First i would like to say that i am very glad about how Ludeon Studios do their job in every possible aspect, is such a lovely group. That being said, i would like to remember that Rimworld is a game that relies almost completly on mods.
My question is if it's worth to mess with soo many good mods in such a regular basis. Since the game is very stable, isn't better to build up more new features before a release?
My personal opnion is that a good game like this can take the freedom to hold a release for a couple months. It also gives that confortable time to testers feedback all issues that may come to pass, soo it's a win-win for everybody.
Thanks.
It's early access alpha, not even beta. Regular updates are essential, modding in alpha is at your own risk.
In my opinion: Regular vanilla updates > modding.
You just have to "rely" on mods, because vanilla game has not that many features, so it could become boring after a while. With more regular updates, you wouldn't need so many mods.
And little mods for more weaopons and stuff can be updated very quickly, so i stick with my opinion: Moar updates please! I don't need mods :)
Quote from: rakkaus on February 19, 2015, 04:15:45 AM
Rimworld is a game that relies almost completly on mods.
Is this really fair?
Quote from: rakkaus on February 19, 2015, 04:15:45 AM
My personal opnion is that a good game like this can take the freedom to hold a release for a couple months. It also gives that confortable time to testers feedback all issues that may come to pass, soo it's a win-win for everybody.
Agreed, but isn't this already the case? I'm pretty sure that Tynan already said that he wanted more time to pass between the updates, besides you must agree that each new update boosts the hype for the game which in turn boosts the modding community
I mean if it took say eight months for each update wouldn't at least some people including modders lose interest, which would be lose-lose?
I didn't know the game relied on mods, actually never played with any. So, I'm happy with the updates as they are now.
Well, one of the positive things about the public/private testing is that modders do get a chance to check out the changes and update and test mods before release.
The other being that the base systems and the game upon which the mods rely get checked and bugfixed too. :)
Quote from: MarvinKosh on February 19, 2015, 05:08:13 AM
Well, one of the positive things about the public/private testing is that modders do get a chance to check out the changes and update and test mods before release.
The other being that the base systems and the game upon which the mods rely get checked and bugfixed too. :)
I tried to play with mods but they are usually very unbalanced, so yeah, I am in the no-mod camp, too.
The only mods I did enjoy was Prepare Carefully and the Zombie mod.
Really? No Space Meals? Oh well okay then... :(
There are actually lots of mods that are balanced. Some of them even make things more balanced (in my opinion).
Quote from: rakkaus on February 19, 2015, 04:15:45 AMhold a release for a couple months.
It's been a couple of months...
Tynan's last release was ages ago :D
Quote from: MarvinKosh on February 19, 2015, 07:22:12 AM
Really? No Space Meals? Oh well okay then... :(
my only essential mod!
Quote from: Skissor on February 19, 2015, 07:45:54 AM
Tynan's last release was ages ago :D
Uhhhh... ( Alpha 9 was released
yesterday. )
Quote from: MyNameIsSpyder on February 19, 2015, 08:17:07 AM
Quote from: Skissor on February 19, 2015, 07:45:54 AM
Tynan's last release was ages ago :D
Uhhhh... ( Alpha 9 was released yesterday. )
I think they mean the time between alpha 8 and alpha 9 was quite some time.
Quote from: Matthiasagreen on February 19, 2015, 08:30:32 AM
I think they mean the time between alpha 8 and alpha 9 was quite some time.
You got it.
Quote from: Skissor on February 19, 2015, 08:47:55 AM
Quote from: Matthiasagreen on February 19, 2015, 08:30:32 AM
I think they mean the time between alpha 8 and alpha 9 was quite some time.
You got it.
Yeah I thought that was pretty obvious :P
Quote from: HattoriHanzo on February 19, 2015, 04:30:11 AM
It's early access alpha, not even beta. Regular updates are essential, modding in alpha is at your own risk.
In my opinion: Regular vanilla updates > modding.
You just have to "rely" on mods, because vanilla game has not that many features, so it could become boring after a while. With more regular updates, you wouldn't need so many mods.
