Taking FFH to the Next Step

[Raizic]

There are exactly two times in my entire life where I have preferred a mod to the game it actually mods.

The first was Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942.

The second? Fall From Heaven.

The question I have is this. The Team behind Desert Combat was actually hired by the studio.

Why isn't Firaxis doing this with FFH? Imagine the level this could be taken to if the FFH team was paid for its work -- had access to source code changes as well as other paid coders/artists.

FFH is easily the best mod ever made for Civ and imo a better game as a mod then many actual games. Currently I haven't logged into Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance (my curent favorte PC game) or Mass Effect (the console game I'm playing) due to playing FFH with my friend and testing new building strats in between.

Have you ever been approached by Firaxis? I would love to write them and point out what happened with the Desert Combat team and how well that worked out.

[edit]Forgot. Didn't they approach for writing a BTS scenario? Was anything else discussed[/edit]

 

[Ekolite]

I agree. I prefer FFH in every single way to vanilla BTS. Firaxis shoould be grateful how much money Kael's made for them from people buying BTS *just* to play FFH when all the new versions were being done for BTS. I don't even like regualr civ lol.

 

[Alzara]

Here here! Go commercial. Make FfH a mighty mighty game! I'd buy it

Al

 

[Kael]

Early on Soren approached me about a job opening at Firaxis and asked me to apply. I thanked him for the amazing offer, but didn't take him up on it. I love what I do professionally, and I get paid way more than Im worth to do it. At my stage of life switching careers into the games industry just isn't finacially possible.

Also as much as I love games, I really think modding is the best of all worlds. I get to work when I want to work, take time off when I want to and I have complete control over the product. I don't need to worry about product deadlines, budgets, office politics, etc. And I dont think anyone can argue that the quality of the ideas Loki comes up with, or the art seZereth makes (to cite 2 examples) is less than anything that is "professionally" done.

So I love modding, I love working with the team I have, and I love talking with all of you guys openly about it here on the forum. I dont want to change that just to get a paycheck (I like the paycheck I have). I would like to work more with Alex, Jesse and all the guys are Firaxis. Thats probably the only real downside to not taking a job there (assuming they would have offered it).

There hasn't been any talk about making FfH a commercial product. I dont know if I would want that. As much as I would like to see it on store shelves I feel like we have so much more freedom with it as a mod. I really liked having the opportunity to make the scenario for BtS, we got the best of both worlds in that.

I actually wrote a document called "Reconstruction" as a design template for Civ5 when we were finishing our BtS work. It contained a lot of ideas for a new product that I think captured the best things about FfH, but it wasn't FfH. It was a very high level design doc (no detailed implementation) for a new model for Civ. It started with vastly differentiated factions and built the game from there. It contained an emphasis on strong characters and ideologies that could be used with any faction (much as the religion/civ mix in FfH).

I hope there are some things in that document that allow FfH to influence the next stages of Civilization. If that happens I will feel like FfH will live on.

 

[cephalo]

I agree. I prefer FFH in every single way to vanilla BTS.

You aren't the only one. This mod is a big deal. I worked my butt off on my map script for vanilla, spending months going for the perfect map for a BtS game. The Creation.py map I made for FFH was just an experiment I cooked up in a week, and it's killing PerfectWorld in download rate. There's gotta be alot of active FFH players out there.

 

[jenks]

fair enough Kael.

even bigger props for continuing as a volunteer!

 

[Alzara]

Well spoken Kael

Al

 

[TheJopa]

Hey, could we get our hands on Reconstruction or is it Firaxis property?

 

[xienwolf]

Forget that, can I get your job as being overpayed and having freetime to work on a mod?

 

[Darkheart]

LOL....and if Xienwolf can't have it.... can I?

I think sometimes, that we use our hobby to escape the thing we do for a living. When, what we do for a hobby, becomes the thing we do for a living, we'll end up trying to escape that too.

FFH is good BECAUSE it's not commercial.

GO Kael & Co.!!!!

 

[Raizic]

Early on Soren approached me about a job opening at Firaxis and asked me to apply. I thanked him for the amazing offer, but didn't take him up on it. I love what I do professionally, and I get paid way more than Im worth to do it. At my stage of life switching careers into the games industry just isn't finacially possible.

Also as much as I love games, I really think modding is the best of all worlds. I get to work when I want to work, take time off when I want to and I have complete control over the product. I don't need to worry about product deadlines, budgets, office politics, etc. And I dont think anyone can argue that the quality of the ideas Loki comes up with, or the art seZereth makes (to cite 2 examples) is less than anything that is "professionally" done.

