raystuttgart
Civ4Col Modder
Hi guys,
I have quite often heard from community members that they see no point in starting a project of their own right now but maybe in the future.
Their reasons could be summarized as "The ongoing development of the core mod makes it futile."
(Sorry if I can not repeat the exact phrases. I can just try to keep the meaning as I understood it.)
1. One community member said something like: "It is too much effort to keep up."
"As long as core mod is still in development, I will not start a modmod.
The effort to maintain the modmod for merging the core mod changes is too big."
2. Another community member said something like: "Why not just wait for you guys to implement the things I want?"
"Why should I implement my ideas in a modmod if the core mod will later implement it even better.
I am a beginner so must likely my implementation is flawed and you pros will do it better anyways."
3. Another community member said something like: "My own personal taste is incompatible to core mod."
"My own personal taste is simply different to the personal taste of you or other members.
But still there will be new things like bugfixes or other improvements I would like from core mod.
I would need to do too much cherrypicking of things I like and leaving out things I do not.
Until you guys are done so many things will change anyways that I rather wait unitl then."*
*Similar to 1.
4. Another community member said something like: "There are not enough skilled modders anyways."
"I am not skilled enough to do ... myself, but as long as other modders work on the core mod they will not have enough time to help me with my modmod if needed. And I do not have enough time or motivation to learn how to do everything myself. So there is no chance I could ever successfully create the modmod I actually want to do.
...
---------
All of that stuff is basically correct and justified, but it does not help to solve the problem.
But you might also ask:
Where is actually the problem? WTP is still developed and everything is fine.
The problem is very simply:
Potential modders are sitting around and not modding but waiting for WTP core mod to end.
So is the solution simply this, right:
End the core mod and see if modmods or generally other projects start.
---------
My personal answer:
No, it does not work like that in a modding community with as few modders as we currently have.
(Been there already after TAC and saw what happened.)
There are only 3 likely scenarios:
(After the core mod ended.)
Scenario 1:
At one point of the projects will assemble enough modders again to defacto become the new core mod.
(Best case scenario once the old core mod dies. Story how RaR became WTP.)
Scenario 2:
The mod dies because none of the projects has enough modders to continue.
(Worst case scenario which happened basically to all other Civ4Col mods.)
Scenario 3:
First looking like Scenario 2 and then months or years later Scenario 1 again just delayed.
(So basically same as Scenario 1 but just much more painful and frustrating.)
---------
Answer to "Ending Core Mod":
Ending the core mod is no answer.
In best case one of the modmods would become the new core mod with a few months of silence in between.
In worst case public modding community of Civ4Col dies because of lack of modders and frustration.
Sure, a few private modders would be able to change the core mod to their liking for a short time.
But after a relatively short time they would also regret not profiting anymore of core mod development.
---------
So is there no solution to this?
Yes there actually is but it is not easy to achieve.
We need enough modders again to support more than 1 project.
Those need to be trained first and the only project able to do that currently is the core mod.
Only if we have enough modder we can afford to support several projects.
Of course they could be sharing and cooperating for code, graphics, ...
Will then every tiny private taste modmod be successful and stay alive?
Of course not, to maintain and even more continuously develop a mod is effort.
---------
I have also heard stuff like this as well:
Why do you skilled programmers and skilled graphical modders not just program the code we need and create the graphics we want?
Then we others can simply create our private mods the way we want based on that.
My simply answer:
We modders are not programming and graphical designer slaves.
The thinking above also ignores that texts, balancing, ... are just as important as code and graphics.
Last but not least we need to fully implement the things so we can test them.
Please understand:
Most of us modders mod because we like to play our own game that suit our own personal taste.
We do not mod because we are altruistic angels only working for the benefit of others.
---------
Just imagine e.g.
The only way to get more mods is to get more modders.
And the best way to get more modders is to train them in a large project.
And at the moment WTP core mod is currently simply the only such large project for Civ4Col.
Ending it before we have enough modders again in the community would in best case just result in another mod becoming "core mod" again.
All of the project above sound great, but probably right now none of them would be successful.
Each of us would have a different personal taste and splitting remaining modding ressources is currently a very bad idea ...
---------
Summary:
1) We grow again and survive as active modding community.
2) We stagnate and will at one point in time die as active modding community.
"Grow and live." vs "Stagnate and die."
(Simply replacing current core mod by another core mod won't help though.)
---------
Comments and ideas are welcome.
And sorry for repeating myself all the time that we need more modders ...
I have quite often heard from community members that they see no point in starting a project of their own right now but maybe in the future.
Their reasons could be summarized as "The ongoing development of the core mod makes it futile."
(Sorry if I can not repeat the exact phrases. I can just try to keep the meaning as I understood it.)