And little mods for more weaopons and stuff can be updated very quickly, so i stick with my opinion: Moar updates please! I don't need mods :)
Quote from: Tynan on January 15, 2015, 09:53:37 PM
I'll probably skip beta and just go to final release around the same time as the Steam release, because a lot of people won't buy early access games due to being burned over and over.
When? It's kind of arbitrary at this point. The game has enough content to be complete, and even if it goes 'final' it's not like I can't keep releasing updates.
It likely won't go to beta.
I like the current amount of time between each alpha. My main concern is that I don't want the modding community to get burned out. There are already mods from A5 and A6 that look awesome, but no one's updating them anymore... and I'm concerned that, if updates take too short/long, the modding community will begin moving on.
This is a fantastic game, but the vanilla game needs more content... and if the modding community begins to die, then the lack of current content will become even more noticeable. :/
QuoteI like the current amount of time between each alpha. My main concern is that I don't want the modding community to get burned out. There are already mods from A5 and A6 that look awesome, but no one's updating them anymore... and I'm concerned that, if updates take too short/long, the modding community will begin moving on.
+1
Quote from: HattoriHanzo on February 19, 2015, 04:30:11 AM
It's early access alpha, not even beta. Regular updates are essential, modding in alpha is at your own risk.
In my opinion: Regular vanilla updates > modding.
You just have to "rely" on mods, because vanilla game has not that many features, so it could become boring after a while. With more regular updates, you wouldn't need so many mods.
And little mods for more weaopons and stuff can be updated very quickly, so i stick with my opinion: Moar updates please! I don't need mods :)
+1
First time I've ever heard someone think a game has "too many" updates, haha. Usually people are complaining about a lack of them which means good things for RimWorld in perspective.
This game is so polished even in 'vanilla' form, I think it's easy to forget it's still in an active Alpha development phase and so the modding community is a lot larger than I would have expected for a game not in full release yet.
I'm very supportive of mods and enjoy a few of them but I don't want the game defined by them and I disagree with the statement that this game 'relies' on them. I think the
player might rely on them, but the game is very playable and solid right out of the box as is and so if you have gotten so used to certain mods you can't play without them, then you have to play the older version until your favorite mods are updated.
Quote from: Vexare on February 19, 2015, 02:03:24 PM
I think the player might rely on them
Pretty much dead on there.
As someone who's playing the game since pre-Alpha I can say that the days where RimWorld had to rely on mods to stay interesting during two Alphas are definitley over. The vanilla game has so many content and replayability by now that you can easily play an Alpha without mods. And even if you get used to most things and want something new, you can achieve that with some key mods of high quality which are usually balanced too (balanced in which direction is the question, just because you think they are to difficult, it doesn't mean they're unbalanced ;)). Of course there's no "these are the good mods" archive, you will have to search for them.
In my opinion Tynan chose just the right time to take longer between the updates but is not taking to long, and there's always a big new feature with every Alpha so the interest of the community stays.
Please, feel free to disagree with me. It's an opinion on either side.
I'm just saying that, if this game was released - as is, right now - and did not have mod support, I wouldn't give it a second thought, especially at $30. That might come across as harsh, but with how many indie developers there are, it's a competitive field. I want to be a fair critic, and I don't want to hand out gold sticky stars in order to make myself feel justified in my purchase.
But why I bought it, why I'm active in the forums, why I wanted to help test the game - it's all because I believe that Tynan can make this one of the greatest indie games to date. It's not there yet. It's got a pretty good ways to go. It has some awesome groundwork now, and as long as Tynan keeps going about it with the same passion he has, I think it will become something great entirely.
As for "relying" on mods - I'll admit that I do, in the sense that I rely on them to keep the game fresh; else-wise, there's very little variation available with just the vanilla features. I enjoy a challenge, and I avoid mods that are unbalanced or make the game too easy. I select ones that I view as an overall improvement - being able to customize my colonists, changing the UI, making combat more punishing.
