Future of Orbis - Civ5 incarnation discussion

[arkham4269]

As a paying consumer I want a product that works as announced. (snip) their voluntary contribution to make the product perform to specs in the first place.

Me pay full price, me wanna worrking game.

Of course I don't speak for Arkham, I just happen to share his sentiments.

This was exactly my point. I am very appreciative of the modding community for all their work. I've said many times if I invent cold fusion or win a massive lottery I'd pay some of these people to do more.

My point was it felt Civ V was released too early and I *personally* believe it may have been done so because the non-gamers involved (i.e. the money-people) felt that at worst the modding community (unpaid for their work) would 'cover' their butts.

I feel this is unfair to us paying customers and unfair to the modders. Plus it is unfair to the Civ V game designers who *are* paid because they are going to get a lot of flack for a decision which they probably got over-ruled on.

Additionally, I don't like how most of the content I see coming via FB and game journals is about how awesome Civ V is. I can't see how this can be since every time something like this pops up, legions of disgruntled fans list issues that haven't been resolved. So perhaps the 2K/Firaxis people need to be more worried about putting in hotseat, fixing bugs, and other things rather than rolling out the new FB version of Civ.

 

[arkham4269]

In regards to mods being important I agree. I also agree with the point after the initial bit I almost never play vanilla civ.

What I'm surprised about is because mods are so important why some of the more popular mods added to the vanilla game like they were in Civ IV. Things like Rhys and Fall or even Fall From Heaven.

I realize many mods couldn't be done due to copyright reasons. Two of my favorite mods, Planetfall (sob) and Dune War fall into that category I'm sure.

Plus if Civ V is going to be so awesome for modding...why didn't they wait till everything was ready to be released, the game and all the coding.

Plus if I was sort of running things with Firaxis, I would think you'd want to get a hold of prolific modders such as Kael and Valkrionn and see if they'd be willing do do some mods up front and have them included or at least semi-ready so when the game hits there is already some content out there.

 

[Valkrionn]

I think with BtS and FFH2 Firaxis learned that supporting Mods was very important, they probably got thousands of sales from FFH2.

Also I may learn Lua just so I can cobble together a Mac version of Orbis (or at least implement as much as possible)

Not likely to be too terribly much; With Civ4 the Mac can't use dlls (so Orbis, or vanilla FfH, would be impossible), and thus far there have been no indications that will change for Civ5.


And Arkham, let me guarantee you, that is not what the moneymakers were thinking. Keep in mind, they're lawyers. Look at the fact that the damn EULA pops up every time you click the mod button. That should tell you their opinion of mods right there.

As for waiting until the DLL code was ready... That's just not feasible. Prior to release, a codebase is in flux; Before releasing it you want to clean it up as much as possible, and you flatout do not have the time to do that while building towards a release. That's why it was not immediately available for civ4, and the same holds true here.

 

[arkham4269]

And Arkham, let me guarantee you, that is not what the moneymakers were thinking. Keep in mind, they're lawyers. Look at the fact that the damn EULA pops up every time you click the mod button. That should tell you their opinion of mods right there.

So Shakespeare was right? We should kill all the lawyers and then we'll have better games?

 

[civ_king]

Not likely to be too terribly much; With Civ4 the Mac can't use dlls (so Orbis, or vanilla FfH, would be impossible), and thus far there have been no indications that will change for Civ5.


And Arkham, let me guarantee you, that is not what the moneymakers were thinking. Keep in mind, they're lawyers. Look at the fact that the damn EULA pops up every time you click the mod button. That should tell you their opinion of mods right there.

As for waiting until the DLL code was ready... That's just not feasible. Prior to release, a codebase is in flux; Before releasing it you want to clean it up as much as possible, and you flatout do not have the time to do that while building towards a release. That's why it was not immediately available for civ4, and the same holds true here.

The reason Civ on Mac can't use DLLs is probably because Macs don't have an equivalent of DLLs. Actually one could probably hack it with workflow

 

[Valkrionn]

Correct. Aspyr would have to completely rewrite the system to allow modding of that level, and has shown no indications of willingness to do so.

 

[Derf]

(Warning. Geekiness may be detected below...)
Unless I'm much mistaken, Mac is based on the BSD system, which shares similarities with Linux - Linux in turn, while it doesn't use DLL files, it does have libraries, usually in /usr/lib or similar, and the packages for them are usually prefaced with lib (eg libindicate).
They're not the same, I'll grant - but it's the *nix answer to DLLs.

 

[civ_king]

(Warning. Geekiness may be detected below...)
Unless I'm much mistaken, Mac is based on the BSD system, which shares similarities with Linux - Linux in turn, while it doesn't use DLL files, it does have libraries, usually in /usr/lib or similar, and the packages for them are usually prefaced with lib (eg libindicate).
They're not the same, I'll grant - but it's the *nix answer to DLLs.

Could we do it with a dylib or would that just FUBAR it?

Do you think we could use automator to swap files of base Civ V and a mod? Luckily if it backfires one could just validate Civ V.

 

[Derf]

It's a little hard for me to say, I've little actual experience in libraries when it comes to *nix. I believe that a DLL essentially is a dynamically linked library, which is what lib* packages in Linux usually are.

I can't say for Civ5, as I don't have it, nor do I plan to get it.
Something like civ4 though, at a glance I suspect it might have to be compiled statically though, given that it calls in such things as the bink player for videos, let alone the graphics backend, and so on.
Mostly this is because Windows at least has nothing resembling a package manager (biiiig oversight IMO), so most programs, when installed just re-install or keep their own local copies of libraries, often at different versions. On a package-managed system, you'd have to go through dependencies and pull in this version of that package, and that one of the other package.... which would allow you to dynamically link, but also probably bork the rest of the system.

On automator... hmm... lemme think...
It could work - but bear in mind, most *nix systems need root privelidges to install apps, and therefore would require the root password to be able to modify those files. If installed in the user's home folder, it should be safe though - but it depends on how and where it's installed.

Alright. I'm done. I have no idea how useful that is, or how much sense it makes, but I figure someone might be able to figure it out.

 

[civ_king]

OMG, it has almost been a month! Ahwaric has been sold into slavery by his GF

 

[basimrocks]

I know this has nothing to do with what you guys are talking about, but here are a few ideas i have for civs to use in this mod. I dont even know if Ahwaric is still accepting ideas.

1. A civ of dragon-men, probably an Aztec or Japanese style, probably worshipping one major element that you choose early in the game, very much changing the playstyle. Elements could be Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Darkness or light

2. Boarkin, a species I made up. Boarkin are humanoid, with the head of a boar and fur all over the body. They would be sort of similar to orcs, very chaotic and wild, but more barbarian then evil. Main element would be fire, and they would get a big bonus to military.

3. Scarecrows, well it sounds ******ed, but really, wouldn't it be kinda cool to command a huge army of spindly, straw-filled terrors?

4. Fallen Angels, fell from heaven (No reference to FFH intended.) Not evil, but shunned by the other angels

5. A human teleporter civ, where all units could teleport around the map.

6. A race heavily based off the phyrexians from Magic, The Gathering. link to wikipedia on pherexians here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyrexia

7. Lastly, A mishmash civ of many races, which would have been brought together because of a natural disaster or a war or something

Those were my ideas, hope you like them!

 

[civ_king]

Just dropped by...
In response to the discussion (which I had no time to read, so mostly Valkrionn's post):
Civ V has a great potential. But the current state of things, especially modding, makes it very hard to enjoy.
There are some aspects that are simply non-moddable. I.e. without a workaround, it is not possible to add a new luxury resource. And whole AssignStartingPlots.lua is a nightmare. Also, last patch was advertised as allowing mods to replace base game files. Well, the game no longer crashes - it simply ignores the changes, at least for me. Loading mods from ingame menu (with the warning screens...) is another bad idea. It will take ages to load a mod with a lot of graphics.
I could go on and on. In short - I believe the game has a potential to be a great modding tool. But currently it is a mess (it only requires to take a look at some xml files to confirm it) designed to allow easy creataing small mods - but making ones like FfH2 next to impossible. When (and if) it will be as good as advertised - we will see. I certainly hope it will be soon.

On the other hand, I do not think the base game is as bad as some people say.

Ok, enough of that. I dropped by mostly to say that I am leaving to Marrakesh today to get some holidays. I am attachnig the current state of Orbis II (save for the art, not so important and takes a lot of space). If anyone wants to teake a look or use something, be my guest. Of course, making separate mod based on the whole package if forbidden That is, unless you will not hear from me in a month time. That would mean that I had some problems, i.e. my girlfriend sold me into slavery...

Take care guys!

It's been two months now,

Ahwaric, you will not be forgotten regardless of where you are now a slave

 

[Ahwaric]

It's been two months now,

Ahwaric, you will not be forgotten regardless of where you are now a slave

Thank you, civ king...

It might not be slavery, but I had a TON of work. Thus, I had intentionally forbidden myself to enter the CivFanatics forums.

I am only slowly starting to recover, and still have plans for Orbis II. Maybe this summer, but all depends on how fast will I be able to finish some field research, and even more, on what Civ5 has currently to offer. In winter, creating big mods was next to impossible due to the bugs in the game, especially on the modding side. Plus, there was almost no unit art to use.

So, the only thing that I can promise, that I will continue the work on Orbis @. The rest (i.e. when it will be released) remains to be seen.

 

[KrugSmash]

Hurray!

I may only play RifE now, but Orbis was my first love.

 

[arkham4269]

Well I figure until they fix Civ V, Civ IV is still playable. I keep trying Civ V after hours of Civ IV and keep asking myself why I bother.

 

[Pazyryk]

Civ5 needed a while to cook, longer than Civ4, on both the play side and (even more so) the modding side. It's natural that they would focus on play first and then modding. The major play flaws were killed as of April or so (ICS, etc.), although the long list of changes in the June/July patch list make it clear that it is not "done" yet. I could argue that Civ5 has the potential to be a deeper game than Civ4 (e.g., with separation of commerce and science, although this was negated by the absurd RA system [to be "fixed" in next patch]) but that is another long post.

On the modding side, Civ5 offers many possibilities for Lua/XML modding that were not possible in Civ4 without dll modding. Two examples are the ability to do major UI changes and the ability to save/reload arbitrary data associated with your mod (i.e., access to SavedGameDatabase). The latter one really limited me in Civ4 (I know, I could have learned C++ and done some dll modding... but this was a large barrier for me). Unfortunately, basic things like documentation and real unit creation are coming very slow and many early Civ5 modders are jumping ship in frustration. Best thing to do is set your timer and let it cook some more (hopefully 6 months is not too optimistic...). I wish I could follow Ahwaric's example and just stay off CivFanatics...

 

[Valkrionn]

There's an even larger advantage to Civ5 than what you mentioned: You can create and use tags without modifying the DLL.

 

[thadian]

just use civ 4 orbis as a base and use similar themes, abilities, flavors etc. i look forward to seeing the new orbis, but with FFH, Fall Further and Orbis 1, there are plenty of "abilities", unit inspirations, traits etc to make each civ unique. im confident you will do a good job

As for a map, just use your best instincts and we can use random maps while it happens over time.

 

[civ_king]

Yaya Ahwaric is alive and not a slave!

 

[thadian]

just like civ 4 orbis (my favorite civ experience, btw) all i can do is want to play this.