WTP 4.0.2 Published - Community Feedback

[PH2]

I don't think I was overly negative with my comments early on, just being honest, because the new direction does have a really steep learning curve. However, between playing A LOT and the handy charts that were produced a couple of weeks ago, it has greatly helped and I am really enjoying it now. I will say, all of the new resources and goods and how many of them interlock has basically killed off playing the game on anything but Huge. And, truthfully, some of the goods take so many steps to produce that I'll likely never attempt to produce them.

One of the things I'd like to see to help with the early game is that the units who show up on the docks be more likely to be early game units - more of the "building block" professions (even if it's more plain colonists to start instead of actual professional units) as opposed to, say, Tailors and other units used for more advanced production. I don't know if that's possible, but I think it would help with the "WTH am I going to do with this dude?" feeling I get when some of these units show up on the docks early in the games.

Anyway, just to reiterate, a huge THANK YOU for producing the mod. Your work is greatly appreciated and enjoyed.

 

[raystuttgart]

... if it's more plain colonists to start instead of actual professional units) as opposed to ...

You are aware that it is possible to simply erase their specialization, right?
Then they can train in whatever you assign them to by Learning by Doing. Or you just put them in schools.

But otherwise yeah it would also be possible to reduce the chances of specialists spawned.
So if you want or somebody else wants to actually implement that in XML (Civ4UnitInfos.xml) and share it with the mod, go ahead.

Anyway, just to reiterate, a huge THANK YOU for producing the mod.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

 

[PH2]

Yes, I'm aware of that. Just thinking through possible fixes. I have no XML experience and the only time I tried to mess with it, I screwed up my game so bad I had to reinstall. So I'll just stick with what you guys produce.

 

[alexdmn]

I don't know if it should be written in this branch of the forum.
I dare to suggest changes in some names and terms, if it is appropriate. In my opinion, it is a inconvenient to use the colopedia (it is not so critical in the game), because some raw materials are named the same as bonus resources. Of course, this is not a bug, but sometimes it is confusing when learning the concepts of the game.
English is not my native language, as you can probably see from my messages , so I may be wrong somewhere, but I will offer my version of corrections.

 

[Jaded1]

I've heard a lot of people talk about the amount of professions or not getting enough basic ones. Or even that they should be retrained. I don't get it.. I have never had an issue with whatever shows up, simply because I look at what the Primary and secondary skills are. Every Profession can work somewhere else better than a basic Colonist with their Secondary Skill. And if they can't just use them as a basic Colonist until they can be used for something better. With all the new resources you can make plenty of spare gold and then be buying exactly what you need for your Colonies freeing up unused Professionals to go to Cities that will have use for them, now or in the future. In fact I was so happy to see that Dock Workers are now interchangeable, in the past Rope Makers secondary was Tobacco and Sail Cloth Makers Secondary was Cloth. Now a Rope makers Secondary is Sail Cloth and vice versa for Sail Cloth Makers. Before recruiting a Professional from the dock jump into the Purchase List, or even the Colopedia, and look at what all their skills are. Then you'll know which of the docks professionals you should recruit first. And then you may get lucky and what you need more might show up. But at least you won't feel like you've wasted a trip going to collect them. Or the amount of turns wasted to retrain them once you bought them back.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Specifically Ray and dirle: some of the answers I got are totally toxic and full of antagonism. Using all caps, RGB lights, passive aggressive words, escalation to nonsense... I'm pretty ashamed of the way some people handle their frustration and a simple conversation. You are totally crossing the lines of acceptable behavior on a forum.

What makes anyone think they have the right to berate the modders! What makes you think YOU are special!

MIND YOUR ATTITUDE AND YOUR TONE!

Do you really think all of us 10 team members were so stupid that we did not realize that and YOU need to tell us again?

I am so thankful that we are being advised by smart people ... because otherwise we surely would never have noticed how stupid we were ...

See you in a couple of months once I may be motivated again to cope with ungrateful people from community ...

...

While my reply was neutral, polite and calm... these type of replies leave a lot to be desired. Full of ego and unresolved frustration directed towards some random person on the net. I also specifically said I did not agree with the user's pov, but some people just prefer to distortionate my words, read between lines and write their rant.

