I can see why Firaxis didn't make the editor yet

[ShroudedMist]

Hey I got a black helicopter in my backyard. Want a ride?

 

[jpinard]

The fact is, Firaxis isn't holding back the SDK because they think it needs more "polish" - they're holding it back because releasing it would hurt their sales. Better to do it when it no longer matters.

Thanks for posting one of the least intelligent things I've read all day. I needed the IQ boost.

 

[macsbug]

So you're saying that they have a completed SDK (had it before the game was even released) but held it back because they were afraid that if modders saw it, they wouldn't buy the game and thus it would've hurt their sales? Right... and you're criticizing him for deluding himself... watch out for the black helicopters on your way home too... you don't want them shutting you up for telling it like it is.

Firaxis isn't releasing the SDK until months after their game has been released. This means, SDK or not, they'll make all the money they're going to off this game before it's released.

Any work being put in at this time to improve whatever state the SDK is currently in will be added in an expansion. Even you fanboys have to have their limits - you can't seriously believe Firaxis is so stupid it's willing to spend any significant amount of money on something they've effectively guaranteed will have no effect on their sales.

In short: I know you’ve got an autographed poster of Sid plastered to the ceiling above your bed. That’s sick man – take it down.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I don't understand some of the posts I'm seeing. People actually don't want anyone to be able to mod Civ4 and are proud of what they think Firaxis' decisions on this are? So we should just give up and throw out civ4. Sounds like me before I thought about the matter alittle. Don't be a pessimist.

 

[ShroudedMist]

macsbug, put yourself in Firaxis' shoes. Do you think they're going to put resources into getting an SDK out to the modding community or use them to handle the onslaught of issues that have cropped up since the game shipped? That's a tough one.

You're acting like they haven't given the mod community anything which is completely untrue. God forbid people need to learn a little XML or Python. Between the exposed functionality available via the xml files and the BMPtoWBS conversion utility there is plenty to keep people busy.

It has zero to do with being a fanbois either. You're simply choosing to gloss over the fact that priorities of development are surely centered around tech support and customer service and until that flood dies down you shouldn't realistically expect any sort of additional tools such as an SDK.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

ShroudedMist so you agree with me that Mac was being pessismistic?

 

[maxpublic]

This is some very weird stuff. Even without the SDK Civ 4 is one of the most moddable games ever produced; the fact that most of the guts are in xml files, and that you can use a real programming language (Python) to do all sorts of interesting stuff, is proof of that. Firaxis obviously bent over backwards to make the game accessible to modders.

And yet, if I'm reading this write, someone is claiming that a) Civ 4 can't be modded without the SDK, which is both inane and wrong; and b), that the reason the SDK wasn't released with the game is due to some nefarious plot to keep modders from, uh, modding the game. So apparently the folks at Firaxis are suffering multiple personality disorder, since on the one hand they shipped the game with enormous modding capability, and on the other hand they're keeping the SDK in a vault or something to keep us from modding it even further.

While that might make sense to Mulder, it sure as hell doesn't make any sense to me.

Max

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Well most people don't want to have to go to college to learn how to mod the game, like myself. Want to mod civ3 conquests style and also make units for it in the same capasity, although 3d this time.

 

[WildWeazel]

What's all this about a Firaxis editor? Firaxis made an editor, and it's called World Builder. Have they mentioned any other editing program? Not that I've heard about. They provided us with everything we *need* to mod the game (short of the SDK), and I doubt they will be releasing a standalone editor, or any other utils for that matter. OTOH, a few programs are already in development here- a 2D map editor and an xml editor, and probably others.

I don't understand some of the posts I'm seeing. People actually don't want anyone to be able to mod Civ4 and are proud of what they think Firaxis' decisions on this are? So we should just give up and throw out civ4. Sounds like me before I thought about the matter alittle. Don't be a pessimist.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that, coming from you.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Lol I know. I still don't like alot of things about Civ4 I've read but for the most part those are things which are very easy to mod-fix, like the leaderheads, so it doesn't really matter.

What I'm really waiting for is the ability to make new units for the game using poser and other programs.

 

[macsbug]

macsbug, put yourself in Firaxis' shoes. Do you think they're going to put resources into getting an SDK out to the modding community or use them to handle the onslaught of issues that have cropped up since the game shipped? That's a tough one.

You're acting like they haven't given the mod community anything which is completely untrue. God forbid people need to learn a little XML or Python. Between the exposed functionality available via the xml files and the BMPtoWBS conversion utility there is plenty to keep people busy.

Stop right there. They haven't GIVEN you anything. They sold their product with buzz about what a fantastic engine Civ4 would come with, and how powerful the modding tools would be.

