Open call to modding support in Legions

Nox

Nox

New Member
Hi all,

I stumbled upon Overdrive after reading about Instant Action today and seeing what happened to it, and GarageGames, etc.

Every so often I take a break from work to see if anyone is managing to bring back the fun of Tribes 1. Alas--every attempt continues to miss the mark entirely.

In my short experience with Overdrive, I realized the game is almost worse than I remembered it (and it was bad to begin with). But then again, I've been spoiled by the amazing mods that people wrote back in the late 90's for the original Tribes game.

This is not to say the game is without potential. In fact, just like the original Tribes mod (or gameplay style, I'll call it, since the definition of "mod" appears muddled in these forums), Overdrive is like Tribes 1's 'base' gameplay style.

It is the gameplay style that ships with the game. Players start to play 'base' and then the hacker types open up the game files and see editable code, or run "edit();" in their console, and realize.... Holy *chocolate cookies*.... This game..... This game can be ANYTHING!

This is why Tribes 1 was so successful. This is the primary reason Tribes ever had sequels.

Players that knew some programming or were willing to learn now had the armaments to create the perfect gamestyle or mod (the real definition).

The game got boring? Okay. Open up items.cs and start scripting a new weapon.

And another.

and another...

And now a pack... that allows you to have alternate firing modes on your weapons....

Your mod is beginning to take shape..... It is beginning to turn into something that people might even enjoy playing more than 'base'!

Fire up the game with your mod enabled (as simple as running tribes.exe -mod MyCoolMod) and your server registers itself with the Tribes 1 Master Server list and people start joining.

"Whoa.... This is *dancing* cool !" "You should probably change this gun to do this"

These guys tell their friends about this innovative playground of a game where the possibilities are endless (and you don't believe me? How's this for a modern example: LittleBigPlanet) and more people start making mods.

Better mods.

The mods compete.

The game is unstoppable.

This is the route Overdrive should be taking. Anything less will result in another failed Tribes clone where the developers missed the point and contributors like me decide to spend their time elsewhere.

If you DO share my vision, please let me know. I have worked with the Torque engine and various other tech and have the experience to help this thing succeed. There's a chance for success, and now that the game is off of IA, we can do this right!

--Nox
 
moronval

moronval

Private Tester
This has been talked about before so feel free to get acquainted with the search bar up top (tl;dr mod support is fully supported by the dev team once legions is out of whatever phase they're calling it), but also if you're interested in possibly joining the development team (in case you were hinting at that near the end) you should get in contact with "BugsPray". He's the team lead.
 
Nox

Nox

New Member
moronval: You got the gist of it despite tl;dr. And yeah, in IRC I made it known that I am a developer myself and highly interested in helping, but only under the condition that my vision is somewhat shared. After talking to others in this community, it doesn't appear that way. (Hence this thread... I need to see if this is true for everyone here.)

Mhi200: Lack of servers is because the developers are hosting them. Open it up like I am suggesting, and there will be more server than you could ever want. And this is not a bad thing, since people will go to the servers that have players in them anyway. I run a few servers with plenty of resources and would host a very fast server on one of my boxes in Texas no problem. But I can't.

I am more than willing to help, but I haven't been able to reach BugsPray.
 
Gheist

Gheist

King of all Goblins
Nox said:
[...] I am more than willing to help, but I haven't been able to reach BugsPray.
Click to expand...
Forum PMs, IRC, TS3, there are more than enough ways to do that. ;)

Nonetheless: While the game is definitely way more open to mods than before, the real problem (like already mentioned above), is the server situation. And that's a legal issue, and not something that the devs just want to be like this (same goes for the editor).
 
Daphinicus

Daphinicus

Private Tester
Hey bud! Welcome to the forums.

We hear what you're saying; modability is always an integral part of any successful shooter. After all, folks like to customize their crap! Our Modifications forum is overflowing with players who are just itching to put their spins on whatever they can -- it is UNQUESTIONABLY something the devs want to see happen and would fully support. But, as Gheist pointed out, there are obstacles that must first be understood, and hopefully overcome.

All that aside, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with your premise that the success of the Tribes series was based on its openness to modders. While, yes, the Tribes mod community was always thriving, members of such communities tend to turn blind eyes to what goes on beyond their enclaves. Your perspective (and the perspectives of those around you, in those communities) may have been that Tribes' success was based purely on how mod-friendly it was, but the vast majority of any game's playerbase is rarely "hardcore" enough to want to deal with the chaotic, oversaturated chaff that tends to obscure the wheat of excellent mods.

Mods can be absolutely EPIC, but by themselves, they can't make a game great. They provide replayability and additional depth for those interested in the mod, but it very rarely alters fundamental gameplay (unless we start talking about Total Conversions, but we're not). The fact is, if Tribes wasn't fun to begin with, no mod in the world could have saved it. Thankfully, it was; it had depth (thanks to multiple classes, packs, and a bevy of weapons), strategy (base assets, the commander screen), and brilliant (if unrefined) gameplay. Modders took that and ran with it, but Base and Classic remained superb bastions of fun. Now, sure, in the latter days the mods might have been played more often than Base or Classic, but that was only once most of the playerbase had left, and the only ones who remained were hardcore devotees who were looking for some way to spice up a game that they'd long-since picked apart.

What I'm saying is this: If the dev team doesn't manage to put together a great game (and keep in mind, we're only in a very early beta, as far as our long-term timeline is concerned), how mod-friendly it is won't much matter. Legions just won't be worth playing in the first place. =) So try to give the devs the benefit of the doubt -- there's a lot of effort going on behind the scenes.

One last thing:

Nox said:
In my short experience with Overdrive, I realized the game is almost worse than I remembered it (and it was bad to begin with). But then again, I've been spoiled by the amazing mods that people wrote back in the late 90's for the original Tribes game.
Click to expand...

If you're looking to replicate the Tribes experience, there are other options out there. I can think of more than one clone in the works, and there's always Tribes Next if you want to actually go back and play Tribes with all its mods. If you are going to stick around, though -- and honestly, I hope you do, since we can always use more passionate FPS+Z fans -- perhaps knocking the very game we all love and are set on making even better ain't exactly the best way to get in the community's good graces?

Just a thought, bud. =)
 
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