I simply gave a hint to both sides to calm down a bit and apply a bit of empathy... and to simply accept docs are lacking -being assertive- instead of attacking confused users.

if people only want to read praise, that's just toxic positivity. No one has said you are not doing a great work (?) No one denies users are -sometimes- annoying when they don't take their time reading things already replied.. A modder may also do a great work and be a totally toxic person on forums with their replies. This is not the first time happening.

@raystuttgart I fully respect your work as modder, but as person your words speak by their-selves. A forum is not a place for therapy where you can direct your anger against users.

@Nightinggale would want to thank you, since you were the only one replying -to me- in a reasonable way.

I will refrain from replying anymore on this mod's forum, although I will play it, because some people have serious problems with assertive communication. So maybe you will not see more replies which "make" them go on rage mode, but that doesn't solve the base problem. All this will have an impact on the long term.

Since you are a team, and not just a one-person-team, I would want to ask the entire team to have a talk about these behaviors, since one thing is not agreeing about some feedback and another thing is venting these rants and violent replies every time a user don't write a "positive" feedback. Things like that are really toxic for a community.

 

[raystuttgart]

While my reply was neutral, polite and calm...

Sorry, but I just do not consider "advising" other people to be polite or respectful - quite the contrary, it is presumptious, arrogant and disrespectful.
Especially if the people you try to advise have absolutely no relationship to you and already reacted negatively to such tries to "advise" several times ...

... and to simply accept docs are lacking

We already confirmed this several times and thus are working on it.
So why is it necessary to keep pushing and accusing ?

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... as person your words speak by their-selves.

Agreed.
I am not a person that likes to be "advised".

I very much appreciate the freedom of modders to do whatever they want with their own time and effort.
And all tries to push us modders in one way or another into some direction will get such reactions from me.

... if people only want to read praise, ...

Not at all, but maybe discussions can be done respectfully without trying to force your will and without trying to "advise".
And maybe sometimes it is possible to accept that others just do not share your opinion and still do what they want with their own time.

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... but that doesn't solve the base problem. All this will have an impact on the long term.

Honestly I have absolutely no idea what that "base problem" is that needs to be solved.
Modders being able to make their own decisions and finding consense internally in the team?

Modders keep working on the things they are motivated to do and will not work on things that they are not motivated to do.
The only thing that really matters in modding is that the modders enjoy modding and playing their own creations.

Also the long term "impact" just depends on the motivation of modders to realize their dreams.
So as long as modders can be creative and have fun modding will continue ... if not, it will stop.

Usually it is very clear to the modders themselves what they like and usually they also find a good consense in the team.
So the less (non-contributing) people from community try to advise or dictate what these modders should do the better.

Modding is fun because you can work on things you really want for yourself.
Modding has nothing to do with being a paid worker that needs to do what others say.

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This is not the first time happening.

I fully agree and it is definitely not fun.

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I would want to ask the entire team to have a talk about these behaviors ...

And here we are again advising and trying to build pressure in some way to push your will ...
Trust me, we speak quite openly and honstely internally. Still all of us are free to make their own decisions.

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I will refrain from replying anymore on this mod's forum, ...

That is your decision. It is a free forum.
I personally have no general issues with replies from community as long as ...

- they are respectul and they do not try to "advise"
- they do not try to push modders to do what you want
- they are constructive and not just about "who is right"

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Since you are a team, and not just a one-person-team ...

Absolutely correct, we are 10 people that contribute as we are motivated and discuss everything necessary.
Which is why I considered these continuoss attempts of people not contributing to advise even more impolite.

But well, I am not going to pretend I speak for all of the team as there is no boss.
Especially now that I am taking a break, I can speak just for myself.

But honestly I really doubt that others in the team like to be advised either.
Maybe they are just a little bit more patient with such posts ...

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In other words:
Respect the freedom of modders to create mods according to their own liking and personal taste.
Respect that these modders will do it in their own ways and their own speed as they find time and motivation.
Respect that there may be other opinions as yours and nobody needs to be advised or lectured.

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Summary:

Keep having fun modding and playing.

Everybody is welcome to contribute or join the team and thus shape the mod to his / her liking or create and publish modmods.
If you feel you are entitled to tell modders what to do because you are a "customer" ... sorry to disappoint.