Instead, they simply shipped the game with it's core data files, no documentation, and forced us to guess at what everything does. What do you do? You THANK them for GIFTING you with these tasks to keep you busy.

You know what? I was wrong – not about the fact that Firaxis will NOT put more money into improving the SDK they’re releasing – they won’t. I was wrong about how people here will react when you get it. You’ll be grateful when Firaxis releases the SDK in the same type of condition they released everything else in. After all, the less polished the tools you’re given are, the more you have to “explore”, right?

It has zero to do with being a fanbois either. You're simply choosing to gloss over the fact that priorities of development are surely centered around tech support and customer service and until that flood dies down you shouldn't realistically expect any sort of additional tools such as an SDK.

Read the above - you ARE a fanboy.

 

[Aeon221]

Eh, eat a bug you mcturd.

Also, you kinda punched a hole in your own argument.

Stop right there. They haven't GIVEN you anything. They sold their product with buzz about what a fantastic engine Civ4 would come with, and how powerful the modding tools would be.

Instead, they simply shipped the game with it's core data files, no documentation, and forced us to guess at what everything does. What do you do? You THANK them for GIFTING you with these tasks to keep you busy.

Part one: Nothing in the box!

Part two: EVERYTHING in the box, but they didn't tell me how to use it!

Make up your mind! AND I might add, although this is simply a bunch of I. ad homs, you are patently disagreeing with your own first post, where you troll about the lack of moddability in the first place.

It seems like four people, all of them with serious over-chugging-of-haterade issues posted on the same account.

Last bit. Maybe you should go check out some of the threads where people did THOUSANDS of tests to figure out EXACTLY how civ3 worked. This isnt called Civilization Fanatics Forum for nothing.

One last bit. Using bolds and all caps selectively are no more than icings. It cannot do more than lend a false air of legitimacy to what you write.

If what you write is a pile of trollish garbage, even if you dress it up like the Queen Mother its still trollish garbage. So go relurk please, unless you can be sunnier.

Exorcism attempt completed.

 

[Rayanth]

Firaxis was under pression from Take2 to get Civilization out the door as quickly as possible -- indeed their deadline was bumped significantly, giving them less time to work on the "flair" such as documentation for every single little function in the entire game.

I personally expect this documentation to become available over time - either through the experimentation and collaboration of users with occasional developer input, or by the developers themselves publishing the documentation in an official format at some point in time.

Civilization 4 has been out for a massive 2 whopping weeks now. 14 days! and you expect absolute perfection? They're working on making the game WORK for many people right now, and fixing the few game-killing bugs that slipped through the cracks (these bugs exist in every game, Firaxis is doing the best job I've seen in a while of killing them as quickly and smoothly as possible -- the ATI bug-fix was a matter of wonder, in my opinion. Less than 24 hours after the severity of the bug was clear (on day 1) they had a patch that worked for over 90% of end-users who had the bug)

The game is so different from previous Civs, we're still understanding how it plays, let alone how to mod it. The developers chose a wise portion of the game to cut slack on to get it shipped in working order - who knows how much would be broken if they were worried about documenting the XML files so that modders could mod the game on day 1? Many of Civ3's best modders still don't have Civ4, and many of those that do are too busy enjoying the game to mod it.

XML and Python are relatively easy to learn. XML can be understood simply by reading the XML files given to us with the game, and modifying what we need to. There is an EXCELLENT Python tutorial being written by one of our own, Civ4 modding as its focus. The developers gave us ample warning that we would BE using Python and XML to mod in, we had plenty of time to learn.

Civ4 would not be nearly as moddable if they hadn't used XML and some form of scripting language to begin with. We'd be stuck with changing static values and artwork and that's it. You can't get to the root of the game's infrastructure without doing some kind of programming, and python is quite easy to learn -- moreso for a beginner than a veteran pre-OOP programmer such as myself, and I picked up Python in a heartbeat (I'm a wizard at C, but can't stand C++ ... the OOP thing just never clicked. Somehow with Python, it makes sense right away)

No college education is required to mod Civ4. Just willpower and free time. Read the Python tutorial, browse the XML files, and you'll soon be up with the rest of us, modding the game instead of complaining about your own lack of intelligence to learn how to do so.

 

[macsbug]

Part one: Nothing in the box!

Part two: EVERYTHING in the box, but they didn't tell me how to use it!

Make up your mind! AND I might add, although this is simply a bunch of I. ad homs, you are patently disagreeing with your own first post, where you troll about the lack of moddability in the first place.

If you'd bothered to read my first post, you'd have realized that I've only made two points:

1) Firaxis isn't pouring more money into the SDK
2) The documentation in this game is appalling

What I said in my previous post stands. You're too much a fanboy to realize that #2 should bother you, not excite you.

It seems like four people, all of them with serious over-chugging-of-haterade issues posted on the same account.

