A Possible Modding Group

[Bowsling]

If enough people are interested, I am hoping to form a group of dedicated modders for CivV, with a private forum and everything, that would essentially work almost like a company, making, as one would presume, mods.

The basis behind the idea is that twelve modders working on their own medium-sized mods would finish each in about a year. That means the community has to wait a whole year for their mods, and all twelve would be finished at the same time.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to have the twelve modders working together on each mod, and finishing one each month, and having artists providing them with graphics as they need them?


I for one would work with designing, XML, PR, administation, all that stuff, and maybe a bit of Lua.
What we would need:
- Lua programmers
- SDK programmers
- XML programmers: essentially the most tedious work
- Designers
- 3D artists, likely using Blender or 3DS
- Civlopedia Writers
- Testers

Any takers?

 

[chaotoroboto]

I'd be definitely interested except that I CANNOT DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS WHY DID I GET AN ACCOUNTING DEGREE I AM USELESS TO THE CIVILIZATION FORUMS.

Sorry, existential crisis.

I'd be interested in Admining some stuff.

 

[The_J]

The problem here is: You assume, that everyone is working on something compatible, has the same kind of ideas and the same working morale.

And at all this points it fails normally :/.

 

[Jerrymander]

Pipe dream.

And I say this as a person who joined a mod group but dropped out.

 

[SevenSpirits]

I could be interested.

But, it's very hard to say without knowing more about the goals of the group and so on. A lot of mods are just "here is some extra stuff I thought would be cool" and I'm inevitably disappointed by them because the results lack any semblance of game design or balance, they're just a bunch of features. If you just get a bunch of people like that together the result is going to be absurdly bloated and imbalanced.

If someone wants to make a mod with a strong attention to interesting gameplay choices and strategic balance, I'm a great person to help with those aspects, and I could do a bit of coding too (SDK or otherwise). Oh, I'd also be interested in AI work.

 

[Kid R]

I'm definitely hoping to contribute to some Civ 5 mods at some point but I'm pretty sure I'll only be able to commit one mod at a time based on workload (real work) at the time.

Do you already have ideas for 12 mods, even before release?

 

[Ahriman]

I'm not sure that there is much to be gained from a group-based approach rather than a project-based approach.

I'd be interested in doing design work for any mod concepts that seem interesting.

One idea:

Spoiler :

I do have some ideas for a Rome scenario that might be fun for Civ5.

Most scenarios are designed to be played as any faction, and so are limited in their ability to actually provide a challenging and flavorful environment.

Some of the best Civ scenarios were those designed to be played by only a single faction; Red Front for example, playing as the Russians resisting German invasion.

The general idea would be to make a Civ scenario (or two) that was designed to be played primarily from the Roman perspective. Somewhat like Rome Total War and some of its mods (especially the SPQR mod) and the Barbarian Invasion expansion. This way, you can make the game historically accurate, and you can make the game HARD, because you're not trying to create a game that can be played from multiple perspectives. Sure, people might only play it once or twice each, but its worth it if the mod is good enough.

The game would start with early Kingdom of Rome and chronicle the rise of the Republic and then the Empire. And then a second (on the same map) could start with the split empire and chronicle the Fall of Rome.

You can have a range of victory conditions designed around specific goals for the Roman player.

There would be "Road to War" type aspects with events that would trigger, either on historic dates or historic dates + random modifier.
These would include things like particular wars (and civil wars), or invasions of barbarian hordes.

We could have a detailed tech tree with engineering/technological, political and military innovations, and a detailed unit roster. Things like the Marian reforms would be techs, not events. There could be a detailed roster of units, starting from ancient phalanx-style militia, and then through Hastati/Principes/Triarii, and then eventually legionaries and auxiliaries (which would require unique location resources that you could get only by conquering particular territories - would work great with the Civ5 ability for strategic resources to require a limited number of units).