Thus please stop advising and pushing modders to do what you want just because you are too lazy to do it yourself.
These modders invest their time and effort for free and have no obligation to do what you want.

If you however prefer to act with "customer attitude" mayber consider which impact this may have.
Because it is definitely not what is going to motivate the modders to create content for you ...

 

[dirle]

A quick note about a specific point... if dozens of users since weeks keep reporting frustration, confusion, the same doubts again and again, and have problems finding how things work, maybe it's time to take note of it and applying a bit of auto-critic. (about the in-game help texts and docs)

Using the positive feedback against the negative one doesn't help either. Neither tone policing.

Specifically Ray and dirle: some of the answers I got are totally toxic and full of antagonism. Using all caps, RGB lights, passive aggressive words, escalation to nonsense... I'm pretty ashamed of the way some people handle their frustration and a simple conversation. You are totally crossing the lines of acceptable behavior on a forum.

So let me get this right

- tone policing and calling out disrespectful posts *are acceptable if geared towards modders or users calling out disrespectful users
- *complaining about but somehow not caring how yourself, Isabelxxx have a history of posts where you behave as you were called out by raystuttgart

I do not take kindly to these manipulative tactics employed by you or any other 'users' to a mod where you do not pay for or put any amount of work into.

I've read posts after posts and I've seen plenty of aggressive posts from users not liking how this or that is implemented and NO ONE gets to act high and mighty when called out on lack of respect or attitude and has to put up with any of your tantrums when *entitlement is at fault.

This is my last reply on this matter as all I had to say, is said.

 

[Barra]

I have to agree to IsabelXXX, myself had this feeling here more then once.
My english is not good enough to express it like isabelxxx did, but Im with her?/him.

Raystuttgart, we dont know each other, thats fine. But your tone is sometimes as described. Your statements do not make any differnce in general.
While I apraise all your hard work and commitment, you seem to "forget" about the responsibility going with such a position.
Not all people are modders, not all peoples want to be advised by you (this is what you do in your answer )
If one then the mods had to stay calm. I respect that you seem to be in a difficult phase, your motivation seems lacking BUT then just dont answer to posts.
In General there is a ModTeam for the mod wtp, so its not like an general colo4 chat, adressed to firaxis.
You are in charge and you are in charge because of your free will.
Again thanks for all the patience, input and features you had provided to us the community over the past years...but kind of toxic hits the nail

ps: I will just remind you about our discord chat yesterday, you are derailing the topi and afterwards accusing me to be in the wrong room.
AT the end you helped me but this is misbehaviour/abuse of might

Edit: May I "advise" to take look at "Eisberg-Modell" Schulz von Thun

 

[raystuttgart]

...but kind of toxic hits the nail

Accepted.

It was kind of my intention to make clear that the line is slowly but surely overstepped.
Some posts here and also on e.g. Steam really overdid it and obviously the feedback before was not clear enough about that ...

We told several times that the team is tired and exhausted from WTP 4.0 and wants to take it slower to recover motivation and keep at least working on bugfix releases.
But still some people in community feel it is a great idea to keep critizising, pushing and advising to destroy the last rest of motivation some team members may have ...

Thus right now I am seriously annoyed by being critizised and "advised".
That is why I now take a break for a couple of months.

You are in charge and you are in charge because of your free will.

I am not "in charge". I have absolutely no right to tell any other modder what he should do or not.
I may often take time to answer ... because I care about this project ... but that is not the same as "being in charge".

In general I take most time to post in public for answering because it is often feedback about stuff I implemented or am involved
Especially realted to things I implemented it I simply can answer best what I actually tried to achieve and also take responsibility for it.

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Otherwise I already tried to reply to everything ... even if some of my answers may not be the ones you want.
I still hope some of you enjoy playing the mod and if you are a modder also still enjoy modding ...

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The rest of the team is still around though.
Which I am really happy about.

Maybe community should try to not annoy the rest of the active team though.
Because it would be great to see the work on the mod continue ...

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Edit: May I "advise" to take look at "Eisberg-Modell" Schulz von Thun

I know that model. I have been trained as organisational consultant and working as a manager for many years.
But trust me I have never been trying to hide my feelings, thoughts or motivations. I am quite honest about them.