1. One community member said something like: "It is too much effort to keep up."
"As long as core mod is still in development, I will not start a modmod.
The effort to maintain the modmod for merging the core mod changes is too big."
2. Another community member said something like: "Why not just wait for you guys to implement the things I want?"
"Why should I implement my ideas in a modmod if the core mod will later implement it even better.
I am a beginner so must likely my implementation is flawed and you pros will do it better anyways."
3. Another community member said something like: "My own personal taste is incompatible to core mod."
"My own personal taste is simply different to the personal taste of you or other members.
But still there will be new things like bugfixes or other improvements I would like from core mod.
I would need to do too much cherrypicking of things I like and leaving out things I do not.
Until you guys are done so many things will change anyways that I rather wait unitl then."*
*Similar to 1.
4. Another community member said something like: "There are not enough skilled modders anyways."
"I am not skilled enough to do ... myself, but as long as other modders work on the core mod they will not have enough time to help me with my modmod if needed. And I do not have enough time or motivation to learn how to do everything myself. So there is no chance I could ever successfully create the modmod I actually want to do.
...
---------
All of that stuff is basically correct and justified, but it does not help to solve the problem.
But you might also ask:
Where is actually the problem? WTP is still developed and everything is fine.
The problem is very simply:
Potential modders are sitting around and not modding but waiting for WTP core mod to end.
So is the solution simply this, right:
End the core mod and see if modmods or generally other projects start.
---------
My personal answer:
No, it does not work like that in a modding community with as few modders as we currently have.
(Been there already after TAC and saw what happened.)
There are only 3 likely scenarios:
(After the core mod ended.)
Scenario 1:
At one point of the projects will assemble enough modders again to defacto become the new core mod.
(Best case scenario once the old core mod dies. Story how RaR became WTP.)
Scenario 2:
The mod dies because none of the projects has enough modders to continue.
(Worst case scenario which happened basically to all other Civ4Col mods.)
Scenario 3:
First looking like Scenario 2 and then months or years later Scenario 1 again just delayed.
(So basically same as Scenario 1 but just much more painful and frustrating.)
---------
Answer to "Ending Core Mod":
Ending the core mod is no answer.
In best case one of the modmods would become the new core mod with a few months of silence in between.
In worst case public modding community of Civ4Col dies because of lack of modders and frustration.
Sure, a few private modders would be able to change the core mod to their liking for a short time.
But after a relatively short time they would also regret not profiting anymore of core mod development.
---------
So is there no solution to this?
Yes there actually is but it is not easy to achieve.
We need enough modders again to support more than 1 project.
Those need to be trained first and the only project able to do that currently is the core mod.
Only if we have enough modder we can afford to support several projects.
Of course they could be sharing and cooperating for code, graphics, ...
Will then every tiny private taste modmod be successful and stay alive?
Of course not, to maintain and even more continuously develop a mod is effort.
---------
I have also heard stuff like this as well:
Why do you skilled programmers and skilled graphical modders not just program the code we need and create the graphics we want?
Then we others can simply create our private mods the way we want based on that.
My simply answer:
We modders are not programming and graphical designer slaves.
The thinking above also ignores that texts, balancing, ... are just as important as code and graphics.
Last but not least we need to fully implement the things so we can test them.
Please understand:
Most of us modders mod because we like to play our own game that suit our own personal taste.
We do not mod because we are altruistic angels only working for the benefit of others.
---------
Just imagine e.g.
- a Dune mod or other ScifFi mod based on WTP
- a Lord of the Rings mod or other Fantasy mod based on WTP
- a Medieval or other historicalyl themed mod based on WTP
- a Global Colonization on world map based on WTP
- ....
The only way to get more mods is to get more modders.
And the best way to get more modders is to train them in a large project.
And at the moment WTP core mod is currently simply the only such large project for Civ4Col.
Ending it before we have enough modders again in the community would in best case just result in another mod becoming "core mod" again.
All of the project above sound great, but probably right now none of them would be successful.
Each of us would have a different personal taste and splitting remaining modding ressources is currently a very bad idea ...
---------
Summary:
- The core mod has to continue as long as possible. It would not help anybody long term to stop it.
- We need to use the core mod to train more modders since it offers the best environment to learn.
- Once we have enough skilled modders, we may think about supporting 2 "sibling projects".
- Those 2 "sibling projects" would continue to share and cooperate.
1) We grow again and survive as active modding community.
2) We stagnate and will at one point in time die as active modding community.
"Grow and live." vs "Stagnate and die."
(Simply replacing current core mod by another core mod won't help though.)
---------
Comments and ideas are welcome.
And sorry for repeating myself all the time that we need more modders ...
Last edited:
