Dennis Shirk confirms DLL is on its way

[killmeplease]

If I were really motivated, I'd probably come out with a CulturalControl modcomp allowing forts to put out culture (and moving culture bomb to GG from GA, a territorial grab strikes me as military), but I have other priorities.

i have a pretty similar idea though its useless until we'll have dll access to program AI.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Gods willing, lets all hope Age of Mythology gets out this week.

I'm posting the Alpha version tonight; there's just one minor little bug I need to track down, first. And I really mean "Alpha", it's not even CLOSE to balanced yet, but it'll be playable..

 

[Valkrionn]

i have a pretty similar idea though its useless until we'll have dll access to program AI.

Yeah, similar. "My" idea is of course inspired by a civ4 mod, which I merged into RifE.

 

[DonQuiche]

I don't think the dll release will be that important for civ5. Because, in civ5, many players do not visit CFC for mods, they just use the in-game browser and this one won't allow mods that embed a custom version of the dll (to do so the devs would need to do important changes since some mods would become mutually exclusive). I may be wrong, maybe a major mod will appear after the dll source is released but I fear the ingame browser will suck too many forces from CFC to do so. And, no, I don't believe in the "great elders who lure in the shadows of CFC waiting to create something great", I think it only happened for civ4 because at some point some padawans once visited CFC when looking for a mod and later turned into great elders who accomplished great mods.

Besides, I agree with Spartz on most of what he said: the LUA API is really great and I think the devs' efforts would be better used to improve and document the LUA API, to fix bugs, and to enhance the ingame browser (displaying the rating for the current version of a mod aside of the total downloads for all versions is really ankward: anytime you update your mod you produce a negative advertisement).

You speak from a coder's point of view, and I speak from a war gamer's point of view. We will agree to disagree. The only difference between the two of us is I want for you to have what you want, but interestingly enough you seek to deny the war gaming community what I would want. We have to wonder why. As far as I am concerned, coders have had their chance with 30 years of terrible atrocious creations. Stick with coding, let us design the freaking games.

You made me think of him and it's not a compliment. You want but you can't. The proper answer is to learn, not to rant about those who learnt, it's not their fault. Life does not bring you an army of people at your feet to achieve what you can't do on your own, so get used to it and learn. Things are complex, not because they have been made complex but because you want a stupid silicon chip that only knows how to handle 0 and 1 to give you an immense power without learning anything. So maybe you could do better games, but we will never know since you can't. Finally, those who design games today are NOT coders but game designers, those are two different professions.

 

[Valkrionn]

I don't think the dll release will be that important for civ5. Because, in civ5, many players do not visit CFC for mods, they just use the in-game browser and this one won't allow mods that embed a custom version of the dll (to do so the devs would need to do important changes since some mods would become mutually exclusive). I may be wrong, maybe a major mod will appear after the dll source is released but I fear the ingame browser will suck too many forces from CFC to do so. And, no, I don't believe in the "great elders who lure in the shadows of CFC waiting to create something great", I think it only happened for civ4 because at some point some padawans once visited CFC when looking for a mod and later turned into great elders who accomplished great mods.

Besides, I agree with Spartz on most of what he said: the LUA API is really great and I think the devs' efforts would be better used to improve and document the LUA API, to fix bugs, and to enhance the ingame browser (displaying the rating for the current version of a mod aside of the total downloads for all versions is really ankward: anytime you update your mod you produce a negative advertisement).

Actually, there is already a framework in place for mutually exclusive mods, as well as mod dependencies. It simply doesn't work yet. One could assume that once the DLL goes active, so would these capabilities.... Allowing for DLL mods in the browser.

I heartily agree with your statement about "great elders"; Several of the larger Civ4 mod teams do indeed have plans for Civ5 which are waiting on the DLL (cough cough, I would be one of them ), but the real future is exactly what you said; Fresh coders, unable to find the exact mod that they want and deciding to do it themselves. That's what I love about the forums, so many people are willing to help you learn.

I also agree that the Lua API should be improved, but that can only go so far. We need the DLL as well.

You made me think of him and it's not a compliment. You want but you can't. The proper answer is to learn, not to rant about those who learnt, it's not their fault. Life does not bring you an army of people at your feet to achieve what you can't do on your own, so get used to it and learn. Things are complex, not because they have been made complex but because you want a stupid silicon chip that only knows how to handle 0 and 1 to give you an immense power without learning anything. So maybe you could do better games, but we will never know since you can't. Finally, those who design games today are NOT coders but game designers, those are two different professions.

Extremely well said.

 

[Sifaus]

I'm sooooooo hopeless about CiV modding now. :/

 

[TheChanger]

everytime i see this thread it gets my hopes up that something has come of the DLL but every time my hopes are shattered.

damn you 2K and your false advertising.

 

[Putmalk]

I can't believe a word that comes out of Firaxis' mouth anymore.

 

[zarakand]

Have there been any official updates since July about the DLL?

 

[Alzara]

Have there been any official updates since July about the DLL?

No

Al

 

[Uncle Anton]

Personally, I've given up.

 

[The_Reckoning]

I think with their DLC still releasing they don't want to have to compete with modders.

Unfortunately, this kills the community.

 

[Uncle Anton]

I don't even think it's a case of "competing" with the community. I just don't think they're interested in releasing it... too much effort for what they believe is too little payoff from the increased game shelf life that comes with it's release.

 

[Putmalk]

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?116293-On-the-horizon-Pitboss-and-DLL-Source

Yesterday I mentioned in another thread that a patch is coming soon. Head on over there if you haven't seen it yet.

Well today, I want to let you know about a couple more things that are on the horizon: Pitboss and the DLL source code. These things will not be in the aforementioned patch, and are still many months from being ready for prime time, but I wanted you guys to know that we have a team actively working on these two things. I don’t normally like to tease these things so far in advance, but I know how much some of you have been craving both of these (I have been too)! As stated in the past, these will be free updates for everyone. As always, as soon as I have more detailed information about either of these I’ll bring it to you.

 

[Pouakai]

Damn Putmalk, you bet me to it!

 

[Putmalk]

Damn Putmalk, you bet me to it!

Get owned?

 

[PawelS]

That's good news, at last some words from 2K after a long silence...

 

[Spatzimaus]

Well, it's news at least. Whether it qualifies as "good" depends on whether you think we'll still have an active modding community six months to a year from now. Remember, even after we DO get the DLL, it'll be several months before you start to see mods that really take advantage of the extra capabilities.

Frankly, what I'd prefer is less of a DLL and more of a "top 10 list". That is, if you were to ask each of the active modders what events, XML stubs, or Lua objects they need most, and just implement as many of those as possible into an official patch, I think you'd see far more of an immediate benefit. Many of the already-in-progress mods are only lacking a few discrete elements. Maybe you just want better start-of-combat or end-of-combat GameEvents. Maybe you just want a Lua function to change relationship values between two major empires. Maybe you want a Lua command/XML setting to rotate an image by 90 degrees. Maybe you want an XML entry in the Projects table to allow them to add yields like a Building does. Maybe you want an XML entry in the Buildings table to allow them to add a flat global yield ("+1 food in all cities") instead of only a modifier ("+5% food in all cities").

Or maybe it'd be something simpler, like "let the game use altered versions of the sound definition files through the VFS" or "let modders actually set the Dependencies fields in a mod's properties", to where mod X requires (and always loads after) mod Y. The game has quite a few obvious issues like this; one that I've run into recently is that while you can add new yields, resources, and terrains in the XML, the game doesn't actually add these to the YieldTypes, ResourceTypes and TerrainTypes lists that the Lua UI depends on. So just fixing all of these sorts of things would go a LONG way towards making the game better, without the DLL.

 

[PawelS]

Well, I guess it's easier for them to release the DLL than to implement individual modder requests - they give us the code, and we can do anything we want with it. Time is not a problem for me, my mod is still far from being released, but I understand that those who already have playable versions of their mods can get impatient. I think I'll still mod Civ5 in a year, as there's no better game of this kind on the horizon...

 

[Spatzimaus]

I think I'll still mod Civ5 in a year, as there's no better game of this kind on the horizon...

It's not a question of whether WE will still be here. To me, it's a question of whether anyone else will still be around to download our mods. The traffic level in this forum is way down from what it was only a few months ago, so if it's another six months before we get the DLL and a year before mods really make use of it, it's just hard to see there being a huge demand at that point.

Obviously, if they were to announce a major expansion of some kind, plenty of folks would get back into the game. The fact that we're over a year from release and they seem intent to stick with the DLC model is a bit discouraging, but who knows. It's just getting quieter and quieter around here, and it's a bit worrisome.