Spoiler :

All I really care about is:

1) Having fun modding in a team of friends
2) Creating a mod that I like to play myself

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And currently both of these factors are not working.
Modding is currently not fun for me - partially caused by private reasons, partially caused by community discussions.

I had to spend way too much time in pointless discussions wasting time and distracting me from actual modding.
I am also simply tired of endlessly defending and justifying and repeating discussions I already had 20 times.

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Just a few remarks of "abuse of power":

Trying to take responsibility and investing time and effort always comes with power.
So everybody contributing in the team has power to influence and shape the mod

But how do you define "abuse"?

Is trying to create conent I like and actually also publishing it abuse of power?
Is trying to prevent anything harmful from the mod abuse of power?
Is having an opinion of my own but still working to a common goal abuse of power?
Is asking for respect in communication towards the team abuse of power?
Is discussing and finding consense on ideas and concepts with team abuse of power?
Is trying not to waste time and have the team work without stress abuse of power?

I may not always agree with everybody in community, but how should I "abuse my power"?
The worst thing I can really do is stop modding in public ... but that is as much power as I have.

And that is actually kind of the power I will now use ...
(At least until I feel motivated to "abuse my power to mod" again ...)

Because naturally I also have wishes and motivation of my own - like everybody.
And actually those wishes and motivation are very well aligned with the rest of the team.
They are simply not aligned with the wishes and motivation of some people in community as it seems.

... this is misbehaviour/abuse of might ...

Maybe, but the only thing I demand is that others do not try to tell me what to do in my spare time as I also do not tell them what to do.
If being free as a modder to do what you really enjoy is "abuse of might" ... well ok ... I will then just stop "abusing my might" over my own private life (in public).

If it is "misbehaviour" to you that I share my work with the mod team and community, then sorry for that.
But I have definitely NEVER pushed anything into the mod that team and community majority did not accept.

For everything I ever created I let the team decide if it should become integrated in the core mod or not.
Never ever have I challenged a team member veto if one of my features was rejected - which has happened more than once.

Never ever have I refused to let somebody use my work to create something of his own if appropriate credit was given.
Never ever have I refused to listen to constructive feedback and wishes of people actually contributing.

---------

So sorry for being such an abusive person creating and sharing content with team and community and let them decide if it should become part of the core mod or not.
If creating content and sharing it with public is such an abuse of power and such a misbehaviour ... it is really better I stop it ... at least in public.

Because having "power" is really not what I care about.
All I care about is having fun creating the stuff I want to actually play.

It is really frustrating for me that community for some reason thinks it can refuse modders their right to create stuff they like in their spare time.
It is really frustrating for me that people not contributing for some reason think they are entitled to tell people actually contributing how to work.

 

[ArchdukeLiet]

A colleague of mine often said that 'paper does not smile' with regards to e-mail discussions that got out of hand.
A lot of discussions - probably also this one - would take place in a different way when we would all be in a live setting and language barriers wouldn't exist.

What it most of the times comes down to:
- We as modders always carefully read what feedback we get at the forum, discord, etc. We seriously take that into account.
- The best phase to provide input is when new features are getting developed. That's when we are most open to shaping things.
- Suggestions etc. in a later phase are still well-valued, but by then we often had loads of careful discussions within the modding team and we've done a lot of thinking on each subject.
- We are all humans. Both the modders and the players. So I understand that players sometimes give well-meant advice. Also I understand that it can get into an allergic zone when the advice concerns subjects that we gave a lot of attention to be the way as they are.
- As in real life, compliments do motivate. Criticism, either meant or not meant, often does not. I'm not saying that there can be no criticism, but I do want to raise awareness how it simply works out.
- What is ever more clear for me since I joined the modding team: there are not so many ideas that we really disagree on. A number of suggestions are not followed up on because it is a matter of taste, where it is unlikely that we come to a different outcome after all previous deliberations. But most of the time it is a matter of priorities, given the limited time that we have besides family, friends, work, etc. We have to choose for the areas to improve on where we can have the best effect and where we find the most motivation for to work on. Probably only the top 5% of all the ideas that we have or modifications that we would like to make are actually implemented.
- WTP has a long history. It has been improved incredibly in the past, we've done a huge job with WTP 4.0 and also since that launch we've been working a lot to enhance it even further. I'm sure that with with a constructive mindset we will get the best future result.

