Supporting modders with our Torque games?

#1 I plan to release my non-engine source, script and non-script, whenever my game is done. For me the question isn't why do it, it's why _not_ do it?

#2 Take counter strike as an example of what can happen with good modder support. My opinion is that you should release as much as you feel comfortable with. You never know what cool things people might do with it.

#3 I have to agree with John on this one. The only way this community is going to thrive is by sharing things. Just make sure that anything you contribute gets a "credit this" clause. No single person can think of all possible outcomes for the use of resources. The more intellects chewing on stuff the better off society/this community will be.

#4 I think you guys are missing my point. I'm saying that people who want to mod a Torque game can just as easily acquire the license and do their own standalone game. You're comparing Half-Life's Counter-Strike to a possible Torque mod. Is the Half-Life engine available for $100? If it were, I'm sure Half-Life would have been innitially made as a standalone game, considering it's a total conversion. People who want to make a total conversion for a Torque game might as well just get the license. Do you understand what I mean?

#5 I get what you're saying, Jim.

The way I look at it, Torque-based games *are* mods. And why would someone want to mod a mod?

For the project we've recently started on, I've already decided to rip out nearly all of the modding support in the final release.

This has *nothing* to do with supporting (or not) the GG community. We'll do what we can to give back to the GG community at least as much as we "take" from it in terms of expertise and examples and just generally being helpful. But that doesn't mean we have to support players dinking with our game mechanics. Especially since we're planning the game to be primarily online-only.

Like Jim said, if someone wants to make their own Torque-based mod, they can buy a license. If they already own Tribes 2, they can use that.

-David
Samu Games

#6 Partially because of the kind of game we're making, my team definetly plans to support modders.
However, I think it's almost always a great idea to support modders.
1) Mod ability draws people to your game-
Some people will buy a game just to mod for it (I know some people talking about buying Mirrorwind because you can mod it). Certain people love to mod, and if an interesting and adaptable game is modable, they'll jump on the bandwagon.
2) Mods draw people to your game-
People love to play mods. Sometimes mods are better than the actual game, they always give a different experience from the standard levels (which hopefully your fans will have played millions of times), and they're fun to watch develop (don't tell me you've never gone to a mod site for a game to see the latest screenshots!).
3) Modders are good developers-
Quite often, Modders can be great people to recruit to your team, especially if you're doing something else with the same engine or game series. They're usually very dedicated (they've been working their butts off on mods for free, and now they're being payed) and they usually respect you if you've made a game they mod. They have skills already, and understand the general idea of how to develop for your style of game.

That's all I can think of for the moment. In any case, Modders greatly help a game grow and prosper long past what it's normal years would be. In almost any situation (except, say, a MMORPG), they're a great asset, and really easy to support in Torque.

Then again, I may just be biased because I used to mod for a game, which brought me here to garagegames and led to me working on Children of Mars. But it's not against the law to be biased, so there.

-Evan

#7 Ahh, I think a lot of gamers would rather add content to an existing game/universe rather than starting from scratch on their own (think of all the non developer end users). There is a difference between a new game and a mod. Take the slow start of this community. You have not seen a totally new game because a lot of the Tribes 2 code/graphics was taken out and not instantly available to be tweaked. The developers are busy creating new things from scratch that would ordinarilly be taken for granted in a mod. The gamer that plays your game will be more than likely interested in enhancing what you have already given them, not creating a new world from scratch. Then if they really want to make their very own game they can create a new one because yours will be copyrighted.

Evan also has some excellent points.

#8 I think you miss the point.

Torque games are not mods of Torque (or Tribes 2). If you make a fps, with just new models and weapons, then mayge your game is just a mod. BUT Torque can be made to make rpg, MMORG, sports games, pinball games, those stupid cyber pet thingys. Its just a render and physics engine (I say just, but "just" is alot).

So a mod of a Torque game is nOT a mod of a mod.

Second thing $100 is alot to the average gamer. People learn skills through modding their favourate game for free, not by shelling out $100.

If you game has no mods, then it will have a very small community. As far as vampire goes, the only reason the game is not dead and forgotten is modding.

Supporting modding means only a free things. Allowing new levels, skins, models, and some basic coding, after all releasing the Torque source with you game is proberly not legal.

To not support modding is short sighted, at least in MHO.

#9 Jim, I think I get what you are saying. If I bought somebody's torque engine game, why would I ever want to mod it, when I could just license the torque engine and build my own game?