We could really use the limited strategic resource system.
Troops would be limited by resources; most Italian units would require Italian population, which would be a resource that existed only in city tiles in Italy. Gaulish auxiliaries would require a resource; Gaulish cities would be built on top of the Gaulish population resource. Conquer the city, you get 4 Gaulish population resource recruit 4 Gaulish auxiliaries. Some rare units like Balearic slingers or Cretan archers would only be possible from controllnig the Balearic isles or Crete. And so forth.

Other factions would be Gaul, Germania, Carthage, Ptolomeic Egypt, various city states, etc.

So basically Rome Total War meets Rhyes and Fall meets Road to War.
Plus maybe a mix of Europa Universalis type options that give you different choices in events (do you control the Senate or Caesar, like picking sides in the English Civil War in Europa Universalis).

If anyone was skilled enough to code such a thing, and we had people interested in doing art, I'd put the effort into doing the design work.

 

[Zhahz]

This group already exists - they're called Firaxis. The only catch is their "mods" will be costing cash in the form of DLC.

The majority of modders do simpler stuff and work alone. Some teams develop over time as good ideas grow into projects, but they tend to evolve naturally rather than "let's form a team, ok, now what're we gonna do?"

 

[Bowsling]

I'm definitely hoping to contribute to some Civ 5 mods at some point but I'm pretty sure I'll only be able to commit one mod at a time based on workload (real work) at the time.

Do you already have ideas for 12 mods, even before release?

No, I'm saying that if one modder can make a mod in a year, twelve can make it in a month. I'm not saying that we work on twelve mods at a time.

I'm not sure that there is much to be gained from a group-based approach rather than a project-based approach.

I'd be interested in doing design work for any mod concepts that seem interesting.

One idea:

Spoiler :

I do have some ideas for a Rome scenario that might be fun for Civ5.

Most scenarios are designed to be played as any faction, and so are limited in their ability to actually provide a challenging and flavorful environment.

Some of the best Civ scenarios were those designed to be played by only a single faction; Red Front for example, playing as the Russians resisting German invasion.

The general idea would be to make a Civ scenario (or two) that was designed to be played primarily from the Roman perspective. Somewhat like Rome Total War and some of its mods (especially the SPQR mod) and the Barbarian Invasion expansion. This way, you can make the game historically accurate, and you can make the game HARD, because you're not trying to create a game that can be played from multiple perspectives. Sure, people might only play it once or twice each, but its worth it if the mod is good enough.

The game would start with early Kingdom of Rome and chronicle the rise of the Republic and then the Empire. And then a second (on the same map) could start with the split empire and chronicle the Fall of Rome.

You can have a range of victory conditions designed around specific goals for the Roman player.

There would be "Road to War" type aspects with events that would trigger, either on historic dates or historic dates + random modifier.
These would include things like particular wars (and civil wars), or invasions of barbarian hordes.

We could have a detailed tech tree with engineering/technological, political and military innovations, and a detailed unit roster. Things like the Marian reforms would be techs, not events. There could be a detailed roster of units, starting from ancient phalanx-style militia, and then through Hastati/Principes/Triarii, and then eventually legionaries and auxiliaries (which would require unique location resources that you could get only by conquering particular territories - would work great with the Civ5 ability for strategic resources to require a limited number of units).

We could really use the limited strategic resource system.
Troops would be limited by resources; most Italian units would require Italian population, which would be a resource that existed only in city tiles in Italy. Gaulish auxiliaries would require a resource; Gaulish cities would be built on top of the Gaulish population resource. Conquer the city, you get 4 Gaulish population resource recruit 4 Gaulish auxiliaries. Some rare units like Balearic slingers or Cretan archers would only be possible from controllnig the Balearic isles or Crete. And so forth.

Other factions would be Gaul, Germania, Carthage, Ptolomeic Egypt, various city states, etc.

So basically Rome Total War meets Rhyes and Fall meets Road to War.
Plus maybe a mix of Europa Universalis type options that give you different choices in events (do you control the Senate or Caesar, like picking sides in the English Civil War in Europa Universalis).