 

[Barra]

You earn my sincere respect SIr!

I dont want to grant at all...
Love the mod, which, without you just would not exist.

WritingBull, Schmiddie, Nightinggale and so one
You all are the pillars of this fantastic gem.

While I was creating your praise I found this:

https://www.civforum.de/showthread.php?57130-TAC-Dank&p=9177106#post9177106

So the people love IT, you are doing a great job man.
Thank you !!!

 

[raystuttgart]

Thank you !!!

You are welcome.

You all are the pillars of this fantastic gem.

Yes, many modders worked hard on what is now WTP for many years - almost 15 years to be precise.
And it has been shared for free - not paid service that entitles anybody to make demands.

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It is just necessary for community to understand that we modders are also real people with a real life.
Sometimes it is enough pressure and negative feedback and more of it is at some point counterproductive.

If we react negatively it is mostly then when it does damage to the moral and motivation of the team.
Please remember that the only thing that keeps this project alive is the motivation of modders contributing.

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As already stated we mostly mod for ourselves because we want to realize our own dreams and wishes.
But also as already stated, everybody is welcome to contribute or join the team to shape the mod as well.

It may be hard to accept for some people in community but modders simply have no boss and also no customers.
And it really does matter in which tone communication is started ... because that is the way it usually also ends.

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Also what many people in community may not understand is that what you see here in the forum is just a tiny percentage of the discussions we have in our internal area.
We simply can not discuss and agree everything with hundreds of people that are not actively involved in the creation of this mod - it would cost too much time.

So maybe sometimes consider that you do not have all the information necessary to understand why things have been decided or how they were implemented.
And endlessly repeating discussions months or sometimes years after concepts were decided and features were implemented is not really helping to make progress.

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Thus sometimes accept if we tell that some discussion - especially in a demanding tone - do not make sense to continue.
Sometimes it simply does not interest us to invest our work ... sometimes we just have other plans ... sometimes it is just too much effort.

Thus please sometimes accept a "No" to a feature or idea - in most cases we try to explain.
Modding is not about "right or wrong". It is about modders finding time and motivation.

Or maybe sometimes accept "It is already planned but we just need time to implement".
Alternativey maybe accept a "Feel free to contribute and share so we will be done faster."

 

[Nightinggale]

- What is ever more clear for me since I joined the modding team: there are not so many ideas that we really disagree on. A number of suggestions are not followed up on because it is a matter of taste, where it is unlikely that we come to a different outcome after all previous deliberations. But most of the time it is a matter of priorities, given the limited time that we have besides family, friends, work, etc. We have to choose for the areas to improve on where we can have the best effect and where we find the most motivation for to work on. Probably only the top 5% of all the ideas that we have or modifications that we would like to make are actually implemented.

This sums up a lot about the modding project in general. We can't do everything we want within reasonable time. A lot of the time, requests seems valid, but we have nobody to work on them because everybody are busy doing other stuff.

On top of that, there are a whole lot of features, which we would like to make, but haven't started yet because nobody knows how to do it yet. I'm not talking programming difficulty (WTP is really blessed with quality programmers compared to other mods), but more like how to make it to make it just work with the gameplay and make it feel natural to the player. Lack of a tech tree has been mentioned. An interface to tell the player "you are short X resources for settler profession" or something like that. Right now new players miss out on the settler profession existing because it's hidden as long as they don't have the resources and they won't gather the resources unless they know they should aim for it and then they are stuck with a single colony game. There are other such issues where we all agree we should do better, but we have yet to figur out how to do it better.

- Suggestions etc. in a later phase are still well-valued, but by then we often had loads of careful discussions within the modding team and we've done a lot of thinking on each subject.

Yeah changing something as simple as how fast a unit can move might do more than just changing the movement points. It shifts the balance between ships and it might make other ships better or worse relatively speaking and we we aren't careful, we will end up with ship A, which is cheaper than ship B, but they are the same except B is slower. When the game becomes unbalanced, it's less fun, which means even changing something this simple needs to be considered if it will result in unintended side effects.

