Another new SW mod

This one's for Freelancer. It's called Star Wars: Tides of War.

www.swtidesofwar.com/

No real screenshots or anything yet, but a nice banner. It's only in alpha, but they're doing something we should've been doing for the last six months; letting people download and play it. Even in it's unfinished state. And getting feedback on how to improve it. We've spent the past year debating everything under the sun and we haven't even asked any actual players yet if they like it. I think it was one half my ego over letting my ships get seen naked, and one half MajorTom's ego(?) over wanting to only release at least a quasi-finished product. Maybe it's time to rethink our plan.

I'm not really trying to criticize our modus operandi (especially because I'm partly responsible for it), but I think this is how most mods manage to keep the level of player excitement high. They release each incremental bit and keep the players involved, excitedly awaiting the next bit of release. I wish we had been releasing test versions way back when we only had a Tie Fighter and were using place-holder ships for everything else. I think it's time we switched gears and started getting something solid into the hands of the players.

This has nothing to do with that Freelancer mod, it's just something I've been thinking about lately. This was just an excuse to talk about it.

So. How soon can we have a release ready for testing by the community?

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
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It has nothing to do with ego on my part.

Because of the way EOC Multiplay is organized and the methods we have to use for the mod it is very difficult to make preliminary or multiple releases and still provide a minimal level of integrity.

The game doesn't offer any version monitoring functions that we can access directly. (well, at least I don't know how).
Identical versions of the mod for every participating player is however extremly critical to MP preformance (and player creditability).
Therefore, as we have no built-in (and for a player easily visible) Version control to insure that all players who join a game are useing the same mod version it makes sense to limit the number of avaliable versions.

Otherwise you could end up with as many versions online as you have players online and everyone complaining that nothing works (or that they can't join any games.)

Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Good point.

Oh well.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

While MajorTom has indeed a good point, I think SecondChance has raised a valid argument.
I think we have an alternative to solve this issue : creating a sort of artificial hype. Many mods are doing this to keep their fanbase enthusiastic and anxious to play, and to recruite new fans.
It is rather easy : It is a place (a simple public forum thread) where the dev team members will post every single up-to-date screenshot they have. These can be screenshots from testing sessions either online or offline, modeling screenshots, anything. SecondChance has started it on the Atari EoC forum, but I think we should start a thread where everyone of us posts even insignificant screenshots of the mod progress. I suggest the EoC general gameplay forum, since it is the most visited one, and then we'll have to advertise the thread everywhere (starwars games or mods communities, gaming communities, starwars fans communities,...).

The ingame screenshots of Second Chance's models should be there, and how come noone has ever seen a pic of the deathStar ingame ? I've heard of a trench run... I know it is not detailed nor textured, but still, let the hype grow ! I would post my modeling progress, and what bout some screenshots of the new effects ? A lot of stuff is already done, but nobody knows it. Someone is starting something ? post a screenshot ! you are testing a minor detail modification ingame ? Post a screenie ! LET THE HYPE GROW. imageshack will host anythink smaller than 1024kB...

On a more important side, it would help keeping the cohesion within the mod team, and help us staying motivated if we can see the whole progress and effort.

What do you guys think ?

Yeah, it's a good idea to have a central repository for the mod, it's just no one has really had the inclination to organize something. The atari thread has served us pretty well over there so far, but the forums here are split between mods and 3D so there isn't one place to post a complete thread (although I guess the mods forum would be logical).

I've been meaning to make a website for it. And MajorTom has added some info to his site, but we haven't done anything serious.

But an important point MajorTom keeps reminding me of is that this project is still in the equivelent of an early alpha stage and not really playable.

If you want to try putting something together, go for it.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

If you want an area dedicated to this you can have one. There is already a section called Modders. It's just a matter of expansion and promotion.