If anyone was skilled enough to code such a thing, and we had people interested in doing art, I'd put the effort into doing the design work.

The point is, mods get done faster as a team.
I love the idea, by the way.

The problem here is: You assume, that everyone is working on something compatible, has the same kind of ideas and the same working morale.

And at all this points it fails normally :/.

Well, everyone would be working on the same thing.
Polls would be held on what the theme would be, and members would decide whether or not they can work on the mod.
There could also be 2 on at the same time, so some could work on an Lord of the Rings mod while others worked on a WWII mod.

I could be interested.

But, it's very hard to say without knowing more about the goals of the group and so on. A lot of mods are just "here is some extra stuff I thought would be cool" and I'm inevitably disappointed by them because the results lack any semblance of game design or balance, they're just a bunch of features. If you just get a bunch of people like that together the result is going to be absurdly bloated and imbalanced.

If someone wants to make a mod with a strong attention to interesting gameplay choices and strategic balance, I'm a great person to help with those aspects, and I could do a bit of coding too (SDK or otherwise). Oh, I'd also be interested in AI work.

While, I suppose we'd need a good designer for that wouldn't we?

This group already exists - they're called Firaxis. The only catch is their "mods" will be costing cash in the form of DLC.

The majority of modders do simpler stuff and work alone. Some teams develop over time as good ideas grow into projects, but they tend to evolve naturally rather than "let's form a team, ok, now what're we gonna do?"

I suppose the goal of this then is to break the trend?


Thank you to everyone who volunteered

 

[Ahriman]

The point is, mods get done faster as a team.

Yes, teams can be useful for working on mods. But its still more effective to have a team formed for a particular project (like the Fall from Heaven team), and you still need a single team lead who is responsible for the overall project (and who is highly motivated).

While, I suppose we'd need a good designer for that wouldn't we

Good design is easy.
Getting code-monkeys willing to implement someone else's genius... now that's hard.

Another idea:

Spoiler :

A Warhammer 40k mod simulating a planetary invasion rather than colonization. Some ideas here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...=322393&page=3
see whole thread but particularly post #43 onwards

 

[johny smith]

Since this is the say your idea thread here you go. I am already working on a group. There are 5 exCiv4 modders interested in the idea so far.

How about Sporifying Civilization? For example in Spore you develop your species as having wings. Then in the tribal game your winged species battles other tribes of a different species. Basically apply this to each era in civilization in the form of making a civilization from the previous civilization. This can come in a from of just a small change as from the Republic of Rome to the Empire, or in a total new civilization like the Olmecs changing to the Mayans.

Every era you play a different game. You play a civilization for an era, and what you do in that era determines what you begin with in the next era for a civilization. You have different tech trees at the beginning for each area of the world that you want to represent on the planet and that dictates your selection of civilizations you can change to.

So for example you would need to plan how your civilization becomes America. (Of course the path to each civilization would be posted online.) So instead of just playing the civilization you need to plan out your wanted goal to become a certain civilization. All of this would have to balanced out as well. Which would be huge balancing act.

I simply want to change per era the name of the civilizations, personality of the leaders, units, buildings, and civilization bonuses. This would be huge to do, but I am not looking for the art for leaders. It would not be possible to get all of the leaders done artwise. The plan is just 2d static images at this point.

If anyone is interested just let me know. I will not be a small mod. It will be one of those grand projects.

 

[Polobo]

I question the reality of a zero-overhead team...total man-months of effort will be larger the greater the number of persons involved since you spend more time managing and less creating.

IMO, The best thing to do is to commit to doing some project management work and hope that you get enough external assistance so that other people spend more time working on the project then you spend performing project management. The greater the ratio the more effective the team is.

Setup a site; SVN/CVS server; etc cetera... where you post needs; both game assets as well as skills/persons that - if they can dedicate enough time - can minimize the number of bottle-necks that are likely to crop-up.