In other words even if players consider a change simple, it might not be as simple to actually make the change or the change might not have the effect the player assumes it will have. There can be many reasons why a change might look good to a player, but in reality it really wouldn't be better for the game to make that change. The modders might at time come through as arrogant by denying a lot of proposals, but we actually do reject internal ideas too because it's as simple as not all ideas are good once you consider all aspects of it.

Still a lot of good ideas come from player feedback and in general it is most welcome. Players should feel most welcome providing constructive feedback. I will admit that it doesn't look great in that regard with the current thread so I started to look into it. Turns out that there is a history to this across threads and time so readers of this thread will only get a fraction of the story and none of the reasons behind how it turned out this way, which in turn gives most readers the wrong idea about what happened.

I won't go into details with that happened. However I will say a few headlines, which would be useful going forward.

• If a modder rejects a proposal, don't propose it again and again until it is accepted. It won't get accepted this way
• Accept that certain details will be considered "personal taste" and that we have to pick one rather than adapt the taste of everybody
• Consider how constructive the feedback is, particularly if it's something, which has already been mentioned
• If you read a thread about a specific feature, don't try to derail the thread by posting about a different feature

For instance, the learning curve is too steep. We know that. It has been mentioned for ages that we need to unlock gradually. Repeating it won't help when the repeat doesn't have a solution to the roadblock, which has prevented us from fixing the issue. For this, I'm actually most annoyed by the fact that we have been brainstorming for ages and nobody have figured out how we want tech progression to work, only that we want it.

Another issue is when people say colopedia isn't good enough. We all agree with that statement. I'm the one to have worked in it last and my biggest issue is figuring out what precisely to do with it. "Better" doesn't really give a proper clue what to do. Yes I know about the request about cargo listing what it will be used for in addition to how to produce it, but other than that it has been somewhat limited regarding what to do with it. I might end up rewriting the whole colopedia code at some point in order to make it much easier to alter in the future as well as adapting it to various screen resolutions so if people have ideas on how it should be, ideally I would know prior to starting to really work on colopedia again.

I think this sums up how communication between the modders and players should work and in most cases that is how it works. We just had one breakdown in communication and it is draining on all of us. Nobody wants that.

Sometimes it is enough pressure and negative feedback and more of it is at some point counterproductive.

If I react negatively it is mostly then when it does damage to the moral and motivation of the team.

This sums up a key element in what happened. I won't look to the past, but I will say we should try to stay productive and happy.

 

[Nightinggale]

One of the things I'd like to see to help with the early game is that the units who show up on the docks be more likely to be early game units - more of the "building block" professions (even if it's more plain colonists to start instead of actual professional units) as opposed to, say, Tailors and other units used for more advanced production. I don't know if that's possible, but I think it would help with the "WTH am I going to do with this dude?" feeling I get when some of these units show up on the docks early in the games.

If anything, this ties back to the missing tech progression. As I recall the current code, if we add some event or similar, which unlocks a unit, the existing "add unit to docks" code will exclude said unit until it's unlocked even without updating the "units on dock" code.

some raw materials are named the same as bonus resources. Of course, this is not a bug, but sometimes it is confusing when learning the concepts of the game.

This is a valid point and I have forwarded this to the people in charge of the text as I tend to not touch that part myself.

Using all caps, RGB lights

Just for the record, multiple text colors, bold and similar is the general approach of Ray to write regardless of context, sometimes even for internal one on one communication. Think of it as providing extra emphasis on specific words, something you can do in speech, but is hard to convey in writing.

I am not "in charge". I have absolutely no right to tell any other modder what he should do or not.
I may often take time to answer ... because I care about this project ... but that is not the same as "being in charge".

If we should point to a single person as being "in charge", then I would point to myself. I'm in charge of who have write access to the mod, discord memberships (well everything related to discord) and I decided to release 4.0.2 without prior agreement. Ray was asleep and woke up to a surprise release (I really wanted to have that crash fix out ASAP). Having said that, we do not have a super strict hierarchy as we tend to work together towards goals we agree on.

ps: I will just remind you about our discord chat yesterday, you are derailing the topi and afterwards accusing me to be in the wrong room.