If these mods weren't available, I'd probably put a few hours into each alpha and then move on - and that would be it. There's currently nothing for the late game; there's not a large amount of events; many features - while interesting - serve little purpose (I've never touched Art, I've only used carpeting 2-3 times); there's zero reason to leave your walls once you've established your colony, as you can become self-sufficient (I actually quit using hydroponics for this reason); and, always, your eventual end will either come from building a ship to leave or getting overwhelmed by dozens upon dozens of raiders.
This is mainly becouse most people tend to stay with thier playstyle, like most will use kill box. As a player and modder i agree that playing with mods is a fantastic experiance especialy as a modder since i get a grip more or less how much effort was put in mods, and how much effort tynan did put in making mod system not to overcomplicated and in many parts intuitive.
But as a player i must say that vanillia have quite alot to show on its own if your not afraid to do some almost safe experiments then you most likley will find alot of enjoyment from it :)
My 2cents, I honestly can't stand this game vanilla.
I really don't understand how anyone could play it that way.
You'd be FAR better off with dwarf fortress or something.
However, the mods are brilliant and really make the game have some depth and complexity both of which I need in order to find a game interesting. (I'll be glad when TTM is back).
I'd love to see some of the basic ideas of some mods installed into vanilla - like SOME of the hauling priority mod, SOME of the space meals ideas - these are some of the things that will truly drive you insane in vanilla. Also, I think for instance Darkness has a lot going for it and could easily be an option for vanilla.
Some of these are just simple things, but would give the game a little of the depth I am talking about that seems to be missing.
Let's assume that those things won't be added and that Tynan is looking for something to make the game better - I doubt you could go wrong with... making more things moddable.
Creating more api for factions or an ability to change the job and job priority menus (for instance) - this will only lead to more mods and more OPTIONAL depth and gameplay.
In any case - mods (so far) are a reality and the game is an indispensable part of my games library because of that.
As Tynan said at the beggining of the Rimworld project, he would like to create a solid base for the game to grow upon it, and he archived that. The game as it is right now provides a very good foundation to create things up.
But you can't deny that the vanilla features are way to limited yet. Maybe that's a reason for more constant releases of builds? probably soo. But in the other hand the mods already do an exellent job in bringing the game to new heights. If you can trust on such an active modding community, as this game has, you can focus on improving even more this foundation; opening up the possibilities of gameplay, making things more acessible interface-wise, archiving better performance as a software, expanding the "entry-points" for modders, making AI better, this kind of things.
3 months for an update seems like a long time to a game that is completly developer-sided, but for a modding community that's A VERY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME. Not everybody has enough free time to dedicate dozens and dozens of hours to create new stuff whenever he/she wants to. Right now there are many good mods that are getting lost in time. Maybe if the modder knows that the mod will work for the next 5 months at least, he/she would have enthusiasm to keep it up-to-date. Time go by much faster then we like to think.
In a side note i think that some mods are soo well crafted and hit a soo essential spot that they could be merged almost completly in the vanilla, saving time and effort to create other things. Such is the edB mods and some utilitarian ones.
Well, I only do mods with XML at the moment, and it isn't particularly difficult to update those. Mods which use an assembly may well need more work, but I think it depends on the modder and whether they are in the new version's tester group. JuliaEllie, for example, has updated practically her entire catalogue and it's only been a few days since release.
For me this is not a problem. Last month I put more than 100 hours in a mod I was working on, and when updating it to A9 there were about 400 errors in the code, most of them easily solved with little work. On the other hand, some of the workarounds I was using, stopped working and it will take hours again to try to make them work again or find new workarounds.
I won't continue working on the project until the game is out of alpha. Again, this isn't really a problem for me, I just have to accept that making an extensive mod at this stage of the game will take too much effort to update. I'll be happier focusing on small mods right now.
Don't forget that the game is a work in progress, once the game is finished I'm sure its code won't change much with every update, at least the structure, I hope...
Good points, Gaesatae.. The time to refine the structure is now, it may give many conflicts from build to build at the moment but in the future will make things just easier to work with. Small mods seems the way to go for these days.