Lastly, this post is putting the cart before the horse. If you want to form a team, especially one that is not going to be paid by you, then you need a really good idea and you need to sell that idea to potential team members. On the other hand, if you are looking for a team that needs your specific skill-set then you'd be better off basically posting a resume and asking for ideas from people who'd rather code as opposed to do project management.

 

[Cull]

If this works out, great.

But I feel that a private group, which I think you're getting at, is sort of meh. You need new modders to provide new ideas to make it good. At least, that's what I feel, but I haven't done modding so whatever.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I'd definitely be interested if it works out. I've always wanted to do some modding but I am pretty much useless at coding. However I guess I could to some LUA if I learn that. I started to learn python and I've learned that they're similar. I would be very interested as designer though. I've had some pretty good ideas but never gotten to implement them. I made a civIII mod once but it was glitchy. I would also love to do the civilopedia entries, espicially the 20th century to modern day military units.

 

[dagriggstar]

I would've thought i'd be much easier to get an idea first then look at forming a team to implement it later...

My limit in civ4 was xml stuff. Never got around to releasing anything though, since I never really felt I got it "quite right". Besides, I liked to through game balance out the window to exaggerate a civs "uniqueness".

In civ 5 I'll be atleast modding UU's, UB's and hopefully UA's. Generally speaking, I want UU's, UB's and UA's to be most effective in the time period that the particular civ was at its height in real life (eg - In reality the Iroquois are strongest in the early modern period, in the game they seem to be strongest in the ancient era)...

 

[Bowsling]

Since this is the say your idea thread here you go. I am already working on a group. There are 5 exCiv4 modders interested in the idea so far.

How about Sporifying Civilization? For example in Spore you develop your species as having wings. Then in the tribal game your winged species battles other tribes of a different species. Basically apply this to each era in civilization in the form of making a civilization from the previous civilization. This can come in a from of just a small change as from the Republic of Rome to the Empire, or in a total new civilization like the Olmecs changing to the Mayans.

Every era you play a different game. You play a civilization for an era, and what you do in that era determines what you begin with in the next era for a civilization. You have different tech trees at the beginning for each area of the world that you want to represent on the planet and that dictates your selection of civilizations you can change to.

So for example you would need to plan how your civilization becomes America. (Of course the path to each civilization would be posted online.) So instead of just playing the civilization you need to plan out your wanted goal to become a certain civilization. All of this would have to balanced out as well. Which would be huge balancing act.

I simply want to change per era the name of the civilizations, personality of the leaders, units, buildings, and civilization bonuses. This would be huge to do, but I am not looking for the art for leaders. It would not be possible to get all of the leaders done artwise. The plan is just 2d static images at this point.

If anyone is interested just let me know. I will not be a small mod. It will be one of those grand projects.

If it all works out, it would be great to combine the two, if you are game for that.
That is a good idea; you might also be interested in this

I question the reality of a zero-overhead team...total man-months of effort will be larger the greater the number of persons involved since you spend more time managing and less creating.

IMO, The best thing to do is to commit to doing some project management work and hope that you get enough external assistance so that other people spend more time working on the project then you spend performing project management. The greater the ratio the more effective the team is.

Setup a site; SVN/CVS server; etc cetera... where you post needs; both game assets as well as skills/persons that - if they can dedicate enough time - can minimize the number of bottle-necks that are likely to crop-up.

Lastly, this post is putting the cart before the horse. If you want to form a team, especially one that is not going to be paid by you, then you need a really good idea and you need to sell that idea to potential team members. On the other hand, if you are looking for a team that needs your specific skill-set then you'd be better off basically posting a resume and asking for ideas from people who'd rather code as opposed to do project management.

Part of the point is that the people who'd rather code can code, rather then come up with all the ideas on their own.
Paying people I find kind of silly. Modding is a labor of love, not a job. If an artist wants to post the models they made working on a leaderhead (although now more like leaderbody with the new CivV graphics), then they can go ahead and do that. I am not paying anybody to mod, nor expecting them to pay money to mod.