I will admit it. I was a major culprit in letting #programming go way off topic. In retrospect I should have made a new channel for the kind of talk, which took place, but I kind of just went with the flow. I was somewhat aware of it at the time, but decided to ignore it because I selfishly just wanted to have fun a the moment.

It was kind of my intention to make clear that the line is slowly but surely overstepped.
Some posts here and also on e.g. Steam really overdid it and obviously the feedback before was not clear enough about that ...

We told several times that the team is tired and exhausted from WTP 4.0 and wants to take it slower to recover motivation and keep at least working on bugfix releases.
But still some people in community feel it is a great idea to keep critizising, pushing and advising to destroy the last rest of motivation some team members may have ...

Thus right now I am seriously annoyed by being critizised and "advised".
That is why I now take a break for a couple of months.

Yeah there have been a bunch of "you guys are so stupid for not doing what I want you to do despite me not even telling you in advance". At some point enough is enough. We can say all sorts of stuff about how some company PR team should have handled it, communication models and stuff like that, but in the end we are just hobbyist modders and we are human. We are not obligated to give out the mod to anybody, but we do it anyway for free. It's a gift. Imagine somebody gifting you a house and then you go "but the color is all wrong. Go repaint it and I want that wall knocked down and... ". Well you get the idea. A gift is a gift and the receiver can make requests, which can be denied, but the receiver can't make demands or get rude when it's not perfect.

As for demotivating issues, I feel like I keep getting pushed back to doing bugfixes only. I feel like I'm back to the situation I was in just before 4.0 was released where I have a todo list of what to do prior to releasing and it's the leftover tasks nobody did because they are less fun. All the fun stuff now exist after the next release. We have such an interesting roadmap, but that's not what I'm working on.

- We as modders always carefully read what feedback we get at the forum, discord, etc. We seriously take that into account.

Somebody (sorry, forgot who it was) proposed something for Medieval Conquest back in 2015 or something like that. It got me thinking and I worked on the idea, extended on it, reviewed how to get the most out of it etc and the end result is CivEffects, which is a concept, which unlocks such a great potential for xml modding and it boosts performance. It makes it possible for civics and traits (among other things) to share code and it is the cornerstone in any future tech progression implementation. Sure most of this wasn't in the original proposal, but it was a proposal, which got the ball rolling in my mind. Indeed we care about proposals. Once in a while there is a must have gem of an idea.

- WTP has a long history. It has been improved incredibly in the past, we've done a huge job with WTP 4.0 and also since that launch we've been working a lot to enhance it even further. I'm sure that with with a constructive mindset we will get the best future result.

Colonization modding started as soon as the game was released in 2008, through at the time modding build on top of experience gained from Civilization 4 modding, which started in 2005/6 (DLL modding was unlocked in an update a year after the release). Since WTP builds on top of experience from most if not all colonization mods, it's valid to argue that WTP started in 2005, 2006 or 2008 despite it wasn't called We The People until 2017. To put this into perspective, there are people born after modding on the civ4 engine started, who are driving cars today. It's a long history indeed.

You earn my sincere respect Sir!

I don't want to grant at all...
Love the mod, which, without you just would not exist.

Thank you.

Yeah I'm fully aware that I have played a key role in making WTP what it is today and that it wouldn't be here without me. Back in 2017, Colonization modding in general died. Then we were 4 people, who got together and decided to resurrect RaR. Out of those people, I'm the only one left, who works consistently every week. I don't think people realize how close all of Colonization modding was to die at that point in time. Most of the team has been been build on top of what we created back then, even if a few of the members are returning members from pre-WTP.

Fun fact about that time. When we brainstormed for a name for the reborn mod, we came down to two candidates. We all know which one we picked, but it's very little known that the other one was "Conquest of Paradise". WTP was close to being COP.

 

[Barra]

...

Colonization modding started as soon as the game was released in 2008, through at the time modding build on top of experience gained from Civilization 4 modding, which started in 2005/6 (DLL modding was unlocked in an update a year after the release). Since WTP builds on top of experience from most if not all colonization mods, it's valid to argue that WTP started in 2005, 2006 or 2008 despite it wasn't called We The People until 2017. To put this into perspective, there are people born after modding on the civ4 engine started, who are driving cars today. It's a long history indeed.


Thank you.

