modding support again too late

[MultiPurposeCanine]

vr designs i like story and stratagem editor, so much work with it and the manual, but it is too late, most players and modders have left.

this "lets lock out modding for years of patching" is horse junk, look at successful indie projects that start early-on, modders happily adapt there despite lot of patches driving popularity and ppl play stockmarket if not interested.

see good ideas drowned into insignificance by mod-hostile fear.

[deMangler]

ORIGINAL: MultiPurposeCanine

vr designs i like story and stratagem editor, so much work with it and the manual, but it is too late, most players and modders have left.

this "lets lock out modding for years of patching" is horse junk, look at successful indie projects that start early-on, modders happily adapt there despite lot of patches driving popularity and ppl play stockmarket if not interested.

see good ideas drowned into insignificance by mod-hostile fear.

I think you do have a valid point about the game being mod-unfriendly - you can't even easily customise the keys. But that is not a bad thing. It is just how art works sometimes.
I don't think it was "lets lock out modding for years of patching" as an attitude. I think it was "I am one guy and I want to write this ambitious game, and I can really only get it done if I focus on these things"

I have been writing a game for years, it still isn't ready for an alpha release, I KNOW I should have included lots of features from the start that would make everything easier for myself and anyone else interested in the repo - mostly good test coverage and code documentation for a start.
But If I had done that I wouldn't even have what I have now, which may not be nearly finished but it is over 20,000 lines of working code.

There is an important concept in development called Minimum Viable Product, and it translates to coding as Minimum Viable Code, and to writing as a rough draught, and to engineering as a build, fail, rapidly iterate.
Sometimes you need to just get something done and due to personal or other constraints you need to prioritise investment of time and focus and effort, so that you at least have something working to improve upon. Creatively this can make the difference between nothing and a huge masterpiece.

Michelangelo didn't worry if people would be upset that his art wasn't made of Plasticine. Paganini wasn't deliberately composing his works easy to make variations deliberately.

Now, you have gone and got me started....

FWIW though - I do agree it is a shame that some modders have been alienated through not being accommodated earlier, I just don't think it was from hostility.

[BlueTemplar]

It's more that the Steam release should have been delayed until at least some mod support had been added,
(and as an early access release, SE is just not ready for a "gold" release in its current state),
but since SE is a quite unpopular game, this is not as much of a problem - the target audience of players & modders will find it by word of mouth anyway.

And I expect that the naval DLC will be an opportunity to raise some extra awareness among the casual strategy players (and navy lovers).

[deMangler]

I wish the attitude that everything should be moddable extended to hardware.
I remember modding my toys loads as a kid, especially the electrical ones, which was possible because the tech was so basic.
Just try modding some consumer tech now. You need a lab. I have a raspberry pi just to scratch that itch.
If it weren't for IBM opening up the PC architecture and Linux being developed, who knows where we would be? Stuck in a maddening hole with Apple and Microsoft forcing us to twitch to their mind-numbing brain-porridging, creativity-stamping-on, grrrrrkerfufflleeeeeeeeeegrumpgrumpgrumpgrrump...

There - got that out of my system.
I do love a good rant thread.

[MultiPurposeCanine]

I am not even arguing about them releasing modding tools in the beginning as this takes effort and I understand that a small dev needs to focus. I am talking about them putting DELIBERATELY effort into PREVENTING modding by encrypting and it from what I heard even password protecting files from modification.

There was such a big influx of ppl and enthusiasm when shadow empire was released, ppl and creators wanted to participate and expand shadow empire but got the door smashed into their face.

we already saw this for dc barbarossa, ppl wanted to create further scenarios with rpg module which would have helped to sell the game its steep price point in mind, but everything was held back, mod hostile, i was told they released dcb file passwords years after when nobody cared. then they only unlocked the boring part of the engine minus rpg module in the community project, result good dcb and comproj is dead and next generic dc bulge is now dropping best and unique game mechanic because responsible dev left... result no2: brilliant dcb idea is dead now too, imagine they would have taken a mod friendly approach first place, it would be a positive and different story,

please progress and drop mod fear

[deMangler]

Interesting points, and I have no idea whether you are right or wrong when it comes down to it - but in the interest of continuing the conversation, is it not easy to see that preventing moddability of something while in the early stages might be a way of maintaining focus? Especially for a one-man creative process that is doing something a bit different. That makes more sense to me than random psychotic hostility.
I have no idea as to the motives of anyone, however - even if it were hostility and fear, as you say, such motivations are usually protective in nature and are not simply petty nonsense.

Edit to add - in general I agree and I think open-ness is usually preferable, just not the be-all and end-all.
It would seem like progression and dropping mod fear, if there were any, is reflected in the way development is going, now, at least.

[eddieballgame]

Interesting post; I am not sure how one can know that "most players and modders have left", however.
As a huge fan of being able to mod my games; I have found this, 1 year old, game to be a superb 4x experience...& multiplayer is a blast.
An earlier Steam release would have been instrumental in 'getting the game out there', such is the case for most niche games.

The amount of options to create a play through already add to the endless replay potential, thus making modding not an issue for me, atm.
My experience is, there are more folks who just want to play than mod...so the replay ability is a key ingredient.

[BlueTemplar]

A too early "gold" Steam release means that the general public bounces off of a game lacking polish, content... (and maybe modding possibilities ?)
(Note that SE has been released on Steam merely 6 months ago... 83% positive reviews is pretty nice, I assume that the "old-school" graphics helped to set the expectations ?)
A too late "gold" Steam release increases the financial risk, and might result in another game "stealing the thunder"... (One would think, yeah, right, what can compare to SE... but maybe Distant Worlds 2 ?)

I am talking about them putting DELIBERATELY effort into PREVENTING modding by encrypting and it from what I heard even password protecting files from modification.

Source of your claims ? Are you sure that you're not confusing this with the normal process of most games using compiled programming languages ?

(Now, I would prefer to see more games to get open sourced, but I understand how some developers/publishers would be concerned about the resulting piracy issues...)

P.S. : One way to do it would be to do what some total game conversions do : they require you to get the graphics & audio from the original game files.
So you could have a game where the source code is accessible to everyone, but you still have to buy the graphics & audio.
And support too (Red Hat was pretty successful doing that with Linux).

Or I guess that the source code itself could be paywalled, but still open to read... but what happens when people fork it ?