Last bit. Maybe you should go check out some of the threads where people did THOUSANDS of tests to figure out EXACTLY how civ3 worked. This isnt called Civilization Fanatics Forum for nothing.

The fact that these threads exist and provide some useful information validates MY point, not yours.

One last bit. Using bolds and all caps selectively are no more than icings. It cannot do more than lend a false air of legitimacy to what you write.

If what you write is a pile of trollish garbage, even if you dress it up like the Queen Mother its still trollish garbage. So go relurk please, unless you can be sunnier.

Exorcism attempt completed.

Whereas insulting my style does more than…*ahem*…lend a false air of legitimacy to what YOU write?

 

[Rayanth]

In addition, claiming that the SDK is going to HURT sales is a complete idiocy. At EBGames it is my job to sell these games. I am thoroughly addicted to Civ4, and I absolutely love the idea of how much can be modded. I sell this game to every customer who asks for a new strategy game for PC, and to most of them I explain the moddability as a major selling point -- of the 20 copies I've personally sold, you know how many cared about modding? 2. One was myself, the other, a coworker.

In short, the majority of paying Civ4 customers are unlikely to even know what an SDK *is* let alone care how great it is when it comes out. The SDk is NOT going to hurt sales in the slightest. This is a great game, out of the box. Modding it is just icing... and some very delicious icing at that.

Regarding editors: There's no need! i'll admit the WorldBuilder is a bit odd at first, but once you get used to it, it is MUCH more powerful than Civ3's. Scenario building is far more complicated, and we can get much more dynamic results with the ability write our own scripts for it, than anythign that could ever be achieved in Civ3. How do you modify that XML? notepad! how do you edit that python script? Notepad! you can even edit the world maps themselves in notepad! Try *that* with Civ3.

Don't like Notepad? There's dozens of FREE XML editors out there.
Don't like Notepad? There's IDLE -- totally free, and packaged with the Python language itself so you can write scripts not just for Civ4, but anything you want. FREE
Don't like WorldBuilder? We're already working on user-made standalone map-editors so just hang in there. (Rumor has it Firaxis might be working on the WorldBuilder as well... It's even suggested that it'll changeable with the SDK... heck it mgiht even be changeable with what we have out of the box!)

 

[macsbug]

…[Filler. If you want a response, read my above posts]…

XML and Python are relatively easy to learn. XML can be understood simply by reading the XML files given to us with the game, and modifying what we need to. There is an EXCELLENT Python tutorial being written by one of our own, Civ4 modding as its focus. The developers gave us ample warning that we would BE using Python and XML to mod in, we had plenty of time to learn.

Civ4 would not be nearly as moddable if they hadn't used XML and some form of scripting language to begin with. We'd be stuck with changing static values and artwork and that's it. You can't get to the root of the game's infrastructure without doing some kind of programming, and python is quite easy to learn -- moreso for a beginner than a veteran pre-OOP programmer such as myself, and I picked up Python in a heartbeat (I'm a wizard at C, but can't stand C++ ... the OOP thing just never clicked. Somehow with Python, it makes sense right away)

No college education is required to mod Civ4. Just willpower and free time. Read the Python tutorial, browse the XML files, and you'll soon be up with the rest of us, modding the game instead of complaining about your own lack of intelligence to learn how to do so.

Here you make the fatal mistake of assuming I DON'T already understand the above - quite the opposite. I’m merely of the opinion that if a developer makes the extensive modability of their game a selling point they bloody well better provide some documentation for it. EVERY game is INFINITLY modable given enough time.

It blows my mind how many of you lap this crap up – the fact that you HAVE to spend this many hours on such a trivial exercise as determining what a given function or XML tag DOES reveals what a POOR release this was, it’s not something to CELEBRATE!

 

[macsbug]

In addition, claiming that the SDK is going to HURT sales is a complete idiocy. At EBGames it is my job to sell these games. I am thoroughly addicted to Civ4, and I absolutely love the idea of how much can be modded. I sell this game to every customer who asks for a new strategy game for PC, and to most of them I explain the moddability as a major selling point -- of the 20 copies I've personally sold, you know how many cared about modding? 2. One was myself, the other, a coworker.

In short, the majority of paying Civ4 customers are unlikely to even know what an SDK *is* let alone care how great it is when it comes out. The SDk is NOT going to hurt sales in the slightest. This is a great game, out of the box. Modding it is just icing... and some very delicious icing at that.

Argue point #1 before you try to refute any of my arguments following from that statement.

Regarding editors: There's no need! i'll admit the WorldBuilder is a bit odd at first, but once you get used to it, it is MUCH more powerful than Civ3's. Scenario building is far more complicated, and we can get much more dynamic results with the ability write our own scripts for it, than anythign that could ever be achieved in Civ3. How do you modify that XML? notepad! how do you edit that python script? Notepad! you can even edit the world maps themselves in notepad! Try *that* with Civ3.