Yeah I'm fully aware that I have played a key role in making WTP what it is today and that it wouldn't be here without me. Back in 2017, Colonization modding in general died. Then we were 4 people, who got together and decided to resurrect RaR. Out of those people, I'm the only one left, who works consistently every week. I don't think people realize how close all of Colonization modding was to die at that point in time. Most of the team has been been build on top of what we created back then, even if a few of the members are returning members from pre-WTP.

Fun fact about that time. When we brainstormed for a name for the reborn mod, we came down to two candidates. We all know which one we picked, but it's very little known that the other one was "Conquest of Paradise". WTP was close to being COP.

Hehe you have no issue, taking the responsibility for it, but yeah you earned it too, for sure

Didnt knew this, so another nerd fact for me
WTP is the way better decision to COP not just because of its acronym

We the People, this phrase...is so much more...
It fits so good, if there were ever an official DLC release, it would have been called: We the people ..but it had no chance to reach the depth of the original (mod)
Its somehow like Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 vs JA3 . The new iteration looks promising but non company could beat fan projects like these or 1.13 or the Stuff of the Bethesda communitys

 

[Nightinggale]

Hehe you have no issue, taking the responsibility for it, but yeah you earned it too, for sure

At first I didn't really take credit for it, but others have pushed to convince me otherwise. I will say that the history of WTP is like building a tower. You can point to one floor and go "I made this one and without it, the top would fall down". However at different times different floors were built and they ended up being just a critical for supporting the top floor. For instance if Ray didn't make the push to create RaR from TAC, then the chain of events wouldn't have occurred, which years later allowed WTP to start based on the final version of RaR.

So yes without me we likely wouldn't have had WTP today. However I'm totally not the only one, who can make that claim and I will not pretend to be solely responsible. In fact I wouldn't even be able to mod alone. To do that you would need to be a jack of all trades, doer of everything, master of none. I'm completely specialized in the programming aspect of modding and I forward all other tasks to other people. Today we are blessed with having enough people to allow people to specialize, which means as a team working together we are more than just the sum of the team members.

 

[ElMattador666]

raystuttgart just kindly sent me some lovely pictures if anyone wants to see how it looks! Gorgeous!

View attachment 659131 View attachment 659132 View attachment 659133 View attachment 659134 View attachment 659135 View attachment 659136 View attachment 659137 View attachment 659138

JESUS.... Didnt see this update,,, my version only have 2 rows of colony stuff, and now You have 3 rows... too much micro managment for me....

Im back here to get some help finding the XML that allows to edit the Shipwreck loot. any help where to find it?? Tks

 

[Nightinggale]

JESUS.... Didnt see this update,,, my version only have 2 rows of colony stuff, and now You have 3 rows... too much micro managment for me....

I would recommend that you try it out before assuming you can't handle it.

Im back here to get some help finding the XML that allows to edit the Shipwreck loot. any help where to find it?? Tks

Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4GoodyInfo.xml
Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

First one sets what happens when you encounter a goody. Second one is the difficulty level (called handicap internally) where there is a list of which goodies you can get. The game picks a random one so if one is mentioned multiple times it becomes more likely to pick that one.

 

[ElMattador666]

im

I would recommend that you try it out before assuming you can't handle it.

Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4GoodyInfo.xml
Assets\XML\GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

First one sets what happens when you encounter a goody. Second one is the difficulty level (called handicap internally) where there is a list of which goodies you can get. The game picks a random one so if one is mentioned multiple times it becomes more likely to pick that one.

I am trying it out! its alot more complex! But i had to change your ships and sea animal values, for example a Kraken with 2 strenght its absurd... same as a old bishop... changed to 40! Carrack with more power then merchant ship,,.Caravels are same size as sloops, so both can go up large rivers! im a fan of Pirate games, and some values didnt have any logic..

Also found a big error in Veteran 4 and 5 promotions with values of 100 and 200 heal per turn in neutral and enemy land... better then Surgeon!!! fix that for others.

In my game also tweaked other promotions like navaltrader, no reason to loose 10% combat strenght to not get a cargo space on any level.

But a big thank you for all the effort in making mods for a game with almost 20 years old! Better the Civ6 cartoons!

EDIT: Cant find where are the limitations of XP units get from combat? what XML have that? tks