 

[frenzyfol]

I'm interested in contributing to a suppository of modding knowledge.
One thing that's always annoyed me about modding engines is the lack-of, and dispersed nature of how-to documentation.

 

[bjbrains]

I'm interested in contributing to a suppository of modding knowledge.
One thing that's always annoyed me about modding engines is the lack-of, and dispersed nature of how-to documentation.

I think you're looking for a repository of modding knowledge. A suppository of modding knowledge might be... painful.

On topic, hopefully Civ 5 will have a good level of documentation for modders, it'd certainly help mods get off the ground.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I'm not sure that there is much to be gained from a group-based approach rather than a project-based approach.

I'd be interested in doing design work for any mod concepts that seem interesting.

One idea:

Spoiler :

I do have some ideas for a Rome scenario that might be fun for Civ5.

Most scenarios are designed to be played as any faction, and so are limited in their ability to actually provide a challenging and flavorful environment.

Some of the best Civ scenarios were those designed to be played by only a single faction; Red Front for example, playing as the Russians resisting German invasion.

The general idea would be to make a Civ scenario (or two) that was designed to be played primarily from the Roman perspective. Somewhat like Rome Total War and some of its mods (especially the SPQR mod) and the Barbarian Invasion expansion. This way, you can make the game historically accurate, and you can make the game HARD, because you're not trying to create a game that can be played from multiple perspectives. Sure, people might only play it once or twice each, but its worth it if the mod is good enough.

The game would start with early Kingdom of Rome and chronicle the rise of the Republic and then the Empire. And then a second (on the same map) could start with the split empire and chronicle the Fall of Rome.

You can have a range of victory conditions designed around specific goals for the Roman player.

There would be "Road to War" type aspects with events that would trigger, either on historic dates or historic dates + random modifier.
These would include things like particular wars (and civil wars), or invasions of barbarian hordes.

We could have a detailed tech tree with engineering/technological, political and military innovations, and a detailed unit roster. Things like the Marian reforms would be techs, not events. There could be a detailed roster of units, starting from ancient phalanx-style militia, and then through Hastati/Principes/Triarii, and then eventually legionaries and auxiliaries (which would require unique location resources that you could get only by conquering particular territories - would work great with the Civ5 ability for strategic resources to require a limited number of units).

We could really use the limited strategic resource system.
Troops would be limited by resources; most Italian units would require Italian population, which would be a resource that existed only in city tiles in Italy. Gaulish auxiliaries would require a resource; Gaulish cities would be built on top of the Gaulish population resource. Conquer the city, you get 4 Gaulish population resource recruit 4 Gaulish auxiliaries. Some rare units like Balearic slingers or Cretan archers would only be possible from controllnig the Balearic isles or Crete. And so forth.

Other factions would be Gaul, Germania, Carthage, Ptolomeic Egypt, various city states, etc.

So basically Rome Total War meets Rhyes and Fall meets Road to War.
Plus maybe a mix of Europa Universalis type options that give you different choices in events (do you control the Senate or Caesar, like picking sides in the English Civil War in Europa Universalis).

If anyone was skilled enough to code such a thing, and we had people interested in doing art, I'd put the effort into doing the design work.

I agree 100%, project based mods(or anything else in life or business for that matter) is the way to go. A project with a dedicated team leader with a clear vision of the goals of the mod and how to manage the mod development as a project is the path to success.

Espeically in the world of volunteer fan programmers doing this in their free time.

CS

 

[Crustacean Soup]

Good design is easy.
Getting code-monkeys willing to implement someone else's genius... now that's hard.

Can't agree. I've seen a lot of people who come up with a kinda neat mod idea, but have no idea as to how to transfer that to actual gameplay (i.e. make it fun). And a lot who come up with ideas that aren't even neat. Design is very important. No code-monkey can make a bad design good (if he can, he's no mere code-monkey ).