Don't like Notepad? There's dozens of FREE XML editors out there.
Don't like Notepad? There's IDLE -- totally free, and packaged with the Python language itself so you can write scripts not just for Civ4, but anything you want. FREE
Don't like WorldBuilder? We're already working on user-made standalone map-editors so just hang in there. (Rumor has it Firaxis might be working on the WorldBuilder as well... It's even suggested that it'll changeable with the SDK... heck it mgiht even be changeable with what we have out of the box!)

Want to mod a specific aspect of the game? Figure it out! It might not be possible...you'll probably waste hours and in many cases yield no results, but HEY! That's the joy of modding, right?!

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Rayinth the one thing I still worry about is new civ units(not just new skins), like what we had with Civ3. That was one of the main things that got me into Civ3 to begin with(without them I thought Civ3 was ok at least, but it was the kind of game that would have been on the self if it weren't for the new units). Scripting isn't what I worry about, since even I figured out how to mod Xwingallaince, which uses scripting text files. I have a mod I'm working on for Civ3 that eventually I would like to make a sequel for for Civ4.

 

[CyberChrist]

Regarding editors: There's no need! i'll admit the WorldBuilder is a bit odd at first, but once you get used to it, it is MUCH more powerful than Civ3's. Scenario building is far more complicated, and we can get much more dynamic results with the ability write our own scripts for it, than anythign that could ever be achieved in Civ3. How do you modify that XML? notepad! how do you edit that python script? Notepad! you can even edit the world maps themselves in notepad! Try *that* with Civ3.

I have to disagree with you on this. I don't consider the WordBuilder more powerfull or anywhere near as accessible/easy to use as the CIV3 Scenario Editor (which was pretty damn good in the final C3C version, so no need for even thinking about Notepad). I would have prefered one that didn't use the actual game engine from within the game, but rather an editor seperate from the game itself that used a 2D view with a lot more info - which is sparse in the Wordbuilder. This would probably minimize the memory needed to run to a more tolerable lag level for most people that want to fiddle around with map making. I'm hoping some modding fan will decide to make one sooner or later

As for XML/Python script editing then I doubt anyone imagined that would be included in the editor, but considering that the info is displayed and utilized in a comprehensible way in game, then I don't see why some tool making it easier/faster to alter the more 'standard' values couldn't have been included (or be included in the SDK )

CIV definetly have great potential/power for modding things that was never possible before in other other Civ incarnation, but that is no reason to applaud the developers for not including a little better support for these abilities in terms of editing tools and documentation.

Personally (and I might be naive in this) I am going to cross my fingers for Firaxis releasing a damn good SDK package in the not to distant future.

 

[maxpublic]

Instead, they simply shipped the game with it's core data files, no documentation, and forced us to guess at what everything does. What do you do? You THANK them for GIFTING you with these tasks to keep you busy.

It's not exactly rocket science, you know. Most of the variables are rather self-explanatory if you rub a few neurons together. Yes, a list of the variables and what they do would be nice, but I'm pretty sure that Firaxis has this on their 'to-do' list. I don't see any massive conspiracy afoot to provide us with the internals of the game, then deprive us of the ability to actually parse and use those internals.

And you just didn't get the core data files. You also got the most powerful scripting language I've seen in any game (as in a real programming language - Python). They're so far ahead of supposedly moddable games like Europa Universalis and Morrowind and MOO3 that it's laughable to compare them to Civ 4. In fact, I can't think of any game as moddable as Civ 4 is right now.

You know what? I was wrong – not about the fact that Firaxis will NOT put more money into improving the SDK they’re releasing – they won’t.

I'm willing to bet they'll give us the same SDK that they themselves used to build the game. That's good enough for me. That's pretty much an industry-first for gaming.

I was wrong about how people here will react when you get it. You’ll be grateful when Firaxis releases the SDK in the same type of condition they released everything else in. After all, the less polished the tools you’re given are, the more you have to “explore”, right?

Hey, look - not everyone is going to be able to use xml. Not everyone has the wit to program in Python. And not everyone will understand how to use the SDK. So what? Not everyone has what it takes. That's just the way it is. These folks can either work with the people who *do* understand these things (like they're doing right now, on the forum), or they can throw a fit over the fact that they don't have either the talent or the skills to mod this game, blaming Firaxis for their own lack.

Dear christ - just how much simpler do you want it to be? The xml files are cake, boy! Access to python means you can do *real* programming for the game! And the SDK will allow you to import 3D models. What else do you want? A Firaxis developer to hold your hand and do your bidding?

Max