So I love modding, I love working with the team I have, and I love talking with all of you guys openly about it here on the forum. I dont want to change that just to get a paycheck (I like the paycheck I have). I would like to work more with Alex, Jesse and all the guys are Firaxis. Thats probably the only real downside to not taking a job there (assuming they would have offered it).

There hasn't been any talk about making FfH a commercial product. I dont know if I would want that. As much as I would like to see it on store shelves I feel like we have so much more freedom with it as a mod. I really liked having the opportunity to make the scenario for BtS, we got the best of both worlds in that.

I actually wrote a document called "Reconstruction" as a design template for Civ5 when we were finishing our BtS work. It contained a lot of ideas for a new product that I think captured the best things about FfH, but it wasn't FfH. It was a very high level design doc (no detailed implementation) for a new model for Civ. It started with vastly differentiated factions and built the game from there. It contained an emphasis on strong characters and ideologies that could be used with any faction (much as the religion/civ mix in FfH).

I hope there are some things in that document that allow FfH to influence the next stages of Civilization. If that happens I will feel like FfH will live on.

I wasn't implying that the work they do wasnt' professional. Merely pointing out that with access to a dev team and the source code you could change things in Civ that cause problems in FFH and with full time graphics team you could expand what is done.

I see your point though. I love the mod myself -- it sthe only reason I even bought BTS was for FFH2. I've actually never even loaded BTS except before I figured out how to set up the short cut to have FFH load directly

 

[Darkheart]

I see your point though. I love the mod myself -- it sthe only reason I even bought BTS was for FFH2. I've actually never even loaded BTS except before I figured out how to set up the short cut to have FFH load directly

Join the club.....I'm just sorry I HAD to buy BTS.

 

[The Hereafter]

I see your point though. I love the mod myself -- it sthe only reason I even bought BTS was for FFH2. I've actually never even loaded BTS except before I figured out how to set up the short cut to have FFH load directly

/hijack

*gasps*
you can do that? do you think you could instruct me how to, or lead me to instructions please?

/hijack over

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Find the Beyond the Sword folder, go to mods, go to Fall From Heaven 2 version most recent, and inside there will be a shortcut. Drag to desktop. Defaults to here:
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2 030
Repeat with each new version.

 

[seZereth]

being paid for working on FfH would be a dream come true!
I for example got an offer to do a lot of texture work for an online pbem game with 3d map. they will pay me, if i take the offer and polish their graphics. but that would mean a lot less time for FfH :/ but finally some money from doing graphics.
I probably will take that offer, just because as a student I need the money and I can do what they need.
But Kael is right, the freedom you have if you dont get paid is probably worth it

 

[Mesix]

I have to agree with the coments about the quality of the mod. Thanks Kael and team for such a great shareware product.

BTW, another mod that was better than the game was Counterstrike. That was the only FPS that I played and actually enjoyed. I prefer strategy, RPG, and economic sims (go figure).

 

[hexagonian]

I think sometimes, that we use our hobby to escape the thing we do for a living. When, what we do for a hobby, becomes the thing we do for a living, we'll end up trying to escape that too.

And that hits the nail on the head!!!!

 

[Kael]

Hey, could we get our hands on Reconstruction or is it Firaxis property?

Im going to keep it private. Mostly because if Firaxis does use any ideas similiar to the design output I don't want anyone saying the idea came from me. I think that would detract from the credit they deserve for the work. And it would be largely unjustified since although Im glad to be able to offer my 2 cents, the real challenge isnt in presenting ideas, but in picking between the wealth of good ideas that are out there to make the best game possible.

Plus its impossible to say that if Civ5 does use some of the concepts from reconstruction that they wouldnt have had it anyway. I dont know who the lead design will be for Civ5, but Firaxis certainly has a good bunch of amazing designers to draw from and they are more than capable of coming up with brilliant ideas on their own. If we happen to have both thought of the same thing it doesn't mean i invented the idea (after all we are all essentially talking about permutations on Sid's design anyway).

 

[Raizic]

I just wish I could get FFH to work on my vista 64 machine ;/ Keeps crashing to desktop right before i get into the game. Tried turning off videos no go. I hate having to switch machines to play civ (i play forged alliance for supcom on my vista machine lol)

 

[Ekolite]

Hmmm well, much as I love FFH, I can't help but think that the icing on the cake really is that its completely free. lol