try to keep open communications and transparency about what we are all working on. A lot of us have a tendency to bury ourselves into our modding work and not come up for air until things are perfect, including me.
Well, to be fair, it's hard NOT to bury yourself in work and not come up to speak when all you get is "When is x coming out? Is it out yet? Any news on X?" Worse giving a deadline, because then if something happens and you can't keep it, the internet will be the internet, and that's never pretty. Plus it gets to feel like pestering your guilt (a "is it out" feels like a "Why isn't it out? You're slacking aren't you?")
It's ok, this is modding and not our jobs.. even including the people working on this at Volition.
Thankfully a lot of of the base work was done already, as we can already get at the file trees, so lua documentation will let us work from there without needing so much buildup.. while on the other hand something like editing cars needs the file details (like how they store the mods and specifics and variants, and that's just the car details not the models which are probably even odder thanks to the mods you can add...)
I think I'm going to have to get into LUA, but right now it's going to be a lot of waiting as patiently as possible while the guys at Volition sift through stuff and put it together. It's still a hell of a thing, this is a game that wasn't designed ground-up to be moddable, with that sort of coming as an offshoot (like the reading of files from the root probably being for testing of quick fixes and bugtesting, that we just found useful). Yet here we are, with the company behind it not throwing about cease and desists but instead embracing it. I admit I was gonna buy SR4 to begin with, but this made me pre-order without reservations.
Now I need to find some good materials on converting my smidge of programming knowledge to work in lua...
It's ok, this is modding and not our jobs.. even including the people working on this at Volition.
Thankfully a lot of of the base work was done already, as we can already get at the file trees, so lua documentation will let us work from there without needing so much buildup.. while on the other hand something like editing cars needs the file details (like how they store the mods and specifics and variants, and that's just the car details not the models which are probably even odder thanks to the mods you can add...)
I think I'm going to have to get into LUA, but right now it's going to be a lot of waiting as patiently as possible while the guys at Volition sift through stuff and put it together. It's still a hell of a thing, this is a game that wasn't designed ground-up to be moddable, with that sort of coming as an offshoot (like the reading of files from the root probably being for testing of quick fixes and bugtesting, that we just found useful). Yet here we are, with the company behind it not throwing about cease and desists but instead embracing it. I admit I was gonna buy SR4 to begin with, but this made me pre-order without reservations.
Now I need to find some good materials on converting my smidge of programming knowledge to work in lua...
Howdy all,
My name is Jeff Thompson and I'm the Studio Director of Programmers over at Volition. I just wanted to take a moment to say hi, and that there are a lot of people at Volition excited to be able to embrace the modding community more. I'm currently getting a group of people together to start getting information put together for everyone. This will be something of a 'spare' time effort (a lot of people are busy with a certain game we'll be shipping soon.
We are going to start by focussing on getting information for SR3 available. (Don't worry we won't forget SR2 as well!) To start with I'm planning on getting out a public set of LUA documentation, and getting a bunch of people on gathering information on systems and making that public. This will include file formats, etc. I'd like us to create a growing list of articles that discusses the systems (or features of the systems) to help you all make more mods for them. All of this will be made public through a site we'll be setting up soon. As we make this available, we'll be looking to these forums for feedback on the articles, questions, etc.
As we get to know each other and move forward with that, we'll also be looking at what makes sense for SR4 and also for the future beyond that. Unfortunately, our current games aren't extremely friendly to modding and have fairly complex backend systems for development. That might make some things harder to do than anyone would like, but I expect we'll still accomplish quite a lot.
Cheers!
Jeff
Only thing which I can write:
.
Only thing which I can write:
But you wrote the starting bit... I SENSE CONSPIRACIES.
Hmm, this is some ludicrously interesting timing. I'm a newcomer to the series and literally just finished the main storyline of The Third on Monday... same day as the announcement.
A few Googles about a mission reset option/tool led me here, and now I'm finding myself applauding IdolNinja and the kind folks at Volition for enabling/supporting this. Seriously though -- how many folks at big game studios these days would go out of their way to lend a hand to the modding community? A step above and beyond, that.
So yeah, mega-success and kudos and things! Just had to reg an account to give the thumbs-up, if nothing else. No guarantees if I'll stick around, but I've done my fair share of modding for other engines and might try my hand at tinkering around with a few things when the time comes. Because why not?
A few Googles about a mission reset option/tool led me here, and now I'm finding myself applauding IdolNinja and the kind folks at Volition for enabling/supporting this. Seriously though -- how many folks at big game studios these days would go out of their way to lend a hand to the modding community? A step above and beyond, that.
So yeah, mega-success and kudos and things! Just had to reg an account to give the thumbs-up, if nothing else. No guarantees if I'll stick around, but I've done my fair share of modding for other engines and might try my hand at tinkering around with a few things when the time comes. Because why not?
You want to know what this modding news changed for me? It changed my preorder. Save $10 and gain access to a quasi-official modding community? Who needs box art compared to that?!?
[V] IdolNinja
Volition Staff
I'm kind of surprised that nobody from Volition said anything about this at E3. I would think it would be a huge selling and talking point. I know that everyone knows about it because I had a ton of Volition people tweeting links to it, including the official Saints Row twitter account.
They're keeping it a "secret".
[V] IdolNinja
Volition Staff