I can think of a few reasons:

1) I want to extend but preserve the original game, and I don't have access to all of its source code. Thus I would need to reimplement that code through reverse engineering. In the worst case I may have to start from scratch because the original game maker's EULA prevents me from using and of the art/maps/models/scripts from the game.

2) Forking over $100 bucks is too much of a commitment. I just want to play with this game to see what I can do with it. (Many mods start out as "for fun" projects and later grow into something bigger).

3) There are a large number of players playing the original game. My chances of attracting those players are greater if I mod the original game rather that create my own.

I would also add that it doesn't make sense for a torque developer to distribute _all_ of the source code for a game that they want to sell. To do so is to invite piracy and cheating.

Hope this clears things up. Just my opinions; I'm not dogmatic about it or anything. :)

#10 I would say Darkness40k has the best view here.

We all have the ultimate power though the C code. To code for different sound cards, input devices, underlying network code, anything you can't do with the scripts.

If your only editing the scripts, your really only making a mod. When you edit the source code. No one can really mod your game from the Torque engine because your Torque engine becomes different when you edit the source code.

Please please everyone, open up your C++ IDE, which ever it may be. Find an interesting class, library, and PLEASE edit some code in there. What a waste to not use the source.

We would not be able to make our raceing game without editing the source code. I plan to rip apart most of it and do some real C coding. All the way down to the OpenGL calls and viewport operations.

We will of course need to support modding. Because our Torque engine will be quite different than the original.

I would be very sad to hear that most of us are not editing the source code. Let us use our total power that lay before us! Go forth and code!

#11 You all make very good points. What I'm seeing mostly, though, is we're comparing Torque to existing games, such as Half-Life, Quake III, etc. I strongly believe in mods; in fact, I've been playing nothing but DoD lately, and I originally bought Half-Life to play TFC (then I discovered how great the single player game is). There is a big difference, though, between Half-Life, Quake III, etc. You can't license the engine for $100. You can make a TC by using their SDK, but in some cases could be more work than just having the source code...you have limitations when you're just dealing with the SDK. With the source code (and a high amount of coding skill), you can code your way out of those limitations.

I don't believe that not supporting modders is going to lower the community of our individual games, though. A lot of these games we're seeing will be online-only games. I'd like to believe that people are playing these games to play the games, not the mods for the games. I like to hope that our game will be fun enough so that people won't get it just to play the mods for it, you know? Our gameplay won't be linear...there won't be 12 missions that are the same. Each mission will be unique from eachother.

#12 I can understand the confusion, but I think that we have to clear up the air on the terms being used to describe games.

Mod - A modification of a retail game. Requires existing retail game to be owned and installed by the user.

Engine - The workhorse of the game. Processes data for graphics, sound, networking, saving/loading, and pretty much anything else that doesn't directly include gameplay (i.e the rules to play capture the flag or code for a sniper rifle)

Game - A combination of an engine and gameplay content (models, scripts, content source code, sounds, textures) to create a fully functional product.


What do we get with Torque, and what can be produced with it?

Games.

We are provided with an example game (simple deathmatch) which can be "modded" which would entail fiddling with the weapon stats or creating new levels for that.

The vast majority of the people using Torque are creating games. They are creating something that can be played without owning any software other than that game.

This is something that we as a community have to get straight. If we see posts implying that buying Torque is any different than paying Id to use the Quake 3 engine, then GarageGames will lose customers. No one wants to pay $100 to make mods. Mods are limited by the original source code of the game and engine. With Torque we can work with the engine and can effectively creating everything and anything we might want.


So please... never say "mod" again.

#13 As you have probably all noticed, we kept Realm Wars "moddable". We think it is a good community builder for your game, and lets people keep goofing around with the product long after the game play value has worn off. However, it does add to the develoment risk/time, so you may not want to do it.

There is no standard answer. There will continue to be more and more moddable games on the market, so just having that ability will not longer be a selling point for your game. In addition, there will be many opportunities for people to mod games based on the Torque.

If I were an indie just trying to get a product out, I probably would not worry about having it be moddable.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#14 Another thing to remember is that even if you don't release your game (not necessarily Torque based) as being "moddable" if people like it and want to change things in it... they will find a way.

#15 One thing that hasn't been touched on yet is that when you license Torque, you don't just get a game engine, you enter into a publishing agreement. Some people may not want to go that far, they might just want to mod your Torque-based game and forget about it.

On a similar "not wanting to go that far" note, many modders probably don't want to reinvent the wheel. That's why they're doing mods, not already writing their own engine (or licensing one) and making their own games.